wanting to get better / confidence toast

hey.
i don't post much but I'm having a really tough time as of late. I've been a grinder for quite sometime, haven't had a real job in over 4 years. In any case I'll post a couple of graphs here for may onward, basically I'm not liking where this is going whatsoever.

I play on one of the fishier sites on the web, everest, and i have made some good $ there previously but it seems not anymore. My red curve is always horrible and I honestly am at a loss what I can do to change the non-showdown pots.

Every good player who has consistent results on FTR seems to be exceptional at hand reading and exploiting their opponents' weaknesses, and their graphs always just look amazing to me. I don't think I'm a terrible player but since I've chosen this as an actual real Career i think I have no choice but to somehow get better or start looking for something real to do before its too late (I'm turning 30 v soon)

have a look at these two graphs and please comment, anything helps. I've also had some coaching in the past and I've been a cardrunners member for over half a year and watch videos every single week.

I've been playing 1/2 for over a year now, I've probably played at minimum 1/2 million hands at that level. I rarely play 2/4 but sometimes if I can find a table with a real bad fish I'll sit - I never play with all regulars at any stakes.

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/7425/hemstats.jpg

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/4900/graphredline.jpg

Stats seem relatively fine.

You say you play with fish all the time, but are you actually targeting and exploiting them? When you sit at the table, do you feel you're the favorite to take their $'s, or do you just think its a raffle for who will?

How much are you mixing it up with the regs on these tables? Are you actively avoiding spots against them? When you're in a hand v's regs, are you modifying your ranges and lines from what you'd take v's a fish (and vice versa)?

You talk about coaching and watching vids, but do you just kinda watch the vid and walk away, or are you pausing, reviewing, taking notes, etc? I.e., are you actively learning, or just hoping stuff will soak in?

pt stat checkups weren't super useful to begin with, but now that the games suck mean dick, they aren't useful at all. get a coach or post hands.

The only stuff I notice is that your steal frequency and 3bet frequencies could be higher.

I haven't taken notes from videos, I do rewind if I think a narrator is saying something particularly useful and I try to pay more attention to their thought processes and explanations / reads etc since obv memorizing specific spots will never make you better.

When there are fish at the table I try and play often with them, in position, to try and stack them. I would say in general it's a raffle with the other regs as to who will get the fish' money, often it's not me.

I have found if I try too hard to always iso the fish and play pots with them a) my starting hands arent very good and I get in crappy spots vs the fish because these hands simply dont hit much or have less value and b) I find the regs exploit ME more and I can't stand 3bets and other aggression with less than adequate hands.

I adjust my hands to fish or regs.

for coaching what would be your best suggestion for how to approach it?
i've had some as said, and I think the least useful is getting coached in a live session.

so, do you think HEM reviews and talking about hands is best, or perhaps making a video of a small session and then watching that with the coach and going through hands/playing style that way? or do you think watching the coach play is good? what are your findings when YOU got coached?

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Originally Posted by bspahn

Every good player who has consistent results on FTR seems to be exceptional at hand reading and exploiting their opponents' weaknesses, and their graphs always just look amazing to me.

I've been playing 1/2 for over a year now, I've probably played at minimum 1/2 million hands at that level. I rarely play 2/4 but sometimes if I can find a table with a real bad fish I'll sit - I never play with all regulars at any stakes.

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I bolded some important points. I guarantee you there are some terrible regulars that play your limit/site. You have to find out what they are doing that is terrible and punish them. That way you dont' have to rely on fish for your profits and as a result you'll become a better player. I mean its hard to give general advice like this but generally your gonna have 2 types of regulars. They are either too spewy in a lot of spots or too tight in a lot of spots. Figure out who's what and profit.

Also as I hope you are aware of 30k hands really doesn't mean shit. The only thing I noticed from your stats is I go to showdown 5% more than you do but have the same w$@showdown. This comes down to the hand reading point which is something that will contribute a lot to your win rate.

I have noticed and made some notes on who I think might be a bad reg or a decent reg at my stakes, especially in a smaller site where there are only a few dozen regs really.

Could you guys maybe go through the types of notes you take on players? Often case I'll bring a player's notes up and I really don't find them very useful because they really aren't very general, this is because I seem to lack the ability to pick up on general things that players do.

When I write a note on a player they tend to be very specific things but Im afraid because they are so specific they might not be very useful, because if they play a certain hand one way they might not do it again the same if its against ME or another reg.

Some examples of notes I take would be as follows:

"4bet KK CO vs BB 24-$60"
"CALL 3bet BTN vs SB w 99, CHECK BEHIND 345hh flop, call turn, chk riv"
"3ways CR KT4dd flop and fold to 3bet"
"DONKS AJ on K53r, c/c turn A"
"bvb triple barrels KJ on KQT board (half pot riv)"
"doesnt believe FLUSH when i raise riv when he has AQ on ATx"

one thing that really worries me is that I seem to try and get more information from the various stats that are in the HEM database. I display few stats beside players names, only vpip/pfr/3bet/AF/hands

BUT I seem to bring the huge popup window up almost every time I play a hand with anybody. For instance, if i'm in a hand and i see that my opp only has say 15% river bet then I'll lay just about anything down against them on the river unless I have TPTK or something. Or if I've played say 200 hands with opp and their stat says they have never 4bet me then I'll assume it has to be a huge monster hand etc...

I know many of the higher level players say stats are more of a nuisance, but for those of you who do use them and really value them, can you tell me WHAT stats you are using and how you interpret them and when you really trust them and when you choose to ignore them and base your decisions more on how the hand played, board texture etc etc...

First notes. What I've found useful lately is including timing tells in my notes.

"Snap call cbet on A74r flop with TT"
"Insta-bet river with missed draw"

Stuff like that. Noting how they play draws can be useful, I made a lot of money off one reg once I got notes that he always b/3b any draw for instance. Whether they'll cbet a multiway pot if they miss.

I'll use stats to help decide what to do on the flop based on their stats on the turn. Its a money sink to float flop with A high if villain cbets turn over 70% for instance, but if they cbet turn 25% you can take it away on turn a lot. How often they raise flop is another. If I have a decent draw I'd prefer not to be pushed off, then I check that stat, if they only raise 8% or so, then I confidently bet my draw and wont be too unhappy folding if they raise, but if they raise flop a lot I might prefer to take a free card (or c/c OOP).

Real reads matter most of course, but thats mainly what I use stats for, planning ahead and anticipating the future.

It's really confusing having bjsaust and bspahn in the same thread.

bspahn, you sound exactly like me. Like honestly dead on. I've just breezed through the thread so I might have missed if this was mentioned. During my run bad I started trying to win too many pots to make up for the lack of showdownable hands I was making etc. In doing so, I started forgetting how to outplay certain opponents.

For instance, I too often barreled the fish because their ranges are weak obv. But they will still call with them! The way to outplay these guys is to make hands and value bet them to death. It seems obvious but this was a HUGE leak for me until recently. You posted a hand recently where you opened Q2s vs one. Unless you know this is the kind of fish that will fold on certain cards or often, I'd just drop that hand, even in position. Play hands that have better equity vs them. Basically, just play your cards. I know that's such a bad thing to say, but that's all you need to do because these guys are only playing their cards, and they're playing them very poorly. Don't bother reading a board and thinking, "my hand should look like this to him!" because he doesn't know what your hand looks like, he just knows his looks like top pair. I see SO many regs making this error vs fish it's ridiculous.

If the fish lasts long enough for you to make reads only how you can make him fold, them by all means start opening up and getting aggro in the right spots vs him. But also keep in mind they are capable of randomly changing their game since they don't actually have one.

This comes across sounding a little weak tight but that's not what I'm trying to say, I'm just saying play insanely solid vs them.

As for the regs, I avoid them at all costs. You're on a fishy site and you won't see any that often. Another I error I make is I recognize someone has read a hand chart after playing with them for a while but having never seen them before. Then I make the mistake of trying to put a play on him because he should fold due to what I'm repping and he calls with top pair too!

I had an awesome reminder of this recently when some dude was 3 betting way too much from the blinds. I decided I'd outplay him with trash, the flop came 333 and I called his cbet, the turn came 5, I called his 2nd barrel, the river came 9 and I shoved after he checked thinking I repped a big overpair nicely and he snap called with J9o. He said he called because he was sure I had 44-88 every time there. Not saying my play was tremendous But even though he appeared solid his hand reading was non-existant. No I am not shoving 44-88 there or even calling his 3bet preflop with it to begin with.

If you do see them often enough, then go ahead and disect their game and figure out how you can outplay them. Most of the time though, they won't even give you enough trouble to even have to worry about them.

Really solid advice Gala, and I hope I'm right reading between the lines that things are going much better for you now!

Note about regs not adjusting well to fish is spot on. I see that so often, and is one reason I generally feel favorite to clean out the fish at any table, maybe bspahn plays with better regs though (you'd hope so). I'm lucky in that I can generally play however I choose against the fish without regs exploiting my obvious vulnerabilities. Also good note about needing a better read than solid PF stats to assume that a reg is capable of thinking at any level.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bspahn

I know many of the higher level players say stats are more of a nuisance, but for those of you who do use them and really value them, can you tell me WHAT stats you are using and how you interpret them and when you really trust them and when you choose to ignore them and base your decisions more on how the hand played, board texture etc etc...

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I'm the biggest stats donk ever.I haaaaaaate using those stupid popup things (and rarely do) so I just have a million stats showing in my hud. I'd say one of the most important stats I added was "fold to 3bet" stat. I like having cbet% on my hud as well.

I have soo many stats, but I'd say the one's I look at the most aside from the obvious are:
3bet, fold to 3bet, 4bet, flop and turn cbet% and flop raise %.