Current Thoughts

After winning a lot of money yesterday, I've lost a similar amount of it today. At this point I feel like I should say something in Latin or French or something to remark wistfully on the fickle nature of it all. I want to say ce sera sera, but I don't think that's right.

Easy come easy go then.

I'm ditching the running graphs. They are contributing to me making decisions for the wrong reasons.

It's half past midnight right now, which means it's NOVEMBER. Last month ended up being another exercise in getting stuck $9k in the first few days at 400nl, then spending the next 29 days grinding it all back 200nl. $1k in total cash profit in the end.

So, in a moment I can start this month. Here's my broad outline plan for success this month:

6 tables! Jesus I am such a broken record at times. For the first time though I think I've been able to properly quantify exactly why > 6 are such a bad idea for me. Basically, I feel my brain power is like butter. If you spread butter over 9 slices, it'll still be bread and butter, and chances are that ........ ok I'm quitting this analogy it's terrible!

The jist is that for the most part I can play 6 and 9 tables to the same degree of ability, I can raise, cbet, 3bet, yada yada. In the rare spots where higher level thinking is required though my brain goes missing when 9 tables are up. The accumulation of these spots, and the greater variance they bring in fucking them up is killing me. I've already propped myself in my Leggo blog that I can't play more than 6 tables or I pay out $750 to randoms.

Focus on performance, not results. Yeah yeah, we've all heard this one. Quit with the cliches Dan, we all know not to be results oriented, it's harder than it seems though, yada yada. I think that this is absolutely vital though, and so I'm putting in steps to help. First of all, I will NOT discuss my running results with anyone at any point this month, no blogging about it, nothing. If Ian should PM me, or say Chris should pop up on my Skype and ask, I'll tell him to go fuck his pseudo Irish self (nothing personal).

What I will do though is blog constantly about how I've been playing, with the emphasis utterly on performance and nothing else. Grades are coming back probably.

Technical Goals. These will obviously change throughout the month, but being aware of them and taking care of them is really important. At the moment, my current big leak is those pots where I invest 100bbs. Simply, I'm getting all that money in waaaay too light. There's definitely some monkey see monkey do involved on FTP (the 3bet/5bets on there are extremely lol, random example: http://weaktight.com/2856146). In so many spots they are literally giving me money, and currently I adjust by GIVING them it back.

So there's a few aspects to that particular technical goal. The first is the PF stuff.... the 4bet jams with 55 have to stop, as does 4bet calling AQ or 3bet/5betting it without a sick sick reason. How to adjust to lots of 3betting then? Open less if it's that bad, simple as.

The second aspect is in making spazzy call downs with not enough reasons for doing so. In particular, I'm getting owned in spots where villain takes an obvious bluffy line, such as checking the turn IP in a 3bet pot on KKx Q x deep, then raising the turn and showing up with KQ. It comes back to what I was saying another time, basically that these days bluffy lines are always value, but by all means call down 3 streets to a normal looking bet bet bet line if you have a decent idea of his range street by street.

On the whole though, there's just tons of spots lately where I could fold for 100bbs, and decide not to do so. JT oop on a T hi board in a 3bet pot when a K turns should not for example be an automatic stackoff as at present.

However it's not just a case of saying look fold for 1 PSR on the river, I have to once again look at how I get in those spots in the first place, take it back a step and ask what can I do to avoid them.

All in all, losing less in the 200bb pots will have some negative impact on my smaller pot winrate, but clearly it's necessary.

So session 1 review to follow, massive emphasis on a) performance, b) being extremely careful about putting in 100bbs for postflop value, or PF bluffs. Win those 200bb pots!

dan

PS: Oh I forgot to add, also necessary to success is spending lots of time analysing spots, talking poker, sweats etc. So Ian if you want a free sweat or two I'm up for that, pay me when you make your first million, Chris I'll watch you play or visa versa, and Dodgy the same, you'd all be doing me a favour.