The purpose of this was just to give a little update as to where I am with my game and my recent results. I've just come through a rather nice heater but that seems to have ended now (dropped 5 buy-ins yesterday). But I'm not bothered, the great thing about getting towards a million life time hands is that variance affects me less and less as I can just look at my life time graph and know that it is almost certain that I'm beating the micros - even though my win rate doesn't seem that impressive (a little under 3bb/100).
In general I feel like my game is improving a lot. The most recent progress I've made is to be cold calling less in the blinds; and by this I mean that in situations where it's probably close between a call and a 3-bet I'm tending to favour the 3-bet a little more - especially in the small blind. I think that this is the best approach even though in pure game theoretical terms it means I'm probably a little unbalanced. I'm also squeezing a lot more than I used to. I don't think I truly ever comprehended how profitable a play it can be and I'm certain it has got me winning more dead money.
I think that I've also improved my play in those situations where I do cold call out of position. I used to play the check/call/check line almost exclusively, but there are so much more effective lines available. Donking against players who rarely c-bet should be routine strategy but was never part of my arsenal before, and the check/call/donk line is perhaps the most under-rated line I've come across in my poker life time.
But I must also mention areas where I think I could improve. I've obviously worked on my OOP play quite a lot this year, but I don't make enough money on the button. My winnings hover around 22-23 bb/100 and I think that this number should be in the high twenties at least. So this is where I'm going to focus my study for the forseeable future. I'll work on my opening, 3-betting and flatting ranges as well as which boards smash my range versus blind callers (because I don't double barrel nearly often enough). If I can move this win rate up I think it will have a really positive affect on my game.
Finally, I deposited a little money in order to take advantage of the recent Stars bonus and so my bankroll is currently large enough to move to 50NL which is something that I haven't done yet. I'm working on clearing the bonus, which I'll best acheive four tabling 25NL Zoom in my opinion but as soon as it is cleared I'll be mixing in some 50NL tables and hopefully make that limit my new home by Christmas.
I hope you're all running well. GL
Simon
P.S. I've played over 100k hands at Zoom poker now, and I do believe it to be beatable (graph included). This isn't an especially brag worthy graph, but I think it's semi decent evidence to back up my claim.
