Getting a groove back

First of all, I went with my plans to grind the 6 max for an hour and learn for an hour plus, proably two. Couple of funny things. littleholdem, successful online tournament player was on Pokerroad radio podcast, which I listened to last night. He mentioned he hasn't read books, and he doesn't visit forums a lot. He says his main source of learning was just playing a lot, and railing top players to see how they play. Interesting, but I wouldn't agree that's for everybody, and it certainly hasn't been working as much for me. Secondly, I watched part 1 (most of) of Verneers new CR series for beating micro 6 max. It's a solid start to the series, and I feel like it struck a few chords with me. It was mostly about keeping your game as simple as possible, and that's exactly how I played last night. Only a couple of spots saw me make any sort of play at it, and all times those plays worked out.

So for example, the best thing I've learned of recent times, but what I still don't work on too well is cbetting and turn betting. It's as simple as this. Cbets are effective, but against certain loose passive players, they only acheive their goal a smaller percentage of the time. Double barrells are a lot higher winrate though. So you cbet, then bet the turn. If you cbet then don't bet the turn, but then bet the turn again when you hit a big hand, it's a clear signal for players behind you to call cbets, and see what you do on the turn. So I get stuck sometimes, betting the turn is now natural to me, but I do it in spots where I don't really want to. To avoid this, don't cbet where you don't think a turn bet will help you, and don't check the turn after cbetting and getting called. So the plan when you missed the flop should simply be bett two streets, or check the flop. There are times when this plan isn't perfect, like turn scare cards, or a blank ace where this guy is likely to call you down with A7o. If your opponents are observant enough and bet every time you check the flop, throw in the occasional check when you have a big hand too, just to keep them guessing.

I ran like god, or so it felt early. In actual fact I only ended up just one buy in, and I felt like I played very solid. The only reason I wasn't up 5 BI's, was I lost a huge pot when villain called the turn shove with a draw against my top pair top kicker and hit his draw, so got my money in good, and getting all in with JJ vs AQ for a coin flip, against a very loose player (50/36 from memory), which also didn't go my way. Apart from those two I was hitting flops very well, and value betting more often than bluffing. So it felt like I ran well, even though I lost the two biggest pots I got into.

But overall, I just felt back in the groove. It felt like I knew when my hand was good and when it wasn't. I knew when to bet the river and when to just check behind. I knew when to continue on with a bluff, and when to let it go. I guess I finally felt like all this effort I've put in has left my game at a higher level than it was a few months ago if I can just dig up the necessary information at the right times. I guess I took some confidence out of reading forusm and watching videos again, so I'll definitely keep up my work rate with those. This also means giving up being any sort of Iron Man until I get back to NL25, but I'm OK with that for now.