Wave of Mutilation

First of all, it's gotta be the shoes. What shoes you may ask? Well, not 2k sneaks like Dani rolls with, but more along the lines of grinding shoes. I have (I think) finally found my grind ethic. After all these years it has been lost, either in my swampy skull or wonka's factory. I have tried everything from flint and tinder to the necronomicon and STILL have not been able to summon my grind ethic to this point. So what changed? A lot of things really. Everything kinda swirling around me always pointed to YO PLAY MORE POKER. I never did it. Lazy, complacent, procrastinating, hypocritical, lazy nerf herder. Actually I couldn't be a nerf herder they do stuff. I just really enjoy poker and for a while I wasn't really enjoying playing because I was subconsciously focused on the money. That's part of my theory anyway. I mean sure I'm maniacal and 3 barrel bluff in squeezed deep pots when I need to but you know, the swings have always bothered the hell out of me more than they should. There's a difference between money won and money earned. I've always known it but I've never really put that process into motion. So I'd be A gaming and super happy to be up 5 BI one day, then the next day I'd beat myself up for losing 3-4 BI, when really, I'm up 1 BI in prob not many hands, prob running fine, and prob should stfu and quit complaining and just play. I've always been able to coach and help others but I've never practiced what I preach. That shit is over. I'd like to think anyway. 

Getting that happy happy joy joy self realization out of the way I wanted to ramble a bit about minimizing luck. I'm sure someone has talked about this sometime in poker but I can't remember who or when so I'll just run it. It's actually part of Magic: The Gathering theory. Winning players want to minimize luck as much as possible so that their skill edge yields the highest return in the highest number of matches. Against a total scrub you can make tons of mistakes and still crush them because unless they drew those 3 burn spells they don't take advantage of board situations, they don't think about the cards in your hand or deck, and they don't consider future plays and how things can manifest over the course of a game (or even sideboarding after game 1). There's actually more Magic theory I would like to try and apply to poker, but we'll save that for another day (like there's "Who's the beatdown?" which basically asks you to ask the question, who is the beatdown in this matchup? which we may be able to apply in poker situations like, is my opp in call down mode or play back mode? should I be the control deck or the beatdown? etc. etc.). 

Ways to minimize luck in poker:

1. Play more hands. Obviously the more hands you play the more likely you are to realize your skill edge over the variance from session to session. I think this one is pretty self explanatory. 

Sidenote:  For all you bitches out there whining about EV and winrate and running bad bla bla bla how about you stfu and focus on what you can control. For the record you're going to have a different winrate at each table you choose to play at. Different table set ups, strength of opponents (especially how well they read or try to exploit you specifically), position of opponents, your mental state, quality of your decisions THAT session, all of these factors and more are going to determine your "winrate" so it's constantly in a state of flux. Assuming you're getting better at poker (or worse) this will have a big impact as well. Moral of the story? It doesn't get happy, it doesn't get sad, it just runs programs. 

2. Base your decisions on solid fundamental play and adjustments based on solid observation and reads. Everyone has some sort of thought script, some sort of basic thought process skeleton that they follow (before things get out of hand :D) One of the ways you can improve your game is to improve this script. If you're constantly thinking about better information, RELEVANT information, you'll obviously make better decisions, and so the dominos fall. If you get into the habit of flying off the handle or making spewy plays that lack a fundamentally sound thought process, you're going to be leaking tons of money, experiencing tons of variance, and probably grinding yourself into a ditch. I would say be willing to give your opponents some credit for a while, be willing to see more than 1 instance of someone doing something you consider poor before you adjust or make some big change in the way you play vs. them, because you may be overadjusting and making more mistakes than you think. This leads to chalking things up to coolers. Build reads, not shaky reads, solid reads. Don't be afraid to fold the best hand some of the time or not value bet thinly enough in a suspect spot b/c villain is a TERRIBLE FISH. Don't start 4b jamming or 4b bluffing immediately after someone 3b's you like 2x. Stay solid, stay fundamental, build reads, make adjustments that exploit, rinse/repeat. Minimize luck.  

3. Respect your opponents. Whether you think they're the worst possible or the nut low or the best EVAR!!!!!!!!!. If you respect your opponents it is going to reduce your tilt and spew factors, and likewise minimize luck. If someone owns you in a hand don't get pissed off. Figure out why you got owned and think about what you can do to not get owned in the future. Even if they run some crazy play that's only supposed to work on a blue moon and only if buck rogers is shagging 3 whack a moles wearing edible snozzberry flavored lingerie, that's fine. I've said it myself in the past, "His play is not that good unless I do exactly what I did, which 99% of other people would not have done here so his play sucks." I mean, maybe that's right? Maybe he got lucky? Maybe he KNEW you would own yourself. Let it go. This is also something to remember when you're in a sticky spot and you have a hand that's worth showing down facing a bet on the river vs. a guy you don't have tons of reads on, and like, you have top top but he donked 3x and you have no idea what to do. Think realistically about hand combinations and any sort of info you can gleam on the player. How many tables are they on etc. etc. If you decide the call is worth it, don't be surprised if you're beat. Don't let the result tilt you because you already know that's part of the possible outcomes, so just move on to the next hand with new and perhaps relevant information. Beating a dead horse here so on we go....

4. Give your opponents the fewest opportunities you can to make a correct play. This is a bit different than manipulating them into playing badly but it's along the same lines. It's also likely to be more relevant against weaker opponents. This kinda goes back to some of the fundamental/read based play and not spew stuff as well, since when you present your opponent with a comfortable situation that they understand well how to maneuver and see every day, you're not really giving them few chances to make a correct play, you're giving them plenty of shots at playing well. We'd like to avoid this. Against fish though, you can play very exploitably, especially in regards to bet sizing. VS. fit or fold fish you can cbet like 1/3 pot because they don't care that they're getting a price, they missed the flop and they're done. Against station fish you can pot every single street or overbet and they'll call anyway, because they're just playing their piece of the board or gutshot or w/e. Here's not the greatest example of this but it's a hand I played today and I would consider it an example.

I squeeze with JJ, and on the flop I just shove instead of going for a 2 street installment plan. The reason why is that I don't think this guy is ever going to fold a pair. Instead of betting small and letting him see a scary turn card or overcard he may fold his hand correctly to, I give him 1 chance to fuck it up. He gets one chance to click call or fold, and usually, as fish tend to do, he'll make the wrong decision. I also like to bet kinda quickly in rhythm when I'm value towning stationy fish, because you are giving them the least amount of time to think about doing something other than calling.  

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 909157
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $281.00
SB: $388.00
Hero (BB): $406.00
UTG: $483.20
MP: $240.00
CO: $427.40

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with J J
2 folds, CO raises to $12, BTN calls $12, SB calls $10, Hero raises to $68, 1 fold, BTN calls $56, 1 fold

Flop: ($160.00) T 2 7(2 players)
Hero bets $338 all in, BTN calls $213 all in

Turn: ($586.00) 6(2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($586.00) K(2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $586.00
BTN shows 8 8 (a pair of Eights)
Hero shows J J (a pair of Jacks)
Hero wins $583.00
(Rake: $3.00)

There are probably more ways to minimize luck in poker but this is what I have off the top of my head. If anyone else has anything to add feel free to post a comment and get some discussion going.