Self Control

Hey everypeoples, I hate my old ops, thus I'm starting a new one. I don't like the old one's for the simple fact that I'm so results oriented in them, and even though I learned a lot going through what I did, I feel I took the lazy route to get to where I am at.

It's time to start over.
It's time to do it right.
It's time to learn some shit for once, instead of autopiloting like a FPP pro lil homo at 10nl/25nl. It's pathetic.

Goals:
- Start with $150 on Stars
- Play 1 table of 5nl 6m until comfortable, add another table, etc, etc.
- Max number of tables I'm aiming for is 8 of 6m, but I'm going to take my time getting there.
- Fucking learn poker for once, instead of being lazy. Studying A LOT, playing less, earning more as a result.
- Get to 100nl/200nl by the end of the year, possibly get SN in 2010 (f u guys )
- Get some bad ass live coaching from Bbickes.
- Make mirrions.

WISH ME LUCK! (or be Jewish and don't )

List of Stuff to Learn/Relearn (will update/add to as I go):
[ ] PF opening ranges and flop play.
[ ] 3bet ranges PF and postflop play in 3bet pots.
[ ] Implied odds, reverse implied odds, and pot odds.
[ ] Baluga's Theorem (basically just learning to fold to raises after the flop unless I have a big draw with implied odds or the virtual nuts.)
[ ] Value betting more on turn and river.
[ ] Tilt/emotional control.
[ ] Expected Value.
[ ] Blind stealing, blind defense.

Edit: I changed my title in this because after talking to m2m online, I realized I have like zero self control when it comes to my tilt/anger nowadays. I have a feeling this comes from boot camp when I was a Squad leader. I didn't have to control my temper there like I would normally have to. If someone fucked up, I could just go off on them without even thinking about it, and after 3 months of doing it, I was pretty damn good. I made two people of equal age or older cry. Looking back, I guess I feel bad but it was there fault lol. But yea, so from now on, I'm looking to get my ish (damn you BooG) back under wraps.

Good luck, sir.

GL

Methinks 100/200NL and SN in 21 days will be a challenge though ...

get your ass to big rapids wtf.

GL dude. Since I'm sure you'll be at 25NL in no time, shoot me for some sweat sessions if you're interested.

Originally Posted by dranger7070

It's time to learn some shit for once, instead of autopiloting like a FPP pro lil homo at 10nl/25nl. It's pathetic.

Goals:
- Start with $150 on Stars
- Play 1 table of 5nl 6m until comfortable, add another table, etc, etc.
- - - Get to 100nl/200nl by the end of the year, possibly get SN.

how long you gonna be playing for .....SN playing 1 table 5nl in 3 weeks is ambitious


anyway GL and go wolves.

G/L and remember what you told me back in May:

Originally Posted by dranger7070

Lol, keep your chin up dude. Rough times like this suck, but just keep putting your money in good, and the profits will follow. Don't worry about one hand, or one session. Think about (always be thinking about) the long run. It will definitely make you a better player. You won't care so much that your BR has stayed the same over the last few thousand hands.

Another thing: Try not looking at your BR for a whole week. Just get on the tables, when your done, get off them. No checking the cashier/sessions tab in HEM or PT or whatever. Just turn it on when you start, and shut it down when ur done. I guarantee that you will be VERY pleasantly surprised at the end of that week.

I should change that so its 100nl/200nl + SN in 2010... You guys are such assholes lolz. <3

Bbickes, I'll be there mid January at the latest.

I played 5 hands last night and made 3c WOOOOOOOP! (lol Marine Corps).

I'm on weekend liberty until Sunday night, so I should be able to get some hands in this weekend. I'll keep this updated a bit more than my last one hopefully lolz.

I'll pound your ass in IRC to keep it updated. Good luck man, when you work your way back up and are passing me we should do some peer sweats at whatever stakes it happens to be where we meet =)

Edit: Oh and congrats on getting this Marines shit sorted out, bring on the rest of your life imo

Be gentle on my ass, please.

Sweats sound goot imo (you too Gobbatino).

Thanks dude it'll feel good getting all this shit off my back.

I would wish you luck but I'm Jewish.. (not really)

Alright first update:

Things have been going... ok. I've played a little over 3k hands and I'm about halfway to getting to 10nl. So thats goot. I played really, really poorly yesterday though, and ended up dropping a BI during my final session of the day due to tilt, tiredness, and spewing. So I'm really disappointed in myself for not stopping when I knew I was tilting, but it happens.

So this operation is supposed to focus on me mainly getting better at poker via studying and analyzing. I spoke to spoon about some stuff a couple weeks back and he thought my two biggest issues were

1.) Not putting villains on a range.
2.) Not completely understanding implied odds.

The first one I totally agreed with, but the 2nd one kind of caught me off guard and made me reflect on how I went about learning this game. Basically I kind of just flailed around in the BC, books, and other random stuff online + talking to ppl about poker, and I just tried to soak up EVERYTHING at once.

Which in a sense, that worked because I got a basic understanding of a lot of really important concepts, however I never delved deeper into learning new stuff about those because I was winning at a pretty decent clip at 2nl-10nl and to a smaller extent 25nl.

So with that said, I'm going to write up a list of things to learn/relearn and focus on ONE thing (or 2 depending on much they relate to each other, like PF opening ranges and flop play) and actually LEARN the concepts instead of just thinking I do. I have a feeling this will be so much more beneficial for me than anything else I've done relating to poker in the past.

I'll edit the OP to show the list.

^Well written, sounds good, keep it up

Ok, I moved up to 10nl with 20 BIs like I said I was going to, played pretty well for the most part I think, only 2 tabling for now. Then ant sat down, and I felt the need to wave my cock around like a retard because "ZOMG ITS SOMEONE FROM FTR AND I HAVE TO SHOW THEM HOW AWESOME I AM!!!" And pretty much blew most of my profits on a really dumb triple barrel bluff, which shortly after I quit and talked to ant about it on IRC and he linked me to a really epic thread at 2p2.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54...74/index2.html (don't know if we're allowed to post links from another forum, if so my bad and delete if need be)

All in all, I had a winning session, but I'm disappointed in myself. Something really good came from it, though. Ant helped me realize how little control I have over my tilt atm. This is something that will be priority numero uno.

sdkljg;ldkg

I'm so irritated at myself right now. I just finished a session where i played fucking god awful. 10nl 6m isn't that difficult at all but I'm making it so much harder than it has to be. I'm running like 25/22 right now, which probably isn't terrible, but I don't think I'm ready to run that loose just yet. I'd like to tighten up and get down to like 18/15 and slowly expand from there b4 my head asplodes from trying to outplay everyone and their grandmother.

It's like I think because I'm at 10nl I need to start cock waving with everyone that 3bets me once. I flatted a 3bet in the SB with K8s vs BB and proceeded to try to bluff him off his 45s when he hit a 4. Why don't I ever learn???

forget bluffing beyond c-bets and occasional appropriate pf 3-bets for a while.

Originally Posted by daven

forget bluffing beyond c-bets and occasional appropriate pf 3-bets for a while.

Basically this all day long.

So, I'm tired as hell tonight. I went to bed at 3am thinking I'd be able to nap during the day but nope. We have a 2 star General coming in on Wednesday so we had to clean, ALL DAY! So yea, I'm running on approx 2 hours of sleep and I likely have 2 hours of firewatch tonight, FML!

Since I'm so tired tonight, I decided in lieu of putting in hands and likely spewing and playing well below my A game, to just go through the BC Digest and Robb's first post in his operation and read some stuff on PF ranges and basic flop play (c-bets, etc). (Huzzah! Great success that I picked studying over playing.) So far at 5nl and 10nl over a (lolsmall) 5k sample I'm running 24/20/2.6 which isn't terrible I don't think, but I want to get back to the basics and slowly open up from there.

So I read Robb's article "where the $$$ come from in microstakes nl" or something like that and he shows what hands give us most of our profit. I won't be following that to T, but it's a decent place to start. I'd like to be running somewhere around 16/14 for starters and open up from there. Since I'm getting coaching from Bbickes in the next month or so, I'd like to have solid PF + flop play down before then so we have something to build off of.

I actually feel like I accomplished something tonight instead of likely getting in like 300 hands and regardless of whether I won or lost money I won't have improved in any way, shape, or form so this feels really good.

<BooG> u should be 'ing
<dranger> but u no posted in it to wish me luck
<dranger> therefore
<dranger> YOU ARE JEWISH

In an effort to be less Jewish...good luck?

HUZZAH! Great success! You are hereby revoked of Jew status. (But srzly no offense to Jews)

inb4spenda

Spenda's Jewish?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...clinic-564111/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69...l-50nl-367707/

Thanks daven, glad to see you are doing well after listening to what I had to say, even though its the most basic advice ever lol.

Tonight I finally listened to myself too. I tightened up and played super ABC poker for the most part. Played a short 300ish hand session 3 tabling 10nl. Started out good, got stacked in a lol hand played badly by me vs a 95/19/3 feesh but still managed to profit. I feel like I played exceptionally well other than a few hands I feel I could have played differently.

I really like how things went tonight, and I hope I can continue this through to my coaching with Bbickes and he can compound what I've started, or totally tear down what I have, and build me up better than I was. CANT WAIT!

*sighs*

I feel I've been playing pretty well lately, but I've made LITERALLY no headway, thanks to my most recent 10nl session. I was breaking even in it basically when I quickly won 1.5 BIs in quick succession. Had one table set up PERFECT, a 56/32/3 fish with a 36% 3bet to my direct right who i was 150bb deep with, the other table wasn't bad either. Ant sits down shortly after.

Maybe 25-30 hands later I'm forced to shut down my tables due to tilt. It's like as soon as he sits down, I go into super runbad. I decided when I noticed he was sitting with me that I wasn't going to play cock waving wars and wait for my hand. Well, I got it:

http://weaktight.com/1810965

I needed 23% equity to call the shove, I had ~28% so its a clear call, the raise is pretty standard imo. We have a fairly aggressive history together so I think its likely he's bet/folding turn a lot or shoving a lot too if he thinks I'm doing it with a pure FD with either hands that have some equity (FDs, Ax + GSSD, Kx, Qx) but I doubt its with very many PURE bluffs.

This next hand was about the most perfect situation I could hope for. Fish minraises and we're pretty deep so I should NORMALLY 3bet, but I have ant directly to my left who is ALWAYS squeezing when I call, especially since I've informed him the guy is a HUGE fish. (see 1st paragraph) Once ant 3bets and fish 4bets I'm done slowplaying, its time to go to value town. Flop is super

http://weaktight.com/1810746

I felt tilted after these two hands so I decided to shut down my tables before I managed to spew away more money. In both instances I feel I made the right play at the right time, but the deck had other plans. I'm still pretty irritated as I'm typing immediately after my session, but I can't be too mad since I got my money in WAAAAY ahead on the AA hand, and made the right play on the QJs hand.

All in all it was a pretty good session playing wise, but terribad in how the deck came out. I'm currently only up $4 at 10nl now, after 2k hands (lol sample) and its kind of frustrating, but I'm gonna keep plugging along.

I'm only 2 BIs below EV so I can claim I'm running OMFGTERRIBAD, but idk. It just FEELS like I am since I'm only able to put in so many hands a day. I've upped my number of tables to 3 of 10nl 6m, and I think thats my sweet spot for now. I'm able to get in an ok number of hands, keeps my attention, take good notes, have plenty of time for making decisions, etc. I'll probably go take a shower, rub one out, and play another session later.

GOGO GADGET RUN GOOD!

Haha dude I feel you so much right now. My poker life timeline is: run good (15 hands), run bad (15 hands which feels like 500), Tilt spew/overplay (45 hands). Rinse and repeat. All i can say is just stick with it god knows I need to.

Originally Posted by dranger7070

I'll probably go take a shower, rub one out, and play another session later.

Why do you rub one out first then take a shower? It should be vice versa, gross.

Originally Posted by BooG690

Originally Posted by dranger7070

I'll probably go take a shower, rub one out, and play another session later.

Why do you rub one out first then take a shower? It should be vice versa, gross.

In the shower!

Ldo it was in the shower sir. I do it before I wash up, jfc. USE YOUR BRAIN SIR

Who'd you think about?

My avatar, an ex gf, some chick off of Alpha dog, and Stax's old avatar.

Hmm... just spotted something in a 2p2 thread that I think I will implement tomorrow. It was a screen shot of a wait list with a bunch of pink tags where pink = 20bb stacker. This would ldo make it easy to table to select to avoid short stackers, and when your table started to get filled up by them it takes one quick glance to close it and find a better one.

So, I'm going to gank m2m's color code for the most part with a few tweaks:
- Pink- 20bb stack
- Green- Fish/donk high VPIP/low PFR/low AF
- Red- Aggro, 3bets a lot especially from blinds or IP
- Purple- Regs that adjust
- Light blue- Regs that don't adjust
- Yellow- Unknown/default


This is pretty general, and I'll probably tweak this as I go along, but this is a pretty easy guideline to follow I should think. Will implement tomorrow!

ROBBER
U R

A ROBBER

DIAGF JAJAJAJA

I only rob those who have something worth stealing imo. Consider it a compliment.

dude. If u don't want to play with shortstackers, tick the box in the holdem game filter that says [ ] 50bb min. ez game

hand 1

Originally Posted by dranger7070

I needed 23% equity to call the shove, I had ~28% so its a clear call, the raise is pretty standard imo. We have a fairly aggressive history together so I think its likely he's bet/folding turn a lot or shoving a lot too if he thinks I'm doing it with a pure FD with either hands that have some equity (FDs, Ax + GSSD, Kx, Qx) but I doubt its with very many PURE bluffs.

do the villain on a range thing and stove your equity vs his range, rather than against the cards he ended up showing. Turn raise is strange.

hand 2

Originally Posted by dranger7070

This next hand was about the most perfect situation I could hope for. Fish minraises and we're pretty deep so I should NORMALLY 3bet, but I have ant directly to my left who is ALWAYS squeezing when I call, especially since I've informed him the guy is a HUGE fish. (see 1st paragraph) Once ant 3bets and fish 4bets I'm done slowplaying, its time to go to value town. Flop is super

i find that flatting AA/KK and relying on a squeeze is causing me to see flops multi-way in single-raised flops more often than is ideal, and even more annoying is that the original pfr ends up with an incredibly poorly defined range that makes life a lot harder than i like.

Originally Posted by AnTman_69

dude. If u don't want to play with shortstackers, tick the box in the holdem game filter that says [ ] 50bb min. ez game

Lol, obviously this is always an option, but idk. It's nice to not have to play JUST 50bb min, fast tables all the time. So many more fish on the slower tables, just gotta dodge the 20bb douchers. All the "regs" load up on the 50bb min tables so its kind of counter intuitive imo.

@daven: Yea I totally agree with you on the first hand. I think (know) a lot of FPS comes into my game when I'm playing another FTRer. It's retarded but idk. I was planning on leaving but blah, that one table where I had AA I had that fish 150bb deep. Ah wellz. I agree that just 3betting myself would be good, but I know how aggro ant is when I limp so I figured my chances were good of getting at least HU with Ant in a 3bet/4bet pot and maybe get the fish stuck in between our raising. My plan worked lol.

Ok so, I'm looking through my HEM positional stats (my sample is so small its gotta be close to pointless but I decided to take a looksee anyways) at 10nl and I spotted some... interesting hands from the SB. Here's a few. If I don't spew like a tard, I'd be up so much more than I am right now.

http://weaktight.com/1816705

Note the table chat at the end of this hand, I was clearly tilting and I obviously didn't realize it at the tables = I've been slacking on checking my status as to how I'm feeling at the tables.

More spewfun with antman:

http://weaktight.com/1816707

The reason for the l/min3bet was he mentioned earlier in IRC while we were playing if I did that it would be pretty luhlz, so I ldo oblige and proceed to triple barrel off half my stack. :/

This next one is questionably spewtarded. Guy is 52/26 with 15% 3bet (only over 61 hands though :/) so its kind of meh. But he's 50bb, more than likely lagtarded = ok...?

http://weaktight.com/1816713

This next hand, guy is 27/3/1 with 75% fold to c-bet over 112 hands. Initially, I thought bet flop, check turn was best, but m2m thinks that checking flop and c-betting turn is much much better, and I have to agree. River bet is just mucho retardo.

http://weaktight.com/1816715

Ok, so there is my embarrassment for all of FTR to see. I seriously need to stop r/c when I'm stealing so much. I've lost 3 BIs in the SB alone over my tiny sample, mostly due to spew. If I would just r/f like I SHOULD be doing, I'd be in the green 4+ BIs instead of just shy of +1 BI. HUGE difference imo.

It's truly amazing that when you make truly standard folds, that all three of your lines (the red, blue, and the all important green one) go up. I folded a FUCK TON today, pre and post flop, and I scraped together a pretty good session. I'm extremely pleased with my play today, hopefully this will continue!

Haha, looks like you should probably not play ant so much since he seems to insta-tilt you :P

As for the spew, we all have it. It's the one main thing other than tilt that makes people losing poker players. I can't even tell you how many times I have done what you did in hand 1 haha.

Yea, ant is my arch nemesis now.

Alright, so last night I was talking to m2m on Skype and we were just kinda shootin the shit about poker (ldo) and we got around to the new changes in 2010 for Stars' VIP program. The changes are pretty nice, and if you haven't seen them, you should definitely check them out.

Well, I was getting kind of frustrated with 6max, not because I wasn't winning, because I was, but it felt like I was just luckboxing and it wasn't very enjoyable for me. I don't know what it is about FR, but I'm just comfortable being there, and I'm not even that nitty lol.

I've played two sessions since going back, one last night and so far one today. Both have gone extremely well. Not because I was running good (I was probably running averagish/slightly below EV) but because I just feel like I can hand read there easier (ranges are tighter so thats an ldo) and I have some hands on quite a few of the "regs." It's kind of lol that they haven't moved up since March/Aprilish, but at the same tiem kind of sad, that I'm back down there.

I think I'll be playing FR until the forseeable future. But the same goals still apply and I won't be just auto botting my way through poker just because I'm playing FR. I'm going to start posting my 3 biggest losing hands in the BC and try to find out what I'm doing wrong in those spots, or if they are just coolers. Should be interesting what we find.

I think on the first I'll post my yearlong graph for 2009. I was looking through HEM and I noticed some interesting discrepancies from before boot camp and immediately after I came back. Its pretty funny imo.

Happy Holidays everyone and hope y'all run hotter than the sun over the break!

Alright Xmas is past, didn't get to spend it with the fams, but no biggie, I'll be home in a couple weeks. I've played some pokar since the last update ldo, and I've run lolhawt and kinda bad + play bad. (different sessions ldo). Had a huge upswing a few nights ago, ran like jesus on speed, and had a good time, tonight I made two super spewy calls, and it cost me about a BI, and I got the nut flush AI on the turn and villain rivered a FH. I also played super super bad on top of that. Just mashed buttons so I ended session early so I'm proud of that.

Got 4 days ahead of me that should be nothing but poker, so we'll see wtf I can do with that. Pretty excited for the new year since the new changes are kicking in. I'll be posting some 2010 goals in here at the appropriate time.

Ok so, Spoon basically called me out tonight in IRC about how much I study and how seriously I want to take poker. Despite the title of this blog and the list I've drawn up, I still do little to no studying of poker a week. MAYBE 4 hours a week of study tops. I can claim that I don't have time during the day, which I guess I could make the claim that I can't access a computer, but I have poker books, I can get pen and paper to work on ranges, etc. So thats no excuse. I'm not going to go on some big rant about this, because Spoon again called me out on this, I'm all fucking talk. I'll quote BooG, "you can't just talk about it, BE about it." Basically, walk the fucking walk, don't just talk the talk. From now on, I'm gonna take poker like a professional would towards any other job. If I ever want this to be any sort of meaningful income, now is the time to start working towards that goal.

Also, new avatar!

gl dude. sounds like you have the same sort of problem as me. hit me up on msn anytime. and before you tell me, yes ill come into irc more!!

ZOMG its sil! It's been a while since I've seen you around these parts sir, good to see a post by you again. I'll hit you up on MSN for sure.

If you want to put in more time and enjoy it, I say go for it. But, I wouldn't beat yourself up if you want to approach it more leisurely either. As long as you're having fun, that's the main thing.

Originally Posted by Jason

If you want to put in more time and enjoy it, I say go for it. But, I wouldn't beat yourself up if you want to approach it more leisurely either. As long as you're having fun, that's the main thing.

I would enjoy poker no matter how I looked at it I think, but this is something I really want to do, and be really good at it. The only way to get past 25nl is to actually put forth some serious effort towards learning, which I haven't since I first got interested. At the very least, I would like to be making $20k/year as a side income, and to do this I need to become more dedicated towards everything about the game.

Happy New Year everyone! Here is my graph for 2009. So lol that I'm $4 short of $1k year, but this isn't including my hands at FTP or bonuses or MTT/SNG wins so I'm actually up ~$1.6k on the year. Kind of disappointed in the results, but thats taking into account 3 months of boot camp, withdrawing 90% of BR, etc.

Here's to a $10k+ and Supernova in 2010.



Big dip is total meltdown/runbad/playbad at 50nl then 25nl.

Originally Posted by dranger7070

Kind of disappointed in the results...

Dr. Anger, I would kill for a year like that. NH. I've no doubt that you will study and progress and make Spoon proud, if that's possible.

I have a long ways to go, but "eventually", I hope to get there, too. Happy New Years! GoGogo!

Going with my 'new' thing of learning, I'm rewatching "How To Master Full Ring" by CodeRedRulez from Grinderschool. I'll be watching each video, taking notes, etc. I'm going to stop multi tabling so heavily. I think I'll get bored if I play less than like 12-16 tables, but ffs when I play that many I get excited or some shit and I end up spewing for some stupid reason. 6-10 tables should be adequate for putting in volume and learning.

So, I played like 700ish hands today, was on subtle tilt basically the whole time, made some super bad call downs, bad c-bets, etc, etc. I quit after a while due to frustration and I knew I was tilting. I decided to actually do some studying instead and not play until I felt like it, be it tomorrow, or next weekend. I ended up studying for 2.5 hours total today. I reviewed some hands, watched the first two parts of How To Master FR, and reformatted my HUD.

Tomorrows plan of attack:
- Rewatch Part 2 as I just kind of coasted through the last half with almost no notes.
- Watch Part 3.
- Finish reformatting my HUD.
- Review some more hands.
- Memorize certain ranges for certain %'s in pokerstove. (It's ridiculous I've been playing for 15 months and I haven't done this yet.)

That last one, is something I think almost every person JUST STARTING OUT should be doing as its probably going to be your best bet to figuring out ranges. It won't be exact, but the majority of the hands for two 17/10 players are going to be similar.

Also forgot to do this (none are poker related):

New Year's Resolutions: Get back into college, make up for missed parties from last summer, make some new friends, keep the old ones obviously, get a decent job, be able to run 10 miles nonstop by the end of the summer, get my bench up to 250lb by 2011.

Right now I can probably run 3-4 miles nonstop, and my bench is probably 170ish. Clearly I have my work cut out for me. I plan on losing this little bit of pudge I got going on around the midriff and swelling up the upper body. Ez game sirs.

So, I played like 700ish hands today, was on subtle tilt basically the whole time, made some super bad call downs, bad c-bets, etc, etc. I quit after a while due to frustration and I knew I was tilting. I decided to actually do some studying instead and not play until I felt like it, be it tomorrow, or next weekend. I ended up studying for 2.5 hours total today. I reviewed some hands, watched the first two parts of How To Master FR, and reformatted my HUD.

Tomorrows plan of attack:
- Rewatch Part 2 as I just kind of coasted through the last half with almost no notes.
- Watch Part 3.
- Finish reformatting my HUD.
- Review some more hands.
- Memorize certain ranges for certain %'s in pokerstove. (It's ridiculous I've been playing for 15 months and I haven't done this yet.)

That last one, is something I think almost every person JUST STARTING OUT should be doing as its probably going to be your best bet to figuring out ranges. It won't be exact, but the majority of the hands for two 17/10 players are going to be similar.

Also forgot to do this (none are poker related):

New Year's Resolutions: Get back into college, make up for missed parties from last summer, make some new friends, keep the old ones obviously, get a decent job, be able to run 10 miles nonstop by the end of the summer, get my bench up to 250lb by 2011.

Right now I can probably run 3-4 miles nonstop, and my bench is probably 170ish. Clearly I have my work cut out for me. I plan on losing this little bit of pudge I got going on around the midriff and swelling up the upper body. Ez game sirs.

My whole idea here is to get into boxing after I get into pretty good shape, strength and endurance wise. I'll start looking for a gym that coaches that around the fall at the earliest.

Link to "How To Master FR" please.

Just got back from the gym, DESTROYED my biceps, back, and abs. Worked the speed and punching bag at then end. My arms feel huge atm lol. Tomorrow I'm going back for chest, legs, and abs. (Abs is gonna be pretty much an every day thing lol) GOGO NEW YEARS RESOLUTION!

Haven't studied yet today, but I finished reconfiguring my HUD, so thats one check off the list. I don't know if I'll be playing any poker today or not. I'm gonna play some COD with some friends in the squad bay for a couple hours and stuff, then study. If I feel like it after that, I will, if not, not biggie. Lol commas up the ass in the last sentence.

Alright, I'm outtie.

So its like 11pmish atm. Haven't played yet, will probably get in a session here in a bit. I've been pretty busy today. Went to the gym, (as seen above obv), had phone watch, which is just answering a telephone in case someone calls, for 2 hours. For that period of time I rewatched part 2 of HTMFR, took better notes since they are all things I need to work on (isolating, blind stealing, dealing with donkbets, standard post flop play) and watched the first half of part 3 which is CRR playing 4 tables of 25nl.

In between videos I opened pokerstove and notepad and wrote down the "standard" ranges for 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, and 30% VPIP or PFR and started to memorize. Got 5% and 10% down so far. It's amazing how such a simple act of doing that can deepen your understanding of your own HUD and feel more confident in hand reading. Pretty eager for a session later.

After the session I think I'm gonna look up some meditation techniques for before a session, and before bed. I have trouble falling asleep at night and I think it has to do with my mind being so cluttered with useless stuff. I think it would seriously help me out to do this, both with poker and life.

Just ended my fairly short session. I four table tiled so I could focus and take notes on regs and fish alike. The new HUD setup is awesome, my 2010 rungood is broken. I looked through my HEM and found only one hand where I spewed, and it was the last hand of my session. I stacked off with AJo on 893xJtt board 100bb deep. (Stacked off on river obv).

Overall, I feel I played extremely well. I had KK twice, lost with one AIPF vs AK and AA for a 300bb pot, 2nd one was KK < 99 on 339tt flop after reg c/r after flatting 3bet OOP. Other then that it was a fairly uneventful session. I was playing on point for the most part, the results just didn't show it.

There's one hand that I have a question on, but I'll post that in the BC.

So I just shut down the tables early after another tilting and disappointing session. I try not to be results oriented, I really do, but sometimes it just gets to you. I don't care who you are, you can only take so much crap being thrown in your face before you decide, "hey maybe I should move out of the way of the shovel." I'm not going to post any of the beats or my session graph like I planned on, because that would be pointless and dwelling on shit I shouldn't dwell on. Instead, I'll use the time that that would have taken, and review how I actually played and see if some of the losses couldn't have been mitigated, or have some of my winning hands win more than I did.

One thing I'm coming to learn, is that when I have a hand, like TPGK+, I tend to blow people out of the pot. Like I rarely see a showdown with these hands, and when I do, a good portion of the time it's with the losing hand. I need to start value betting more effectively, i.e. bet sizing, who the villain is, the board, what I'm representing, what their range is, etc. Instead of just mashing 3/4+ pot.

I have some serious leaks in my game that need to be addressed ASAP. Hopefully, Bbickes will aid me in getting rid of some of these kinks. I got a lot of work to do, folks.

Originally Posted by dranger7070

One thing I'm coming to learn, is that when I have a hand, like TPGK+, I tend to blow people out of the pot. Like I rarely see a showdown with these hands, and when I do, a good portion of the time it's with the losing hand. I need to start value betting more effectively, i.e. bet sizing, who the villain is, the board, what I'm representing, what their range is, etc. Instead of just mashing 3/4+ pot.

Part and parcel with that is how you size your bets when you DON'T have Top Pair Good Kicker. Make sure you're making good plays but also balancing it in such a way that it's not easily exploitable.

Basically, I've played next to zero poker since Tuesday this week. Tbh, it's not a bad thing as far as I can tell. I've had almost no time in the evenings to play, and every time I started I got really distracted by other people asking me questions, so its pretty -EV. I've studied a little bit, but nearly as much as I have hoped to. I'm going to watch Part 3 again of HTMFR and then play a session.

Last time I posted, I didn't think I would be able to utilize the Stars Reload bonus, but some kid needed to buy something online and I let him use my credit card in exchange for cash, and I deposited that into my bank account and I'm going to deposit like $10 of that online and then deposit the rest when I get paid. *fist pumps* So glad I get to take advantage. It'll give me incentive to grind, be a decent boost to my roll, and help me clear some Stellar Rewards too.

Update later.

So I played ~2-3k hands last night after watching Part 3 of HTMFR, which covered live play at 25nl FR. I'm normally not a fan of live play videos, but this one was really good. It focused on a few SPECIFIC topics instead of bouncing around. He (CodeRed) would mention a few other topics, but for the most part stuck to blind stealing, dealing with donkbets, and isolating fish and playing postflop with them.

First session was at 2nl for like 400 hands and realized thats fucking retarded and I wasn't really paying attention cuz the play and money there basically mean nothing to me. I moved up to 5nl for a 1k hand session and made 2 BIs (first winning session in 2010! lol). Took a break as I had been playing for ~2.5 hours at that point. Came back fired up a session of 10nl. Ran at EV for once and the deck was hitting me in the face with TT+, AQ, AK, etc so I managed a good winning session after 500 hands of 8 tabling. Played one more session with a friend sweating me. I made some REALLY, REALLY, bad call downs, and I can't claim I was running hot. It feels good to have finally booked a winning day at poker this year though.

I'm going to spend some time reviewing some hands from both my 10nl sessions and maybe post some if I find some stupid/interesting ones. I'll probably watch Part 4 of HTMFR which covers blind play, 3bet bluffing, and dealing with minraises. Then I'll probably play some hands.

Also, I already cleared my $2.50 bonus from my $10 deposit yesterday lol, and a friend shipped me $34 that he owed me for me getting him started again. So BR is on the uprise which feels nice. I'll be depositing at least $600 so I can take advantage of the full $150 reload bonus stars is having. That will become a part of my BR unless I REALLY need money IRL (which I shouldnt) since I withdrew $1100 back in November.

Thats it for now. Updates (maybe) later.

Here's a hand that I think could have been played better. CO is a positionally aware 20/19/10 over 60 hands, hasn't 3bet in 16 opportunities, and is generally pretty aggro postflop. I basically ignored the shortstack in my analysis as he's a 40/0/1 fish over 50 hands and I'm basically wtfpwning his whole range. The turn card is interesting since it puts me behind a decent chunk of villains range, I'm not sure if c/c here is best, c/f or b/c, or b/f here would be good. I mean, its basically the best card in the deck for hands like TdJd, 8d9d, etc. And its a decent card to bluff/semi bluff at for him.

Given the range {77, JJ, 99, AQs, AJs, 8d9d-TdJd, AJo} I'm only 15% equity. Given pot odds I need at least 23% equity. Makes it a fold, but is my range too narrow? I can't really see any other hands he's going to be doing this with except for maybe some AQo, and some random AKo that he didn't want to 3bet vs me PF? Thoughts?

http://weaktight.com/1879407

One thing I've been noticing with increasing regularity is how badly I play FD's. I've posted two hands in the BC that have been not exactly berated, but I've been told they were played incorrectly. I'm going to do some studying on this, and start looking for hands in which I played a FD and post them here, in the BC, and in IRC.

Latest session, 146 hands, -3 BIs. I played meh, ran worse. Got floated by back door gut shots vs my TPTK and top two, both hit. GG

Its been a while since I've gotten this irritated over having beats put on me. I was actually starting to break out in a sweat at the end of it. But so far this month has been complete and utter shit. I don't know if its my play thats doing it, or if I'm just going through a rough stretch. I KNOW I'm not playing even close to optimal, but I know for a fact I'm a winning player at 10nl FR. I just don't understand whats going on. Can't wait to get home so I can play without so many distractions and I can actually go out and relieve frustration instead of being cooped up 24/7.

I don't know if I'll play any more hands until I get home. This all just feels hopeless right now, even though I know its not. :/ I'm going to go play some COD and wtf pwn some russians and brazilians or wtfe they are.

I have no self control. I need to re-evaluate the way i play. Good Luck to you though. I hope you reach your goals

Just got home after being away for 7 weeks. Took a 3 day bus ride leaving Oceanside, California until I rolled into my driveway, but man it feels good to be home. Went out with some friends and got ridiculously high and just got to hang out with my buddies. That helped relieve a lot of stress I'd been feeling. Tonight, I'm going over to my apartment, probably goin' out, gettin' drunk, and passin' out in the wee hours of the morning. Then tomorrow I'm headed over to Bbickes place for football and all day grinding. Should be pretty fun. Idk if I'll play tonight, probably not. I've had almost a week long break since I've done anything related to the game and it feels pretty good to just relax and not think about it. I'll come back ready to do what it takes to actually get better.

Ty for whoever voted this 1 spade. -.-

Anyways, still haven't played much this month, ~10k hands. I've started studying a bit again now that I've been home. I've watched some vids from GS, and have read some chapters from PNL and read a bunch of the CoTW over at 2p2.

So this has crossed my mind a few times in the past, but a wild hair crawled up my ass and I did some research on it last night. I'm considering taking a 6-12 week (depending on where I go) on dealing casino games (probably Black Jack and poker). It's a decent job, doesn't require any degree, the certificate I would receive would increase my chances of landing a job, and while working I could sit there and put people on ranges all day. Ez game. I sent out a couple emails to the schools in my state and I'm just waiting on a reply to see how much, when, etc.

lol, whoever voted this one spade I challenge to HU for rollz (any stake between 2nl-200nl kthx please pm me)

btw, good luck on figuring out the dealer gig.

Buy a blackjack shoe and discard. Learn to deal by hustling your friends...

...apply to a casino party company.

EZGAME

Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

lol, whoever voted this one spade I challenge to HU for rollz (any stake between 2nl-200nl kthx please pm me)

btw, good luck on figuring out the dealer gig.

boooooked

Originally Posted by Bbickes

Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

lol, whoever voted this one spade I challenge to HU for rollz (any stake between 2nl-200nl kthx please pm me)

btw, good luck on figuring out the dealer gig.

boooooked

o snap

I lol'd

So I'm back in Big Crapids now obv. Received coach/sweat from Bbickes couple nights ago. Went pretty well, ended down a bit but ran bad in 2 AIPFs with AK, I win mah flip in one of those and session is +$, so no worries. I'm really excited to get into more detail with his teachings, I feel like I have a lot to learn from him. Not just stuff on the table either lol. We went to this bar/club thing tonight in br and he's all like, "ok go get laid and we'll do work tomorrow." *Cue epic dranger failaments* As he will be more than happy to tell you, I dropped teh ball on an ez lay and then totally nitted it up and didn't open anything all night.

Going to his apartment tomorrow for moar poker stuff, then more party/drinking/pickup attempts tomorrow night. Should be phun.

In other news, got emails back from both of the Dealer 'colleges' I contacted. One was kind of vague and stuff. The other sent a detailed email with a brochure on prices for each course, what courses were offered, along with prices. I think I'll be going with door number 2 lol. I'll be calling them sometime this week to see what I can get set up.

Go with the shady dealer school imo.

Originally Posted by BooG690

Go with the shady dealer school imo.

qfmft for organised crime hook-ups

So its been a little bit since I've updated. Bbickes has me grinding HU sngs on FTP right now. I started at the $6.25s and played ~60 of those before I moved up to the $11.50s. My first stint there went not so well. I'm not prepared to move down yet, but my first session playing there I spewed pretty bad and just wasn't focused overall. Every time I grind at Bbickes (pretty much every day) he will notice when I start to tilt and tell me to take a break for 5-10 minutes or however long it takes me to get back to an even keel. It seriously helps reduce spew, and increase winrate.

I received an email from FTP informing me of a $100 bonus that I can clear if I play rush pokerz and earn 2k FTPs, so I've been playing that for today and yesterday. So far $15 of the bonus is cleared while I'm down $10, so thats pretty gay. I've been 4 tabling it, but Bbickes thinks I should reduce it to 2 so I can actually focus. I'll meet him in the middle and do 3 for the next session, see if it improves my winrate a bit.

Thats its for now. Not a whole lot going on irl. Got stoned a couple days ago and ate 50 chicken nuggets from Mcdonalds over the course of 15 minutes. Massive stomachache and diarrhea to follow the next day lol. Other then that, same old, same old.

[2:38] <Bbickes> update wif ur blog with what u think uve learned and what you think u need to improve on

So I suppose I shall do just that. I'll start with the good, what I've improved on. As stated above, I've been playing HU sngs recently, but the last couple of days has been spent clearing a bonus at 10 rush. One thing that has become so much simpler is putting someone on a range. FR compared to HU is just lolable. The ranges are almost stupidly narrow in comparison to HU, even at tard stakes. I have learned to value bet a wider range, more effectively. I've learned its ok to not win EVERY POT (This was something Bb emphasized at the beginning of my HU playing), I'm slowly but surely learning its ok if you lose a pot due to a bad beat/cooler as long as you played it right. The results dont matter, playing good poker does. I'm a LOT more aggressive than I used to be. Since I've been playing rush, it just seems like everyones weak/tight passive dead money. No one wants to be putting in the bets/raises, everyone wants to see a showdown.

Some things that I fail epically at:
- spewing in retarded spots and in a variety of ways.
- tilting balls over nothing, just because I'm learning its ok to lose, doesn't mean I'm ok with dealing with it yet.
- playing too nitty postflop
- not adjusting properly to villains
- not 3betting enough
- calling too much OOP
- playing terribly in limped pots
- end game

The list of where I need to improve could go on and on. The list of things I have improved at is likely longer than that, but they are subtle changes and I probably haven't taken note of them all.

This has been a pretty hectic weekend. Had to work 3pm-11pm all three days, friday, saturday, and sunday. Went to Bbickes for drinking and fun. Saturday went back to my hometown for drinking and fun. And tonight was teh superbowl. I didn't play a single hand or sng all weekend so I'm behind on clearing my bonus. I've cleared $25, and I only have 2-3 more days to clear it so I need to put in some hands in the next couple of days. While I was working this weekend I read Easy Game and my head asploded multiple times during. It really is an incredible book. It helped open my eyes to a lot things and I'm pretty eager to start experimenting. (no homo)