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.

Another rough day

Bankroll is at 52.96. I hate bad beat stories so I won't post them here. Suffice to say that I was not winning flips today. I feel that my overall play was not bad although I had one spewy call down.

I will focus on the good news. I am maintaining discipline and I played this session on the 30th so I am maintaining the challenge. I will turn this around.

technical difficulties

Well, the internet at my home is being wonky at the moment. The repair man can't come until tommorrow so the 30 day challenge faced an early obstacle. Fortunately Cafe Felix has internet, and not a lot of customers so I went out for a soup, sandwich and coffee with my grind thank you very much. Unfortunately their connection wasn't the best but I got in some hands and ran well. Current bankroll is at 64.12.

I tried to make the best of a difficult situation. I watched two videos from the "Coaching Kristy" series that Baluga Whale did. It is the holy grail of poker videos for micro/small stakes players IMO. I also read several chapters of Baluga Whale's book EZ Game.

The biggest thing that I am trying to implement into my game is opening up my preflop range so that I can play more hands against the bad players. Doing this means that I have to play much better post flop. What this means is that I am forced to become a better player. In the short term I am spewing some money but in the long run I think it is very +EV.

Baluga doesn't do what a lot of authors do and give you a starting hand chart. Instead he discusses what type of hands play well post flop. Pocket pairs, suited high cards, unsuited high cards suited connectors and unsuited connectors in that order basically. It is up to the student to determine a specific range. How dare he make me think for myself. :)

Of course I got a good idea of his pre flop range by studying the Kristy videos and watching what she was playing. What I found out is that it changes a great deal depending on who else is at your table. The more good players you are playing against, the tighter that you should play, especially when out of position. The more bad players are on the table, the wider range that you can open.

For example, if you have some tight regs to your left and a super fish in the big blind, K7 suited is potentially okay to open under the gun. The tight regs to your right will likely fold to your preceived strength while the fish will want to call and you can play a hand in position against a bad player that is suited and has high card strength. On the other hand if their is a player to your left who is likely to 3 bet your isolation raises than you need to tighten up and then make a plan to deal with him.

Its a cliche to say it perhaps, but Baluga Whale doesn't give you answers to how to play poker as much as he teaches you how to think about poker.

A rough start

Bankroll is at 59.26. I feel as though I played well but I didn't hit any big hands and took a few losses. The worst hand that I played was when I was 200+ buyins deep in position against a reg. I raised KK got 3 bet and called. I do think this was better than shipping it 200 deep but I might be wrong. An Ace came on the river that also completed a flush draw. I felt that I had to fold.

Over all I maintained discipline and focus. I followed the thought process taught by Baluga whale when playing post flop.

I think one thing that may help is for me to reduce the number of tables that I am playing. Currently I am mostly playing 5 tables. I will try just playing 4 tables tommorrow. I need to make sure that I am making good decisions. Also, I think that I will insta-leave any table where I have doubled up. If I am uncomfortable playing deep than it is -EV to do so.

The plan for day 3 of the 30 day challenge is as follows: Play 4 tables maximum and sit out on any tables where I have doubled up. Maintain focus and discipline.

Quick update and new goal

Long story short: I switched to 6 max NL and built a bankroll up to ~300. When Black Friday hit I cashed out the money and spent it on stupid stuff. I deposited 50 dollars on Merge and have struggled mightily. Currently my bankroll sits at 62.60 after losing 2.80 playing 4NL today.

On a positive note, this is the first day of my 30 day challenge. I have really struggled to put in consistent volume. This combined with my bad/tilty play has led to the horribly slow bankroll growth. Honestly, if it weren't for rakeback (35/% FTW) I would probably be busto right now. I have committed to playing one session of approximately 2 hours every day for 30 days. I believe that when I play my A game I am a +EV player. Therefore, after 30 days my bankroll should show substantial growth.

The overall key to this challenge will be discipline. First the discipline to put in the volume even on the days when I don't feel like it or something unexpected comes up. Second, the discipline to play the game that I have developed that has won for me in the past. No more unleashing the inner lag. No more calling down bad passive players with mediocre hands. No more focusing on short term results.

I will use this blog to track my progress. Tommorrow I will cover what metrics that I will be using to measure my performance.