Preflop

For a long time, I've put more emphasis on postflop study than preflop. This was with the assumption that it's much easier to get to a decent preflop game than a postflop game, and that more of the money is won/lost postflop. I think that's still basically true, but I also think that preflop play may be relatively more important now than it has been.

Aside from the obvious, which is that preflop mistakes set up even bigger postlop bad situations, a lot more money exchanges hands preflop than in the past. There's more preflop 3-betting and 4-betting in general. I'm also significantly looser and more aggressive, which changes the way people play back. And overall, there are more regs in the games I play than in the past -- not sure whether that's true overall, or mainly because I've moved up in stakes.

Even though I've paid even more attention to seat selection now than I used to, I've gone from a 19/16 guy playing on a table with 2-3 fish and 1-2 regs to a 27/22 guy on a table with 2-3 regs and 1-2 fish. I'm raising more, and playing against guys who know they should 3-bet me fairly wide. I 3-bet 7% myself now, and didn't even pay much attention to it in the past. Not all that long ago, the closest I came to a 4-bet bluff was watching it in a video. Now, if I'm not careful, I would be 4-bet-bluffing every other orbit :P.

So, the point is that it certainly pays to pay more attention to preflop. The question is whether there's a ton more for me to learn there. I don't think I know all, just saying that I know I have more to learn postflop, and I'm guessing I always will. Whereas I think preflop will be more subtle tweaks than anything else for the most part.

Whoops, it's been a while

Been playing short sessions somewhat often, but really not much time for teh pokerz in terms of sheer number of hours.  At work, we're wrapping up a 3-year product release, and while there's no longer any coding and testing to be done, there's a crapload of little details I need to attend to for packaging and documenting everything.  It's very busy, but actually very boring.  Times like this that I think how cool it would be to be doing something else.  Thankfully, we're talking about a few weeks for, like I said, a 3-year development cycle, where it's really bad. 

This is coinciding with annual review time, which I really don't look forward to.  One of the things I really like about my job is coaching the people who want to be coached on my team.  There are several of them, and I think that by and large, I do pretty well by them.  I've also learned how to not give unwanted advice to the people who are happy with the way things are and are doing a good job.  I used to assume that everyone was looking for bigger challenges and to get better at everything, but that just isn't true.  Leaving the people alone who want to be left alone, and can handle being left alone, is a surprisingly hard and valuable thing to do as a manager, in my opinion anyway.

Anyway, as much as I enjoy the whole feedback process for those who look forward to it, I hate the formality of the annual reviews.  I feel too conscientious to just blow it off with a shoddy written review, though, so I agonize over just the perfect way to communicate for the people who really take it seriously.  It's worth it for their benefit and their reaction/appreciation, but it's a pain.  I much prefer more informal conversations.  Even though I never cover new ground in the annual review any longer -- my folks know I've got an open door throughout the year, plus if something's on my mind for them, I'm not exactly shy about bringing it up -- there's something a lot different about writing things down in an official form.

So, all that activity has been keeping me busy during and after working hours, unless I steal 45 minutes here and there for cards.  Add to that my dad was in town the last couple weekends, from Maine.  We don't see him much, so when we could, we spent time with him.

For the cards that I have played, overall I've been pleased, in a qualified way.  I'm not really in a good groove, so I'm making a fair number of mistakes.  But my hand analysis seems to be quite a bit easier (assuming it is correct).  I've spot checked a few things with Jared, confirming my analysis. 

Given I'm a really low-volume player, plus not relying on poker for living expenses, I'd rather play below potential but understand the game well, compared to playing closer to potential, but having that potential be lower.  In other words, on some imaginary proficiency scale, I'd rather play at 70 with a potential to play at 100 than play at 80 with a potential to play at 85.  Or something like that.

Tom's Funeral

Got to the church about 15 minutes early, and there were only a couple rows of seats left...by the time the mass started, they'd seated people in the choir seats, and people were standing 2 or 3 rows deep in the back and around the sides.  Figured I would get choked up at some point, and it happened right away, on the way in.  The front of the program was a picture of Tom sometime fairly far into the disease (emaciated, tired, no hair), sitting on a bench in his backyard, smiling at us, two thumbs up.  As if to say, "Hey, don't worry too much about me, I'll be OK."  I'm choked up a little now, thinking about it.

The priest's parts of the service were neither here nor there for me, although Jennifer thought he gave a pretty good homily.  I thought he mainly tried to conduct the mass, but otherwise stay out of the way and let people eulogize Tom, which seemed about right.  I'm not Catholic, and not really religious in any event, so I wouldn't take as much out of that part as some other people would. 

Common themes throughout the eulogy were a wicked sense of humor, hard-headedness, and devotion to friends and family.  There were a couple snippets I found funniest.  His sister told us about the time when Tom was in preschool and had been practicing some recital songs for a few weeks. Had them down cold, but the night of the recital, he never opened his mouth.  Never one to shy away from attention, the family wondered how he could have gotten stage fright.  When they got home, his mom asked him what was wrong, and Tom opened his mouth to show the broccoli he'd been forced to eat at dinner before the recital.  I don't know, that one might not be funny to those of you who haven't battled with their kids over stuff like that.

The other one I liked was Tom's best friend, met in high school, grown up together.  He said that even though he was a couple months older than Tom, it was Tom who did a lot of the teaching.  "I learned a lot from Tom...(blah blah blah)...and I learned that it's OK to pee outdoors.  Especially if you're in the City and you've been drinking a lot.  Yeah, he taught me that one over and over."

The tear jerker of the day was not from Tom's family or friends.  It was from one of the girls he coached before he got sick, I guess on Tom's team for a few seasons.  I think she's 10 or 11.  As she read a poem she wrote for him, her voice getting more and more tremulous, you could see everyone's shoulders shaking, and hear noses blown and the occasional sob from the mourners.

We had planned to not stay, or not stay for long, at the reception.  But after the funeral, it was really nice to just sort of shoot the shit with our friends, whether remembering Tom or just about life in general.  I am struck that although it was sad, it was not depressing.  I don't think I've got the words for it.

OK, I do believe that in the last week I've used up my quota of emo posts for quite a while.  Thanks for bearing with me!