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.

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.

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.
  

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.

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.

The Professional.

Tommy Angelo, world's greatest poker taxonomist- he coined both the terms* Hijack and Buttoff- has done it yet again.

The Professional. Its ways are a simple, moderate path like "The Tao"**. Or as in the Zen tradition, it represents the finger pointing heavenward and the moon itself. Perhaps it is a poker player's superego.

No matter. The Professional doesn't care what you call it.

When you think about your play, you hear the voice of the Professional. As you think, the voice changes. Not because the Professional changes but because your ability to relate to it changes.

Running well?

Play well, says the Professional.

Running bad?

Play good, says the Professional.

Done with playing?

Don't play, says the Professional.

The Professional is the best instinct and the best decision in all of us, all the time.

It sees the angles and states the right action. How we hear it and if we listen are up to us.

* Hijack: the seat two off the button. By playing aggressively there, you remain too strong to be called lightly- thus you hijack late position's ability to steal the blind. Buttoff: when the button fails to react to raises from the seat right in front of it- the cutoff- appropriately, the cutoff become the new button.

**Or better yet the Art of War. A good general sees Death Terrain before he marches an army into it.

Lazy Day/The Mondays.

I slept for nearly 13 hours last night and had a hard time getting my brain going. It did occur to me that along with my current goal of a more dedicated poker play and study schedule, I should develop a "core strategy".

Meaning, even when I am feeling overwhelmed or frustrated I have a fall back style of play that is nearly automatic. This will allow me to grind much more efficiently.

Ideally, a core strategy should approximate an unexploitable strategy but accomodate some weaknesses and tendencies of the field you play poker against.

Since I primarily play microstakes limit now, I should expect players who are by and large too loose and too passive preflop. They'll call too many bets and fail to bet their hands strongly. So:

1. I should expect more, not less, action.
2. I should expect many situations with domination and reverse domination to appear, given hand strength.

So "stealing" in the classic sense is silly. Nonetheless, in 6 max, it is rarely a good idea to open a hand without raising. Of course, when I raise, I should want action. Thus in early position, I should raise hands that play well out of position in both multiway and heads-up pots.

1. Pairs. AA-88. 77 and below are too weak.
   
2. Suited aces. A8s+.
   
3. Suited Connectors. Any two true suited connectors with an 8 or better. Any two gappers down to QTs. 78s+, QTs +.
   
4. Big unsuited aces. A9o+.
   
5. KQo.
   

This represents 11 per cent of all possible hands. It is a difficult range to play against, but still contains some balance. For example, the big pairs and low suited connectors perform well against hands that my opponents will 3-bet- AQ+, 99+. All of the hands but the big unsuited aces perform very well multiway. The big aces do ok, too.

If UTG limps, I would play the same hands, but limp behind with the suited connectors and medium pairs to encourage multiway action. I would limp three bet QJs, JTs, and T9s. In the hijack with a fold in front of me, I would add:

1. Pairs 66+
2. Suited aces A6s+
   
3. Suited connectors QTs+, 87s+
4. Big unsuited aces. A7o+
5. KJo+, QJo+.

The range is widening a little, but AJo is still incorrect to play simply because of the dominating effect of the pairs and the bigger aces.

In late position, I should be able to assess the likelihood of a pot being multiway. If there is a limper, I should expect a multiway pot. Here I should call with some hands and raise with others.

Call:

1. Pairs 22-77. This is a bread and butter spot.
2. Suited aces and kings A2s-A8s, K2s-K9s. Again, bread and butter.
3. Suited connectors. No gappers 54s-98s. One gappers 86s-QTs. Two-gappers J8s-Q9s. Three gappers Q8s, J7s.
4. Offsuit cards. KTo, 67o+, T8o+
   

Raise.

1. Pairs 88+. Partly to conceal the top part of the range but almost entirely for value.
2. Suited aces and kings. A9s+, KTs+.
3. Suited connectors JTs+.
4. Offsuit aces A9o+.
5. Offsuit Kings KJo+

This hand range is fairly wide and all of them stand up in large pots.

If it is folded to me in the cutoff, I attack with a very wide range.

1. Pairs 44+
2. Suited aces A2s+
3. Suited Kings K9s+
   
4. Suited connectors 76s+, One gappers T8s+, Two gappers Q9s+.
5. Unsuited aces A5o+
6. Unsuited Kings KTo+.
7. QTo, JTo.

On the button, I open even wider still.

1. Pairs 22+
2. All suited aces and kings. A2s+, K2s+.
3. Suited connectors 54s+, 75s+, T7s+, J7s+.
4. A2o+
5. K7o+
6. Q8o+, J8o+, T8o+

Granted, I expect action, but all of these hands fair very well in small pots against 1-2 people.