Good Evening

Hi there.

I've played nearly 5k hands at 50NL Zoom so far and I feel like I've settled in now. In truth it plays very similarly to 25NL (or at least it has over that very small sample). There are plenty of fish, and a range of regulars from decent to terrible.

I played just two tables for a while, but have now increased it to four. I'm really pleased with how I've adjusted to the new limit. I began by making a couple of mistakes but now I feel that I'm playing as well as I was at 25NL. With the larger bet sizes I was concerned that the increased risk might make me play sub-par but that hasn't happened at all. Although I suppose it's easy when you flop quads in three bet pots.

So yeah, I've had a bit of a heater today. I dropped a handful of buy-ins in the first 3-4k hands but have more or less made that back now. It's obviously very early days and over the next few weeks I'll find out if I've really got what it takes to beat this limit too. Pleased so far though.

Among the changes I've made to my game recently is an effort to fold very marginal pre-flop spots rather than open raise, or to raise rather than call in places where the EV is close. I mentioned this a long time ago in the Rush days, but it's pointless wasting time in close to neutral EV spots because folding actually has some equity... This is hard to explain but the easiest way is that you could get dealt aces in the same time span that you just wasted raising QJo UTG and seeing three streets to showdown. Obviously this equity is offset somewhat by paying the blinds tax but I definitely think that the time factor should lead to a different style of play. I believe that it enhances fold equity; calling adds more time to the hand (on average) and therefore in close spots I believe that the more aggressive option should always be taken.

But this is just a belief, and I have no proof mathematical or otherwise. I just think that time should be a consideration when playing this format of poker.

Right, I think I've waffled enough. I'm shattered (who'd think that the weekend has finished?!) so I'm going to pop a tinny and head to bed. GL all!

Found a great little piece of free software....

called HoldemViewer and it's available for free download from www.holdemviewer.com. Please, I haven't checked it for adware or such so you should scan it first to check that it's safe. Basically you can use it to help visualise ranges of hands that your opponents are playing certain lines with. It's hard to explain without going into it alot but I highly recommend you muck about with it. If someone is raising 50% of their buttons I want to know what sort of hands are in that range. With this tool, I can do this. It's been a great help tonight already! I see myself getting tons out of it. A word of advice, I find the best category of hand ranking to be the Sklansky - Malmuth Groups, as this tends to focus on hands people like to play rather than those that win more overall when number crunched.
So how's my play going?
Well, the tens are creeping ever so slowly towards break even ROI (I'm up to -3% now from -50% at one point, lol) which is great. Tonight I was sat by a good player who was 3-betting (reraising) over 30% of the time. So I four bet with 55 and he shoved - for those not familiar with fourbet maths, you pretty much can't fold any pair after four betting versus a wide range. So I call and he's got JJ. So I lost that first one, but if someone is reraising you a third of the time, 55 does really well versus that range. But I think the fold is ok too, with calling the weakest option. With the stack sizes, there wasn't enough chips behind us to setmine. The four games that followed were all pretty bad players, and I was fortunate enough to get some hands. Against pretty weak players and given the right pot size you just need to maximise your equity and shove any good hand - even if it's an overbet. Twice I did this and got snap called by some pretty dreadful garbage. So the motto is, if weak villain shows any strength in a pot and we have a good hand, BET BIG! Anyway, hope you get something from the software I recommended at the top. GL all :)

Lack of Volume

I don't think I'll truly know much about my winrate until I address this problem. Basically I'm still one tabling to improve my allround playing skill. I think this is best while I'm still learning so much from HUSNG.com. Eventually - maybe next month - I'll need to start getting through more games by playing more and multi tabling. I think I'll start with two during Feb and maybe add a third if I'm comfortable with it. I'd like to play roughly ten games per hour so that I can be getting through 100+ games in a week. The problem currently is that while I believe I'm playing ok mostly, probably well enough for a small positive ROI, there's no way that I can know that playing only one or two games a day. Variance can obv be very large over small samples so for all I know I could be a -14% ROI superfish. So, when I think I've taken all I can from the HU videos I'll play a few months with two or three tables and just try and get through some volume of games. Afterwards I'll review and take necessary steps to improve such as coaching, other training sites etc.