The Next Step 2

Last blog post I spoke about a video series over at Cardrunners that used to be up on Stox poker by a theorist called Matthew Janda. He has released several series now and in my humble opinion they are world class. Maths oriented maybe, but very important for understanding range based concepts. Anyway, the preflop material is no less awesome than the other videos I have watched in the last year. Get a subscription if you want to improve - I have no affiliation and gain nothing by this plug.

Some of the leaks that are now glaringly obvious in my game:
- I do not defend my opening ranges enough versus 3-bets (kind of knew this anyway but didn't realise quite how much I should have been playing back versus the aggro regs who have been exploiting me)
- Knowing how much an opener must defend his range and also that 99% of players at the micros do not defend enough means that I'm not 3-betting nearly enough from each and every position - 3-betting prints money!
- I'm playing way too nittily in the blinds versus loose CO and button opens
This is not all, but I think these three are the biggest. These things may not make much sense but it's all explained in the videos I plugged earlier if curiosity gets the better of you.

I don't think I'm going to play any hands until Sunday. I'm going to use the time I have between now and then to begin to reconstruct my preflop strategy using my new knowledge. I anticipate that these changes - much like a change in swing in golf or a bowling action in cricket - will take time to get used to. Given that post flop play is crucial I'm likely to suffer in win rate at first because I'll be playing more hands without the initiative. However, in the long run I think I'll have built a much stronger sturdier preflop strategy; one that should cope with the increased aggression that I'll surely face once I get to the higher limits. I'm really excited about poker again, for the first time in a few months. Like a kid with a new toy. GL!

The Next Step....

I'm going to spend some time studying over the next few days. Matthew Janda created a video series on playing optimally preflop and on the flop. These vids look very detailed and I think they will teach me a great deal about playing poker and hopefully improve my win rate ready for my move to $50NL FR which should happen in the summer.

I think the most important thing for any poker player to do is become super proficient at preflop and flop play. A poker strategy can be thought of as a very large and complex decision tree with each branch having an expected value and probability. It should be obvious that the EV at the very top of the tree (preflop and flop play) has a much larger bearing on the global profitability of the strategy than the branches at the bottom. I intend to refine my preflop play to such a degree that I will not have to adjust a great deal from now on as I move up the limits.

Poker is going well at the moment, I'll hopefully do 10k hands this week as hours and things have returned to some normality now. GL

Approx 20k hands in to new DB

... and like I blogged before, I've turned off all of the winnings columns in hold'em manager so I have no idea how much I've won, if indeed I have won anything at all. All I'm focussed on is the 100k hand goal and when I'm there I'll have a look. It's really liberating just focussing on a hand target rather than worrying about the money. I highly recommend this approach:
1/ Upload enough funds so that you can ride all but the worst of downswing (I had 40 buy-ins for $0.10/$0.25)
2/ Set a hand target (100k hands for me)
3/ Try to play each hand as well as you possibly can
I really do feel a lot more freedom now I'm doing things this way. At higher limits I'll have to be a little careful - I don't want to destroy my bankroll - so I'll play smaller blocks of hands at that stage, maybe 20 or 30k.

I think moving up is a constant refinement of strategy. The only reason people get stuck at a limit is bad habits. I have the advantage of being very self critical and this helps me to constantly poke holes in my game; to always be on the look out for how the better players do things and then try and figure out why. There's a reason they don't play like I do, and it's very likely the same reason they're playing $1/$2+! GL

Mistakes. Meh.

Just made a pretty horrible $20 mistake by overplaying a set in a spot where I'm almost never called by worse. I'm not sure what happened, I either just misread the board for no flush, my concentration was taken by a different hand and I autopilot stacked off or for some reason I discounted the back door flush. I can't really recall why I shoved so I think it's prob a case that I misread the board. So it must go down as a multi-tabling mistake.

They say that poker is a battle of mistakes. If you can make less mistakes in spots where your fellow players do then that's where your profit will come from. While I don't think I make many massive mistakes, this definitely qualified as one. Disappointed because the rest of the session went very well.

Lessons to be learned:
1/ Before sticking stack in double check the board!
2/ Use the auto sit out button if two or more hands develop
3/ Make less mistakes

... or BUM for short.

PSHHHHHHHH!!! (A.K.A Relieving the pressure...)

I think that the small success I had last year is actually inhibiting my ability to play my best game. I think that I'm putting too much pressure on myself to perform well at my current limit and because it's not going my way I'm getting frustrated very quickly.

I began to play online poker regularly not as a way to make money but out of enjoyment. I believe that I have lost sight of this in the recent few months. Of course it's enjoyable to make money, but at these stakes it's not a significant amount that I'm wagering so who cares if I run below EV? I just need to get back to playing for fun and studying for the same reason. So that I can sit down in any reasonable game and be one of the better players at the table and get satisfaction in that fact alone.

I'm going to attempt to transform my attitude about poker back to it's previous state; to go and play the next 100k hands without looking at results and just enjoy mixing it up post flop with good and bad players alike. To this end I will not put any graph up until those 100k hands are up and will do a complete and comprehensive analysis at that point. Until then, I'm flying blind folks. GL

Edit: The following hand was so ridiculous I found it hilarious. I hope you enjoy my pain :)

http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $0.25(BB) Replayer Game#29275277782

Hero ($30.16)
ichiman ($24.40)
Ohalothar ($32.07)
matse2000 ($14.13)
bailiron ($8.64)
rudd4y ($25)
Juakinetasfull ($25)
riosss2 ($25.71)
GETnTHIS ($48.73)

Hero posts (SB) $0.10
ichiman posts (BB) $0.25

Dealt to Hero 2d Ac
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold,
fold, fold,
Hero raises to $0.75
ichiman raises to $2.75
Hero raises to $7
ichiman calls $4.25
FLOP ($14) 5d Tc 3d
Hero checks
ichiman bets $6
Hero raises to $23.16 (AI)
ichiman calls $11.40 (AI)
TURN ($48.80) 5d Tc 3d Ts
RIVER ($48.80) 5d Tc 3d Ts 4h
ichiman shows 2s 6d
(Pre 27%, Flop 30.2%, Turn 15.9%)

Hero shows 2d Ac
(Pre 73%, Flop 69.8%, Turn 84.1%)

ichiman wins $46.36

My play was based upon his stats over around 30 hands which were very fishy. He'd 3-bet most of his hands so I felt he could be playing any two cards. My read was correct.

Horrible Frustrating Session

God this game is NOT treating me well this year. Poor session, I was intending to show the hands but another small HEM gripe is that I could not put the hand histories into poker hand replays nor display them here without showing my screen name which I'd prefer to keep anonymous. I could go through and delete it but that's too much effort. So I'll provide a brief summary instead.

I had one inevitable hand where I got all-in with a pyranha - an aggressive fish - who was playing most hands and I had KK versus AJ on a J44r. KK no good. Two other hands I think a better player would have found a fold. One hand I 3b a loose passive fish and I had AA, and he called. Board ran Ts7d3d and he called the c-bet, turn came 6 and at this stage I'm convinced I'm up against JJ-KK and so I committed myself by betting the turn. He shoves over my bet and I puke. By this stage I've put well over half my stack in so I called, but even given how much money I'd put in - the stats I had on villain suggested he played very passively post flop and I think I could have saved the $10 and folded.

The final hand was kind of interesting, but I definitely think I should have saved a bet. I 3-bet a hijack raiser with 8s9s. I think this may have been a mistake as villain showed a tendency for calling in his stats. Once I noticed this after the flop which was Td6d2d monotone I decided not to put any more money in but on the turn I hit a straight with the 7s. Villain checked to me for the second time so I thought I could value bet the straight. The river paired the ten and suddenly he leads pot into me. At the time I had ruled out flushes assuming he'd bet these on the turn. I really couldn't decipher a reasonable range but villain's general passiveness should have encouraged me to fold but again I called and he indeed showed a flush.

So twice this evening I called a passive player on the river who'd shown extreme strength with a bluff catching hand. I don't know how many times I'll need to say it in this blog until I learn the lesson but... Against a passive player who takes an aggressive line, we SHOULD NEVER BE BLUFF CATCHING! Hopefully one day I'll learn this lesson. If I don't I'll be at this limit forever. GL

Update

Now using Hold'em Manager as my database program. As far as the HUD goes, it's not as sophisticated as Poker Tracker because it's only possible to have one box displayed by an opponents avatar (unless I've missed something); with PT3 I was able to split the stats up and display them in three separate boxes which made the display a lot tidier. Still this is a small gripe because I find the filters and analysis portions better.

Yesterday I discovered an awesome freeware screen capture program called Flashback Express and I'm going to start using this resource as an aid to improving play. I made a capture earlier with me commentating over the top and I found that it helped to explain out loud every decision that I made. After watching again I was able to spot a couple of mistakes too. I may also embed one or two of these sessions in this blog so that everyone can see how horribly I play. Might be interesting to get some critique going to help me to improve. I'll provide updates on this idea in the future. Now, time for a couple thousand hands I think. GL