Eye Off The Ball ??

I watched an AeJones video the other day. I haven't watched his vids in ages as he doesn't always use a HUD, and my impression has basically been that you can't credibly say you're maximising your EV without one. He did make one point that really hit home with me though, and that is that the downside of using a HUD, especially a complex HUD, is that you come to depend on it at the expense of other stuff.

So yeah, of late I've been super HUD-ey. This is a good thing, but what has certainly happened is that it's come at the expense of doing what I used to do so well; the intangible skill of getting on a player's level and inferring tons of stuff about his play based on seeing one or two things. So currently, I might see a player 3bet a dry board IP with the nuts, and be able make an absolute technical read that therefore his flatting range IP to a raise is going to be weakened. I note this, and get on with life. I might look at raise flop stats and stuff and maybe think of some more stuff.

But like, this one hand potentially tells me a ton more intangiable stuff about this player and his attitude to poker. Can't situation read very well, afraid of getting drawn on, probably plays poorly in spot X Y and Z too.

So........ my thought process of late has been: check opponents PF range stat, adjust range based on other stats, adjust range based on pure technical observations and reads.

What it needs to change to, is something along the lines of: check opponents PF range, put myself in his shoes and based on his overall calibre, how does the PF situation adjust this range? Postflop, based on my opinion of his ability, how is he seeing this situation? Make appropriate decision, and if close swing it one way or another based on stats and reads. Basically, stats and reads need to become the smaller details rather than the entire bulk of my decision making.

So yeah, I basically feel as though I've been a whole level behind of late. I feel like this revelation is going to kick-start another heater.

I've spent the last 2 hours trying to open a Stars.Fr account. I need to make a ton of leggo vids, so I'm depositing 1000E on there and having a vid series where I basically play with 10BIs at each stake and run it up (hopefully). I think 4 tabling in my current low variance-ish style should make this fine to do. I'm actually quite excited to have opponents with which I have absoluely nooo history, and they none with me. I often worry that I have no clue how a lot of stars.com regs see me. Crazy, weak, passive, loose, nitty, foldy......... I've been all of those things at various times and I find myself in the dark quite often.

So anyway, tidied the house today. Cleaned my office. Cleaned my clothes. Roll is $10k almost exactly, let's run this uppppppp!!!!!!!!

Session review to follow ........