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.

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.
  

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.

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.

BLARGH to the hand range haters.

After a nice session last night- I logged nice wins in NLH, limit, and some tourneys. I shut down the computer feeling pretty good about my play. I posted a couple hands from the past few days on the forums and got decent feedback.

This morning, I woke up and started playing 10 NL to practice 8 tabling (my problem is not feeling lost or overly busy now, just not quiiiite fast enough, so practice makes perfect) and a more fundamentally disciplined no limit hold 'em style without detriment to my somewhat light bankroll.

A few observances.

1) I have been running horribly with my overpairs when they get their action from loose players- these are the guys overpairs are made to bet into!

2) I myself am very, very loose in early postions. I need to get back to my original ranges. I have no need to balance or raise in early positions. KTs, QJo. All in- THE MUCK! I need to practice this, perhaps with shorter tables. Time to build and practice a core strategy.

3) I need to talk to the shippo more. I play better with his advice.


QQ in the small blind, short stack (35 BB in the BB). THinking, steal capable button raises, I reraise (automatically) (12 BB, probably), big blind shoves. Button overshoves. Given that BB can be reisolated, I 3-bet light and button knows both..... does this become the snapcall that I made it?

Pot is 82 with 17 to call. Side pot is 60 with 60 to call.

Villains show the two better pairs. BB I put on 99+, AJs, AQ+. Button I put on AK+, JJ+. reasonable?

Results Graphs.

Results 1/1-1/12.









Tourney Winnings:+$72, 13% ROI.







Cash games +$79.