Operation: 'A' game

In other news, the Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler finally arrived. Well it arrived a bit late, but I was also away for two weeks.

I started it very briefly last night and will try to read more tonight. It seems good so far in the bit I've read.

The Inchworm

So far I'm reading a section called the 'inchworm'. It essentially talks about how incremental progress can be viewed similar to how an inchworm walks. It has a curved body where the back of its body is on the ground (is your C game), the curved part in the middle is your 'B' game and the front part of its body on the ground is your A game.


C __||__ A

When it walks, it lifts up and stretches the front part of its body forward. Then the back part of its body lifts up and follows behind compressing the curved part of the body. (no idea if this is possible to visualize).


When you improve your A game, you're taking a step forward, but your C game stays in the same spot. If you keep working on your A game, but not your C game, then the only thing you are doing is widening the gap between your C game and A game (ie: the width of your B game, or amount of time you play your B game), but you're not actually progressing anywhere. The only way to progress forward is to alternate working on your A game, and then your C game. Your overall game will keep progressing forward that way.

I 25% feel like that explanation made no sense to the majority of ppl.

How do you work on your C game? Have a few beers before you start reviewing your hands?

I honestly have no idea what he means by working on your C game.

Working on tilt, working on the emotional or mental side of the game, working on common mistakes you make often (calling 3bets OOP, floating etc).. any small mistake you make when you're NOT in your A game is probably part of your C game.

Travel

I've been traveling a lot the last several weeks. On top of my Europe trip, went to montreal for a bachelor party for a weekend and just came back from a 4 day trip to Washington. Went for a conference with work.

Washington was a lot nicer than I would have thought from a big city, would definitely recommend it.

Poker

Now that I'm back its time to really focus on the grind and try to get hands in. I'm still reading mental game of poker, and I'm not quite done yet.

I thought I might have started a win streak, winning $300 and then $500 in back to back sesions, but lost $2k my last 2/4 session. Following my br management rule (if I lose 4 buyins I'll drop down, win 10 I'll move up).

So now I'm gonna play 200nl until BRM dictates I move up. Once I win $2k I'll move back up to 2/4 again.

I need to get this downswing under control. Its one of my worst in my poker career, both from a size of downswing (not quite the worst), and duration of downswing (definitely the worst - mostly due to low volume).

Right now I'm gonna make a list of things that indicate my tilt or symptoms of of B game or C game, and try to keep track of these.

General Life

I'm contemplating going to teachers college. Anyone a teacher out there?

I've always liked teaching people (ever since highschool), and I really like coaching as well. Teaching also has several months off a year which would be perfect for mixing in some grinding. It's something I'm thinking about, but because I missed the deadline, I wouldn't be able to go until Sept 2012.

TILT

So as I've said I've been reading over the mental game of poker. Part of the book, or rather a lot of the book, suggests things you should work on about your game. One of them is writing out the signs or symptoms of your tilt, what you think causes them and why this might be flawed logic.

This is my list. Feel free to add in what you feel your symptoms are, what causes them and why you think its based on flawed logic. I'm sure a lot of these apply to a lot of people.

Let me know what you think!

This seems good, but I hope you did this during work-time. Thinly veiled brag : mastery of excel.

Noooo...did it when I got home sadly!

Reviewing this list is supposed to be part of my pre-session preparation. I'm gonna need to allocate like 20mins soon. (searching players in my HEM for their notes - does anyone know any easier way to do this than searching them one by one?), and then reviewing this list.

tl;dr

haha j/k very nice post.
Most of what you wrote applies to me, especially the part about your mind feeling numb when you are tilting. That is exactly how I feel when I play a long losing session. The one part that doesn't apply to me is the part about barreling/bluffing too much because I am a nit. Instead, I fold too much because "they always seem to have it this session".

great post, i'm going to print it and study it myself, i think Nos. 1, 2 and 4 apply to my game a lot.

As per 4, yeah, it is obviously better to 3-bet a wider value range vs. people who call OOP too much.

awesome post. and awesome post idea. A++. i think 1,4 and 6 are the most harmful factors in my game (though the introduction of 6 is something i've only actually noticed recently thanks to a heater). although i've been guilty of all of them to different degrees in the past.

thanks.

Nice work griffey. This table smells exactly like big package of fresh money

- I kinda disagree w/ 1st point - in situation you described, it seems like a good adjustment to call w/ these hands. Is there any chance, that you are calling and:
- have no idea about his postflop tendencies
- you are a lot OOP
- or just want to punish him postflop and spewing little bit sometimes??

Mr.Diamond -

Ofcourse if someone is 3betting wide, those are the spots that are better to call wider.

BUT - yes its mostly that I don't have a good read on their tendencies and ranges, or at least not good enough to play well postflop. Also, a lot of the hands I'm calling are gonna brick 75% of the time, but then I feel tempted to float AJ/AQ stuff vs these guys cause I perceive them as wide.

Nonetheless - the point I was making is that, even though in theory it could be ok to play these hands vs these ppl, I'm not playing them well enough and end up losing much more than if I just folded them all in the first place.

For ppl that play very well in 3bet pots without initiative, #1 might not apply.

It's rarely OOP, but yah I also try to force the issue quite a bit, raising their flop cbets with air often and other such nonsense.

yeah I think postflop plan is absolutely necessary before calling w/ these hands

GL in crushing

if you wanna make any big changes in ur game, its gotta start by changing that avatar too

Originally Posted by Alexos

if you wanna make any big changes in ur game, its gotta start by changing that avatar too

confirmed.

I'm now starting to understand how downswings for low volume players get extra frustrating.

My downswing has been going on for about 3-4 months now. But I just checked my HEM yesterday, and over the last two months I have about 13k hands in! This is ridiculously low volume, considering the months prior to that I was probably averaging about 35-40k hands per month.

This week is destined to be a massively hell week at work for me, but hopefully this weekend and onwards I'll start re-grinding again.

I'm pretty happy with my play overall, aside from my usual 1-2 bad total bluffs per session. Sometimes I wish there was some program that could just compute numerically how bad you're really running (in terms of variance, EV, hitting bad boards, ppl hitting sets - everything). It would be comforting if that existed at least!

I'm pretty committed to turning this around though. Read most of the mental game (still a bit left), and am taking notes and implementing the recommendations for the most part.

Also decided to get some coaching off 2p2 for the first time in my life. Had my first session yesterday, which was good. Brought some concepts to the table, but should probably also record a session. I guess I gotta download some version of camtasia!

Downswing is currently at about 4 months real time, and $30k. Let's turn this puppy around!

LESS WHINING MOAR SOUL OWNING IMO!

Originally Posted by bikes

LESS WHINING MOAR SOUL OWNING IMO!

haha agreed, will try to do this

griffffff you can do this man. We all know it and you should too. Who's the new coach?

Thanks kmizzle!

coaching is darkconcept on 2p2. He's giving me a better perspective on gametheory, and just general thought process which is good.

My last two sessions I've played have been the best/longest in a long time. Sadly I was down 1.1k last session, but up $700 this session. Booked it after I ran a $400 bluff.

Taking some time before each session to sit out on each table and read notes on the players I've marked as weaker, so that's helping me plan before each session.

Haha he used to coach me too. He's a really good guy. Just too advanced for the levels I was at (though his live sweats netted me WAY more money than usual).

That's awesome how prepared you are in general with sitting down before each session but also making those spreadsheets. Do you still update your spreadsheet from when you first started?

Sorry for the derailing.

Didn't listen to my coaching advice, tsk tsk

Haha there's always room for more coaching afterwards

I haven't posted in a while. I have been grinding more recently and am pretty happy with how I've been playing.

The coaching is definitely giving me a few different thoughts and perspectives. I think to get the most out of the coaching though, I really need to plan before each session, and come up with some concrete topics to discuss.

As of now, its mostly been topic discussions and going over some hand histories. I could also look into recording a session with camtasia, though my trial expired and it also froze my games pretty hard the one time I tried!

Poker is pretty stalled for me lately! Feel pretty happy with how I've been playing, and was having my first winning month in ages this month until I got poker doomed last night.

MY POKER MEMORY SUCKS

I think one thing significantly inhibiting my game right now is my memory. My memory is awful! Or if not my memory, my ability to associate, or lack of trying to associate a player with a particular name. I'll play a big hand, and remember every detail about the hand several hours later, but will not be able to tell you who it was with (if its not with someone I play a TON against).

This isn't just at the poker table. If I read a book, I won't be able to tell you the names of any characters, and similarly if I watch a movie. I suppose I just don't hold any importance to people's names in these situations, since the name itself doesn't influence anything.

However, in poker, I think its important to remember ppl's names. If you can't remember who you played the hand against, you certainly can't remmeber a series of hands with them, or trends in the hands you've played. As a result, I'm forced to re-read my notes on ppl every session. Similarly, I'm probably not exploiting particular players tendencies, and am essentially just treating all the fish the same way, and all the regs the same way.

Any tips on improving memory? Or improving memory in the poker world? remembering poker aliases better etc?

I think reviewing notes before a session, taking them after a big hand [and paying attention to the name] and then reviewing them when you finish would get you on the right path. Basically just create a routine that forces you to think about their name and what happened, because you need to do something that forces yourself to break the trend of glossing over that detail. I know you said you now have a pre-game and post-game routine, so just incorporate this into that, it shouldnt add too much time and hopefully will help

Yah I wonder if I should just do something pretty ridiculous, but actually write out the name before each note:

SpewyFish - 3bets polarized in the blinds to my EP raise
SpewyFish - double barrels FD, but shuts down brick river
SpewyFish - cold 4bets and folds to jam

or something liek that. Would definitely force me to associate the name with what they do, and also the repeatedly writing the name will help hmmm

make note using poker site software?

Originally Posted by griffey24

Yah I wonder if I should just do something pretty ridiculous, but actually write out the name before each note:

SpewyFish - 3bets polarized in the blinds to my EP raise
SpewyFish - double barrels FD, but shuts down brick river
SpewyFish - cold 4bets and folds to jam

or something liek that. Would definitely force me to associate the name with what they do, and also the repeatedly writing the name will help hmmm

You need to play even less tables then and constantly check player notes to remind yourself who you're playing against, and also get better at note taking since it's gonna be way more important for you.

I'm pretty sure that memory can be improved, assuming you cut down on the weed.

in all seriousness, there are probably mnemonic tricks to help you practice and "learn" how to remember.

I think my memory of hands (especially live) is one of my biggest strengths.

Originally Posted by Da GOAT

make note using poker site software?

Yah Im' actually usin the notes in HEM and on the poker site!

baudib - I have been reading about memory and associations and stuff. I think those things help more for lists, and memorizing numbers. It might be tougher to use those to associate a players alias with hands or playing style/tendencies, but I'll think of ways.

Alex - I'm not sure playing less tables would help. I think I just need to ACTIVELY think about the player names AND associate them with their style and/or hands that have occured.

[QUOTE=griffey24;2047358
Alex - I'm not sure playing less tables would help. I think I just need to ACTIVELY think about the player names AND associate them with their style and/or hands that have occured.[/QUOTE]

well yeah, less tables means more time just re-reading notes and recognizing players and paying attention to previous hands.

bump

bahah nice bump, it's been a while!

Alex and I just got back from the Dominican which was good. We played in the GSOP event down there. I was playing pretty well until I stacked off for 110bbs in what was potentially a questionable spot (JTo on TT7cc Qx 3c board).

Despite that, I think it got me interested in trying out some more MTT's, so we'll see how that goes.

Playing and MTT will also force me to grind cash sessions for longer, so win win I suppose!

BOOM GOGOGOGO