Played really bad today

Everything went left. I guess it's because I haven't played very much this year, but my swing has no groove at the moment, and I'm standing up/coming out of just about every shot. It really sucks because my preshot routine seems very solid to me. For the most part, it feels like I'm getting a decent backswing, but I know a couple of them, I kind of stopped short...one problem have is when I'm trying to relax during the swing, I just get really lazy in the backswing. Anyway, most of the problems are on my downswing, as I feel myself coming out of the shot for some reason. I compensate by lunging with my right shoulder, and the shot just gets screwed. If there was a greenside bunker on the left, I was in it today (luckily, my sand game was actually pretty good).

My short game was maddeningly inconsistent. I had a bunker shot and a chip both lip out and a couple more chips burn the edge of the cup. But I also chunked a ball into the bunker trying to flop it, and left another short pitch short of the green. I did drain one clutch putt to halve a hole, but I also 3-putted two holes in a row, one of which was really costly. My reads really sucked hard. But hey, at least I got out there, which has definitely not been happening much for me lately.

And unfortunately probably won't for the near future, as basketball winds up and baseball is already in gear (coaching, not playing). This will be the first year I've formally coached baseball, having only really helped out on game day the last couple years...and mostly then just keeping things organized. It's kind of interesting to start learning about baseball fundamentals, which if I ever knew them as a kid, I forgot over the years. For one thing, as I've been researching drills for the kids, I realized that I have been throwing a baseball wrong. Not radically, but there are some things we are going to teach the kids that I didn't know myself. LOL.

I don't have much of an update for poker. I *think* I got in about 7,000 hands this month, but I've lost a bunch switching between PT2 and PT3, upgrading to PostgreSQL 8.3 (from 8.0!), and re-installing PT3. Although PT3 now shows me basically even for the month, I'm pretty sure that I'm about $200 down. The beginning of the month was pretty bad (running and some bad play), then I got it back to even, then went through a quick but massive down spike where I played OK but got coolered more than anything else...and at the same time didn't cooler anyone else myself...I think I had like 2,000 hands where the biggest profit I made on a hand was 40BB, and in the same time lost a lot of big pots, but in a reasonable way KK into AA type of hands. The last little bit of the month, I came out of that a little and kind of won as many coolers as lost, and even had AK suck out on KK once!

I have not done a great job reviewing my hands, worst that I've done in quite a while. It's mostly like 10 or 15 minutes at the end of about half my sessions. I blogged earlier in the month about not believing I study that effectively, and that had something to do with it. Also, work has gotten a whole lot busier, and my usual pattern had been to play until I had to stop in the evening, waiting until the next day to diligently review the prior night's session. That worked well when I had time the next day. I haven't worried about it too much, as I think I might have been overstudying, if that is possible. By that I mean going into study autopilot, much like you can go into autopilot at the tables.

When I did have some time, I finally got PT3 up and running, along with a couple different HUDs. I did a beta test for a new HUD called Poker Observer, and also used the AHK HUD that "comes with" PT3, meaning you can get it on the PT3 forum. Both have some good points to them, and both forced me to think about some new stats available in PT3 compared to PT2. Seeing how often someone 3-bets -- if the sample size is decent -- is pretty helpful. There were a couple times I 4-bet as a semi-bluff with a lot of confidence But for the most part, poker is still poker, and the main things I was looking for were VPIP, preflop raise, and aggression. Not that my tables don't look like Christmas trees with all the stats on them, but I just don't have enough hands for them to be completely reliable a lot of the time.

More valuable was that I looked through my own stats at the same time, using the SQL that the AHK HUD uses, and thought about what those stats were telling me about my game. The good news is that I think my stats...not just VPIP, PFR, and AF, but even some more obscure ones...paint a pretty solid picture. I have some that border on too tight for sure, and maybe a tad weak in other cases, but nothing that looks glaringly wrong. I really believe that stats are only part of the story, and in a lot of ways, not even that important...but they can at least indicate that you have some really bad problems. In other words, if you have a lot of poor stats, you are really likely to be a poor player. You can still be a poor player with good stats, but you can also be a good player. And at least my stats are good.

Looking forward, the big thing I need to change is watching videos. I have gotten very very little out of Cardrunners the last several months, and it's no one's fault but my own. I have replaced the videos with blogs (reading and writing), talking poker with some other guys, and the odd sweat here and there, so it's not like I'm ignoring the videos for no good reason -- those other things are really good, and really important. But I think that there's still some great stuff to be gleaned from the vids, and I need to start getting back into them.

It's been a while since I've had anything other than a lackluster month, results-wise. I just kind of keep treading water, breaking even playing more or less, profiting from rakeback. I need to find the best way to study, and also tie in videos and sweats, with limited time. I've reconciled myself to the fact that I just don't have as much time as most of you to devote to poker. The fact that I've reconciled myself to it is good, because I'm not putting a needless load of frustration on myself about it -- which I've done in the past. And I'm not complaining about it either because the things that take me away from poker (and golf) are mostly family related, which in the long run is as +EV as you can get. So that part is all good. But it doesn't excuse me from doing the best with what limited time I do have. I guess that part of it...the how to do the best with what you have...is where I'd really love to have a mentor/someone who has been through it and figured it out. On the flip side, I'm not that far away from figuring it out, and perhaps I'll be able to kind of guide someone else later :).

Man...I need to figure out how to do more frequent shorter posts. All right guys, thanks for reading. Good luck, talk to you later.