The year after I got married.

I got married last year. Starwars day (May the 4th). Between the responsibilities that that entails and growing my business that I run with my wife I have 2 significant goals moving forward this year - both are shooting a pretty high and require more time than I have available but whatever, I like big supposedly unattainable goals. And like all goals of whatever size, they can be broken into attainable pieces.

Item 1. -

Be able to play Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano concerto.

For anyone who doesn't know, the rach three is arguably the pinnacle of the classical piano repertoire so far as the technical ability required. It's also a densely textured piece with many layers so requires the performer to know it inside out, and at roughly 40 minutes in length it is a significant test of a pianists mental and physical stamina.
I've been toying with it for some time already, and the below video shows some of what I can already manage to get through, if a bit rough around the edges.

Some of the first movement from after the opening theme.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfgssRsKvpk

Item 2.-

Get really good at poker.

I like poker, and I do know a bit about it - enough that I was able to grind out $2500 of profit playing microstakes about a decade ago. But that was at some of the most consistently soft games I've ever seen, almost around the days of party poker being a free for all where whoever played tightest preflop got the money in the end. I actually played mostly 5/10c on a site called "poker champs" with 50bb buy ins and it was easy to say the least.

As time marched on I cashed out and spent up, $2500 was a LOT of money to me since I was only 16 at the time. Since then I've tried a few time to get back into poker but discovered that I kind of suck when the stacks are deeper (too many hero calls) and when faced with any table where you can't stack off with TPTK. Hmm. And by "suck" I mean I'm a break even to mild loser over the long term across stakes ranging from 10NL to 100NL - without any significant deviation in results from level to level, but then I've also never really had a large enough set of hand histories to be able to accurately assess that anyway so who knows.

I don't think I'm going to get better unless I relearn from the ground up, so I guess that means playing at 2NL for a while and doing a good amount of study.

I know that my main immediate concerns at poker are going to be having the discipline to act on what I know to be a good decision and to get past being to results orientated and prone to tilt. The learning side of things will obviously take some work, but that doesn't bother me. I have all the confidence in the world that I can learn such things.

I haven't played cards since 2011, so a memory refresher is always good. After I post this I'm going to get my head around a basic preflop strategy for 2NL based on the article by renton in the BC. I'll get on to more complex matters in the near future. One step at a time.

I plan to write a bit about poker, a bit about piano and a bit about life in general here. Hopefully things go well for the next few chapters.

Good luck and welcome to FTR. good job i carried on reading as i saw the first paragraph , saw a link and thought typical spam then got to the poker .

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Originally Posted by Keith

Good luck and welcome to FTR. good job i carried on reading as i saw the first paragraph , saw a link and thought typical spam then got to the poker .

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Thanks ...probably should have put the poker stuff first. My bad. Its kind of all the same though, poker psych (both learning and playing) is very representative of all life's challenges i think.

About the link, when I first posted it blocked it (new user, no url tags allowed) so i just left it there as plain text. It parsed it automatically and allowed it when I did an edit.. don't know if that's worth looking at changing in someway to ensure they are still blocked, probably a lot of coding work.

Good luck with the piano and poker!

Post some hands if you aren't sure in the beginner's forum or here.

Gl with these goals and looking forward to listening to the full 40 minutes on youtube once you get there. I'm no expert but you seem to have some serious skills.

Don't worry about the micro games being that tough - there are still enough beginners around for you to make a few $k per year to pay for a holiday, new instrument, etc. Time spent studying is never time wasted though.

So having played a few hands and reminded myself how frustrating this game can be I guess its time for a quick review:

Hands played : 2214 (2NL FR)
Result : -$4.21

Its obvious looking through Holdem Manager that the figures are not generally that helpful due to the sample size. However, after some scrutiny it appears my leakiest action is flat calls on the flop, where i have lost far to many smaller pots. Adjustment of this action, by not calling any mid pairs, or top pair bad kicker, and the odd draw with bad pot odds would have left me break even which seems like a decent improvement, assuming I'm also right about a few other errors made on individual hands worth a total of around $3. The flop calls saw no significant wins, but instead a myriad of 5/20bb losses.

I think my psychology was often that I was probably ahead at the flop and didn't want to give that up, however the poor showdown value of my hands left me with folding to any action as the only real option at the turn/river, which would almost always also see cards that further weakened my hand. There would surely be occasions where my hand strength increased, but obviously these are not common, and even where they do happen there is a seems to me a limited range of hands that my opponents would have paid up for to any significant action, and when they do pay up I'm probably exposing myself to the risk of having 2nd bests a lot of the time aswell.

Floating the flop to bet the turn is also obviously a valid enough move but I strongly suspect that I am almost totally unable to determine the right situation for this at the moment.

..........

Interestingly, all this led me to think a lot about the value of raising rather than calling in many situations in general earlier in the hand, especially with position. I think I have a lot of fear about getting burnt with TPTK hands by playing too fast and getting too much money in early so I tend to call bets rather than play the hand aggressively. Its hard for me to gauge, I seem to get burnt on these hands alot more often than not, yet at the same time I frequently observe large pots being won by such hands. Maybe I'm better to raise in spots like that, I can probably push some better hands out, give weaker hands the chance to make a bad call and find out if I'm badly beaten all with the one flop action rather than cautiously calling my way through multiple streets with no idea whats going to happen.. the idea probably needs some testing I suppose, and as always it will depend on so many other factors.

Speaking of raising, -

In this hand I didn't really know what I should do, I only have 4 hands on villain.

NL Holdem $0.02(BB)
SB ($0.98)
BB ($1.81)
UTG ($0.36)
UTG+1 ($1.61)
Hero ($2.06)
MP1 ($2.01)
CO ($0.66)
BTN ($2)

Dealt to Hero A:diamond: K:heart:

fold, UTG+1 raises to $0.10, Hero raises to $0.28, fold, CO calls $0.28, fold, fold, fold, UTG+1 raises to $0.68 Now what?

Is this a fold? I feel like with the caller there is no way I'm not facing big pairs here, the caller probably has a small edge on me with a lower PP, anything up to QQ, and the raiser could easily have AA/KK and even if he doesn't I still don't see myself being ahead so I think it seems like a fold..

But thats what I thought later after I burnt the money.. :roll:

.............

All that aside, I managed to tackle a relatively new chopin etude the last few days, its been on my to do list for a while as I quite like it but it did my head in a while ago when I first had a go. The chopin etudes are a set of extremely ballsy technical studies for piano that are a bit of a staple in the diet of the average concert pianist. There are 24 of them in total. These pieces of music changed the way piano was thought about when they were written, pushing the barriers of what was physically possible and can take the better part of a lifetime to thoroughly master. I can play a few of them well, and a lot of them badly..

Check out the pretty blond girl playing the one I'm working on here.. I won't be playing it that quickly for a while.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43mvd1lKd3k

..

In other news, due to my wife's chronic inflammatory pain condition called Ankylosing Spondilitis we have decided to go through a kind of detox diet for the next two weeks. This involved consuming only juice/smoothies filled with more fruit in a single dose that I would like to eat in a week. Today was day one. I could use a slice of bread and something meaty right about now.

So after some swing-swonging I feel like after today's session I've finally reigned myself in from my most troublesome errors and can start moving forward more positively.

My stats bar today's session have run a bit wide I think, around 20/12 which strikes me as being a pretty fair margin outside ideal for a FR game. I tightened up a lot more UTG and in the MP today, as well as started raising 55-99 in unopened pots where previously I had been limping. I also tightened up my blind stealing range a bit, which had previously been pretty wild. AND (this is probably the most significant) I started folding to standard raises preflop with weaker unpaired hands like AJ, KJ/KQ that are often dominated.

The zoom games seem to suit me better, i get too involved in the standard games out of impatience I think. Probably just need to work on some self discipline.

Today I ran at 13/9 over 1600 hands and also had this kind of semi zen brain click where I started to think a lot more clearly about appropriate places to cbet based on position, and board texture. I had good results today, partially thanks to the fact that I managed to let go of my TP type hands when facing aggression, and partially thanks to a few nutters who paid my rockets on PR all ins.

I'm still down overall, but I feel much more stable because I think I played better. I find that if I get a bad beat (and I've had a couple so far) it tends not to have much of an effect on me emotionally, but when i screw up and know it that really tilts me. Fast.

Interesting point for the day's review:
My worst performing preflop scenario is facing a single raiser, where I've dropped 518bb over 5500 hands. Interestingly though, the same situation is +29bb if the sb/bb is removed from the equation, so perhaps that is not really relevant.

Overall my blind play is -666bb, based on the number of hands played the total cost of the blinds should be 927.5bb so I'm theoretically winning from that position perhaps, but I wonder if I should be doing better from there. We will have to see as more hands come through the system I guess before making any concrete adjustments there.

Here's my graph so far:
http://sadpanda.us/images/1880609-J2KEU1U.gif

what was the co like in tyhe AK hand . UTG+1 has put him all in if he calls and its a prettuy deliberate bet size to make. if CO is a complete fish ...likely from his stack size I'm shoving and if hes a nit i'm folding as utg+1 isn't sticking a nit all in without a premium hand.

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Originally Posted by Keith

what was the co like in tyhe AK hand . UTG+1 has put him all in if he calls and its a prettuy deliberate bet size to make. if CO is a complete fish ...likely from his stack size I'm shoving and if hes a nit i'm folding as utg+1 isn't sticking a nit all in without a premium hand.

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Looking back over it the CO was 17/0 after 12 hands.. not entirely sure what to make of that in relation to what you said, seems a little too inconclusive.

............

Moving forward, I played what was probably the highest volume poker session I've ever played tonight at just over 3500 hands. Not much by most peoples standards around here I suppose but I've never been able to do that previously. The Zoom games help alot, being able to do more volume in less time. I played 4 Zoom tables which I found pretty hectic, but at the same time it really stops me from getting involved in places I shouldn't and was also enough to prevent me from having enough time to stare at the cashier or HM reports constantly throughout a sessions which is something I really need to get out of.

I'm up to 9200 hands now, and back in the black since today's session after a rough start turned into quite a heater.

http://sadpanda.us/images/1881855-3CXOCYE.jpg

Not that it means much at this point, but being back infront does a lot for my state of mind. Downswings out of winnings have never bothered me much, its always been that initial struggle to get going that has thrown me. Bad starts lead to quitting for me. Not that i dropped too badly this time around, but it did take a bit of discipline to persevere over these hands.

Beginning to approach a measly, yet semi decent sample at nearly 15000 hands.

Overall I've run at 4.9bb/100, and feel like I've made a mass of poor choices, 2NL can obviously be beaten at a much higher rate than higher level micros and I feel like I can probably hang around here for a good while longer and try to rain in some of my more blatant errors, which are mostly still in calling down too light.

Looking at this sample, if I dock my first few thousands hands off, which were played before I made any real adjustment to my preflop game at roughly 21/12 - and instead show only hands after than which were played at around 13/8 I see a different story emerge. Those hands isolated from the beginning hands show a winrate of 7.53/100.

I'm confident that I burnt atleast 4-5 buyins over the course of that as well. So with those leaks identified I feel like I should be able to move forward fairly confidently, just working on avoiding those larger spills.

I started with a 30 buyin bankroll for 2NL, and I think that it will do me well to grind it up to $100, before taking any shots at 5NL. Its been pleasing to observe continuing changes in my general thought process at the table, getting towards more +EV moves, and feeling like atleast some wins are more related to good play, rather than more exclusively the result of the terrible play of the general 2NL crowd.

Current position:
14330 Hands
$74.03 (profit $14.03)

which site are you playing on

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Originally Posted by Keith

which site are you playing on

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Pokerstars for now, will consider moving for bonuses once roll is large enough to make better use of them. My bonus choices are kind of limited because I have accounts registered at a decent number of poker rooms already.

Today's session brought me up to a total of 20,000 hands at 2nl, and since today ended with a big swing up I now have enough $$ to start with a shot at 5nl next time I sit down to play cards. Good progress I guess. Many thanks to the fellow who paid my quad kings today in a 500bb pot.

Results so far.
http://sadpanda.us/images/1883489-KME8E6T.jpg
http://sadpanda.us/images/1883488-NZ349DR.jpg

10,000 hands into 5NL.

Started on a massive heater the last couple of days, today had a fairly brutal session that started with a 6+ buyin downer, and some crappy beats along the way back up. Made it back in the black for today though which was a massive test of my mental dicipline.

5nl results
Hands : 10105
Profit : $42.75
Winrate : 8.44bb/100

Overall results
Hands : 30204
Profit : $79.34
Winrate : 8.89bb/100

My bankroll is now sitting at $140. Considering taking a shot at 10nl, once anywhere between 150 and 200 - though likely will drop back if I burn anymore than 1 stack.

Observations about 5nl comparitively to 2nl (note I'm playing zoom FR)
Most significantly, 5nl is hyper aggressive preflop. Villains with a 3bet % between 10 and 20 are not unusual at all. These guys are doing all that 3betting almost exclusively out of the blinds when button/cutoff are raising unopened pots.

To go with that more or less no one 4bet bluffs, in addition, PR raises to 3bb will be 3bet bluffed almost religiously, where as raises to 4bb recieve far more respect. Villains seem to be unwilling to 3bet bluff to more than 10bb. Whether right or wrong, once I figured this out I adjusted by tightening up my LP opening range to almost exclusively value hands, and made 4bb my standard raise at all times. I very rarely got 3bet after that, so i was able to widen a little and make steal attempts in the right places. I'm not sure if this is really the right thing to do, its just that I don't have the balls to 4bet bluff it seems - and i was being 3bet on probably 80% of button raises.

I also widened my MP opening range, except where there is a 3bet maniac in BTN or CO. This often acted as a steal, or I would recieve a call from the blinds and be able to play the flop in position against them.

After much observation I decided to start making a 3bet out of the blinds to BTN raises my default play with nearly any 2 cards - dependent on raise size from the BTN. While I made the adjustment of increasing my standard raise when in in position, most villains don't and consistently give off bet sizing tells if they are attempting to steal - which they almost always are. This play is also dependent on my having some stats to show that villain likes to steal, and can fold to 3bet. Since zoom constantly swaps you around you run into a lot of different guys all making this error. I keep a close eye on my own 3bet% to avoid it rising too high, and me becoming exploitable on that basis.

Just a little note - If you're planning on moving up and then moving back down if you lose one stack, don't do it. Make sure your roll can cover more than that, go for $200 at least and then make the move. You have 20BI, if you lose 5, move back down.

What Cobra said^ Give yourself at least a 4 buy-in downswing stop-loss.

Yes you guys are right obviously, I think I'm partially swayed by what it was like when I started playing years and years ago. Games were proper soft and a 10-15 buyin bankroll was considered pretty decent for NL players up to about 200NL.

As it turns out I figured out the username on my old FTR account, though i don't know the password or email associated with it so can't use it. But, it has been amusing reading the thoughts of a cocky 16 year old me. Back in the day I had an excel spread sheet that my dad helped me make to keep track of my winnings. It wouldve been interesting to have seen what it looked like and apparently I posted some of my info in this thread:

http://www.flopturnriver.com/pokerfo...ew-101878.html

I remember those tilted down swings, sitting at 100NL for the first time ever and crapping my pants. Most amusing though is that given the profit, and number of hands played in the time frame I must have run at 30+bb/100 for a full 20,000 hands, and I know it carried on beyond this because I ultimately cashed out of those sites larger sums, and don't remember ever having any real dry run for any length of time. Shows how incredibly soft the games where back then.

........

Back in the present day, haven't played much the last week - too much life going on. Though i have surpassed $100 net profit :dance: ..which also feels a bit weird after reading some of my posted hand histories at 100NL under my old account. Its odd to be so satisfied with $100 earnt at micros, when 10 years ago I was obviously confident (probably over confident) playing for that much as the whole buyin.

updated girrrafffe.
http://sadpanda.us/images/1888782-PJQ9ADQ.jpg

I also have a friend from the other side of the country that is a pretty solid winning reg at 100NL and 500NL brick and mortar games coming to melbourne in a few weeks. Hoping we'll get to do a live sweat or something.

Time to sleep now.