So, I’ve stepped way down in limits. I’ve gone all the way to stars micro 1c/2c NL. There are a few things that I’m learning, that I want write down.
First, there is a whole lot of board texture. I didn’t understand this until a few days ago. I’m starting to see that my set of 2’s is awesome with an AT2 rainbow board. But that same set sucks with an AA2 board. There is a whole lot of subtlety I’m slowly picking up. I think there’s a standard progression of understanding. First, I learned how to play top pair top kicker. Those won small pots fairly often, but sometimes I got nailed by a big hand. After a while I started to pick up suited connectors. I chased way too much, so I stopped playing them. I won a big pot on a bluff, and then I bluffed way too much. I started playing pocket pairs, and have done ok with the “no set no bet” rule, but I think I’m slightly underplaying them. But now, after a few thousand hands, I’m starting to see when to chase, and when to fold. I’m learning how the cards work. There seems to be this steady increase in profitability from weak tight to tight aggressive, but I have to play the hands correctly first. Being to loose or to aggressive leads to disaster. When you’ve only seen 10 nut flushes, you don’t see all of the danger on the board. A2 crub frush isn’t that great with two pair on the board.
Then there’s the other guy. Is his call a chase or a slowplay? What is he raising with? I’m still having a hard time with this. Sometimes, I think I get a read, but mostly I have to play the cards in my hand. Sure, I bluff from time to time, but I’m not optimal. Sometimes I let people chase. I may have a decent hand right now, but could be out drawn. I’ll make a half pot sized bet rather than a pot sized bet because I think I’ll lose, and want to limit my loss. That is, of course, retarded. I’ve got to make people pay to chase.
Then, there’s me. I’ve found myself getting greedy and overplaying hands. Getting jealous of other players cards and not playing right. I’ve been surprised by how much my emotional state affects the quality of my play. I didn’t expect this level of introspection.
Poker is cool, but it’s really hard. You hear people say, this game will take a lifetime to learn. I still don’t believe that, but the amount of time it will take me to get “good” keeps increasing.
I think that there are a few ‘right of passage’ levels of learning. When someone can do integration, they can tackle any math problem. They may fail, but after calculus you can give it a great try. With programming it’s pointers. Once you can use pointers, you’re in great shape to write serious code. Poker doesn’t seem to have that one big lesson quality. I’ve had to learn hundreds of little lessons all along. As far as I can tell, I’ve got thousands of those more to go.
People say you have to play the player, but wtf does that mean? Well, I can repeat that like a parrot, but I don’t think I’ll be able to explain it without a whole lot more play.
Any thoughts? Am I way off track? Been there done that?
