Shuttle's blog

Just finished the move from hell, during which time I played some of the lowest volume I've played in ages. If moving alone wasn't enough stress I managed to get food poisoning too which extended the time I wasn't playing.
The new place has been completely worth it, it's totally awesome, here's some pics:

View from the balcony

view from my desk

 my desk setup

I haven't had a grind setup this good in months so I'm pretty pumped to be playing again. Hopefully getting supernova on stars really soon which will be awesome.

2 friends of mine had an interesting propbet on the EV of an omaha hand, I was part of the adjudication, here's the situation:
Live 5/10 plo game:
stacks: UTG 85
SB 475
we cover both
UTG pots to 35 blind, we flat Jc9c7h6d on BTN and SB repots to 150 with 325 behind, UTG calls it off for his last 50 more chips without looking at his cards. Using the model that SB has AA** most the time and he will ship any flop, what is our EV on a call?

Take a guess at what you think the EV for a call is?
Also try to work out the EV of a preflop call exactly. I'll make a post in the next blog about how I did it, it turned out to be quite an interesting spot I thought. 
 

PS: thanks to mitch for helping me figure out how to post some images up and avoid the technical issues with the image posting in the blog software.

Been a bit inspired by the grindcore 200bi in a month challenge. I'm going to try get a ton of hands in this month myself and see what happens. I'm not really wanting to set a monetary goal, more just something like x number of hands this month would be better. I've still been studying a ton and I can see the improvements in my game, my c game definitely wins me money at 100nl/200nl zoom now, something I don't think was the case previously. The mental game work I've been doing with Tendler has most certainly helped a ton here.

What do you think a reasonable monthly hand goal would be? Keep in mind I can only play 3 tables of zoom max (4 on good energy/concentration days).

Also played a funny hand the other day:

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1845150
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $105.50
Hero (SB): $177.21
BB: $123.94
UTG: $104.50
MP: $48.78
CO: $231.85

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with 9 T
UTG calls $1, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.50, BB checks

Flop: ($3.00) 8 8 K(3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG checks

Turn: ($3.00) 7(3 players)
Hero bets $1.34, BB folds, UTG calls $1.34

River: ($5.68) K(2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $3, Hero calls $3

Final Pot: $11.68
Hero shows 9 T (two pair, Kings and Eights)
UTG shows 7 T (two pair, Kings and Eights)
Hero wins $5.58
UTG wins $5.57
(Rake: $0.53)

How do I not win all the pot here!?!? :P

Lately I've been using HEM2 and playing some zoom. On average I get 2-3 crashes while playing every session. The hud popups often don't render and many times in crucial moments this craps out on me at the worst possible times. I always send the bug reports and get some suggestions on how to fix it. So far I've done about 10upgrades at the suggestion of support and NONE have actually fixed the hud problem and the instability still remains.

I managed to spew a stack because of extreme HEM2 induced tilt today, definitely reconsidering pt4 again as I just can't afford the tilt that HEM2 causes me. Disappointing really because the program would be excellent if it actually worked.

Lately my computer locked up at a crucial point in an MTT due to HEM crashing when I was facing a shove with AKs, definitely sent me on mega tilt and the ensuing tilt easily cost me more than purchasing PT4.

So yeah I'm strongly considering going over to PT4 now. Despite having poured a ton of hours into trying to get HEM to work for me it just seems to be an unending stream of shitty problems for me. Given that I tilt a bit easily it seems silly that I'm persisting with HEM2, maybe it's just that somewhere I hope they can actually fix their software but that hope is fading fast these days...

Anyway just had to vent as this shit is driving me insane...

here's a picture of the problem I'm having with the hud rendering, can't see half the popup here, but sometimes I see 90% sometimes 5% sometimes it doesn't work at all. There's a text document in the background randomly getting rendered into the hud popup and also some graphics from the table. It seems to be some sort of weird buffering problem:

So I've been taking this study thing pretty seriously, unsurprisingly I've dropped back from the amount I was doing before, I'm probably studying 3 hours a day now average. The original inspiration has worn off and now it's just good old fashioned motivation driving me. One thing I'm noticing is that I'm doing a ton of hand writeups and I probably should spend some more time practicing my touch typing as I'm trying to switch my style over to something different and it's just really hard to do. I definitely think it's a good investment because I take a ton of notes and spend a bunch of time coding both of which greatly benefit from being able to type fast. Definitely seems to be much like the poker, putting in some painful grind time to get it right makes a huge difference. Delayed gratification seems in some way to be more important here than just about anything else I can think of lately.

Now that I'm feeling better about my online game I've been getting a bunch more volume online. I've played some 5/10nl live here which has been amazingly soft but the drive out there is a pain and the hourly isn't that much higher than playing zoom most likely. Most of my recent play online has been at zoom. I find zoom really interesting, it has a different feel and dynamic to it for sure compared with regular games and I like it. I really like the deepstack spots a lot. Perhaps it's just because I study it a lot and haven't put the work in like this with regular games, not sure. I'm feeling much better about my game but for a variety of reasons (including knowing about a few leaks I must fix) I'm taking it slowly before moving up.

So since I started this study regime on Feb 1st:

disclaimer this is HEM2 so this might not be accurate :P

Also made a Q high call today which was cool:

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1773881
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $214.87
SB: $268.24
Hero (BB): $311.73
UTG: $724.37
MP: $386.98
CO: $156.51

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with Q 9
4 folds, SB raises to $6, Hero calls $4

Flop: ($12.00) K 6 K(2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($12.00) 7(2 players)
SB bets $7.00, Hero calls $7

River: ($26.00) 8(2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Final Pot: $26.00
SB shows 2 3
Hero shows Q 9
Hero wins $24.83
(Rake: $1.17)

Recently I've played lower a few times for the purpose of study and also for people to sweat me. There's a particular thing that I've been finding just sends me on extreme tilt and I'm not entirely sure of the reasons why so I'd like to try the advice in Tendler's book and see if writing about it helps.

So not aided by the fact that HEM2 is an excruciatingly buggy piece of software that really should still be in beta and not in release I'm starting off my session already a bit pre-tilted. This obviously doesn't help my overall mindset and is making it easier for me to get tilted by other stuff. So here's a perfect hand that would tilt me really hard:

Poker Stars $25.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1737028
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $15.00 - VPIP: 6, PFR: 6, 3B: 0, AF: 1.0, Hands: 17
SB: $13.11 - VPIP: 29, PFR: 29, 3B: 50, AF: 3.0, Hands: 7
Hero (BB): $52.07 - VPIP: 33, PFR: 27, 3B: 10, AF: 2.8
UTG: $13.37 - VPIP: 9, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 11
MP: $30.87 - VPIP: 14, PFR: 10, 3B: 0, AF: 2.5, Hands: 80
CO: $87.73 - VPIP: 23, PFR: 21, 3B: 5, AF: 2.0, Hands: 52

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BB with 5 5
4 folds, SB raises to $0.50, Hero calls $0.25

Flop: ($1.00) 8 Q 6(2 players)
SB bets $0.25, Hero calls $0.25

Turn: ($1.50) 5(2 players)
SB bets $2.00, Hero raises to $4.75, SB calls $2.75

River: ($11.00) A(2 players)
SB bets $7.61, Hero calls $7.61

Final Pot: $26.22
SB shows A A
Hero shows 5 5
SB wins $25.04
(Rake: $1.18)

So like say a hand like this happens and some other hand where my top set gets beaten by quads happen like in short succession. Now if I'm playing vs better opponents who take a decent line and I get coolered I'm like "ok cooler whatever" and I pretty much don't think twice about it. I just move on and whatever doesn't really bug me that much.

But something about when someone (especially a bad player) takes a particularly retarded value minimization line just really tilts me. I know logically that's it's good that they aren't winning more money off me because of how they play but at the same time I find myself tilted by this. Even when I'm not in the hand I find some of these value minimization lines tilting. Maybe a thought along the lines of  "If I was that guy I would have won ... more in that spot.".

This leads me onto the main crux of why I'm posting this, sometimes I find myself thinking along these lines "he has a bunch of air to get to this spot and this line is so amazingly horrifically bad for a value line that I'm going to look it up", usually I do this with like strongish hands but like I seem unable to fold the top of my range in these spots. Sure he can get there with a bunch of air but it doesn't matter if his river minbet donk/min3bet line is stupid I have to fold my bluff catcher. Especially when I'm tilting I just can't seem to get it through my head that some people really suck at poker and can take these bad lines for value with the immortal nuts and find myself paying it off too much (2nd nuts included), this then leads to other forms of tilt and well tilting isn't a good thing...

At some level I know that other people think about poker very differently to me as I'm good at adjusting and whatnot but I find it really really hard to adjust to the really bad reg-fish, it's not as though they are completely unthinking players but they think about the game badly and in such a way I just find I have no comprehension whatsoever of what they are doing. I can see from a theory point of view that I should probably be changing my lines up and I can do it when I'm not tilted by when I'm tilted all that starts to suffer really bad.

Anyway this whole thing bugs me a lot and I'd like to not get so tilted by it in the future, if anyone has any suggestions/advice here I'd love to hear it.

Looks like it's a good time to do that mental game coaching with Tendler!

It's been one month now since my last post and in the interim I think I've averaged maybe 4hours a day on poker study. So that's gone well. I've played a range of stakes with the intention of trying to learn different things at different stakes.

Actually spending the time working on the weaker areas of my game intently has been much better than I would have ever imagined. I'm really glad most people are too lazy to actually put in the study hours away from the table, as game would be so much tougher if they did.

The thing that's help the most has been doing very structured coaching sessions with some students. These were long sessions (3-10 hours) where we would analyze a spot very thoroughly and both me and the student would get a lot out of it. We would throw every available tool at the spot and use all the knowledge we had to try to get conclusive answers, and often we did. So for all the spots where I was regularly thinking "I don't know what to do here" I tended to make sure I studied away from the table. Doing this added a bunch of bb to my winrate. I'm happy to offer these coaching session to people at a very low cost relative to the time it takes and the quality of the information if it's a spot that I am interested in myself. I'm toying with the idea of doing some coaching with this format, I think it probably works best in a group setting but not entirely sure just as yet.

Here's some results since then:

Also a funny hand:

Poker Stars $200.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1727523
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $180.78
SB: $205.00
BB: $103.00
UTG: $201.00
MP: $92.42
Hero (CO): $200.00

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is CO with 7 5
2 folds, Hero raises to $4, 1 fold, SB calls $3, 1 fold

Flop: ($10.00) K 9 9(2 players)
SB bets $6.00, Hero calls $6

Turn: ($22.00) K(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $8.00, SB calls $8

River: ($38.00) A(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $28.00, SB calls $28

Final Pot: $94.00
SB shows 3 3
Hero shows 7 5
SB wins $45.60
Hero wins $45.60
(Rake: $2.80)

Lately I've decided that I want to play really high stakes again so I've been working on my game very hard. This has been broken up into 2 main categories, working on my technical game and working on my mental game. I've decided to not play higher than $200buyin games while I'm working on the mental game stuff as I need to fix issues there before I'm playing higher again.

So I played this hand:

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em $0.05 Ante - 6 players - View hand 1683927
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

CO: $69.63
BTN: $60.15
Hero (SB): $62.65
BB: $20.59
UTG: $67.67
MP: $64.41

Pre Flop: ($0.65) Hero is SB with T Q
4 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, BB calls $0.50

Flop: ($1.80) 6 4 5(2 players)
Hero checks, BB checks

Turn: ($1.80) 5(2 players)
Hero bets $0.75, BB calls $0.75

River: ($3.30) A(2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $1, Hero calls $1

Final Pot: $5.30
Hero mucks T Q
BB shows K 8 (a pair of Fives)
BB wins $5.06
(Rake: $0.24)

I feel this hand marks a big advance in my game because it's the first incorrect Q high call I've made (I've made a few correct ones previously).

Anyway I'm pretty stoked to be making some progress again. Hopefully I can get back to playing higher online once more.

Had a great Aussie mIllions including a deep run in the main event. Since then poker has been mediocre to say the least and I've not put a ton of volume in. I think this picture best describes my poker since Aussie Millions ended:

The "what I really do" is uncannily accurate, I've often been playing this while playing boring live games lol. Also was interesting to actually play at the same table as Ivey, he certainly has a unique table presence.

I've been really struggling very hard to get volume in lately, I think I'm super burnt  out by January as I put more than 250 hours in that month across my live and online play with around 185 hours live. So I'm taking a break for a while and just going to relax and hopefully recover from the burnout

If you feel like a game, start a game with shuttle87, but you've been warned I always get the Z's and Q's :P

So I've played my first 25/50/100 plo game, took a 5k shot in a 25/50 game that was amazing then the stakes got upped some time after I sat. It's kinda neat having played in a legit huge game but I don't see myself doing this again in a hurry unless I run really hot for a bit first. Then again I might be tempted if a game this soft appears again but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a one off occurrence.

One thing that was particularly striking is that a lot of the regulars seemed to be completely terrible at preflop relative to the rest of their game. It was odd because some of these guys were really good postflop. It seems as though the HSPLO games seem to revolve around people making really spewy preflop plays and trying to leverage some sort of postflop edge to compensate. If I was to play these games on a regular basis I think I'd want to really get a solid grasp on what a preflop gto 3-4-5 bet game in plo looks like, I also think buying in shallow gives you a big edge vs some of these guys.

Reminds e of the whole street poker thing but unlike before I wasn't participating as I don't really see the point in soft games where there's higher ev lower variance edges to be had.

Ok so I'm now out of the 50k challenge. Was fun playing it and had a good time making the blog post updates. Was interesting to play some 25nl after a long absence from those stakes.

Final Graph

Thanks to everyone who read the blog posts :)