Losing

I've hit that irritating point of my DS where I have to force myself to drop to 200nl for a while. 20k hands, or $4000 won, whatever comes sooner. Comment beneath this for guaranteed $100 if I'm seen playing any higher before this time, but I'll post once I'm back up anyway.

Why am I losing? Beyond the fact that I'm extremely rusty, my light headedness is back in force. This can only be because of 3 weeks of drinking more or less every day with zero exercise. It only took around 5-6 days of solid running last time to cure me, so my first run starts tonight after this next session.

In terms of how I'm rusty, a few things: I'm being extrememly spewy OOP, leading weak hands for value then calling flop raises and eventually getting owned, etc. I also don't know if it's just today and yesterday, but I've been getting the shit 4bet out of me. I guess the simple fact might be that my OTB 3bet stat is showing in everyone's HUD as 18%, and I need to tone it down.

I also played a few loooong sessions, but that won't happen again.

Almost religiously when I was on my 10 consecutive winning day streak before Vegas, I adhered to the 'what does he expect me to do' question on every street of every hand, which is another way of asking 'what is my perceived range', but I guess a level above that. This question allows me to make pretty big folds, and sometimes pretty big calls as well, and I just haven't been paying it enough attention.

In conjunction with the above question is ensuring that I pay attention to betsizing on all streets. The three things really for me that make up hand reading are:

a) make assumptions from PF and stick to those assumptions
b) look at betsizing on flop turn river and relate to the board texture
c) think about my percieved range and ask 'what does he expect me to do'

I realise those 3 things have been missing, and make up a big part of my upcoming session goals.

About to play 45 minutes of 200nl, goals to be graded x/10 as follows:

1) Open much less UTG, UTG+1.
2) Shut down more postflop when OOP, c-call hands and especially don't be value/ fps obsessed.
3) 3bet the SB slightly less, but if you can't 3bet because of gameflow then ditch those pretty looking hands unless multiway (and even then, good reasons ie deep or fish involved).
4)Use Baz-esq meditation to be constantly aware of what I'm thinking- if mind drifts get it back on poker sharpish or quit.
5) In postflop spot, apply the 3 aspects of hand reading and don't be afraid to use these to make big calls or big folds.

I'll post the hands and the results of the above once done...........