Not much been going on lately, decided some time ago if I got over 3000e roll id relax, play heroes, sc, watch vods, series the days before Vegas, and I am!
I was also stupid enough to go out drinking here the other day, soooo stupid, cos I'm allergic to any sugar, so now stomach ache, uuu!!
Got sick hangover next day, puked nonstop, and felt sorry for myself all day, was in bed 16 hours as well, so couldn't sleep at night, and didn't fall asleep close to noon next day, so day rythm is fucked as well!!
Grrrr...
Tried some starcraft again, literally not played in 5 years, my god i suck lol
but fun nontheless, easier to appriciate the vods after having played some lol
Oh well, moving out in a few days, getting ready for Vegas, nervous and excited, eeek
- A downswing is a period when a player earns significantly less than their expected win rate over a number of sessions.
- The high variance in poker makes it inevitable that you will suffer sustained losses from time to time. These will not be rare, freak occurrences, but something that most players have to put up with regularly.
The Reality of Downswings
- Downswings are not an entity in themselves, but an observed pattern in results.
- A common error is trying to assign downswings properties, such as giving them a fixed size, shape, or frequency.
- Many players try to define downswings in the present or future tense. They are trying to predict future events based on past results, which is impossible.
- Unfortunately, the psychological pressure of running badly for a sustained period of time makes ignoring downswings difficult.
- Managing a large downswing is one of the most difficult things you will have to do as a poker player, and the penatly for failure can be losing your entire bankroll.
Common Bad Responses to downswings
- These are some of the most common bad responses to downswings:
- Losing confidence in your ability and game
- Making radical changes to your play
- Getting obsessed with your losses
- Trying to ride out the downswing
- Moving up a limit to recoup your losses
Dealing with a Downswing
- You cope with downswings the same way you deal with anything else in poker. You make the decisions that will make you the most money in the long term.
- Your decisions away from the table such as what games you play, what limits you play, and how you prepare will all play a crucial part in ensuring you come through tough periods.
- If you are not playing well, then your results will deteriorate, magnifying the effect of the downswing, which in turn makes you even more depressed. This cycle can continue until either:
a) You have a lucky run of cards pulling you out of the downswing; or
b) You go broke.
- Having the correct attitude toward your bankroll and your win rate when you are running well will help you maintain that attitude when things inevitably go bad.
Staying in Control
- There are two things to concentrate your energies on during a downswing: Improving your game and avoiding tilt.
- The relationship between tilt and downswings is a vicious circle, and either can be the trigger.
- Some of the most common traps that can befall a player running badly include:
- Trying to get even
- Damage limitation (playing more defensive, passive)
- Unwillingness to gamble
- Breaking the pain threshold
Downswings and the Poker Mindset
- Preventing tilt when on a downswing is all about attitude. If you play poker in the correct frame of midn, you are less likely to tilt.
- Understanding the seven attitudes of the Poker Mindset is the key to avoiding tilt during a downswing. (I listed those in Part 1)
Improving your game
- Generally speaking, you should remember the following two things when you are on a downswing.
1. It is very unlikely that your downswing is entirely due to bad play.
2. Likewise, it is very unlikely that bad play is not contributing to your downswing at all.
- If you reduce the "poor play element" of a downswing, and improve your win rate, you will recover more quickly.
- While finding and correcting leaks in your game is an end unto itself, it also has fringe benefits helpful in recovering from a downswing:
- By concentrating on improving you game, you are keeping your mind on something other than poor results.
- By proactively improving your game, you can sit at the table with greater confidence.
Downswing and Your Bankroll
- If a downswing is large enough, there is a risk that you are not sufficiently bankrolled to play at your current limit and should move down.
- Unfortunately, players on a downswing are often bad at moving down limits, which can be for a number of reasons:
1. It's a step backwards.
2. It will be harder to win back losses.
3. The player might be in denial.
- If you cheat on your bankroll, you are risking your entire poker career.
Where I keep updating the summary/important bits as I read through the book. This is part 3
Essential Attitudes for Poker Success
- The hands that have a big emotilnal impact are those where you lose a big pot.
What happens When You Lose a Big Pot?
- How much losing a large pot affects you depends on several factors, including:
- How big the pot is
- How good you felt your chances were of winning the pot
- How you lost the pot
- How your session or recent results have been going
- Whether it is in a tournament or cash game
- How adequately bankrolled you are
- Your attitude
- When you look at all of these factors combined, you can see why it is difficult for many players to tune out their emotions completely.
- Fortunately, what is really important is not how much losing a big pot affects you emotionally, but how it affects your play.
- Beware of the following pitfalls that may snare a player who has recently lost a big pot:
- Berating your opponent
- playing the next hand badly
- Playing badly in similar situations in the future
- Tilt
Reaction to losing a Big Pot
- There are four stages in how players react to losing a big pot:
- Each stage represents a better reaction than the last.
- Players at later stages will be better able to rationalize the loss of a big pot and not allow it to affect their play.
Applying the Poker Mindset
- A player might read and understand the four stages to losing a pot, but still be unable to consistently react in a way congruent with stages three or four. There are two main reasons for this:
1. Emotions are difficult to control.
2. His entire approach to poker might be wrong and everything goes awry from there.
- Understanding the seven attitudes of the Poker Mindset can help correct your approach to poker, which in turn will help you to respond better when you lose a big pot.
- Whenever you lose a big pot, rather than focusing on your emotions, focus on these two important questions:
1. What does that hand teach me about my opponent's play?
2. Could I have played that hand better?
Bad Beats
- Broadly speaking, there are three ways you can lose a pot:
1. Bad Play
2. Bad Cards
3. Bad Beat
- The average player gets angrier over bad beats than over any other kidn of lost pot. Some of the reasons for this include:
- Entitlement - Players with a strong hand will often (subconsciously or otherwise) belive they are entitled to the pot.
- Rewarding Bad Play - For the myopic player, bad beats are seen to reward bad play.
- Directed Anger - Anger is often stronger when there is something for the anger to be directed at.
- Bad beats are the best way to lose a pot as you make money in the long term when your opponents make mistakes:
- Bad play makes you money in the long term
- Bad beats keep bad players playing
- Bad Beats encourage bad play by rewarding it
- A good player will take more bad beats than he gives
- Bad beats are an integral part of the game
- Bad beats are a good poker player's best friend!
Ever since I moved to Tromsø 1 and a half month ago me and Erik (Dokosoko) have been playing Squash 4 times a week or so, and I've never managed to win.
I been frustrated, annoyed, trying so hard to beat him, watched tips on youtube, searched on the web for how to take backhand strokes better. But nothing seemed to work. But I've slowly build up my insanely bad endurance, and now it's sicker than it's ever been!
So we played today as well, and it was siiiick!
I felt I played pretty good, first set I was up in the lead most of the match, at one point 7-3 in my favour, but he made a comeback and I managed to lose 9-7
Second set I managed to beat him 9-7 which felt great!!
Third set I was starting to get really exhausted, but something weird now, instead of just getting really exhausted and downhill from there, a short break, some water and I'm good to go again full energy woaah!! Third set was really close, it went to 10-8 to him, you have to win with 2 goals, so nearly had it, and I made him run a lot more than usual, and I was playing good, still struggling on my backhand left side serve catch!!
On the fourth set I was just happy I did so well, but didn't expect to win it, because by now I'm starting to get so exhausted, and he's in great shape and never get exhausted, but for some reason I just didn't get tired, and I managed to win 9-7!!
Siiiick a tie 2-2!!
We took one more set, at the start I felt i played beautifully, I took the lead 8-0!! Then I got really nervous, he played sick well, perfect serves, and I started to miss and do stupid mistakes, he caught up to me 8-8 and I got really disappointed!
I just thought, ah so what, I never done this well, I'll just try my best and he took it 9-8!! Or so I thought, for got you had to win with 2 goals, and then we had some amazing points come, and we played for nearly 20 minuts more. Just kept winning the serves of eachother (U have to win the serve before you can win a point).
I managed to catch up and take the lead 10-9, he caught up and it was 11-10 for him, then I managed to catch up to 12-11 and at the end probably one of the best action we had, were we switched the ball 20 times or something, having to really throw ourself to catch it, run at the back, then run forth, he won that cool one ,but missed serve, i won it back, and took it 13-11 xD
But didn't gloat or like "IN UR FACE" Just felt grateful, never had this good endurance, and he's so competitive, he'll give me hell next time, and it just felt great to finally win once xD
Yayy!!
Oh, didn't notice I wrote so much, sorry lol, no1's gonna bother to read this lol!! But felt good writing it anyway <3 xD
Last few days really gone up and down, highest I've been at was around 2780 euro roll, and that felt amazing, then dropped down to 2500 again, then up to 2700 twice.
Today I started off losing 2-3 buy ins, then winning back 4 buy ins or so which felt pretty good, but had a session just now where I lost A LOT (comparing it to my normal standards) And my roll fell down to 2400, so have to go down to 20nl and grind it up again. GRRR
Hey, just gonna update from my last entry. More of the important stuff in the "The Poker Mindset" book, and continue from where I dropped off :-)
Overcoming Your Instincts
Actions and Reactions
- In poker, the link between action and reaction (or in this case, between decision and results) can be difficult to identify.
- Just because you are winning does not mean you are playing well, and just because you are losing does not mean you are playing badly.
- In poker, the laws of action and reaction do apply, but in a very different way than in everyday life. The results of your actions will be extremely volatile in the short term to the point where they are almost not worth worrying about.
- Make sure that when you make a link between poker play and its results, you are looking at the result of many, many trials.
Setting Goals
- Broadly speaking, setting poker goals for yourself can be good, but they should never be monetary targets. There are three important reasons why:
1. You have limited power to achieve monetary goals.
2. Conclusions are difficult to draw when you miss a monetary target.
3. Monetary targets detract from your true goal (making correct decisions).
- Setting goals in poker is important, but they should fulfill two important criteria:
1. You need to have the power to directly achieve the goal
2. The goal must not conflict with or detract from your ultimate aim of making the best decision as often as possible.
Is "Average" Acceptable?
- If you are an average player at poker, then you are losing money. Poker is one endavour where average is simply not good enough.
Risk Aversion
- No matter what attitude a poker player has toward risk in his everyday life, he must adopt a risk-neutral attitude when sitting at the poker table.
- A player who tries to play poker in a risk-averse manner may be prone to the following:
- Chasing opponents out of pots too often
- Not value betting enough
- Playing in less-profitable games
Greed
- When playing poker, you need to get rid of all pretenses that greed is a bad thing. Greed is not only acceptable when playing poker, it is vital.
Woolly thinking
- Woolly thinking is any line of thought that contains a logical flaw - any deduction that, when you break it down, does not make sense. The problem when playing poker is that every bit of woolly thinking will cost you money.
- Some types of woolly thinking in poker include:
- Considering irrelevant variables
- Misunderstanding probability
- Results-based thinking
- Spurious regression
- Acting on principle
- Superstition
Summary
- It is important that you break out of the pre-programmed thinking patterns and develop a new kind of intuition that we call the Six Truths of Poker Intuition:
1. Actions and reactions are only tenuously linked.
2. Setting short-term monetary goals is counter-productive.
3. Average is not an acceptable standard in poker.
4. Risk neutrality is the only acceptable attitude to risk.
5. Greed is good.
6. Clear logical thought is required.
Been reading through half of the book, and it's really good. So I thought I'd list down most of the important stuff I've been through so far (Most for my own benefits).
Understand and Accept the Realities of Poker
- You need to understand the Five Realities of Poker, but more important you need to accept them. The Five Realities of Poker are:
1. Poker is a game of both skill and luck.
2. In the short term, luck is king.
3. In the long term, skill is king.
4. Poker is a game of small edges.
5. Poker is a game of high variance.
Play for the Long Term
- If you are looking to make money from poker, you need to play for the long term and accept the short-term risks.
- A player who puts too much emphasis on his short-term results will be prone to the following errors:
- Playing to get even
- Protecting a win
- Tilting
- Getting mad at bad players
- Making rash changes to his game
Emphasize Correct Decisions over Making Money
- The big advantage of playing poker for the long term is that you can focus on the only thing that is important: making correct decisions.
- "correct play" is defined as the best play you could reasonably be expected to make given the information you have available.
- If you make correct decisions, your short-term results are irrelevant as you will make money in the long term.
Desensitize Yourself to Money
- It is difficult to make correct decisions at the table if you are scared to lose the money in front of you.
- You could fall into a number of traps by playing scared:
- Not protecting your hand properly
- Not value betting your good hands enough
- Playing too tight
- Not calling enough in big bet poker
- Not bluffing enough
- Two factors tend to contribute to how likely you are to play scared:
1. How strong is your bankroll?
2. What is your attitude to money?
Leave your Ego at the Door
- Your ego may lead you into several traps at the table, the following eight being the most common:
1. You might call bets that you shouldn't.
2. You might allow a personal feud to cloud or override your judgment.
3. You are likely to try too hard to get even.
4. You might play in games you can't beat.
5. You might make plays to impress your opponents.
6. You might not drop down a limit when you should.
7. You could inadvertently give away information to your opponents.
8. You might scare away players who you would rather stay.
Remove All Emotion from Decisions
- Many players let emotion affect their poker decisions, yet emotions should have no impact whatsoever on the decisionmaking process.
- Emotions can cause you to make sub-optimal plays that you would not otherwise make.
- Many types of emotions can affect your game such as anger, frustration, misery, fear, happiness, pity, pride and nervousness.
- A poker player has two defenses against his emotions:
1. Do not play when you are in an emotional state that may cause your play to suffer.
2. Acknowledge your emotions, but don't allow them to affect your decisions.
Dedicate Yourself to a continuous cycle of Analysis and improvement
- In order to ensure long-term success at poker, you must commit to an ongoing program of analysis and improvement.
- If you stop learning at poker, not noly will you not improve, but your game is likely to regress.
- There are many reasons why long-time players might become less keen on learning over time, including:
- Complacency
- Illusions of mastery
- Loss of enthusiasm
- Stagnation
- Top players may disagree on many things, but the one thing thta they will voice resounding agreement on is that they are still learning.
Oh crap lol, it got a lot longer than I thought it would, still got like 3/4 of the book left, I'll take more later lol. Wanna eat, my eggs are getting cold xD
Not updated in a day or two. Been a little lazy xD
Not played as much as I'd like, yesterday I played 2 hours, today I played 2 hours as well. I went down a buy in yesterday, and up 2 today, so I guess I can't complain.
Roll at a little over 2600 euro at the moment, so at the moment I'm pretty break even since I moved to 50nl.
I also found out I'm a bit scared to post hands, because I only post the hands I feel I played the worst on, or lost the most. A bit embaressing xD
This session, these were the 3 hands I played the worst
(Would love input, I have written stuff under each hand)
In other news, new bleach manga out!!
So annoyed, I wanted Halibel to just tear him apart and kill him or something, make it more interessting. I hate all that call out to the sky, more ice, blabla, and that stupid ice dragon comes =(
(Doesn't make sense at all if he's suddenly gonna beat her, Aizen have so much faith in his top Espada, and he finished off Hitsugaia without breakin a sweath!! Grrr)
**** UPDATE ****
Oh, have gotten some reading done lately as well. Can recommend the articles on bluefire, just 3 there, all seemed decent and good. Trying to watch more Nieman Kenkre vods as well on Bluefire, I tried watching that Drgiggy vods, but he just making weird noises doing I dunno what, couldn't stand it lol (no offense) so don't recommend that guy at all lol
Kenkre and Phil Galfond are the nuts on that site xD
Really happy with all the good content I'm finding, was really encouraged by the protege series on Bluefire, so I looked through all the other sites as well.
I heard people recommended Vital myth's leak finding ones, so I watched that this morning and I decided to take notes of all the most important stuff.
Gonna copy paste
(Comments/notes to Vital Myth's Leak finder vod on CArdrunners, saw it had gotten a lot of great review, so watching it now. It's 50nl 6max 4 tabling)
- Starts with, in general, people need to start playing more hands
- We play a lot of Axs
- also hands like QJs gonna fair pretty well (people usually don't do to well vs it, you gonna win on a lot of A high, or K high flops) and J and Q flops u have showdown value and you can flop a lot of draws n stuff to
- Squeeze!! (he thinks there's a lot of oppertunities people don't capatalize on) Also say that most ppl squeeze with to big bets, rather make it a bit smaller
- Call IP vs nits!! (almost with any two, 35s, T8 blabla)
- Reason ppl dun get good notes, reads, see good squeeze oppertunities is because they play to many tables! Suggests 4-5 tables. People spent over a year same stakes because "it's not fast enough, they get bored" and don't take the time to just think and play better
- Bet smaller and less frequently (most ppl just play their own card, and dun care how you bet) People don't bluff and hero call as much as you think they do. He feels people bet to large, too hard when they got the board crushed.
- Induce bluff ?? (If we think our oponent is not capable of making bluffs, we wanna bet smaller) Try very hard to induce those 1 barrel bluffs ppl love to do
- Big confusion-spews! Regulars in particular, only spew when you do lines that makes no sense, or when they tilt
- 3/4 into the movie he comes with a bold statement!! 90% of poker is making read. And a discussion about how it might seem he contradicted another cardrunner pro who keeps pestering about betting larger, and he's been talking some about betting smaller, checking, but that's in certain situations, vs certain ppl, and same goes for the betting larger!!
- Recommends 3 betting more in position Arag, KJs, QTs so forth, if it's vs nits, maybe not so much, rather stay away cos they playing premium hands and it can get ugly. If you have read people play a lot of hands, then kinda gives up more, passive or a bit weak, perfect spots as well (Good mentality, as long as it keeps working, he keeps doing it, once it stop working he tends to back off a littlebit)
- Whenever you think there's dead money, attack it, try steal it (Take them small pots) (One of the most common mistakes ppl do)
Oh, that's about it, now I think I need to rest, wait 10 minuts before I do anything else poker related!
I once read in a Tony Buzan book that when you get a lot of information in ur head, it may be clutterd, confusing and not make that much sense right after having gotten it, but if you wait 5-10 minuts your brain makes sense of all the chaos and you have it more aligned up or something!
Oh, and then I think you were suppose to go through ur notes. So gonna do that, wuhu!!
**** UPDATE ****
Ah, had a little under 2 hour session, started out okay. Then I think I started to run bad.
One hand I flopped a set, guy bet, flop something like 23J I just called, turn another J, he bet again, a flush draw came on the table, so I raise it up, we go all in, he has J4o, river 4, so just a cooler.
Then I got my pokertracker working on a new site I switched to.
It's the middle of the night again, or uhm, oh no, it's morning, well almost the same!
I haven't played much last day or two, I'm not 100% sure why, I think it's because I've been doing pretty good lately, and I got much rakeback and I really don't wanna lose it lol (Aye, I know how stupid that is lol).
But instead I've been studying a lot, which I think is just as good, since I just moved up a stake. Watched 3-4 video's (The 4th episode in NiemanKenkre's protege series on bluefire, SocalQuests 25nl part1 and part 2, and that crazy multi tabling video on cardrunners, can't remember the name at the top of my head, some guy 40 tabling 200nl)
Read a quite a few articles as well, and read some on some of the best ppl, to try and get into their mind a bit.
Also slept tons, because my stomach acting up, and when it does I sleep tons lol (don't ask xD)
Hmm, this was a pretty boring update, hopefully in the next few days I'll get more hands in, I have had a 2 hour session, which went good, up a little over a buy in, so roll at 2700 euro now, pretty exciting.
(Been wow addict for 4 years, so never had any money, just uhm, tons of gold lol)
Oh well, I'm gonna go watch a starcraft vod, cya xD
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