My boom and bust cycle

Greetings long lost readers, how's it going? The question is not rhetorical, let me know! I wonder how many original readers of this blog still play poker for a living? I know several of you who have dropped out along the way, which is a shame as I think poker is not much less beatable (albeit at lower stakes) than in say 2009, and that the reason many of you dropped out was not because of technical skill (or at least, technical potential) but because of falling just short in either mental game, professionalism or implementation. 

I don't mean this as a slight on anyone, I mean it as a 'sort out the easy stuff, and you probably still have the talent to do well, if you want to'.

The reason I mention this is that I can see right now how the same thing would happen to me if I kept on my current path. 

My poker career has always been a cycle of boom and bust, usually $50k+ rakeback years consisting of a couple of $25k months then a load of win $10k/ lose $10ks, but this year (until recently) I had for the first time found some consistency:

By month:

By stake:

July though has turned rather sour, I think I was up around $10k at one point from 99% 200nl, so currently on the end of a 30BI downswing which I now realise has been entirely self inflicted.

Games on Stars zoom have been much softer this year than in previous years. This is doubtless due to rakeback changes, which do suck, but I think that overall the increased softness more than compensates for that loss.

So here's the thing. In previous years I would've been very happy with the above winrates and results, but with the games the way they are I think 10bb/100 at 200nl is extremely possible at the moment.

There is SO MUCH improvement to be made in the way I've played across the year.

Although I have improved in many areas, the year as a whole has still been caricatured in terms of mini booms and busts. These are not variance related, I feel I have decent skills to be able to ascertain in each session whether I'm EV crushing or not.

I think my year has been spent playing 50% 10bb/100 poker, and 50% -2bb/100 poker.

Which brings me to the point of the blog. I got a little stoned today, and in that period I could see with absolute clarity the mechanics of the boom and bust cycle that stops me winning consistently at a 10bb winrate. Here I will outline the cycle in full.

1) Breaking even/ losing/ struggling.
2) Downswing starts to become unsustainable, wakes me up.
3) Decide to put in work to correct behaviour.
4) Start watching a vid a day for 2-3 days. Also start producing recordings of myself playing.
5) 'Narrative' re-appears, the voice used for making videos is present in my mind as a running commentary on each spot. I'm playing B+/ A- game at this point.
6) The watching of videos and self production of videos, which I have found to be the nut best thing for my improvement, starts to result in my A++ game appearing.
7) A++ game is present, I'm in the zone, and the voice narration is no longer even present- it doesn't need to be. I know what action to take and why without even needing to consciously think any more.
8) Print money for a bit.
9) Poker seems ridiculous easy. Watching and making videos seems a chore compared to sitting and owning souls. Volume goes >>, work goes down.
10) Inevitable happens. Start to lose, but don't notice how horrible I've started to play. The narrative isn't present when A++ game, it isn't present now, so what's the problem?
11) Persevere, $ is lost, doubt creeps in, I suddenly find myself unsure in many spots.
12) Back to 1.

So by virtue of this blog I'm currently at 3) on the cycle. I am EXTREMELY confident that once I'm watching vids and making my own that I will almost immediately start to do very well again.

The sick thing about recognising the cycle is that I now have the power to get off the thing when I reach 8).

One thing I believe quite strongly when playing poker is not to have 'rules' about how to play. Having such rules and default lines means they are imported, inorganically, ingame and mask all the infinite nuance of a hand. 

Instead we should relax, take in all the information, and allow our intuition to take over the running of the hand. This doesn't mean 'oh, my intuition just says call or not' (at least not until A++ game is attained) but that the intuition will naturally move towards the information required to make the decision, process it, weigh up the EV and click the button.

So I've shied away from rules, but I don't see why rules outside of implementing/ performing should hold the same fear for me. I'm clearly in need of some sort of regime- good habits that I implement day in day out that mean I maximise my poker success and stop me falling into the trap of having the inevitable bust following a boom.

Nic randomly jumped on a plane to Amsterdam today. She's gone by herself, and is staying until Sunday night. This gives me a lot of free time to try and implement a system that I can try and carry forward.

So here's my goals for the next 4 days. By goals, I mean I physically will not allow myself to go to sleep until they are completed.

Today:

1) Write this blog. [x]
2) Record an Ivey League standard 200nl, 2 table session video, 40 minutes long. []
3) Watch at least 30 mins of a RIO video. Record thoughts in a blog. []

Each of Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

1) Watch at least 30 mins of a RIO video.
2) Record an Ivey League standard 200nl, 2 table session video, 40 minutes long.
3) Play 3000 hands of 200nl.
4) Write a careful blog summary of the day, featuring news, video thoughts, concepts, progress.

Here goes..............


Update: Watched 30 mins of Oxota's 500z review vid. He's very theory oriented in the PIO/ balance sense. He bluff raised a river in his first hand using 'the nut hand to bluff raise', but I was happy that I was decently sure it was going to fail, and it did. Just hacking his opponent's intuition, I was sure that his lack of raise on flop and turn, combined with his lack of PF raise just meant his opponent was going to see bluffs in a vacuum and little in the way of value. Villain ended up having set, but I felt that the line just wasn't credible enough to even make opponent fold the weak Ax that was his most likely hand.

I did like the 99 lead on 653r T 3way OOP in deep squeezed pot, but felt like the turn had to be a protection/ bluff more than protection/ value, and therefore plan should've been to jam river also. Having said that, I wasn't amazed at the PF call- feels instinctively like slightly losing $ VS two good players.

All in all, I'm happy that I was confident enough in my own ideas that I wasn't blinded or intimidated by his confident use of theory ideas VS my own common sense/ intution.