More on Exploiting Regulars

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

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....

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whoops, it's been a while

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom's Funeral

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bleah

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

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

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

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

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

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

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:

1. 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!)
   
2. 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

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

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

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

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

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

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.