Holy crap has it been that long

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...

...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

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

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

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 :)

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

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

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

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

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

Another entry in the Senseless Tragedy department

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

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

Reaction to downswinging

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New digs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Opportunity missed, opportunity gained

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

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

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

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

Not as bad as I thought

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Too Call Happy

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

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

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.