End of week

Well another week of "serious" poker is pretty much over, and I feel like I came out of it pretty healthy. I lost $50 last night, but really didn't feel bad about my play or game selection. So overall for the week, I'm up a few dollars, but mostly just have a bit more experience under my belt and have some more thoughts about poker, which is my goal right now.

I feel like my poker mind is on the freeway right now, rather than being in the parking lot 3 months ago. I'm just adding to my thought processes every day. I now feel very comfortable thinking through hands while in a hand, and even find myself doing extra analysis after the hand is over too automatically. It's a great feeling, like I am giving myself an extra chance to win at poker. I'm still not putting my opponent on hands as much as I should. By the river, I should be saying, he's played this like KQ/QJ or air, therefore... More often than not I'm just saying, I'm ahead of most hands he could hold, without really thinking about what those hands are and how to effectively bet/play against those hands.

I'm also looking at getting better at bet sizing, which is something I've never given enough thought. The new Negraneu (sp?) podcast on PokerRoad is really solid, and full of must hear advice. The current episode I'm listening to is really focusing on bet sizing, and so is VitalMyth's second video which I've been watching. I tried it a little last night, and felt confident with my opportunities to use it, and had mixed results. But again, as a decision by decision game, putting $2.20 in to win a $6.60 pot doesn't have to work every time to make you money. For example if it's unlikely I have the best hand, but don't think he'll call (don't bet just for the hell of it, must think he's missed the board), I could get called twice and take down the third pot, and I'd still have only spent $6.60 and won back $6.60. I'd like to have a better winrate than that, but definitely betting small to make a bluff more +ev is good in some spots, of course taking into account some people call down very light in HU.

But overall, I'm crushing poker right now. Maybe not results wise (although still good), and maybe not as a skill level, but more as a speed of development. I was writing a response to a forum post yesterday, and my response changed 3 times, each time giving me tips about my own game. The question was starting ranges in HU. My original response was it's player dependant, and hand ranges should change player to player, but I thought this might be a bit vague to respond with, so I started again. I then said that you should be trying things preflop to work out your opponents, and how they respond to raise/cbets/minraises/3 bets, which I realised as I was typing I don't do enough of. Then I started again and started writing it really doesn't matter what your hand is unless you are seeing a lot of showdowns, which is really correct. If you are getting people folding too much before the river, then what does it matter whether you have ATo or 52s? I took my own advice, and started looking at that last night, and will put in some effort to work out which players see a lot of showdowns and which ones chicken out once the heat is on.

Finally on last nights play. I have a couple of problems with my play right now. Firstly, I'm really only 3 betting for value, so it's too easy for people to avoid. Also where people are raising too much PF, I'm not getting enough value calling OOP, where I could be 3 betting a lot more. Plus I should just 3 bet a lot early just to see how the villain reads it. I also worked out that whenever I get my hand in as overpair to top pair, I always get sucked out on. Have to fix that leak :)