Success Is Determined By Effort

Had a really ordinary day today. Still sleeping on the floor at the moment - our bed and bedroom furniture still hasn't turned up ... delivery was scheduled for 4-6 weeks and now its been 14. The company promises it will be here this week - but that's another story. Anyway, woke up and just felt crap right off the bat, tired and irritable. Struggled to find focus all day at work - then compounded my mood by managing to spill 3/4 of my lunch over the kitchen at work - I overheated it in the microwave then dropped it when the steam burned my finger :p

So I'm riding home from work on the bus, trip takes about an hour. I'm almost home then the bus goes past the local school ... I look out the window and the school has a billboard out the front. Normally it has term dates or other important info on there, but today it had a single statement ... "Success is Determined By Effort". Despite my bad mood, this simple sentence really hit me. I thought thats so simple right there, yet so true and effective. Right away I felt better for some reason - and I thought this statement really also applies to poker. Long term, success is derived by the effort you put in to learning the theory, playing with discipline, and applying all the factors like the right mindset, and continually striving to approve.

It was also timely because I've had a sensational month results wise. But I'm not going to judge myself on that yardstick - a successful month is not whether I have made money (which could be short term luck on bad play) but an honest assessment of whether I put in the required effort this month. So what is my assessment for my performance in July? I give myself seven out of ten. My application has been much better this month ... I've focused on good table selection, and regular session reviews. In this sense, I think my effort was great and I'm happy with progress on this front. But there are other areas I need to improve. One is finding the right balance between study and play - I think at the moment I play too much and study too little. So I am setting this as my effort and improvement goal for August - finding the right balance between effective study and time at the tables. I'll report back at the end of the month to see whether I have put in the required effort on my goal for August.

Tilt ...so bad.

Man I am on tilt. So bad.

Just got home from a home game I was invited too. $20 SnG effectively ... not huge stakes, but hey, since I've decided to make poker semi-more than just recreation, I take any opportunity I get, and was looking forward to playing live again. I looked at the structure and it was 2000 chips with starting blinds 5-10, so I pretty much decided I would get aggressive early and see if I could pick up the early dead money. Normally I sit back in these things and wait for hands but tonight I figured I could outplay people.

Well it all went completely according to plan for the first four or five levels. I raised some pots early, took em down. Then in the second level I look down at KQo OTB, I raise it up, ends up HU with the SB, flop comes KQx two hearts, I go to valuetown all the way to the river, and the opp calls me all the way with Jh9h. Happy days.

Anyway I build up a solid chiplead and eventually it gets down to 3 players top 2 play. I then proceed to get sucked out on 5 times in a row. I've been stealing blinds plenty, play is pretty passive, when finally I get JJ OTB. Raise, call from SB. Flop is Q x x, There is 1600 in the pot already and villian has 1000 left, so I put him all in, he calls and shows Q4 o. Yep nice call of the raise there pal.

The other player, who was solid and knew what he was doing, also got sucked out on .... all in AQs called by A7o, of course the 7 flops. In the SB I call his OTB jam with Ad2d ... he shows KTo,of course the turn is the T.

Finally I get it all in on a with A6 on a rags flop, I have a read on this guy I know he hasnt hit the baord which is paired. I jam for about 75% of his stack, he calls with AJo, hasnt hit the board in any way whatsover, and I'm drawing to the 6, the turn is a Q which means the pot is chopped if the river is any card higher than a 5 (6 I take it down) .... river is a deuce.

I have never played a game live where I have felt so in control and walked away with nothing. Yep, I know this is poker but right now I'm feeling totally tilty, it sucks big time.

Table Selection

Another of the things I have been concentrating on lately is table selection. Playing casually previously, I'd read about the importance of the concept but never really practiced it. Since getting a bit more serious about improving the last couple of weeks, I've paid a lot more attention to it, and I can really see now how you are hurting your winrate if you don't practice a solid table selection strategy.

Essentially I'm looking at the tables with the highest VPIP and pot size, but more than that Im looking on those tables to find particular players I think I can exploit. Sometimes a table might have a temporary high VPIP or pot size if there has been an unusual run of cards. I'm looking for those tables where I can see one or more players with a sustained VPIP over 40, and preferably a passive aggression factor as well. Surprisingly, there have been more of these players around than I thought - I've regularly been sitting at tables with players VPIP 70 and over just giving their stacks away. Often they are sitting with 3 buyins + having hit some hands .. but almost always they give it right back again. It's been really profitable to deliberately seek out these opportunites - although it definitely increases the variance, I think its added a significant factor to my long term EV.

One other benefit - it helps you identify the other regular good players and to be aware of them. I see half a dozen or so players clearly practising the same strategy as me ... they are always on the waiting list for the same tables, and like me they leave immediately the fish goes broke or stands up from the table.

Things I Am Not Good At - Reads and Betting Patterns

Just completed an interesting session - only 70 minutes long, but full of action. Results - fantastic - but, I'm not really happy.

I ended up just over two buyins, which was my most successful 50nl 6-max session since I made the permanent move up about two weeks ago. But I got really lucky early - QQ over AA, all-in pre, flopped the Q. Also made a nice flush and got some value for it, but could have left some on the table since he seemed willing to call down with top 2 on a T 9 x 8 8 board.

But the frustrating thing is when I sit down and look back at the session, I realise just how little thought I am putting into it other than my cards. I am not good yet at putting people on hands and reading betting patterns. I'm more aware of it now and I try to keep focus on what is happening at the table. However since I've been improving my table selection, a lot of my opps have been very loose. So far, thats been great for my bottom line (although I know there will be swings!) but its making it really hard to try to pick up any patterns.

Looking at HH later I am trying to put myself in my opps shoes - but in the 15 secs I have online I'm still thinking more about my play and not about what they are thinking. I really need to improve on this - as usual I am feeling a little frustrated becuase I cant seem to find a good method to practise.

Evaluating Sessions By Decisions, Not Results

One of the things I really want to work on is doing some solid evaluation of my sessions based on the decisions I took rather than the results I had. In the last few days I've had some good sessions (a few losers too), and its tempting to come away from the keyboard feeling pleased. Hey, the BR went up didn't it? But I know this is false thinking, and whats important is did I play well, not did I have a positive money session.

It's not as easy as it seems, inevitably there is emotion involved. I think I'll know I'm making progress as a player when I can finish up a buyin and be disappointed becuase I made bad decisions and got lucky, or down two buyins but walking away feeling really pleased because I got the money in good but the cards didnt fall.

Last Thursday's home game was a great example of this. I ended up down $42 - we are playing 25nl, but I lost two big pots with the money going in AQ lost to A4, and two pair lost to a rivered flush when I got my money in on the turn and my opp made a call very much against the odds. Intellectually, I was really happy I made the right plays, but emotionally I still felt the loss.

I have to work on strenghtening that first reaction and lessening the impact of the latter.

Getting Serious About Improving

Well good news in that the renovations to my house are 98% complete. It's been a difficult time for the whole family, and coincided with work being really busy, which in a poker sense has meant I havent been able to dedicate a lot of time. Sure, I have played, but thats what is really has been, just playing, without much thought or concentration to be honest. If anything, I've used it as relaxation, a pastime to unwind from the stresses of work and the house. In retrospect, I'm lucky I didn't burn through my BR completely :)

But I didn't, and now I think I finally have a bit more time to dedicate to thinking about my game rather than just grabbing a session or two when I can. I've made some firm decisions in this direction - I really want to improve, rather than just play. I'm going to commit to it, I want to be more than just a recreational player. That's not to say I have any delusions of grandeur on turning pro, far from it. But I've managed to put in I'd guess around 100k hands of poker in the last 18 months - that number would be a little rubbery, but if I add up the various PT databases it would be close. Over that time I am a consistent, if modest winner. This gives me some confidence that with some solid application I can continue to grow my BR and aim for higher levels.

I'm working on firm goals - and I've been reading some great stuff in that area, in fact improving the mental aspect of my game completely. I'm reading The Poker Mindset by Matthew Hilger and Ian Taylor, and there is some good stuff in there I have already begun to use. I'll leave details to another post. I want to try and get more serious about discussing hands, and actually trying to apply that learning to my game. Most of all though I want to try and develop a time efficient method to study. I'm not saying minimise the time, more maximising the effiiciency of the time I have. There's no point flailing around blindly. To be honest I still see this as my greatest challenge, finding an effective method to learn and improve. But the first step is to commit, and hence why writing this here - a firm commitment to improve, grow and develop my game.

More to come - I'll be posting more often, yes I've said that before, but ...well, trust me!