Mid-February Review

I have had a rough and tumble, but successful start of the month.

Summary:

A. I experienced the worst tilt I've had in years. 5 BIs in no time flat out of nothing but frustration.

Problems:

1. Poor preflop hand selection in general.
2. Poor hand reading when frustrated.
3. Overwhelmed by number of tables occasionally.
4. Unable to make the correct decision due to general frustration and aforementioned issues.
5. Loss of desire to play and win, due to oversensitivity to the losses.

My solution:

1. I'm working on committing a tighter preflop range to muscle memory by playing fewer tables and devoting more active attention to preflop action. I've made a preflop table.
2. I'm working through Jared Tendler's stuff on these issues. I've made two reminder cards, one for PLO8 and one for NLH.
3. I'm comparing how I play in sit n gos to cash games. I almost never let frustrations do a number on me in sit n gos. Overall, it is my comfort level with each decision in the time I've alotted myself due to multitabling. I just don't find myself in unmanageable spots that often.
4. I took two days off from grinding to think seriously about it. I think this was a mistake. In the future, I hope to be more dilligent about recognizing where and when I make errors due to frustration, ending my session and analyzing my mistakes so that in the future I am eager to go outand play well again.

B. I am a Sit n Go Champion.

Seriously, I murder this game. The solution is to play sit n gos and think about them more often. Every day.

C. I love PLO8.

The game is fun, it's less volatile and I kill the bad players. Unfortunately, I am still an easy mark for the good, thinking (albeit too passive and not aggressive enough) regulars in the low stakes.

D. I hate PLO.

No, I don't. But I'll be damned if I understand it. I really need to get in there and watch some videos. I have no clue what ranges I face in a big pot on the flop, nor do I understand equity in thin preflop spots.

E. I'm really nervous about moving up to 50NL.

Despite the spews, my bankroll has grown to my self-mandated 40 buy-in minimum for the next game up. I feel it's just not going to work until I get a handle on my frustrations.

For the next week, my goals are the following.

a) Commit my new preflop chart to memory (especially the UTG/EP and Hijack info. Verify that I can 4+ table with it through videos of my own play.
b) Play sit n gos once per day. Make money.
c) Get a grip on preflop play in PLO. Try it out a little. Make a video and review it.
d) Try to play more during peak hours and normalize my sleep schedule to it.

January in Review.

1. I played some no limit hold 'em. Rush poker was invented.
2. I learned how to play PLO8 at minor costs to myself.
3. I played some 180 and 90 man tourneys.
4. I didn't play any sit n gos.

A few things I learned.

I am still a bit of a stubborn jerk when it comes to bankroll management.
The right time to decide how much you are willing to risk trying a new game is right before you take a spot at the table. I definitely learned that the hard way with rush limit hold 'em. I took it for granted that I could still beat the game down. Nope. I did correctly assess this problem with tournaments. But, I need to be more consistent.

My "poker sense" needs a little warm-up time.
Lately I've noticed that I am too loose and passive when I first sit down. I make bad decisions and read hands poorly. It's not good poker.

PLO8 is an awesome game.
It's superbly fun, and the whole game runs on postflop equity.

Putting in volume is a lot of fun.
I've played >25k hands since mid-January and I reckon I'll get in another 140k by the end of February.

Summary of play from Monday to Friday.

Summary of play from Monday to Friday.

I've put in a ton of hands, but only about 2/3 of what I thought I could. A few things come to mind.

1. The variance in all forms of poker is wider than I recall, but if anything, a little less overtly flustering. It's good to know that while I was being a lazy bum about actually playing poker I possibly acquired some patience.
2. There are many ways for my game to go off-track or look that way. Three tough hands at a time is still a bit much for me and my autopilot brain takes over. He doesn't the best decisions all the time :).
3. When you multi-table X number of tables, it shouldn't be your goal to play X tables at a time. It should be to look for and get the X best seats available. There are regs even at these limits, and they play much better than the fish.
4. Autolabeling is a neat feature and it permits me to devote more energy to labeling as many of my opponents as I can. HEM's auto-label feature is pretty good for 25NL players. I've seen a few I disagree with but not many.
5. Two barreling and three streets for value go great together, but they also require enormous precision. When I start to get overwhelmed these things lose their value. I think I left 20 bucks on the table through a combo of missing some double barrels and making a few bad ones.
6. Almost no players bluff the turn or bluff commitment on the flop in these games.
7. Bet sizing tells are everywhere.
8. Exploiting your opponents poor hand reading skills and transparent tendencies is a hugely valuable here.

In tourney's I've run face first into variance as well. And according to info I now have, the downswings I have faced will occur at a frequency of less than a few hundred games. Time to step down.

Right now, I'm putting aside a little time to play some PLO8. This game seems really intriguing to me and I've always had a blast playing split-pot games.

Lessons learned this week

1. Variance is still around
2. Aggression is killer in NL25
3. Being able to get 3 streets of value from any type of opponent is really valuable. The more opponents you have cinched, the better.
4. Knowing who does what in response to which betting lines is something that would be impossible to record for all opponents, but with a little more practice I think I'll have it.
5. Playing loads of hands creates a huge opportunity to learn and think.
6. I need to maintain focus better towards the middle of my sessions.
7. I am a long way from my previous abilities and I'm ok with that.

Objectives for next week:

1. Try for another 8k hands of 25NL minimum.
2. Try to increase aggression even more.
3. Try to get my blind defense and cold-calling IP ranges a little more precise.
4. Look at double barreling hands and how it works.
5. Get a sweat session or two in.
6. Review some more hands to look at successful and less successful non standard lines.
7. Move down in MTTs and SNGs, get aquainted with the $4-6 crowd on stars. PLay at least 3 morning or afternoon sessions.
8. Watch some Tendler stuff on improving focus and "in-game mindsets"
9. Continue watching videos and learning.
10. See whatr PLO8 is like.

3k hands.

Today's No Limit Lessons:

1)I'm too showdown happy with weak made hands.

I made three mistakes that each cost me >50% of a buy-in with marginal made hands and drawing potential.

On the first, I had AcAx in a 4-way pot with one player behind me. The board was Jc9c9d. My hand is certainly vulnerable and may be good enough to play for showdown. It certainly would benefit from some protection. But instead of betting, to bet-fold or bet-call, I chose a loose-weak strategy and check called a half-pot bet.

Two things occur to me in retrospect. (1) The villain is surely drawing or betting a second best hand and virtually any line short of open-folding or check-folding would be better than a check call here. (2) This was an easy pot-sized bet to nearly commit to the bloated pot and encourage semi-bluffing hands to shove over. If one player shoved and another called, I can fold. I think a push/call push is a little thin at 25NL, but better than a fold facing one raise behind you. People are just very weak bettors at this limit without a strong made hand.

In the second, I made a slightly loose call preflop from the BB with Axs to defend a loose and aggro players HJ raise. I flatted, and check-called second pair on a dry board. The turn completed a straight draw and gave me a flush draw. I checked and the villain bet. I thought for a bit then check raised small. Villain thought for a sec shoved over me. I should have snap-folded, but I thought there was a slight chance he was playing a worse draw.

In retrospect, the implied odds in this hand are thin and I have little fold equity. OOP against a loose and sticky opponent, I'll run into some trouble. Folding pre- should be my standard except against steal position raisers. Secondly, if I had raised larger on the turn to straight up commit to the hand, villain might have thought of my hand as much stronger.

My third hand was one where I raised in the hijack with JJ and called a tight 3bettor to spike a set with JJ. The board was 234 rainbow and I checked. The villain bet. In this case, I do think that at least calling is prudent. It's too likely that the villain would cbet the A-broadway hands in his range.

But if I had raised and the villain shoved, I had an easy fold. I'm repping a set, a big pair or AK and the villain should be scared of these with any hand worse than mine. Whether or not that's the play, I just called.

The turn brought a 7, which with the possible exception of an 8 was the safest card in the deck for my hand vs. the villain's range. I checked and the villain made a committing bet. I thought for awhile and check-raised, because I knew a call would be terrible.

In retrospect, I don't think this villain is second barreling with 88-TT ever on this board and I think AK plays scared here as well. A fold would have been better.

2) It's really hard to identify the villains who will raise light, semibluff hard, or fire additional barrels with air at 25 NL. There's folks who will do all this stuff, but fewer than my strategy hopes for. So, I just need to back off in the following ways.

a) stop being a showdown wizard.
b) Tighten up my range in EP and facing EP raises OOP.
c) Recognize and exploit good IP floating opportunities, either for cheap bluffs or good spots to valuepwn someone.
4) Ramp up my aggression even further.

My AF is nearly a point higher than it has been in the past and I think I can take it up another point.

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.