slowlane123's poker blog

Over the weekend I had a couple of horrible days. My first bad days (meaning poor play, not just standard downswing) in a couple of months. I was just auto-piloting through and expecting the money to fall out of peoples' stacks and into mine.

Today I changed things. I made sure that each time I 3bet, I did so with a plan. I knew how hard I would push on low flop, what high cards flop I would be triple-barrelling and how I would be reacting to check-raises on each street. Really thinking about why you are doing what you are doing is so important. At times I forget that I'm playing mid/high-stakes FR on the 2nd largest poker site in the world. These are some of the toughest regs you can find anywhere on the internet and to beat them for a good clip you need to be focused. Not just aimlessly clicking buttons.

Today felt really good. I sometimes forget what a vast array of knowledge I have build up over the years and instead of calling upon it for each and every decision, I just click fold to get to the next hand that needs attention.

Something that can definitely help low/small-stakes grinder is to drop the number of tables they're playing for a while in order help develop this way of thinking and applying the knowledge they have. I often sit with students to watch videos of them playing just for them to analyse what they did wrong and how they could correct it perfectly by themselves. It's funny how clearly the mind can think when it's not bombarded with 16 tables, 6 of which need urgent attention.

I'm currently 4-tabling rush with as many 400nl (or higher) tables that are running as possible. The games have been pretty good and for the most part, in the last 2 months, I have been running really well and playing even better.

Despite this, I have just made a rather sizable cashout in order to start playing more live. The AUD is so ridiculously strong right now and I want to experiment with what I'm playing online. I'm in the process of clearing my $5k cash bonus. Once I am done doing that I will switch my money-making play from online to live. I will start out playing 500nl at the casino (just for a few session while I re-adjust to live play) then hit the 5/10 game which has a max $2k buyin and buyin full (ldo).

As I do this I will be experimenting online. On weekends I will likely just grind out 400nl rush and FR. But during the week I will be focusing exclusively on heads-up and 6 max play. This is something I've been wanting to do for ages and I now have enough cash in my bank account to last me several months while I learn these other games at what will likely be break-even pace for a while. I've been playing a bit of HU and doing fairly well the last few days at 50nl just for fun. I started out semi-bumhunting as I had never played any HU before to build confidence. I then moved on to playing OK or breakeven regs. So far it is going well and I'm yet to find an opponent that I can't figure out very comfortably (some have quit me before I got a chance to).

I watched pr1nnyraiding 3 which is a great series. HU/6max series really help open up your game/poker mind to a whole new level for all poker forms.

During weekdays I will be playing live a lot. I still think online is probably where I will be getting my best hourly but I'm kind of excited by the idea of trying out the high stakes tables at Star City. Playing deep will be great as I am extremely experienced in it thanks to rush.

No pics or hand histories today unfortunately as I'm on my laptop.