I've spent the last 3 days winning ~$6k at 200nl, which is a nice shot in the arm. Nicely coincided with changing virtually everything about my game, thus giving me the illusion that the sickest heater in recent memory is actually a feat of enormous skill. No matter, confidence is back, now I just need to keep control of that beast and put it to good use.
All the fun hands from the past two days...........
http://weaktight.com/4802690 - my strategy at the moment is to call down when people make no sense for the most part, and then adjust based on their showdown. There's just enough pure bad players around that the usual thing of 'rep nothing = something' I think applies less than I thought. Basically I'm not going to be upset if my instincts are screaming bluff, I make a light calldown, and they have top set. What is he doing, anyone?
http://weaktight.com/4802749 - the best way to get on top of a hand and one level ahead is simply to ask 'what does he expect me to do'. I'd have found a fold here in the past because it makes so little sense it surely means he has something. Looking at it from 'what does he expect' though, clearly he sees my range is wide, expects me to peel once with all Ax broadways and some random floats, and then fold turn on this betsize. If a different player took the same line it might be different conclusion I'd reach in terms of the 'what does he expect' but knowing this guy as an average to good 200nl reg I think my conclusions are sound. Annoying to stick in an overlay of money that when called we're behind, but he can have some random stuff to call worse enough here probably.
http://weaktight.com/4802697 - ramp up the aggression a bit.......... and people adjust by doing this.
http://weaktight.com/4802698 - I seem to be barreling 4 and 5bet pots most hands at the moment. Here he made a situationally good call, and I guess I'm unbalanced with my turn sizing in that nuts are certainly going smaller. Seems ridic to bet like $65 and call it off but I suppose it's just overall more effective sometimes.
http://weaktight.com/4802718 - villain is a fish. I'm really wedded to bluffing these small bets at the moment, like in 4bet pots where they bet 1/4 pot you just get such an absurd price on a small raise. Here this fish would jam anything good, so felt I could raise small, get some folds, but then find a way to make any flats fold on turn or river. K turn kinda interesting, not a pure protection jam as he turns a K with KT/ KQ as well as some suited Jx and 8x picking up diamonds.
http://weaktight.com/4802736 - thats a big fucking raise! This guy is far from the god of anything, and reps exactly nothing when he just flats my bets with stacks this deep. Don't get me wrong, VS someone better I'd assume they'd be more balanced with sets etc and it gets more difficult, but his raise size so polarises himself it even kinda blows out A3
http://weaktight.com/4802741 - similarish spot. The deciding factor on the call was that virtually all suited spades cbet the flop, Jxss being the thin exception...... while the backdoor flush coming in and my biggish river bet probably dissuades 6x from raising too.
http://weaktight.com/4802765 - fail VS a fish. A for effort though!
http://weaktight.com/4802767 - very ambitious from these positions.
dan
Tuesday 26 June 2012
Monday 25 June 2012
Cool Hands
Evolution has almost become revolution the past week or so. I've gone from being afraid to get JJ in PF to having the attitude of '4bet, win tons of dead money, call it off, be behind sometimes whatever, at least encourage future spazzes through pure PF aggression'.
The result has been that, actually, I am winning a ton of dead money, while only now realising how many spaz shoves with A9o abound. So yeah I'm just 3betting loads more, unafraid to stick money in, seizing the initiative and uncapping my range postflop in the process.
Postflop I'm playing more....... dare I say it, Aejones-like. Splashing around a little more, going with my instincts, trying to ascertain the level of my opponent and getting one ahead of it. Poker's more interesting this way, but we'll see how it pans out in terms of results...... in the meantime it leads to more interesting hands.
http://weaktight.com/4797957 - this guy has a 4bet strategy similar to mine, in that he 4bets bluffs depolarised with playable hands. Like, all his range here is suited broadways so I was gonna snap river. His actual check might make that bad, but I don't strictly subscribe to that view. He thought for a while, so on another day I'm sure he sticks it in.
http://weaktight.com/4797961 - squeezing over a fish, really wide range, and I think he shoves QQ+ over this 4bet size. I don't fold anything out on the turn but the pot is too big to cc turn, too many horrible rivers and he probably doesn't bluff again anyway.
http://weaktight.com/4797967 - Irishman doesn't half own my soul. Not in any tangible way except he always folds when I have the nuts and always stations when I don't. I'm certain I'm balanced VS him, it's my no1 consideration in every pot I play with him but still he presses the right button. Superuser. Having said that I should probably go smaller and shove river with most of my range, rep a QQ that doesn't want to check, etc. PF was a little cool, I suppose. Up against a shorty Irishman is gonna 3bet very depolarised for value there and also have pure bluffs.
http://weaktight.com/4797973 - situationally punished by obsession with balance. This guy is just tricky, and with JJ KK AA I face a horrible turn spot. So I check KQ and hopefully he bluffs some hands, alas he had KK but there's a chance he finds a fold actually.
http://weaktight.com/4797983 - annoying spot, but alarm bells rang hard on the flop overcall....... I called flop because I felt the middle guy might raise to rep Jx himself. River flush left me not beating too many hands, if any.
http://weaktight.com/4797984 - I would probably have folded this a week ago
http://weaktight.com/4797989 - 98% sb open, 90% cbet, so I feel bluffing almost any cards would be mandatory. This way stops him 3bet shoving the flop or whatever. I honestly feel his range on the river is still ~ 98% but calling a hand that loses to some bluffs sucks.
http://weaktight.com/4797998 - another bluff.
With playing looser, it's more important than ever I don't play when not mentally 100%. If you have, say, 3betting AQo to 5bet it potentially in your gameplan, then with a little tiredness you can find any shit excuse to do so.
dan
The result has been that, actually, I am winning a ton of dead money, while only now realising how many spaz shoves with A9o abound. So yeah I'm just 3betting loads more, unafraid to stick money in, seizing the initiative and uncapping my range postflop in the process.
Postflop I'm playing more....... dare I say it, Aejones-like. Splashing around a little more, going with my instincts, trying to ascertain the level of my opponent and getting one ahead of it. Poker's more interesting this way, but we'll see how it pans out in terms of results...... in the meantime it leads to more interesting hands.
http://weaktight.com/4797957 - this guy has a 4bet strategy similar to mine, in that he 4bets bluffs depolarised with playable hands. Like, all his range here is suited broadways so I was gonna snap river. His actual check might make that bad, but I don't strictly subscribe to that view. He thought for a while, so on another day I'm sure he sticks it in.
http://weaktight.com/4797961 - squeezing over a fish, really wide range, and I think he shoves QQ+ over this 4bet size. I don't fold anything out on the turn but the pot is too big to cc turn, too many horrible rivers and he probably doesn't bluff again anyway.
http://weaktight.com/4797967 - Irishman doesn't half own my soul. Not in any tangible way except he always folds when I have the nuts and always stations when I don't. I'm certain I'm balanced VS him, it's my no1 consideration in every pot I play with him but still he presses the right button. Superuser. Having said that I should probably go smaller and shove river with most of my range, rep a QQ that doesn't want to check, etc. PF was a little cool, I suppose. Up against a shorty Irishman is gonna 3bet very depolarised for value there and also have pure bluffs.
http://weaktight.com/4797973 - situationally punished by obsession with balance. This guy is just tricky, and with JJ KK AA I face a horrible turn spot. So I check KQ and hopefully he bluffs some hands, alas he had KK but there's a chance he finds a fold actually.
http://weaktight.com/4797983 - annoying spot, but alarm bells rang hard on the flop overcall....... I called flop because I felt the middle guy might raise to rep Jx himself. River flush left me not beating too many hands, if any.
http://weaktight.com/4797984 - I would probably have folded this a week ago
http://weaktight.com/4797989 - 98% sb open, 90% cbet, so I feel bluffing almost any cards would be mandatory. This way stops him 3bet shoving the flop or whatever. I honestly feel his range on the river is still ~ 98% but calling a hand that loses to some bluffs sucks.
http://weaktight.com/4797998 - another bluff.
With playing looser, it's more important than ever I don't play when not mentally 100%. If you have, say, 3betting AQo to 5bet it potentially in your gameplan, then with a little tiredness you can find any shit excuse to do so.
dan
Saturday 23 June 2012
Session Review 1
Oops, well that didn't work out. Just one of those sessions I think, 30% WSD while playing 18/16 etc, but it's crazy how every losing session has to be 5BIs at the moment. To the hands........
http://weaktight.com/4791651 - wide 3bettor....... with value I think it's better to 4bet to a larger amount IP, just encourages more bluff shoves. Hate to fold after putting 19bbs in though, but I guess I can't have it both ways. Probably some strategy like: small 4bet with AA/KK, small with playable bluffs, bigger with unplayable bluffs and AK.
http://weaktight.com/4791654 - 40/34 fish. He'd opened tons, and I just weighted his weird limp towards slowplayed AA KK type stuff, especially as the hand played out. He was fishy enough to shove river for value VS those hands, and definitely all 2 pairs which are in his range if 65s is. Actually that last sentence I'm not certain of, which is a problem. I think this should've been a blocker bet spot, like bet 1/4 fold. $100 mistake or so.......
http://weaktight.com/4791659 - fish
http://weaktight.com/4791661 - terrible flop sizing on my part (and I actually thought it through, god knows how I got to this turn spot). On the plus side his turn range is weaker than if I'd bet bigger on the flop, but I shouldn't have placed myself in a spot where I'm jamming close to 1.6x where I doubt I'm particularly balanced. Probably am in his eyes though.
http://weaktight.com/4791668 - reg. 39% CO open range here, 4bet % of 20% so I'm sure this is fine. More importantly, it's better than flatting and folding most flops or turns and just increases my overall aggression which when people finally catch on how I've changed PF will have positive implications for getting value from bigger hands, etc.
http://weaktight.com/4791672 - opens 29% and doesnt fold to 3bets, a passive fish basically. 3bet is fine I think, isolating a fish VS an essential 29% flatting range just can't be bad. I shoulda folded turn to this size though, reverse equity all day and I need to be soul reading these spots better as well as not building massive pots where he's going to bet river a lot and we're forced to make folds or terri-calls.
Anyway, I was much happier with how I played and I just need to persevere and hopefully it'll turn around. Going to play another session now, big hands to follow.
Need a turnaround ?
I'm on a bit of a losing cycle, so I need to turn that around. Luckily, I have tried and tested methods for doing just that, hence the blog.
When I keep losing, it's usually because of some leak in my mental game. I've been trying to get in 5k hands a day this month, but that volume has come at the cost of not always (or not ever given the lack of sleep) playing my A game. My A game means I actually agonise over each decision, time on it, and then actually press the corresponding button. When I'm in the habit of not playing my A game, I often don't even notice.
Well, now I have noticed, and one of the best ways to get it back is to post every big hand, every session, here for evaluation. So, evaluate the hands, but also evaluate the technical and mental session goals, which are as follows:
Mental:
1) Play 1 hour max.
2) Time on every decision in a big pot, read through the mental goals before committing to a decision.
3) Have a narrative for every losing hand 'good that variance exists, yada yada'
4) Have a 'video' narrative in my head as I play.
Technical:
I've done a lot of technical work lately and made a fair few changes. I'll go through these another time, but suffice:
1) Be an animal on the front foot, a huge nit on the back foot.
2) Cbet way less OOP.
3) 3bet blinds a lot more.
4) Attack weak ranges, and escape from strong ones.
5) Stay exploito-balanced.
So I'm going to play an hour now and then review the hands. Probably, I need to drop my 5k hands a day goal and just concentrate on crushing. Possibly, my winrate playing only 2k of excellent hands a day is 2.5x better than the 3bb/100 goal I've set myself playing 5k hands. We'll see eventually..........
Ok review to follow
When I keep losing, it's usually because of some leak in my mental game. I've been trying to get in 5k hands a day this month, but that volume has come at the cost of not always (or not ever given the lack of sleep) playing my A game. My A game means I actually agonise over each decision, time on it, and then actually press the corresponding button. When I'm in the habit of not playing my A game, I often don't even notice.
Well, now I have noticed, and one of the best ways to get it back is to post every big hand, every session, here for evaluation. So, evaluate the hands, but also evaluate the technical and mental session goals, which are as follows:
Mental:
1) Play 1 hour max.
2) Time on every decision in a big pot, read through the mental goals before committing to a decision.
3) Have a narrative for every losing hand 'good that variance exists, yada yada'
4) Have a 'video' narrative in my head as I play.
Technical:
I've done a lot of technical work lately and made a fair few changes. I'll go through these another time, but suffice:
1) Be an animal on the front foot, a huge nit on the back foot.
2) Cbet way less OOP.
3) 3bet blinds a lot more.
4) Attack weak ranges, and escape from strong ones.
5) Stay exploito-balanced.
So I'm going to play an hour now and then review the hands. Probably, I need to drop my 5k hands a day goal and just concentrate on crushing. Possibly, my winrate playing only 2k of excellent hands a day is 2.5x better than the 3bb/100 goal I've set myself playing 5k hands. We'll see eventually..........
Ok review to follow
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