I was going to call this thread: "What to do if someone says "You suck at poker" ... well, then, STOP!! DAMMIT!!

But that seemed too long. If you didn't hear, I suck at poker: details here. And being told so changed my whole poker trajectory - for the better.

I know that some of you have gotten frustrated with me these last couple of months. I had so completely lost my way with poker that I took my entire game and started from the ground up. I know some of my posts recently have gotten the wtf?!? reaction. But I'm getting there. I'm playing the turn and river with a tiny bit of skill and a good bit of success, which in turn changes how confidently I play the flop since I'm not scared too wander deep in the streets with thin value. So I checked position stats, open ranges, cbetting, reacting to cbets - everything.

And I just wanted to say thank to the FTR community. You guys are awesome. You tell it straight when someone sucks. You also help whenever someone honestly analyzes their game and HH's. I'm a wholely different poker player today that I was on Sept. 20th, the day someone mentioned I might just suck at poker.

In the few days of my poker life right after that thread, I did three things. I studied my game and found the hugest leaks (thanks to Ben aka bjsaust). I looked at my life and decided I want to be a money player, to think of poker as a possible source of additional income within two years. And I changed my whole approach to the game. Here are my biggest leaks - the worst ones have nothing to do with any particular hand.

My non-playing poker leaks
1. I played my C- game more than my A game.
2. I played too many tables at once.
3. I tilted - lots.
4. I did not study MY game.

I now think of each poker session as a "money session." I have a short "warm up" ritual, I only start if I think I can play my A game and quit if I'm not. I only play how many tables I can handle, typically 4 - 5. I watch myself on downswings. I used to add a BI or 2 to a 3 BI cooler. I would be stressed and tired, playing C- 6max poker on 9 tables, card dead and frustrated. After a bad beat or two, I would start to gambool with ridiculous bad spewing. Spewtard stuff so bad that if 10 FTR noobies were watching, 9 of them would shout "NO!!! DON'T OVERSHOVE!!! THERE'S LESS THAN 0.0002% FOLD EQUITY AND YOU'RE BEHIND!!" and the other would look up from downloading porn and say "wtf? you suck at poker." So every downswing was 50% worse than it had to be.

After each money session, I look through 3 different filters that will help me spot a return to my worst leaks: I check all HH's where I put in > 40bb's or called on turn or river. I took my own stats of my HUD. Knowing my "table image" is a poor excuse. I was way too interested in me and not interested enough in my opponents.

Following Ben's advice, I worked through 20k HH's from 25nl and another 10k from 10nl, trying to ID my worst leaks. There were many more than will fit even in this long thread, but here's a short list of what I found:

I was spewing in big pots

1. I was mindlessly aggressive, which had 3 bad consequences:

a. I turned weak/medium strength hands into bluffs way too often.
b. I helped villains play correctly against by folding out all their weak/medium holdings.
c. I trapped myself a lot.

2. Chasing on turn/river. This has sub-leaks which helped cause it:

a. No plan for the hand before flop action taken.
b. Not paying enough attention to reads/stacks/board (until too late).

3. I was too focused on winning pots and not on winning money (can you say FPS?).

4. I was cbetting too often oop, and not cr'ing, check/calling and (what about this?) check/folding enough.

Seriously, my estimates are that I was spewing off a BI every 1k hands at 10nl. The only reason I was winning was that my opponents sucked even worse. Over the last 15k hands, I can spot about 2 BI worth of total brainfreeze poker-dumbass spew, so I've cut my C- / spew by about 90%. And guess what? I'm pwn'ing 10nl. Yes, I'm on a heater these last 2k, but I was at 7+ ptBB/100 for 12k hands before the heater, and that included a spell of card deadness and two coolers that covered about 1.5k hands. I'm well over 10 ptBB/100 for my last 15k hands, and better than that I'm playing well and with some confidence.

I'm looking forward to a shot at 25nl properly rolled in few weeks. Part of my being a bankroll nit is a discipline thing - I just need to wait on a arbritray and high BR target to practice poker patience. I have over $650 now, but I'm waiting for $800. With any kind of decent play/results, that should occur by December 1st, maybe sooner depending upon how many hands I get in. So there it is...5 weeks later. Thanks, guys. I still suck at poker, but now at least I'm very tuned in to my leaks and working hard to plug them.