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.