One more day

I have one more day left in my 30 day challenge. So far it has been a resounding success. I am playing better and my bank roll has grown. I will sum up my results tommorrow after the challenge is done.

Almost there

I am almost through my 30 day challenge. I have played every day and so far I have basically doubled my bankroll. I have played better as the challenge has gone along and lately I have run hotter than the sun. Variance is a big part of poker. It can drag you down even when you are playing well and it can carry you to the stars when it is running in your favor.

It is typical of many poker players to ascribe all of their successes to their skill and all of their bad days to variance. I don't do this. While I feel that I am becoming a solid player I recognize that days where I win several buy-ins involve a lot of breaks going my way. The trick is to focus on making good decisions and not on results. Its easy to say that when you are winning and hard to do it when you are losing.

I feel that there is a very zen quality to this idea. Don't worry about what you cannot control. Just play the game.

moving along

Today was a slightly down day about half a buyin before my rakeback. I have established the routine of playing first thing in the morning. However, today that was not possible. I had to get my car repaired and the appointment was for 7:30am in the morning.

I was tempted to not play today as I knew that I was not at my best this afternoon. In the end I decided that it was more important to maintain my 30 day challenge than whether or not I had a bad session. If I am going to establish myself as a high volume grinder than I am going to have days where I am not at my best and the day is not perfectly set up yet I still have to play. This is one of the differences between a serious player and a recreational player.

As for my actual play I have been extremely tight in early and middle position. This is helping me to stay out of marginal situations. When I am playing higher stakes against more aggressive, thinking players I will have to introduce more risk into my play. Right now, however, my goal is purely to get in volume and move up out of 4NL. I don't need to take risks to do this. All I have to do is play my good hands strongly in position. One thing that Baluga whale emphasizes is that if you want to win more money than you need to bet bigger. The average bad micro player is not basing his decision to call or fold as much on your bet size as on their cards. Therefore I don't have to be deceptive in my bet sizing. Bet bigger with my good hands and set myself up to get stacks in easily with good hands. Ideally, with my two pair or better hands I should be looking to bet flop bet turn shove river and print money.

Baluga whale is releasing a third edition of his book Easy game: making sense of No Limit Hold em. The first edition of his book cost around 500 dollars. I could not afford this but I have studied his videos exhaustively as I feel that he is the best poker coach/writer out there for small stakes players. I got a copy of the second edition of his book off of the Internet. I'm sorry to say that I downloaded it from a site for free. My only defense is at the time I could not find a place where Baluga was selling the book himself and frankly it had been uploaded so many times that at this point figured I was just one of many. It doesn't make it right however.

Anyways, the book was/is amazing and I am thrilled to have it. Now that he is releasing a third edition at a much lower price, 50 dollars for the PDF if preordered from him, I will buy this edition and feel a little better about my self.

My goal for my next session is to fold on the river when the villain obviously has it. Don't pay off the fish when he hits. Also, on any hands with two pair or better I am going to try to bet bet and shove the river. I will review some of Baluga's material to make sure I am sizing my bets appropriately.

Steady as she goes

While I continue to miss days blogging, I have yet to miss a day of grinding. The last few days have all been good sessions. My Saturday night into Sunday morning session was both good and bad. It was good, in that I got hit in the face with the deck. I flopped enough monsters to scare Vincent Price. However I was disappointed in how I played a hand on the river. I made 2 pair on the turn of a very drawy board. When a very obvious flush hit I could have checked the turn in position to hopefully boat up on the river. Instead I bet into two people, got check raised and had to fold. Terrible play.

I told myself that I was betting for value. The truth was, that on a drawy board with three to a flush, a worse than 2 pair hand was never calling here. I'm disappointed that I spewed on the river like that.

Another area where I need to improve is in extracting value from my good hands. My bet sizing was off on three different sets which meant that I did not get maximum value. It was a profitable session but I have to work on bet sizing and river play.

I am pleased that I am playing consistently and the results have been good but I stil have a lot of work to do with my game.

The good the bad and the sleep deprived

I have been most successful recently when I play first thing in the morning. My mind is fresh and I have the energy to grind. Today I skipped my morning session because I was meeting a friend. My plan for afterwords was to go home, take a nap and then grind before my wife got home.

I failed to do this. Instead I wasted a lot of time with pointless surfing. Finally, after a late dinner I tried to grind. Results wise it was fine. I ended up even or slightly ahead. However, I played badly. I acidentally folded a pocket pair. I three bet because I didnt realize that MP had raised. I was tired and it showed.

The moral of this story of course is that I need to grind in the morning whenever possible or at least take a nap before grinding later. My poor decision could have cost me a lot. The two positives that I will take from this session are: 1. I played so the 30 days of grinding goal is still alive. 2. I realized when I was playing awful and cut the session short by about 30 minutes. Knowing when to stop playing and following through is just as important as knowing how to value bet, in my opinion.

It is my "Saturday" if you will so I am going to drink a bit of rum, watch a movie and go to bed. Tommorrow I will grind first thing in the morning.

Routine

Despite my spotty blogging the actual playing is going well. Now that I am playing every day it is becoming routine. This is good. Routine helps to prevent tilt. Your aces just got cracked? Meh, just part of the routine. You won 3 buyins? Don't quit your day job yet. Its just part of the routine.

I'm trying to be indifferent to short term results but its hard. I find myself mentally figuring out how far up or down I am in a session and it sometimes affects my play. If I am up I tighten up too much to protect the win.

Today I had AJ suited on the button. UTG raised and CO called. UTG is a decent (for 4NL) reg and plays a reasonable range. I should of course call multi way with a suited ace on the button. I folded because I knew I was up on the session and was afraid of taking a beat. Of course the flop came AxJ rainbow to rub salt in my wounds.

If I'm in a situation where I'm scared to play correctly than I need to quit. It will cost me less money that way. I have been insta-quitting a table as soon as I double up. I know that's frowned upon but I figure there is always a fish waiting to take my seat so it might be better for the rest of the table anyways. It seems to help my tilt prevention by not playing with deep stacks. In the long run I want to get better at playing deep but right now I just want to get out of 4NL.

My play has really stabilized since my epic downswing. I am playing a slightly tighter range but my post flop play has really improved. I just need to keep on trucking.

Keep on keeping on

I fell off of the blogging bandwagon but I am continuing to play each day. Saturday's session had a nice bounceback and Sunday's session was solid. It would have been even better except that I made a bet sizing error on a turn bet and got out drawn when my opponents AQ hit a straight.

The two things that I am trying to focus on are 1. consistently following the strategy that has won for me in the past. In other words play really tight up front and be super aggressive in the cutoff and on the button. Nothing original here but it works. Also, I am trying to value bet more effectively.

The second point of focus is to not be results orientated. For instance, my Friday session, upon review, was not bad in terms of play but it was a disaster in terms of results. However, this was largely due to loosing two coolers. This is a part of poker and nothing I can do will eliminate variance. I have to focus on the quality of my decisions, not whether or not I am winning flips.

I am trying to ignore my cashier. At the start of a session its almost impossible not to see it but I want to avoid looking at it immediately after play. Immediate results provide false feed back and tilt my emotions.

Barring some sort of bankroll endangering crash and burn I am going to do my best to ignore my day to day swings until the end of the 30 day challenge.