Education of a Poker Playerby Recurrence, January 10
Sorry for quite a long post, this is mainly a trip report post about the psychology(and tilt) of a new 1/2 live play and a new poker player in general more than anything else, it has very little actual hand details.
Walking back home at 4AM after a gruesome 5 hour commute from Atlantic City this morning, I cannot help but compare myself to these old Chinese men I sometimes see on an early winter morning in Chinatown getting off their "fortune buses". They usually look so very fragile, old and empty, with expressions that match the Jewish ones in concentration camp photos, devoid of all hope. A long gluttonous pull from cigarettes would bring an almost unnoticeable flush to their cold faces, as if this tiny dopamine shot can bring some life back to the walking corpses.
"Perhaps I'm turning into one of them? " I let out a quick sigh, my memory quickly brings me back to the very beginning of my day at the Borgata. I remember eating my breakfast/lunch salad slowly in the cafeteria, ignoring the fact that the olives were too salty for my taste and the lady had put way too much onion. "I only have 200 dollars on me for 1/2, 100 was my winning from last time and the other my "investment". Should I shortstack with 100 each time or risk playing with scared money and play my regular 100BI with 200 dollars?" After much thought it seems buying in with 200 was the most profitable strategy in the long run, and I eagerly sat down in my assigned seat looking to repeat my easy victory last trip.
"Hmm this doesn't look too good..." I said to myself as I noticed the chip tower of the Asian guy in the brown American Eagle hoodie immediately to my left, "there must be at least 300 dollars in each one of those three columns, he has a least 1k in that stack. Maximum buy-in is only 300, he must be running hot or is pretty good, and that tower looks suspicious like the newly finished Burj Dubai." I would later learn that he is an ex-marine who currently works for the risk management group of Charles Schwab, plays almost weekly in the Borg and is a fairly TAG degen gambler. He was also running quite good.
To the Asian guy's left is an Eastern European guy with avatar shades and a 60 dollar hip haircut, what's even more important is his 600 dollar plus stack and expressionless face. Later I would learn that he's a programmer who's semi retired and a regular in low stack AC and Vegas games. It did not take me long to notice that he too is a TAG player and almost never competes with the Asian guy for the pot. "This is starting to not look so good, I am short stacked and with these two to my left I'll have a pretty hard time to see some cheap flops." The rest of the table was pretty unremarkable, players were all tighter than the ones I faced last week, although there was one obese old man reading a 40% off book from Barnes and Noble titled "Self actualization" the whole time while playing, perhaps it is for his gambling problems?
Although feeling I could be outmatched, I still decided to play my regular ABC style and go value town as opposed to walking away from the table. It did not take me long to lose a nice 70 something dollars to the Asian guy with my TPTK as he showed his 45s for a straight on the river. While seeing my stack slowly dwindling as I pay 10% of my stack for every pocket pair in hopes of farming a set I got a chance to speak to the two TAGs to my left, learning that they actually keep track of the amounts in the pot on every street and are able to calculate the pot odds. "I probably should switch table since these two definitely aren't fish, look at how tall the Burj Dubai is now, there must be around 1600 chips in there." Thought I.
Yet against my better judgments I stayed, though on the bright side the two TAGs decided to leave after 4 hours or so of play and the table received a bunch of college age players whom were repeatedly asked by the dealer to have their IDs checked. The bad news is now I only have around 100 dollars of my chips left and I am running no better than I was before. Against their 300 dollar buyins I am playing scared money for sure, one bad flip and I could be on that shameful bus ride back to New York city within half an hour. Yet despite knowing I'm playing with very scared money I still couldn't just walk away, it's my hubris that keeps me from riding the almost as shameful bus ride back knowing I have lost half my live bankroll.
In my quiet desperation I attempted a few bluffs since I know I have quite a tight table image, which allowed me to have some breathing room, always just for a quick while. My lucked turned briefly as I doubled up twice with a house of 7 full of queens and a house of queens full of jacks which turned my 70 dollars into 370. All seems to be going well for me as I can play more adventurously with my new gained wealth, at least for a little bit.
What I failed to notice was the dark specter of tilt that had unmistakably lurked to my back after 6 hours of continuous play with mostly limp/fold action. I would start to calculate the number of hands I've had vs. the lack of aces or pocket kings, and every time a new guy who just sat down for two rounds and hits a set of kings with his pocket kings the tilt would gnaw at my nerves. Soon enough I had the flashing thought of "Maybe I am tilting." that would be dismissed by my ego as quickly as it surfaces. In my personal experiences this question is the most accurate tell-tale sign of tilting as the rational part of my brain attempts to communicate with myself for one last time before having my actions over taken by emotions/subconsciousness/whatever you think tilt is.
Once tilt takes over it was all over. Some of the new college age kids started playing a tricky/maniac image type of poker with 100 dollar raises and much more common river bluffs yet I was no longer getting premium hands to trap them with. Soon I started chasing open ended straight draws, sometimes even on flush draw boards and betting on the river with my busted draws at one final attempt to steal the pot as I try to hold on to my chips in the pot as a sinking sailor trying to hold on to any piece of plank floating on the ocean. The struggles proves to be futile as my chip stack quickly sinks and I finally busted out with a pair of queens with ace kicker vs. a king high runner runner flush.
The bus ride back was depressing as I replayed the day over and over again in my mind like a projection machine stuck on loop. In theory 300 hands down swing should be expected but I know I was not getting the maximum amount out of my playable hands and tilting like hell in the end. Perhaps it is a good early lesson on the importance of table selection in live games, a necessary lesson on tilt management, bankroll management and live variance but losing the equivalent of half your online bankroll in a short 8 hours still has it's after shocks. It will be a while before I have the proper bankroll to return but I sure hope I don't consistently lose in live games that I would turn into another Chinese walking corpse before even hitting my prime.
Red line took a massive dump and there doesn't seem to be much I can do to revive it. Not sure if I want to give out my Stars ID now, I think I'll keep that private for the time being. It's been a bit weird to adjust to the Stars games, I HOPE I'm starting to get the hang of it but they're definitely different than FTP. Whether that means stars is harder or easier I have no clue, but as of right now I definitely prefer the FTP games and think it's easier there, but that's only because I've spent the last 2 years playing those games and know them very well.
I think the problem lies mostly in that I refuse to play non-50bb games at 2/4, but the only people that play those games are regs and it's mostly fish and shortstacks at the non-50bb tables. In that case I have to play regs who all seem to be 1ptbb winners at best, which on the surface seems good for me but I've yet to really "figure" them out so to speak. Their problems probably lie in having poor turn/river play, whereas they seem to be solid preflop. Everyones spewy on FTP, so it's higher variance but it's a lot easier to play bigger pots with mediocre stuff because people are so aggro, on Stars it alternates frequently from playing with nit grinders to people who are playing decently.
If anyone plays msnl at Stars and wants to talk feel free to pm me.
I wanna get the 200k vpp supernova, but I think there'll be a pretty big dilemma once FTP does their anti-SSer thing and if Stars doesn't follow suit then all the SSers on FTP will go to Stars, causing an even bigger problem for Stars regs.
"You do this for me, I do this for you, the former."
Reciprocality
"In the world of reciprocality, it's not what you do that matters most, and it's not what they do. It's both."
- No thing in poker is isolated. (I bet, that was good, it's in correalation to what you opponent does.)
" Reciprocality says that when you and your opponents would do the same thing in a given situation, no money moves, and when you do something different, it does."
Information reciprocality
- It's as simple as not giving up information in situations they would.
- Each time you don't give out information, you gain.
(example, raging after bad beat, making comment, so forth, just stay quiet, muck the hand, nothing.)
"There's two sides of the information coin at all times, there's giving information and receiving information."
The Information War
- Recieve more, and send less, and you win the information war.
(Anytime you can isolate a situation, where you're able to do something diffrent than they do, which is profitable, which comes again over and over again, you're gonna make a ton of money.)
- Important to put effort into sending less information, and recieve more.
- You work on moving less, moving ur tongue less, eyes less, hands less, shoulders less, everything.
- Where does the money come from ? Is it just from playing good? No. It's from playing diffrent than they do.
- Giving off little information is profitable.
- Over time, this will add up huge.
The origin of reciprocality
- From duplicate Bridge, where everyone plays the same hands.
- In poker, a good way to see if you played the hand well is, at the river, when hands are shown, imagine you had his hand, he had yours, and then play the hand out in ur head. What would have happend.
"Reciprocal Analysis"
Reciprocality
- Look for, create, and amplify profitable differences.
Life: Can look at it with life as well, for instance, you eat meatballs and spaghetti and get stuffed, the other guy eat some salad and yogurt, and you sit down and play poker.
" Mine for reciprocal gold inside any decision that impacts your poker game."
- Any sort of health asspect is major. (Correct sleep, working out, so forth.)
- If you feel good and sharp all the time, you earn a hell of a lot more money.
Reciprocal analysis
- Example: You bet the river, he calls, you reverse the street, you get his hand, he bets, you would have folded.
"You can use this tool on just one street, or a combination of streets."
Reciprocality in action: Look what people aren't doing, and do that, till they find a counter strategy, then do something else people aren't doing. (Example, when people started 3 betting light, then people started 4betting light, so forth.)
Acting Last
" You can think of there being two positions: last and non-last."
How strong is acting last? It's strong, so strong. The act of being last is monumental.
What does this mean as far as reciprocality matters?
"If you can act last more than they do, you have created an advantage."
Acting last. how to create it?
- playing the button more often than they do
- folding the blinds more than they do
- And how you decide to play in the high jack and cut-off (Play it really aggressive.)
- Multiway pot, you're middle position, first guy bets, you raise, guy behind you fold, now you're last on turn and river.
"Anytime you take action which puts you last more than they do, you made a reciprical advantage."
Bankroll reciprocality
- How you partition your money, and where it actually physicly exists, compared to your opponents money.
"Anything that is not your A-game, we are defining as tilt."
"Tilt reciprocality is anytime you tilt less than your opponent would in the same situation."
Tilt reciprocality is your slippage matched up against everybody else's. Tilt reciprocality recognizes that any reduction, however small, in the frequencies, durations, and depths of your own tiltings will always have the effect of favorably widening the gap between your tilt and theirs, thereby earning immediate reciprocal advantage. To make money from tilt, you don't need to be tiltless. But you do have to tilt less.
Rolling with the reciprocality flow
"There's no absolute right or wrong way to play poker, ever. It's entirely dependent on what other people are doing."
* That's why being adaptive and flexible is critical.
- You want to have all the skills available, play extra tight when they are not, and you need to play looser when they are not.
- Preflop % Is something to always be looking for.
Reciprocality and mindfulness
- Be more mindful than your oponent in situations where it is more profitable than mindlessness.
- mindfulness can be seen as a renewable energy sources which never goes dry.
What is the diffrence that makes the biggest diffrence? The ultimate reciprocality?
As it turns out it has nothing to do with the diffrences between ourself an our opponent, and has everything to do with how we are today, and how we are tomorrow.
And that's why this practice with mindfulness is the ultimate
place to mine for recpirocal gold. Because what we are really doing when we remember to put more attention to what is happening now, than we did in the previous hour, day, week, is that we are generating profit, in ourself, in our lives. By making ourself happier people.
What this mean?
If we want to try and take the concept of reciprocality, and apply it at it's very highest level, toward the objective of reducing our suffering, the suffering around us, then all reciprocality should be thought of as being internal.
Hey guys so I took a 6 month break from poker and am currently grinding up through the ranks again. My friend Chris suggested to me that I should force myself to make 100 buyins at NL2 (Six Max) before I move up and so I know i have discipline (i am pretty tilt prone and need to see if i can grind a lot). I'll be going back to school in a few days and have already made great progress on that 100 buy ins. I have won approximately 45 buy ins in about 12k hands. PTR says my BB/100 is at 19/100 and I was wondering if my extreme success is just a heater? I know I only have 12k hands logged but I feel that nl2 is like taking candy from a baby. Also, I have played up to nl50 6max. Anyways, I guess i'll keep this blog updated so I can hopefully enter that bloggers tourney on stars. Once i get up to like nl25 with like 1500 i will buy poker tracker but I have been keeping a graph in excel to see how i'm doing and it is quite beautiful.
things are picking up again!by moonk379, January 09
i realize im not gettin enough hands but seems like i can't play more than 3 hour per session so im going to try to get 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours at night instead of playing during the day for couple hours then quitting and playing another hour and stopping. anyways other than the big drop from the heads up matches hoping to score big on higher stakes (hands 7000-7600) i think im doing fairly well.
plz my roll got destroyed ill send first to trusted
I have registered to play in the WBCOOP PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! You too can Play Poker Online at PokerStars.com and take part in the WBCOOP which is open to all Bloggers by registering on WBCOOP to play.
I'm not planning on playing anymore today, but maybe a little more nl50 for the rest of the day, but the first week of poker has been really good for me. I'm not going for SNE unless I reach 3/6 by april because 24 tabing nl100-200 just doesn't seem that fun or cool. Wish me luck!
I was reflecting back and after reading the Nadeem scamming someone I realized that LP is a really good place. Compared to 2p2 and other places, LP seems to have an awesome small community feel that is just really good for development and longterm life +EV.
Well, most of you like pics, so here is my first week. Hopefully I can continue to run like god and move up to nl100. (Last 1k hands are nl100, but I gotta move back down until next week due to coaching).
http://www.steakandbjday.com/
Has anybody else ever celebrated this wonderful holiday? For those of you who haven't, I suggest spreading the word, and trying to get your significant others to start reciprocating for those long years of valentine's days when Men get nothing in return!
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! This PokerStars tournament is a No Limit Texas Hold’em event exclusive to Bloggers, you too can take part by registering on WBCOOP
Famous Swedish poker player Nebuchad has decided to stop playing poker. Apperently he lost the lust to play poker more. I saw him once at the Casino while I was still playing low mid stakes and was like a little bit starstruck, then I stacked up really light to some other dude who talked to him since ”if he's friend with that guy he's probably super aggro”. Heh. I played him a little bit on prima and the first hand I got involved with him I squeezed just to make sure to win a pot from him and get some confidence. Anyway, didn't really follow his blog or anything but it's still a bit of a nostalgic moment now when he stops playing. Who can forget his epic moment with Daniel N?
Anyway, I started out the month really good (was not running over equity, but got into a ton of good situations so had a lot of luck) but then I lost a little bit more then half of the profits running like crap the last two or three days. Now that sucked, but it at least I learned not to say thanks for rungoodaments in mails to pokersites. They will notice and turn the switch around. Cheap bastards.
Still feels good to start the year out in the green, and it's still enough that I can go down and make sure to just grind stakes that should be relative variance free for a while and still be able to have a decent month despite probably not playing more then a total of maybe 70k hands or so. Have a lot of tests and crap to deal with anyway so don't really want to fuck my mood up. In additon to that I've had two really bad months so a winning one is really important for my overall happiness. I actually feel really good about most stuff since I got back to Uppsala. I've started with some really healthy habits and I actually have a decent sleeping schedule for the first time since, I dunno, last spring maybe..
Oh, and I got a Hand Of The Week again, for the first time in forever. That feels good too.
Need 500 more on FTP. You give me 250 on ftp, i give you 250 on stars within a minute, twice. Got scammed once dont xfer other ways. If dont like it dont pm me. Otherwise do quick plz
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