Good Day (+edit to include video news)

Funny sort of day. I've been judging myself as of late strictly on red line winnings, as they're usually a pretty good barometer of how well I'm playing. Today I just couldn't get anything going, but just won stack after stack.

This is obviously God sending me my EPT buyin. For the first time this year my BR has surpassed $30k (currently at 32.5) and I feel pretty happy about that, feels like 5 minutes ago I was down to my last 3k again.

Anyway, I really want to play the EPT, but have two issues. The first is that I still want to sell action, I should be able to do that fairly easily on Leggo.

The second is that I've been waiting on this £4k withdrawl from AP for like forever. They keep telling me next day blah blah, but basically I need to get another £5k now before Monday and it's not likely to happen. Er, so I need to find cash from someone, (edit just asked in UB thread, so we'll see).

Cool hand of the day:

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem • 5 Players • AbsolutePoker

Generated by weaktight.com.

UTG	DUSHELOV	$806.20
CO	SCHINJA	$533.77
BTN	GROGHEADFLOW	$800
SB	BRINKS111	$706
BB	STAROFZIPORI	$646.10

• Pre-Flop ($6, 5 players)Hero is BTN
• 

1 fold, SCHINJA raises to $12, GROGHEADFLOW raises to $40, 1 fold, STAROFZIPORI calls $36, SCHINJA folds

• Flop ($94, 2 players)
• 

STAROFZIPORI checks, GROGHEADFLOW bets $50, STAROFZIPORI calls $50

• Turn ($194, 2 players)
• 

STAROFZIPORI checks, GROGHEADFLOW checks

• River ($194, 2 players)
• 

STAROFZIPORI checks, GROGHEADFLOW bets $144, STAROFZIPORI goes all-in $556.10, GROGHEADFLOW calls $412.10

• Final Pot: $1,306.20

• GROGHEADFLOW shows
• 

• STAROFZIPORI shows
• 

• GROGHEADFLOW wins $1,302.70 (net +$656.60)
• STAROFZIPORI lost $646.10
• SCHINJA lost $12

Oh and Dodgy asked me to make a video. I did so, the other day, I'm just starting it uploading now (4.42am) before going to bed. I don't want to post the link here, but if you want to take a look then aim or skype or pm me and I'll send the link. It's with audio, though more of a ramble rather than anything else.

Is all, Dan

Default of Winning Poker

I know I'm playing well when my 'default' of a session is to crush it. What do I mean by this? Well, let's take a time I wasn't doing so well. How about the whole of this year more or less........

I would play a session. I would try really really hard. I would check results.

'Hmm, $500 down at 400nl....... but then, I did have that QQ VS KK cooler, and then some 3bets that didn't work out...... but then how the fuck am I supposed to win when I don't get any KK vs QQ coolers coming my way for once??'

This is an example of poker that has a default of either breaking even, or losing. It's the kind of poker that needs cards in a session in order to win. If no big pots took place, then I would slightly lose. The big pots would balance out over time, leaving me wasting my time fretting over whether 3betting QQ otb VS an UTG raiser was correct. Or I'd post a hand where I flat a 3bet and the flop comes j76 150bbs deep and I'm all like 'hmmm guys should I stack here waddya think?'.

The above picture is a snap of todays HEM. I've filtered for 'number of bbs won or lost > 95'. In other words, these are the hands that most players spend all their time fretting over. In other (other) words, these are the 100bb bread and butter cooler type hands. As you can see I lost a net of $1117 in these pots today. In times gone past, coupled with negative showdown winnings, I was probably looking at a $2k losing day in terms of cooler/ recooler situations.

There's a 3bet pot HU at 3-6 where we both flop top pair and he has AQ and I have KQ. There's a 3bet pot with my QQ losing to his nut flush, I get AK in vs his QQ, etc. All in all, situationally in big pots I ran very bad today.

Default of winning poker though, means it doesnt matter! Here's my HEM of today's results filtered for '# of bbs won or lost <>

As you can see, it's massively in profit, cancelling out and more the $ lost in the big pots. I think an important point is that the big pots only accounted for 17 of today's hands, whereas the smaller pots accounted for 3668 of them.

So, on a day like today where I feel I ran pretty bad all in all, I made ~$600 profit. On days where I run absolutely terrible, I more or less break even. On days when I run ok in big pots, or even run well, those are the $2k/ $3k/ $4k days that keep cropping up at the moment.

So the above is obviously related to showdown VS non showdown. As in, the vast majority of the smaller pots I'm winning are at non showdown.

So, coming back to today's big pots accounting for just 17 hands, and the smaller (mostly non sd) pots account for 3668 (actually, if you filter for # of bbs won or lost <> 3, ie the hands that actually matter, then you arrive at 330) of them. These numbers, plus the smoothish red line graph above should give you an idea of what I'm talking about. The variance associated with playing a non-sd style is just so much less, and thus makes winning consistently so much easier.

So currently I'm playing Default of Winning Poker. I haven't really described how to play said style of poker, but if I could sum it up in a sentence it would be "don't build a medium or big sized pot without a clear plan to win the hand".

Some hands!

http://weaktight.com/2704078 - checked the turn, doesn't have the nuts, jam!

http://weaktight.com/2704099 - ok this one he has to raise the nuts this deep. I don't care that he just raised my turn overbet, I'm going with my flop read...........

http://weaktight.com/2704105 - fairly standardish, the ace is a good card VS a bad player which he is.

http://weaktight.com/2704108 - spots like this I'm happy to stack to any J, but I go with an assumption that he doesn't have one and stick to it. I can't jam the flop because of risk/ reward, so I have to wait for a turn bet before I can claim right of last initiative profitably.

http://weaktight.com/2704119 - a different type of line, but one you sometimes just have to grit your teeth and go for on the river VS good players who perceive you to be ok.

http://weaktight.com/2704125 - I refuse to bet call the flop with Q hi, so inducing a turn bet allows for profitable right of last initiative and folds out K and A hi's that could've jammed.

http://weaktight.com/2704129 - similar to hand 1, he just doesn't have the nuts when he checks the turn this deep and he's going to have make some pretty big assumptions to call without it, namely that I realise this AND am prepared to act on it. I feel like having relatively tight PF stats incorrectly dissuades people from assigning me such laggy moves.

I should be top of the PTR 400nl UGL, I'm not because they keep missing my sessions. But, 10 days left and I'm going to put in a ton of hands to try and get there.

In before $20k downswing now obv !

dan

Bluffs in this blog, reborn, winning!

After my usual desperate start to the month, I started looking for some clues to turn things around. Not just little tweaks, but the fundamental reasons why I play so much poorly and understand so much less than I did 12 months ago.

I stumbled over this random thread......

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=519424

It's from around the time I joined Leggo. In it, they're discussing one of my old graphs that is basically all non showdown winnings. Ie, showdown winnings are at zero, but my non-SD line climbs at a steady, almost variance free pace making up 100% of my decent sized profits.

Somewhere along the line this stopped happening. I realised that for this to be true, I must be playing way way way more different now to then, and judging by results definitely much worse.

Seeing the graph, I went and read some old blog posts of mine, and a ton of stuff came back to me. Not just raw poker knowledge, but an attitude that I would take into every session and every hand. I was convinced by the fact that making folds is just stupid, don't get hung up over big folds when reciprocally they won't fold either. Instead, make all your money by not giving up on hard earned money that's in potentially winnable pot. The all in button works wonders....

Seems a bit simplistic? Well obviously it is, but applied properly it served me well. It's not just about ramping up the aggression...... I do that all the time to spewy effect. It actually means I cbet less..... but when I do put a bet in on the flop or especially the turn, come hell or high water that pot is going to be mine, or my opponent is risking his stack to win it. I avoid RE spots like the plague, and (probably) most importantly am constantly aware of the pot-stack ratio and how this is going to relate to right of last initiative. This means I'm not bet folding much in medium to big size pots, instead I'm bet calling, CRAI or shoving over bets.

Also important is being pretty fearless about repping hands, and being even more fearless about turning pairs into bluffs when the situation demands it.

So anyway I moved to my Catwotisadog account for fresh start reasons, and so far this month am showing success.

I really believe that if I can just balance my play enough to keep the blue line above breakeven, then the consistency that's eluded me for so long is just around the corner. This has all been 9 tabling too which is cool, I'm finding it a lot easier than in the past by following a few simple PF and flop rules, allowing me to make snap folds and quickly focus my attention where it's needed.

By the way, I don't have any UB regs reading this, but I know some readers know some UB guys, just do me a favour and don't show them this post or copy and paste it to them or whatever please, purely for paranoia reasons obviously but I don't want another ZOMG everyone's seen my videos/ read my blog thing going on.

Some favourite hands

http://weaktight.com/2671922 - he fold N showed AK !

http://weaktight.com/2671927 - I have the best hand sometimes here, but that's not the point. He has an ace a ton of the time, and it's cool I get to rep trip 7s while he's basically calling to win half the pot at best on this dry of a board.

http://weaktight.com/2671930 - just another spot where despite the top pair, it's practically worthless and I can just snap all in for $$$$$$$$$$$$

Oh WSOPE next week, anyone going??? Chris?

dan

The biggest mistake in poker?

Well it's arguably not the biggest mistake in terms of hit to your winrate, as the frequency of it happening is I guess fairly low.

I'm talking about getting 100bbs+ in the pot PF and being wrong.

Actually, probably not that low. In bobbos coaching once we did the maths of being HU, and making the mistake that every time a guy 4bet us, we thought he was FOS and jammed a bluff range of Ax, small pairs, suited connectors, when in actual fact he ONLY 4bet with AA.

He wanted us to find out the effect on our winrate of making this mistaken assumption.

We factored in the number of times AA is dealt VS us, multiplied by the times we have said hands to 3bet etc, then did equity calcs. The effect came out as a 0.6 ptbb/100 negative on our winrate, which Rob didn't think was that bad. I think it's pretty big, but anyway.

I think at 6max, there is a lot more scope for getting this wrong. The most annoying thing about it though, is that it should be RIDICULOUSLY easy not to get it wrong. It's basically just a function of pure HEM numbers, perhaps altered slightly by whatever dynamic is going on, but essentially VS a multiabling standard reg we just look at his 4bet range, and adjust for some other factors.

Here's the hand anyway:

http://weaktight.com/2643871

Here were his stats. As you can see, over 8k hands, this guy is just not a 4bet bluffer. He's also not a light 4bettor for value. In fact, it's pretty doubtful whether he even gets in AK.

Here we're 120bbs deep. He's IP, which means he's even more likely to flat AK and JJ. He knows I'm a spaz 3bet/5bettor.

It's a really really fucking easy decision to just flat PF, or else 3bet fold (flatting wins obv). In the worst of cases, I should auto 3bet and then think ah shit mistake, fold now.

It's so frustrating because all other technically harder plays have an EV much much less than the downward EV of making this one, very avoidable, mechanical mistake.

Anyway, I got slaughtered that last session. Here's the hands, I don't think I can do too much....

http://weaktight.com/2643891

http://weaktight.com/2643893

http://weaktight.com/2643894

http://weaktight.com/2643895 - saying check flop is extremely hindsight heavy in my book

http://weaktight.com/2643896

I'm feeling mild tilt right now, even 2 hours after the last session, so I'll probably my most +EV decision of the day and go downstairs and read a book for an hour before playing..........

dan

04/09/10 Session 1

Weee ran hot, not in all in spots (quite the opposite actually), but in terms of running into megafish and also binking in big pots. Here's a reverse equity spot that in his shoes I'd fold the turn........

http://weaktight.com/2643296

Or maybe not fold the turn, I guess I can have AQ. AQ is a fold for me there though in his shoes. Lets look at all the possible scenarios for him.

a) I'm on a pure float. Pretty unlikely. If I am, then I'm very likely shoving the river, and he should be aware of this. So, he's not calling 50 into 100. He's calling 350 into 100.

b) I hit my flush. Again he's not making a small mistake calling 50 into 100. He's calling 350 into 100!

c) I have a weaker ace. I guess this makes a turn call ok. It's really really really NOT ok though if he then calls the river.

http://weaktight.com/2643311 - megafish. DEEP. Shut eyes, pray, call.

http://weaktight.com/2643313 - this is obviously ridic spewy in a vacuum. I had decently sick reads though. He played 46/30, cbet all the time EXCEPT whenever he hit a pair, in which case he checked. Even top pair good kicker etc. I didn't just want to raise the flop as he was crazy enough to shove something, and inducing a turn bet means my bluff has to work less often and is thus more profitable.

As for goals. Felt happy, no reverse equity (though probably wasn't really tested) and I didn't spew PF.

Next session coming up..... dan

I am feeling.......

Much happier. I'm not tilted in any way I'm pretty sure. Hard to devise a sure-fire way of knowing, but the best way I can describe it is that my unconscious mind goes completely blank when it comes to poker. So say I'm in a hand, I can be very consciously trying very hard to focus on that hand, but all the stuff that usually goes on in the back of my mind breaking down ranges and coming up with creative ways to play the hand, and telling me when I'm beat and why, is instead just focussed on something else, like rage and stuff. I think anyway!

Shame I had to drop so much in this small period. I can only forget about it and move on. 200nl again until I'm rich enough to play 2-4 without worries.

Instead of 45 minute sessions, I'm going for 500 hand sessions. This will avoid the tilt I get early on in a session when I can't get on a table for love nor money.

In terms of goals........

No PF spew

No reverse equity, fold flops

Be happy and relaxed, enjoy it.

Results to follow.........

Turns out........

That I was still tilted, very tilted in fact. So now this month has started like all the others despite my best efforts. I couldn't have factored in other people tilting me, but a skill in future will be to recognise said life tilt and not play.

The fact that the above happened seems to have life tilted me even more. The session was over 24 hours ago, and I wake up still bitterly pissed off both with people and also myself.

Back to basics next session when I do play. It has to be when I'm not tilted, but the tilt being there is hard to recognise sometimes...........

sigh

Couple of bad sessions- my fault

Dropped $2k in around 1000 hands in two sessions. In the first session, I had a fish who jammed AK into me on 8765 for 150bbs VS my 9 catch a set in a 3bet pot for 250bbs to my QQ, I couldn't fold. Then this http://weaktight.com/2634667 sent me into a whirl of tilt and I should've snap quit but ended up losing a whole lot more.

Then I went and had an argument IRL. Then I did Shootah's coaching, it pissed me off 'cos I ask them not to use Teamviewer every week cos it doesn't work in Euroland, but they did again and I couldn't be bothered to get all 6 people to log off again and load up mikogo just to watch some 100nl Rush sweat. It also pissed me off that he kept referring to a 'high stakes' group, that had Nikolak and other assorted 5-10+ guys in it, and I was wasting my time and $2k sweating 50nl and 100nl guys when I had specifically asked to be included in said group. Anyway, suffice I was life tilted.

So then I went and played again, with no blogging and in hindsight no care. It was the kind of tilty session that you don't realise is happening. I thought I was doing fine, maybe 200 or so up. I checked HEM, and I was stuck $1200. I quit.

Hopefully this blog post acts as a soother. There's a chance I'm still life tilted though I'm not sure. Clear headedness is really important to me, I basically don't have a B game, it's A or Z.

So I'm going to play now anyway and see how things are. I'll have a 'moronic move' stoploss though.

dan

September Session 6

Hands: 482

Won: $224

All that image uploading was getting tiresome obv.

Badly misplayed one hand in this session, this was the guy who called me down with bottom pair 3 for 150 bbs the other week. http://weaktight.com/2631640

http://weaktight.com/2631641 Cold calling AK again, a good example. I gave it the old tiiiiime on the flop repping an oh noes QQ why didn't I just 4bet, which gets me the 2nd barrel a mon avis.

http://weaktight.com/2631645 I think an important development point in a poker player is when you first realise the K on the turn is a great card, not a reason for desk smashing.

So overall, 6/10. Next session coming up...........

September Session 5

Played well enough, got sucked out on with A3 on 542 too for a massive pot.

http://weaktight.com/2631161 Here I make a reverse equity mistake on the turn. If the turn was a blank it's a different matter, but here his Tx doesn't bet, his worse Ks don't bet, his GS got there, and he has very few bluffs. Folding the turn is mandatory and I failed.

http://weaktight.com/2631259 - This is a line Shootah encourages the group to use a lot. Failed this time but perhaps only on this card.

No PF spew! As long as I keep mentioning it, not jamming 33 is going to become second nature. I've probably saved about $4k in the last few days through not doing it.

Next session of the day now..........

dan

Session 4 of September

http://weaktight.com/2630909 - I'll start with a bluff. Villain is a massive losing fish, but all my instincts on the river told me to jam. Had to grit my teeth and do it though, especially on this card........

http://weaktight.com/2630919 - cold 4bets should be extremely polarised obviously, and I think polarised beyond AK. I think cold calling it is cool, you get a ton of respect for JJ QQ on low boards, and when an A or K comes they try to barrel you off of it. So flop I could raise, but go with my plan of repping TT-QQ. Luckily I bink and it pays off.

http://weaktight.com/2630926 - this hand really pissed me off. I was honestly preparing to fold on this exact card vs this exact opponent. Then someone shouted up to me, and I was distracted, then I was timing down and did a fuck it jam. bahhhhhhh

But no PF spew anyway, and was reasonably solid PF. More, same, $, etc.

dan