Once I blew it all in 2 days...

So far this week I've played four 15min sessions, totaling by complete accident, 100 hands. My focus during it was to try and assess by showdown and action exactly how wide a range my opponents were playing. And I was flying blind, playing HUDless.

Even at 4nl, there is a wealth of information that my opponents are giving away , more so than I cared imagine when I was multitabling with my HUD. After reading numerous posts and articles about the micros (mostly from when I played on the rake heavy sites like Full Tilt and Pokerstars, and was stuggling to break even), I had developed the mindset that players were so weak and uneducated that hand reading becomes almost irrelevent. The easiest way to approach the game is to learn basic strategies against different player types (LAG, TAG, whale, maniac, etc) and value bet accordingly.

These last 100 hands it has become apparent that this approach to the game is fundamentaly flawed. How can you classify your opponents if you aren't accurately hand reading? Stats? If I'm sitting down against a player for the first time, and I only have half an hour to play, what use are stats?

The key thing for me to remember is that this game originated outside of the internet. There was a time when online pros didn't have access to poker tech, and had to use the transferable skills such as hand reading, focus and aggression. At the end of this 30 day period, I will use my HUD again, only this time it'll be stripped down. I'll decide how later. For now I need to focus on my HUDless talents.

Actually, right now, I'm going to go watch Dr Who 

My current poker site was chosen on the basis that if it didn't accept American players, my money would be safe. If Full Tilt were acting in a way that put fellow poker players at risk, I was not going to give them my business. The problem with moving to a smaller site is that, unless I want to start a table, it can sometimes be difficult to get a seat. My plan today was to do 15 mins, watching my opponants and trying to determine how wide their ranges are relative to their position. I could have done it by just shadowing a full table, but without the distraction of my own cards the challange would be incomplete. So, instead I moved onto a 20% range.

Looking at it, a 20% range, if going from AA down, will almost always include any cards that can make a Royal Flush. All face cards and Tens are in the range, as are most pairs, and depending on how it can be split, several aces too. It could be also be 9x+, where x is greater than 9. Ofcourse, this range is rather maleable, more so than the 10% range, but a logic can be seen to it. It includes all cards that have an increased chance of making the nuts; ace high straight's, nut flushes, top pairs, sets, and several top pairs. It is as though the idea of only playing cards that make solid pairs is extended to solid drawing hands.

This information isn't too much of a revalation, but again highlights the importance of observing opponants to see how they are playing their range.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a chance to try that.

Yesterday my laptop died. In death it stole from me the one thing that could help most in my quest to improv; my database. I'm new to NLHE, so there was less than 10k hands on there, but I means I can't (in the immediate future) go over those two sessions that set me on this path. I'm not bothered by it though. Previously, before having read Tommy Angelo's book and watching The Eightfold Path, I would have agonised over it for days. Weeks even. But, man, those breathing exercises...

What this meant was that Day 2 was spent firstly reinstalling HEM, SNGwiz and Pokerstove. If anybody reading this ever has any concerns about transfering their product keys over, I can tell you now, it's really easy. The HEM website talks you through it, but all you need to do is log intothe  HEM site, and on your profile, copy and paste your product keys into the designated box. As for transfering hand histories, maybe I'll get back to you on that.

After this was done, I studied a 10% range. I've never really had problems playing against nits at the micros. Unless I'm looking at QQ+ and Ak, I tend to get out of the way. However, looking at how exactly a 10% range could be constructed, I found myself wondering whether or not I had been to hasty. After all, is my opponant raising pocket 2's from UTG? Is his range Pairs and AJo+? That's about 10%. Or is he playing 99+ and any two face cards? That's also about 10%.

As I was looking at these ranges, I remembered a game I once played. It was acouple of years ago, probably just after I started playing online. I organised a game around a friends hous. It was NLHE shootout, starting at 1/2 blinds, and after every rotation the blinds doubled. I was expecting quite afew people to turn up, so I set it at a fiver buy in, thinking I could get the prize pool to be around the £50 mark. Only 4 people turned up. With £20 to play for, and blinds doubling every four hands, the game lasted about 45mins, and was swingy as hell. In the end I won on an all in crap shoot, the 5th consecutive one.

The reason I remembered this game was that I entered it with the idea that If I only played pairs and face cards, I was bound to win. No suited connectors or ace-x, just pairs and cards that could make to pair. And if I didn't have a hand, fold. Why bluff and  waste chips?

Plugging that range into stove I get 13.1%. Only slightly looser than the hypothetica 10%l range above. The psychology behind tight ranges such as these must be somewhat similar to what mine was back then. I hadn't read any poker literature. I hadn't heard of DC. I just thought about the cards and figured that high cards win more.

If these opponants haven't read poker literature, then position will often mean nothing to them, and through showdowns with other players, I should be able to estimate how their range is constructed. This reveals one of my leaks. I don't watch the hands that I'm not involved in.

Next session, I'm changing the object of the game. How I will incorporate watching other hands in a measurable way is something I'm yet to work out. Maybe that could be my task for tomorrow?

Today is Day 3, and I had to work 2 hours overtime. I am far too exhausted to sit and study, so I wrote this. I didn't get chance yesterday to sit and type, so I thought I would catch up today. Afterall, If I'm going to spend time improving, I want what I've learnt to stick, and my mind feels too greasy for that to happen. Can you even have a greasy mind?

Evidently, yes.

Waking up today I feel better. Memories of yesterday still bite, but not as much. I've had a few problems with my laptop, which means that I might end up loosing my database anyway as I switch to my fiances laptop. It also means that I may have to better plan my poker sessions and study time as I will only have limited time each evening as we share it between ourselves. That isn't neccisarily a bad thing, as there are other things I want to achieve outside of poker, and sitting infront of the computer is taking away time from me actually doing that.

Thinking about yesterday,  whilst I agree with my point of quitting the bad habits cold turkey, I do need some kind of testing ground for any theories I have about my play. I've decided to one-table when I play, and only for a limited time. I played for 1 hour, one table, and noticed a big difference in my state of mind. When I was multitabling, I wasn't fully focused on my opponants. I had given them all a standard range, not taking into to account what I had seen them do. I  didn't know which players were playing fit or fold, which would call down with any pair, which would PSB bluff the flop then shut down on the river. I  would also get over confident with hands like AQo, making shoves against players who I knew I probably shouldn't be, such as players who never open raise, but all of a sudden, shove their whole stack in pre flop to an UTG raise.

This all dissapated when I was one tabling. I was focused on my opponants, and began to notice exploitable trends in their play. I was able  to bluff profitably, shut down thin value, multi-street bets when the board hit their range too strongly (and get to showdown and see that my assessment was good) and play an all round more attentive game.

Like I said yesterday, arrogance is my biggest fault. When I play multiple tables, I let it manifest itself, and that is costing me money. So, for now I'm going to one table.

The next step in  my learning is ranges. I don't know what a 10% opening range consists of. I don't know what a 40% opening range consists of. I don't know how my range should correctly adjust to each. This is basic stuff, but it's so basic, I fooled myself into thinking that I knew it already. It is only lunch time. I might start this later.

In the last 2 days I have managed to blow all of my winnings at 4nl in two monstrous sessions. It seems that I have developed several severe leaks in my game which need plugging. The biggest one appears to be arrogance. I admit that I have a tilt problem, but I'm too arrogant to do anything about it. I know that I need to study my hands, but I'm too arrogant to sit down and actually do it. Ultimately, I deserve to have lost, because I wan't putting in the work required to make me a winner.

So, I have decided to start this blog. I've always wanted something to write about, and now I've got something. To start with, I'm going to take 30 days off from playing poker, and spend it studying poker. It seems extreme, but bad habits are like addictions, and when I quit smoking, I only managed it because I quit cold turkey. Cutting down just never sufficed.

The first step is going to be detaching myself from my losses. I'm fresh off the second bad session, and feeling pretty sore about it, but in order to be able to go back to my session and review the hands tommorrow, I need to level my head. I think I'm going to do this by doing some mindful walking. I'm feeling pretty hungry, so I could go to supermarket and by some rolls, practice my mindful walking as I'm doing so. The tommorrow I'm going to begin looking at my data base, and try and see where it is I'm going wrong.

I'm also going to post a blog entry everyday for the next 30 days, as a way of holding myself accountable. Discipline seems to be something I lack, too often being a creature of impulse, so by doing this, if I fail, I'll be broadcasting my shame to the DC community.

Until tommorrow

Farmer108