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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!
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