Marshall28's blog

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So as my downswing continues, I was hoping I might put up some of the screen shots I got from Poker EV and PokerGrapher so that some kind soul who actually knows how to read the things might interpret them for me in lamen's terms. I took as many different screen shots as I could, hopefully somebody can help me out and explain to me what they mean. Thanks so much...
















The only thing missing is roughly 10k hands I played on my laptop at the PCA where I dropped about 8 grand. I tried to have pokerstars e-mail me the hand histories, but for some reason poker tracker wasn't able to handle importing that many files at once, so I wasn't able to get them included.

Anyways, I appreciate any responses as to the interpretation of these graphs.

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Okay so; most of you have probably been following the Marshall28 soap opera lately I’m sure. How could you miss it, right? LOL. I’m not doing this to try to clear my reputation, or to influence anybody to think about me in any particular way, I'd just hope you can find it within yourself to not judge me for my past mistakes and take this post at face value. Anyways, despite all the negativity the thread produced, I actually learned some things, some things about poker, some things about life, and some things about myself. I’m doing this for myself. To get my own thoughts down on paper in a place where I can come back and refresh my memory about these important lessons if I do end up hitting a wall again in the future, as I have now. This post is going to document those things.

Basically, I’ve been a very self-centered person my entire life. I’m an only child and I got picked on a lot in school so obviously things didn’t start out well. I had a way negative attitude towards everything and everybody. Felt like the world owed me something. So stupid right? I am always going to be like this in a way, as it is a part of who I am, and even though there are some negative aspects to it, I think the positive ones far outweigh the negatives. I’ll explain…

One common theme addressed lately is that I’m too arrogant and cocky. I probably am. I’m probably also a bit misunderstood in the sense that I am joking a lot of the time, and tone can’t be picked up over the internet. But the reason this is a good thing is it gives me the belief in myself to be able to do anything it is that I want to do in life. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what that is in the last six months since graduating college and breaking up with my girlfriend of two years. I think I’ve finally made a decision, at least for this upcoming year. I’d like to be able to compete at 25/50 by Dec 31st 2008. To play at those levels w/ a 50 buy in BR, I roughly need 250k. The reason being “arrogant” or whatever is going to help me achieve this is because it gives me the mindset that I am not cut from a different cloth than those other guys like GreenPlastic, Northface, Daut, MezmerizePlz, CTS, etc. I know that if other people are capable of doing something, if I put my mind to it and devote my entire mind and focus to it, that I can do it as well. In my belief, those guys aren’t that much different than anybody else, they just focused a lot of effort on a belief that they had a very strong faith in, and eventually, actualized their goals. I don’t think anyone who believes this is true can accomplish what they want in life. My deadline of reaching this goal may be too short, but that’s ok. “Shoot for the stars so if you fall, you land on a cloud” – Kanye West. I like that quote. Faith, Perseverance, and Determination are key.

Attitude is the most important key to social dynamics. It’s contagious, and people gravitate towards those who constantly have positive attitudes. This is something I have been working at for a very short time, but now I want it to become a bigger focus, I want to make it a part of who I am. It will help tremendously in poker also. When I was on my upswing, my attitude about playing was great, I sat down expecting to win, and I did. Since my downswing, I sit down and think, how long until I’m about to get coolered? This has to be one of the keys to why I have been struggling so much lately. I may boast occasionally, and downplay my weaknesses, but I’m not one to lie. My bankroll is sitting at 3,000 right now. On Dec. 19th, it was sitting at 42,340. I have a lot of work to do to get back to where I was. But I need to either man up and start taking responsibility for my own destiny, or quit. I don’t know if I could even utter those words, I quit, and mean it.

LOL you know that saying, it’s far better to give than receive? Yeah I think it’s kinda silly too, but I’m starting to realize there is some merit to it. Since I’ve started coaching, I’ve found a lot of joy in helping others. Obviously I am benefiting by being paid, but what I have been doing for my students has far outweighed the small amounts they have paid me, and it makes me feel good. Since I’ve been losing, I’ve actually enjoyed coaching much, much more than playing. I am going to continue to do it, and I want to pick up a few more students, I have five right now, and I did have a lot of requests when I had that random 400 --- > 12k$ upswing in that one night run through the micro stakes, but since I went bust again, I think a lot of people lost faith in me and decided not to give it a shot. Once I get my game back on track and am posting a solid winrate again, I think what I will do is make an infomercial type blog post w/ testimonials from those who I’m already coaching.

Okay, just two more things, one is about my place in this community. I want to set a goal to post at least twenty positive, thoughtful responses to hands in the mid/micro stakes a week. I’m trying to set a modest goal and hope to contribute even more than that. I’ve gotten a lot from this site in terms of motivation, and belief in the possibilities within poker. I’ve also gotten some great advice from people like Myth, Nolan, TalentedTom, Twisted, Doomer, Ket, and probably a few others I’ve forgotten to mention. I want to help keep these positive vibes going and show others the ropes, as I have been shown.

And lastly, what I’ve learned about my game through this downswing. As things got progressively worse, my ability to control my own tilt got progressively worse. I know I spew too much normally, but it got out of control, I started calling 3-bets so light out of position, inflating pots with extremely weak hands trying to constantly outplay people. This isn’t how I built my bankroll; this is the equivalent of going to the casino and playing craps or roulette. I could get lucky, but probably not going to happen. I built it through steady, decision oriented-play, not outcome-oriented play. Each day I’ve been sitting down trying to win back everything I’ve lost in the last month or so. Instead, from this point on, I’ll be sitting down in attempts to make the best decisions possible and to hopefully win two or three buy ins in a session, not 15. So with all that being said 200nl …. HERE I COME!!!


Thanks to those of you who waded through this, and have given me support.

And thanks to those of you to whom I’ve invoked negativity or I have harmed and are willing to give me a second chance.

Marshall28

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Okay so, I’ve been planning on getting out this article for a while now, and I think I finally have the time to pump it out, so what I’m basically going to be doing here is explaining, with examples, why it works, how to employ it, etc.

When I was in Vegas I sweated Daut for about 45 minutes online. He said something to me that really hit me hard, I thought about it, and realized, this is exactly the image I want at the table. What he said was “the guys on my right, I want them to fear me, I want to be in the back of their mind every time I enter a pot, because when they fear me, they are going to become uncomfortable playing against me, and when they’re uncomfortable, that’s when they make mistakes.” This wasn’t verbatim, but pretty much the gist of what he was saying. The point of it is, by inflating the pots against players in position, because they make the mistake of calling too often (or folding too often, both can be mistakes depending on the situation), you will win a ton of money.

Most players think I’m a donk calling station, or I’m just so retarded agro that I’m a terrible player. The thing about it is, I’m not afraid to go w/ a read that I have, and I’m not afraid to go broke. Some advice I’ve been giving my students lately, that I think is very important for everyone (who eventually wants to get very good) is to make a move if you think it may be a good situation. The thing is, it may not, and you may get stacked, but what’s important is that you found out the information about that situation, and you know for next time. There are so many situations out there, if you are just paying attention where you can force folds out of your opponents. You’ve just never attempted them, so you have no idea, here’s an example …

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885655

I realized that on the river, against this particular player, if I raised his blocker bet I could represent the flush, and get a fold a high percentage of the time. Obviously he’s not going to believe me every time, but the point is, it’s going to work often enough that the play will be profitable. Here’s one where it didn’t work….

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885661

In this one, I thought he had a very marginal made hand that thought I might be bluffing the K on the turn. I went a step further and recognized that he probably thinks I was bluffing the K on the turn and attempted to further cement in that bluff by jamming the river. He made an unbelievable call, and was right this time. I really think this was a lucky call, as even if I hit my 8 or 9 on the river I was making the same play, or it’s also very likely I was turning a made hand into a bluff, like a pair of 7s or 8s or whatever. The point is, because of my level of aggression, I’m getting him to call down three barrels all in w/ 4th pair. This is a great thing.

Here’s the reason why I think this is such a great play. Even if it’s negative EV at this particular point, for sake of example let’s say that he makes this call 60% of the time, meaning I only win the pot 40% of the time. The point is, I’m a good enough player to look at the information I received from this hand, I’m going to take into account how this particular player is going to be adjusting to my play in the future, and I’m going to use all of this information to make FAR FAR more positive EV plays against him, as well as others paying attention at the table in the future. As I’m sure you can see here, this style of play is extremely high variance, and I constantly have sessions where I’m down 5 buy ins, then win 2 buy ins back, then lose another 4, then win 5, then lose another 4, and finish up like 4 or 5 buy ins on the session. This in particular happened last night, and it does happen pretty often. It’s also why my WTSD is so high, it’s because I’m getting it in so light so often.

This brings me to the point about the difference in a cooler the way I play to a difference in a cooler the way a tight player plays. For a tight player, a cooler might be a set under set, or two pair versus a set, or an overpair versus a set. However, for me, a cooler is going to look MUCH more like something like this….

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885674

Or like this …

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885395

Or this…

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885400

The purpose of showing you these is because I end up getting the money in so light against a lot of players, that when I do happen to make top pair, in my mind it’s pretty much the nuts. Based on the fact that I’m bluffing so often and value betting so thinly against players, they are going to sit there and think that their 2nd pair is good against me when I’m betting top pair three streets all in for value (sometimes worse than top pair if I have a specific read on a villain). This is something I do constantly, and a very big reason for why my winrate is so high.

Now like I said, a lot of people think I’m nuts or I’m just flat out a bad player when they see the types of hands that I show down in certain situations (BUT THIS IS GREAT FOR MY IMAGE!!), because I know how people are going to react to me, and I know how to react to them.

Because I force myself into these types of situations constantly, I have gotten pretty decent at figuring out when I’m good and when I’m not…. Here’s a few examples…

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885715

This is 100% for value against this player, what I was attempting to do was force him to jam on me w/ Ace high or something worse because this is a flop that just looks like I'm going to be bluffing really often. I’m just raising too many pots for them to think I hit this board. I'd actually play any pair this way. This is how I get people to constantly put the money in w/ A high or other very weak hands. I’ll give a few more examples….

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885732

Here's a spot where I get him to get it in against me for 200bb w/ just TPTK.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885738

People like to claim that I just run good and am really lucky, but how many of you are getting all in value here?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885491

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885753

If the river hadn't come a 3 here, I was betting it for value, as I felt a 3 and ace high were a huge portion of his range. He called me an idiot afterwards. lol.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885499

It’s important to manipulate the perception your villain is going to have of your play, for example, certain players are going to think an all in jam looks like a draw (most do until they know you will do otherwise), so it’s usually best to play a strong hand like this on a draw heavy board by just jamming, I’ll often do this w/ sets and overpairs also, not just top pair. Here’s an example where I knew a villain would interpret a jam as very weak, but a small raise as very strong, so what I did was a checkminraise…

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885514

I actually think villain very likely folded a decent sized overpair here, or if he didn’t happen to hold one in this spot that he would fold a decent sized overpair.

Okay so, there’s one other concept that is really important to understand with this style, and it has a lot to do w/ double barreling in certain situations where you have high implied odds. I don’t know anyone that’s every articulated it before, I’ve never read it anywhere and never heard anyone explain it, so I’m gonna do my best…

It’s like, lets say you’ve opened from the SB and been called by the BB, you are holding like 78o and the flop comes J64r, you’ve flopped a gutshot and you go to c-bet. Villain calls your c-bet, the turn card is a 9, making you an open ended straight draw. This is a spot where I love to double barrel, obviously on the surface this looks just like a standard double barrel, but let’s think about it from a different perspective. When you are firing this second barrel here (which should be near pot sized), you are putting villain in a pretty difficult spot considering he could have been calling the flop w/ a pr of 7s, 8s, Ts, a weak J, even a somewhat strong J like a JT, they are going to have trouble calling the second barrel, you’ll actually find that they fold a pretty decent portion of the time (more often than you’d expect—even w/ a crazy image). But the thing about it is, if their hand is strong enough to call this second barrel, we will have accomplished two things—one, we’ve established that villain has a pretty strong hand in this spot, and two, we’ve built ourselves a good sized pot w/ a fairly decent draw. Now let’s say you hit your draw on the river. By building the pot on the flop and the turn, you’ve created a situation where you have very high implied odds to win a big bet on the river (since river bets are usually the largest in size). If his hand was good enough to call a pot sized bet on the flop and turn, he’s going to almost feel committed to calling the 3rd barrel on the river. At this point, you can use your discretion if you miss, or if say an overcard comes that you can represent, like a Q, K, or A. What you need to do is experiment w/ betting sizes to see how certain players interpret certain types of bets. Some are going to look at a bet that looks like a value bet and think it’s a bluff, others are going to look at huge bets and just be too scared to call, or might be more inclined to call because they think you’re bluffing. This is something you learn w/ experience, and by constantly getting yourselves in these situations.

The great thing about playing this way is that it makes your opponent play out of his comfort zone. You are in your comfort zone because you play large pots all the time and are comfortable w/ losing a stack or two if it happens to happen. Your opponents for the most part won’t be. This is what’s going to cause them to make mistakes. And the bigger the pot is against these weaker opponents, necessarily, the mistakes they make will be bigger ones.

These types of play work much, much better in position, I just chose a random example for this particular hand, but when you are able to do this to someone who is out of position, and to just continue to hammer down on them, it becomes very easy to start putting your opponents on hands and very easy to extract value w/ hands as weak as second or even third pair. I posted a hand not long ago where I bet the turn and called all in for value w/ AJ high. These types of things are possible; you just have to open your mind and start thinking of ways of being creative. You’ll never learn anything if you just sit there and tag it up and never force the issue or “make any mistakes” … IMO if you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t playing good poker. If you see me posting advice in the hand forums, I’m usually saying all in and celebrate, or bet all three streets for value. These reasons I’ve articulated in this article are exactly why I advocate what I do.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions feel free to post comments. I’m heading out of town tomorrow for PCA I’ll be there until the 11th or 12th, not quite sure.

GL,
Marshall28

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Okay so, after staring at my PS account w/ only 3 pennies in it for like 20 minutes, I went to go play on rednines. I did that for about 20 minutes then drove myself nuts cuz I hate the software. So I was gonna get a stake right, but cuz I have my city written as "chat is banned" on stars .. so people know why I don't respond to them ... they wouldn't send the money. I didn't know any of this at the time, and I am really rambling right now I know, but it's because I just played a 22 hour session so I'm just going to document what happened real quick.

Basically, I needed to get money on stars while I waited for my stake. So I started trying to sell lessons at a discounted price, so I ended up selling 6 hours for 400 bucks. So I took the 400 bucks and immediately loaded up 8 50nl tables. It didn't take long until I had won 10 buy ins, and was ready to move up to 100nl. So I went and 8 tabled 100nl, won 13 buy ins. At this point I'm like ok, time to move up to 200nl ... So I 8 tabled 200nl for a little while, and won roughly 12 buy ins. So I'm like, ok, I'm a little under-rolled but I know I can kill 400nl, so I went and 8 tabled that. I think I ended up coming up roughly 18 buy ins or something at 400. I can hardly see straight at this point otherwise I would keep going. Plus, I ruined my new years eve as I didn't sleep last night and now have zero energy to go out. : [

If only I didn't go busto the other day I wouldn't have had to do this. Anyways, here are the graphs .....

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Okay so, I've never had a heater like this before over the course of 3 days ... pretty sick though ....



Lol and I decided to play like 38/33 over the course of 3600 hands at 400nl kinda for fun, and ended up on the rollercoaster of my life, I'm sure plenty of you will get a laugh out of this graph ....



LOL, sick session, anyways ... My next post I'm gonna put up a bunch of pictures of the Carrera 4 Cabriolet I just got, and some other fun stuff I've picked up after having the sickest heater this month coming up like 35k. But after that, I'm gonna get back to posting some articles about aggression, particularly hyper-super-retarded-laggy-aggression. And the significance of constantly jamming on your opponents. So stay tuned for those posts. and GL everybody.

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