sevens

Thought I’d give a little update on my shot at 50nl, and along with it, a “learn by my dumb mistakes” lesson.

The best advice I’ve ever received and given about shot-taking a higher level is to play the same game that got you there in the first place. Yes you will have to adapt and your game will eventually change when you’re finally crushing the higher level. But initially, you need to play the same game that got you there; you’ll learn the new “tricks” along the way.

My shot at 50 was going awesome until I suddenly forgot that guideline last night, and started playing the way I thought 50 was supposed to be played. I was shoving 8 and 9 out draws when my line made no sense, and their line screamed “BIG HAND”. In short, I had become the fish. I was putting in money on a draw and they were putting in money with a big pair or set. After dropping two buyins and calling it quits for the night (two buyin stop-loss FTW), I stepped back and went, “This is not my game. I’m usually on the other side, getting fish to put money in on a draw while I trap them with a big pair or set.” I had let the higher level tempt me into playing differently than I knew how.

The next couple nights, tonight included, I got my shit together and played the game I knew. No more dumb bluffing or trying to get people to fold hands when I know they won’t. And seriously….who gives a shit about meta-game nonsense with regs? There are PLENTY of bad players, even at 50nl, so why would I let my ego dictate my actions just because I want to show this reg I can out-play him? I’m here to make cash.

So I had another decent night, I’m doing well at 50nl so far (checked PT, I am + ~$400 over about 4k hands, so I’m ~10PTBB/100 so far, not bad eh? I run goot), I’ve made $1,200 since the start of the stake at the middle of last August. My goal is to have at least one shot at 100NL by the end of the year, and I’m totally confident I can do that.

So after running break even for the first 15k hands at 25nl this month, I finally got things going - big hands held, didn’t get coolered, kept grinding, and went from $500 in the account to $800 fairly quickly (like…10k hands). Then, I took my second shot at 50nl with the parameters that I’d take a 4 BI shot (move back down if I get down to $600) and a 2 BI stop loss. 2k hands later, I am up 6 BIs at 50nl, account is ~ $1,130, and things are off and running. Had a fun hand with a guy who liked bluffing me, but I probably could have gotten more value on the turn. I dunno. Not sure if he would bluff the river if I bet the turn or if that amount would be greater than or equal to the amount he bluffs on the river if I check the turn, but there’s also no guarantee that he bluffs the river anyways. I just felt that a lot of people who like to chase draws tend to stop paying when the price goes up on the turn, and that the range of hands he calls with on the turn was 50/50 ahead/behind (9x and 8x).

Midterms are next week. I’m really busy getting my projects done. Somehow I’m still finding the time to play poker. But school’s going great, there’s no way I can ever complain about that. My teachers are great - if you’ve never heard the name Dessa Darling, you need to check her out now. She’s a member of the hip-hop collaboration Doomtree. Check her out here > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8jQ26ab6to

I had a sweat session with CaptVimes today. I pretty much ran in God-Mode the whole time, +4 BIs over like 200 hands. It was pretty awesome. =P So, I’m on track to take my second shot at 50NL in the next week or so, pending a stupid downswing or something. Also did my first “well” on 2+2, which can be found here >
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78/micro-stakes-full-ring/well-i-vi-ii-v7-324036/

While I’m in the middle of all this running decent, I’ve had some nights that were pretty disgusting on the loss side. I’ve gotten set over set 3 times in two days. I had a set cracked by a turned flush, villain was a fish and the board was super drawy. All of these for full stacks. 4 months ago, that would have tilted me into next sunday. What’s changed?

With playing more hands comes more experience. With experience + study comes results. With analysis and application comes improved results. With experience + improved results comes confidence in your game. I’ll admit I haven’t yet had any massively huge downswing. But losing 4 buyins in a couple days doesn’t really phase me anymore. I’ve played 25NL long enough with success to know that I’m a winner at the level, I know how to identify and exploit mistakes people make, I know what it takes to beat it and that I’m capable of beating it, and getting coolered is just part of the game. In the long run, I beat the crap out of 25NL. The greater my understanding of my own game (and consequently how to use it to exploit others’ games), the greater my confidence rose, and the less I tilted. Or I should say, I still tilt but I know when to quit. And I don’t tilt for very long either, usually just briefly.

So I’ll end with this, for you “tl;dr” people. You wanna reduce your tilt? You wanna increase confidence in your game? You wanna get better in all areas of your game? Play more hands! Study your weak areas. THINK and have a plan before you act. I said it in my well, but it bears repeating. If you think through a lot of possible and likely scenarios and do this often with different holdings/flops/opponents, after a while you’ll find that you rarely get into situations where you’re completely unsure of what to do.

Felt compelled to write today.

The way I see it, my game is facing a fork in the road. I either take one path or I take the other. They’re both pretty similar. In one, I continue down the same path I’ve been on for a while, playing the same game that is definitely profitable, though maybe not optimal for me. The other one is to take a slight diversion from the game I’ve been taught, stylistically speaking, and start venturing into a style in which I take advantage of situations and not just play through familiar hands on autopilot. Some might call it “spewing”, but let’s remember that poker is not played in a vacuum, and you don’t often need to go to showdown. I really focused on playing a crap-ton of hands in position last night - sometimes raising ATC on the button and cutoff for 3x - and being a super nit in EP. People don’t adjust (at least they didn’t last night) even CLOSE to often enough. They don’t 3-bet resteal as often as they should. They don’t c/r bluff my c-bets hardly at all. And since I’ve been toning down my steal raise size to play a small ball style, I’m losing alot less when they catch a hand, but I’m still winning quite often because they miss quite often. And I still 3x raise AA OTB because it’s fun.

I’ve found 2.5x 3-betting in position against regs to be pretty fun and profitable too. They almost always fold on A/K flops, and raising a smaller amount almost forces them to 4-bet if they have a big hand for fear of losing value. And from what I’ve seen, people don’t know what to make of smaller 3-bets and steals. I’m 3-betting in position with stuff that doesn’t really warrant a call but will still flop decently, like suited and non suited connectors or small pocket pairs. I’m gonna keep venturing down this path I think, because I think it could be pretty profitable. And I wanna see the results over a larger sample than just one 1400 hand session.

Figured I was due an update.

The month started out pretty shitty, but I’m finally about even over about 8k hands. My game is evolving and I’m starting to get into more of a small ball style. I like to keep pot smaller preflop and use postflop skill to extract, value bet, take down pots with nothing, make people play out of position, etc etc etc. I wrote an article for the Felt Poker forums, on “Exploiting Your Strengths”. It can be found here:

http://www.feltpoker.com/php_uploads/sevens/PSA Exploiting Your Strengths.doc

Other than that, things are overall going great. I can get Iron Man status on Full Tilt this month if I really try for it. My game is evolving, I’m constantly trying to tweak it to make it better and more efficient, and damn if I could only start folding one pair hands on the river….

And not in the way you’d automatically think. Split Suit, after looking over my stats and stuff, suggested that I might be going to showdown too often, and paying off when I shouldn’t. So I decided to look into it. I ran a filter for August 1st through current, 25NL and 50NL, Full Tilt, and hands where my river action was “call”, and one where my river action was “bet”. Here’s what I found:

When my river action is “call”, I am -$2. I looked over my biggest losing hands, and they were NOT coolers. They were simply bad crying calls. Another interesting find, the only hands I am +EV with when making a call on the river are flushes and full houses. My total losses with one pair hands when calling on the river make up HALF of all my profits when calling. Time to stop paying off on the river!

When my river action is “bet”, I am + ~$1,100. Holy jesus this should be flashing some bright lights! I am +EV with ALL hands when betting the river, INCLUDING high card hands. I looked through some of my high card wins, and they were basically spots where I was certain that 9 high was not going to win a showdown, and the river was a good scare card for me to bluff.

So two things I can conclude from this.
1) Value betting is a strength of mine, value calling is not.
2) Being situationally aggressive on the river is way better than being situationally passive.

So I will work on my river aggression, meaning look to either bet or not call.