Gauss Blog, Never Surrender. Never.

_I got a lot of work to do.

Goddamit I am still losing. I have got to start the real hard work it takes to get better. I will say I have had some horrendous luck, mostly with KK in the past few months, but there are some fundamental leaks in my full ring NLHE game.

I dont think I am aggressive enough. My stats tend to be 16/9 preflop and my aggression factor is lower than most. I think the problem is my training as a lawyer. Lawyers are trained to think of all the possible outcomes, and take cautious action designed to mimimize losses and reprecussions if thing go wrong. This is a poor way to play poker. To win at poker you must take chances. push marginal edges and create some fold equity.

I will say that it doesnt help that everytime I push a marginal edge or take a shot I get rogered in the rear end. Get aggressive with kings, someone has aces. This month I lost $1082 on one hand KK vs AA, all in preflop and no help in 6-max 1000NL.

The key though is probably to accept that bad things are going to happen, and to not let the cold decks and bad beats get you down. Poker is a difficult endeavor because you might be getting the worst of variance, and you might suck. I can see it being very expensive to figure out the difference. I suppose for now the best assumption to make is that my game needs alot of work (i.e. that I do suck, at least relative to the winning regs in my game) and to go about doing the work needed to get better. I guess to put it in terms of a few examples, there is a difference between reading a hand history or watching a strategy video while playing in a ring game and actually sitting there studying the video and taking notes. There is a difference between playing four hundred hands on two tables while simultaneously checking out your favorite forum, and actually sitting there and playing the 400 hands as well as you can and observing your villans’ tendancies.

I had committed to winning the 1k I lost in the KK v AA 1000nl debacle on stars, still working on that allthough Im down a few buy ins so its a rough start. I am calling this my seat 2 rogering challenge.( that is I was in seat two when fate fukked me out of the 2k pot, and I want to win the 1k I lost back)

Now I shall treat you all to a series of random thoughts I have about NLHE games………..

a. if you have represented weakness and your hand is underrepresented you have to make thinner calls on the river.

2 (lol not b) in general people are bluffing you much less than you might think, this is especially true of large river bets*

c. monotone boards and boards that are four to a straight are good bluffing opportunities.

d. three betting chronic steal attempts from villans with high fold to 3 bet stat is profitable esp. if the villan is mass tabling

e. there is money to be made from the two extreme types of players. you should bluff the nits and and take the loose fish to valuetown.

f. during long sessions you should take breaks to maintain focus and stay on your A game. posting on forums, listening to podcasts is not ideal while playing, you should be focusing on your opponents even when not in a hand.

g. If you have hundreds and hundreds of hands on a guy, they you should have some notes on how he plays.

h. try to play mistake free sessions. obviously everyone makes mistakes, by this I mean if you can play well for two hours and make no obvious errors then you have done well. It makes no sense to play for four hours straight on multiple tables if your game is going to fall apart.

That is all. Im gonna get winner if it kills me.

btw. I think what I need more than anything is a “poker mommy.” Did you stay up all night playing again, did you do your homework, did you eat your vegtables or is there a picture of your degenerate ass at the local Wendys as customer of the month again, did you stick your whole roll in one game yet again? Not a coach per se, with respect to learning, but someone to keep me on the right track and off my bad habits. So I got a question. Who Wants to Be My Poker Mommy? Being an attractive woman would help, because I rarely listen to anyone else.