Musings

Pretty comfortable so far, sometime I find myself not being aggressive where I should be, but it's a process I guess.




HATE to stop playing after getting caught on a 3 4 outer
http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/604824

but gotta sleep

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It has been a week since my commitment to truly improve at the game rather than monkey around and masstable robot mode. I've made an effort to read threads, post HH's here at LP and face the inevitable criticism. With each bash on the back of the head for idiot moves, I sincerely feel myself examining the situation better and being aggressive, shedding my weak tight ways little by little.

The results have been quite spectacular, though nothing can be sure since I only have about 9000 hands to show for it. 4 tabling slow tables does put a dampener on things. I have tried to put in 1k+ hands each day and have succeeded for the most part. I table select religiously, usually by seeking out the tight regs and sitting to the right of them (which naturally leaves the looser ones to my right).

I play 14/11/5 or 13/10/5, something in this area. It has its flaws of course, but it suffices for now. Postflop situation evaluation has been facilitated by adding in about 8 more stats on the HUD and taking notes like a maniac. It is excellent to know exactly what a villain's weak lead means, etc.

I have taken 3 shots at NL10 before, with mixed success. Each time I felt like I was getting a little more used to how things were at the next level. I had convinced myself before this recommitment to the game that I would grind out 30bis before taking another shot at NL10. However, Maynard's BR Management Blog has me wavering. My brain completely understands his logic and agrees with it. However, my mental weakness is what i worry about, as I felt that last time i took a shot at NL10, I still was not playing "normally". The pressure of 'only having 2bis' seemed to be getting to me.

I currently sit at 21 bi's for NL10, seriously contemplating taking a 3bi or so shot into NL10. I am beating NL5 for about 13.5ptbbs/100, albeit over a microscopic sample size, as previously mentioned.

Any thoughts, suggestions or feedback is welcome.
Here is a graph just to make myself happy.

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- Stop fucking around when on the flop when missed setmining just beacuse villain shows potential holes. If I'm setmining I'm doing it for value, not to make moves alskdjfao;sidhfals.

- Free look BB hands. STOP double barreling with air/marginal hands just b/c it's a limped pot and pple are weak. QJo and hitting MP or something is the worst shit ever JUST THROW IT OUT SLKDFJAL:KHFSDLKFJ.


Cheers,
Uptown.

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tl;dr / emo / who cares blog.
This blog is a combination of resolutions for 2009, reflections on my first two months in poker, and an assertion of my commitment to improving.

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Being in the midst of a collosal downswing has driven me to reflect on my shortcomings, my purpose, why I am playing this game and what I seek to get from it.

Purpose: My purpose in playing is for improvement and enjoying “the game”. While many players here and elsewhere play for monetary reasons (and I fully respect that), I am fortunate enough to not worry about earning a decent wage for the rest of my life. However, I will always need a semi-time-killing hobby to keep me occupied, be it Starcraft, Dota, boardgames, or random reading – internet or hard copy. As I wrote in one of my earlier blogs, I was convinced by Tenbagger to try committing to this game, as it actually gives players who excel at it and strive to become better a tangible and meaningful reward – maybe even the most meaningful kind around. I am willing to admit though, that because of these factors my commitment and drive in the game will be weaker and wavering than many others here. Hence I will inevitably face dilemmas where I will want to quit the game and spend my time elsewhere, etc. It will be up to me to wade through the high tide and get to the other shore when this happens – like it is right now actually.

Reflections: The first two months have brough me a lot, from the excitement of winning my first all-in hand, to moving up and succeeding, moving up and failing, moving up and failing hard, epic (for me) downswings, wanting to quit, a 10 day hiatus (couldn’t be avoided) that has seemingly really hurt my game, being affected by downswings, etc. I’ve started at NL2, moved up to NL5 quickly, taken shots at NL10 with mixed success, and bombed my way down to NL2 again through a combination of bad beats and coolers as well as a mix of overall poor play.

It is quite fitting then, that having experienced the ups and downs, that I find myself at the starting point again on the first day of 2009, both in terms of bankroll status and the stakes I play at. I know that I have the potential to play at the stakes higher than where I am at, and that the only thing keeping me back will be my unwillingness to do whatever it takes to improve my own play.

I am quite convinced now that I am a weak tight. In fact, I am positive that I am a nitty, weak, worthless POS player. Without admitting this, I feel that I cannot take the first step forward, or as a matter of fact, even get off my big ol’ derrier after my fall down to NL2 again. But what does it mean to be “aggressive”? What is the difference between “aggression” and just donking away my money on each street? Meanwhile, the bigger question will be how do I find this out?
Which leads me to the 3rd point of this entry…

Commitment: In my current low level of poker play, the concept I need to embrace the most is that of “taking actions to improve”. That means playing to improve, reading to improve, and taking advantage of any and all resources available to me to that end. It is something that, while I may have believed to have been doing, I was deluding myself with.

For starters, I need to be educating myself much more than I am now. I feel like 90% of my time is spent playing rather than reading or watching or asking. While playing can certainly make me better, at the low level I am in, reading and watching are far more efficient means of self-improvement. Unfortunately I cannot afford a CR account so really the only resource of this nature I can utilize is the 2p2 Unl recommended threads. My immediate goal will be to finish reading all the threads in their entirity and to make an effort to truly understand the information in it, rather than just “blah reading” it.

More importantly, I vow to fully utilize the resources that are available to make me a better player. Most notably, I will actually start to participate in LP actively and start hand threads in the Low stakes forums, and ditch this high horse “I only write blogs look at me I’m so cool with 0 posts next to my name” thing I’ve been on for the last 2 months. It’s quite pointless, and while I still maintain that the 0 post thing is quite cool, it only means that I’m not doing everything I can to become better. If I’m committed to improving, I cannot let myself keep doing this.

Furthermore, I will never, ever play more than 4 tables. I have usually played around 6-8, and once was playing something like 14 tables (and was actually winning, but that doesn’t matter). As many have attested in various places, the only way to improve is to lower the number of tables and pay attention to yourself and your opponents. I know that I need to stop watching videos on the side or reading TL.net as I play, but being easily bored I’m not quite sure I can take this leap yet!

So this naturally leads me to stating some “resolutions” for the new year. All of these are designed for the sole purpose of improving. After all, my purpose in the game is to improve and to enjoy. I shouldn’t be chasing the money as the primary objective. To be doing so would be lying to myself. In fact, “going for the money” will most likely hinder my advancement as a player, as I will be playing robot poker on 20 tables if that were the case.

Resolutions for 2009
- read all available poker resources, starting from the 2p2 archives
- take advantage of LP’s community, actively taking part in its discussions and asking for help/advice
- No more “weak tight”, while avoiding my inner donkey
- 4 tables or less at all times

Cheers LP, and thank you for being an entertaining, manner community that I am not ashamed of being a part of.

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I have found the perfect hand to describe who I am as a poker player.


+ Show Spoiler +

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(been talking with support about this for about 10 days now)

I happen to have the weirdest PT3 bug right now. No outright SQL crashes, nothing like that. In fact the HUD works perfectly (sans the expected random PT3 bugginess that we have all come to love).

But when I click the hold'em tab to try to look at stats and graphs, the program instantly hangs and becomes completely unresponsive. Leave it for 2 hours? Nope, no progress. Gotta end process. I can 'play' as normal since the HUD is functional, but it's definitely an annoyance since I like looking at those pretty graphs

I imagine I'll have to wipe my HD if we can't find a solution relatively soon. Which I guess is alright, my machine was due for a cleanup anyways.

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Summary: Ongoing learning process.

Seems like forever ago that I moved from NL2 to NL5 but no, it was indeed just 7 days ago. Since then I've ran good, been sucked out hard, been delusional, and caught a few suck outs of my own, among other things.

Due to the 2bi shots I've taken into NL10, the graph doesn't accurately represent my BR, but it does depict the progress at NL5. I'm as big a nit as I ever was PF, and have been concentrating primarily on becoming a nit postflop (which I definitely wasn't before), and identifying villains' lines. I've definitely made progress, but obviously it's just the first few steps in the marathon ahead of me.



While I was wishywashy and shaky during my NL10 shots, it helped me immensely when I dropped back down to NL5, as I'm finding the tables there to be much softer than before. Did just 3k hands at NL10 really improve my play? Probably not, but the sensation does seem genuine.

My challenge is still going to be to learn to JLIG my hands that I know are beat by the villain's draw that hit on the river, etc. I plan to stick to NL5 a bit longer before I take my next minishot at NL10.

Cheerio~

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So after the 2bi bust out from NL10 I went back to NL5 as planned until I reached the set bi for NL10 again. It came with great ease, as NL5 felt incredibly soft.



While I understand that it could very well be just a heater, or just ran good etc. However the undeniable part is the level of confidence I felt playing these tables and feeling in total control.

Unexpectedly I got to the bi mark I set for myself within 500 hands, and after a break off I went.

To Hell.


I'm not sure how to describe it, but the easiest way to say it is: I am a mess at NL10. The waves of playing alright and playing like dogshit is indescribable. I seem to be overly anxious. I seem bewildered by the difference in general style. And above all, I am 10x worse at laying down a hand I'm 90% sure I'm beat in. I'm not aggressive, I'm not assertive. Any danger card and I have my tail between my legs and whimper away. As said in the title, it is just a pathetic display of confidence in my own abilities.



It's not just the results that have me fuming. It's the fact that I can tell that while my brain is trying to play the same way I do in NL5, another part of it is shaken by the way people respond or don't respond differently here. I can tell I'm affected, and I know that my play is affected as well. As I said: pathetic.
I must say the bottom line is this: Unless I learn to get rid of my attachment to marginal hands, there is no chance in hell I am going to make a breakthrough here.

Apologies for the rant, but I believe a vent of any form should help regardless. I don't need sympathy, I don't want empathy. What I do need is going to come from within myself and only myself, and it's up to me to find what I need to change and make that commitment.

edit: I am still also far too aggressive in marginally better than marginal spots.

edit2: I think some introspection is in order for tomorrow.

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took a 2bi shot into NL10.

Just busted out (of the 2bi that is) after 3 days or so with standard stuff (QQ vs 66 stack off pf, river 6. nut straight vs two pair stack off on flop, turn makes boat gg, normal stuff)

All in all I think it was worth it, in the sense that it affirmed the holes I need to work on. Same ol' thing tbh: postflop spew.

*note to self* - Stop triple barreling with air plz kthnx.

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Trials, Tribulations, Retardation and Light at the End of the Tunnel

2800 hands or so.
4-5 tabling

Day3 saw some changes to the way I was playing. Still as nitty as ever, but concentrating a ton on making prudent plays postflop. I'm happy to much AK/AQ when the flop misses and the guy leads into me. I'm happy to much QQ if the turn/river smells real dangerous. I'm trying to be less attached to my hands, fold quickly if I don't have the goods, and also finding out a little more about how the NL5 regs act in general.

For instance, it seems like smaller cbets work just as well on these guys as a relatively larger one. If they were going to fold, they're going to fold anyways, etc. Esp with my uber uber nit stats, even a 1/2 pot cbet looks damn well like a vbet.

The day started off with more of the same as Day 1 and 2 - super swingy, huge do or die pots, semi-retarded shoves and calls that made for an ugly PT graph. By the end of session 2 of the day, I was down about $5 for the day over ~1400 hands. But when I checked my cashier, it said I was right at the point where I started NL5 at. I was pretty happy to be honest, considering how much I had lost the day before I was still plus minus zero. I saw it as an opportunity to get a good fresh start.

I really came to the realization that while I was playing tight preflop, I was NOWHERE close to tight postflop. I mentioned this before, but I had an AF of over 7!! I was cbetting far too much when there was no way they were going to fold, I was double barreling far too often, and I was building pots on marginal/retarded drawing hands. I had to learn to manipulate the pot given each of my situations: do i have TP? Overpair? Draws? Good, strong draws? Monsters? Do my monsters lose to other possible monsters? The key was hedging the risks and getting an approriate risk/investment/return factor for all situations.

B/c I tend to play well beyond midnight I can't seem to filter graphs properly on PT3 (or is there a way to say "just give me the last 3k hands"?) So i'll just post the 3rd session of the day. The first two sessions were just swingly messes anyways, where it really demonstrates my retardation. I freaking lose a 2bi all'in with what turned out to be a marginal hand ffs. (I think it was like QQ calling a shove on the river when the river was a K or something, and the guy had K4o or something)



Overall : +3.5bi for the day

Won't be able to play much today because of paperwork I have to get done, plus I'm going out to dinner for my best friend's birthday. I won't be drinking b/c I'm carpooling with him and I'm the DD, but it'll take a good number of hours. Hopefully I can get about 1.5K hands in when I get back around 11pm or something.

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Ridiculous instance of the day
I have AK, flop comes 3Kx of hearts, then 8, then K, I'm valuebetting each street, then encounter a river shove, I don't see the boat I have and I fold and lose a 2/3bi pot. Chances are he had Kxo but it's just free money I gave up and I seriously felt depressed. What saved my psyche though was that the very next hand on a different table, someone 3 bet donked into me when I had AApf and he had TTpf, and I won a 1.5bi pot. If not for the mental save of this donk I probably wouldn't have been able to keep my cool for the next few hours, slowly building my way up with good plays.

I really do want to play today to solidify what I was learning yesterday, because I feel like if I don't keep playing then I'll lose the good habits I was picking up. Kind of like my golf game to be honest. In my "prime" playing days I still needed to practice at least once every 3 days or my game would go to shit and would take weeks to get back. (although my skill is a far cry from what it used to be now, haha)

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