Suck on it, November

Worst results in terms of money lost.  Fewest number of hands.  So, yeah, it was not exactly a fun month.  I didn't play great, but my mistakes were not much worse than normal, just ran bad.  While frustrating in the short term, I'd clearly rather be losing due to bad luck than bad play.  That's why we have a bankroll strategy, and I'm still in decent shape, mindset-wise.

Big picture, things are great.  Had a nice break for a few days for the extended weekend.  Turkey day is really busy and tiring for us.  Sunday afternoon was spent getting up lights, trimming trees, and cleaning gutters.  But in between those bookends was just a bunch of lazing around with the family which was really nice.  For all the folks who celebrate it, hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.

Another entry in the Senseless Tragedy department

The custodian at my kids' school was murdered a couple days ago, in front of his 13-year-old daughter, on their  way home from getting ice cream.  They were walking their dogs, and one of the dogs sniffed a stranger's leg.  That ultimately led to the murder.  I don't know any more details than what's in the local news:  http://www.ktvu.com/news/21724877/detail.html

By all accounts he was an awesome guy.  All the kids liked him.  My wife, who spends a lot of time at the school, says he always helped people with a variety of stuff, even if it meant he had to go out of his way.

Reaction to downswinging

I don't react as poorly as I used to, but I don't handle downswings correctly.  Things have been going pretty poorly this month...my red sessions outweigh my green sessions by a lot...both in number and severity.  Yesterday featured a negative 61-point something ptbb/100 run over a few hundred hands, capped by a cute play that I thought worked out well, but then got punished for being cute...18/14 guy opens from MP, major LAG 3-bets him, I flat with AA on the button hoping for action, raiser calls.  MP is half stacked, LAG is full stacked.  MP opens on a KQx two tone flop, LAG calls, I raise enough to put MP in, he calls, LAG folds.  MP flips over 77!  Of course, he dinks a 7 on the turn :(.

And I wasn't even surprised he hit.  Like I said, things have not been going well.

But what I do is try to play through it, rather than at the bare minimum sticking to my study routine.  So, I've been reviewing only about 25% of my hands, and have done zero reading, vids, or anything else.  And that's just not a recipe for success.  I'm playing OK for the most part, but I'm not good enough to neglect study for too long, especially trying to move up in stakes somewhat aggressively.

I should be using downswings as an excuse to rededicate myself to study.

1. There's more chance you're playing bad in a downswing than in an upswing...so even though I'm pretty sure I'm playing OK, I could be wrong there.  Better to go overboard with study than neglect it.
2. My mindset/confidence and image is worse when losing, so no point in maximizing the volume.  You should push the volume when you're at your sharpest and your image and control of the table is at its peak.

I will almost surely have my worst month ever in terms of money, although maybe not in terms of BBs.  But that's OK.  The month is just an arbitrary chunk of hands.

Hopefully, I'll follow through and get some study done.  I want to reread Exploiting Regulars and also get some other stuff on my reading list checked off.  There are  a couple vids I have in my "to watch" queue as well.  And hopefully will also revive some video or HH swaps, which in addition to being helpful in terms of focusing thought, may also reveal some stuff I'm doing poorly, but don't realize.

New digs

This week I moved my office across the street.  New location is in a  new building, finished about a month ago.  Nice to have everything brand new, and most of the kinks have been worked out.  Layout is really open, lots of cubes, glass walls on offices.  I like it, but it will probably cut down some of my poker study, unfortunately.  Even without the office change, I've been busy at work.  Even though it has not been the most interesting, it's fairly tolerable.

I've noticed a work/poker correlation.  As my poker results suffer, my enjoyment at work goes up, at least relatively speaking.  I don't think I'm good enough at poker for it to make financial sense to play for a living, even if my wife would go for it.  I figured that I would want to think my expectation is close to 2x my current salary, just from a financial standpoint.  That would allow for the following:

• Increased (family) medical coverage
• Increased risk
• Variable cash flow
• Ability to not be as good as I think I am, and still have some cushion :).

If I were to make the switch right now and just start playing out of my current poker roll, I'd be OK because I have at least 6 months of savings outside my roll.  But there are other, non-financial factors.  Namely, it would scare the sh*t out of my wife (whereas it would merely make me a little nervous).  But mostly, for me, I think that it would be tough to get back in at the same seniority level I've worked hard to attain, if I bailed for a while.

I may be "forced" someday to play professionally -- my field and company while doing well right now, is not growing, at least in the U.S.  I'm not in any imminent danger that I know of, but I also know several people who felt the same way shortly before they were laid off, so you never know.  During this current economic climate, it's been nice to know that if the worst did happen with my job and I couldn't find another, I'd have a backup plan with something between a prayer and full financial stability.

That is, if people would stop seemingly constantly going runner-runner on me to take pots!

Opportunity missed, opportunity gained

Rarity for me yesterday, I got to play two sessions, and one of them was pretty long, by my standards.  I play so many less hands than most of you guys (assuming I know who "you" are) that all my streaks/patterns/whatever are LOL sample size anyway.  But I was just shy of 900 hands across the two sessions.  And just about everything was going well in terms of finding the right seats, getting good situations to play, etc.  The only thing that didn't connect was villains' cards.  Which is pretty much the case for all sessions this month (again, LOL sample size).  I've yet to book a win, and in fact I'm losing over 21 PTBB/100 over that small sample.

You saw one of the hands last post, but there haven't been any other big pots where I didn't get most of the money in ahead or with 8-out-plus draws postflop.  The only other 200bb pot where the money went in with me behind I actually went runner-runner to win (flopped TP > turned trips > river top boat to beat his flopped bottom set -- like when does that ever happen to us?).

Just tons of medium size pots where villains seem to have better hands than I do, mixed in with a few suckouts.  Really, there's not a lot you can do when you get involved with looser players, waiting to make a hand and value bet them, except you never make a hand.  Make some c-bets on good boards, even some good barrel spots, but you have to be careful not to bluff those guys where they are likely to have a piece.  Good for aggression, not so good for bottom line.

In days past, several losing sessions would have a bigger ripple effect on my future sessions than I hope it is having now.  I feel like I am making basically solid plays (we'll see, shipped a few hands for confirmation off to my coach).  So, I'm treating this as an opportunity to work on my emotional game, and to keep making the plays that I believe are right, even when they're not working out.  In that way, there's a silver lining, as long as my bankroll continues to be able to withstand some time off the run-good train.

Not as bad as I thought

Looked over the last few months of hands, and it looks like I don't get as married to my flopped TP hands as I thought.  Most of the time I ended up calling down, I had improved by the river, or either the turn or river bet was pretty small.  Interestingly, those times I improved and called down, I got show some pretty redic bluffs, but not sure whether those were from otherwise (by stats) solid players.

So, here's the hand that really bugged me and made me feel like a calling station because I knew when he fired that 3rd barrel he most likely had AK.  My question to you all is what factors would lead you to make a call here, short of actually seeing him triple barrel bluff as the preflop 3-bettor in the past?  If you'd use stats, what's the stat threshold for you between calling and folding (or raising earlier in the hand)?  If it's an observed read, what sort of read/note would you be looking for?

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/355120
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $492.20
CO: $933.25
Hero (BTN): $400.00
SB: $453.00
BB: $80.00
UTG: $110.00

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BTN with Qd Ad
3 folds, Hero raises to $10, SB raises to $34, 1 fold, Hero calls $24

Flop: ($72.00) Ac 8h 8d (2 players)
SB bets $44, Hero calls $44

Turn: ($160.00) 6s (2 players)
SB bets $112, Hero calls $112

River: ($384.00) 4h (2 players)
SB bets $263 all in, Hero calls $210 all in

Too Call Happy

Played a short session and was not too happy with it.  Biggest hand was calling down AQ on an ace high flop.  I opened on the button, somewhat nitty TAG (5% 3-bet, 7% facing a steal) 3-bets, and I defend.  The thing is when he fires that 3rd barrel, I really need to fold.  He's not wild enough for me to stack off bluff catching, and he's probably not value betting thin enough to be value cutting himself there.

Need to run a filter where I either call 3 streets or call AI on any street with top pair against reasonable players.  I bet it won't be good.  I'll also have to look at how often I fold in those spots, because I think we probably forget a lot of the folds we make when facing heat...seems like a standard play, and also those pots don't stick in your mind because the overall pot size is smaller.