Joe recently talked about the importance of goals in poker, to which I added my only little take about how I set winstops as a goal to stay focused and positive. Most people dont advocate this, but I still wanted to talk about it just because it has been helping me a lot lately.
So take a look at this giraffe eating grass:
I always have the ugliest graphs because I'm never consistent with anything and just play in my spare time. What you see happening here though are a series of trends directly correlated to my goal oriented sessions vs my freeplay sessions. Basically, at each of the spots where you notice a downward trend are days where I completely ditched my goals and started playing with no particular purpose (other than to win money). For instance switching to HU, or PLO, or normal ring games, or higher stakes. What happened was that for no particular reasons I just said "lets try something new to day", most likely out of boredom I suppose. And on each of those days, I just started clicking buttons trying to learn the game. It's understandable I might fail at foreign game types like HU or PLO, but even the ring games where I had no winstop always ended in me losing several buyins.
Every time I would finish these losing sessions tilted wondering wtf happened. There was always some degree of self-imposed jackassery involved, coupled with tilt and just bad hand selection. But I never knew why I'd suddenly begin playing like this. I still dont honestly, without any goal to look forward to I just lose track of everything I'm doing and start doing stupid shit like fancy play and so on.
The converse being every time you see an upward trend is when I went back to setting winstops. I'd say "lets hit $100 tonight, that'd be nice, that sounds doable at NL25" and just proceed from there. By the simple act of having to watch my bankroll grow another $100 I'd do everything in my power to win. You know, stuff like proper hand selection, no hero calls, no big bluffs, etc. The real kicker is, no matter how those sessions ended, I'd always leave feeling good. Most of the time I'd actually hit my goal, which would serve as excellent motivation for the next day. The times I'd lose wouldnt even phase me. I'd just shrug it off and say "cant win em all, back at it tomorrow". I'd never lose more than 4 BI's at a time so I guess I had a stoploss as well. Now you might wonder why I dont just keep going after I hit $100 & renegotiate my goal. Well that wouldnt work because I'm so fucked up I'd know I was cheating and then start playing sloppy. I really need the feeling of success at the end of the night to stay motivated to play the next day, and to stay motivated to hit my goal. If I dont have a goal in sight then the motivation drops. But just like any sport, when you are so close to victory you find yourself trying extra hard to reach the finish line. In poker this translates to even stricter attention given at the tables.
Anyway I hope to condition myself with a series of winning sessions that result in a permanent positive attitude more or less, so that I can then remove this cap I have placed on myself and rely on my experience to just win win win with no end in sight.
I've been playing off a hand chart lately to tighten up my game and have nailed down 24/18/6 stats which seems to be working well for me the last few thousand hands. Pretty much any flop I hit I smash so I like this hand range. But on a few occasions I've had direct position on a 100% vpip drooler and feel like I should be opening up my game a little, but not sure quite how much. Should I just proportionally scale up my range to around 30%? More? Or just keep doing what works, miss out on all the small/medium pots, and hope he pays me off big when I finally hit.
I'm looking for some material on how you should be thinking as a professional when it comes to making money at poker. Nothing specific about poker strategy, just the whole psychology of a successful player. Lately I've been getting super tilted playing HU vs fish, even when I'm winning. Thats right, I dont even want to play them even when I'm ahead. The other day I played a reg for over 2 hours and loved it. To me it was fun. This seems like completely backwards thinking. I should be overjoyed to play the fish reloading 5x and should hate playing regs.
I know there are a few "how to think like a winning player" type books out there, and am just looking for opinions on which to get.
When playing HU, if your opponent knows you 3bet light, is it correct for him to 4bet hands like 67s? Is this just like some gambooley situation where he has to 4bet light since you're obviously 3betting light, so he expects you to fold pretty often when he does it. When you dont fold he obviously knows he's crushed, but hey at least he has something to suckout with?
I didnt know if my opponent was making the correct adjustment to me, and therefore I need to readjust, or if he was just being an idiot and I should totally keep on 3betting and getting it in with AJ, 77, 44, etc.
Last blog I talked about my epiphany that sets and flushes make you lots of money. I've been developing my own little system for playing Bovada Zone poker (their version of anonymous zoom) since I get a thrill out of all the hands I can play. I did well, grinded my $100 deposit up to about $700 playing NL25 and NL50 with a few donk shots at NL200 thrown in to round out at $1000. Part of my "system" (lol) involved only buying in for 50BB's to limit my exposure to variance. I know I know shorter stacks are supposed to increase variance, but I dont adapt my hand range to my stack size at 50BB's. I play it like 100BB's, so I dont really find myself in any variance heavy spots as a result of my stack size itself.
Anyway after examining my HEM stats I noticed I was missing tons of value with all those big drawing hands I cant play effectively for 50BB's.... OR WAS I?
Turns out I sorted my results wrong. I was only looking at "hands at showdown". Well no shit if 3 streets of betting take place flushes and sets are going to dominate the rankings. But not every hand you win goes to showdown. In fact I have one of those silly reverse profit graphs with positive redline and negative blue line. Most of my actual money is being derived from cbets, and lots of which end with me having some kind of pair.
So whats my point? These fish at bovada microstakes are so unconscionably bad that I feel I am forced to introduce this "variance limiter" by buying in shorter. They've already put the variance through the roof playing 40% vpip minimum, so if you buy in fullstacked well you might as well be buying in short because you're going to be getting a lot of money in the pot every time you have a hand. They make the most absurd nonsense plays that I just have no choice but to stack off repeatedly with a wide range of hands. "Whats that? You limp called utg and the flop is J95? You should totally check call there and then open ship the turn when an offsuit 3 hits. Good thing I'm playing 50BB's and can call with QJ now. Ah there it is, you have pocket 8's. Good shove" What happens here is I can make these calls much easier with a shorter stack, and the suckout odds are reduced for those times when they catch their miracles. I really dont find myself in a lot of draw heavy scenarios where I want a big stack. No, instead I am constantly battling it out for pairs, and I need to be able to see these hands to showdown since the fish dont adjust to your stacksize at all. They float without intent to bet, they chase draws on action killing boards, or against cards that hurt them if they hit, they turn every hand with showdown value into a bluff by raising where nothing worse could ever call. The whole thing is just pure chaos.
Now here comes the fun part; a big part of my strategy involves preying upon their emotions. What do I mean by that? Well fish are very emotional creatures at the table. A big part of what they do all involves their gut feeling. "I felt that ace coming on the river.... i was due for a flush... 7's have been hitting all night so I had to call". Every single thought process of theirs begins with some sort of emotional response to whats happening at that precise moment. So what I try to do is wrangle them together to get the desired result. A fish will never look at your cbet size and make some sort of decision upon the odds of whether or not it's worth it to call. They simply see a bet and if it scares them they fold, if it doesnt they call. For instance; most of my cbets are FULL POT. Thats right, I cbet basically 100% with any two cards for full pot, even on the most hideous of boards with no equity at all. Why? Because if they DONT have anything it will generally freeze them to the point that they go away entirely. I lose far too many pots "pricing fish in" with 3/4 pot bet to call down with K8s holding no draw or anything at all only to win with an 8 on the turn. I sometimes think fish are practically offended when you bet anything less than pot. It's like they call out of spite. Thats great and all for when you have a hand, ergo I value bet half pot every time. In these circumstances I find myself getting called on the flop and turn quite often only for the fish to finally give up on the river. Another advantage to bluffing full pot is you basically put someone in a push/fold position against your stack size. If I bet pot and someone jams, I can safely fold pretty much anything that doesnt smash. There's just no room left for them to bluff back at me. I still see tons of dumb bullshit where they had like pocket 6's so their shove was ridiculous, but technically they did have the best hand and I avoid getting felted. (Remember I can see all of this since Bovada lets you downloads everyone's holecards)
Anyway to wrap all this up, since the day I started playing full stacked again I've been on an instant downswing. I finally decided to go back to "what works" and immediately I am back up again. Fuck these stupid fucking donkeys and their call station strategies. You will NOT be winning 100BB a pop from me with your constant suckouts anymore. You want to play some dumb bullshit with a rigged RNG? 50BB's is all you get slut.
notes: No I dont believe in a rigged RNG. Yes I know everyone says play fullstacked. No I am not really whining about bad beats. All I know right now is when I buy in for 50BB's things get a lot easier, and I'm actually making money playing this way.
So I just finished a proud blog last week about how I'm playing zone poker and taking advantage of all the dead money I see going around, with the biggest element that I buy in for 50BB's to limit my losses when I get coolered. I figured if everyone is anonymous then there's no incentive to play big deep pots because you dont know if your opponent is the type to pay off with a 3rd nut flush draw. So I post all these stats and stuff as evidence of my playstyle when I realized I missed the most important stat of all, showdown value hands. A quick glimpse at what REALLY makes me money, and surprise surprise, flushes and sets top the list. Well obviously these are the kinds of hands you want to be playing big pots for, ergo implied odds really do exist even in a completely anonymous structure.
While the button still proves to be the most profitable position for me, I need to start buying back in full and playing all those drawing hands, BUT ONLY those drawing hands. I knew there was a reason I stopped buying in full, and it wasnt because my draws never get there. It's because I keep hemorrhaging money with 2nd pair or worse. This sounds pretty asinine but I dont see how I didnt notice this on my own. I do relatively well with top pair, but apparently I'm down like $500 at NL25 and NL50 playing less than top pair, with no draw! Upon looking over the hands I can tell what I was doing, and that was just lots of bluffcatching in retarded spots where villain 3 barrel donkbets Q8o on a QJ57T board. I mean my "read" is often right in these situations, villain was turning his hand into a bluff, the problem is *he didnt know that*. I've also lost quite a bit on bluff attempts that probably arent necessary. I dont know how to quantify it but I'd be surprised if I'm even breakeven on my bluffs, so I'm just gonna stop. By bluff, I mean like a 3 street allin type bluff.
Anyway the kinds of hands paying off my flushes have actually been surprisingly bad, so I've decided that any 2 suited will do, so I'm either raising or calling any standard open with literally any 2 suited. People still fold to cbets a lot in zone poker.
It's Bovada "zone poker" which is their version of "zoom poker". This is all NL50 and it only runs maybe three times per week so I cant get much volume in. I deposited $100 to get my feet wet with the intention of depositing more to play higher stakes, but said fuck it I might as well see if I can run up my $100 a little. My bankroll is actually $646 but some hands havent been importing. Bovada lets you download everyones holecards 24 hours later so there was lots of valuable information to gather about how your average fish plays. In a nutshell, it's just very very weak. I dont really know how to describe it, just stupid random play. They'll minraise UTG with like A3s, or min3bet you with 22 from the BB, limp QQ and check/call 3 streets, overjam 88 after limping from EP, open ship a AJ5 flop with KJo, etc. I'm sorta able to piece together their likely thought process after analyzing the hand, but they're all just so very very bad there's almost no point.
I sorta developed my own "system" that basically involved playing the button as much as humanly possible and then using standard telltale signs of weakness to take the pot. If they dont cbet, I'll steal. If they bet something retarded, I'll raise. I probably cost myself a good 100 pots or so trying to pick off bluffs because I feel compelled to call river shoves when the hands play out completely randomly. I'd say 10% of the time I was right, 50% of the time I was "sorta right" because they were turning their hands into bluffs but probably didnt look at it that way, and the other % I was just owned by the nuts. Many of these spots were easily foldable but I'd call anyway just to prove how bad I run.
Anyway NL50 has been dead for almost 2 weeks now so I think I'm just gonna have to bite the bullet and do what I originally intended to which was move up limits where they respect my raises. I'm gonna give NL100 a shot and maybe mix in some shortstack NL200 to see if I'm comfortable there or not.
I have an Oculus Rift with Razer Hydra game controllers. Anyone in to this sorta thing needs no description. I've had it for a couple of months now, had my fun with it and am ready to pass it on to the next soul. Everything in mint condition, no problems whatsoever. I'll even include a thumb drive with what I feel are the best demos (about 20) to save you some time hunting it all down. Figured I'd go ahead and let you guys get first stab at it before I throw it up on ebay.
$500 SHIPPED OBO
Pretty sure this is a good deal. Current and completed ebay listings seem to go for about 375-500 without the controllers or shipping.
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