I'm back!

I'm back after a summer hiatus. Here are some awesome things I have been thinking about.

Poker Tools

1) Evernote. It is free and has a screen capture/autosave feature. This is badass for looking at hands later. It fits in my favorite streamlining concept: "universal capture". Have a spot to put crap and go to that spot later when you have time. Evernote is almost there. I just need a cheap scanner and I'll be all over it.

2) Fourplusmore. Until those bastards at google go to a full beta of the wave, this is the best way I have to compare poker hands with people whose opinions I want. It's been slow since I had "real life" stuff to do, but I am loving thinking about poker lately. I expect it to pick up. Here is how to get set up.

3) Making your own videos. This is so useful. I would like to initiate a "make your own videos month" in September in small stakes no limit. Session reviews, live play, live play with sweat buddy, all will be worth watching.

4. Thinking about the rake. The rake is killing me in low limit hold em. Check this stuff carefully yourself if you haven't. It certainly makes me want to snuggle up and mass multitable or switch back to full time SNGs.

5. Thinking about my big hand DB. Actually doing sophisticated queries and follow up analysis is taking forever, but in general I've learned a bit. Check my old blog entries if your interested.

6) Feed readers. For the love of all that is, sign up for an RSS feed reader and subscribe to poker forums in them. It makes browsing them much smoother.

Poker Play.

1) Heads-up LHE. This game is fun. It is also the only game I have ever encountered where playing two tables at once becomes difficult. I am starting to "grok" showdown decisions and when they occur (or don't as is the case for many villains). This game will only get more fun as I improve.

2) Cash NLHE. This game is still fun, but I hate losing at it and don't play at stacks where booking a win is a big deal to me. Really I just need to get over myself so I can put in the hours to improve. I am getting there.

3) SNGs. These are still so juicy. I'm going to play them more.

4) Omaha. One day I will make time to get good at this game. Until then, I will lose at $5 HU PLO SNGs.

New Poker slang I want to introduce,.

1) "Jon Bon Jovi", "Bon Jovi", "JBJ". I want this to mean "really good". Particualrly, to replace the phrase "is like the nuts". It can be used to describe a play, a hand, or a player. Exs, a) "Against this guy, to pair with second kicker is a Bon Jovi hand here." b) "I'd quit but I'm running like Bon Jovi and I think this guy's about to tilt."

2) "Sid and Nancy". The opposite of JBJ.

3) "Seizure Robots". Players who do incredibad stuff for no apparent reason. Certainly the term "retarded" is used to describe these guys. The second hardest thing I ever did was learn not to say "retarded" or "gay" when I meant "stupid", "awful" or "not that great". I think that in general retarded people spend their time more productively than seizure robots and I'm not sure how I'd feel if I found out I was actually playing a retarded person and getting mad that I lost a hand. "I'd fold but the pot is huge and this guy has been playing like a seizure robot."

4) "Sprinkles". A raise. In honor of the ice cream topping and nearly as effective.

Some more preliminary analysis.

Although I will be more particular in the future (most likely dividing things by percentiles), I initially just split my sample into those who have large (admirable) win rates, are above even, below even, or are losing chips at a swift rate. I chose to look at box plots- which show the range of the data, the median, and the 25th an 75th percentile.

Here are some charts. I apologize for the format within the post. I'm in a hurry. But click on them and they should explain what they represent.

Minus 8 buyins, meet my friend Kirk. Kirk, minus 8 buyins.

Craptacular Session Tuesday night. I played for 90 minutes, and swonged wildly. I ran bad (3 buyins bad), and made three terrrible preflop decisions as well as one questionable postflop decision in a pot where I 4 bet OOP and was called. I'll post it later.

It sucked. I just lost my cool in a couple of choice spots and bit the big one. C'est la vie.

Session Wrap-up.

I played 3.5 hours of poker today to wind up about even, including rakeback.

On the good side:

1. I played a solid UTG game
2. I didn't tilt.
3. I used notecards to keep my ducks in a row.
4. I discovered a reserve of endurance and enthusiasm

On the down side:

1. Two spots where I probably bluffed a little too aggressively.
2. One huge suckout
3. Disastrous results in a HU session.

All-in all, I am satisfied with my performance. I still have a great deal to improve upon.

Preliminary analysis of a v. large poker hand database.

These are the number of hands played by each player in my poker hand database so far.

You won't be surprised to learn that the biggest winner so far is the house, having won $1.1 million dollars or so, less rakeback.

Long time no blog!

Where have I been?

Nowhere special pokerwise.

I've been playing occasionally- mostly HU limit and short tourneys. I am super high variance at HU, but it's fun. I can beat the driftwood at 1/2, but not the handy regs. Game selection, you say?

This month, I am dedicating my poker time to three things.

1. Improving my consistency and my mental game. 50NL will be me grind, and I plan to work on playing a good, semi loose and aggressive game all the time. Tight upfront, floating only to exploit or to invite in callers with a hand that plays well against them, loose in the back, taking control of 3bet pots, and getting in good value bets on later streets.
2. Playing tournaments if Iget bored of cash play. I plan to put in serious hours.
3. A superficial analysis of what good players have in common, what separates good players from bad ones in multiple situations. I've purchased ~11 million poker hands of 50NL play and plan to do some serious number crunching on it :D.

I'll write more as it comes up.

Today's session went pretty well, although I did run into a set w/AA in a 120 BB pot. The guy put more than 10% of his stack in, so he can't really say he "won". Hellooo, variance.

Morning Bonus Session

I woke up late this morning and was unable to get in to a morning meeting.

...so I spoiled myself a little and played some 50NL for about an hour. I made two glaring errors right off.

The first was shoving jacks into a tight villain who raised and then 4bet from the cutoff against my reraise- with one caller squeezed in between. I always read this as weak enough to call, assuming AQ,AJs+,TT+. But from this guy it's the goods. Pshhh. Adios buy-in.

The second, I raised KK on a deep stack table and got 4 callers. Flop ran K-J-brick, all diamonds. I bet and isolated a spewy player who limp-called preflop. I bet a brick turn and he made a decent raise. Although I would argue it is still closer than people like to think- this guy would definitely slowplay two pair, and overpair, or better on this flop- I shoved and he showed a made flush. Goodbye two buy-ins. The correct line was probably call-fold or call-call. I have not decided which.

Third small, but significant, bad decision. I bet-called a check raised w/AQ TPTK on a coordinated board and let him check-raise me again. I paid off a set.

On the other hand, I did bring my guns to war. I correctly played for set value in a few monster pots, fired a lot of second barrel pots and even a third barrel, and also got my money back from the spewzord who hit the flush on me in a virtually identical spot (my flush vs his strong made hand), except he was drawing dead. And it was a 300-and change pot :D.

I'm glad I'm getting used to 50 NL.

Money Printed and Parties Thrown: Session Reviews.

I played two very long sessions today totalling 2600 hands. In the first one, I dropped five buy-ins. In the second I made five buyins and a little sugar. I think it was mostly luck that made the difference, but that's ok.

Some things I noticed.

I did make a few "decision was wrong, hand read was correct" errors. This means I called because I was supposed to, or folded because I was supposed, not that I made the "good poker" decision.

My hand range is still way too loose UTG and in the HJ (VPIP 20 and 22).

I think I am raising too large with hands that should stay the nuts and not sizing some bets correctly.

I'm pleased that I was able to sit down and power through some hands.

Spots where you can throw a party on my dime.

1. In position.
2. With a premium draw played hyper aggressively.
3. By flat calling with KK preflop.
4. By raising a set on a wet flop.
5. With 75-150% of the pot left to bet on the river.
6. Check raising wide on dry flops.
   

Ask me why I haven't posted lately.

I've been telling myself to post about some poker strategy that I have been dwelling on before I do anything else.

What strategy have I been dwelling on? Glad you asked.

1. There is an enormous aversion to panacea in no limit theory. This is a given. However, there is a secondary aversion to relinquishing the panaceas that are still available. This is generic, of course but let me get into the guts of it.

A huge number of strategy discussions in no limit hold em do not relate to a strategy that truly represents significant changes in expected value. For example, when you get it in with aces on the flop, you know what you are facing: TPTK if you are lucky, a set if you are not, and a big draw otherwise. Against an opponent with skill, it's +EV to call not because you are a huge favorite but because you did a good job getting the money in preflop and the follow through is mandatory or you're leaving your money on the table.

But it is not a spot where you are printing money or letting someone else party on your dime. Go through a micro or small stake strategy forum's front page. Among all of the hands discussed, how many focus on a decision that can be changed away from letting someone throw a party on the poster's dime or towards printing money?

Secondarily, among those posts how many have a different spot than the one in question where you can talk about a shift in EV? I would say maybe a third.

How often is it pointed out? Probably about half the time.

How often is the advice acknowledged or seriously considered by the posters? Maybe another half.

And there you have it. If you read the small stakes no limit forums, 1/12 of all threads have a nugget for the original poster in them.

These are things that let me print money.

On the flop or before:

1. Position. God, the button is awesome.
2. A hand with weak players.
3. An image contrary to the nature of the current hand (LAG with aces, TAG with 67s).
4. 3 betting weak tags.

On the flop and beyond:

1. A pot against a hand range that is forced to play face-up. Pots where I am the aggressor.
2. Check raising light 3 bettors with a completely polarized range.
3. A hand that is at the top of its range.
   
4. A hand that is well-concealed.
   
5. Rivers played after well-sized bets. In river pots with less than 60% of a pot left to wager, or more than 200%.
6. Smallball. No one plays well with money behind out of position.
7. In bet-fold and check-call spots, as opposed to bet-call.
8. As a delayed c-bettor.

2. Expected Hand Dynamics. Based on what's happened so far in the hand and at the table, you should know how it's going down.

Lately, I've been trying to get more comfortable with the spectrum of hand outcomes, what flops will set them up, and how the opponent will behave. I've been imagining it almost like a tunnel, or a level of super mario brothers.

Which pipes do you take, how do you time your jumps? By now I've played most of the levels, so it's just a question of making sure my timing is up to scratch. More on this later.

Epic Decision.

If you sum my bankroll accross the two sites I play, I am easily rolled for 100 NL. Thus I have made an epic decision: I am moving up to (and staying at) 50 NL until it is clear I am ready to move up or I cannot grind a profit there.

My first attempt sucked. I played about 2k hands last night. There was some steaming involved, but also some crap beats. Sets by gutshots, lost flips, plays failing where I had the hand range pegged but didn't think they could find a call. All in all, 5 buy ins down. Still well equipped to play, however.

I plan to put in some more hands tonight before dinner and after my gf starts watching "lost".

Still no update on epic decision #2: my new avatars. I'm leaning towards killface on stars and back to the ATM on FTP.

This guy and I are on the samepage about everything.

Session Updates.

Yesterday I four tabled for about 2 hours.

I noticed two interesting things:

1. I don't get exhausted or flustered as often.
2. I still lose mindfulness quite a bit.

Also, I still made one abjectly horrible river decision after giving a fish air on the turn, expecting him to have only called with top pair, which would bet (dammit). His check back gave him a marginal draw that OBVIOUSLY got there. Why call?

I ran pretty good and felt good about it.

Since then I have played a couple MTTs and some limit with no good results. I'll hopefully grind some more tomorrow.

May Goals I.

I summarized my results over a short run of hands here. In this post, I set out my plans for proceeding.

So far I played one excellent session and one solid but swongy one.

Also some good news: in addition to my usual day-to-day shop talk with PES, I have started studying my game with Jewfro Jerome.

Here are my scheduling strategies for this week:
1. play two 2 hour+ sessions 4-tabling 25 NL. I want to reduce the interference and distractions of multi-tabling so that I can practice three things: consistent decision making, attending to the difficulties of longer sessions, and build my stamina at a lower risk of spewing. I will maintain a simple 15' warm-up --> 2 hours of play --> 20 minute cool-down strategy. In the cool down I will, assess my results by table, position, and hand groups. Then I will do a relaxation exercise. I will make an exception and allow 1 tournament and four 6 max tables, as tournament poker can be auto-piloted relatively easily.

2. Play 7500 hands of poker in total. Hopefully I can get in some 8-tabling as well. I will maintain my focus on mindfulness, hand selection under the gun and performance on later streets.

3. Stop playing HUDless, multitasking poker. It makes no sense to play with money in a compromised situation, yet I do it to pass time. It commits too much mental resource to poker with too little- either in money or amount learned- in return.

4. Make a two-table video. I want to try it on several formats.

5. Watch 1+ video per day. Study three videos. Today: pokey at the table. I have voiced a little skepticism about some of his strategies, but I know other players really like his style. Tomorrow: Hunter and Tendler. After that, we'll see.

I hate 4th place.

This morning I played mayber 12 SNGs. I bubbled or busted out marginally in 11 of them. At least I manhandled the 12th.

Stupid downswing.

Short session.

This evening I played one swingy hour of 25 NL. I lost and then made back a ton of money. I was playing too fast at first. Nonetheless, I felt like I stabilized and then got back on the wagon. I started to play solid aggressive poker and I did not tilt.

Whoops.

I just played a HU session with a guy who kicked my butt. He was good. It was hypnotic almost how badly I was letting him beat me. There go 35 big bets.

Mini-sesh: HU and 6max limit.

During my lunch break I played some HU and 6max limit hold em. Swongy swong swong. It's hard for me to make dead reads against some of these guys and I wind up on the unerlaggy side of things, letting weak-tight opponents just induce semibluffs from me street after street. Boo!

I did try some 1/2 HU. Man, the deck can KILL you in that game. One guy was running great against me for half the session but then slipped out of focus. He was definitely more experienced than me, but probably less adept in actual poker decision making (hands he took to showdown and where he chose to bluff all seemed odd and too... predictably devious, maybe?). He played maybe 40 minutes of hands against me and it was a battle. Beyond a doubt, I had the edge by the end. I think he lost sight of my hand ranges in the end of the game and resorted to spewy play. I had to go back to work, so I said "peace" in the chatbox and that I thought I was very lucky to have beat him (didn't say: by that much).

Shortly after I finished typing my farewell in, he said "F U Peace". Oh boy, did that make me a little up set. I wanted to put the hurt on him so bad. Any time something like that happens, I go online and check to see if he was a winner. It looks like he's a marginal tournament winner and has his nose open in the middle and low limit shorthanded and HU games. He's down about the amount he's paid in rake, according to the site. I can believe it.

Now I feel sympathy for the guy. I figured he was a slight winner if he game selected well, but the data indicates he pays a double rake.

The lesson to learn: these aren't friendships, these are transactions. Like an insurance adjuster or a judge, the professional objective is to be courteous and quick in doing your job no matter how you feel about the people you are dealing with. "The Professional" knows that there's no point in looking for sympathy at the table. I should trust him.

Session Report 5:45-6:14

I played 319 hand on stars and FTP before it was dinner time.

I hads 3 goals:

1. Sound moments of mindfulness, lost and found... a la Tommy Angelo. I deliberately tried to cultivate an active presence in the moment by attending to my breath and the position of my hands and feet. For the first 10 minutes, I only had 4 tables open and I drited off only once. As I added tables, the drifting became more frequent, possibly twice more. I also found myself correctly re-centering myself after I spaced twice. Once was after a big cooler.
2. Play for 1 hour or until dinner. Success! No tilt, slight profit.
3. Play tighter in UTG position. I raised 7/21 times and adjusted to my new standards fairly well. I only got out of line twice.

So put it in the books. I logged a nice winner before a decent meal.

I'm going to post a few hands on value betting.

Plans through the next 5k NLH hands.

#1. Tighten up my starting hand range towards 12/12 UTG and a little looser in the hijack. I don't need suited cards in my range UTG (I don't need balance) and few things besides big aces and pairs. I want it to be moronically simple to play OOP for now.

• Make a starting hand chart (or print Brystmar's) and abide by it.
• Review my hand frequency after every session and track it.
• Make a results chart of "before", "before w/ good hands", and after.

#2. Work to Control my "nano-tilt". Meditation has clearly improved my ability to recognize and stem my emotional responses, but I occasionally slip back into a loose-taggro, -EV style. Unfortunately, the pot sizes are not sobering enough to bring me back into focus (they were at higher stakes). I will also implement additional approaches.

• Re-watch Jared Tendler's videos, once to browse, and once to make "crib notes".
• Continue to practice zazen.
• Write weekly goals and read them before every session.
  
• Plan sessions more thoroughly. 1) Have an ETD and a duration in mind. 2) At least two unchanging qualitative goals and no more than 1 quantitative goal.
• Write and think more consciously about the process of tilting (or not tilting).
  

#3. Play better in pots that get big on the turn and the river. I feel quite comfortable playing in three bet pots, at least compared to my opponents. However, I feel a little out to sea in many large pots. This by no means surprising; they are hard streets to play against weak players without many stats and the variance can bet stressful. Also, much of the advice is too conservative compared to the style advocated by microlimit gurus. In game theory terms, the style is minimax, rather than maximally profitable. Since I play with larger bankrolls than most- I rarely start at a new limit with < 30 buy-ins- and I bet the turn more frequently than most players, I need to improve my bet-sizing and decision making there.

• Post every tough river decision and more tricky turns.
• Watch 2 videos per week on turn and river play.
• Design an in-game checklist for big pots. Test it, perfect it, memorize it.
• Design an in-game checklist for AFTER big pots. Test it, perfect it, memorize it.

Implementation strategy.

1. Continue to lightly play .5/1 and 1/2 limit to pass the time.
2. Continue to play turbo SNGs as a break and to stay in practice.
3. Sleepy Bastard Challenge continues. Videos + MTT 6am, most days per week.
4. Scheduled afternoon sessions. Log hours using Databases, etc.
   

I think these will keep me busy for now. More updates to come.

10k hands of muckity muck no limit at the $25 tables.

I have finally gotten through around 10k hands of NLH since I rebooted my system. I don't have the data with me, but here is my assessment off the top of my head.

1. Results: I am slightly in the red. I am still out of the red since March, but I am closer to 0 than I would like to be, but who wouldn't say that?.
   
2. I let myself get into a lot of tight spots on turns and rivers, paid off too often, and ran under EV with my semibluffs. When I am running badly, I play often play too Laggy, so no doubt these things are interrelated.
3. My play with premium hands is on the whole very solid, however I seem to get less value from AK than I'd expect. I will post more as I think about it.
4. Early in the sample set, I played far too many hands UTG and from the hijack. In a loose, spewy game, position and straight value betting are what wins the day. Suited connectors below broadway and suited aces need position and preferably a player to exploit.
5. I am probably cold-calling too much. There are fewer opportunities to play pots in position against players with tight raising ranges and high postflop %cbet and aggression factors. Their hand ranges are such that bluff shoving is nearly a spew.
   
6. I am starting to improve my aggression level, but I need to assess my cbetting and deeply study my line in big pots on the turn and river. **Especially vs. fish. I have given people air when a ton of cards kill my action on the next street, and I have snapcalled in a couple bad spots.

Successes:

• I think more about my individual plays, I challenge myself to develop reads and adjust my play to exploit them.
• I have re-acquired a verve for multitabling, but I am not on the level I once was.
• I have been active in the forums, acquired more poker conversation partners, and developed as a player because of it.
• I have been getting good value on my premium hands.
• My mindfulness of the present situation as an independent event has improved.
• I am considering the rake and rakeback more carefully in my decisions.
  
• Quitting. I generally quit sessions better than most. Once I catch myself out of line, I shut down the system and get up.
  

Shortcomings.

• Tilt. I was letting frustration shape my game too often. I am better than I have been at microstakes in the past (by a TON), but still have a ways to go.
  
• Boredom. I am letting longer sessions get the best of me and slipping into a non-optimal mindset. This feeds into my other problems.
• Short sessions. My mental endurance is lower than it has been.
• Poor hand selection UTG.
• (Possibly) over-estimating fold-equity in semibluff situations.
• Losing EV in big river pots.
  

Clever idea that never occured to me:

Use the "Fold to any bet" button for tough decisions with plenty of time. Don't hover near the call buttons.

I saw brystmar do it. So far, it is the most valuable thing in his videos.

A few things ignored by most "experts" in the poker boom.

1. There is an enormous amount of parity accross poker advice.
   
2. The majority of poker sites have a volume of content that is unwatchable due to low quality, sheer volume of content, or well beyond the point of diminishing returns for their intended audience.
3. The majority of the audience has a very different set of values and motivations from the pros and often, (I suspect), from their stated goals.

In the low stakes, the net result is that these sites wind up creating, and marketing to an image: an imaginary player who watches and studies 10-14 videos per week, thinks critically about every hand, and is open and honest with themself about their results, strengths and weaknesses.

I would say that maybe 10-15% of individuals in the forums I read (and I don't include myself as "always there") have an admirable level of self-awareness and many just don't have that kind of time for video watching. Most, by and large are just unable to parse the critical concepts in correctly. Poker is hard enough to begin with, let alone in an environment that encourages denial.

So, with that in mind, I would like to propose concepts that are important in improving in poker.

1. Join a group of people who will help you manage the information. Make sure you have "trust tree". Fill it with people who have access to the same resources as you, know how you play, and are trustworthy enough that you let them tell you when you are out of line or not living up to your goals.
2. Set your goals. Seek help from smarter people in revising them. Make sure you have a plan to achieve them.
   
3. Learn the ropes. Acquire (or bookmark) a database of core poker knowledge. Make sure the logic underlying your decisions are rooted in this set of data.
   
4. Seek mentorship. Find an environment where you can talk about your game and get good critical feedback.
5. Constantly revise your strategy on all levels. From "Should I even play poker?" to "What the hell do I do with KJs if my opponent 3bets me from OOP?".
6. Recognize that the majority of your poker goals should contain particular strategies for managing your study time, assessing your play, your play time, and your goals. I learned this the hard way, but it pays off.
   

Weekday Update.

I had a decent poker weekend. I got in some live play and did ok at the cash tables. This morning, I got off my butt and installed some much cleaner table mods for FTP. Now I can look at it without thinking about crappy CGI graphics.

Feeding the fish?

Please click for enlarged view.

A solid session.

I finally put in a short winner. I was by and large pleased with my play, but I did pay off an obviously better ace on the river once (yay), and found myself out of my comfort zone without setting it up on a tricky river (boo).

Nonetheless, 1/20th of a statistically meaningful sample, played like a winner, and I wasn't even dealt aces. Hell yuh!

Wisdom from master Dogen.

I practice zazen and occasionally take the time to read about the philosophy motivating it; many times it reminds me of poker. The following is from Dogen's Bendowa.

7. Q: Those who do not know Buddhism have to attain enlightenment by zazen and training. What use is zazen to those who have clearly obtained enlightenment?

A: Though I do not talk about last night's dream and cannot give a paddle to a woodcutter, I have something to teach you. The view that training and enlightenment are not one is heretical. In Buddhism these two are the same. Because this is training enfolding enlightenment, the training even at the outset is all of original enlightenment. So the Zen master, when giving advice to his disciples, tells them not to seek enlightenment without training because training itself points directly to original enlightenment. Because it is already enlightenment of training, there is no end to enlightenment. Because it is training of enlightenment, there is no beginning to training.... Because training even at the outset transmits a part of superior training, we fortunately gain a part of original enlightenment in this natural way. You must understand that the Buddhas and patriarchs emphasized the need for intensive training so as not to stain the enlightenment that is self-identical with training. If you throw away superior training, original enlightenment fills your hand. If you abandon original enlightenment, superior training permeates your body. In China I saw Zen monasteries in many districts, each with a meditation hall where 500 to 1,200 monks lived and practiced zazen day and night. When I asked the Zen masters who have been entrusted with the Buddha seal, "What is the essence of Buddhism?" they answered: "Training and enlightenment are not two but one."

A reflection

Last night I played a longer session with bad results. I was committed and beaten in several "what can you do pots", made a very savvy check behind against what I correctly saw to be a suited connector on a combo draw, made a classic "call-to-commit" with aces on a dry board to have the guy hit the hidden part of his five-outer, and lost maybe 2.5 buy-ins due to loose and passive play in large pots. Sigh.

Nonetheless I recognized some problems that I will work on next session.

1. I am not tight enough to 3bettors OOP preflop. You can only outplay yourself there.
2. I did not play fit-or-fold right against a bad LAG. I should have been setting him up with check raises with good hands, not pushing teeny edges.
3. My river sense is gone. I spewed there and failed to protect a few hands with position raises and semibluffs. You can only make up for that with river calls infrequently.
4. Nano-tilt. One bad decision can often encourage the next. I need to recognize it and batten down.
   

Adjustment.

1. Practice 4 table play for some time tomorrow.
2. Adjust to tighter UTG/MP opening ranges. Open raising like 12/16/28/50 from the non-blind 6-max spots.
3. Watch some videos on these subjects.
   

The longish story on flopping top pair with a good kicker.

Recently I saw a posted hand exemplifying the poster's difficulty with responding to check-raises with top pair, good kicker hands like KQ. I instantly saw the connection with an old hand of mine from the "lost databases".

The last real AHA! moment I had as a player was against a straightforward, weakish TAG at $1NL. I raised with QQ in the CO and he called in the SB. The flop came something like Th6d4h. He checked, I led out for the pot, and he minraised. Without much thought, I flat-called. The turn brought a 7s and the villain bet again.

At this moment, I looked at the bet and saw I was committed to showdown if I called. I looked at the villain's stats, saw that he almost always folded to continuation bets, almost never defended his blind, and played for pot control on the turn most of the time.

Instantly- like a bolt of lightning- this came to me: I should have folded on the flop. There was just no reason to continue in this hand. Moreover, the turn bet made it 100% certain the villain either hit his set or had a pair bigger than mine. But the only worse hand he had on the flop was JJ and I would have to call at least two bets to see a showdown against that range- I'm not sure he wouldn't check-call AA on many turns.

As trivial as it might seem, this was a watershed moment for me- and I am a worse poker player now than I was then. I could suddenly interpret an opponents actions well enough to fold an overpair to the board on the flop even when it was fairly benign.

Of course, TPGK on a semi-coordinated board is another thing entirely. But, like the decision above, the entire hand comes down to your opponents hand range once he calls your raise preflop and his postflop style.

And indeed, the texture of my decision making with those hands transformed after my AHA! moment. Suddenly, many more lines were available to me. For example, if a villain is very tight preflop and very aggressive with his made hands and draws on the flop but fit or fold otherwise, it's tough to get value from him without a monster on a semi-wet board. This might be a spot to take a card and try to induce action. There's not a lot of turn cards that move you off of TPSK, after all.

... I could do this for a ton of styles and hand ranges, but it really comes down to this: the better a player is, the harder it is to play TPGK against him, even in position. The reality is that you have to have more data to play it well and even then, it's a volatile spot.

With no read, it's just marginal. That's not to say it's not worth thinking about, but I think it is something that a good player must accept.T he nature of no limit can sometimes make TPGK tough to play in NLH, even when you have position. the more exact your read and the more experience you have in that spot, the better it works out for you. But it's still only picking up a few bucks here and there.

My A-game, my B-game.

My B-game

1. I can beat most tables I play.
   
2. I recognize opponents weaknesses and make slight preflop adjustments to beat them. I can alter my 3bet and cold-call frequencies, I can defen my blinds differently, I can flat call with aces or shove AQ. I just make the right move given what they have.
   
3. I recognize when my attention is flagging. I will slow down, or make a commitment to continue for a short while.
4. I will recognize if I am slightly off and adjust or quit.
5. I will recognize mistakes and catalog them for later.

My A-game.

1. I recognize when my opponents are starting to lose their "A" and "B" games and adjust.
2. I push the envelope, trying to put opponents to the test for their money.
3. I feel energized by my play.
4. I reason my way through very tough decisions.
5. I have highly reliable reads on my opponents hand ranges and exploit that.
6. I move readily into third and fourth level thinking.
7. Less straightforward folds, bluffs, and semibluffs are obvious and have less emotional context.
8. My aggression ramps up because I put more confidence in my reads.
   

My C-game.

I played a 90 minute session of 25 and 50 NL yesterday. During which, my girlfriend called and seemed stressed out that I wasn't able to accomodate her change of plans. This of course made me upset and my game went off kilter right away. I tried to straighten it out, but I did not succeed. As an exercise, I am making a list of attributes for my C-game. The poker game I play when I should really think more seriously about ending my session early.

1. I lose my "intuitive" grasp of marginal hand values. Really, I do not recognize things that I should be processing. The cutoff doesn't fold to c-bets often enough, the UTG player has a VPIP of 16, etc, etc.
2. I pay off obvious value bets. I let bad players take my money. I let good players take my money when they shouldn't.
3. I fail to recognize good semibluffing situations. Example: a villain led into my set on a threeflush turn. Obviously I am never folding and the villain will not fold his flushes. But, I am thinking about that instead of the likelihood that I can get the villain to commit to a worse hand with a raise or fold something with nine outs to beat me.
4. My game selection goes out the window.
   
5. I play fancy poker instead of ruthless poker.
6. I abandon core strategy ideas. I will make thin, slightly minus-EV plays without considering them and neglect really solid decision making like: 3betting a folder or flatting a strightforward player to peel one street, no more.
7. I stop recognizing my table image.
   

Tourneython.

Man, I HATE the way MTTs mess with my mind. The fact that I invest so much time in them without a cool story to tell(sometimes not even one fun hand to play) . But the overlay in them is enormous and I can easily multitask while I play them. Lately, I am realizing that the only thing that matters in these games is pushing absurd edges as directly as possible. Push, push, push. Make your opponents play marginally if they're are good and put your bad opponents through the ringer.

I get it, but I get bored. It's actually very hard to remember that my opponents are as bad as they come and I need to stop giving them credit for being sophisticated.

What I need now is a victory in a huge field (>500). I need a boost to my frail and craven ego.

This morning went fairly well, although I was pissed at how I busted from the $5 MTT (can you tell?).

My biggest bubble mistake (and theirs).

I always-always-always overestimate the fold equity I can offer my bad opponents. Limp-calling and defending their big blinds too much. My second biggest failure is missing a lot of easy, unexploitable shoves.

Why? I don't think about poker hands in terms of "perceived value", simply their value to me. So when an opponent limps up front, I put them on a hand I would probably raise or fold in that situation and if I have a hand that rates well against those hands, or well enough that the added fold equity makes it a go. So I shove. Then they call with weak aces (generally rating 60-40 against the bottom of my range here) and low pocket pairs (coin flips vs. K9 and the like).

But bad as this mistake is, I can tell you a worse one. Failing to observe the dictates of the independent chip model on the bubble when defending your big blinds. With less than 10 BB in play, you CANNOT call for your entire stack without a hand that rates as a HUGE favorite (think roughly 2-to-1) against your opponents range.

For example, many opponents open any two cards in the small blind with less than 10 bets. With hands like 44, A2, and K9, you are about even odds to play. But if you lose and it cripples your stack or eliminates you, you lose. If you win, you make it to 3rd or 2nd place. The trade-off is not worth it.

So, how do you deal with it? Let them steal. No fun, I know. But calling is costly.

Week summary.

I did alright in sit n gos- Wizard says my decisions are good, didn't pull any big cashes in MTTs, barely played any limit, and had a swinging but about EV-neutral week at 25NL.

This week, I want to:
1) Grind into 50NL. I will probably start adding 1-2 juicy 50 NL tables per session, starting tonight.
2) Start playing tournament poker more critically. I think I am posting every hand I bust on from now until I make a nice cash.
3) Vids: I want to watch more tourney vids (probably reviewing Matros' stuff), start learning PLO vids- I play like a showdown happy donk in that game so far- and learn Jackal's SNG perspective.
4) More $1-2 NL strategy work. Finish out Dixon's videos, start posting stats.

April Goals

My goals for April:

1. Grind 25 NL and 50 NL. Start adding 50 NL tables at BR >= $1250
   
2. Improve Grinding Session Structure. (a) Table selection and game changing. "Better position leads to better fishin'". (b) Session length. Work up to 2 hour straight sessions. (c) Breaks. Time sessions and take breathers AT LEAST every 60 minutes.
3. PLOmahahah. Download old school PokerAce, PT Omaha. Learn how to grind and multitable PLO.
4. Improve MT tournament results.
5. Wizard and review SNGs. Improve streamlining.

I was watching a video of Stox and Dusty talking about poker (#513 on Stoxpoker) and their discussion of moving up. Their emphasis on the difference between "good enough" and "exceptional" was a reminder that things are going pretty good for me. I am good enough to handily beat $25NL and it's only a matter of time before I get back to $100 NL, a game I loved to play and made a decent heap of money playing.

Update.

The Sleepy Bastard challenge has done well for me. I am definitely awake in the hours of 6 AM - 9 AM. However, I am still lazy about sturcturing the poker play and the rest of my day.

Perhaps I should focus on that (+ a video + the tournament) while I play? I haven't decided. Poker goals and some informative hands to be posted soon.

Using position and aggression to control the flow of the game.

This post will sound braggy to experienced players. But to somebody who is just learning, this illustrates the power of aggression. In both cases I used aggression in position, to control the flow of the hands.

http://www.stoxpoker.com/pokertools/session/610/replay/

These are two tournament hands against the same opponent ten minutes apart. Look at my play on the river scare card in both hands.

Two best posts about other players i've ever seen on 2+2.

Number 1 with a bullet.

Galfond on an opponent, honestly.

100 million hands analyzed, none of them by me.

http://cigital.com/resources/gaming/poker/100M-Hand-AnalysisReport.pdf

100 million poker hands from 2008, December on pokerstars.

Summary result:

*Most hands (74%) are decided without the winner showing the precise cards he/she is playing. Thus the nature of the hands is irrelevant.
*In the remaining hands, >50% are won by a player who does not have the best possible hand among those dealt preflop.

Sumamry judgement impending:

*It is difficult to imagine that pure chance is the governing factor in the majority of hold em hand outcomes.


It is likely that a larger-scale study could define and quantify different types of skills in poker:

*table selection (playing in situations where the above numbers are skewed)
*Ability to manipulate frequency of showdowns.
*Ability to manipulate the expected value at showdown.

March Summary

Short... real short.

Entering the computer troubles into consideration, I hit my expected returns: about $350* dollars. This is a little short of my original stated goal of 1k, but not bad really.

On the upside, I am winning at 25 NL and really feel like I've improved. Taking a second look at tournament play reveals that I've got a way to go, but my play there is profitable despite being very volatile against weakish PokerStars regulars.

I'll summarize some April goals in an upcoming post.

*+/- $50 due to data loss.

The sleepy lion returns.

I went spend crazy this weekend, buying a nice new office chair with lumbar support, a new monitor, and a backup hard drive.

I have also played a heap few more sit n gos. They have sat and gone a little worse than I would like. I am using SNGWizard to check my performace- I have made some loose shoves (always a problem for me) and have been gun-shy shoving from the small blind and button with a short stack- but I have also caught some really tough breaks on the bubble and in three handed play.

Basically, when the tournament is down to 3 or 4 people, the value of NOT losing is much higher than the value of winning, so responding to conditions and player tendencies is very positive EV. If you're doing it correctly, you pick up a ton of chips and when you get it all in you are doing it with a positive expectation overall. But, the cards have not been falling that way. Today was a big improvement, but I am still short more than a few buy-ins this week. That's life.

On the bright side, I made a deep run into a shootout tournament this morning. Shootouts are fun- you need to win the table to advance to a new table until there is just one remaining. The $5 buy in field was incredibly weak. I just killed these clowns. I ran well and made it to the penultimate round of tables, but ran into a wave of tough breaks. Nonetheless it was a nice cash.

25 NL is going very, very well. Having watched videos and posted on hands has improved my understanding of this game immensely. I am eager to see the results in my old stomping grounds, 100 NL.

Sleepy Bastard Challenge.

.... Challenge indeed. I am not winning in the morning tourneys. Partly this is a little bad luck- I think I am running at about 5-10% below EV in shoves and calls. These are crucial at stars b/c stack sizes spend more time in the 8 or lower BB stages.

A sure indication that things are not the way they should be are my results (swongy and -EV over the last little while) and my finish positions. I am not playing the correct game in high blinds against callers. Thus, I frequently double up or go out at the 50/100 and higher levels with 5-9 players left. No good. Further, I am crashing into the bubble way too often and playing in a style that encourages confrontations. This increases 4th places, reduces second places and causes major frustrations. See images.

I need to adjust to a few things.

1. The jump from a BB of 50 to 100 is exactly as bad as PES says. Thin steals demand a stack of about 2.2k. At FTP, you can steal thin for a couple levels with a stack that his been blinded off. No chance here, it's all just shoves.
2. I see a ton of mediocre players limp calling with open shovable hands.
   
3. The good players try to gain EV from players who cannot recognize commitment thresholds.
4. Resteals and blind on blind are always serious business here. I would estimate that I barely get 2:1 when I am three bet by a reg. I guess the time spent with stacks of 8 BB or less hones different skills.
   
5. The Moshman/Vandweller (shoves = QQ rarely, KK+ all the time) model is clearly in effect at $10 and above
   
6. People take flops (wtf?) with JJ and AK, even in the 8-15 BB stack sizes. Why don't they just set the money on fire instead?
   
7. All-in (semi-)bluffing is always suspected and hence (correctly) rarely done. Ex. I steal raise from the cutoff with 12 BB left and Qs6s, raising 2.5 BB. BB calls. Flop comes 567 rainbow. I am clearly committed, since the board is too dangerous to check. BB leads out for 2/3 pot, not quite committing. I shove. Villain tanks and rolls Th9h, for a gutshot, possible overs and a backdoor flush.

I hate every decision villain made, but these seem marginal to the regs here. I have to adjust.

Homework for myself:

1. Look at actual fold equity with effective stacks of 3, 5, 7.5, 10, 12, and 15-20.
2. Extract all cold shove hands from the DB at let wiz have a day with them. (Prereq, I have to reinstall wiz).
3. Start grunching more hands.
   

THE SLEEPY LION SLEEPY BASTARD CHALLENGE.

I sleep in all the time.

To combat this, I am signing up in advance for NLH poker tournaments that occur in the early hours of PDT.

Tomorrow: 6 AM, NLH $5+0.50, no rebuys. 149949564. Registration starts at midnight here.

Come and get it.

Quick Shout-out to CardRunners/Stoxpoker.

I have been a member of stoxpoker for quite some time thanks to the old "buy both pokertracker AND our site and receive jumbo discounts" packages. I was skeptical when they merged their business with cardrunners but kept the sites discreet.

Nonetheless, I checked it out using their "free poker training" deal and decided to spend some full tilt "frequent player points" on several month of subscription. Due to a technical mishap and oversight on my part, my subscription lapsed before I managed to complete the purchase.

The issue was resolved quickly and professionally over 1 business day.

So, although the concept of a "poker training" site is a little seedy, these guys produce two decent products and have decent customer service.

Before and After Moments: Deepening Insight About the Game of Poker.

This evening over dinner, I was explaining how I can draw a diagram that explains why left and right, unlike up and down, are reversed in a mirror image and I of course KNOW why this is true. Yet, when I think about it, the fact that one plane of orientation is reversed while the other is held fixed seems downright silly.

One day, I'm sure an insightful 1-sentence explanation will dawn on me and it will all make sense. Until then, I wait.

Deep, nuanced understanding of a concept is never complete; nonetheless, I reckon everyone can recall I time when a concept that he or she had considered for a long time (perhaps even to a point of frustration, exhaustion, or satisfaction) went from a set of concepts held together through logic, intuition, and rigor to a singularity. That is to say, some part of a body of related knowledge became re-organized in such a way that the inter-relationships, causalities and properties were accessible in toto as a gestalt, reliable framework.

In poker, I can think of a view of these that I have mastered in such a way. In the future, perhaps I will write more about this.

Intro Lesson and a Poker Hand Anatomy Lesson.

In accordance with a friend's wishes, I'm going to give him an electronic poker lesson.

Step I. Learn the rules.

Poker is a game of combinations. The winner of a hand at showdown is the player playing the highest ranking, rarest 5-card combination.

Poker is a game of betting and bluffing. In order to win a poker hand, you must either:

• bet, so that your opponent folds a hand that would win at showdown.
• bet and call your way to showdown with the winning hand.

Already we can say something about poker. Poker is about betting with the best hand when your opponent will call and betting with the worst hand when your opponent will fold. This is an understatement of cosmic implications.

Step II: Think Big Picture.

To be more general and straightforward, poker winners play in a way that minimizes the number and cost of their mistakes, while maximizing the cost of their opponents' mistakes.

In poker at least some of the cards are face-down. So you never know for certain whether your hand is best or worst. Poker is a game of incomplete information. Making the most of the available data is a critical skill.

The only way to obtain information is to watch and think critically about your opponents actions. To interpret this information best, you must use critical thinking and intuition. Some things you must recognize and interpret:

• Behavior patterns. For example: if an opponent tends to play very passively and play very few cards, a bet from this opponent indicates a hand that is likely very strong.
• The odds. Sometimes your hand is not best but can easily improve. You must know and act upon the odds you have.
• The meaning of different cards and future cards for hand values.
• Deliberate deception.
• Unintentional actions or "tells".

Step III: Learn the Mechanics.

• Every poker game plays for a high hand, a low hand (the WORST hand), or both.
• Every poker game has multiple rounds of play and begins with some sort of bet in the dark.
• In "Ante games" such as stud games and some draw varieties, everyone posts a small blind bet.
• In "Blind games" some players post larger bets in the dark. Since hold 'em is a blind game, I will discuss the mechanics of that game in more detail below.
• The two players to the left of the "button" (dealer seat) post a small and large blind.
• Starting with the small blind and ending with the dealer each player is dealt one card then another.
  
• The first player without a bet in front of them must decide whether to fold their hand, call the blind's dark bet (match it), or raise it. In fixed limit games, each bet is an increment of the big blind. If the big blind is $2, a raise is a $4 bet. A second raise is a $6 bet.
• Each player must match the previous players bet, raise it, or fold. In Las Vegas, no more than five bets can go in per round of play. On the internet, it is 4 bets per round.
• After the button acts, the small blind may act to call the bet, fold or raise as per everyone else. The same goes for the big blind.
• If no one has raised the big blind, the big blind can "check" to take a free flop or raise.
• After everyone has folded or matched the bet for the "preflop round". The dealer assembles a pot of chips in the middle, then deals one card face down (a burnt card, to prevent cheating) and three face up. These are the flop.
• The first player with a hand to the dealer's left may either bet or check in turn. Checking is declining to bet.
• Should someone bet, each player in turn must either call, fold or raise. The action is complete when each player in the hand has either folded or matched the last bettors bet.
• The dealer gathers the pot, burns a card and turns another face-up. This is the turn. On the turn and river, the bets double to two times the big blind. As before each player starting on the button's left must check or bet. Once a bet is made, each player must raise, fold, or call.
• The whole procedure of the turn is repeated for the river. A fifth card is put on the table and betting happens again.
• After the last bet is called, the final bettor turns his two hole cards face up to reveal his hand (the hand is the best 5 card hand he can make with any five cards between his hand and the board). Each player in turn can reveal their hand if it beats the best hand presently showing, or throw it away.
  
• The best hand showing is awarded the pot. The dealer is typically given a small tip.
• Alternately, should no player wish to call a bet on any street, the last bettor is awarded the pot. That player returns their cards.
  
• The button moves 1 player to the left.
  

Part IV: The Mile-High View of a Limit Hold 'em Hand.

• Each hand starts with many players and ends with one winner. The winner has the best hand at showdown.
• The button gives a player the ability to act after everyone else.
• In order to win, a player must bet enough to convince opponents to fold or make and call many bets.

These are the three aspects that you must consider all the time. Hand strength, position, and betting. They interrelate and inform every decision.

Part V: Three instructive hands.

These are three hands I culled from about 40 minutes of playing 6 "penny" or "micro" stakes tables on the internet. Play in these hands is comparable to play at $1/$2 and $2/$4 limit hold em tables in Las Vegas.

Hand 1: I am dealt pocket jacks on the button.

I have the button and a premium holding. I am undoubtedly not folding. One player folds and two others call the big blind to "limp in".

I raise, expecting my hand is best and is likely to win at showdown.

The small blind calls, the big blind folds and the two limpers call. The flop is dealt. It contains a jack of clubs, the Q of spades and the seven of spades. All the players check to me.

My hand- 3 Jacks- is the second best of all possible hands on this flop. I have the best hand at the table nearly all the time. However, anyone with two spades in hand now has a flush draw. I bet for value (I expect any hand with a queen to call) and to charge the draws. King-ten and hands with two spades can improve to be me.

All 3 opponents call. The turn brings the King of Spades. A flush-card has hit. My hand may not be the best now, but could very well be. Again it checks to me.

I bet for value.

The small blind calls and the next player raises. The cutoff (CO- hand next to the button folds).

My opponent may be betting a flush, a king, two spades for a flush, or two pair. I am likely ahead and I can improve against a flush if the board pairs. I raise again.

The small blind folds and the check-raiser calls. The river brings a red ten. This is a terrible card, putting 4-to-a-straight on the board. Any nine or ace now beats me. My opponent bets.

My opponent is representing a flush, an ace, or a nine and is betting for value. There is some chance he has a worse hand. The pot is offering me 14.5-to-1 to make a call. If he is betting a worse hand 8% of the time, calling will be profitable. I call.

My opponent shows ace-king for the straight. I dislike my opponents play in this hand a tremendous amount. He should have raised and 4-bet preflop, bet the flop, and called on the turn instead of raising after the flop action. The only thing he did correctly was bet the river, which I surely check behind with a worse hand. The worse player won. That's poker.

Hand 2: How grown-ups play Ace-king.

Several players limp and I find Ace-king in the cutoff. I raise, several players call and another reraises.

While a limp-reraise is the ultimate show of strength in hold'em, my hand is strong and depletes the deck of kings and aces. My opponent is less likely to have aces or kings than usual, and so my hand rates to be very competitive with his. I reraise to put get more money in.

The button calls, as does the limp-reraiser. The flop brings two-tone K84. It checks to me.

My hand rates to be best on this flop. I bet for value.

The button raises, and the out of position player (OOP) calls.

I raise again to bet for value against one beaten hand and another that I probably beat. The button may have three of a kind but probably does not.

The button caps. The OOP calls. I call. The turn is an offsuit 7. OOP check to me.

This does complete a draw, but all the betting indicates no one has it. I bet for value.

Again the button raises and OOP calls.

I am beginning to believe that the button has it. It is another good king, two pair, AA, or a set. The pot is huge and my hand may still win at showdown. I call.

The river brings a lovely offsuit ace. It checks to me.

My hand just improved and the board basically indicates that the villain does not have AA. I expect him to bet most of his hands. I expect the OOP player to call. I check, intending to raise both of them and pick up an extra two bets when my hand is best.

The villains fall face first into my trap, I make my raise and show down my winner. As it turns out I was ahead the whole way.

Hand 3: Further out of the box.

The table is 4-handed. The cutoff folds and the button completes the big blind. The small blind calls.

I have QJ. I have been attacking this table with aggression to great success. This hand rates well against the small blinds range as well as the buttons limping range (I expect he would make a steal raise with AJ, AQ, KQ, KJ, or any pair higher than TT). I raise.

Both players call and the flop comes 59J rainbow. SB checks.

The board is dry, the pot is big and my hand rates to be best. I bet for value.

The button raises, the SB three bets.

The only hands that hit this flop hard are J9, QT (overcard and a straight draw), T8, sets and ugly two pair. Given my level of aggression, I expect that they would trap me with their best hands. I think they are just pushing back with crappy hands. In poker terms, they are value betting light or making bad semi-bluffs. With the best hand and weak players betting spitefully, I call. They might spite bluff again.

The button caps and everyone calls. the turn brings a second jack. SB bets.

I just do not believe his hand is better than mine here. The card only slightly improves my hand but I may fold the button if I raise. I call.

The button raises and the SB calls.

Now it really looks like the button might have a hand that beats me. But again, the pot is big and he has to beat me quite often to make my calling unprofitable. I call. I intend to check and call on the river unless a queen hits or the board pairs.

The river brings a seven. The SB checks. I check. The button bets his last few pennies. The SB calls. I call.

My hand wins.

In this hand, I make several "poker plays".

1. I use my table image to push my opponents out of their comfort zones.
2. I correctly recognize that the aggression at the table is a "reverse tell", recognizing that they would probably trap me with a genuinely strong hand.
3. I make a small mistake. When the button bets his last few pennies and the SB calls, I call. I missed an easy raise for value.

So I pick up a couple bets I wouldn't normally and miss one that in the future I might find.

A demonstration in the cost of the rake.

Play heads-up poker at .50/1. It's brutal.

Good news.

The computers problem lay solely in the hard-drive. I can get back to "ramming und jamming" soon enough.

patrick minton.

I am watching a stoxpoker video from Patrick "BilboSan" Minton. It reminds of why I was able to win quite a bit in $1 NL. I was able to control my opponents, read their hands, value bet, and avoid tough spots against them better than they could against me. His value betting examples are superb.

In the PC, the mighty PC...

... the problem persists further.

My PC is busted. After two reformats with "all the fixins", there were still substantial errors on my hard drive. This is sucky. Although, after the second reformat my sound drivers were installed incorrectly, so all the sounds acquired a Floydian reverb quality. Playing FreeCell was like listening to an interactive "Dark Side of the Moon".

I sent it in for repairs to some guys who have a shop at the creepy end of the U District. They seemed to be bullshit-free so, I like my chances of getting it fixed. They said Friday at the lastest. Yay.

Still, I have played more than a little. And I have been KILLING IT. I have made up for my Full Tilt Downswings by ripping up pokerstars. I've been playing a few things:

• $25 and $50 NL. I have been grinding it well there. Who knows if I am playing differently or just running well. Right now, I'm just glad for the change.
• $15+$1 Turbos on Stars. These games are a cakewalk compared to turbos on FTP for a couple reasons: one extra level of blinds, antes instead of a blind up, and a more even distribution between poor players and multitabling grinders. I can beat the entire group of them, but with many more poor players around there's more money lying on the table. Thanks both to my edge in play and a huge amount of good luck, I am running up and down these games 30% ROI over the month... 15% higher than my expected result on FTP at the same stakes. I am in the money in 9 table games 42% of the time and finishing first more than half of those.
• Baby stakes pot limit Omaha. I don't understand why people like a game that plays the same as big bet poker but gives professionals an even bigger edge. I am nowhere near to "grokking" play in this game but it is fun. A few observations:

1. The change in hand value from preflop to flop is enormous. But, that is a relative thing. If two hands of the same type, their relative value seems to stay the same or increase in difference most of the time. A wet flop favors the wettest hand that hits it pretty hugely.
2. Nobody gets the outs in this game at the microstakes. Not nut outs are not outs, they are minus outs for your opponents. Which is about the same for bluffing, but way different for calling.
3. Showdown value changes radically. Hands can basically become worthless in one card.
4. Position is superhuge. Because of the radical change in hand values, position is an even bigger premium than in big bet hold 'em.

• Badugi. This game is ridiculous. It's structure like hold 'em, but with no board cards. The goal is to make the "worst" four card hand. Hand rankings are always in combination (like razz), except that suits matter. All hands with four different suits beat all hands with three and so on. Aces are low, so the best hands are four suit A234, A235, A245, A345, 2345, A236, and so on. Given the number of draws, the complexity of hands, and its format, it is basically lesson in hand reading, pricing opponents in, and pot odds.
  
• HORSE. I am pretty good at playing weak tight and fishy opponents in all these games. I will be good enough to get winner in the "for a living stakes" pretty soon.
  

I have been watching a ton of poker videos. I was home sick the past two days, so I just got through a ton. The "intermediate poker course" on stox has been fantastic. They have basically isolated and dissected the two most difficult concepts in playing deep stack big bet poker and hammered them out. The first is recognizing where villains leave value on the table to allow you to bluff and draw. The second is finding good value bets. A good example of how well this informs your game can be found here.

I also watched a few cardrunners freebies and this one by OMGClayAiken, poker supergenius. Although his site has the least content of any of them. 1/2 of them are by Galfond himself. I love the way he plays and thinks, so I am consdering joining up.

I'm feeling better- well enough to plan and meditate, at least. So hopefully once I get my hard drive fixed, I can resume my game and get back to work.

The Revenge of the Sleepy Lion.

I uber-overslept yesterday, so I decided to stay up all night to get back on schedule. Of course, I played some poker. Specifically 25 NL at Stars and FTP. Some observations:

1. The aggression level of the regulars: much higher preflop at FTP, much higher postflop at stars.
   
2. It is much easier to valuetown for stacks at FTP, but much harder to get to a flop in position with the best kind of hands. Much easier to avoid valuetowning at Stars: the regulars are so very fit or fold.
   
3. I have acquired new insight into the nature of my "losing play" at micro-NLH.

• I typically lose focus on the toughest parts of multi-street no limit play: position, hand range, and table image.
  
• I start using the HUD data to justify wreckless decision making.
• I make one really bad decision and this either:
• (1) cascades into multiple bad decisions, OR
  
• (2) forces me to shut down my session.

I lost two really brutal pots through no major error of my own.

1. I open on the button with Qh2h for 3 BB, awful player in the big blind with 50 BB calls.

The flop comes Kh7h3s. The villain has been check-raising or folding most of the past few times we have confronted each other. I doubt my hand stands up to his check-raising range but has many ways to improve. I check.

The turn is the 3h. The villain leads out for 4 BB. I mistakenly interpret this for a small bluff or a bet with 3 of a kind. When the villain's hand improves greatly, he generally bets a large amount. Because I see him as weak, I raise slightly- 6BB. Villain calls.

The river is the Ah. Villain leads for 4BB again. I view his hand now as a mediocre flush. I expect him to pay off any bet I make. I shove all-in.

Villain calls with two black aces in the hole.

2. A forgettable semiTAG player, recently won a big pot from me when I check raise shoved with the nut heart draw on an As9s9c board. He called and showed 9d7s. I improved to a flush and he rivered a boat. Now we are 150 BB deep. He opens in the hijack for 3.5 BB. I reraise to about 12 BB with Ks4s hoping he'll just fold. He tanks a little, then calls.

Flop is Qs8s4h. Villain checks to me and I bet 20 BB. He insta-minraises me to 40 BB straight. I insta-call (mistakenly) without tanking.

The turn brings the Js. This is a great card for me, completing my flush. The villain checks, indicating a desire to show the hand down. I put him on an overpair, set, or AQ. There is room for one heart in his hand. I bet 65 BB, hoping to induce the villain to shove the rest. Villain just calls with ~40 BB behind.

The river is the 6s. The villain thinks for a little bit, then puts the rest of his chips in. I reluctantly call.

The reality is, we were both committed on the turn. He cannot fold if a non-spade comes, or he has allowed me to run an incredibly profitable 2-street bluff (think about it: if I did this move with the Ks4c and he folded when a Tc came off, he'd be a huge dork).

But shit, this guy was kind of clumsy and I considered that his hand was very likely live. I should have put his money in way ahead.

Crashzors

The old PC crashed this weekend. My power went out- possibly related?- and then when I rebooted, everything was running slow . After 10 ' the PC eventually froze. When I restarted, the system said that a core process was unable to start due to corrupt data.

So, I was forced to reformat my hard drive. Adios poker data! Everything else I own is safe from such an event. This makes me think I really, really need a backup system for my shit.

On the downside, I can no longer look at and pine after my exceptional success at $100 NL 14 months ago. On the upside, I can forget my altogether awful results in $25 NL this year.

I have been playing without a HUD, 4 tabling and pushing edges as hard as I can. It is tremendously easy to straightforwardly semibluff and cajole mediocre tags out of marginal pots. Observant fish pick up and become incredibly amenable to setmining as a result.

On Shippopotamus' recommendation I have signed up for the stoxpoker intermediate hold em video series. Just watching Ed Miller talk about selective, exploitive aggression is a breath of fresh air. Lovely.

In the next week, I am hoping to grind some more and press my edges in the sit n gos. I think I will finally switch to stars, in an effort to get FTP to give me rakeback.

Played some sit n gos tonight, made 1 or 2 glaring errors and ran poorly on and around the bubble. I broke even nonetheless. Good to be back!

Best chatbox EVAR. Found via pokergrump.

mbolt1

I am watching this guy's first stoxpoker video. So far, I like him.

March! A month of plans.

February was a pretty crappy month for the Sleepy Lion. Fatigue, listlessness, and a total lack of motivation dogged me nearly every day. (Actual) work, poker (work), exercise- they all seemed impossible. Fortunately, the issue has resolved.

I feel good and I'm eager to get things rolling.

Poker Goals for March

1. Grind up for 1k. I cannot predict outcomes, but making some money this month would be nice. My earn in side games should be $15/hr, in tournaments I should make 25/hr. I want to put these numbers to work. At 20/hr, I should play 50 hours this month to make my due. So there's the real goal.
2. Establish fixed playing times. From now on, I plan to play every Saturday from noon-3 no matter what, Wednesday 5 PM- 6PM and 8PM-10 PM no matter what, and Thursday 6PM- 9 PM no matter what. I hope to add an additional 5 hours flex time per week.
3. "Coaching", writing, and Video watching. I need to talk to other people are playing to win more regularly. Hopefully through posts, conversations with friends, and sweating with shippopotamus, I will get enough insight. I will try to update my blog more often as well- every Tuesday and Saturday. I also plan to use some frequent player points and free demos for coaching sights besides cardrunners and stoxpoker.
4. Winning approaches. I need to improve my perspective on playing well. I will implement a "cool down routine" beginning this week. For every 30 minutes I play, I will review it for five. By the end of the month I want to establish a warm-up routine and an exercise program to improve my health and focus.

Some Insights: the crappy month has taught me a few things.

1. There can be no focus without perspective. I had virtually no perspective this month and I did next to nothing productive. My colleagues remain detached from such things and my girlfriend is no help. I only got a hold on myself once I took the time to gather my thoughts. I only had the courage to do this once my organization scheme deflated and got chewed apart by wild dogs.
2. Tom Dwan is a savant, but Phil Galfond is a genius. In his interview with 2+2 pokercast, Galfond talks about his perspective on things. He is focused, disciplined, and clearly considers everything carefully. I want to check out his poker videos very much.
3. The more a poker player wins, enjoys his/herself, has a positive attitude, and/or understand the dynamic tension between thinking and doing, the more likely he or she is fond of Tommy Angelo.
4. There is no price too high for a good perspective. If you want to improve your poker play, talk to other people about it. If you want to improve at something else, talk to other people about it. If you don't know what to talk about, take a step back and remove yourself from the equation.
5. If you don't know how to remove yourself from the equation, meditate.
6. Have a plan. It's much easier to amend a plan than draft one. This goes from the highest level to the lowest.
7. Video sites and poker software are a steal at twice the price. I wholeheartedly endorse stoxpoker and cardrunners. I have heard good things about one or two others.
8. I hate being fat, but I love eating. Who's fault is that?
9. I'm excited for the Durrrr challenge. How can a smart guy stand to lose if a bunch of halfwits get into heads-up poker.
10. I really want to Super Sattelite into two WSOP events.

In your face, pokerbots.

In 40 minutes of superturbo play "to pass the time before I shower" I had a 15 game hot streak that tripled my return on the three dollar sit n gos.

They're poker the way MacDonald's is food.

As far as game theory contests go, it beats rock-paper-scissors*. I play these so good I get death threats.

* Free tips: the unexploitable RPS strategy is random. Humans cannot be random- they fail to repeat themselves often enough. If you throw whatever loses to the last hand they threw, you probably win more than your share. Also, few people start with paper. Start with rock.

Nice Day.

Made a deep run in a microstakes tournament. 4 handed, I ran into a lot of confrontations with marginal hands. My opponents were playing well but a little too gambly. Variance took the rug out from under me. Here are my last 100 tournament hands of the night.

Free Advice for abusive players.

If you are not a winning tournament player, please refrain from trash-talking other players in the chatbox. Big Sharky is watching.

A guy laid into me last night and I asked him if I even had to go to Sharkscope to look him up. This is a more advanced technique; the abusive player must know what Sharkscope is in order to react. I suspected he was, he used several poker slang terms correctly. By and large, the soon-to-be-Scoped become quiet if they are a slight loser, smug if they are not, and persuasive about how "Sharkscope is bullsh*t" etc. if their nose is open and chips are pouring out.

This guy chose the last option. Between that and his berating, I could tell he didn't understand the mechanics of tournaments, his ego was hurt by his poor results, and he was willing to take some of that out on me if I let him.

Just a friendly reminder that any information you give away is always in addition to the data available on the web. And I know who lost 2k last year and who didn't.

Session.

Today I played for a little while: two hours of tournaments and cash games. I did pretty well for myself.

Here are my big cash game hands from the day. I should also make the point that the autoreplayer ALWAYS has positions wrong at this point. I am definitely not the guy labeled HERO on most hands.

I did alright in the single table SNGs, and then I won a two table tourney.

All in all it was a nice night for me. I made some goals and I started towards them. Off we go.

January wrap up and February.

So, here is my take on January. By and large, the things I have always been good at, I am still good at.

1) Straightforward limit play.
2) No limit preflop and on straightforward flops.
3) Sit n goes.

Here are a few things I need to improve, primarily in NLH, which killed me.
1) Recognizing when to take a non-standard line.
2) Recognizing when a villain is adjusting correctly OR over adjusting and making counter adjustments.
3) Positional strategy. I need to widen the "positional gap" against most of my opponents. I should be playing less hands upfront.
4) Making BETTER plays on the turn and the river.
5) Better bet sizing in 3 bet pots.
6) Better game and seat selection.
7) Consider more aggressive lines in deep situations.

Here are some hands I posted for my brother to look at. Anyone who wants to may comment on them as well.

1. Limit hold 'em 6max. Thin spots.
2. Bigger NLH pots.
3. 3 bet preflop pots.
4. More 3 bet pots.

Here are my study goals:
1) Watch more session videos.
2) Post one hand per 1k in my HEM.
3) Two more sessions with PES.
4) Read the last two parts of "YBPF".
5) Reread "Ace on the River"
6) Reread "The Theory of Poker".

Here are my poker play goals for February.
1) SNG games more of them, destroy them. I'm stupid not to play at 20/hr.
2) NLH- get up to beating 25 and 50 NL.
3) Try for 15k hands/wk (15 hours!).

A quote.

From an old proverb via Samuel Johnson by way of a Slate blogger.

“He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.”

Pre-strategy. An end of month summary.

As far as first months go, January of 2009 did not go great or even well. I lost money overall trying to adapt my rusty, unsteady my NLH game to the modern $25NL 6max. At $10NL, limit, and in tournaments, I was a winner, but not enough to compensate for my craptacular results in $25NL.

To put it in perspective, the amount I am down is roughly a bad night at $3/$6 limit hold em, or a live tournament buy in:$100. The Kirktholemew J. Thompson of April 2008 cackles at the thought of lamenting a loss of that small size. Nonetheless, it sucks and it's kind of quaint that money the size of a medium pot is now a good or bad month.

I will go into details about zee plan for the next month and overall evalutation by the end of the weekend.

Delayed bets: the best technique I keep forgetting.

In "good poker play" some things are givens. When you hit a flop, you should bet it. That way, when you miss a flop, you can bet it. That way, it looks like your hand hit.

But sometimes, you have no reason to start betting.

Some "not to bet" reasons:

1. Your hand may be best but is very very unlikely to remain that way.
2. Your hand will never become second best and your opponents will not call a bet with their likely holdings on the flop.
3. Your opponents play too straightforwardly.

Some requirements:

1. You are the raiser on the last street.
2. You have position.
3. The pot is heads up.
   

So here's all you do. You raise. The flop comes and your opponent checks. You check behind. On the turn, your opponent either checks again or bets. If they check, always bet. If they bet, raise your good hands and fold the rest.

Either way, a straightforward player's hand is face up. Pretty nice.

Tournament Borenament Snorenament.

I played sit n' gos and several large buy in tourneys. My day was slow and a little unsatisfying monetarily. However, I did book a winning day and made a deep run in a 400 person tourney. It exhausts my patience so quickly.

I lose track of the fact that in a tournament, the later decisions are worth, far far more money. I need to have some sort of ritual for ramping up for the end. They way I busted was quite vexing - I decided to make a marginal shove and went headfirst into an overpair.

I'm reading a Schoonmaker's book "Your Best Poker Friend". When I bought it, I thought it sucked. After a few months of thinking about it, this book is right up my alley- it is systematic and thoughtful about the process of self improvement, it relates everyday life things to poker and vice versa, and talks about how to be realistic about plans and data evaluation. Neat.

Check out an awesome example of good poker from a limit hold 'em scenario. I think my opponent played very well and was likely bluffing high hearts the whole way. Also, see my worst misclick of the day on the hand below.

--------------------

HAND 1

--------------------



$0.25/$0.50 Limit Hold'em Cash Game, 4 Players

Poker Tools by Stoxpoker - Hand Details

Replay This Hand



CO: $6.20 (24.8 bb)

BTN: $26.65 (106.6 bb)

SB: $19.45 (77.8 bb)

Hero (BB): $23.30 (93.2 bb)



Pre-Flop: Hero is BB with A 9

2 folds, SB raises, Hero 3-bets, SB calls



Flop: ($1.50) 5 5 4 (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets, SB raises, Hero calls



Turn: ($2.50) 8 (2 players)

SB bets, Hero calls



River: ($3.50) 6 (2 players)

SB bets, Hero raises, SB folds



Results: $4.50 pot ($0.20 rake)

Hero mucked A 9 (a pair of Fives) and won $4.30 ($2.05 net)







--------------------

HAND 2

--------------------



$0.25/$0.50 Limit Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players

Poker Tools by Stoxpoker - Hand Details

Replay This Hand



BB: $19.25 (77 bb)

Hero (UTG): $21.25 (85 bb)

MP: $5.35 (21.4 bb)

CO: $25.10 (100.4 bb)

BTN: $10.45 (41.8 bb)

SB: $4.25 (17 bb)



Pre-Flop: Hero is UTG with A 9

Hero raises, MP calls, CO folds, BTN calls, 2 folds



Flop: ($1.85) 9 T 9 (3 players)

Hero bets, MP calls, BTN calls



Turn: ($2.60) Q (3 players)

Hero bets, MP calls, BTN calls



River: ($4.10) 8 (3 players)

Hero checks, MP checks, BTN bets, Hero folds, MP calls



Results: $5.10 pot ($0.25 rake)

MP mucked A 3 (a pair of Nines) and lost (-$1.75 net)

BTN showed 7 7 (two pairs, Nines and Sevens) and won $4.85 ($3.10 net)