Great Fold Ed

More on my training regimen

2010-11-09T16:33:00.000-08:00

Last time, I outlined the different workouts that are part of the Madcow program I've been on. I'll talk a bit more about the setup, as well as the progression. There are a number of set/rep schemes you can use for lifting, depending on your goals (or the goals of the program). This program, for the most part, has you ramping up to a single set at the heaviest weight. This is best for maximal strength, but not as good for bulk and endurance. One of the changes I'm making for myself attempts to address this a little bit, but first, I want to give the standard setup and progression.

To repeat from the previous post, there are 3 core lifts per day, the rest being assistance, or supplementary, work. I'm going to start off talking about the core lifts. The core lifts are the same on days A and C (Monday and Friday, if your schedule is Monday/Wednesday/Friday).

Let's start with day A. That scheme is simplest for the core exercises, simply 5 sets, and each set is 5 reps. You calculate the weight starting from the heaviest set (let's say it's 100 pounds). Each set leading up to the heaviest set should be about 12.5% lighter. In other words, if the 5th set is 100, set 4 would be 87.5, set 3 would be 75, set 2 would be 62.5, and set 1 would be 50. This does not have to be precise, but the ramp should be pretty close to linear. The smaller the gaps, the more volume you'll do in terms of total pounds moved, but you run a higher risk of stalling. Usually, you're not going to be able to lift 87.5 pounds or some weird number, so I just round it. Some people drop to the next even 5 pound increment (assuming they have 2.5 pound plates). Some people will actually microload, which as the name implies, means figuring out a way to get a very small increment of weight on the bar. This is ideal. It's also a pain, especially in a commercial gym, so I don't bother.

That's it for day A. On day C (Friday for me), the first 4 sets are the same as day A, for each core exercise. [I made a mistake on this last post, I said you only did 3 sets of 5, but you do 4 sets of 5.] If you were successful on day A for the 5th set, then on day C, you increase the weight by 2.5% for the 5th set. But, you only do 3 reps to compensate for that. To finish off each core exercise on day C, you actually do a 6th set for 8 reps, using the same weight you used for set 3.

If you successfully complete the heaviest set of 3 on day C, then the next time you lift (day A scheme), you bump up the weight for the 5th set. It's interesting to note that you should always be able to lift 102.5% of a 5-rep weight for only 3 reps. That is, if you can lift 200 pounds for 5 reps, it's theoretically easier to lift 205 pounds for 3 reps. That does seem to be true in my experience, but it did surprise me.

So, that's how you move up the weights on day A and day C. Day B (Wednesday) stands by itself. First, for squats, the idea is that it's really a recovery day; you are not trying to push it. So, your first 3 sets are the same as the first 3 sets on day A. Essentially a couple pretty light warmups, then a little heavier warmup. Then you do a 4th set with the same weight as the 3rd set. You don't push yourself with squats at all on day B.

For the other two, if you complete all reps, you bump the weight by 2.5%. And that takes care of the core lifts. There's no real guidance given for the assistance lifts, other than they shouldn't get in the way. The point of this program is to get your squat, bench, row, and deadlift increased. The assistance stuff should assist in that, but it's not a big deal to the program if they don't increase.

I still haven't gotten around to the changes that I've made to the program for me, but this post is already tl;dr.

My training regimen

2010-11-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

For the last several weeks, I've been following a slightly modified version of a training program commonly referred to as Madcow 5x5. That program itself is a modification of a program created by a weightlifting coach (and competitor) named Bill Starr. The focus of this program -- like all of Starr's programs that I'm aware of -- is strength, attained by doing a full body workout 3 times a week. Starr's programs concentrate mainly on a few different compound free weight exercises. A compound exercise is one that requires multiple joints and muscles, as opposed to isolation exercises. Those, as the name implies, focus more on a single joint/muscle.

As you go through different phases of weight training, both compound and isolation exercises have their place. But for beginners, and probably for intermediates as well, programs should be dominated by compound exercises. And whether you're a beginner or intermediate lifter has nothing to do with how long you've been lifting. It has to do with how much you can lift, relative to your body weight. Until you can bench press more than you weigh, and until you can do a good-technique squat with 150% of your body weight, you should consider yourself a beginner and focus on compound exercises. If I remember, I'll go more into why in a future post.

So anyway, I'm in the midst of this slightly modified Madcow 5x5 program. I'm adding onto it a little bit, mostly. This, by the way, is expressly against the advice of the program's creator, Madcow. He specifically says to not fuck with the program. But, like me, probably a lot of people do. The biggest thing that people do wrong is that they use the wrong techniques on the lifts. That's probably closely followed by trying to do too much. Doing too much volume can lead to overtraining. Doing too many isolation exercises is unproductive at best, but can also get in the way of interfering with your progress on the core exercises.

The program is designed, like I said, to be run 3 days a week. It's supposed to go:
Day 1 -workout A
Day 2 - off
Day 3 - workout B
Day 4 - off
Day 5 - workout C
Day 6 - off
Day 7 - off

Workout A consists of the following:
Squats: 5x5 (5 sets, 5 reps per set)
Bench Press: 5x5
Barbell Row: 5x5
Back Extensions: 3x8-12
Situps: 3 sets

Workout B:
Squats: 4x5
Military press OR Incline bench press: 4x5
Deadlift: 4x5
Situps: 3 sets

Workout C:
Squats: 3x5, 1x3, 1x8
Bench Press: 3x5, 1x3, 1x8
Barbell Row: 3x5, 1x3, 1x8
Dips: 3x8
Biceps: 3 sets
Triceps: 3 sets

For each workout, the first 3 exercises are the core exercises. Those are the ones that are supposed to progress. I'll talk about the progression next time. The other exercises after the first 3 are assistance exercises, designed to help the primary exercises progress. That's important. It means, for one thing, it doesn't matter whether or not you're getting better in the assistance exercises.

In addition to progression, I'll talk about the changes I made to the program for myself, and why. I might even embarrass myself and tell you how much I'm lifting with all these exercises. They're not great, but the important thing is that I'm working hard and progressively lifting heavier.

What should i talk about?

2010-10-12T15:59:00.000-07:00

The last couple nights, I've been thinking about getting re-organized. Somewhat standard cycle for me where I cruise along with most items neatly tied up and things in control. Then for whatever reason, stuff starts to pile up or get ignored. Sometimes it's due to being extra busy, sometimes it's due to being extra lazy. Recently, I've been busier than normal, and also spending a lot of time reading about strength training and nutrition. Any specific questions or things you'd like me to write about, let me know.

I'll probably transition this blog into more of that, as I said in my last post, just because I no longer have anything interesting to say about poker. OK, I probably rarely had that much interesting to say about poker before, but now, it would be all about bad beats and coolers, and that's no fun. As you know, for quite a while now, my volume had been drastically reduced. But for a few months, I was doing well results wise anyway, albeit at lower stakes than before. The last few months have been pretty bad results wise, and I honestly haven't done a critical evaluation of my play to determine the ratio of bad luck to bad play. I'm sure there is both. I did go through a cursory review of my best sessions and worst sessions over the last few months. For better or worse, my play in them is about the same. But there are a ton of coolers (set over set, top 2 vs. set, JJ-KK vs. overpairs), beats, and lost flips in the losing sessions. Fair enough. But, there are very few times when I'm coolering other regs in my winning sessions, and even in my winning sessions, I'm not coming from behind or winning many flips. Just avoiding having it happen to me. Making pretty good value bets in both winning and losing sessions. I do notice that I am bet/folding a lot more than I would expect. I suspect I'm just running into hands, but as I haven't been watching videos or participating in any sort of forums and discussions, I guess it's possible that people are raising a lot thinner or bluff-raising more than they used to.

Bottom line is that poker seems like a chore, and the last several months, I've basically been playing just enough to maintain Iron Man status on Full Tilt. I think this month, I'm just going to let it lapse. I'm not winning enough (nor do I expect I should be) to make it worthwhile if poker is just a chore. At this point, it may be better to just let it go, and then when the urge to play again crops up, play. Or maybe get the urge to dive back into the real work behind poker. That will have to come with some time being available to do the hard work off the tables, though.

My fitness journey, on the other hand, is still going well. I'm closing in on 50 pounds of weight lost this year, I think a lot of it from fat loss. I've made some pretty sizable strength gains over the last 6 or so months, meaning that I'm hopefully preserving whatever muscle I had. In the last couple days, I changed up my weightlifting program to a somewhat popular strength-oriented one. It's known as Madcow, but it's really an adaptation of a program created by Bill Starr, who if you're into strength training you probably know about. I'll cover the details of the program as well as some tweaks I made to it for myself in an upcoming post.

Really, the bigger success that I've had has been with my diet. There's actually room for improvement there, too, but just like I did with poker, I'm balancing my diet with the wants/needs of my family life. I'm pretty dedicated with my diet, but I will still have a desert with the family after dinner, eat pretty calorie dense meals (but smaller portions) with them, etc. I'm hanging, virtually, with some guys that are incredibly disciplined, and I'm learning a lot from them and what they do. If you want to see your abs and/or you want to bulk up and show some muscle, you can't get there just by hitting the gym.

Leave me some comments about any particular fitness/nutrition topic you're curious about or you think would make a decent post. Baz left some other good blogs (professionals) in comments from my last post, too.

Oh hai

2010-08-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

Didn't realize it's been so long, but not surprising because I'm barely playing poker these days. As in that last post a few months ago, just enough to keep Iron Man alive at Full Tilt, which basically keeps me from getting totally rusty. I haven't been studying at all, but I intend to at least spend a few hours a week doing so for a little while. Probably more along the lines of participating in some forums (private and public) than doing detailed hand reviews from my own sessions, or watching vids. Reviewing your own hands and watching videos are both great exercises, but I think that they require a more substantial time commitment to get the most out of them. Whereas going through HH discussions other people post gives you a quick smattering of topics. Granted, little effort put in results in little benefit out, but that's all I'm willing to make time for these days. I want to get back to the point where I really enjoy poker, and quite honestly even without putting a ton of time into the game, it still sometimes feels like a bit of a chore. I'm willing to do the chore just because I've already put a lot of work in, but that doesn't mean I'll do so indefinitely.

I've been about a breakeven player over the last few months, or I guess I should say just a rakeback grinder ;). That's a step up from where I was at the tail end of being really serious about it, though, so that's good. I have no idea whether I'm running poorly or not from an EV standpoint, and I kind of like that. I am running pretty poorly in terms of being put in cooler spots, plus lots of times getting in good to great situations and losing. But I may be making up for more of that than I realize. One area I'm running poorly in is getting paid big when I do hit big hands in various situations, but that could be due to me playing too transparently as well.

Other than that, life continues to be good. Think I mentioned somewhere that I was going on a get back in shape jag, and I've had great results. About 40 pounds lighter than the beginning of the year, but at the same time training hard, putting up new PRs in the gym and in general exercising a lot more. The PRs are starting from a pretty low bar, but it's still nice to make progress. I may start blogging more about my nutrition and weightlifting research and progress, although I also keep another journal dedicated to that stuff. Not sure. If there's any interest (if there's anyone still following), let me know, and that will give me the excuse to blog about that stuff.

Most of the time I spent playing and studying poker has now transferred over to time spent weight training and reviewing proper form and programming. A lot more to it than I realized before. And even more than poker, your decisions affect your results. Talk about having to be accountable! Wish I'd discovered some of this stuff ages ago, but never too late to improve, no matter what the endeavor.

Hope this post finds everyone well and crushing.

Does anyone win now?

2010-05-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

All you guys seem to be in downswings to varying degrees. I'm down a ton for the last several months and feel like no lead is safe. I am (and it sounds like a lot of you are too) the guy on the table who supports the poor players who make bad decisions and get paid off (only to predictably dump their profits to someone else on the table).

To be fair/honest, I am putting nowhere near as much effort into analyzing my game, reviewing my sessions, posting hands, watching vids, etc. as I used to. Or what is needed. So, I definitely don't feel I should be killing the games or anything. But I've still managed to put myself in some great situations, to no avail. Situations where I'm getting the money in against guys who routinely hit their outs, even when it looks like I'm coolering their made hands (or maybe their treating their underpairs as a draws?).

And I can tell from the reading that I've been doing that I'm not alone. Granted, for a number of reasons, we don't spend as much time writing about the good luck we have, and it's not as cathartic to chat about our suckouts as to lament about theirs. So, I don't think the sky is falling or the sites are rigged. But man, I wish it would turn around for us already. Based on the play I see, the games are plenty good enough to beat. Maybe not crush, but through 400NL there are still a good number of weak players. And now that I've dropped down and have started to play some 100NL, I'm reminded how much worse the regs are there than at 400NL overall.

Bottom line, I'm not enjoying poker all that much these days. That means I'm not as eager to work at it, and with a lot of other things clamoring for my attention, it means I don't work at it too much. Which means I don't play as well. Which means my results are relatively worse. Which means I don't enjoy it as much. And you can see where the cycle goes. That said, I continue to play minimal volume, so that I don't go completely out of touch. And I still do a minimal amount of work off the table, so that it doesn't disappear completely. I've gotten over hating the game while running bad. I just don't love it. But I think that I will again at some point. So for now, I'm playing at a stake and in a mode where I can kind of tread water until I'm ready to proceed with more enthusiasm and effort. And that'll have to do for the time being.

Holy crap has it been that long

2010-05-11T09:44:00.000-07:00

Wow, I knew it's been a while since I updated here, but I didn't think that almost two months had gotten by. Well, this is the busiest time of the year for me...work usually has something going on the first half of the year, got a little league team to coach (more time spent on coaching baseball than coaching soccer and basketball combined!), kids birthdays are in the spring, and we usually go away over their school's spring break.

So, been doing all of that. Vacation was to Palm Desert again this year, staying with the in-laws. My sister-in-law and her whole family was down there (3 nieces, 1 of whom has a husband and a newborn baby, another 1 whose boyfriend came with her), so it was a packed house. One of the ways I'm lucky is that I really like my wife's family, so other than the family gatherings getting in the way of something important like golf or poker (lol), they're fun. Played 4 rounds of golf that week, only shot well one of them. Golf is as temperamental as poker. Went from mid 80's to mid 70's to low 90's in 3 days. Low 90's twice, actually. FML.

Actually, my golf game has pretty much sucked for about a year. Not playing, not practicing, not producing. Sounds like another pastime I know. With my little league team, I'm very encouraging to the kids when they make a mistake or strike out, as long as they're paying attention and trying. The message all of us coaches give them is that if they're trying their best, it should all be good, win or lose. It's not like they're getting paid. Wish I could follow my own damn advice on the golf course! I still do a crap job letting myself enjoy playing when I don't play as well as I would like, and there's no reason for it.

That's it for right now. Have to come back later to poker (meh) and some other stuff (good). I'll try to do that within the next couple months.

Thanks for the comments...

2010-03-21T17:30:00.001-07:00

...on my last post. I think that I will probably at least start messing around some with other games at small stakes. Had been thinking about doing that anyway after reviewing some videos, maybe going through a series or something. But, maybe even before that, I'll just jump in. Gotta figure I can learn a little on the fly, and if I get crushed, well, like you said, it's not like it's going to hurt my roll a ton.

Things in baseball yesterday went about as bad as my poker has been going. My son's team was one run away from having the game called by mercy rule (10 run deficit). We've got a bye during the week and another game on next Saturday, so we will be having 4 or 5 practices in between, I believe. But really, it will come down to 2 things. Stop swinging at terrible pitches and throw more strikes.

LOL, that's what I get

2010-03-18T20:45:00.001-07:00

Been playing so infrequently, that I tried to squeeze in a quick session waiting for my son to finish his homework. After 282 hands where I ran at -69 PTBB/100, I guess it's time to stop. Nothing spewy, but did have some bad luck. I felt totally not in control of any table, which may be because I haven't been playing, or maybe was just running into all kinds of stuff.

Other than little poker (and I had been doing fine up until this session), life is good. No time, though, seems permanent right now. Probably will be until little league is over. Work has more going on too these days, which is good, I guess. And I've been excellent about getting to the gym (again, to the detriment of poker playing).

I may just go on an extended break, I'm not sure. I think that with so little time to focus on study, my game is in no shape for my regular stakes. Even if I went down to stakes I could get away with not studying, I would hate to not be playing my best.

Does anyone even still read this thing?

Rainout

2010-03-02T12:51:00.001-08:00

On my annual ski/board trip with my dad...we've been doing this for a long time. He moved across the country several years ago, and we don't see each other too much, so I've been enjoying them even more. I don't get up to the snow much besides this trip, either. Wife doesn't care for riding, kids are so far not clamoring for it. Given the expense and not wanting to hear them whine about how cold it is or how far they have to carry their crap from the parking lot, I'm not pushing it.

Today, it's a mix of snow and rain in town, probably wet snow up on the hill, but the cams are showing pretty white-out conditions, so we bagged it. My dad really does not like to ski in low visibility...he's legally blind in one eye, so when the shadows disappear, he's got extremely little depth perception. So, we're chilling in the motel a bit. And I'm OK with it, even though I was hoping to get in 5 days of riding. First time back on the snowboard in 5 or 6 years, too (went back to skiing for a bit).

The interwebz keep going down here, so I'm not sure if I'll attempt any hands this week. Not that I've been playing much anyway. What little I have played has been OK. I was playing Rush poker for a bit, but I got kind of bored with it. Too bad, as it would have suited my schedule a lot easier. I ran/played in it fine (or, compared to recent results, spectacular, actually). But, it started to feel really formulaic.

Other than that, life is good. Coaching up the ying-yang, as basketball and baseball overlap. Basketball ends next week, though. My New Year's resolutions of eat better/work out more have been going pretty well. Been sacrificing poker study time for gym time during the work day. I believe in February, Mon - Fri (gym is at work), I only missed one or two days. Plus, my workouts have gotten longer and harder.

Obv will stunt my growth poker-wise, but I have got, got, got to get back in shape...not only for myself, but as a role model for my kids. My wife and I are toughening up their diets and putting limits on their TV and computer/Wii time. However, I'd like them to not see an overweight dad who's shoving (a lot) of garbage into his piehole while telling them they can't. And, I've remembered that my ability to pay attention and overall outlook on not just poker, but all activities is better when I feel like I'm on the right path fitness-wise.

Rush

2010-01-25T17:19:00.000-08:00

Have played a bit of Rush on FT. If I had more time, I would probably pass, at least while I could still find some decent tables. Which is funny, because I think that one of the things I do relatively poorly is adjust...both to player types overall and to table history. I also don't find that I take great notes. I think those things go together. So, theoretically, Rush should be right up my alley. But I want to get better at those weaknesses in my game, and playing Rush makes it harder to do (although I am trying to get some basic notes down on players).

I'll probably continue playing some, though, because my time is severely limited. Sometimes I'll only have 30-45 minutes to play. There's not much point to even boot up some conventional tables and search for a good few seats. But with Rush, I can get in some hands. I've mostly been playing 100 NL, and it seems pretty easy, but I'm not playing regular 100 NL to draw any conclusions. I started off pretty brutally in terms of BBs at 50 and 100 (until I realized you could join the same game more than once). Dollar-wise was no big deal. Then things swung up, and I think that I ran and played better. I coolered and got coolered, but I found that whoever was ahead when the money went in tended to stay ahead....super nice for me for a change.

In my regular session on Friday night, though, it was LOL Fridays. I had one fun stretch within 5 minutes where 3 hands didn't hold...once on the flop and twice on the turn. Their draws were decent, so no big deal I guess. But in that same time, I couldn't pull ahead with massive draws...one I had an open-ended straight flush draw and 2 overs to a middle PP that I think he turned into a bluff, but he was pretty bad, so maybe he just way overplayed. It's kind of like being in a game with a bad ref...fine if your calls are going to suck, but could you at least make them the same way against both guys? Meh.

I think that I'm still playing OK, but have not shipped off enough hands the last couple weeks for review from folks. I've just been extra busy shepherding a few things at work. That dovetails to a question from the comments recently (thanks, by the way, always nice to see a comment once in a while :) ). The question was about how the balance between wife/family and poker has evolved. Well, thanks to the last few month's poor results, the money certainly hasn't been more meaningful! But even as it got to be more meaningful, that is when the results were good, nothing much has changed. It's still not enough for her to frown upon the time away from her and the family that poker could take. I still play the odd session at "prime" time, but for the most part, it's when no one's around/awake but me. I think if I pushed it, I could put more time into it at home, but it would be at the expense of something I value even more, so I don't.

Happy New Year :)

2010-01-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

Little late on this, obviously. Had a slow couple weeks over the holidays, but came back to work facing a sh*tstorm of short term deadlines. Not sure how much you know (and anyway you care less) about software development, but there are some very different phases you go through in the life of building particular features. The beginning part is all about figuring out what it's supposed to do and how it should look. Then you get into a bunch of other crap. Well, I'm at the beginning of a couple big projects, and being the lead, not only do I have to come up with and then communicate my own thoughts, but I also have to bring in a bunch of other people. And a bunch of other leads are doing the same thing with their projects, so sometimes it's a real PITA to get everyone's feedback early. But I've learned the hard way that if you don't get it early, you're going to get it later, and cause yourself a bunch more headaches.

So, I'm in the midst of some crazy meeting-after-meeting-after-meeting crap. Actually, it's my favorite part of the whole software development process, so it's pretty interesting. But it never seems to go smooth enough. Not only that, but I got asked to head up a task force to make sure that a lot of different teams are doing things the right way in terms of all this early definition. So, not only am I doing my own stuff, I'm guiding other teams in theirs. It's a good thing being recognized/asked to lead all this, but it does make for more work.

Oh, yeah, kids' basketball seasons kicked off last Saturday. Coaching both of their teams, so write off a lot of evenings. Well, not write off, because again I enjoy it, and my kids both still think it's cool I'm their coach. But between work and basketball, not much time for anything else.

That said, in the spirit of taking stock of oneself at the beginning of the year, I'm making some resolutions both directly and indirectly related to poker. Indirectly:

Get more sleep. Yeah, this will even further reduce my hand volume...it's already next to nothing. But, I'd been waking up too tired, and I think it was affecting my whole life, not just poker. Especially struggling with some run-bad, I need as much help as I can get on the mental/emotional front.
Get myself in shape. Over the last couple years especially, I've completely failed with good food discipline. Too many sweets and too much of everything in general. Exercise has been better than that, but not consistent enough, and probably not intense enough. I'm making a concerted effort to improve both areas. Again, I think those things will help with a more stable and better attitude at the tables.

Honestly, because they affect so much more than just poker, those are the things I'm really trying to get right. However, as far as poker habits go, I plan to add the following:

More training video review. I really slacked off here the last couple months. From Oct - Dec, I think I watched 2 or 3 vids intensely (notes, pause before action/explanation, etc.), and another couple casually. I don't think I'm at the point where I need to go overboard, but if nothing else, it's a different way to focus your thinking.

I will still review most sessions (unrealistic to say I'll do all, even though I'd like to do that), and dig out some trouble hands for review. I still plan to continue periodic coaching lessons, even though I'm pretty light on hand volume. And really excited about recently connecting with Ian and reconnecting with Mark for some regular review. Both have been awesome about accommodating my wacky schedule, so thanks very much to both of you for that.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-28T12:51:00.000-08:00

Hope those of you who celebrate Christmas had a good one. I had 4 days off from just about everything...no work, no poker, hardly turned on a computer. Just chilled with the family for the most part. We've never done big gifts...lots of family to buy for and everyone likes to buy for everyone, so it's mostly pretty small, plus Jennifer and I set a small limit on what we get for each other. So ended up with a couple nice golf shirts and golf glove (can never have too many), plus a few other little things.

I had a decent pair of headphones for my iPhone that I think dropped out of my coat pocket at my daughter's basketball practice (she grabbed my jacket from the bleachers and tossed it to me). Didn't notice they were missing until I got home. Went back to the gym, and they were nowhere to be found, and no one turned them in since. I was a little pissed because they were only a couple weeks old and cost about $100. Yesterday, I took the family to lunch and then to see Avatar. Total for that was about $150, which kind of put the headphones into perspective.

Good news on the poker front: I wasn't running as bad as it's possible to run in November. Bad news: December proved to me that it could be worse. I've won 2 sessions the entire month, one of those for like a $20 profit. I've had so many hands go against me that I've started to get surprised when I get the money in with a larger pocket pair than my opponents and my hand holds. It's a very bad, dangerous mindset. Some worse play is starting to creep in, and a few times I've felt like I'm kind of on the edge of a major spewfest. Hopefully the time off has helped and the next session is calmer emotionally. You can't do anything about the cards that fall, but you can control your emotions and focus on making correct decisions.

Went to a wedding Saturday for one of my wife's college roommates. I didn't know that many people which was too bad, but it was still a nice time. Was talking with the bride's brother, who lives in the town next to where I grew up. He starts rattling off some of his buddies, and I knew every one of them. Small world.

Oh, about Avatar. Think it's definitely worth catching that one in the theater. While I don't think it was good as the hype I've been hearing, I'm still glad I saw it on the big screen in 3-D.

Not much going on

2009-12-13T10:54:00.001-08:00

Haven't blogged in a while because I've been playing decent but running like crap, and that doesn't make for anything I really wanted to write about. That pattern has continued this month. I've tightened up a bit postflop, and my Went to Showdown has dropped to 22%. But my Won $ at Showdown is only at 31%. Not going to show good results when you win less than a third of the time at showdown, no matter what the rest of your game is doing.

The rest of my stats look OK, except my aggression on the river is pretty low. But I've looked through some of the river calls I've made, and I'm actually doing OK with them, both decision and results wise. It's the stuff before the river that is dragging me down.

I've been getting money in pretty good, or else in cooler situations. I've probably passed up a few spots where I think I could be basically flipping with some dead money in the pot. It's not so much a matter of avoiding the variance even with a small positive EV, but more when I'm not running well, I don't want to rely on my best hand/villain reading judgment...at the edges, it may be off. And all that has been going well as far as I can see from what villains are showing down. But I've lost to more 2-outers and 3-outers than I "should," while not hitting my own draws.

On the flip side of that is that I seem to keep running into villains with hands, or in some cases perhaps decent players taking advantage of my aggression in spots where I can't stand the heat they bring. I'm getting a chance to make some decent folds. One problem in the pasts was thinking that people were more out of line than they were, so even if I'm bet/folding too much, I doubt it's a lot too much, and I'm happy that I have the discipline to be able to lay down some hands in those spots rather than making some stack-committing hero calls. To know that I can do that, even while being frustrated, is a silver lining is this rough stretch.

Suck on it, November

2009-11-30T22:46:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-26T09:32:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-22T15:41:00.001-08:00

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.

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.
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

2009-11-20T15:34:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-06T17:01:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-05T11:17:00.001-08:00

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

2009-11-04T23:16:00.001-08:00

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.

More on Exploiting Regulars

2009-10-30T11:48:00.001-07:00

OK, I still have not finished going through the exam questions. Partly, I am really taking my time and writing some fairly detailed answers before checking Tri's. Partly because I've continued to stay quite busy with work and family, and poker across the board has had to take a bit of a backseat.

However, I wanted to get a review up because if I understand correctly, the price of the book is going to double in the next few days when pre-order is done. Bottom line, if you play 200NL or higher, I would recommend you get the book.

The first reason I would draw the line there is simply what the book costs in relation to a BI and also the alternative you would get if you were to purchase coaching. But that's not the main reason.

If you are playing 100NL or lower, you should just avoid good regs, which I think you can do pretty easily if you either datamine or play in the games regularly yourself. There are not enough really good regs to warrant staying at a table with them without at least a couple of other soft spots. And if you are in such a spot, you should avoid confrontations with the good reg and focus on the better spots. Even when you play well against a good reg, you're going to be better off going against the other spots at the table.

Beyond that, even a good, thinking reg will probably not play or adjust in a way that will make the book exactly applicable. In fact, I think it's borderline at 1/2, where even most of the better regs still don't value bet wide enough or make tough folds. But it does get closer at 1/2, and even closer at 2/4. There's probably a reason why all the examples are from a 3/6 game :). That said, beginning at 1/2, I think there are times when you will have 2 or 3 regs on a table with one, maybe two, soft spots. And one of those regs are bound to be decent. Also, the games start to feature a little more aggression (some misplaced, but still aggression). The context of the book starts to hit home there, some of the time.

There are a couple spots in the book where I think you could just follow a straightforward outline and make a unique play or two, but for the most part, you shouldn't get this book expecting a quick read and magic results. It will take some work to get the most out of it, and the most valuable parts of the book for me (and there were several) covered the sorts of things to evaluate before deciding on a given play.

I don't agree 100% with everything Tri says, but there's nothing that I wildly disagree with. And even though it's a short book, there were multiple things that I hadn't considered in the light that Tri presented them before. I did provide him several suggestions, some of which were addressed in an updated draft he sent, some of which were not. I am about to provide him a few more. I don't feel it's fair to comment on them because this is not a published draft, but if anyone would like me to comment on them after the book is in general publication, let me know (assuming I can get an update from Tri to see whether my feedback was addressed). Feedback was more about flow of the book, formatting of the exam, and some extra bits I thought he could pretty easily add to round out some discussion -- it was not over anything I considered bad, though.

Exploiting Regulars, so far

2009-10-19T17:21:00.001-07:00

I'm going through a preview copy of an upcoming e-book called Exploiting Regulars by Tri Nguyen, I reviewed his PLO book in the past, which I thought would be an awesome starting point to complement some PLO videos if/when I start getting into PLO. But I couldn't be sure, not having played PLO.

Going through this NL workbook so far, though, is different because I can relate to a lot of what Tri covers. I haven't even finished the meat of the book yet, which is a series of workbook problems, but I'm quite enjoying it. Some of the concepts seem different from videos I've watched and posts I've read.

But what's happening is that the book, with its focus on play against regs, is illustrating specific applications of some concepts. Regs in general have certain tendencies, which while more profitable than the tendencies of various fish in the population, can nevertheless be exploited. The book is doing a great job illustrating that I don't do a good enough job adjusting to regs.

When I think about adjusting to regs, at a very high level, I would say that it boils down to value betting a little less thin and bluffing a little bit more. Sounds obvious, right? Maybe. But the "why" of it, and the associated problems, help drive that home in some specific ways. Ways that I know will increase my bottom line when I can get them applied correctly.

There are some things I'm not sure that I agree with, or would like to see more detail behind Tri's thought process. I'll see if he'll respond to my questions after I finish everything. After I get his thoughts, I'll write a more detailed and actual review, rather than this sort of non-review. But I'm sure my impression of the book will be quite favorable. It's already made me sit back and think pretty deeply about some standard spots.

I haven't read Let There Be Range, which is Tri's most well-known book, but assuming it's as good as the pre-release of Exploiting Regulars, I'm missing out on good stuff. I just can't justify to myself that high of a price tag, with the volume I get in. But based on Exploiting Regulars, I may reverse that decision. If you've read it, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, especially if you've also read Exploiting Regulars.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho....

2009-10-16T10:53:00.001-07:00

Warning: This is tl;dr, with no poker content.

Work's been pretty meh the last few months. I put in well over 40 hours/week, but I spread it out over a lot more time on the computer, mixing work and non-work tasks. Not just poker, although that's easily the biggest non-work item. I'm on the computer a ton, probably 12 hours/day during the week and several hours/weekend. Not all work of course, but I definitely put in the hours and get my sh*t done.

But clearly, the lack of excitement is coming through. My boss and his boss have both told me. As part of our annual review process, my boss gathered a bunch of feedback from the team I manage and my peers. Others have noticed the same lack of motivation.

Some of the biggest examples they cited were actually due to me not demonstrating more clearly what I've completed. That said, compared to myself a few years ago, it's a fair observation. I used to pretty much attack every problem. Now, I get stuff done, but do very little more than the bare minimum required. I've gotten good enough at my job that the minimum is enough to get my projects complete in better shape than most of my peers (confirmed by my boss). Which is all well and good if I want to just keep doing what I am doing right now. I don't think I do, but I'm not as sure as I was a few years ago. Back then, I had a plan to become a high-level executive, and worked pretty hard at filling the gaps in my resume to get there.

I've got the hard tools to do that now, basically smarts and experience. But I lack some of the softer skills, or more precisely the motivation to hone and use those skills. See lack of demonstration/tooting my own horn, above. And some of the stuff I'm good at and really should get done, I find really boring, and I let them slip. This is the other part of negative perception, and also why it's a fair perception. Bottom line, I'm good at what I do now, have the recognized potential to do more, but am acting (and feeling) somewhat disengaged.

So, I totally understand that if a position would come up at the next level, why I wouldn't be at the top of the list for it. I mean, I might, but I would get why I wouldn't be there. Like poker, a good chunk of being at the top of the list is in my control. If I choose to let things slip, and even for things that don't slip, give the impression that I'm not terribly motivated to dot all the I's and cross all the T's, it's my own damn fault if someone else gets the nod.

That said, even if I were completely on top of my game, which I was for a time, there needs to be some opportunity. Going back to a poker parallel, life in the corporate world is a mix of work and luck, obviously in different contexts. Luck in the corporate world includes being in the right place at the right time. The work is about maximizing the chances that you will be, and that you'll be ready when the opportunity comes up. Although the work does entitle you to the reward in a literal sense (a little different than poker), it does not mean you will actually realize any reward. But there's a cost to continuously keeping yourself ready, of maximizing your chances. A cost, and an opportunity cost.

In an environment where very, very few chances are likely to come up, you need to evaluate whether the cost is worth it. On the one hand, the stakes are higher because you get so few chances. Each chance better count. On the other hand (and this was me), even if you're doing everything you can, that chance may never come. So, I've gone from complete readiness to mostly complacency.

I allowed myself to slip into complacency; I take accountability. But it has opened other opportunities. Without most every waking hour going into work, I've spent more time with my family, coached my kids' sports, studied poker fairly seriously, and other stuff, not to mention getting a decent night's sleep on a regular basis. So I don't feel all woe-is-me, at least not too much ;). I'm just feeling more introspective than usual, trying to figure out whether I've struck the right balance, or where I need to tweak things, especially work-wise.

When you don't hit your set

2009-10-02T12:08:00.001-07:00

Full stacks at $1/$2. A TAG with solid stats (let's say 24/19/3.5, if you want) raises to $7 UTG. You only have a stats read on him. You flat with 88 from the BTN, and the blinds fold. He bets $11 - $13 into $17. Does your flop play (and tentative plan for the hand) change for the following flops? And what is the play/plan?

Flop 1: K93 rainbow.
Flop 2: K73 rainbow.

Bonus question: Same basic preflop scenario, except we've opened from UTG with 88, and the TAG flat-called from the BTN. What's your plan for the two different flops?

We probably each have a default way we play these situations, which might make for an interesting discussion. I'm more interested in whether you all change your plan based on that subtle difference in board texture.

Preflop

2009-09-30T09:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-21T17:57:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-04T11:13:00.001-07:00

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!

Bleah

2009-08-28T21:57:00.001-07:00

I really need to learn how to fold to the Friday night donkeys. I have not yet decided whether I played or ran worse tonight. If you saw how bad I ran and I can't decide whether it was worse than my play...well, let's just say that I could have played tons better. The silver lining is that my hand reading was excellent. I just need to trust it!

I tried to salvage something via chat...but even that didn't go well :P.

Soccer opening day is tomorrow, and at least I'll be well rested for it.

Bye Tom

2009-08-27T16:30:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine passed away in the wee hours this morning, after a nearly 3-year battle with leukemia. That was about 2.75 years longer than he was expected to live, given the type of leukemia he had and that the bone marrow he got from his brother did not cure him. He was not a close friend (although he was to a few of my good friends, and they will be taking this a lot harder than I), but enough that I had a chance to be inspired with the grace and toughness he and his family fought his illness.

I last saw him a couple months ago, and even though he was clearly not doing well, he not only didn't want to talk about it, but he was trying to crack jokes and keep the conversation on anything but him. I was at our mutual friend's house, who lives next door to Tom. They also worked in the same field. Our friend was bitching about some pretty mundane office stuff -- like I'm sure we've all done, whether an actual office or the bad beat/run bad stories -- and Tom seemed to truly empathize with our friend about all this little crap.

I'm sure I'll have a little better perspective my next poker session or two. I'll close with Tom's admonishment to all of us in his emails and journal entries: "Get busy living."

Using Notes

2009-08-21T09:37:00.001-07:00

Played a pretty standard hand recently where I checked K2 in the BB and flopped top and bottom pair on a K72 2-tone flop. SB folds, I bet just under pot, limper folds, second limper calls. He's a 17/14 multitabler. Turn and river bricked off, and both of those streets went I bet, he called, and he flips over 22 for flopped bottom set. Standard play for me, and I took a note of his play.

On review, I started to think about how that note would affect my play against him. I came to the basic conclusion that it wouldn't change much when I have initiative. He's still tight (folds to steals 80%, folds to c-bets 72%), so I'm not going to miss any chances to steal or c-bet against him, regardless of that note. So, if there was a change in how I play against him, it would have to be when he has the lead. I was spending a little time trying to come up with hypothetical situations where that note would change my line against him, and I failed to find a satisfying one (and rather than keep at it, I figured I would write this).

In general, I started thinking about how often a note I've taken has changed the way I've played a hand, especially when I've got lots of hands on someone. I go through good and lazy note-taking phases, but even when I have notes on someone, I'm not sure that I actually use them very well. I fall back to stats most of the time when I adjust my play from a readless line.

I think this is quite bad. While it's nice that I understand how to use stats to adjust my lines, a consistent theme among top tier players is that a note-based read is far more important than stats. But it doesn't do any good to take a note, even a great note, if you can't use it. If I can't pretty easily come up with a situation where I play it one way without the note and another way with the note, then I'm not doing it right. I'm not talking about the super stupid things people do, rather exploiting villains' more subtle and frequent leaks.

Life stuff

2009-08-10T09:23:00.001-07:00

Went into San Francisco on Saturday to visit with my mom and hash out some stuff that we've needed to talk about for a while. Took the train, and she was going to pick me up, then we were going to go have lunch. After waiting for 10 or 15 minutes, my wife called to say that my mom had been in an accident with a bicyclist. Everyone was OK, but they were headed to a bike shop about a 10 minute walk from where I was. On the way there, I was talking with my stepfather, who said the cyclist was a bike messenger. He didn't know the exact details of what was going on, but he said that the bike messenger said he was going to sue my mom, and that he had $1800 rims on his bike and wanted a bunch of cash for them, blah blah blah. I guess he shut up about that when my mom suggested she call the police and they could take an accident report :).

From what my mom said, it's not clear to me who was at fault. She was partway into an intersection making a right turn, but was waiting for a pedestrian to get onto the sidewalk. It sounds like she then completed her turn just as the light was going from yellow to red, and hit the guy just as she was going from a standstill (which is why he didn't get hurt at all). The guy had run his light, but my mom had hit him. It's probably the guy's fault, but it was $175 out the door for the bike to be fixed (so much for $1800 rims, lol), and my mom just paid it and they signed something that said nothing further was required, so she just wants to be done with it.

Yesterday, on my way to play golf, my wife called to let me know that in the middle of the night, my niece went into labor at 4:30 AM, or thereabout. A little over 22 hours later, she gave birth to her daughter. So, I'm now a great-uncle, crap!

I would try to rationalize to you guys that my sister-in-law is older than I am, and that she had her daughter young, and in turn that her daughter (my niece) is having kids early, but what's the point? I'm a bunch older than most of you guys anyway, so who cares?

Anyway, golf is coming around a little bit, finally. 2nd round in a row I was in single digits over par (7 over, yesterday), and put several swings in a row together that felt good, although there were definitely some real clunkers in there, too.

We went to the beach after that, which we don't do that often, even though it only takes about an hour. Well, on a nice day like yesterday, it usually takes a bit longer than that because of traffic, but still. Usually it's too cold for me to want to get in the water, but it was over 80, so even though the Pacific this far north is pretty chilly, I got in with the kids and body surfed with them. I went out a bit far to try getting some bigger waves -- I can't go too far without freaking out my wife and daughter -- and for a bit was probably 20 or so yards away from a group of pelicans fishing, and I even saw a couple seals, which was pretty cool. Then it occurred to me that I don't really know how aggressive seals are when they're fishing, or if there were any seal pups nearby. But it didn't matter, because the whole procession were following the fish and moved away pretty quickly.

Still low volume

2009-08-07T14:11:00.001-07:00

Work and life continue to get in the way, and my volume has been low, even for my standards. I am lucky to have been doing well, as I have been doing the bare minimum of studying/thinking about the game. That said, I do feel like I'm in a decently solid mindset when I do play and study, so the hard work over the months leading up to this plateau have been helpful. I should be able to at least start cranking up the study volume again soon.

Wife and kids went to see my nephew compete in a livestock show at the county fair, plus go to the fair, plus hang out with her brother and his family, plus my in-laws. So, I thought I would play a couple sessions after work. Bailed on the 2nd session, though because the first one was a combination of lots of coolers and several poor hands by me, including an ultra-spewy multi-street bluff followed up by a pretty bad river call. The latter wasn't for a huge amount, but felt like it was a bad sign to continue. I was running bad, plus fairly close to each other, I made a too-aggressive, and a too-passive play, so there was no reason to think I was going to be sharp in the second session, even though I was not that tired or anything. I won't even say it was a good quit, since to me it was pretty obvious.

So, instead, I spent the rest of the night clearing some old shows from the DVR and researching some replacement IEMs for my iPhone. Man, what an exciting night! Hope all is going well with everyone.

Amusement Park

2009-07-27T09:50:00.001-07:00

Yesterday started off pretty good...we got 3 free tickets to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom thanks to the kids' school, plus I played some live poker Friday, did well, and so had plenty of cash for my ticket and whatever we wanted to do at the park. The one ride my son really wanted to do was a roller coaster called Kong, and he evidently is exactly 52 inches tall...dead even with the ruler. So, we were all thrilled he could go (whole family likes roller coasters, but none more than my son, and obviously this was the first time he could ride this one).

From there, the day got worse. As we were walking to the next coaster, Jennifer stopped in her tracks and said, "Crap! I don't have my phone!" Up until 2 weeks ago, for the past 4 years or so, she'd used the same crappy free flip phone, and never had any issues. But she finally caved in to iPhone envy after watching me use mine all the time, so I bought her one.

Somewhere on one of the loops or corkscrews of Kong, I guess her new phone slipped out of her pocket and launched itself into the air. To make a long story short, we stuck around for 90 minutes after the park closed until they brought the phone back to us at the front gate. It looked unscathed, but the display shattered inside. So much for a cheapish day at the park; best we can tell, to fix it via Apple will be at least $250.

Speaking of expensive days at the park, Jennifer and I were marveling at how many people who just looked like money might be tight for them (obviously, knowing nothing about them, just the way things looked) spent a crapload of cash at the park. I mean, even when times are tough, you need to have some fun once in a while, but it seems to me that an amusement park can be one of the most expensive ways to have a fun day with the family.

Falling behind again

2009-07-20T16:56:00.001-07:00

Several months ago, a bunch of stuff required my attention at the same time, both in and out of work. I finally broke down and started using a to-do list again, and even started listening to the Getting Things Done audiobook (finishing it is still on my to-do list, lol). One of the premises behind organizing your tasks effectively, beyond completing them in the best order for you, is that you can actually stop thinking about them. I was a bit skeptical, but I did notice that I didn't dwell on them as much when I finally got them into an organized system that I was checking daily. And I did get myself into better shape in terms of things looming over me.

I would say I'm still in great shape for a bunch of stuff, but on the poker front, I really have gotten lazy about using my time effectively. I'm not sure how related it is, but I'm also not thinking about the game very well at the moment. Away from the tables, I'm spending too much time refreshing the software forum in 2p2 to see what's up with developments dealing with the new FT client. And, I'm over-tweaking all the graphics stuff myself. It's bad for a couple main reasons:

I'm doing a crap job focusing on strategy. I have not completed watching a video this month. I have not read any strategy posts or made any progress in Small Stakes NLHE in the entire month. Hell, I recorded my last lesson, which was on 7/10, and it took me over a week to get it converted so I could re-watch it, and I'm still not done with it. (Brian, I still intend to review your latest video and see if I agree with the comments being posted, but I must get through my own recording first!)
I'm playing sessions without being as mentally prepared as I'd like. When I'm spending my time in good poker discussions or doing quality poker learning away from the table, I feel like I come to the table with a lot more focus. That's missing. At least, it seems to me that I'm playing like an absolute douche. On said lesson, in the first 40 minutes, I asked some questions and took a line that I'd be embarrassed to have a newb hear/see. In fact, I had to stop the video just now, which is why I'm writing this. A couple times in recent sessions, I've found myself taking actions without knowing why, and not in spots where it should happen.

The FT Update Blues

2009-07-14T13:51:00.001-07:00

I have been completely non-productive as far as poker is concerned, for a week or so. When Full Tilt pushed out their update, I found out just how dependent on 3rd party programs I am :P. While it didn't take all that long to find an acceptable table mod, it did take me a bit to figure out how to apply it. And I was playing with a pretty crappy deck for a bit, when I was playing. By now, I actually think I have a better looking setup than before (I'll try to remember to screen shot it).

But for several days, I was back to only using the tools that the poker client provides in order to play, and I sucked at that! I thought it would be inconvenient to play without my AHK scripts, but it was more than that. Even playing 3-4 tables, I was timing out all over the place for a bit. When I stopped timing out, I was still paying so much attention to the time bank that I missed some pretty big details about the hands, and also kind of went on auto-pilot. I had a lesson with Jared last Friday that was pretty laughable in terms of what I was missing.

Add to that, I had not been able to pull myself away from some of the trainwreck threads in the Zoo, plus refreshing every 30 minutes in the software forum to read about the latest updates. So, I didn't play at all until yesterday, and even that was just on 2 tables of 50NL to test out the first betas of Poker Shortcuts and SpadeEye-post update. Poker Shortcuts worked some, but it was doing all kinds of crazy stuff with calculating bets and what-not. The good news is that I made over 2 BI in like 150 hands :). Way to run hot when playing lower.

Tonight, I will disable some of the functions in Poker Shortcuts, but it still has the ability to click on the time bank and let me fold with the keyboard, both of which will put me back in my comfort zone. Seat selection may be a bit of a different story. SpadeEye went a lot slower. It also reported finding a lot less players than I'm used to. Finally, table scoring doesn't work yet. I'd devised a pretty intricate table scoring system that I think worked better than just looking at average VPIP or # of buddies, or whatever. Still, it's better than what I had right after the update, and I'm looking forward to getting back into playing.

I think I'll also re-watch my last lesson and Josh's reviews before playing a ton more. Hopefully between finding some sort of software equilibrium and doing some more in-depth thinking, I'll quickly get back to where I was mentally just before the update.

Week off when I didn't want it

2009-06-25T17:49:00.001-07:00

Thanks to a family vacation (which was a lot of fun), I took a week off from poker, for the most part -- see exceptions below. Things had been going pretty well pokerwise before the break, so it wasn't the right time for one, but what can you do?

Played a short session after a week, and definitely noticed the break, just in terms of anticipating what players would do, and how quickly I was making decisions. I definitely didn't feel sharp. I'll have to review the session later, but I think I ended up playing OK with a couple notable exceptions that were pretty spewy, although only one bad hand for a decent sized pot. I think the big hand I played the worst on, I got lucky to be AI with the nut flush draw against a guy who had a flush draw with a gutter to a straight flush, but he ended up hitting his gutter. He had 8 outs against me on the flop when all the money went in (well, not quite, because I had some re-draws, I guess), so it's not like a horrible beat or anything. There were some other hands where I just ran bad, plus didn't get value from good hands, so all in all a bitch-slap of a welcome back.

The only pokering on vacation was at Harvey's in Lake Tahoe, and as usual, live poker results in some pretty LOL plays. I was completely card-dead, so those plays didn't involve me...I'm just saying. I think that I VPIP'ed maybe 6 hands in 2 hours, it was seriously pathetic (and boring) how cold I was. The table was actually filled with supposed regulars -- everyone but myself and two other guys (the second guy took the first guy's seat) knew the floor and dealer, and were chatting with each other.

I stayed at the table because they didn't seem that good, it was the only 3/5 table -- the others were 2/2/3, and the other non-regular besides me played every hand, usually as the preflop raiser. He was pretty funny. Young guy who I probably caught a contact high from, 3 seats away. Came in on his skateboard, lost 2 of his BI (not sure how much) pretty quick, then just pulverized the table, especially the guy just to his right. For several hands in a row, he agonized every time the guy on his right bet, then ended up either raising or calling, no matter what kind of piece he had of the board, and won every hand.

I won exactly 3 hands, 2 on the flop, 1 on the turn, but actually profited in the 2-hour session, thanks to a ton of preflop callers on 2 of those hands. At least one of the cocktail waitresses was pretty good looking.

Not much going on

2009-06-10T09:46:00.001-07:00

Usually when I'm not blogging much, one of two things is going on: I'm not playing and am busy with other stuff, or things are going well poker-wise. Lately, both have been true, I guess, but mostly busy. June will end up a low-volume month, as I'm busy with a lot of family stuff.

On the poker side, I'm reasonably happy with how things are going. I still see spots where I'm making mistakes, and there is plenty of work to do. But a few of the things I've been focusing on improving have improved. Mostly, getting back to focusing on opponents' ranges, especially when betting. The second thing is making sure to make bigger value bets, especially against looser opponents.

One thing I have been blowing chunks on is detailed session reviews, calling out trouble hands for Jared. I've played very few hands, but it's also been a while since I shipped him any hands. We do have a lesson coming up, and I may take some of that lesson time to let him pick through PT and see what he sees. After today, I should be able to get back to getting through my hands/sessions.

Inconsistent betting patterns

2009-05-28T18:26:00.001-07:00

Although I haven't been finding a ton of time for poker, I've been pretty diligent reviewing the sessions that I so play. I've noticed that I still have a tendency to under-size my bets, especially on the later streets. Betting too little can be just as bad as calling too loosely; either way, your bottom line suffers. The insidious part about betting too little is that it's a little more hidden. Your stats don't get affected enough to notice, so you really have to dig through hands to figure out that you bet too little, or have someone review you.

The strange thing is that as I'm reviewing sessions, most of the time, my bet sizes seem pretty good, but then for no apparent reason, I'll have some small bets scattered in the session. I'm trying to figure out what makes me inconsistent, as well as what just makes me bet small in the first place.

My gut reaction is that I'm playing with a little too much fear. I'm rolled well and table select well enough to feel like I have an edge when I sit, so it's not those things that would be scaring me. It might be that I'm afraid to make a big mistake. Not that I like it, but I don't really mind terribly getting stacked when it's a clear cooler or beat, but I hate the thought that I could be making a big mistake. I want to be good enough to not make big mistakes.

For instance, I played a hand recently where I ended up stacking off KK. I raised UTG and TAG calls in SB. Flop was Q22dd that he c/c. Turn was an offsuit 9 that he c/r. He shoved river which was an offsuit 4.

Of course he could have a boat, but if he's at all capable of overplaying AQ or bluffing JdTd, then it's going to be close one way or the other. The feeling I had when he showed QQ was quite disproportionate to the mistake I made.

Hopefully, writing about it will reinforce my focus on making more confident bets and realizing more value.

Stars not aligned

2009-05-15T09:35:00.001-07:00

I was probably too tired to play last night, but I went ahead and did it because I just have not been able to get the hands in. For me, it's one of the perils of being a very part-time player: when the opportunity presents itself to play, I'm probably going to play, even if I know it will be hard to play an A game. Kind of like when it's raining out and I go play golf anyway, or skiing in a blizzard, I guess. I just don't have enough time where taking a pass is better than playing under sub-optimal conditions. I know from a strictly monetary standpoint, I'd be better off to play way lower, or instead of playing to watch a video or analyze a regular, or something. But since I still actually enjoy playing, I get in the game when my edge, if it's there at all, is small. I don't make that choice all the time, but at least now when I do, it's with awareness.

As my VPIP and PFR have climbed from the 19/16 to the 25/21 range, I notice that I'm getting more action, although I'm not sure how well I'm reacting to it. A TAG 3-bet my CO open from the SB with K5s, which I definitely wouldn't put in a TAG's range..but if he sees I'm stealing very wide, I suppose it's reasonable. I also got a lot of action from another TAG-bordering-on-nit who had 99 on a K85 flop in a raised pot who obviously didn't give me credit for having a king.

Unfortunately, neither of those went my way, although I made the 2nd hand significantly worse than it should have been on the river when he spiked and led. I also lost 4 AIPF flips, but those hands kind of play themselves, I just got unlucky with them. It wasn't enough to stem the tide, but on the one big pot I won, I did have another TAG willing to get AIPF with me for 160bb when he had AK (my AA held).

The only other big hand that I lost and felt really bad about was when a TAG who had position on me but had not really tangled with me yet 3-bet my HJ open from CO. He only had a 5% 3-bet over a large sample, but from a stats and winrate view was very solid. I just called the 3-bet with JJ, looking for a non A/K flop, which I got, something like 964 two-tone. The thing is that unless shown otherwise, I should not think he is going to play for stacks with a worse hand than mine, but instead I way-overplayed my hand checkraising him AI on a blank turn. There's no way he calls with a worse hand.

The big problem for me being tired is that the flips, coolers, and beats I had taken earlier in the session get to me way more than usual. If I'm not tired, those things don't bug me nearly as much as they used to. And I'm sure that I was steaming nice and hot before and during that hand. But that hand also kind of bitch-slapped me back to the moment, and I bore down, dropped a table, and played OK from then on out, for the most part, even when again some bad luck came my way. After I convinced myself that I'd kind of righted my emotional ship, I shut it down, and watched an episode of 24 before calling it a night. But that allowed me to take a couple silver linings from an otherwise brutal session:

I was able to control myself eventually, even under what were for me challenging conditions. I think that's an important life-skill, not just limited to poker. The goal is to not even have the one big slip-up, but like I said, I was looking for silver linings ;).
Results-wise, after throwing out the flips and beats, I did quite well, which is nice to see as I would like to be able to continue applying increased aggression. I have a long way to go there, but I don't want to over-adjust myself into spewville, a place I've certainly visited enough already.

Slow going

2009-05-13T13:12:00.001-07:00

Life-wise things are going great. Poker, it's been going fine, except I'm just getting in so few hands. In the last few weeks, in addition to work and little league which have been busy, I've had: wife's birthday, son's birthday, niece's birthday, anniversary, Mother's Day, school fundraiser (helping and attending), which have been great, but also have pretty much consumed nights and weekends.

In the few hands I have played, I've really been focusing on turn aggression, to the point that I'm maybe overdoing it (Turn AF is 4.50 in my last few thousand hands, which is significantly higher than it had been). I'm not too worried about it because it's short term, and in reviewing hands, I'm not really spewing. The mistakes I'm making, when I'm making them, are betting with the likely best hand but when I should probably be checking for pot control and extraction, and also making some overly tight folds. Neither of those are good, but they won't get me in a ton of trouble. And over that stretch, I'm getting to showdown 26% of the time, so it's not like I'm going overboard blowing people off hands or folding myself.

I did finally have a chance to play a decent session yesterday, about 850 hands, and I could tell that I was a bit rusty for sessions of any length, as my focus was not too good. Had really good seats on a few tables or I probably would/should have quit, but instead, I just sort of backed down from confrontations with TAGs after a couple poor plays (where I slipped back into some passive play) and focused on the weaker players. I had to really bear down to concentrate the last 30 minutes of the session, but I feel I did a decent job. I'm going to take a detailed look later to confirm that, though.

Bizarro

2009-04-28T13:55:00.001-07:00

Poker is really strange for me in that sometimes I do exactly the opposite I should do, but in both directions. Like sometimes on the turn with a made hand, I'll make a totally weak/tight fold, yet other times with a made hand I'll make a totally spewy call or raise all in. I'm picking the turn specifically because I'm trying to do a lot of thinking about my turn play. Most of the hands I "get wrong" when I send them to Jared are mostly misplayed on the turn. In a recent video swap with Josh, he also found some instances of pretty poor turn play. Not saying I have the other streets down, but I do think that the turn is where I make my biggest mistakes. But the whole idea of making opposite mistakes in both directions applies throughout my poker game.

For me, that makes it significantly harder to attack my own leaks. Dunno if that's the case for everyone. So what I do is keep iterating on a number of different things, continue probably making the same sorts of mistakes but to lesser and lesser degrees, until eventually I come out of a bad habit, at least for a while. I keep thinking/hoping there's a more efficient way to improve -- especially with limited time and energy to dedicate to my game -- but I've yet to find it. The good news is that I think I do continue to improve, and I continue to turn a profit. I know that it's actually a good thing that poker is, if not hard, at least not simple. But I keep thinking I'm just missing a magic bullet or two that would accelerate improvement.

A couple related things I really suck at relative to you guys: player-specific adjustments, and bet/raise interpretation. Unless I'm really focused, and it's not even so good then, I tend to play against everyone as if I'm playing against a TAG, or more accurately against myself. I see what they do, and I think what it would mean if I did it, and go from there. I know that's wrong, believe me, but even being aware of it, I find myself struggling to put villains' actions in the context of the player type they are, and to exploit specific weaknesses beyond the simplest ones (like isolating the loose passives, c-betting as a bluff against the guys who fold to c-bet a lot, etc.). And even against TAGs, I totally mis-interpret their bets and raises sometimes. I guess that's why I find myself making bizarro decisions sometimes, actually.

In case this post comes off as being too whiny, I will say that I believe there are a lot more things going right with my game than are going wrong with it. Just that there are always weak points no matter how good you are, and that's what I'm thinking about in terms of the weak points in my game.

Oh (and this is whiny :P ), I continue to run like shit in lessons! I dropped over a BI in not that many hands, and that was even with winning a few medium pots. But lost a BI on a flip, and even more frustrating was a fairly big fish who kept redistributing my money...he called any piece down against everyone, but against my good second and top pair hands, he had just a barely better hand like four times. So, he would get my money, then call down ace high and bottom pairs to the rest of the table. Grrr. That said, I picked a couple things up from the lesson that were new and should help, plus reinforced some of the good things I'm doing.

Back, almost ready for some action

2009-04-21T12:59:00.001-07:00

Vacation was great, took Mark's advice and pretty much disconnected (truth be told, it was due a lot to not having ready internet access :) ). Pretty much only looked through blog posts from my phone, and did a little bit of cleanup from raw notes I've taken. Only bad part is that I got seriously sick for a couple days. Somehow, I stay in pretty good health for someone who gets too little sleep, too much food, and has a couple kids in the petri dishes otherwise known as elementary school. It's been a few years since I had anything stronger than a mild fever, cold, or sore throat. But something sure knocked me out last week for a couple days -- I'll spare you the details, suffice to say they are not pretty. No fever and pretty much ate the same stuff as everyone else at the in-laws' house. Best guess everyone had is that I got very dehydrated. Anyway, it's over and done with, and I feel fine now.

I did play a short session on the weekend when we got back. I was worried about not being sharp after a week with no play and little/no study, but it went well. I played OK and ran well, and only played 2-4 tables at a time. I also started reviewing a review of my play from before I left, which I'll finish up in the next day or two, then hopefully be back in full swing. I do have to get unburied at work, plus it's my son's birthday this week, which we have some stuff lined up for. So, in reality, it may be next week before I hit the ground running for real.

I see that while I was gone, the latest What Would Joe Tall Do video came up, and Jared was the guest coach. I don't know exactly what my score was, but I know I missed some, based on the answer key Joe posted. That's kind of discouraging...I've been taking lessons with Jared long enough that I should have aced his episode :(.

Little bit of a lull

2009-04-10T10:47:00.001-07:00

Not too much time for poker this last week or next week. I'm on vacation next week which means I had a shitload of stuff to wrap up at work this week, plus my wife's birthday was yesterday, so we went out last night (and are going out tonight).

I did force myself to play one session this week long enough to get some hands in for a video review, and the timing was horrible...answering homework questions, phone calls, played tired, etc. I knew going into the session it was not ideal, and that actually helped me play a little better (more focused than I would have been). I've actually been pretty disciplined about not doing that, but really wanted to get a video recorded, given it was then or wait at least a week and a half. I probably made more mistakes than normal, but nothing horrible (I don't think...we'll see what the video review uncovers :P). And I ran goot, so results were good.

Other than that, it's been 30 minutes here, 40 minutes there for the whole month so far, and not even many of those. I've got a whopping 2,000 hands in for the month...less than some of you guys do in a day. I will probably be able to play when we get back tonight, because it takes me all of 10 minutes to pack for vacation, but Jennifer takes a couple hours, plus she has some other stuff she has to get done before we leave tomorrow AM. So, it will just be a matter of what state I'm in when we get home.

We're going to my in-laws in Palm Desert (basically Palm Springs). They have a condo there, where they spend the winter. Kids are out of school next week, so we're heading down to spend Easter with them, plus I think two of my nieces. I'm lucky that I like my in-laws, so a visit with them is pretty easy. Plus, I'm going to play at least 3 rounds of golf on some great courses, for a bonus.

The beat is that they have a dial-up ISP, and the computer is located in their bedroom anyway, so the only way for me to get online is to hope that one of their neighbors has an open WiFi connection. Anyway, I won't have that much time unless everyone goes to sleep early. Got a few vids loaded up on my iPhone, so I'll have something to review in any event, and can at least get emails and what-not.

Buh-bye, March, don't let the door hit you on the way out

2009-03-31T23:52:00.001-07:00

Started off continuing a hot streak where I felt I was playing well, running well, and really enjoying poker. But most of the month was a train wreck, results-wise. My play has been so-so. For the most part not atrocious, but certainly not inspired. I guess my B or B- game. Until today, I actually hadn't played much because too many other things were going on, and I was really tired. From that perspective, my discipline was really good.

The layoff didn't do me any good today, though, as I punted another 2+ BI, to cap off the month. Overall, it was a negative 9 BI month, but the downswing I'm on is more like 17 BI (can't see the exact #s right now). A lot of beats and coolers in big pots, some repeated mistakes in medium pots. Mostly getting too passive (or maybe fancy). So, I get one less street of value with winners and pay off one extra street with losers a lot of the time.

Still fairly well rolled for 200NL if I decide to stay, although I do need to pull out of the slump soon or I'll be tempting BR fate. But as usual for me, my confidence at the tables is a bit shot, even if upon review that's not warranted. I guess as long as I can find decent seats, my attitude going in to the session is good, I avoid any overt tilt at the tables, and my post-session reviews don't reveal anything hideous, I'll keep plugging away at 200NL.

Josh was talking about some video swaps. I'd also mentioned it to Brian, but never took action. I'd like to start some video sweats with the Ninjas (and ex-Ninja) periodically. Video sweats work better for me than live sweats because I have more time to do them. I think they work well in small groups, too, because you can pause the action to delve into a point, in a way that you cannot do in a live session.

I'll be out of town/away from the computer for the week after Easter (visiting the in-laws in Palm Springs, playing some golf on great courses, and more fun). But other than that, I should have some time during the day, as we just hit a huge project milestone at work, and things should be pretty quiet for 3-4 weeks until we ramp up again. Not that it will translate into more poker, thanks to little league season! Anyway, let me know if you're interested in some video sweats.

OK, bring on April!

New PLO Book

2009-03-30T09:58:00.001-07:00

I received an early draft of an upcoming PLO e-book written by Tri "Slow Habit" Nguyen. He's already written an e-book on NLHE with cts which I heard great things about, but which is currently out of my price range. So, even though I've never played PLO or even watched a video on it, I was pretty interested in reading through the book.

It struck me as I was reading it that I used to read an awful lot of poker books. I've got books that I've read scattered throughout the house and garage, and stopped counting my old poker books at 19, but there were probably a few more. And actually, just about all of them were pretty good (never bought a poker book before discovering 2+2, so between their decent quality and book forum, I was able to do decent research before buying). I've got several on theory/math, a bunch on limit hold'em, a few on NL, and a few on other games, but none on PLO. I know there are some PLO books out there, but not many, and since using Cardrunners and other video sites, I stopped reading as much anyway.

So, I don't know how to compare this one to other PLO material, but I can pretty well compare it to other poker literature in general, IMO. The most immediate thing is that there is very little preamble, which is great. I don't need another book to review pot odds and other basic ideas. That means that this is not a book someone who saw a few episodes of High Stakes Poker and wants to get a poker book should get. But that's fine, since I doubt that's Tri's target audience anyway.

Anyway, he jumps right into preflop play. Although there are some hand charts, he actually spends most of the preflop section talking about a couple things that are way more important than what hands to play: why you should play (and avoid) certain types of hands; and how equity analysis in PLO works (somewhat differently than NL). Although the preflop section deals with some postflop content, obviously the meat of the book comes after preflop. Like any other game with decent stack sizes, postflop is where the money is made and lost in PLO.

I like the way Tri organized the postflop section. He didn't just go from preflop to flop to turn to river in the book. The postflop section actually starts out talking about some general concepts and common mistakes, that to me at least, framed the postflop street by street content. One of the things that would have helped me personally going through it the first time is more of using both the similarities and contrasts to NL in order to explain PLO concepts. However, upon reflection, I think that may be because I have a decent amount of NLHE experience and zero PLO experience. After getting some PLO under my belt and coming back to the book, perhaps I won't really care about the contrasts.

That aside, what struck me about the postflop play is that there was a good balance between the theory/reasoning and the practical application of that theory with both practical lines and actual hands. I think for me why I emphasized books less as I got into video training and coaching is that the latter was able to provide a lot more case studies, and I had already built some sort of theory foundation. With PLO, although I've got some general poker foundation and a good amount of hold'em foundation specifically, I needed the foundation as well as the case studies. So, the balance in the e-book was great.

Here's where my thoughts on the book will be least satisfying to anyone reading this: I have no way to verify right now that this is a correct approach to PLO. For that, we would have to trust Tri :). In all the other books I've read, I either knew enough to work out what made sense and what did not in the books, or there was already enough positive opinion about the books that I took it on faith that the authors were correct (for instance, my first two books where "Small Stakes Hold'em" by Ed Miller and "Theory of Poker" by David Sklansky).

Assuming that Tri knows his stuff in PLO -- and I would think he does (and it wouldn't take long for PLO experts to contradict him if he's wrong) -- his e-book seems like it will give a nice blueprint to the game, at least for a while. The timing for me reading the book is pretty good. I've been thinking about giving PLO a try, Hold'em Manager has a public beta of an Omaha tracker coming out soon, and it seems like there is a fantastic PLO series combined between Deuces Cracked and Blue Fire Poker out as well. The only thing that makes me nervous is that I hate running bad at NL, and it seems that with PLO, you're more subject to variance. One of the ways that I keep myself level-headed while running bad at NL is being able to know pretty much when it was played well and unlucky, and I won't have that luxury in PLO. However, with Tri's book, I'll at least have a concise reference guide to measure my play against, and that will help a ton.

OK, I'd intended to keep this post shorter, so I'll stop now. By the way, Tri's site, where you can see a full table of contents and an excerpt, is http://www.dailyvariance.com/

This douchetard fails at life (no poker)

2009-03-24T09:58:00.001-07:00

Disclaimer: this is a post pretty much for pure venting. It's not poker related, but if you're not interested in a rant, stop now, catch you next time :).

Every once in a while you come across something that strikes you as so over-the-top obnoxious that you wonder if you're actually being leveled. My wife is president of our school's parent faculty club (PFC, another name for a PTA). She received a note yesterday in the PFC suggestion box.

If you have kids in school or good friends with kids in school, you might know how hard some parent volunteers work for the benefit of all the kids, not just their own. I would say Jennifer puts in about 20 hours per week volunteering for our kids' school, between all the stuff the PFC does, plus all the volunteer work she does directly in the classrooms. The PFC organizes two fundraisers: a Fall carnival for kids and the families, and a Spring dinner/dance for parents. The note below was written on a dinner/dance announcement:

==============
PFC:
Let me see if I understand this correctly...you want me to give PFC more money? Let's see...the last time I wrote a check to PFC was for a sweatshirt that someone dropped off at my son's kindergarten class and expected a 5 year old to carry it through EDCC and home. As you already are aware from emails to/from my wife, it never arrived (surprise, surprise!). Now, you want me to write another check? You **must** be kidding. Let me see if I can make this very clear to you -- **NO**. Please take us off of your solicitation list. If you would like to discuss this in detail, please phone me at the number listed. If not, *do not* send any more requests home with my child. **No exceptions!**
===============

Little background: immediately after being contacted by this guy's wife (the emails he was talking about), the lady who coordinated ordering and distributing the sweatshirts wrote back and said that she dropped off the sweatshirt with the kid's teacher who said she would put it in the kid's backpack to take home. Then she followed up twice in the next 3 days to confirm that the parents talked to the teacher and got their precious sweatshirt. The parents never responded back.

I'm sure that I'm biased because I have a firsthand look at how much a relatively few number of parents do for all the kids at the school, both volunteering and donating money. And it's my wife that the guy is addressing his note to. And now she has to deal with both this asshole and the school principal to straighten everything out.

Obviously, this guy has not done shit for the school. And that's fine, I guess. It is a public school, and I know that not everyone is in a position to give money and don't care to give time. But in California, our school systems are woefully underfunded (we now rank dead last in education spending, and are headed for even more school budget cuts next year), so if everyone took this guy's attitude, the schools would be a whole lot worse. It takes a crap-ton of extra support from the parent community for our kids' schools to be better. So for him to fire off a nice note like that to the very people who benefit his kid basically out of the goodness of their hearts obviously touches a nerve.

If you've made it to the end, thanks for bearing with my venting!

Back to normal

2009-03-23T15:09:00.001-07:00

Actually, not sure what is normal for me lately, but after a couple days rest, I did playa quick session that was nicely uneventful and I could book a win. Consciously tried to not push hard on any hand, folded a little more than I normally would overall, was extra careful to pitch OOP hands, let guys have small and medium pots if it was at all close. Basically, sacrificed some small, high-variance edges. And it went according to plan. Only hand close to 100bb was this one:

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $241.65
BB: $274.15
UTG: $175.25
MP: $34.70
Hero (CO): $200.00
BTN: $200.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is CO with Js Jh
2 folds, Hero raises to $7, BTN raises to $20, 2 folds, Hero calls $13

Flop: ($43.00) Ks Kc 5c (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $26, Hero calls $26

Turn: ($95.00) Jc (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $48, Hero calls $48

River: ($191.00) 8c (2 players)
Hero bets $106 all in, BTN calls $106 all in

Final Pot: $403.00
Hero shows Js Jh (a full house, Jacks full of Kings)
BTN mucks Ac 3c
Hero wins $400.00
(Rake: $3.00)

I'm not sure of the best line to get all the money in on the turn. It looked to me like he was maybe giving himself room to fold, so I didn't want to checkraise him, but calling seems kind of strong, too, and any hand I'd be counting on him to bet the river, he'd call my raise. I'd decided to lead any river, and just hope that it would help him somehow, in case he was on the fence about calling off.

Outside of poker, I finally started this season of 24...I've got a lot queued on the DVR...all episodes this season for 24, Lost, and Battlestar Gallactica. The wife won't watch any of those shows, can't watch them when the kids are around, and when I've got some time to myself, I'd rather play poker :P. Good thing I set up an external terrabyte of storage for my DirecTV receiver.

Haven't played golf in a while, but did make it to the driving range. Might play Friday morning before going into work, but if not, it will be the first month in which I've recorded no rounds in I don't know how long :(. Hopefully, I'll make up for it in April. Besides any weekend play I'll get in, the family is going to Palm Springs for the kids' week off school after Easter. I should get in 2-3 rounds there. Got a range finder for the iPhone that looks pretty cool, which will be nice for the unfamiliar courses, especially the ones in the desert where a lot of times you really need to hit all your shots to a good yardage, instead of just bombs away.

Puking in my mouth

2009-03-21T14:29:00.001-07:00

Lost 5.5 BI in 916 hands, continuing to run like death. Not that my play was stellar. I haven't reviewed the whole session, but I lost 5 stacks in 4 hands. 2 of them were when I turned a set 3-way and made a really poor payoff when a backdoor flush got there and a TAG checkraised me...I knew I was in trouble, but made a terrible, undisciplined frustration call. I thought villain was good, but he played the flop and turn pretty bad -- unless he was counting on me to pay off big on the river, which I did, so who knows, maybe he played it pretty well. 2 of the other stacks were trying to push people off hands, which I've been trying to do too much. I'm glad I'm working some of that into my game, but it should be rare and opportunistic, rather than forcing it, which I think I'm doing.

Lost one more stack set over set where the guy made an awful call on the flop with 66 on a J54 board. But I had him read for calling anything, so I shouldn't be surprised...I raised his c-bet big on a J54 flop and he called with 66. Oh well. Next biggest pot was 60bb lost when my trips lost to a straight. I won 3 pots more than 100bb, so I had a decent amount of big pots go my way.

Kids' sports and other family activities will probably keep me away from the tables for a few days, unless I really try to squeeze in a session, which I won't do, in all likelihood. I walked away from this session disappointed, but not feeling totally tilted. However, it was the 4th loser in a row, and if my personal history is any guide, I could use a cooling off period.

In better news, my son's baseball team, which I coach, had opening day today, and the kids looked pretty good. We definitely need to work on some stuff, but we've already come a long way since we started practicing a month ago.

Volatile

2009-03-17T12:20:00.001-07:00

For about 3 weeks, I was running really well for the most part (couple blips here and there), and playing pretty well, although a little robotic. Then as good as things were, they turned that bad for the last week or so. One of malfaire's recent posts talked about not ascribing too much to your clearly unsustainable results, and continuing to work hard on your game even when winning. He's right about how important that is, and I'm happy to say that I didn't change my routine much when running well, although that's not saying a lot for me...I probably spend too little time seriously studying/thinking. I'm really good with session reviews and picking out hands for Jared to review, but pretty bad with videos, sweats, forums, etc. Realistically, though, between job and family, I already have so little time to play, it is what it is. But I digress.

One of the difficult things about running super hot and super cold is that it's tougher than usual to attribute your results to your play, at least it is for me. One of the reasons the games can stay good is that bad play gets rewarded a decent amount of the time. Conversely, you can play pretty well and still lose, right? The effects are worse for me (as they are for you, most likely) when losing, because at some level, your confidence is undermined. In both hot and cold you lose some objectivity, but at least when you're winning, you tend to play more relaxed and confidently. Now, I'm not shaken over a poor week -- and for me that's only a few thousand hands at most -- but I did a sweat with Jared for my lesson last night, losing 2.5 BI in 350 hands...and that was after starting the lesson with a preflop all-in flip that went my way (JJ > AKs, I think).

So, the loss was really more extreme than that. We had several big coolers, and I don't think any horrendous beats or anything. Not that you ever want to have sessions like these, but you do, and sometimes they happen for an extended time. If you are going to have them, it can be nice to have a coach or other good player/trusted advisor watching. I didn't think I did anything wrong, but it was reassuring to have Jared agree.

The only thing I didn't do well is table select -- a couple tables were total shit, but it was a conscious decision to play against tougher regs with Jared sweating me. The funny thing is that an 85/10 guy completely owned me, and I lost a few pots to a couple other lesser fish. My results would have been a lot better -- maybe all the way up to break even -- if I would have just stuck to playing against the solid TAG regs :P.

Friday nights are weird

2009-03-13T17:46:00.001-07:00

I think I probably trade more stacks on Friday night than all other nights put together.

Tonight I think I was checkraised more than the rest of the hands this month put together. Sick thing was I only played about 450 hands.

On one table, the guy on my left was like 40/2 over a few thousand hands and had not 3-bet a single time. He 3-bet me once from MP when I opened UTG, and once on the button when I opened CO.

After the first 100 hands or so, nothing seemed to be going right for me...I mean I think I played OK (though probably not great), but mainly only got action on the hands I didn't want it. It's still early for me...I might venture back onto the tables later. But for now, I think I'm going to make a little dent in the shows sitting on my DVR :). Have a good weekend.

WWJTD

2009-03-13T11:26:00.001-07:00

There's a series in progress at Deuces Cracked called What Would Joe Tall Do. Joe takes some NL hands he's played, supplies some reads, then creates a running quiz using surveys, asking what the correct action is at various points in the hands. After the survey closes down, Joe records a hand replayer video with another NL coach/video producer. In the video, they reveal the the best option and talk about why that option is indeed the best one.

There are a number of cool aspects to this series. To start with, you can obviously just watch the video without having taken the accompanying quiz. There are other hand replayer videos discussing interesting hands, which are quite effective. If you don't have the interest in going through the quizzes, you can still benefit from watching the videos.

But there are extra rewards for going through the quizzes. First, the top performing DC members get rewarded for that performance. Having missed one quiz and tanked another (relatively speaking), I doubt that I'll be able to make enough of a comeback for the cool prizes :P.

However, the real value for going through the quizzes is that it engages you deeper in the learning process. How many times have you watched videos somewhat passively? I mean, you can still pick up stuff from them, but a lot slips by because you think you know it, or maybe it makes sense to you when you're watching the video, but really you have not internalized. If you take the quiz ahead of time, though, you will find out what you know and what you don't know. You can confirm what's right, and can really focus in on what's wrong.

What I personally do (although it makes taking the quiz kind of a pain in the ass), is to keep a spreadsheet with the questions, my answers, and the reasons I picked those answers. I leave columns for the coach's answers and their explanations. I then follow along with that spreadsheet as the answers are being revealed in the video, along with the explanations, entering the coach's ideas. For a follow-up, I highlight the ones I missed (whether I missed the answer altogether, or I had the right answer but for the wrong reason). Later, I intend to hide my answer and the coach's answer for the ones I missed, and see if I've learned anything in the time since I initially took the quiz. Kind of like self-coaching.

A couple more cool things. First, although Joe is a fantastic limit player (all sorts of games), he relatively inexperienced at NL. By that, I mean, he makes some of the same mistakes I do. So, he gets himself into trouble spots on the turn and river by mistakes he makes on the earlier streets...in some cases, the same sorts of spots I find myself on occasion. Watching a more traditional video where the producer is a lot better than I am, you never get to see how to limit the damage you cause yourself earlier in the hand.

Finally, the DC executive producers also take the quizzes and publish their results. While none of them tank, they're not all at the top, either. I think what that shows is that there are a number of different ways to reasonably play a hand...depending on your general style and your interpretation of villain reads. That underscores the importance of having the correct rationale for your plays, rather than just having a bag of tricks.

Back to the grind

2009-03-09T17:23:00.001-07:00

Dropped Dad off at the airport last night and back to work today. He moved to the East Coast when he retired, so we don't get to see much of each other any more, which sucks. We went on our yearly ski trip. It was raining the first day, except at the very top of mountain, but it turned into snow, and kept going for the next 36 hours or so...more than 80 inches total for the storm. The first day, the powder was about thigh-deep, and the second day was waist-deep and more, basically bottomless. The snow in the Sierras is pretty heavy, at least compared to places like Colorado and Utah, but it was still very nice! Also, props to my dad, who is now old enough to ski for free at Squaw Valley, but still going down the black diamonds.

Almost no internet access last week, thanks to the storm (knocked out the WiFi, evidently) and no cell coverage in Truckee, at least where we were staying (the front desk said only Verizon gets coverage there). So, I am hopelessly behind everyone's blogs, played hardly any hands, and of course have a mountain of stuff to catch up at work. But, I don't think it will happen today...it's my daughter's birthday, so I'm going to cut out early and go out to a birthday dinner.

I did play a couple short sessions that were totally opposite. In one I played bad and ran worse. In the other, I played well and ran better. Next week, my wife is going on a trip of her own -- with her sister, meeting her folks in Palm Springs -- so I should have some time to get in some hands, then. I think that the bad session was more due to being stupid about forcing a session in because I haven't played much...I was exhausted and in a distracting environment. I made a couple plays where I really knew better.

Looking forward to our next review session, too...the first one was great. Hope to get caught up with everyone's blogs tonight and tomorrow...see you guys.

Vacation

2009-02-27T23:02:00.001-08:00

Been a whirlwind at work the last couple weeks between wrapping up a big project and a meeting this week where I got to demo our product to a couple thousand people. It all went well :). Plus I've been trying to get things in order before heading up to Lake Tahoe with my dad to do some skiing. He lives across the country, so we don't get a chance to see each other too often...looking forward to some good skiing and getting to catch up. I don't know how much time I'll spend online over the next week or so, though. If the weather is good for skiing, probably not too much. I do at least have some videos loaded up on my iPhone. See you in a bit.

Overbet shoves

2009-02-16T17:04:00.001-08:00

Have there been some recent videos advocating overbet shoves, either as a bluff or for value? I swear I'm seeing a ton more of them than I'm used to on pretty dry boards, since moving to 200NL. Could be coincidence (we're not talking a crapload of hands), or it could be that it's just something you see a bit more of at 200NL than at 100NL.

I have not been calling with my hands, even when my hands are somewhat stronger than a bluff catcher, for the most part. My assumption is that for the most part, people are not overbet shoving without the goods or a really strong draw that has tons of equity against a top pair sort of hand. However, if there's some video out advocating this, that would change my thinking entirely, as there are some spots where it would be pretty bad to do it without a strong hand, and misapplying something from a video would explain a lot.

I'm not talking about spots where it's reraised preflop and getting in on favorable flops for it, but more where there is some postflop action, but the final result on the turn or river is an overbet shove.

Finally did a video review

2009-02-14T12:21:00.001-08:00

Had been meaning to try a video review out for a while with Jared, but I kept putting off installing Camtasia. I recorded a session last weekend in which I felt totally unconfident while playing. I started the recording just after stacking off KK in a pretty reasonable spot, although it was like 4 hands into the session, and I hate when they start like that. Then, right at the beginning of the video I made two mistakes, one pretty minor and one kind of bad, and I was thinking about Jared seeing those hands. It was weird, knowing that someone would be watching the vid, I was actually a little nervous, even though Jared has definitely seen me play at my worst.

I broke even during the video (about an hour), and like I said, I felt a little lost, so I thought it would be pretty instructive, and we would maybe not even have time to finish it, as we would have to stop and dissect. But as it turns out, I played better than I thought. Not to say perfect, but pretty well. I did particularly well, in his opinion anyway, varying my bet sizes well postflop (although not so much preflop). That was good, because it's something we've been working on. The biggest mistakes I made after the beginning both happened with AK. In one hand, I got all in vs a TAG who was in early position. I forget the action, but AK isn't going to fare that well against a TAG's UTG range. This time he also had AK and we split. Another time, I cold-called in the CO vs a 15/12's UTG open, and the flop was Kxx. He bet, I called. Turn was a 7. He bet, I called. So far, so good. River was another middle card and it put 4 to a straight on there. He bet, I called. This is the mistake of the hand. When a nit 3-barrels on a scary board, he's going to have TP beat.

Not too much free time today. Wife is decorating a birthday present for our niece, then it'll be lunch and off to sports. First I'm heading down to the baseball diamond to pick up equipment for this year's little league team and for the president of the league to give all the managers and coaches a pep talk/thank you for coaching, etc. Then it's off to the gym to coach a couple basketball games. The fun never stops :).

River Decision

2009-02-11T09:53:00.001-08:00

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 4 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (SB): $502.60
BB: $208.75
CO: $326.70
BTN: $110.95

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is SB with Ah Qd
1 fold, BTN raises to $4, Hero raises to $14, 1 fold, BTN calls $10

Flop: ($30.00) Ts 3s Kc (2 players)
Hero bets $18, BTN raises to $36, Hero calls $18

Turn: ($102.00) 6c (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: ($102.00) Qs (2 players)
Hero?

Good card/bad card on the river. Villain's got about 60 behind.

If you bet, what's his calling range?

If you check, do you call a $60 shove?

Really interested to get your guys' thoughts on the river decision, but the flop is pretty close as well. Unfortunately for discussion purposes, I forget if I had any reads on the guy that would influence flop or river one way or the other.

Quote from the conference call I'm listening to

2009-02-05T10:40:00.001-08:00

This should show up on Dilbert. Senior executive talking about recent product launches and initiatives in progress....

"Now we've shown that we can come in through the front and through the back. Moving forward, we're going to build on that...these things will allow us to penetrate even deeper."

If he's telling the truth, I like our chances, even in this economy :).

C-Betting Question

2009-02-04T09:49:00.001-08:00

I forget the reads on villains in this hand, but I'm pretty sure both of them were loose -- just can't remember if they were loose/passive or loose/aggressive.

The fact that we're 3-way makes the hand interesting, IMO. If you bet, what's your plan if you get called by the BTN and are OOP on the turn? If you check, what's your plan if BTN bets?

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 $60 No Limit Hold'em - 4 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $145.90
Hero (BB): $265.00
CO: $114.20
BTN: $81.15

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with Td Ad
1 fold, BTN calls $2, SB calls $1, Hero raises to $8, BTN calls $6, SB calls $6

Flop: ($24.00) 5s Kd Tc (3 players)
SB checks, Hero?

Bonus that cost me

2009-01-31T11:08:00.001-08:00

I had a little bit of my Ironman bonus to clear and my wife was out with her friends last night. So even though I was tired and my sessions usually last no more than 90 minutes, I played for twice that. I know better. Overall, I think I played OK, but there were definitely some spots that I fell victim to poor decision making. The worst was stacking off with TT on an A2564 board because the guy was super aggressive. I raise preflop, he calls on the button (he's 37/25/5.4 over a large sample). He folds to c-bets 32% and raises them 19%, so when I make a c-bet and he minraises, I of course think he's FOS. And he might be sometimes, but if he's going to stack off on a triple barrel, there have got to be better times for me to oblige him. Just gross. Lost two more stacks on coolers (top two < bottom set button vs. SB, AA < top pair turned trips in a reraised blind battle). Did a good job taking all 3 of those hands in stride and not letting them make me play any worse, and got 2 of those stacks back over the session also, so it was not a total loss. And I finished out the bonus for a sweet $21 or so :).

Got a full day of family stuff today, so won't be playing any more hands. January was a good month in spite of how it ended last night. I got myself in position for another 200NL shot, and following the advice I gave Brian, I used a lesson with Jared to do my first session of this shot. That worked out pretty well, as I made a little over 3 BI in less than an hour of playing, so a decent profit even after I paid for the lesson, which is always nice :). I've got somewhat mixed feelings about continuing at 200NL on my own because as much as I feel my game has gotten more solid, I know I also have significant room for improvement. But as reg-infested as the 200NL games are compared to the 100NL games, there are also a lot of poor players who make worse mistakes than I do, so I'll probably continue.

I was talking with Jared about the rate of my improvement. While I'm definitely better now than earlier, the rate of improvement has not been so great. As far as coaching goes, he believes it would be much more effective to have lessons twice a month than once a month (obviously more lessons > less lessons, but also he thinks I regress because I don't have enough reinforcement and he just doesn't get to see enough). Pretty sure he's not just looking to give more lessons...he's got a wait list now, and he's also raised his rates significantly, but is letting me continue at the old rate for a little bit. So, I had a couple lessons in January, I'll have a couple in February, and then take it from there. At his new rate, it will be pretty hard for my roll to swallow a couple lessons a month because I just don't get in the volume of play to make up for it.

So, if I decide that I just can't afford 2 lessons a month with the volume I play, I wonder if 1 lesson a month is worth it. Interested in your guys' thoughts on this.

Snow Play

2009-01-28T13:30:00.001-08:00

Went with the family up to Lake Tahoe for a couple days last Sunday and Monday. No big deal for those of you who actually get all 4 seasons, but it's been a few years since my kids were in the snow, so they enjoyed it quite a bit. It was cold and snowy. Rather than ski, we went tubing and ice skating, along with some other stuff. First day of tubing was at a little hill where they created a couple lanes and you paid $10 for their inner tubes and got a good workout hiking back up. Not much fun for the adults, and the kids quickly got tired of walking back up the hill and wanted to go have a snowball fight. After that, we went down to the lakeshore and tried to build a snowman, but there wasn't enough fresh snow, so we gave up.

We ate dinner at the Harrah's Lake Tahoe buffet, but in spite of being there for dinner and our hotel only a block away, I didn't gamble. The poker room is actually at their sister hotel across the street -- Harvey's -- and isn't big, nor do they spread a big game, so I didn't feel like I was missing much. Instead, we gave the kids some cash and let them go nuts in the arcade. Every kid's arcade on the planet (or at least on the West Coast) now seems to have a mix of actual arcade video games and other games where the objective is to collect as many paper tickets as you can, to later trade in for prizes. I think if you spent about $5000, and got lucky with the games, you could get a Wii. That said, my son might have some future as a gambler. He played this roulette game where you had to select the color a spinning ball would stop on. There were 6 different colors, all with different "odds" based on how big a slot corresponded to the color. He went 5-for-5 and collected massive tickets. Those, along with tickets from another $15 or so worth of games was good for a cool looking key chain and a little bit of candy :). He almost had enough for the stuffed football, but just missed :(.

Next day, 3 of the 4 of us strapped on ice skates for the first time (my wife ice skated before). I'm certainly not good, but having done a lot of inline skating gave me a head start picking up ice skating, and I managed to be able to skate around pretty confidently, although nothing fast or anything, and I never did try to stop quickly. My daughter now wants to do ice skating for her birthday party, so maybe I'll have a chance to skate again soon.

The final thing we did was to go tubing at a different place, actually part of a decent-sized ski resort. On the side of the beginner's run near the base lodge, they set up a tubing run. This place used the same sort of tubes that you use for going tubing behind a ski boat, and they hooked the tubes up to a rope tow, so you didn't have to hike up the hill. The ultimate for lazy guys! Actually, I didn't think any of the tubing was all that fun, with once exception. What they did at the bottom of the hill was to build a wall and put some rubber mats in front of it to slow you down. You go about half way up the wall, then go gently back down where you get out of the tube. One time, I went down with my son. With the extra weight came some extra speed. And for some reason we missed the rubber mats. Not only did we fly over the wall, we cleared the fence they had behind the wall just to catch the occasional tuber who goes over. Evidently, we cleared it by a lot. Behind this wall is just a steep drop to the ski slope below. We bounced a couple times, then ended up on the ski slope. Until my son realized he'd whacked the side of his head pretty good, he thought it was the best thing ever. I was just happy to be in one piece, but given that I was, it was pretty cool. Tubing X-games FTW.

Evidently, none of the workers there had ever seen anyone clear the fence, and the guy at the top of the run didn't even wait to see if we were alright...he was sure we'd need some medical attention, so he radioed the ski patrol to come get us. Hmm, seems kind of lame writing it up, but at the very least, it broke the monotony for the ride attendants..they kept talking about it until we left a couple hours later.

I'll try to have some poker content next time...haven't played too much, but what little I have has been going better, but still some things to keep working on. Been chatting with my coach, and neither of us is pleased with the progress I've been making (or more accurately that the progress isn't maintained...do some stuff well, then regress, then get better again, etc.). More thoughts on that next time.

Standard spot

2009-01-21T13:43:00.001-08:00

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $189.55
BB: $135.40
Hero (UTG): $116.90
CO: $240.45
BTN: $113.75

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is UTG with Ah Js
Hero raises to $3.50, CO calls $3.50, 3 folds

Flop: ($8.50) 5d 3c As (2 players)
Hero bets $5, CO raises to $15, Hero asks readers what to do

This seems like it should be a totally standard spot, but I'm debating the plan for the rest of the hand. Obviously, he could have a set, and he should raise at some point to make sure he can get stacks in. But sets are hard to make. Not too many 2-pair possibilities given it's HJ vs CO (i.e., can't count on him cold calling with crappy aces, but occasionally he will). Most of the time, better aces reraise me preflop in this spot. So, it's probably more likely that he's either outright bluffing or value-raising worse.

Given that, I think a call here is good. But is it a call, only to fold out of position when he follows up on the turn, or does he barrel his air/continue value betting worse enough to continue if he bets the turn.

If we check the turn and he checks, what do we do on the river (assume turn and river brick off)? Try to bet for small value? Would I get value out of hands that check behind the turn in this case? Give him a chance to bluff again, since I've now shown a lot of weakness?

Getting called on a paired flop

2009-01-12T14:16:00.001-08:00

Villain was 35/11 and cold-called a lot over a few hundred. I haven't been at the table that long, no history.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $100.50
BB: $83.80
UTG: $209.35
MP: $28.70
Hero (CO): $100.00
BTN: $34.50

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with Th Tc
2 folds, Hero raises to $3.50, BTN calls $3.50, SB calls $3, 1 fold

Flop: ($11.50) 8d 8s 2d (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $7, BTN calls $7, SB folds

Turn: ($25.50) 4c (2 players)
Hero bets $25.50, BTN says "hmmmm", BTN calls $24 all in

River: ($73.50) 5d (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $73.50
Hero shows Th Tc (two pair, Tens and Eights)
BTN shows 8h 8c (four of a kind, Eights)
BTN wins $70.50
(Rake: $3.00)

The guy seems like a bit of a drooler, so what is his range when he calls the flop? Of course he could have an 8, but I think we also should give him overcards and flush draws. However, on such a dry flop, a call from him is pretty scary, or would be if we were full stacked.

Let's assume he's not floating that often, so he's likely to check behind if he's behind (and also sometimes if he's ahead, so he can cleverly trap me on the river). But if I make a big bet on the turn and he calls, I'm almost definitely screwed. At the time, I think I was thinking that if no more money was going to go in from him unless he pulled ahead of me, I might as well go ahead and bet to make him either make a mistake or sacrifice his pot equity by folding. And since the stacks were so short (pot-size bet left), any bet might as well just be a shove.

I'm not sure that's a huge mistake given how little we have behind, as I think I do want to bet. But, by making a pot-sized shove, I'm pretty much assuring that I don't get called by worse, and here no better hand is ever folding. His flop call means that he's likely got 6-12 outs when behind, and I think that I want to make a bet here that encourages the top part of his range to make a mistake by calling, given I don't think I can induce a bluff now or a bad call on the river by checking the turn. So, maybe making a $15 bet into $25.50 would be better. I still get to protect my pot equity, but now I might also get some more worse hands to call. True, for some of them, he might call anyway to a PSB, but probably only his very best hands that are behind me.

The other option is to check, and that might be for the best here, under the assumption that he didn't call the flop with the intention to float me (he just called because he calls a lot)...but even though that might not be his intention, I think the temptation to float would be pretty high if he ended up with the opportunity, yet a check/call on the turn seems bad too.

So, what do you guys do with so little behind?

Thoughts on yesterday's hand

2009-01-08T16:30:00.001-08:00

Thanks for the comments, glad I posted that hand because I had to get pointed towards thinking better about it, as unfortunately I didn't recognize myself that it was a pretty bad play. Here's where I think my thinking just was bad...I didn't give enough thought to what the preflop raiser/flop c-bettor's range was. Based on his stats, he's not going to be way out of line. HU and he might bet a good part of his preflop range on that board. But, with 3 people to act after him, two of whom will have position on future streets, he is not going to be c-betting light. I don't really gain much from raising, and stand to lose a ton. This doesn't even take into account what the guys behind *me* will do. The best that I can hope for after my raise is that the original raiser decides to see what happens on the turn, but more than likely I'm in a bad spot if he can call my raise.

As to whether or not to fold when he reraises me, I still think it's a fold. I mean, you guys are right that I should not raise/fold, but I think the raise itself was pretty bad, now that I'm looking back on it. The only time I should be raising is when I've got a solid read that he's wild enough to go ahead and call it off (but even then I don't think a raise is the best play). I think he's shoving here fairly tight: sets, overpairs, broadway hearts. If that's right, I've only got 22% equity. If I add in some straight draws (that don't come with flush draws), I can approach 30%, but I think that may be a little optimistic.

Food is better when it's free?

2009-01-07T15:59:00.001-08:00

We've got some customers in the office working on a project with us. I'm not directly involved, but did get to grab some of their leftover pizza at the end of lunch. It was pretty standard and only lukewarm having sat out for an hour or so, but it was free, and that made it taste better.

It's a little cold here, but there's no snow on the ground or anything like that, so if it doesn't rain, I still get to play tennis once a week or so. It was pretty cool looking under the lights last night...all four of us had a ton of steam coming off us. The bad part about playing in the cold is that you don't move quite as fast as you're used to...so my timing was pretty screwed up.

Today's "big" losing hand isn't all that big, but I only played a short session and it was the biggest loser. Pretty sure it was fine, though. MP seems pretty straightforward...19/17/3, somewhat low fold to 3-bet over a good sample. Blinds were both pretty loose/passive.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $131.75
UTG: $68.05
MP: $100.00
Hero (CO): $121.95
BTN: $136.60
SB: $130.65

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with Ks Qs
1 fold, MP raises to $4, Hero calls $4, BTN calls $4, 1 fold, BB calls $3

Flop: ($16.50) Qh 7s 9h (4 players)
BB checks, MP bets $11, Hero raises to $34, BTN folds, BB folds, MP raises to $96 all in, Hero folds

Final Pot: $84.50
MP wins $81.50
(Rake: $3.00)

I used to not really cold call too much with anything other than pocket pairs, but this one should be fine. I can continue on a lot of flops, plus I'd love the blinds to come along with us. More interesting question is what to do preflop if our hand is unsuited. In that case, I might 3-bet and try more to take down dead money since I'm significantly less excited about a multiway pot, even with the same bad players.

Hello 2009

2009-01-02T11:48:00.001-08:00

NYE was pretty fun and close to home so no long drive back. Hope you all enjoyed your celebrations too. Didn't really think the bowl games I watched were all that good, although to be fair I'm not watching nearly as much sports as I used to, so I didn't know too much about the teams beforehand. Was glad to see that the Pac 10 kicked butt in their bowls, though :).

I'm poorer at the beginning of 2009 than I was at the beginning of 2008. Outside of poker as well as in poker. But this is about poker, and unfortunately, 2008 was a losing year, although in BB/100, it was positive. In total $$ it was positive, too, thanks to bonii and rakeback.

But as far as actual play goes, I followed the old do-well-at-lower-stakes-get-beat-at-higher-stakes game plan. I think I'm a better player by quite a bit, though, and I know that should be more important in the bigger scheme. I think I'm going to change my BR approach a little bit. It will still be aggressive for someone playing full time, but since I'm not, I can afford to be a little more aggressive. I'll wait a bit longer before playing higher, but when I do, it will be with more of a cushion. My sense from playing is that with table selection, there is not a big difference in the quality of play between .5/1 and 1/2, so I think if I can continue winning decently at .5/1, I should be able to be at least marginal at 1/2.

Here's today's hand. I think it's pretty basic, actually, but it was the biggest loser from the prior session with most of the money going in postflop, so that's how I'm randomizing my hands.

Over 600 hundred hands, villain 3-bet from the button pretty wide (I know it's a smallish sample, and don't think it matters a ton for the hand anyway). He was about 30/15 as far as vpip/pfr goes, if that makes any difference.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $141.70
BB: $160.45
Hero (UTG): $134.10
MP: $62.55
CO: $92.40
BTN: $105.05

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is UTG with Ad Kd
Hero raises to $4, 2 folds, BTN raises to $14, 2 folds, Hero requests TIME, Hero raises to $31, BTN calls $17

Flop: ($63.50) 9c Jd 3d (2 players)
Hero bets $103.10 all in, BTN requests TIME, BTN calls $74.05 all in

Turn: ($211.60) 7h (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($211.60) 2s (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $211.60
Hero shows Ad Kd (Ace King high)
BTN shows Qh Qc (a pair of Queens)
BTN wins $208.60
(Rake: $3.00)

Pretty sure this is neutral or a little +EV, given I don't plan to fold. QQ is what I expect to get shown most often, but do you think that there are a significant number of other hands (compared to the number of QQ hands) he could have preflop? Like 88-QQ, AQ+? I thought if he could show up here with more PP's or AK sometimes and I can fold those on this board, it was a good play. If he can only show up with JJ and QQ and he's going to play straightforward in reraised pot, then I suppose I could check, hope he checks, and see if I can hit on the turn (and fold if I miss). But that doesn't seem right to me, because it does assume such a tight range for an unknown who has not proven anything, and that he would check behind the flop with that range anyway.

Happy New Year

2008-12-31T12:11:00.001-08:00

I'm working today :(. Probably going to leave a bit early, though. We're planning to go to a pot luck with several other families, at least for a little while. Cocktails, champagne and prime rib. Should be fun, but I doubt we'll make it to midnight...my son is recovering from a flu bug and my wife has been a little under the weather as well.

Here's today's hand. Not something I do much.

Villain was a little loose. Passive preflop, aggressive postflop, was in the middle of berating someone when I joined the table, so I thought he might be a bit tilted. I've been pretty aggressive in general, but showed down a quality hand.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $51.05
MP: $142.25
CO: $93.00
Hero (BTN): $177.60
SB: $100.00
BB: $101.50

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BTN with Ac Qs
1 fold, MP calls $1, 1 fold, Hero raises to $4.50, 2 folds, MP calls $3.50

Flop: ($10.50) 3h 9h 5d (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $8, MP raises to $16, Hero calls $8

Turn: ($42.50) Tc (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $24.50, MP calls $24.50

River: ($91.50) 4s (2 players)
MP bets $97.25 all in, Hero folds

I guess I thought on the flop that he was pretty polarized, so I tried to float him.

What's the worst hand you'd call with here....

2008-12-30T10:09:00.001-08:00

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $173.55
MP: $271.40
CO: $1278.35
BTN: $194.10
SB: $74.60
Hero (BB): $200.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with xx
UTG calls $2, 3 folds, SB calls $1, Hero raises to $8, UTG calls $6, 1 fold

Flop: ($18.00) Jd 9h 7s (2 players)
Hero bets $14, UTG raises to $165.55 all in, Hero...

I don't have any reads to give, but the guy did limp/call preflop first in, so make of that what you will. In addition to the bottom end of your calling range, what is the minimum hand you'd be pretty happy to have when you call?

Steady Ebb

2008-12-29T11:04:00.001-08:00

In an effort to make myself write more, I'm going to try posting my biggest losing hand from each session to see if anyone notices a trend. I think the only rule is that most of the money has to go in postflop (so no KK vs AA hands where it all gets in preflop). One of the things I periodically notice with Jared is that when we do hand reviews, he picks up stuff I'm not aware are big problems. So, even though I don't think that just picking the biggest losers is the best way to review play, it's not a bad place to start if you're looking randomly for blind spots :).

First one is actually not a huge pot, but it was the biggest one of the session...one of those slow bleeding sessions where nothing big happens but you either don't hit, or when you do, you get no action. Villain is pretty loose and cold calls a lot preflop, but otherwise nothing special.

Full Tilt Poker $1/$2 Pot Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $97.90
Hero (UTG): $219.30
CO: $164.80
BTN: $52.65
SB: $72.55

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is UTG with Kh Kd
Hero raises to $7, CO calls $7, BTN calls $7, 2 folds

Flop: ($24.00) 2s 8d 9s (3 players)
Hero bets $19, CO calls $19, BTN folds

Turn: ($62.00) Td (2 players)
Hero bets $47, CO calls $47

River: ($156.00) Jc (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $91.80 all in, Hero folds

Final Pot: $156.00
CO wins $153.00
(Rake: $3.00)

I think this hand is pretty standard, at least through the flop. No reason not to value bet on the flop. On the turn, the ten isn't a great card because some draws got there as well as some of his range making two pair. I bet, intending to fold to a raise, because he's pretty loose and there are a number of worse hands I think he calls with. I can't really see anything to do on the river besides check and hope he checks behind.

December Update

2008-12-26T11:08:00.001-08:00

Hey guys, sorry I've been so quiet, but really have not had much going on, poker-wise. Tons of work and busy with the holidays, good stuff, not too exciting, though. I have been playing short sessions a few days a week...wanted to make Iron Man this month so I could get a small year-end bonus at FT.

Got a new laptop a few weeks ago (wife and I gave each other laptops for Christmas :) ). So, I've used some time getting it set up. It's a big sucker, 17-inch, 1900 x 1200, so I can put as many tables as I want and still have room left over. Strange thing is my POS work laptop running XP seems to be better able to handle 6 tables plus associated software than this new computer running Vista. In every other respect, the new laptop is better than the old one. Oh, well.

I'm just about at the end of another failed shot to stick at 1/2. The pattern this year has been to beat up on .5/1 and get beat up at 1/2, relatively speaking. My problem is that I play pretty low volume and have an aggressive bankroll strategy, so I am subject to a lot of potentially failed shots. But over 25k hands at 1/2, now, I've lost over 25 BI. Half of that was during a time when I was playing and running like shit (went from relatively comfortably rolled at 1/2 dropping almost down to the bottom of my .5/1 BR threshold).

This latest shot, though, I've been playing pretty well, and just not having stuff work out too well. I have dropped a lot of poker activity (blogs, forums, videos have been pretty scarce). But I have continued to be diligent reviewing my own play in depth and have been taking advantage of Jared's help reviewing a few hands from each session as well. So, I'm pretty confident that I'm playing OK, and it's not like I'm in a big downswing or anything. My BR "strategy" revolves around 5 BI shots, and I've lost 4.9 BI this time...so one more loser and I'm back to .5/1.

Now, this doesn't affect me financially, but it does make me question sometimes whether I should keep at it. Part of my motivation to play is the prospect of improving and moving up the ranks. But if I need to put in a lot more effort than I do now, I don't know if I want to absorb it. I still think I'm already good enough to profit at 1/2. I'm not saying I'm great, but I try to table select and I see a lot of bad play, so I should be able to have some sort of profit as I continue to work on my game. But it's definitely possible my assessment is too optimistic.

I certainly still have the passion for poker, but I've got a lot of other things I'd like more time for as well. We'll see. I read periodically about people quitting the game in frustration, but for me, it would be regret. Hopefully, it won't come to that, and either my game will improve or my luck will turn around at 1/2 and beyond.

November Summary

2008-12-01T09:37:00.001-08:00

In some ways, November was a non-event for poker. I am overloaded with work stuff -- thankfully pretty interesting -- and towards the end of the month with the holiday season getting underway. That resulted fewer hands than normal, and I don't play a lot of hands to start with. I also made very little time for anything other than session reviews: two videos, almost zero forum activity, very few blog entries and comments (sorry, guys!), etc.

Actually, on that last one...if I've ever made a comment on your blog, I have been keeping up with it (Google Reader FTW), but I'm doing most of my blog reading on an iPhone, which makes it harder to leave comments. As things slow down, I should have more time to check from my PC instead, so hopefully I'll be able to comment. But, I am at least reading!

OK, back to the summary. Even though the number of hands is few, I have got my game back on track. I had slipped into some semi-bad habits after running like crap for a bit, and I was making a cold stretch significantly worse than it had to be. One of those bad habits was slacking off with my own hand analysis, including sending a few to Jared each time. We used one coaching session for a PT/replayer review. For those of you with coaches, I would really suggest you dedicate a session to review every once in a while. Had some hands in that review that I would not have thought to single out for comments for one reason or another, but which I was misplaying. It underscores one of the reasons I think a coach (or mentor, if you've got a good poker network) is so valuable...we all have blind spots. So now, even though it cuts even more into my playing time, for the most part, I am not starting a new session until I've done at least a cursory review of the prior one.

I'm still off my bankroll high by about the same percentage as my 401(k) plan is off its portfolio high (boo!), but my immediate prospects are good, if I can maintain my review and play discipline. Hopefully this month I will have some time for a few more videos, as I've got a few tagged I would really like to study. For now though, I have to turn my attention back away from poker because there are a couple monthly work project updates that need doing.

Back in business

2008-11-11T15:21:00.001-08:00

I had to get a new hard drive, which was a mixed blessing. It was a royal pain in the ass to get everything set up again, even with access to my old files. There are so many different settings to get in again, and that was even being clever in a lot of cases...I found where a lot of different configuration files were stored. The good part is that I had accumulated a ton of junk on my hard drive, and try as I might to clean it out, nothing beats starting from scratch. My computer seems a lot more responsive. I now have a 120GB drive. Although that is smaller than most drives that come with new computers, it should give me a decent amount of space to play with...bring on the datamines and the video downloads :).

I spent Friday and the weekend, when I had time, re-installing everything. I haven't checked Google Reader in a few days, but I just looked and have 1000+ unread posts. Surely I'll never read most of those, but for you guys whose blogs I keep up with, I will catch up soon. Not today because I also have a couple work deadlines...but certainly by the end of the week.

Home life has been a bummer...my wife injured her back and has been pretty much out of commission. Of all the stuff to go wrong with your back, hers was the least bad...some sort of muscle pull/spasm/strain that the killer muscle relaxers the doctor prescribed are helping with. No herniated discs or other nightmare back issues...this is bad enough! I'm getting a chance to pile up massive husband points, as well, but no time for much else.

I listened to Leatherass on the 2p2 podcast last week and heard the coolest golf bet in quite a while. Evidently, when he was a hotshot junior golfer, he bet his club pro he could beat the pro using only one club. Using a 4-iron, he shot 76 or something like that and beat the pro. I'm sure that he was a better than scratch golfer at the time to be able to do that, but even so it's pretty amazing, IMO. Let's say that he was a +2 (extremely good golfer at any level, but got to believe that's among the best in the country for 15 year olds). That equates to about shooting 70. So, he goes up 6 strokes only using one club. I'm a pretty good golfer -- not awesome, but a single digit handicapper -- and if I could only use one club the whole round, I'd be shocked to shoot within 18 shots of my handicap. I might try it for 9 holes with a 7-iron one day, just to see.

Where the hell did this week go?

2008-11-07T11:34:00.001-08:00

Seems like Monday was just yesterday and now the week is just about over and I did nothing. Actually, worked a ton so far (same projects, lots of issues to resolve, going well), but did have a lesson on the company's time this morning to make up for it a little bit. And I'm following up with that by writing up this post, too. Yay, me.

For the first time in a long while, I did a PT review rather than a sweat or video, and I forgot how helpful those are. I know that I've been mixing in playing bad with running bad, and as we looked through some individual hands, that was borne out. If I had to say what the bigger influence is, it would be running bad, but far from 100%. I wonder how much cause and effect there is between playing bad and running bad.

Certainly my motivation to grind has dropped off due to this downswing, even though a lot of the DS is my fault in the first place. It's human nature to avoid unpleasant things in favor of pleasant things. With so many other things going pretty well and poker not so much, I guess it's not surprising that it's dropped off. Jared was able to extract a few things in general that confirmed some of my own thoughts, but he did pick up one thing that was new for me. I've been playing my big draws very fast, but not optimally. Getting in with a massive draw will not likely be a big EV mistake in a vacuum, but it doesn't mean that indiscriminately betting and raising is the most EV way to go about it, either. Also, I had miscalculated my likely equity in a couple big draw situations...mostly stemming from a poor job on my part assigning hand ranges.

One point that Jared makes over and over -- which I do OK internalizing to various degrees -- is that while "advanced" plays are all well and good, they are not at all necessary at small stakes. Things like 4-bet bluffs preflop, floating, etc. He doesn't object to working them into my game because there are spots even at these stakes where they work. And I certainly don't go way overboard with that sort of stuff. His point is more that they are higher variance and I should think about the balance between trying to use those plays and just playing "boring, straightforward" poker.

Finally, @ Brian and Willie: thanks a ton for your comments on my last post. Brian, I will try to take you up on your offer, although my window for playing my be outside of your window for sweats, due to time zones. If nothing else, after I get done posting this, I'll look you up on AIM so that you know who's pinging you :).

Willie, I actually have been playing on a different site...Stars. I've got a smaller roll there, enough for 50NL, so I've been building up my roll and confidence in that game. My WR @ 50NL is about the same as my lose-rate @ 100NL...so I just need to play twice as many 50NL hands to break even :). Absolute isn't for me. It's fine for whoever wants to play there, but I'm so disgusted at what happened there and their reaction that I just don't want to support them. I will say that if I made my living playing, I might not be so righteous about it...if I thought my edge there was big enough...so I certainly don't fault anyone if they want to play there...just not for me. As far as different games, I have actually thought about that, and talked about it with a couple folks. For a number of reasons, I want to stick with 6m NL for now, but I do think that before all that long, I will incorporate some HU NL and/or PLO. I've thought about trying limit because I was quite successful with it (by my standards) back in the day...but with tougher games now plus having to re-learn parts, let's just say I'd rather leave that legacy of success intact :).

October = Bleah

2008-11-03T10:02:00.001-08:00

October was the worst month ever, winrate-wise. Sample size is really small, though, as life outside poker has gotten busier again. Just about all good, but busy. I did log some hands over the last week, trying to get back into the flow. I've been watching videos, did my own video on Deuces Cracked, listened to some strategy via podcast, and read a fair amount as well. So, when I played, I didn't really feel too rusty (kept it at 4 tables max).

But the results still blew chunks as far as I'm concerned. I played 100NL on FT and 50NL on Stars to build up my roll there. Each 100NL session was a big loss, and the 50NL sessions were mostly wins. The games didn't play that different, I didn't play that different. The play at my 100NL tables was worse than the play on my 50NL tables a lot of the time. In most ways I feel very in control of my game, and the ways that I am not in control I know right away I'm making mistakes, like before villain even does anything. My playing discipline in a lot of ways is really strong, but let's just say I really need to make myself pause before acting. I'm doing things I know I should not (and not doing some things I know I should), and it's because even with only a couple tables open, I'm not thinking things through enough.

I continue to at least in some part take a running-bad stretch and augment it with playing-bad. Not a ton, but still way more than I should.

Something else happened to me over the last week that always scares me...I couldn't find any hands where I was really torn about how to play...outside of the mistakes I knew right away I made, everything else seemed either standard or even that I played it well. The reason this scares me is that I don't think I'm good enough to play 3,000 hands and not be torn. Again, I don't think I played perfect, just that I'm looking back on it and not questioning.

So, my plan is to get a session going with Jared this week and have him just watch me play and see if anything jumps out at him. I'm a bit at sea right now with my game...feeling in control of it and losing at an alarming rate (over 10k hands, now, and more importantly to me, like 2 months long). It's difficult to maintain confidence because I don't have a long-term track record yet. Honestly I don't think I ever will have a long term track record...the game conditions and my condition changes more quickly than I can log say 100k hands. Anyway, I think that I can substitute some of the confidence/game assessment with a coach. That leads to a different problem: if my current winrate (lose-rate, really) continues too much longer, I won't really have the bankroll to happily get coaching, at least from Jared. Oh, woe is me :P.

Hmm, this is coming off pretty whiny to me. Bottom line, I think, is that I'm suffering a crisis of confidence which is sapping my enthusiasm to play. And I'm starting to wonder if I'm wired to play poker well. I mean, I've now been at 100NL for a year. I've been able to push into 200NL, but those shots have failed. And now, I'm in sight of having to drop back down below 100NL again. I'm smart and all that, but if I haven't been able to move past what I consider to be a pretty basic level yet, I'm not sure I'll ever do well in the game. I'll still play, study, etc., because I still find it interesting. But with all the coaching, videos, study work, software, datamining, etc., I really think I should be able to crush at these stakes if I were any good. And not only am I not crushing, I'm barely treading water over 100k+ hands, and have been sinking like a stone over the last 25k or so.

Poker, what's that?

2008-10-22T18:06:00.001-07:00

Been taking a little break (kind of) from the tables, and poker stuff in general. I've been getting too frustrated with the downswing I've been on, so I've just said screw it to playing for a bit. I will not make Ironman this month, the first time that's happened in a year, at least. I've played a bit on Stars for a change of pace. My role is smaller there, so I've been donking around at the 50NL tables. I've got very few reads, but the play is really not very good. In a small sample, I'm up a BI real money, and tons in Sklansky bucks (same story, different site). Don't know if I've just gotten more used to FT, but I don't like the software nearly as much at Stars. Some of it has to do with the awesome FullTiltShortcuts program I use on FT, but in general, I'm just more comfortable with the FT software. However, if I'm going to drop down and get some confidence back, it might as well be on the site where my roll is smaller so I can build it up, and f*ck FT anyway for dealing me so many coolers (stupid, I know). Still, I'm only probably going to play like 5k hands this month, so it doesn't matter much where I play.

My Deuces Cracked video got released Monday, and the feedback is generally very positive (directed at Joe Tall and Jared). I agree. Hopefully, they will continue that series. I like the more in depth conversations. Joe keeps the talk flowing, but also provides another point of view. In general, the videos where they get two coaches going back and forth are good (see Coaching Tree, among others).

Other than that, it's been work work work, except today. I played golf with my boss and a college buddy whom I hadn't seen since graduation (and for me, that means a lot longer time than it does for you guys). Awesome to catch up. He's done awesome for himself, and has had kind of a dream life in a lot of respects, but in spite of that, it was very cool to hang out with him and get caught up :).

Late Night Coaching with Joe Tall

2008-10-14T14:52:00.001-07:00

I am the featured student for an upcoming LNC episode on Deuces Cracked. I tried to find some interesting hands. I thought at first that the hands were pretty uninteresting, but after going through the recording and seeing what sorts of things came up, I changed my mind. I did OK with hand selection. I picked some hands where I thought I did OK but wanted confirmation, and some hands where I knew I screwed up but I thought were still interesting.

Jared, my coach, does a great job 1:1 with me instructing not only the "what" but the "why." He did just as well for the video, with both Joe and me firing questions. Like the rest of the series, we didn't go over a ton of hands, but got some interesting conversation on all of them. If you like the series, you should like this episode.

I didn't ask a ton of questions (IMO), but I had a lot written down (surprise). Joe asked the very questions I had on my mind a lot of the time, which I'll take as a good sign for me. I'm at least thinking about the right sorts of things. I won't give away the episode, but if you watch, you'll definitely get to see at least one total brain-dead play on my part. No surprise there :P. Obviously, anyone watches, I'd be interested to hear if you have any different opinions about the analysis.

Ugh, make it stop

2008-10-09T16:36:00.001-07:00

Here's another one of the things that ticks me off about being a small-volume player...few hundred hands here, few hundred hands there, few thousand hands for a month: downswings can go really long on the calendar. My last 15k hands I've run way below expectations. That in and of itself is frustrating just because I hate to lose. My play has been pretty poor in spots, so I'm making it wore than it needs to be for sure. But the biggest frustration is that for me, this represents almost 2 months worth of play. Over the last couple months, it's been a steady stream (seemingly) of getting all-in as a 3:1 or better favorite, and then they get there...and all the usual stuff that we whine about when running poorly. Intellectually, I know it's going to happen. Even emotionally, I'm OK with it. I'm pretty sure I've gotten a little gunshy and too cautious, but the whackiness isn't majorly affecting my play or even steaming me too much. I more laugh about it, to be honest, and I'm trying most of the time to not even look at how the hand plays out once the cards flip up, and I make whatever note on my opponent is appropriate.

The problem is that while I've gotten good at making my decisions relatively unaffected by results, I haven't yet conquered getting my enjoyment at all unaffected by results. I played a really long session (for me -- it was 1200 hands) last night. 4 tables only, no distractions, and did a great job thinking through decisions and putting villains on ranges, and was pretty close, a lot of the time. But after AKs < AQ, AK < AA, AA < runner-runner straight (he had 2 overs, backdoor flush and backdoor straight on the flop and bluff-shoved in a 3-bet pot, LOL), and assorted other shenanigans, I finished down a third of a stack.

I reviewed all hands with any sort of money in because I actually had no question during game time. I thought maybe I wasn't paying enough attention to the tables/hands to form questions in such a long session. Gasp, that does happen sometimes! But everything seemed standard even when I reviewed.

Discounting for the moment that I'm sure I'm missing my mistakes in review as well as at game time, I should be pretty happy that I got the money in good and that I feel I played really well and didn't make any (obvious) mistakes for this session. But because I basically broke even, I just found that I didn't enjoy it. These sorts of sessions have been enjoyable when I'm on a heater or even when I have a mix of good and bad results, but because it's been so long -- on the calendar -- since I've run well, I just feel disappointed. For guys who play 15k hands in a week, they just have a bad week. I know they don't enjoy it either, but at least for them, they're bound to play through it pretty quickly and at least get back to breaking even ;). No guarantees, of course, but I'm still holding onto the conviction that I'm capable of beating the game at these stakes, regardless of the last few months :P.

Back from vacation

2008-10-05T15:07:00.001-07:00

Been on a family vacation for about a week. I peeked at my work email...245 unread...I do get a fair amount of quickly-deleted FYIs and also get copied on a lot of bug progress reports that I don't need to act on, so I hope to get caught back up on the email backlog quickly. More time-consuming will be a couple big projects that were getting to critical points before I left. It's that sort of stuff that pushes vacations into the distant past pretty quickly :(.

Nothing poker related until this morning when I tried to catch up on some blogs. No hands, no videos, no forums, no even thinking about poker, except when we drove past Commerce :). I hope that will give me a nice refreshed outlook when I finally do fire up the poker client...September was dismal, by far my worst month $$ wise. My play didn't feel confident, but I think it was the results influencing my feelings more than playing significantly worse. I was able to review a lot of hands before I left, and the number of known bad plays and questionable plays was pretty consistent with historical rates.

I did look back to the beginning of the year, and my results are pretty depressing, to be honest. Over the last 100k hands, I'm a paltry .66 BB/100 winner, and a decent loser (like 4 BB/100) at 200NL, and an overall $$ loser over that time (rakeback and bonii make up for that so that I am barely positive). I know there are a lot of spots I could do better, but still, I think of myself as a better than breakeven player. Still, I'm ready to play again after some time off, so enjoying a hobby counts for something, I guess.

I'm not sure what I could realistically be doing differently in terms of learning, preparation, etc. I talked about this for a bit with Jared, and he believes that what I'm doing...getting in the hands when I can and thoroughly reviewing my play as the top priority...then taking in videos and strategy forums as lower priority is the way to go. I tend to agree, although I am going to drop some review in favor of videos and forums. In other words, instead of all review and no videos, it will be a decent amount of review and a few videos.

I have a lot of notes

2008-09-26T13:54:00.001-07:00

I'm really pretty good about taking notes. Between theory notes from stuff I read/watch, detailed notes on videos, thoughts on hands that I screwed up, correspondence with people -- mostly coaches -- about hands and sweat sessions, and other assorted crap, I think I've got 30-50 pages of stuff accumulated over the years. Oh, and I've got this blog.

The problem is I never really go back and review...with any sort of deep thought...most of it. I watch so few videos compared to what's out there that I'll probably never go back and concentrate on watching the best ones.

I've got to figure out how to best organize everything so that I can easily access it later. I'd like to keep things in Word because that works well to port to my iPhone, so I can review without even needing a connection (of course I'm also tempted to get through the next Deuces Cracked video on the phone, too).

Anyway, it's probably good to take a bunch of notes and even write in blogs because the act of doing that forces me to think a bit more about things. I may not go back and refer to something WiltonTilt said in his math series six months ago, but I still remember some of the content because I went to the trouble of writing down and thinking about some key things.

In other news, I had a big conference to attend this week. I played for about 90 minutes on Tuesday, and that's all I've had time for. Next week, I'll be in Disneyland with the family (yeah, Disneyland, go ahead and laugh, but it is fun to be there with the kids). I'll probably be able to get away with watching an iPhone video here and there, but no way is the computer getting opened for any stretch of time, unless the wife and kids are so exhausted that they fall asleep well before I do.

All told, it will be close to 3 weeks between serious playing, and that's probably fine. I don't think I've been playing well lately, maybe I'm being results oriented. I've had an absolutely terrible month, though, and I don't really feel confident at the tables with my decisions. I think I end up playing OK, but a bit tentative...so I miss some value and probably tend to make too many hero calls. At least that's the trend when I play without real confidence. Hopefully, the break will end up erasing whatever lingering doubts remain and I'll have fun playing again.

If you believe in freedom, read this...if you don't believe in freedom please ignore

2008-09-22T21:45:00.001-07:00

If you're from the U.S., please fill this out.

This is mainly for poker players, but unless you're fundamentally opposed to Americans' ability to play poker online, there's no reason not to fill this out. Also, the way that poker players were limited in how easy they could play poker online was a pretty underhanded political trick and I believe exemplifies why there is so much cynicism towards politicians and the political process. I assume anyone reading this already knows all they care to about UIGEA, so I won't go into any more.

I'm amazed how much the party of "less" government in America tries to dictate what I can and cannot do. I think both parties have some serious issues, though.

Perhaps I'll write a little something on religion for my next post :).

Thanks.

OK, I'm better

2008-09-17T09:18:00.001-07:00

Was going to delete my last blog because I'm a little embarrassed by it...but it is what it is, and I was definitely ticked off last night. My temper gets the better of me in a lot of competitive situations, and it usually hurts me some. But that wasn't the case too badly last night for most of the session...really it was two hands right at the end that pushed me over the boiling point. Up until then, even though I knew things weren't going my way overall, I was making the right decisions. I had a lot of big hands preflop and on the flop, so it's not like I had to play great...they kind of played themselves. But I did fine.

I'm still probably taking a break for a couple days, but that might have happened anyway. One of my liabilities as far as poker is that I don't have a ton of time to devote to it. I like it and wish I had more time, but I'm in no shape to support my family with poker, so playing full time is not an option. The flip side is that I am fortunate to not have a bad week or month or whatever affect my life outside of poker. Yeah, I dipped below the bankroll threshold I need to mix in some 1/2 games, but that just means I drop down to .50/1 and kick some ass there, or maybe head back over to Stars where I have a little cash idling and try and grind that roll up a little bit and hopefully get my confidence back. Financially, I lost more than my entire poker roll in the stock market this week.

For additional perspective, I read a friend's blog who's going through a shitty ordeal with leukemia...he's been in and out of the hospital for almost a year now, away from home for weeks at a time going through various treatments that completely wreck his body. He had one operation that was similar to a bone marrow transplant where there was a small, but significant, risk he would die. A month ago, a week after he finally got clearance from the doctors to return to a 100% normal life, his routine tests showed that the leukemia had returned, and now he's back in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy again. The good news is that the chemo apparently did its thing to the leukemia. The bad news is that the side effects this time were absolutely horrible. As I was reading Tom's blog, I imagined if he were reading mine, what he would think of me being so pissed off about a short bad stretch of poker. Actually, he would probably understand, but still.

Oh, and the tennis last night went well, too. I had the shot of the night, and did get a couple short lobs I was joking about in my last post. But I hit away from the net guy like a gentleman.

To you guys who left some words of commiseration and encouragement to my last post, I really appreciate the support. Thank you!

FUCK YOU FULL TILT

2008-09-16T18:42:00.001-07:00

In case you couldn't guess from the title, I'm venting...there is absolutely nothing constructive in this post!

FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT

432 hands, -$1000+, - 121 BB/100 (mix of .50/1 and 1/2)

FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT

AA < QQ twice all in preflop, once only one out on the river because one queen would have given me a flush

KK < AA once all in preflop

AK < QQ all in preflop, king hit on the flop, queen on the river

FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT

Top set < flopped straight vs a 77/0/2.5 guy in a blind battle (he limp/called T7s for the win)

Middle set < top set

FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT FUCK YOU FULL TILT

OK, I'm off to play tennis. Fun session of poker, got me in the mood. Hope neither Dan nor Scott lob short while their partner's at the net.....

I might just be too stupid to ever be a big winner

2008-09-15T11:44:00.001-07:00

OK, not really, but maybe kind of. Regardless, I really feel like an idiot after Friday. Took a day off work, plus my wife went out with the girls on Friday night, so I had plenty of time for poker, for once. After a round of golf in the morning, I headed over to a card room for some live play. I really like playing live every once in a while, although I think that if I were a live pro, I would grow to hate it. I am not a big multitabler online, but even for me, the pace of play is maddeningly slow. Everyone but me and one other guy was a regular. However, a B&M regular is not the same thing as an online regular...still very loose and pretty passive, especially preflop. However, the rake structure really encourages passive play...as soon as a raise goes in preflop, the entire drop of $5 in a 2-2-3 blind structure gets taken. So, there is virtually no late position open raising. Anyway....

I ran totally cold. I only picked up strong hands a couple times, and those were a cooler and a lost flip...one set under set, and another 2 pair < OESD that got there. As I was getting ready to leave, I picked up MP in the BB vs a guy who had to have trips on a paired flop. I'm OOP, and like a total idiot, I'm value-betting myself out of 30bb or so on a KK9 suited flop. For fuck sake, he's never folding better, only rarely calling worse (for more than one bet), will almost definitely let me show down cheap once I put in a small flop bet unless he has me crushed. Of course, he shows up with K3o, which he limped in 2nd to act 9 handed. This is typical and exactly why you want to play live, but I am a total total donkey. After that hand, I played until it got back to me in the BB and left...I was so tilted at myself for making that play, that I figured it would take me too long to calm down and play with confidence.

I stopped by Chipotle for a steak burrito, a nice mood enhancer :). Then I headed back to the golf club (using their wireless network) to check in quickly with work and maybe play a little session before heading home.

Right now, I'm just above my bankroll threshold for playing 1/2, so what I do is select the best tables I can find across .50/1 and 1/2, rather than sticking with one limit. I used to not like doing that (mixing limits in a session), but I don't mind it so much now. So, I'm not sure how many BB I won, but I had a nice session where I focused on playing solid and just about recouped the loss from my live play. It was one of those sessions where there were no coolers or suckouts either way, and the results were good. Not to sound too much like Phil Hellmuth, but it was nice that when everything is kind of standard (low variance, I guess), I came out ahead.

After the kids went to sleep, I played another session. I don't know why...my Friday night record sucks big time. This time, though, it was a lot my fault. Once again -- and I've written about this before, but am having a really hard time breaking my bad habits -- I tried pushing a guy off a marginal hand. My hand reading is getting a lot better...I knew pretty much what he had. My people reading remains stubbornly shitty...I thought I could make him fold it. His hand was actually worse than I thought; he was willing to stack off with a middle pocket pair for 175 BB. Give him credit, though, because I was willing to bluff him off it. The thing is, he's the wrong guy to bluff...36/24/something aggressive postflop. This guy is going to gamble. I called in position on the flop with a gutshot+back door flush draw precisely because my implied odds were so good if I could just hit, and we were deep. But you can't have it both ways! If you're playing to stack the donkey when you hit your hand, you can't also play to bluff the donkey off his hand when you miss! Ugh!

Trying Too Hard

2008-09-11T11:04:00.001-07:00

I'm getting frustrated trying to crack 200NL. I think I'm trying too hard to outplay people, especially regulars. Pretty common theme for my last few sessions is me trying too hard to put people on marginal hands and bluff them out of pots. I do think even at small stakes if you can hand read, it's fine to attack a likely weak or polarized range. You can pretty easily force people to give up aggression in the hand. However, they give up by calling down, not by getting out of the hand. That means it's possible to get a little extra value by playing your decent made hands more aggressively (people will look you up with marginal made hands). But you can't have it both ways, and I think that while I'm getting a lot better at hand reading, I'm still making the wrong conclusions about what people will do with their hands. Where I would be folding (or trying to fold) to pressure with say an underpair to a turn raise, I keep forgetting that not everyone will.

And to be fair, I'm not giving them a reason. My image gets shot by making some sort of play and then I either end up bet/folding a couple times or else I show down the bluff/semi-bluff, etc. If I could capitalize on that and change gears well -- and get the cards to go along with that -- it wouldn't be so bad to get caught. Instead, I keep up the same style, and of course the idiots keep looking me up or playing back.

I would be seriously complaining about Full Tilt coolering me, as well...where even if my hand holds up, the board gets so scary that I cannot get a bet called...not to mention all the good 2nd best hands I've been getting...you know how that goes. But, like a ray of sunshine through a gloomy sky, Full Tilt actually let me hit a draw after full stacks went in!!! OMFG, world may be ending. Lately, the only time I'm winning flips is against the shorties; the full stack all-ins are not going my way.

I snuck out for a round of golf yesterday...actually was supposed to go with my boss and one other guy from work. Boss hurt his back, but said that wasn't our fault, so have a fun round. Sweet. Played OK tee to green, but putted lights out. The only reasonably close putt I missed was on the first hole (about 6 feet for birdie), and I dropped 4 long ones, including on the 17th and 18th holes to seal the victory against my buddy who came out to join us. There was a girls high school golf team waiting to do their team picture on the 18th green, and they were all standing just off the back of the green as we played out. They were just in high school, but seriously there was not a single bad looking girl on the team, and a few of them were really cute, especially all made up for their photos. Not what you expect from a bunch of athletes, but the LPGA and even tennis (the two women's pro sports I watch) has been getting better and better looking over the years. I digress.

My buddy and I were even on the back going into the hole. I give him a stroke on the hole, and we were both on the green in 3. I'm about 20 feet out and he's about half that. He gives me a hard time in front of the gallery. But I curl the putt in, do a mock Tiger fist pump, and get a loud ovation from the girls. So that was nice.

Wild weekend

2008-09-07T11:08:00.001-07:00

Poker's a sick game.

Friday night I had my biggest winning session. That was in spite of a pretty dubious stack-off a little deep, although based on game flow, it might have been OK. I had a read that he would play a marginal overpair or AK as the nuts -- he was on tilt, and I was right...but I didn't have near the nuts either and he was just a little ahead of me. I think we both played the hand spewtastically. Or he just soul-read the shit out of me and pwned my ass.

Saturday night, I had my biggest losing session, $25 bigger than Friday's win. So, basically, the weekend was for rakeback :P. Saturday featured me getting stacked 5 times and losing 90 bb on another hand, while winning more than a half stack (barely) only once over the session. One of the times I got stacked was absolutely retarded on my part, hitting TP on the river against a total maniac, but I did a terrible job with the hand, and lost way more than I needed. Then there were the standard losses of getting all the money in once with 95% equity and once with 85% equity, and two middle set < top set hands.

The lessons from all this? Without some bad play on my part, I'd be up a couple BI over the weekend. From a results standpoint, that's probably the key thing...because of that and some other hands where I don't think I was good enough getting value, I could have had an overall successful weekend.

I'm also not winning big on a lot of my big hands. Not when I get sucked out on or coolered, but when I'm ahead, a lot of the times people fold. However, I think there is the danger of being too results oriented. Because coolers go both ways, and I am getting sufficient action with a lot of equity; just in the short term it's not working out. I'm making the +EV play and generating action.

The other thing I noticed looking through some medium hands is that I'm taking similar lines with bluffs as with made hands, and I'm apparently running into either better hands, better bluffs, or in some cases the hands I'm representing, which pretty annoying. But the good thing is that I'm bluffing well in execution, if not necessarily timing.

Poker's a sick game.

Big leak remembered

2008-09-03T18:13:00.001-07:00

I was having a hand discussion with Jared that made a light bulb go on for about the 50 zillionth time probably. I forget all the specifics, but he raised preflop with 99 and got called by a regular in later position. Villain is super aggro postflop, like 5+, I think. Effective stacks were 100bb or maybe a tiny bit deeper. I don't remember the board 100%, but I think it was T86 rainbow. He c-bet some reasonable amount, and villain minraised. Jared asked me what I would do, and what my plan was for the hand. It's a pretty sick spot, and I don't like any choice, really. I went into the IM tank and finally decided although I didn't like any option, there was too much chance he's ahead, so I said I would call the minraise, check/call most turns, and re-evaluate on the river. Probably folding if he 3-barrels big though.

He asked for villain's range and we talked about that for a while, talked about hypothetical turns, and what if we had AA or a set, etc., etc. Then we came back to the actual hand and my plan for it. He gave me credit for some reasonable thinking about the hand and they hypotheticals, and for realizing that all options pretty much suck. And he did say that, especially with a little history, flat calling the flop and check/calling the turn is not totally unreasonable, but it's likely going to lead to a lot of tough river decisions, especially against an aggressive player. So, what he advocated for me was to just fold to the flop minraise. It might be a small mistake, but it avoids a potentially large mistake. It's important to note that villain had not yet abused his position; essentially there was no real history.

Basically, out of position + out of a clearly good option should tend to = out of the hand. At least for me.

Of course, we're going to play OOP sometimes. But when we are, we need to make sure that we've either got superior hands or superior skill relative to our opponents. Obviously, it's always good to have better hands and more skill than our opponents. My point is that when we're not sure where we stand, we could still justify not folding in position, but if we're not sure where we stand out of position, it's much harder to justify staying in the hand.

Interestingly, I was listening to Tommy Angelo and KRANTZ yesterday, and they both talked about position quite a bit. Anyone who's read anything by Tommy Angelo knows how important he feels it is to play in position more often than your opponents. KRANTZ had an interesting take on it as well...he said that if you look at forum strategy posts, the overwhelming number of call vs. fold questions come up when Hero is OOP. And parenthetically, in that spot, people like to call too much, in general.

Missed just about everything in August

2008-09-02T17:28:00.001-07:00

As far as poker goes in August, in all ways except two, it was a bust. I hardly played, I watched one video the whole month, barely kept up on blogs, read zero forum posts....you get the idea. I had to choose between a lot of priorities, and this month, poker took a back seat. For the first time in quite a while, I have something where a lot of things are coming together at work: interesting, challenging, executive pet project --> get what I need. Also, the kids started school last week, so for a lot of August we were cramming in the last summer vacation activities we'd promised the kids.

So, what were the couple things that went well? I believe that they are closely related. I didn't force my play for the most part, and my results were quite good. In other months, I'd stubbornly log hours even when I was too tired, distracted, unfocused, etc. And I'd play too long as well, believing that my game is good enough to at least break even and hopefully learn something. The problem is, if you're too tired to play well, you're also too tired to learn much from playing, except how to get frustrated maybe! So, this month, when this big project came up, I committed to myself not to play if I couldn't play well, and the results certainly were better. Of course, I also probably ran better. I certainly seemed to cooler guys, and I did run into some really bad stackoffs (bad for them, good for me).

This month, things on the work front will calm down a bit, but not all the way. I also have one big golf tournament to play and soccer season starts Saturday. At the end of the month, we're taking a vacation, where the only internet access I'm likely to have is through my phone. So, it will likely be another low-volume month again. And life will be full of good/cool/fun stuff, so that part will kick ass. Hopefully, I'll maintain my discipline to only play when I can play pretty close to my best. The hardest part is that I miss playing, especially when things are going well.

I was going to post some graphs and stats, but I've got to go. Later guys.

It's performance appraisal time

2008-08-27T22:35:00.001-07:00

Those of you with corporate jobs have probably gone through formal performance evaluations. Some years I like them, some years I hate them, mostly in between. Since I manage folks, this is an extra busy time for me because I have to write and conduct theirs. We have a pretty large form, I think it ends up being 10 pages of content for each person, split between their comments and mine. To make it worse, we use a web app to get everything done, and the interface is pretty horrible, so it takes a lot of time. I keep thinking that the next year I do reviews, it won't take me that long. I've been doing them for a number of years, and so I should be able to pretty well blast through them.

Then I start doing them, and I find that it takes me just as long to write them every year. I feel like I really owe it to the people I'm reviewing to invest the energy to write a good review. For some of them, it's a wasted effort as they don't give a shit about it or the process. For some others, I can see that they truly appreciate the time I've taken. But for everyone, even if I think ahead of time I'll just plow through, when the rubber meets the road, I feel too guilty if I don't give it my all.

So, for the last week or so, I've been burning the midnight oil trying to get things written away from the office, where I just have too many distractions. Then I'm pounding a couple extra cups of coffee in the morning so I have some energy to actually walk through the review with them. Fun times. Well, I've got two more to go this week and one more to do in the next couple weeks, then I'm done for the year, and I can get back to other stuff with my spare time, like playing some poker.

But I was wondering how applicable the performance appraisal concept is to poker. Most of us do a fair amount of self evaluation, which is a critical piece. But none of us have a boss who can give us the perspective from an evaluator standpoint. Coaches can come close, I suppose, but I don't think it's as consistent or as thorough. I wonder if the coaching sites like Deuces Cracked or Leggo Poker have thought about implementing a consistent review process/form for their coaches to use with their students. I think it would be pretty cool.

Rough Session

2008-08-22T18:03:00.001-07:00

Had a lot of big hands that did not go my way (and a couple that did). I think I played fine, but you be the judge on these big ones (they're not all necessarily losers...the key is they have postflop action.

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Villain is a regular with TAG stats, on the tight side. I've been pretty active on the table, but with cards, so I haven't shown down anything out of line yet.

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $261.20
Hero (CO): $203.00
BTN: $193.00
SB: $200.00
BB: $148.70
UTG: $268.55

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is CO with 9 T
1 fold, MP raises to $6, Hero calls $6, 1 fold, SB calls $5, BB calls $4

Flop: ($24.00) 6 8 T (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, MP bets $20, Hero calls $20, SB folds, BB folds

Turn: ($64.00) T (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $50, MP raises to $235.20 all in, Hero calls $127 all in

River: ($418.00) Q

Not a hand I'll always play, but the circumstances were good here. BTN is tight, BB is loose, most of the time I'll have a pretty easy hand to play postflop. That said, I don't think this hand ended up being easy. Can't fold on the flop, but not sure a raise gets called by worse, and can't stand to be reraised, which would make me give up TP+gutshot. I didn't think through his range well enough at the table, though, and played the turn pretty poor. He's got to have something, or I don't think he makes the flop c-bet. He's aggressive, but there are 3 other people in the pot and the board is drawy. When he checks the turn, I think that I'm probably ahead, but the more relevant question is whether I'm ahead when he check/calls (maybe), and whether I'm ahead to his c/r (almost never). I think now that the bet was fine, but I need to fold to the CRAI, which is such a strong move. Or, I could get lucky and have him play AA as the nuts!

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Villain here was total LAG smack tallker, big plays, big loser in my database, although I didn't have any specific notes on him before the session. He showed a double barrel turn/river bluff after I folded the river, and it was on a scare turn. He plays over 50% of his hands and will get in light. Same table as the hand above, and it happened soon after.

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $471.20
Hero (BB): $203.00
UTG: $200.00
MP: $213.00
CO: $146.20
BTN: $258.75

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with J J
1 fold, MP raises to $6, 1 fold, BTN calls $6, SB calls $5, Hero raises to $30, 1 fold, BTN calls $24, 1 fold

Flop: ($72.00) T 4 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $50, BTN raises to $228.75 all in, Hero calls $123 all in

Turn: ($418.00) 6

River: ($418.00) 2

With the read above, I'm fine with the hand. I showed that I will play a marginal hand, if he was paying attention. Against a sane player, I would fold to the raise.

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A different LAG...this ones somewhat reasonable stats wise, but have no notes on him. He's 27/15, but his 3-bet preflop is 11%! Over a couple thousand hands. Postflop he is also very aggressive.

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $155.00
SB: $221.45
BB: $200.15
Hero (CO): $200.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is CO with J J
Hero raises to $7, 2 folds, BB requests TIME, BB raises to $24, Hero calls $17

Flop: ($49.00) 7 2 T (2 players)
BB requests TIME, BB bets $36, Hero calls $36

Turn: ($121.00) 6 (2 players)
BB bets $92, Hero raises to $140 all in, BB calls $48

River: ($401.00) 4

My biggest question was whether to shove preflop or wait for a non A/K board. I planned to get it in somehow if an ace or king didn't show up. Mission accomplished :).

Goals and sabotage

2008-08-20T10:42:00.001-07:00

Here's the bulk of a comment I posted to an entry on Malfaire's blog. I don't know how many other people deal with the same stuff, but we tend to be at least somewhat ambitious, so maybe it's fairly common. Anyway, I'm not sure if my comment is any good or helpful, but it's long, so I thought I would re-post it here as general food for thought. It's not poker-related, although it could apply.

Yeah, I've got the same issue. I don't know if I'd call this exactly a problem, you need to figure out yourself how much you really want to change that aspect of your personality.

I've got quite a few years on all the poker-blogging guys I read, so I guess I speak from experience somewhat, and I'll sometimes wonder where I'd be at now if I'd stuck with one of my own Big Goals. My life is filled with guys I used to be equal with at something (sports, girls, business, even poker) who have gone on to greater "success" but I'm not sure they're more successful or happy across the board. Better/happier in some ways, worse/with regrets in others.

The thing is, the Big Goals don't get met for free; they take a fuckload of work and sacrifice. The guys who can meet those goals and still be happy are the ones who only care about that goal...nothing else matters to them. Otherwise, they either meet the Big Goal and feel some sort of negative towards what they gave up...or else they get distracted from their Big Goals. IMO. So, until you decide that you're willing to sacrifice whatever in order to meet whatever your Big Goal is, don't beat yourself up too much about it.

All that crap said, I totally know what you mean about self sabotage...and I've done that to myself way too many times even with regular old Goals...they don't have to be Big ones. Actually just knowing I'm prone to it has helped a lot, so you are doing something right by questioning it. I think the best thing I've come up with to stop self sabotaging is to find someone to share whatever my goal is, how I think I can reach it, and hold myself accountable to checking in with them in terms of how it's going. I hate to admit defeat in something that I'm actually trying to do (a pretty big part of why I self sabotage...I just stop trying, so I won't fail). So, that's what's worked for me. Another thing I've tried is just to put stuff in writing. Something about that takes away the excuse to self sabotage, I guess. I used to do that with monthly poker goals, actually.

Wow...kind of hippie stuff. Better head on over to Noel's blog, now :).

Catching up with some larger hands

2008-08-15T21:32:00.001-07:00

I finally got a chance to play just a little bit, and will post the big hands that had some postflop action. You guys can thank me for not putting in 2 times I lost set under set and once set under turned flush....but in spite of feeling really rusty, things went OK. It really is funny how a week or so off messes up your rhythm, though.

Villain is an unknown, just a few hands with him, nothing stood out.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG): $109.00
CO: $27.10
BTN: $87.55
SB: $38.55
BB: $100.00

Pre Flop: Hero is UTG with A K
Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, BTN calls $3.50, SB calls $3, 1 fold

Flop: ($11.50) 6 3 A (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $9, BTN raises to $38.50, SB folds, Hero raises to $105.50 all in, BTN calls $45.55 all in

Turn: ($179.60) 5

River: ($179.60) 9

When he raises, my range for him is a club draw (possibly pair plus flush draw or a gutshot + plus flush draw), 33, 66, Ax, and a bluff (whether air or turning a pocket pair into a bluff). I decided to go with my hand, but I think now I could find a fold, or if I didn't want to fold, call and shove a non-club turn and check/fold a club turn.
===========================================================================

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $146.25
Hero (BB): $100.00
UTG: $79.00
MP: $208.00
CO: $87.05
BTN: $72.15

Pre Flop: Hero is BB with A T
2 folds, CO raises to $3, 2 folds, Hero calls $2

Flop: ($6.50) 4 7 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $5, Hero raises to $16, CO calls $11

Turn: ($38.50) K (2 players)
Hero bets $25, CO raises to $50, Hero raises to $81 all in, CO calls $18.05 all in

River: ($174.60) T

I think that preflop and flop are fine. The flop probably missed him, and obviously I have a lot of pot equity if he calls. The turn was a bad play. I think that I was trying to rep a stab on the flop turning into a hit on the turn, but there's nothing that's calling the flop and folding to my bet on the turn, and in fact AK is a somewhat likely hand for him at worst. I could maybe fold out a pair between 77 and KK, but I'm not so sure about that, as really the King is not very likely to have hit me. After I make the initial bet, though, I'm committed. The turn pretty much sucked here.

=========================================================================

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $100.00
BB: $102.35
UTG: $139.00
Hero (CO): $104.40
BTN: $51.50

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with K K
1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 2 folds, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($7.50) K 8 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5, BB calls $5

Turn: ($17.50) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $10, BB raises to $20, Hero calls $10

River: ($57.50) 2 (2 players)
BB bets $25, Hero calls $25

I think I played this one OK. His min-raise spells trouble for me on the turn, but I've got odds to call. Getting 3:1 on the river, I think the call is OK, too. Does anyone push their set? Does anyone fold?

Catching up

2008-08-10T17:39:00.001-07:00

Haven't played any since last time, but can catch up at least on some reviews and as promised some big hands.

I think that I'm going to exclude hands that got all in preflop (I guess unless there's something interesting). I had 3 that were when we both had big pairs, and I imagine that pair vs pair or pair vs AK, etc. is both boring and going to balance out over time. Also, when I flop a set or better, play it fast, and get it in I'll also exclude...win or lose, because what's the point in that? If I flop huge and play slow, I'll probably post those, though, just to make sure I don't get too fancy.

Villain is 32/18/2.6, and I've got a note he can be pretty spazzy, for what that's worth.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $104.10
UTG: $95.00
Hero (MP): $101.50
CO: $115.35
BTN: $98.50
SB: $44.05

Pre Flop: Hero is MP with J A
1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 3 folds, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($7.50) 8 5 7 (2 players)
BB bets $5, Hero raises to $18, BB calls $13

Turn: ($43.50) T (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($43.50) A (2 players)
BB bets $45, Hero calls $45

Preflop and flop seem pretty standard. Against a more straightforward, tighter player, I would follow up on the turn, but I think here that I have pretty little FE once he calls the flop, and in fact there's a small chance he could have gotten there or made a pair on the turn, since he's pretty loose. The river is close, but without a better read than I have and his high aggression, I am OK with a call. I'm certainly beat a lot, but I'm also getting 2:1 odds. His missed draws will bet even with the Ace. Since the Ace has to hit me a decent amount of the time, and he bets so large, I think a fold would be OK, too. Given the strength of his bet, I think a fold is marginally better, but like I said, it's close.

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Villain is 53/20/2.4, no other notes.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP: $164.10
CO: $93.50
Hero (BTN): $100.00
SB: $115.85
BB: $100.00
UTG: $61.05

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with K A
UTG raises to $6, 2 folds, Hero calls $6, 2 folds

Flop: ($13.50) K 5 4 (2 players)
UTG bets $5, Hero calls $5

Turn: ($23.50) 9 (2 players)
UTG bets $50.05 all in, Hero calls $50.05

River: ($123.60) 9

Preflop is usually a 3-bet, but I'll flat AK once in a while. However, usually, that's against someone I think could be decent (based on stats or a note), so they don't just put me on a pair when I flat them. And especially against this guy, I won't mind playing for 60bb (or even 100bb) if I 3-bet and he comes over the top. So, preflop is probably a mistake in this situation. Once I play weak preflop and hit the flop, I'm going to play for stacks . My plan was to raise the turn (or bet if he checked). Flop is so dry that I don't mind waiting for the turn. His huge overbet means I'm either way ahead or way behind, but I can't play it the way I did, hit TPTK against a LAG, then fold, so I'm OK with it.

Best Laid Plans

2008-08-08T12:08:00.001-07:00

Had high hopes for the last couple weeks for poker...not necessarily for playing, but for getting back to some of the things I've been neglecting, like reviewing all sessions instead of every 4th one or so, watching videos, posting here in general, and specifically getting back to posting big hands.

Well, the big project at work got bigger, the visibility to the senior execs got higher, and the importance of it to the company roadmap got bumped up. So, I've been scrambling to prepare not just one, but several plans for how to git 'er done, each with plusses and minuses, risks, contingencies, etc. I like that stuff, but it's hard and time consuming. So guess what? Everything else took a back seat.

Add to that, soccer started this week. The other coach and I met a couple times to come up with practice plans, notes for the girls and their parents, etc. And then we had a team meeting Wednesday and practice Thursday. We're practicing a couple times a week and soon games start on a 3rd day, so that will add to the general busy-ness. All good, but who knows what it will mean to poker. Plus, I'm trying to stay disciplined about not going to sleep too late and getting up early. Late nights are unfortunately my main window of uninterrupted play.

All that said, I think once the start-up mode for the work project gets past (needs a couple more weeks) and the new home/family routine gets going, I'll be able to start scheduling/working more poker time. It's not bad that I'm taking a forced mini-break, now. Results have continued to bounce all around which has been frustrating, but I also haven't felt particularly sharp at the tables. Of course, those two things are related.

I don't think that my play has been terrible, it's just that I'm not on top of things at the tables like I want, so the danger of bad play is increased. Upon reviews, I believe that I'm making the right decisions, in other words. But, they're not coming easily, so I don't have as much room for error. Kind of like in golf, how you can be shooting even par by missing birdie putts and tapping in, or you can be shooting par by scrambling and making 6-footers. You're much more likely to slip into bogey-mode in the second scenario.

Also, I have noticed that I'm losing a lot more big hands than I'm winning. A small percentage are retarded on my part. I run some of the others by my coach. But most I think are pretty standard, or at least they're played fine. When I do get back into study mode, I'm going to start posting all big hands again here. Might not get a lot of comments or anything, but writing them out will force a little deeper thought, and there's always the chance that I'm just blind to my mistakes. Plus, for any hand that I do screw up, posting it will be a good punishment.

Remind me why I do this again?

2008-08-01T08:27:00.001-07:00

July was another fun month :(. Poker's a pretty sick game sometimes, as you know. It's frustrating to do a lot of stuff right, put in a lot of work, and have results like these. The thing is, I'm not (yet) a great player, and the smaller your win rate the bigger your swings, I believe. I'm just on a variance roller coaster (and yeah, I think variance accounts for a lot of the upswings as well as downswings...I'm not trying to only blame my bad results on variance).

I think I still enjoy it. By that I mean when I go a day or two without playing, I miss it...but who knows, I might just be a degenerate looking for a fix. I think I'd still like to prove to myself that I can be as good as I think I can...at least given what I choose to commit to the game. But also, seeing how hard some of the guys work, I guess my upside is somewhat limited without making enough of a life change to devote more to poker. And that's not going to happen, so my results will be what they'll be.

I still feel like my game is pretty solid, and now I've had enough coaching sessions with Jared that he can make an informed agreement. At the worst case, I suck less than my opponents (their mistakes are bigger), and sometimes I don't suck at all (yay me). The gap between me and my opponents isn't enough for me to overtake rake and variance, and not sucking doesn't mean I'm a sick player. Just a grinder, still learning.

How do you know who you can push off a pair?

2008-07-30T22:09:00.001-07:00

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates/responses to everyone's blogs. I have been dealt a very difficult project at work that is taking a ton of effort to get off the ground. It's an important project, it's interesting, and I'm looking forward to working on it...but as the project manager, I am a big bottleneck at the beginning and so I've got to bear down and get things in place. Once things get rolling, the guys doing the actual work will take over, and I can get back to focusing on the truly important stuff...cards :). I got an iPhone and have been able to check in on your guys blogs using it (Google Reader for iPhone is awesome), but it takes way too long for me to type anything on the touch screen, so I've pretty much been lurking, unfortunately. If you've got a hand/issue not getting enough love, feel free to email it to me if you'd like my input (for whatever reason ;). I believe I am up to date reading, though.

I've really slowed the hands down the last couple weeks, too, and have done no study either. This hurts, obviously, but even before then, things were just going tough. I was forcing the play...playing when tired, thinking about other stuff, etc., so I just decided to bag it, and it was for the best. I was still green in EV and way red actual, but I'm positive that a significant chunk of the poor results came from playing my B/C game...hell my A game isn't good enough yet to guarantee anything, so it's really bad when I'm not on it. July is going to be a brutal month, maybe my worst ever $$ wise thanks to another encounter with 200NL.

So, here's one of the issues I've been thinking about. Sometimes you'll see a video or a hand will come up where Hero makes a play in order to push Villain off a marginal hand. Let's define a marginal hand as top pair or worse (against some guys top pair is the nuts, but against us, since we're supposed to be reasonable, I would say that top pair is at the upper end of a marginal hand). How do you guys know who is capable of folding it when shown strength (say a c/r or a double barrel, or something beyond us just betting)?

When the cards are shown down, we can only get a read on those guys who refuse to fold a pair. But when they fold, who knows what they have? They might have just folded a pair, or they might have folded their crap, and since it's much easier to have crap than a made hand, it makes sense to assume they folded crap.

I'm not talking about the very loose guys who we know won't fold anything anyway...I'm talking about all those guys who have somewhat reasonable stats, at least in terms of VPIP/PFR and postflop aggression.

Is it a mistake to assume at 200NL and below that people are not really prone to fold TP at all? Or do you guys assume that if they have somewhat reasonable stats that they can fold TP to strength unless you actually see them showdown a one pair hand when shown strength?

Not much to report

2008-07-21T13:25:00.001-07:00

Poker's been kind of meh lately....I've lost some momentum and some enthusiasm. I'm playing pretty well for the most part. I'm running hot and cold (which is a big improvement, nice to have some "hot" in there). The motivation is there; I'm getting in a decent amount of hands compared to my historical level of play. But it just hasn't been quite as fun, for whatever reason. Plus things have been pretty busy otherwise, so it cuts down on the amount of time I spend reviewing my play, reviewing everyone's blogs, reading forums, watching videos, etc.

I keep bouncing between 100NL and 200NL. I've been doing fairly well at 100NL, playing well and running decent. I've been doing crappy at 200NL, playing well until I run bad, then doing a pretty poor job of not letting it affect my play. I know the mindset I should have, but my outlook/discipline are just not there. So, I run up enough to take a 5 BI or so shot at 200NL, then eventually lose those 5 BI and start over. The poker treadmill. Last Friday, I lost 4 BI in 3 hands somewhat close together: KK < KQs, Turned straight/flush draw < higher flush on river, and middle set < top set. Plus a bunch of middling pots where their flushes got there and if I had a draw, it never did. Pretty standard stuff, and I should be able to take it, but somehow found myself AI vs a preflop maniac with 64s for 80bb. That right there should have been enough to sit out on all tables. Ugly stuff.

The silver lining is that the overt spew-tilt is still really rare. I think I'm playing sub-optimal, but generally on the big losers either my money is going in really well or it's just a cooler situation. I would just like my enthusiasm to return so that it's fun again. After all, this is supposed to be a hobby for me and is supposed to be a way to blow off steam, not to cause it :). Usually, making the right decisions and improving is enough to keep me enthusiastic. Even when I feel frustrated, it's short-lived, and I'm able to see the big picture.

I actually lost probably a couple days of both poker and work last week fooling around with my new iPhone. My old "smart" phone was really a POS and if I couldn't get a credit returning it, I would have figured out some really clever way to smash it to smithereens. The iPhone is pretty fun to use. I've also never had an iPod (small cheapo MP3 player ftw), so I get to fool around with some fun stuff there, too.

At work, there was a top level executive change. It won't directly affect me (and if it does, it would only be for the better based on limited history with the guy taking over), but there are a bunch of fire drills to create some decent presentations for him to get a sense of what we're doing. Also, it's annual review time. For those of you not in the corporate world, count yourselves lucky that you don't have to go through this :). Actually, it can be a pretty valuable mechanism to focus you, but the administrative aspects are a pain in the ass. And because I manage folks, I have theirs to go through and comment on as well. It's even harder for me to do those because I want to give them decent quality feedback. I can do it pretty well meeting face to face or on the phone, but it takes a lot longer to write stuff up. So those things get kind of piled on to business as usual.

Finally, I'm a victim of my success at work. Today, I got handed someone's pet project that is pretty complex and was not getting enough love from the prior owner. So, because I've shown that I can push through some tricky projects with some good creativity and vision, it landed in my inbox. While hard, it seems like a pretty fun project, so I'm only complaining from a time-it-will-take-me standpoint...I'm actually looking forward to it.

Hmm

2008-07-10T16:52:00.001-07:00

SB: $175.85
BB: $100.00
UTG: $251.45
Hero (MP): $110.70
CO: $108.50
BTN: $50.00

Pre Flop: Hero is MP with 6c 6h
1 fold, Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, BTN calls $3.50, 2 folds

Flop: ($8.50) Ah 7c 7s (2 players)
Hero bets $5, BTN raises to $10

=========================

This seems like a pretty simple hand. I'm looking over some older sessions, so I forget whether I had any read/history with this guy, so let's just say unknown. As an aside, my default read of someone who has a half stack for more than a few hands is that he's not that good.

Question #1: Do we need to worry a ton at these stakes about balancing our play in these spots? I don't think so. Unless we're up against a regular, we won't develop enough history on them, and they won't have any on us...probably no notes, just stats. If they have notes, they won't contain the context of the play. And a lot of the guys we do/will have history with are either not good enough to worry about them exploiting us or are playing too many tables to notice. Certainly at higher stakes against more regular, better players, balance is good. But at 100NL? On a big site?

Question #2: If we don't worry too much about balancing our play, should we bet? If we should bet, should we also bet with air? If we should bet with our hand and/or with air, should we bet with Ax? Taking any sort of metagame out of the equation, bets should get value from worse or cause better hands to fold (with some variations, like semibluffs and betting for protection). If we c-bet with air, we do it because we think better hands will fold. If we had AK, we'd be doing it to get worse to call, but we would hate for worse to fold because they will have so few outs. But it's the same opponent, and our hand shouldn't matter. However, there are 8.5 big blinds in the pot already, and so that could make betting with air correct even if betting with AK is also right.

Question #3: What to do about his little min-raise? First of all, if you were the one who cold called on the button and your opponent c-bet into you, what legitimate hands would you raise? How often would you bluff-raise your opponent's c-bet? Now, take some random I've-only-got-a-half-stack donk's viewpoint? What do you think he does with his legitimate hands? In other words, get inside the mind of the donk. (This, by the way, is one of the worst parts of my game. I do a pretty bad job interpreting people's actions, both good and bad players.)

Question #4: What's better between calling the raise and shoving? I actually think that this is the easiest question. I'm not asking if we should fold, just giving a choice between shove and fold.

June Swoon

2008-07-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

June was a weird month...in some ways really satisfying, but results wise, it kind of sucked. My graph looks like I broke pretty much even, but here's the thing...I did it in BB's because I played significant amounts of two different stakes. I played about twice as many hands at $2NL than $1NL, and my win rate was negative at the higher stakes (about -3 ptbb/100), while it was positive at the lower stakes (about 7 ptbb/100). So, my roll dropped overall. The big downward movement you see was the end of $2NL for the month, and it happened in brutal fashion, as detailed in some prior posts. I got back just about enough to jump back in at $2NL and see if the poker gods will smile on me...hopefully third time will be the charm.

On the other hand, I was able to play more hands this month than I believe I ever have, and for the most part, felt like I played solid. Not that I don't have some more to go, but I felt like I got away from auto-pilot, didn't feel lost on too many hands, and was validated even on some of the big hands I lost where my money went in as a huge favorite. I went back and looked at that little downswing in some more detail (I think it was about a 12 BI downswing), and it seemed like I was making big hands a fair amount, but too many of the ones that generated action went against me. Also in that stretch where a lot of money went in and I was behind but with good draws (where I had way more pot odds + fold equity to play), I only hit my draw once, and I stopped counting at 8 times...so I was running below expectation there. I guess that's all the stuff that downswings are made of, even when you are playing well. And to my credit, I continued to play well -- for the most part, anyway -- through it, whereas in the past, I probably would have tossed another few BI's in there out of frustration.

I've managed to loosen up my game quite a bit from a few months ago. As expected, I ran pretty cold at $2NL, looking at W$SD. But my other numbers show that I was sufficiently aggressive...I could be even more, but some of the key stats I look for are within my target range...W$WSF, 3-Bet, Attempt to Steal.

Away from the tables, I did OK reviewing my play and studying videos. I'd like to start posting on strat forums again, but I'm unsure how much time I will be able to do it realistically in July. My time will be more limited, I think. I've been getting some feedback on hands here and there from my coach, and that's certainly helped, so from that sense, I do get a chance to write out my thoughts and validate them. But what I don't get out of that is responding to other people's posts, and I think that's pretty valuable, too.

Still running like death

2008-06-26T14:33:00.001-07:00

First, I'm just about through with a detailed review of my 10BI downswing at 200NL. Like I thought, most of the losses were nothing that I did wrong. A few times, I got money in great and lost, which I knew. There were a couple other hands that were pretty marginal (but fine) that I discussed with my coach, and a couple others that were also pushing small edges that I think were fine, but didn't discuss with my coach. However, part of being properly rolled is the ability to push small edges, even knowing they're high variance. If that starts getting to me, it's probably one area where I can tone it down.

An example is getting it in versus a guy who was something like 60/40/2 on an ace-high flop where I turned aces up. He opened in the CO and I 3-bet with A8 on the button (definitely not something I do normally, but this guy raises almost twice as many hands as I play). Flop comes Axx with 2 diamonds, he check/calls. The turn was the 8d, and he bet/called with Ad3d and it held up. Bye-bye buy-in, reload.

Against more reasonable players, I'm not even in this hand, but that's the way it goes. As an aside, this also shows where EV analysis lacks...my play was based on a read and playing against his range, but if you look at the EV calc here, most of my money went in bad on this hand. Anyway, that was not the norm, lately. It's been going in good and I've been getting unlucky. I still need to work on eliminating frustration at the tables when that happens, but I'm pretty good at letting it go away from the tables and being happy when I make good decisions, even if they don't happen to work out. Some day, hopefully, some other players will be the ones to feed the poor players, who will then pass that money along to me. Lately, I've been the one who funds the party.

So, I dropped to 100NL. One nice thing between some recent coaching and from playing several thousand hands at 200NL is that I feel more comfortable and confident than ever at 100NL. Not that it's translated to results. I ran up 3BI, then dropped 4, again in typical Full Tilt fashion. I just deleted the details (if you really want to read the gory details, let me know), but the highlights were losing 3 times when I flopped a set....once to a backdoor flush, once to a gutshot that got there, and once when TP runner-runnered quads. Ugh.

The final stackoff of the day came on the Edu tables on Full Tilt. I hadn't played those before (I assume CR members at least know what those are). Geez, they are pretty wild. I'm not sure I'll be playing those too often for my regular stakes, if yesterday was any indication. I got stacked by the guy on my direct left who wasted no time 3-betting me...and they were like instant 3-bets, too. It was either the 3rd or 4th time he did it when I made a stand with AQ and he showed up with AK. If a pro was making a video, I'm sure he was saying, "See what happens when you use position and pound on a guy. Eventually, he will get frustrated and play for stacks with an inferior hand. Ship it!"

Given the circumstances, I'm not sure how much I hate my play, but I definitely don't like it. I didn't have that good of a read on him to want to play for stacks with AQ. I'm sure there was some tilt there, but before I called his 5-bet shove, I was just thinking that he had to be 3-betting me light some of the time, and with him and a couple others all being pretty wild (and the same thing was happening on another Edu table), I just talked myself into him doing this with a lot of pairs, suited aces, bluffs, as well as premium hands. I was actually getting ready to leave the table before that, but figured I'd play around to my blinds :P. And then, of course, I couldn't leave right after getting stacked like that, but I never did capitalize on my donk image after that play, so I left a little while later.

BTW, it happened against a guy named Marsh Man, or something like that. I datamine pretty extensively and had zero hands on the guy prior to sitting. Anyone know anything about him? He seemed a bit too LAGgro to be a CR pro or anything, but usually if someone's aggressive like that, I've got at least a few hands on them.

F*ck You Again, Full Tilt Poker!

2008-06-21T00:28:00.001-07:00

Edit: Attempting to take some of the ranting out. I called out a lot of beats, and I'm removing those, although I'll still leave some of the ranting in there....this is supposed to be a blog about how I'm doing, after all. I also added some PokerEV graphs and commentary. Plus, a couple guys already left comments (thanks), and since I'm editing, I'll address Willie's.

For the 2nd time, my play at 200NL ends on a Friday night, thanks to Full Tilt Poker and their motherfucking doomswitch. I looked back at some of the big hands, and my decisions were right, except on the river, I was making some frustration calls if they bet smallish...knowing they probably had it, but figuring that one of these times it would be a weird bluff. I did pick off a couple, but made some pretty bad calls, too. Not for huge amounts, but they add up. But overall, I was getting money in pretty well, and overall my play has been pretty good.

The good news out of all this is that I'm 100% convinced I can beat 1/2 pretty well...I don't know how some of these people still have any money, and even against the regulars, I felt like I do fine. Not that I seek them out, but there are too many to avoid altogether. So, I'll just have to grind it back up, and hopefully 3rd time will be the charm.

I hadn't done this in a while, but I loaded last week's hands into PT2 so I can run Poker EV on them. My impression is that I'm getting money in good, and it should be able to tell me at least that much. I mostly stopped using PokerEV graphs, but I do think they can help with confidence for times like this. And it shows that it's actually been a pretty terrible week :(. Down 10 BI at 1/2. This was after running up 5 BI this month there, so the net loss is down 5 BI for the month at 1/2 (and about +5BI at .5/1).

I'm pretty aggressive with my bankroll, and I know that means I'll have to move down sometimes, and after sleeping on it, that doesn't really bother me. I just want to get better, and I think that I am meeting that goal.

Willie brought up a couple good points...he talked about quitting well, and also about posting some hands for discussion. I probably do have a problem quitting, quite honestly. My time for poker gets squeezed into so many other things in my life that if I have a chance to play, I'll probably make "the most" of it. It means I may not be in the right mental state to play my "A" game, but those times where I'm at my best, I'm usually at work or doing stuff with the family. No way around that, and it's just part of what I need to accept. Last night's session was kind of the same. Up late the night before (work, then poker). Played golf in the morning, got to work late, stayed late, dashed out for my daughter's dance recital, etc., etc. But I need to find a way to play through that, or I won't be able to play at all.

The second thing is hand analysis. I've never been one to post a lot of hands on this blog. I don't like the form, and it's difficult to get a discussion going. I probably should post more anyway, just to get thoughts. But I prefer the theory and just in general getting (and giving) updates. I do discuss hands regularly via email with my coach, though, and I'm sure he'll be seeing quite a few from last night...it's been good to make sure that my decisions are reasonable when I'm getting the money in.

My thoughts on that 3-bet hand

2008-06-19T14:52:00.001-07:00

Thanks guys for the comments in the last post. Brian had the best advice of all, which is to move tables against a good aggressive player who has position on you. The hand I posted was an actual hand, and while the guy to my left was a PITA, the two guys to my right were worth it. Anyway, I think as we all move up, we are going to face increasing aggression from the whole table, including the guys on our left of course. And if we have some good targets to our right, we'll start raising lighter and the guys to our left will start 3-betting lighter...and we'll want to stay, and to play as well as we can against them. Plus some of them won't be good at playing reraised pots, even if they're the ones reraising.

If I'm in the CO and the BTN is 3-betting 7%+ of his hands, that means he's likely 3-betting quite wide on the button, and I think AQ is too much hand to just give up against those guys, assuming 100bb stacks (and for sake of argument, yeah 3.5bb raise, and the guy 3-bets to 12bb). If he's position-aware and 3-betting 7% of all his hands, let's just say he's 3-betting 10% of his hands on the button. So, if he's doing this with like 99+, ATo+, A9s+, KJ+, we actually have more than 50% pot equity with AQ.

The question is how much to play back against them. You guys my disagree that we should play back at them, and that's fine, but from a hypothetical standpoint, let's say that we are compelled to at least call the 3-bet. Between calling and raising, I like calling. Raising does force him to fold some hands at the bottom end of his pocket pair range that we would prefer he actually fold, given we're flipping and there will be decent dead money in the pot, but it counts on him folding out 99-JJ, which might be too hopeful. But more than that, we're screwed against his non-folding range (whether we shove or not for our 4-bet).

If we call, what we have going for us is our equity against his range. What we have going against us is that we are only going to hit our hand 33% of the time, and of that, a decent chunk of the time we will make a 2nd best hand, although not always. The times we don't, if we c/f, then we will definitely be losing money on the deal and you guys are right we should just toss the hand after he 3-bets us.

So, that leaves us having to do something besides fit-or-fold (again, supposing we *must* at least call his 3-bet). In other words, we need to bluff some of the time (but not all the time), in order to make up some ground. One of the key advantages we get by 3-betting (in position or out) is fold equity, so we can fire when we miss. Well, if you know that your opponent is 3-betting light, then you have some fold equity as well. You still don't have position, but if you come out firing after calling a 3-bet -- presuming you don't normally call 3-bets, especially OOP -- you are going to make your opponent uncomfortable to say the least.

On to the specific hand. To recap, I raised 3.5, he 3-bet to 12, I called. Let's say the blinds pay the rake. There's 24 in the pot and 89 behind in each stack (he had 101bb and I covered). I have AsQx and the flop is JsTs3x. First of all, I think since we didn't hit a pair, there is nothing really wrong with check/folding, in a vacuum. However, if we have to bluff sometimes, then this board is a good candidate for it, but we need to bluff big if we're going to do it. I checked for a couple reasons. First, he could possibly check behind and let me draw to one of my 3 outs to the nuts. Second, if he bets, I can CRAI, and as long as my image isn't that of a total LAGtard (yet!!!), I think a lot of hands ahead of me will fold, and if they don't I do have at least a few outs.

The fact that the ten, jack, and ace of spades are all accounted for makes it a lot less likely that he's got a flush draw. If he's any good, he's going to see my play and figure slowplayed AA, 2-pair+, good to great draw, or B.S. Now he may have a really strong hand himself, or maybe just feel pot-committed and look me up. In the hand, he bet 19bb and folded to my shove, so maybe I had the best hand all along and turned it into a bluff. I'm far from convinced I made the clearly correct play, and it might not even be close (i.e., folding preflop might be the right thing to do). But I don't think that approaching it a more aggressive way like I outlined is so -EV that we should always avoid it, either, from both a learning and a table image standpoint.

FWIW, I usually just take Brian's advice and change tables when a good aggro player is behind me. This time, though, the aggressive player -- who seemed pretty solid actually, if not outstanding -- didn't 3-bet me again, even though I raised a lot of hands against the looser players to my right. After a few orbits, he left.