Operation: Learnin' the Pokers

I have been around FTR for a while, although I am not as well known as many others of similar vintage so I think a quick profile is in order.

I am Australian (in fact I live not far from bjsaust), in my mid-thirties and married with two young kids. My job chews up a lot of hours, and when you add in family responsibilities, some semblance of a social life and my really annoying need for at least 8 hours of sleep a night in order to function, I have maybe 12-15 hours a week left over for poker (the actual number depends how tolerant my wife is feeling week-to-week!). I generally two-table because I play for enjoyment and to learn rather than an hourly return, and I don't think I'm capable of making decent decisions if I play many more than that. That means that in a good month I can squeeze in maybe 10K hands.

My poker history starts with a $50 deposit on Stars in February of last year. I had some initial shots at 5NL and 10NL, and luckily didn't lose too much before finding FTR, reading some bankroll management stickies, and realising I was only rolled for 2NL. Over the following few months I read a lot more of the strategy stuff here, as well as TOP, NLHT&P and HOH1, while grinding away at the micros. Thanks in large part to the advice and discussion on this site, I have since progressed through 2NL, 5NL, 10NL, 25NL and am now playing 50NL.

I have also had a couple of operation threads in the past, in which I was bad at updating and and terrible at asking advice. Both have thankfully died a quiet death.

Now to the present. I moved up to 50NL in February, when my BR hit $1,250. At first I pwned it, and I was about 5 buy-ins up over my first couple of sessions. Since then its been a complete and unmitigated disaster. Right now I am 27 buy-ins below that peak. I haven't moved back down during that time because unbelievably my BR is still higher than it was when I moved up, thanks to some very generous RB and bonuses, but now my losses at the tables are starting to overwhelm the free money these sites keep throwing at me. Right now my BR is at $1,320, and I have set my stop-loss at $1,250, which means that with no bonuses imminent I have only about another 1.5 buy-ins to lose before dropping back to 25NL.

So what has happened? My first answer (and to be honest probably my only one for a long time) was variance. I've been telling myself that I have just been extremely unlucky, while venting in tilt forums and at the fish via the chat box. I mean, how stupid can you get? Sure, I've had some pretty nasty variance (eg. my all in EV is -$500 just in the past month), but if I keep trying to convince myself that variance is the reason for my woes, then I am clearly kidding myself and retarding my growth as a poker player.

The simple truth is, I suck at poker.

Its mind-numbingly obvious. A 27 buy-in downswing is statistically possible for a winning player, but it is not very statistically probable, which leads me to the far more likely conclusion: I am not a winning player at 50NL. Either I didn't have the game to beat 50NL when I moved up, or my game has completely and utterly broken down. In retrospect maybe I moved up too soon, as I was only a marginal winner at 25NL but was still able to move up reasonably quickly because bonuses padded my roll. But now I'm here at 50NL, I want to learn to beat it.

So the purpose of this operation is to finally try to heed ISF's advice and swallow my pride, stop being defensive, admit that I suck, and turn myself into a winning player. The plan is to completely "lift my skirt" (in a poker sense, of course) to you good people of the FTR community, and let you see all my adequacies, inadequacies and everything in between, by posting hand histories with thought processes, mental breakthroughs and whatever else you or I think might give you some insight into my crap-ness. Hopefully that will inspire you to give me some tips on what I am doing wrong that will help me improve, and with a bit of luck some of you readers might learn something and improve your games in the process as well.

I also lack discipline away from the table - I have a coaching site subscription but haven't watched a video for three months, post-session reviews only happen periodically, and I don't spend enough time thinking about my game and how to improve it. Basically, my "poker time" is too heavily weighted towards playing and not enough towards ex-table learning, and I'm hoping this operation will help me to re-balance that by making me think more about my game.

So here goes. My goal is to win back those 27 buy-ins at 50NL, however long and however many hands it takes. I'm not putting any time pressure on myself - this is simply about turning myself into a winning player at 50NL. If I have to drop back to 25NL first, then my goal is to win my way back up to 50NL (with $1,500 BR) and then win back those 27 buy-ins.

Wish me luck!

EDIT (Nov, 7, 2009): This thread is evolving into my crusade to become a winning player generally, and in the process beat 50NL. To help chart my progress, I'm going to post a picture here of my lifetime results, and keep it generally up-to-date.



I'm also going to post some links to threads that I think have really made a difference to my understanding of the game, to make sure I don't lose sight of them (and also to help others find some of the total gems here on FTR).

First is the classic ISF theorem, still one of the best strategy posts I have ever read: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...em-t58517.html

*peeps under skirt*

How the fudge you get in 12 hours a week with a wife, 2 kids and a social life is beyond me (I am lucky to get 6-8 hours a week under similar circumstances). Good luck Tony, I'll be watching your blog.

Originally Posted by Lucothefish

How the fudge you get in 12 hours a week with a wife, 2 kids and a social life is beyond me (I am lucky to get 6-8 hours a week under similar circumstances).

With much difficulty!

Its really a matter of squeezing it in when I can. A fairly standard weeknight for me is getting home from work around 7, tucking the kids into bed, chatting with the missus over dinner, and then sitting on the couch playing poker on the laptop from 8-10 while the wife watches America's Next Top Model or Project Runway or something, or reads the newspaper. Yes, I'm boring, but hey I'll be middle aged soon too so isn't that what I'm supposed to be??

My kids are also young enough that they both still sleep during the day, so I often get a couple of hours after lunch on the weekends, and I sometimes get up early in the morning and play for an hour or so before work as well.

Thats about it.

I actually think that trying to squeeze in hours at the tables might contribute to my issues, as I often end up playing too late after a long day at work, or trying to carry on a conversation while multi-tabling. Both recipes for disaster really.

Originally Posted by Lucothefish

Good luck Tony, I'll be watching your blog.

Thanks Luco!

I am another wife and 2 kids middle age type, getting the hours in is a problem and to be honest wife and kids come first by a long mile. I get the time in by playing 2/3 nights a week but doing quite long sessions, finishing when everybody else in bed. I never play when family is not doing something else distractions are a disaster. Better to play less than play bad.

Good luck Tony I will be watching your progress

Originally Posted by hopeful

I am another wife and 2 kids middle age type, getting the hours in is a problem and to be honest wife and kids come first by a long mile. I get the time in by playing 2/3 nights a week but doing quite long sessions, finishing when everybody else in bed. I never play when family is not doing something else distractions are a disaster. Better to play less than play bad.

Couldn't agree more. I also play only when the kids are in bed or off doing something else, but as a result I end up staying up too late which is not a good thing for my game (or for anything else for that matter).

I do sometimes play when my wife is watching TV or reading beside me, and occasionally end up dividing my attention between her and the tables - not good either. I need to avoid doing that.

Originally Posted by hopeful

Good luck Tony I will be watching your progress

Thanks mate!

Well, not an ideal start.

Had a ~500 hand session tonight. Lost a buy-in early with the obligatory suckout, after getting it all in on the turn with trip Ks vs flush draw (82% equity), then spent the next couple of hours grinding my way back to square. Then I get the following hand.

Villain is 29/14/2 over about 130 hands, and has several times flatted my raise and then bet into me post-flop if I show any weakness.

On the flop I wasn't happy to see the A as I thought Ax was definitely in his flatting range, but given the history I thought his range was wide enough that a c/r would take down the pot a very high proportion of the time.

I think the turn is just pure spew, and a great illustration of why I should just go to bed when I am feeling tired. I remember thinking that I was probably behind but I most likely had 11 outs (any Q or any club) if he called. In retrospect I think I'm behind something like always, so for that to be a good play I would need him to fold at least 50% of the time. My flop raise would probably have folded out even most Ax hands and certainly anything worse, so I think his calling range there is probably flush draws, sets and random two-pair hands (and maybe AQ/AJ), and so my FE on the turn must be somewhere near zero.


iPoker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (5 handed) - iPoker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($149.75)
BB ($50)
Hero (UTG) ($50.78)
MP ($68.40)
Button ($34.04)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q, Q
Hero bets $1.75, MP calls $1.75, 3 folds

Flop: ($4.25) 3, A, 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $4.25, Hero raises to $17, MP calls $12.75

Turn: ($38.25) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $32.03 (All-In), MP calls $32.03

River: ($102.31) J (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $102.31 | Rake: $3


Now I'm right on the edge of moving down - if I lose another half buy-in in my next session its down to 25NL for me.

[sorry, double post]

In the cold light of day that hand doesnt look so good. The villain flop bet would have got a fold from me, at the most a call.
The Turn bluff would have worked better after a flop call, would you have made that raise with a flush draw? probably not so you shouldnt represent a made flush if you didnt represent a flush draw.

Having said all that the check raise bluff is a powerful high risk move, and high risk means it will loose a lot some times. If you really thought about it at the time, and decided it would probably work then it was a decent play if however you pulled it without the proper thought process before hand it was a bit of a spew.

One thought did you decide before the Check raise you were going to shove the river?

Originally Posted by hopeful

In the cold light of day that hand doesnt look so good. The villain flop bet would have got a fold from me, at the most a call.
The Turn bluff would have worked better after a flop call, would you have made that raise with a flush draw? probably not so you shouldnt represent a made flush if you didnt represent a flush draw.

Having said all that the check raise bluff is a powerful high risk move, and high risk means it will loose a lot some times. If you really thought about it at the time, and decided it would probably work then it was a decent play if however you pulled it without the proper thought process before hand it was a bit of a spew.

One thought did you decide before the Check raise you were going to shove the river?

Thanks for your thoughts. I agree it doesn't look so good!

The c/r on the flop was totally designed to elicit a fold, and to be brutally honest I didn't really think through properly what I would do if villain called or shoved over.

I often raise the flop with a flush draw, because I think that with 35% equity plus fold equity it is often +EV. So the club turn was probably a good card to bluff, but I have to admit that it wasn't very that well thought through. My thought process was closer to "oh f***, he's called my raise, its a big pot, I have to go with it now ... at least I have lots of outs if he calls". I think one of my massive leaks is to almost "panic shove" in situations like that, rather than stop and think through the situation, especially when I'm over tired and perhaps tilting a bit.

Slightly better night tonight. Ended up about a buy-in.

Lost an early coin-flip when AIPF with AK v 99, then got it back later when I shoved the flop with the nut flush draw, got called by a double gutshot draw, and hit on the turn.

I don't think either of those hands were really that interesting (although it might be worth coming back to the flush draw hand to look at when is a good time to shove them), but I want to have a look at the following hand.

Villain was 44/25/1 over about 90 hands. I probably fold this on the flop 90% of the time, but with $2.50 to call in a $10.50 pot I decided that I would call this one. In retrospect it looks to me like a bad play, because while his preflop range is wide, his flop raising range (with AF=1) has got to be pretty narrow. My guess is probably a straight, sets, random two pair hands, flush draws and maybe some TPTK type hands (KT, AT). I think my equity sucks against that.

Once I've called the flop, I feel as though I've sort of committed myself to play any A or K turn. I'm not sure thats the right way to think about it though. There's still plenty behind, but if I call the raise then isn't it ridiculous to fold to an A or K on the turn?

I think the problem here is that I've played myself into a bad spot on the turn with my play on the flop - if my range assessment is right then even if I do improve on the turn, I'm still behind all of the top end of his range, and even the couple of hands at the bottom end have also improved and are still ahead (ie. his TP-type hands have just become 2 pair).

So I think my first and biggest mistake was calling the flop, which probably led to another mistake on the turn.

Thats my self-analysis after the fact. I would love to hear any thoughts anyone else has?


iPoker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (5 handed) - iPoker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($140.85)
Hero (SB) ($113.56)
BB ($52.25)
UTG ($34.72)
MP ($46.50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, K
3 folds, Hero bets $1.50, BB calls $1

Flop: ($3) 6, 10, 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $2.50, BB raises to $5, Hero calls $2.50

Turn: ($13) A (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $9.50, Hero raises to $107.06 (All-In), BB calls $36.25 (All-In)

EDIT: fixing some of my wording ...

edit: nevermind

Once the flop was down and you miss with AK you have to check fold or as you did try a bluff. Once he raised you should have folded and lost $5, you wouldnt even have noticed that loss against your $113 stack.

What does his raise mean ? it could be your a lying bag of shit and you have nothing or it could mean no matter what you have i have more.

Either way he was right.

Originally Posted by hopeful

Once the flop was down and you miss with AK you have to check fold or as you did try a bluff. Once he raised you should have folded and lost $5, you wouldnt even have noticed that loss against your $113 stack.

What does his raise mean ? it could be your a lying bag of shit and you have nothing or it could mean no matter what you have i have more.

Either way he was right.

Yep. Should have folded to the flop raise.

I don't want to spend much time in this thread focusing on this sort of stuff, but after the weekend I just had it might be worth a paragraph or two to illustrate how both positive and negative variance can impact on a session.

Saturday was an awesome day poker-wise. I could only fit in about 550 hands, but I ran super hot and finished up about $275, or about 5.5 buy-ins. Thats roughly 50ptBB/100. I got good cards, I hit flops hard, and the monies kept flowing my way. Sunday on the other hand was 750 hands of mostly pain. The cards weren't quite as good, but still came OK, but I ran $210 under EV on all-ins. Of the first five times I got my $$$ in I had the best hand four times, and roughly 42% equity the fifth time, and I lost all of them. In the end I finished down about $100 for the day.

Thats all pretty standard stuff, but the key point for me out of the whole thing is that I think I played better on Sunday than I did on Saturday. On Saturday it was my cards that crushed my opponents more than my play, and I think I missed a few opportunities to extract even more value (eg. by auto-betting my monsters too hard too early and pushing weaker hands out). On Sunday I felt like I really was on my A-game and made fewer mistakes. A lot of my reads seemed to be on the money, and as a result I managed to get away from some decent hands when behind, and to get my stack in when in front. Yet the monetary results tell a very different story.

We all know the lesson - that short term results mean f*ck all so don't tilt over a bit of variance - but I do find it helpful to be reminded of it from time to time.

There were a few spots that I found tricky, so I might try to post some hands when I have a bit more time.

(As an aside, I've never been dealt AA as many times in such a short period as I was on the weekend. I had AA/KK a total of 21 times in 1,300 hands, which is almost twice as often as I should expect to be dealt them. Even more freaky, 20 of those 21 times I had AA. Thats way more than three times as often as I should expect!)

Hey Tony, how is the bank roll doing? I cant work it out from the thread. I remember you had a step down of around 1250 and only 1 and a half buy ins before you got their. Where are you now?

Not sure I agree with your analysis of the weekends play. Because you feel you are playing well doesnt always mean you are, on the other hand because you are getting good cards doesnt mean you are playing badly. I think it has much more to do with your opponnents view of how you are playing, what image the table have of you often decides the money.

With good cards you look like a maniac better who got lucky, with bad cards you look like a passive/weak player who folds all the time. Trying to make use of the image might help.

Originally Posted by hopeful

Hey Tony, how is the bank roll doing? I cant work it out from the thread. I remember you had a step down of around 1250 and only 1 and a half buy ins before you got their. Where are you now?

Right now I'm on ~$1,650. So I have a $400 buffer above the "drop zone"! At my lowest point I actually went below $1,250 during a session, but finished the session back above it so didn't actually move down .

Originally Posted by hopeful

Not sure I agree with your analysis of the weekends play. Because you feel you are playing well doesnt always mean you are, on the other hand because you are getting good cards doesnt mean you are playing badly. I think it has much more to do with your opponnents view of how you are playing, what image the table have of you often decides the money.

With good cards you look like a maniac better who got lucky, with bad cards you look like a passive/weak player who folds all the time. Trying to make use of the image might help.

I agree with you generally. In this case it was just my impression - I don't really have anything substantive to show it.

I've been trying to think more about my image lately. I now keep a closer eye on my session stats and keep in mind what I've done on the last few hands, and try to use that to help decide my actions. So far it seems to me that not a lot of 50NL players are paying that much attention to my playing style ...

Very up and down the last couple of days. Dropped 3.5 buy-ins in two very short sessions last night and this morning, then clawed back 2.5 of them in my last two sessions. BR now ~$1,800.

Lately I seem to have gotten loads of mid/high pocket pairs, say 99-JJ. I still have real trouble playing them. They are probably too good to just set hunt, but I find them really difficult to play post-flop. Here's an example of playing TT as an overpair - is this just spew?

Villain was 19/17/11 over about 70 hands, with a 100% fold to 3bet (obv very small sample for fold to 3bet stat). On the turn I was thinking that he most likely had a pocket pair 22-JJ (QQ+ would have 4bet pre), a flush draw, or something like 45. Of that range only JJ, 88, 22 and 33 have me beat on the turn. It bothered me that a guy with an AF of 11 was check-calling the flop - he probably plays most weaker hands and draws fast - but if my range was right there were only 13 combos of hands that beat me and HEAPS of combos of the other hands, so I thought I was ahead more often than not.

iPoker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (5 handed) - iPoker Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($47.93)
MP ($64.32)
Hero (Button) ($47.27)
SB ($22.34)
BB ($16.25)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 10, 10
1 fold, MP bets $1.75, Hero raises to $6, 2 folds, MP calls $4.25

Flop: ($12.75) 8, 3, 2 (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $9.50, MP calls $9.50

Turn: ($31.75) 8 (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $31.77 (All-In) ...

Well, I just booked my 4th consecutive losing month.

This time only down 2 buy-ins rather than the -7 buy-in months I had in March and April. The only positive is that I was down 10 buy-ins after about a week and a half, but went a lot better from that point on.

Overall BR now at ~$1,750.

The TT hand is interesting, The pre flop raise is not my style but i do understand it. However I would have called because of the position. Calling would have kept the pot size down which with a medium hand is no bad thing. Post flop their would have been about $4 in the pot so your steal attempt would have only cost you $3 more. I would have given up at that point. (and only lost $4.75)

My god. Complete carnage today.

From 1 June I changed sites to 888 - man, I have never seen so many fish in one place. Pretty much every table I've played on in the past week has had >40% players seeing the flop, and at least two players with 65/5 type stats. Many times I have raised 5-6BB in EP/MP and had four callers behind me. Amazing.

So you would think that translates into moniez, right? Right? Not today.

Pretty much everything that could've gone wrong, did.

It started with PT3 breaking down on me, so my HUD was not available. The 65/5 fish are still pretty easy to spot, but it didn't help in dealing with the others. Not ideal, but not a huge issue either - I've played HUDless a fair bit on the past.

Then the software decided to disconnect me at the best possible time: I timed out on the turn when the pot was already 50BB, we both had more than 50BB behind, and I had a set.

Then the beats. These guys don't fold, so I'm madly shoving money in when I have a hand, but they keep calling. And today they hit way more often than they should have. Top set goes down to runner-runner straight. Two pair runs into a flush on the river. KK all in on the flop vs JJ and he hits a J. KK all in on the flop vs T6o, and the turn is a T ... and so is the river. And on and on and on. One of those days.

Finally I tilt. I can feel the red mist coming down over my eyes, but before I can get out I get dealt JJ on the button. Fuck it I says. Three limpers, I raise, get 3bet by one of the limpers, I call, flop is 8-high, he bets pot, I shove over and he calls and shows KK. Bye bye 140BB.

So once the dust cleared, the net damage was 5 buy-ins. I suppose it could have been worse, all things considered, but I can tell you that it doesn't feel that way at the moment, especially as I'm trying to work my way back up from a huge downswing. Right now I'm back into negative territory for this op - about 28 buy-ins below my peak.

I don't think I'm going to play poker tomorrow.

And ... it gets worse.

I'm now down 32 buy-ins from my peak, which is an all-time low and 5BI below where I started this thread. Sure, I suck at poker, but I'm not that bad.

I've also slumped to $900 below EV on all-ins in the last couple of months, all at 50NL. That alone has taken about -8ptBB/100 off my winrate.

FML.

I'm not going to post a long whingeing rant about it (I did write one out to help me feel better, but I'm not going to post it). I will say though that I reckon most of those prissy f#cking "omg I'm on a huuuuuge 4BI downswong what am I going to do" slappers in the BC would have slit their wrists long ago if they were in my shoes.

F#ck that. I don't give up that easy. I'll be back on the f#cking horse tomorrow. Why? Because one day that f#cking fish is going to miss when he calls all-in on the turn with his flush draw, and then I'm going to get f#cking paid off.

Till next time, be good to your mother and don't forget to feed the dog. Out.

So since the start of the year I've been trying to run PT3 and play poker on a 3yo laptop whose specs are well short of even the minimum (let alone the recommended) for PT3. Its slow, it crashes often, and the HUD works maybe one in four sessions.

Its time to upgrade.

I'm definitely sticking with the laptop - portability makes it a lot easier for me to play more sessions - and I'm thinking of going for a Dell Studio 17. Intel Core 2 Duo, 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD, nice big 17" screen. I'm thinking that those specs are plenty, and other things like video cards are wasted unless I'm gaming.

Any other suggestions for what I should get in a poker laptop?

A bucket attachment to catch your spew in

Originally Posted by Lucothefish

A bucket attachment to catch your spew in

Laptop-compatible bucket clearly wouldn't be big enough - I think I need a bathtub

OK, so I'm hoping my downswing has finally bottomed out at -34 buy-ins . In the last few days I have bounced back 5 buy-ins, and will hopefully keep moving in the right direction now ...

One thing that I think has helped me a bit lately is spending more time away from the tables thinking about my approach to the game, and doing more reading. And let me just say that I have found THE best series of articles on poker - I think these have moved my understanding of the game forward more than anything else I have ever read. This guy is an FTR reg and knows what he's talking about, so if you haven't seen them already, check 'em out:

http://poker-strategy.flopturnriver....y-Articles.php

Brilliant stuff. I might comment a little bit more later on as to exactly what I have gleaned from them, but right now it is too late and I am too tired.

And anyway, I want to get on to my highlight hand of the week :

$0.25/$0.5 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
Hero (UTG) ($52.92)
UTG+1 ($69.61)
CO ($58.76)
BTN ($49.75)
SB ($61.09)
BB ($42.98)

Pre-flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is UTG
Hero raises to $1.75, 4 folds, BB calls $1.25

Flop: ($3.75, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3.28, BB calls $3.28

Turn: ($10.31, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero does a double take, freaks out slightly, wonders how to get villain's stack in the middle, and ends up betting $7.40,
BB goes all-in $37.95,
Hero laughs maniacally, briefly considers folding because he is worried that he might get sucked out on , but decides to call anyway $30.55

River: ($86.21, 2 players)

Final Pot: $86.21
BB shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $82.21 ( won +$39.23 )
BB lost -$42.98

Hero sits out for the next three hands to calm down!

First one ever! Ship it baby!

I decided to try my hand at PLO the other day.

I have been thinking about "expanding my poker horizons" a bit, and wanted to find out if I might enjoy and/or be OK at PLO. I also thought that maybe thinking my way through a different form of poker would help me think a bit more robustly about my NLHE game.

Anyway, I put $10 on a .05/.10 PLO table ... and ran it up to $33 over about 50 hands. Easy game this PLO . Actually I probably got very lucky, but I'm not really sure!

So my plan from here is to still play probably 90% NLHE, but to mix in a few sessions of PLO here and there to change it up. If I'm going to play regular PLO I might also need to look at getting PT Omaha / Omaha Manager.

Speaking of NLHE, I'm finally on a bit of a heater - I'm up about 11 buy-ins over my last 2,500 hands @ 22ptBB/100, and have got back to just 22.5 buy-ins below my peak at 50NL - so hopefully I can keep that going ...

Great to see another Aussie on the boards.

Loved the Royal Supreme. Rare moment, and i wouldn't have been able to play the rest of the night.

All the best mate.

Regards
kolonel

Thanks kolonel!

I think the chances of a royal are something like 1 in 70K (??), but that was my first in 120K hands. I'm just happy I got paid off!

Milestone!

BR > $2K for the first time!!

So my heater continues, I'm now up about 16 buy-ins (including my little dabble on a $10 PLO table) in the last 3K hands or so, which I think is something like 27ptBB/100 ... not bad.

I'm not sure why, but I seem to almost always be swinging hard one way or the other. Maybe its a style thing? I play something like 23/18/4 at 6max, which I guess is a little on the loose-ish side, but not that much I wouldn't have thought.

Anyway, BR is now $2,020 and I have almost exactly $1K left to win on the 50NL tables to complete this operation. Gogogogo!!

The swings, the swings.

After a strong upswing of 17-odd BI, I dropped four in pretty quick time yesterday.

I 4-bet shoved QQ twice preflop, once against a 45/21 with a pretty high 3bet% (I forget what it was exactly), and the other time against a 90/20 drooler, and they both call (!) and show me the nuts. Below 50NL I was never too sure with QQ against a 3bet pre-flop, but at 50NL (where the 3bet ranges are much wider) and against these types of villains, surely a 4bet shove is the right play?

Then I got stacked deep against a fairly standard 22/16 type TAG with bottom set on a T98r board, when the river came a 7 to make his straight. I don't think I could or should have got away from this one - higher set or made straight on the flop would have just been a cooler, and I'm a solid favourite against any straight draw and a big favourite against any overpair or two pair type hands.

BR has now dropped to just below the $2K mark ($1,994), but hoping to work it back up again tonight ...

Its been a while since my last update. I've played a lot of hands (for me at least) since then - already at 12.5K this month - and my results have been up and down.

I have also been focusing on some off-table work on my game. I still suck way too much at THE most fundamental skill in poker (hand reading and range analysis), so I've spent some time trying to get my approach right and practicing on hands in my PT3 database. I'm going to make an effort to participate in more HH threads on the forum as well, to practice and also to get feedback on my analysis from the resident gurus.

Overall BR is up to $2,396 now, mainly due to some good bonus/RB this month. I still have just over $1K to make on the 50NL tables reach my op goal ...

I really need to update this thing more often!

Managed almost 17K hands in July, which is a record for me, by a long way. My BR seems to be moving in the right direction too - its now up to $2,726, although I still need almost $1K to get back to even in table winnings at 50NL.

Despite that, I made a very sobering discovery last night. I'm about $750 above the lowest point of my downswing ... but I've run almost $700 above EV on all-ins in that time! Man that sucks. What it has done though is give me (another) reality check. When I think about it, I'm still way too spewy, tilt too much and turn into a station when I do, and make way too many hero calls. I also play a preflop range that is way too wide for my postflop skills to handle, and still suck at hand-reading.

The thing is that I think my understanding of the game has come a long way in the last couple of months. I've read more theory, watched a few videos, and even started to really understand a few of ISF's strategy posts! The problem is that I can't seem to work it all into my own game at the table.

I need to review and rebuild my game from the ground-up, and I need to put together a study/practice plan to do it that involves identifying one thing to work on at a time and practicing that, and only moving on to the next thing once I get it right.

I might try to do that over the next few days and post it here.

The starting point will probably be taking a much more structured approach to my preflop ranges. Do the simple things right before worrying about the harder things ...

I have a confession to make. I'm a bit behind on my study/practice plan, because I'm playing too much poker.

Given where I think my game is at I really should slow down and put in the off-table time, now. But I came across a very rare and lucrative opportunity thats only available to me for August, so I decided to take it.

Basically, I think I've found the fishiest site in existence. I used to think Pacific had the worst players ever, but these guys take the cake. The downside is that a lot of them buy in short and rathole constantly, which means I couldn't play there permanently, but when the "best" regs are playing 40/15 I can put up with it for a month. But what makes it really lucrative is an extremely generous bonus/rakerace arrangement for August. Bottom line is that I'm staring a $2K month in the face (mostly from bonus/rakerace) and I'm not even a winner at 50NL yet, and because I'm not going to move up until I can beat it, I could easily be playing 50NL next month with a $5K bankroll. I'm the bankroll nit king!

I know I am chasing short-term money at the expense of improving my poker game, and I apologise to you all but mostly to myself for that. The good thing is that I have a "hard" stop, because I'm going on vacation next Friday for a week. So my plan is to put as much volume in as I can until then, and then use that opportunity to take some time away from the table and put my plan together.

Current BR: $3,901

Cracked the $4K BR tonight thanks to another $120 in bonus and a +$80 session ... nice.

Despite now having 40 buy-ins for 100NL, I still have another $700 or so to get back before I even consider leaving 50NL behind me.

I do have another confession in the meantime though . The other downside of my current site (besides the shorties and ratholers) is a shocking lack of traffic - there is never more than 3-4 50NL tables running, and often none at all. So I have played a few sessions of 100NL in the past couple of weeks - hey, I'm rolled for it! That along with the RB/bonuses is why my BR has gone up so quickly despite still having a fair bit left to do at 50NL.

As I said above though, I'm not going to leave 50NL until I have beaten it, so next month when I return to a real site thats the stakes I will be playing.

Well readers (reader? anyone??), its been a long time.

After my last entry in August when I was excited about the fishiness of the site I was playing on and my BR cracking $4K, I proceeded to donate more than $1,500 to those fishes in the last 10 days of August. All at 50NL and 100NL. Ouch.

So I decided to take pretty much all of September off, playing less than 4K hands after more than 30K in August. I came back to the game gradually in October and started to crank up the volume a bit more towards the end of the month, but hit another large downswong and dropped another $560, took another week off, and just today started playing again.

Bottom line, again, is that I suck at poker. My lifetime story is not pretty – after I smashed 2NL, I broke even at 5NL for a while before eventually beating it comfortably, cruised through 10NL, marginally beat 25NL, and …. just cannot beat 50NL. I have been trying since February and have played more than 80K hands of 50NL, and am a loser.

Just so you know how crap I really am, here are my lifetime records:



My BR is still just under $4K, thanks to my bonus whoring skills being WAAAAY better than my poker skills (plus $712 last month in fantasy football winnings – maybe I should do that more instead of trying to play poker …).

The bad news is that I think I have two major, fundamental problems with my game. The good news is that I think I know what they are. I mentioned in August that I was going to come up with a plan to fix my leaks, so that will be my next post. The only difference will be that instead of a series of smallish leaks to work on, I think I need to focus on these two big things.

Until next time.

So I've said I think I have two major leaks in my game. I've now decided to expand that to three because, well, three is a good number, and frankly I'd be kidding myself if I ignored the third one.

So my leaks are:
1) Hand Reading
2) Thought Process
3) Mindset

There, done. Simple, eh?

Not really. Just saying those three terms isn't really very helpful. The real questions are what do I mean by these, and what am I going to do about them?

Hand Reading

This to me is the number one fundamental skill in poker. Without a good grounding in this you simply can't move past a certain level (and that level is probably 50NL!).

Given the time to sit down with a hand history and think through it, I actually think I am OK at nutting out a villain's range. I have now played enough hands – 180K or so all up – that I have a reasonable idea what a lot of guys are playing. But I'm certainly not great at it, especially compared with winning MSNL/HSNL regs, so I have a lot of room to improve.

A possibly bigger problem for me, though, is the time it takes me to do it. At the table, in the heat of battle and with little time to make my decisions, I'm pretty terrible. Which leads on to my second major leak ...

Thought Processes

What should I be thinking about at the table?

I think that there are two broad parts to any decision: ranges (mine and villain's) and strategy (ie. how to maximise my expected winnings and minimise my expected losses given the respective ranges).

There are a lot of sub-headings under both of those – for example, to put villain on a range I need to take into account stats, history, previous actions in the hand, board texture, stacks, etc, etc. And here strategy includes predicting how villain will play his range and react to mine, understanding how to combat/exploit that, and being on top of the maths – equity, pot odds, drawing odds, etc But I think you can group them generally under the two main headings.

I think I'm not actually that bad at the strategy part. There's always plenty of room for improvement of course, but relatively speaking its less of a problem. I have read f***loads of material on poker – this and other forums, blogs, strategy sites, books. I know a fair bit about how to play strong hands, weak hands, draws, etc. I know the odds of hitting my draw or villain hitting his, and my stats are generally fine. My weakest aspect here is probably predicting how villain is likely to play/react, but I take some comfort from the fact that its extremely hard to do that when you are not really thinking about ranges effectively to start with.

As I said above, I think my issue with ranges is primarily my ability to execute at the table. I think the main problem is that I don't even get my head into the right space to give myself a chance to nail my opponent's range, let alone think about what range he might be putting me on. I'm just not thinking about the right things. There are a lot of reasons for this, including not getting my mindset right (see below) and, away from the table, not properly thinking through what I should be doing. Hence this process.

Mindset

Mindset is one of those unhelpfully general terms that can mean a lot of things or can mean nothing. In my case, I have identified four particular areas that I need to improve. If I can effectively address these areas, I think it will help get me into the “zone” far more often.

Distraction

When will I learn? Don't watch TV, surf the net, chat in IRC, or do ANYTHING else when I should be focusing on the tables. Focus on the action. If its my decision, take my time and focus on that. If its not my decision, watch what the other players do, put them on hands, make notes, try to understand why they're doing what they're doing.

Tiredness

With a pretty full-on full-time job, a wife, two young kids and plenty of stuff going on, it can be tough to find time to play poker. So I end up playing late at night, or early in the morning before going to work ... which are not ideal times for focus and alertness. And because I have very limited time, I'm very reluctant not to use the time I have no matter how tired, sick or generally bad I feel.

Focus on Results

At the end of the day we measure our performance by our winrate, but we know that when we're playing we should always try to make the right decision in each situation regardless of results. I am as conscious of this as anyone, but I probably struggle more than most to put it into practice – I think way too much about how much I have won or lost in a session or over a period of time.

Tilt

I think more than anything this is a consequence of the last two – I play when I'm tired, I start losing and know how far down I am, and I lose the plot and lose more trying to get out of the hole. Even worse, I can often recognise that it is happening, but can't seem to do anything to stop myself because I am too tired to think properly and blinded by the overwhelming desire to recoup my losses as quickly as possible.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Hand reading,thought processes and mindset. Three pretty damn fundamental pieces of the puzzle – its pretty hard to play winning poker when you don't have any one of those things in place, let alone all three.

So what am I going to do about it? I have a pretty good idea, and will set it out in my next post in a few days' time.

In the meantime, if there is anyone actually reading this, I would be happy to hear if you have any thoughts as well.

1) record your next session with something - no audio, just press record and play as you would typically.
2) I'll talk to you about this more later

Hey, thanks daven.

Any suggestions on what to use to record my play? Software? I've never done it before.

And at least someone other than me visits this thread occasionally!

camstudio perhaps?

Originally Posted by daven

camstudio perhaps?

Good suggestion. Have downloaded but haven't recorded yet.

Just posting cuz I read some of this thread. GL Tony!

Originally Posted by courtiebee

Just posting cuz I read some of this thread. GL Tony!

Hey thanks Courtie!

I think I need all the luck I can get ... !

I'm absolutely loving life right now.

Fair dinkum, any sane and semi-intelligent person who's had the year I have would have given up poker for good by now. Unfortunately, I am neither sane nor semi-intelligent.

Here is my November graph:



The last 2,500 or so hands were played over the weekend, so thats more than a quarter of my roll donked away in the space of a couple of days. Let me tell you, there are some 40/9 droolers out there thinking they're Phil Ivey right now after a couple of hours at the table with me.

Anyone have any babies I can kick or cute kittens I can strangle?

I know I suck, but surely even I can't consistently get pwned by 62/9, 48/11, 70/2 morans?

It is truly un-f***ing-believable. It is not humanly possible to run this bad, but somehow I am.

I hate poker.

OK, so here's what I'm going to do.

[warning: long]

First, I'm going to stop bonus whoring. Its distracting to change sites all the time, and even if I can get $300 in bonuses a month, that's a waste of time if I'm losing $500 at the tables. So Stars it is unless and until I sort my game out.

Second, I'm going to spend more time away from the table, and cut down to two tables when I do play, to specifically focus on my major issues which I identified a couple of posts above.

Hand Reading

Once you have an idea what you're doing, hand reading seems to be about experience and practice. There is some really good information on this site about how to get the process right and practice it, for example:

http://poker-strategy.flopturnriver....y-Articles.php
http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...tc-t75711.html
http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...es-t84968.html

So I have all the information I need, I really just need to keep doing the "right" practice so that it becomes second nature – effectively going from my current state of conscious incompetence, through conscious competence to unconscious competence.

I like Robb's approach of setting aside time away from the table to step through hands in my PT3 database, and practice putting villains on ranges aiming for both accuracy and speed. So my intention is to start by just doing a few and measuring my results, and then working to improve speed and accuracy over time. Although I'm not sure you should ever be satisfied with where you're at with something like this, I think the important thing is to get to a point where the skill is reliably usable at the table in real time – ie. to be able to do it in 30 seconds or less 95% of the time. So that's what I'll be aiming for.

Thought Process

I believe that fixing my thought process is about getting clear in my mind the things I should be thinking about, and then again driving it home through repetition. I have boiled down the questions that I think I need to answer in order to make good decisions to just three (apologies to Ed Miller/Sunny Mehta/Matt Flynn, and Owen Gaines, for borrowing from their respective approaches, but I think they're on the right track).

The questions are:
1. What is villain's range?
2. What is villain's “strategy”?
3. Given all that, what is the decision that is likely to maximise my EV?

There are obviously several sub-questions to ask under each. For example, to determine villain's range I need to consider stats, action so far in the hand, board texture, stack sizes, relevant history, etc. To determine his strategy I need to ask myself what he might think my range is, how that compares to his own range, what he is trying to achieve given that, what he wants me to do and what I can do to ruin his plans or otherwise exploit him. To determine the best action based on all that depends on respective ranges and my perceived equity, villain's strategy and likely reaction to each of my options, and the maths (eg. pot odds, drawing odds, etc).

There are obviously metagame and multi-level thinking considerations that could come into play here too, but I don't think they're really that relevant at 50NL. One step at a time! The aim right now is to get me thinking on the second and third levels (what do I think he has, and what do I think he thinks I have?), which I think is about right for da fiddy ennels. If I ever get up to 200NL+ I'll probably have to think at a deeper level than this, but I need to get this right first to even give myself a chance of getting there.

Anyway, to illustrate, here's an example from a hand I played recently:

$0.25/$0.50 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
Hero (UTG) ($174.58)
UTG+1 ($58.08)
CO ($25.66)
BTN ($49.34)
SB ($40.81)
BB ($50)

Pre-Flop: ($0.75, 6 players) Hero is UTG
Hero raises to $2, UTG+1 calls $2, 2 folds, SB calls $1.75, BB calls $1.50

Flop: ($8, 4 players)
SB checks, BB bets $4, Hero raises to $15, 1 fold, SB folds, BB goes all-in $44, Hero … ?

Villain's range? Villain here is 23/15 over 130 hands, with a 3bet of 4%. Preflop I'm putting him on pairs 22-JJ (QQ-AA likely to 3bet), suited connectors and maybe a few broadways like AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ and QJ. On the flop, I don't remember seeing him donk prior to this, although he's a cbetting monkey and pretty aggro generally post-flop so I think his range is still fairly wide. The shove certainly narrows it down a bit though – at this stage I think his value range is 88, 33, 99, TT, quite a few flush draws, and maybe 43s if he's calling with low suited connectors. Also, given his tendency to postflop aggression, I would think he sometimes shows up with air (eg. unpaired overcards) here.

Villain's strategy? My stats in this session are 20/19, so I think he probably sees me as quite TAGGish, although maybe a little aggro and spewy postflop. I've been in some big hands, but I've generally shown up with the goods (as can be seen from the size of my stack). I'm also pretty positionally aware, so if he's taking notice he'll know that my UTG raising range is significantly tighter than 20/19 – probably similar to his range above, but also including QQ-AA, AK. All that reinforces that there is some air in his range – not much of my UTG range has hit that flop, so there's a reasonable probability he thinks I'm trying to steal the pot with a big broadway or middle pocket pair. Balance against that however the fact that I have shown consistent strength so far and not many villains bluff-shove without a strong draw in these games, and I think this is a stone bluff maybe only about 15% of the time. Most of the time this is either a semi-bluff with a flush draw and he's hoping I'll fold (or to draw out if I don't), or its a shove for value with an overpair or better and he wants me to call.

So I'm behind the top third of his value range (88, 33, 43s, which makes up 6 of 18 combos), but I'm way ahead of the rest (99,TT) and the air, and I'm also comfortably ahead of his semi-bluffing range (flush draws) with about 65% equity.

So what should I do? The pot is $71, and its $33 for me to call, so my odds are just better than 2:1 and I need about 1/3 equity to call. I have way more than that, so this is a clear call. Even if I'm way out with his preflop 3bet range (eg. he 3bets 99-JJ, AKs and AQs preflop, or he flats with QQ-AA), I think I'm still getting the odds to call.

There you go, a call, and it only took me about 10 minutes! Obviously that sort of timing is not going to work at the tables, so I need to keep practicing.

Mindset

I think the key to “curing” my mindset issues is to be consistently disciplined about getting into the right frame of mind to start with, and staying there for the duration of the session. So to help me do that I have made two lists – one is a list of conditions that must be in place before I will sit down and play, and the other is a set of “rules” to follow while I'm playing.

So, before I start playing:
Will I be capable of concentrating properly for the duration of the session?
- Mind clear and alert
- Not feeling tired or unwell
- Nothing else that I need to do, or would rather be doing
Are all distractions out of the way?
- TV off
- All other windows and applications on my computer closed (other than PT3)
- Any other distractions removed or neutralised
- Unlikely to be interrupted

During play, the key is to make sure that my goal is the same in every hand – to make the best and most rational decision based on the information available.
When I tilt or lapse into my B/C-game, my goal for each hand tends to subconsciously change to things like trying to get revenge on a particular player, or to get unstuck generally. Combating that means recognising and immediately acting upon my tilt or C-game triggers. These include distractions or interruptions, tiredness or burnout, loss of a big pot (ie. half my stack or more), and getting badly sucked out or coolered. I need to constantly be on the lookout for these things, and if I feel any of them causing my focus to slip at all, stop, take a break, and make sure my head is back in the right space before sitting back in. If I can't get my head back in the right space, then its probably time to end the session.

There are a few fairly obvious and specific things that I can do to help me keep my head in the right zone, which make up my “during play” list:
- Remind myself before every decision that my goal is always to make the best, most rational decision possible
- If I feel my focus is slipping, sit out until I can get back in the zone
- Never look at site balances or session results during a session
- Never type anything into the chat box – read it, but don't contribute
- Always be patient – trying to make things happen is the best way I know to spew off chips
- Take my time over decisions – snap decisions are almost always bad

These two lists may not be complete, but I think they cover the main things, and I intend to update them as I think of other points. But even without any updates, if I can stick to them as they are now, consistently, then I'll be WAAAY better off than I am now.

Finally, my wife is also getting me Tommy Angelo's Elements of Poker for Xmas, which is apparently quite good for addressing mindset and tilt issues, and I have begun working my way through Jared Tendler's highly recommended videos on StoxPoker.

If I don't get a hell of a lot better by doing all this, then I'm a lost cause.

So that's it. I would be grateful for any comments/suggestions, whether on the overall approach, the lists, or the specific hand analysis. Otherwise, mark down December 2009 as the month I finally got serious and turned it all around!

Well, so far, so good. I still have a hell of a lot of improvement to go (of course), but December has now officially been my best month ever:

Tables: +$864
Bonuses/RB: +$353
TOTAL: +$1,217

All at 50NL - not too bad. Still a couple of buy-ins short of lifetime breakeven at 50NL, but I'm getting close now!

To be honest I think most of the improvement so far has come from tightening up preflop (and getting in way fewer tricky spots post-flop as a result). I've gone from something like 23/18 for most of this year to 19/16 this month, with most of the new folds being marginal hands like KJ, QJ, KT and QT in early position.

I'm also 3betting a lot more preflop (up from 4% to over 6%), and generally trying to continue to be selectively aggressive, but choosing my spots better (basically by thinking about it rather than blindly firing).

There's no doubt my mindset has improved too, both in terms of tilt control and thinking through my decisions at the table. Still plenty of improvement to come though. I need to use my off-table time more effectively for this (eg. by practicing ranges more and posting more hands), which will be a focus for January.

I am going on vacation tomorrow for a week and a half, and will have no internet connection. So no poker and no FTR for me for a while. I'll be using the time to read a couple of poker books, practice ranges in my PT3 database, watch a few vids and make some goals for the coming month/year.

So happy new year to all, and see you in January!

Welcome to 2010 FTR!

On my vacation I had a think about my goals for this year, and have come up with the following.

Average at least 10K hands per month. I have created a weekly schedule that should help me to do this.

For every 4 hours at the table, spend 1 away from the table working on my game. I have also set aside specific time in my weekly schedule for this. Time will be spent on:
- Watching videos (at least one video per week)
- Practicing range analysis using my database (at least an hour per week)
- Posting tricky hands on the forums (at least two per week)
- Updating this thread (at least once per week)

Follow my pre-session routine before EVERY session. I think that one of the reasons I have struggled with tilt is an inability to get into the right mindset to start a session. So I have adopted a pre-session routine now that includes deep breathing to relax my mind, and visualisation of what I should be doing. This will help me to, first, get into the right mindset to play and, second, to recognise more quickly and effectively when I fall out of the right mindset and am more likely to tilt.

Make the best possible decision every time. Self-explanatory, and expanded upon a couple of posts up.

Thats it. No bankroll or stakes goals - they're not helpful. I also have several rules to follow (eg. don't check balance during a session, no chat, etc), but they're generally designed to meet that final goal - to make the right decision as often as possible.

The other thing I've done is finally made it back to positive territory at 50NL. Its taken almost a year and 130K or so hands, but I'm there.

So the next goal is to move up to 100NL once I'm sure that I've beaten it. I think my roll is plenty big enough already at $4100, so I need to make the step up point as much about winrate.

Therefore, I have decided to move up when my roll reaches $5K, and I have a winrate of at least 4bb/100 over my last 50K hands at 50NL. I figure that should give me enough confidence and a big enough bankroll buffer to really take a good shot.

Cheers!

Originally Posted by TonyB73

The other thing I've done is finally made it back to positive territory at 50NL. Its taken almost a year and 130K or so hands, but I'm there.

Therefore, I have decided to move up when my roll reaches $5K, and I have a winrate of at least 4bb/100 over my last 50K hands at 50NL. I figure that should give me enough confidence and a big enough bankroll buffer to really take a good shot.

Cheers!

nice work on beating 50nl. The winrate/duration thing is about more than merely bankroll and confidence - it also means that you have the game to succeed at the next stakes.

Hey daven!

Thanks for the support. I am a little worried about whether I have the game to beat 100NL yet, which is why I'm taking my time to move up. Just a little more 50NL pwnage and we'll see!

Still travelling OK.

Played about 15K hands since my last update - a fair bit of volatility but good overall winrate of ~5bb/100. I feel as though my game has been reasonably solid (18/15/4; 3bet 6%). However, I still have a HEAP of leaks, so I want to try something more direct to help address them.

I think one of my bigger leaks is my tendency to be a cbetting monkey (71%). So my goal over the next week is to focus on when to cbet and why - which flops, which positions, how many villains, etc - and report back here next week on how it goes.

Cheers!

Hmmm ... I got within $150 of my $5K move up mark and wham! Dropped 20BI in just a few days. Poker can be pretty harsh sometimes.

The cbet thing has been interesting though. If you read up on it, people talk a lot about board texture, position and number of opponents. That makes sense to me, although I think about it slightly differently.

Key cbet rule: I'm much more likely to cbet the flop if I'm HU, I'm in position, and my range (as perceived by villain) is ahead of villain's range.

This doesn't mean that I will never cbet unless ALL these conditions are satisfied; just that I'm more likely to do so if they are.

We don't like betting into multiple opponents due to simple odds - I might look good against one villain's range, but the more villains there are, the more likely it is that someone has hit something (even if it is a relatively small part of his range). However, I will still often bet into 2 or 3 if I'm in position and I think I'm well ahead of their ranges.

Position obviously matters because when I'm out of position villain controls the action and can do with me as he likes. If I cbet with air and get called I'm just in an ugly spot, so its usually better to just avoid it.

However for texture, at the end of the day, the 'rule' derives from analysis of relative ranges. Given that by definition I raised and villain called preflop, my starting range is dominated by mid-high pairs and broadways, while his range will often be more weighted towards small-mid pocket pairs and suited connectors. This is why we are less likely to bet wet boards - because they are going to hit his range much more than mine.

This means that not cbetting wet boards will often be a good idea, however, its important to remember that it is villain dependent. We need to do the range analysis every time.

I've found that stopping to think about it in this way, rather than just auto-firing 75% of the time, has made a pretty big difference. Of course I'm still 20BI down, but at least I don't think its due to cbet spew!!

OK, so I really, really suck at updating this thing, which is only doing myself a disservice (as I'm the only one who ever reads it). It's a bit pointless having a thread for developing your poker thinking by writing stuff down, when you never write anything down.

In fact I haven't been around FTR much at all so far in 2010. Got promoted at work from Jan 1 and it has been super busy since then, plus family time and some other projects have been keeping me away from here, blah, blah, blah, pathetic excuse, pathetic excuse ...

Need to improve. Will be back with something substantive within a couple of days.