Clearing Mind Blog

I haven't played or done too well in the past few days. I took a few days off to play footy, watch footy, get drunk and eat Thai food, and coming back to poker it's clear that some leaks have crept in. For one thing, my VPIP and PFR have shot up and I don't really know why which can't be an amazing thing.

So for this blog I'm just gonna think out loud and work out what I need to concentrate on going forward.

Comparing the stats over the past 3 calendar months doesn't yield too much difference. I'm opening much wider on the button, but arguably this is better (jump from 39% to 51% which is still on the lowish side). If I were to pick up on one leak just purely looking at the stats it would be the amount of cold calling VS 3betting I'm doing from each position, particularly CO and MP but also BTN.

So the spots are probably those like, UTG+1 opens and I flat A5s in co. Or 87s and the like. This is probably in fact where my extra raw VPIP has come from, just too many loose calls in positions where I expect to get credit postflop (this is no doubt a remnant of playing 500nl) but where I'm just facing too many BTN and blinds squeezes along with confusing auto cbets in spots where I'm thinking 'I look strong here, he's not cbetting *nothing*' but in fact many probably are and just confusing me. Actually on that note it's crazy how little respect my flop raises IP have been getting. Just crazy flop 3bets and turn barrels with nothing......

So anyway- Leak #1 - I'm being too loose with my cold calls in MP and CO.

Leak 2 is quite a big one and needs addressing ASAP. It's one of execution, namely I'm not clicking the button that my mind is telling me to click! This is basically the first leak to creep in when I lose a bit of confidence........ quick example.

http://weaktight.com/5069084 - flop and turn are OK vs this guy, CRs all the time in spots where he doesn't rep a lot, and the turn call is me saying 'ok you think this turn is scurry'. River call though drove me wild cos it was obviously a super snap fold for reasons I had ages to formulate in my head. In a nutshell, we have spades a lot. The way villain views this spot is 'the times he doesnt have spades he is folding, the times he does have spades he is calling'. What this means is that villain is without doubt utterly unbalanced and will bluff small, and value bet big.

I actually had 30 seconds to think of this spot before he bet, which obv only added to my certainty that we should fold should the bet be big. Then it comes and I'm lacking a bit of confidence and I call because maybe he's tricking us. Dan, no1 is actually tricking you at 200nl, they're just doing *exactly* what you think they're going to do. (Sorry if speaking in the 3rd person makes me a wanker.)

I'll start listing these things as goals rather than leaks (more positive, Jared would probably say).

Goal # 1- Be tighter with cold calls in MP and CO.
Goal # 2 - Take your time, and click the right button.

That'll do for now. No doubt some more leaks will become apparent if I don't start winning. That sounds silly, but there's a part of me that doesn't really believe that much in variance. I kinda feel playing well = making money, and the variance associated with people's winrates over time is simply down to them not playing very well during those stretches, and the fact that people are simply unable to maintain a high winrate consistently. The corollary of what I'm saying is that I think those people with long term winrates of say 3bb probably have an A game expected bb/100 of more like 10 but are simply unable to sustain it because of things like loss of confidence/ leaks creeping in etc. So yeah, if I start playing well then I'll start winning probably. That could all be bollocks obviously, but at least one other good player shares this view with me.

bye !