Branching Out

Lots of stuff happening at the moment. Poker has been right up there, but not playing as much as July - mainly due to me setting up my website for my home game / poker club. Progress on this front, more to follow.

When I have been playing I've been getting more interested in taking a break from (a) Hold'Em and (b) cash games. I've sat down in a few low buyin tourneys and actually had a fair bit of success. Two seconds - one in a 117 man $10 Omaha 8/b tourney, and one in a $1 PLO Rebuy. This latter one seems to be a regular event 7:30pm my time on UB - good fun. Also played my first Razz tourney and cashed in that. I think this has really refreshed the interest factor - I may focus on Omaha a bit more in coming months to broaden my game.

In other news, have to go to Melbourne for work next week - so might have an opportunity to play live at the Crown.

Wow ....

... what a day. Results wise - worst day ever, I took a real beating. Almost seven buyins gone in 90 min or less.

Now that the inital shock has faded though - I think it was a positive experience in many ways. Basically - I've been posting some great results over the last month, my BR has grown substantially. As I think I have mentioned before, table selection has helped a lot, I've definitely been the beneficiary of a lot of loose fish donating cash. But along the way, I've picked up a few bad habits, and these hit home today.

I sat down at lunch while the kids were having a rest intending to play a 90 min session. I'd been datamining for hours on 16 tables, so I immediately started pulling up these tables and reviewing the players with PAHUD. Being Sunday here it was Sat night in the US - so almost every table I looked at was a gold mine, at least one 40+ VPIP player on every one. I start looking for the high VPIPs and passive players, and put my name down on about 6 tables - I do this so that I get a seat reasonably quickly. If you only waitlist at one or two the fish might leave or be stacked before you can sit down.

So what happens here is I get two tables almost straight away, and a third soon after. First mistake right here - I've been limiting myself to two tables at the moment to try and force myself to focus on players and betting patterns etc. But on all three there were immediate obvious targets - in other words all three games looked so good I stayed in all of them.

One I focused on in particular had a guy with about $150 in front, with 82 VPIP and fairly low agression - usually a sign that someone has hit a few hands but a prime target to hand it all back. I proceed to get AA fairly early, raise it up, villian calls. Flop is T T 5 rainbow. He check calls it all the way - I get all in on the river, and he shows T4o. I suspected he had the T once he called on the turn, and here is where I feel the risk is playing these sort of opps ... he could just have easily called the whole way with a 5, or maybe a hand like 77. With an 82 VPIP calling station, I'm not sure I can get away.

Anyway he then proceds to stack me three more times - once I think I made a tilty play, I called him all in with 6d5d on the flop with an A 2d 4d board - I had 12 good outs I think, turns out I was right, he jammed on the flop with 77. Obviously a lot of outs but still probably a bad call. Other two I turn a boat only for him to river a bigger one, and AA beat again by K7, rivered trips. KK got busted by rivered trip nines also on my other table - literally at the same time as my final AA hand.

Anyway - the point of all this is not to tell my bad beat / cooler stories. As I said at the start, I learned several lessons from this session which wiped out about 20% of my BR. Most importantly, I have been getting complacent playing these loose fish - while I think its definitely +EV, I had stopped giving these guys any credit for a good hand at all - I've been viewing 80 VPIP = donk who always will go too far with nothing, which is not a given. I need to continue to try and make some reads and evaluate. The TT flop with AA is a good example - my river bet may not have been the best play here ... maybe I could not have got away, but I needed to consider what he could be playing more carefully, not just jam it in there.

I also am falling victim to staying in the game longer than I probably should, becuase I think the fish will donk off his stack back to me. Maybe in some cirumstances this is valid, but today I think I got tilty and tried to chase. I still got it in with good hands, and maybe got unlucky, but again I think I wasnt playing my best game.

Final lesson, I am worrying too much about getting my daily hands in and not concentrating on whether or not I am "switched on to play". Last month I qualified Silver in the Iron Man promotion on Full Tilt - I am noticing that I am playing to make sure I get enough hands in rather than stopping when I feel my game slipping. This I have to stop.

So overall - results wise the day from hell, but I've managed to come away from it with a very postive feel - I re-learned some good lessons that I think will stand me in very good stead for the future. I'm also really happy that I am finding it increasingly easier to focus on these positives rather than dwelling on short term results - I'll credit a lot of that to my recent reading of Alan Schoonmaker's "Your Worst Poker Enemy" - perhaps I'll post about this more soon.

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.