Leave All The Days Behind

I've been having some problems with my computer lately and it's been extremely tilting. The numbers on my keyboard stopped working and I also couldn't get my HUD running. I tried to play through to get my hands in for the month, but my head was about to explode. I kept finding myself in spots where I wanted to make a play but could only use the half pot, pot, etc. buttons. It's really limiting. So I just quit and decided to play some live poker until my new computer arrives on Wednesday.

It's been awhile since I've played live, but the games still seem really profitable, even though this was probably one of the nittier tables I've played at. It also helped that I was able to run really good. I basically won two big pots and that was all it took to book a huge win. Let me know what you guys think about how I played these hands. It's been a long time since I've played live and the dynamics are a lot different.

Hand one.

Simple preflop spot. Playing one/three NL. UTG straddles for six. Two limpers and CO makes it twenty seven. He's a younger guy, seems somewhat aggro over a small sample and also has already been stacked, so he could possibly be tilted. I pick up QQ in the SB. Three bet to eighty. Thoughts about sizing here? Two folds and villain shoves for effectively just under three hundred. I feel like I almost always see AA or KK when someone shoves preflop in live poker, but I can't fold in a straddled pot when we are essentially playing with fifty bbs, especially when I put in a quarter of my stack and he could be tilted. So I call, he tables AKo, and QQ holds for a nice six hundred dollar pot.

Hand two.

Not a straddled pot, but UTG min-raises to six. Three calls. I call from the SB with Ace-four of spades. BB calls. Flop is eight, five, four with two spades. I decide to go for a check-raise here, not convinced on what's best though. The initial raiser isn't great, but capable of laying down some hands. He has a stack of about four hundred. There is also a stationy fish in the pot with a stack of over five hundred. So it checks to the PFR and he bets twenty. Fish calls and one other villain calls. I decide to raise to ninety. The reason I like ch/raising here is two fold. I think I can take down a good size pot a decent amount of the time, but when called I have good equity and can make good decisions against weaker players later in the hand while being deep. The PFR folds and I only get called by the fish after he tanks for awhile. When he calls, I basically put him on a range of pair+SD, worse FD's, possibly bottom two, etc. My plan is to obviously barrel when I improve, but I can also barrel good board run outs. Turn brings the Ace of clubs. I bet one hundred and fifty and surprisingly he calls pretty quickly. Wasn't sure what to make of this at the time. River is the Ace of diamonds, giving me a nice BD FH. I shove for the last two hundred plus and he thinks for awhile and says there's no way he can fold. Calls and shows three, two of spades for a straight and I scoop up a nice eleven hundred plus dollar pot.

Let me know if you guys have any thoughts on how I could play either of those hands differently with bet sizing or just taking a different line. I'm always open to suggestions.

Anyways, I played awhile longer, but nothing really exciting happened. I was considering leaving for awhile and then my decision was basically made for me. I had to go to the bathroom and so as I'm walking in I see a guy finishing up at the urinal only to walk out without washing his hands. Of course as I walk back out I see this guy has now sat down at the seat directly next to me. Yep, time to go. Maybe I'm a germaphobe, but it grosses me out enough when I see people not wash their hands, let alone when they are now touching the same cards and chips as me. That's just disgusting imo.

As I was leaving I also almost got an additional four hundred dollars from an old cashier who couldn't count. She eventually asked to get help and they got it right, but I was really contemplating whether I should say something or not. Usually, I'm a very honest person, but I mean it's the casino. They steal from people everyday and four hundred dollars will go unnoticed for sure. What do you guys think, would you say something if the casino accidentally gave you extra money? I'm thinking you shouldn't....

I've been thinking a lot about poker this morning and things that I want to accomplish in both the short and long-term. I've basically come to the conclusion that the only thing that really matters is constantly focusing on improving. Spending time worrying about other things is a waste of time imo.  Something that bothers me is when I hear people talking about how tough the games are these days. While it may be true that games are a lot tougher, I still think there are plenty of weaker players, both fish and regs, that we can take advantage of. I look at my own game, and even though am winning player who spends a lot of time on poker, I know I have a lot of leaks. There are definitely ways I can be exploited. Everyone has leaks and our goal should be to get to the point where we can fix our own leaks, which should in turn allow us to better exploit others. I look at having leaks as a good thing because this just simply means that I have a lot of areas to work on and improve. It means that I have a lot more potential and so I should look forward to correcting this instead of worrying about my weaknesses. I also look at the improvements I have made over the last two years since I have been a DC member and it truly is substantial. I thought I was pretty good back then, but I now realize that I had absolutely no clue. It doesn't happen overnight, but if I keep working I can only get better and the sky is the limit (too cliche?).

A couple of things that recently hit home with me are when I heard about Blah talking about adjusting completely and also not spazzing out when you get in preflop wars, etc. with certain villains. This was important for me because I think I have a tendency to be paranoid and sometimes it just becomes a pride thing in not letting someone push me around. I realize now that the person that stays in control is the one that will ultimately win these battles. When I think about adjusting completely, I know I don't fully apply this concept yet, but it has me playing completely different against every villain. By doing this, it also puts me in a lot of different spots and forces me to improve and always be thinking, as opposed to playing like a robot. Another thing is that I can put my opponents in uncomfortable situations where they aren't sure what to do, whereas I have a plan for attacking them so I'm prepared in the event that they fight back or adjust. This is where we can gain advantage because they will be more likely to make large mistakes. And if I screw up it's not that big of a deal anyways because hopefully I am learning from it. All I'm trying to do is fix my leaks and get better. The winrate should follow.

I'm not really sure how this is going to go. This is my first time doing this so I'm just going to give it a try and see what I come up with. My plan is to look at reads I have, stats, and hands that went to showdown. Write down what I see, some estimations on ranges, and then some possible ways to alter my strategy against specific villain. This might be an unorganized mess, but here goes.

I'm just going to start with the villain I have the most hands on. I have 12.1k hands on this villain from stakes ranging from 50-200NL. Some general reads are that he is a 20/16 TAG. Straight forward for the most part. Does not 3bet aggressively. 5% overall.

Notes from showdowns: Bluff-raise T52r IP in 3b pot and continue turn w picked up FD. Bet OOP on 666 turn 8 w JT against check back OTB. 3bets polarized IP. Cbet small 3-way w 98 on K92r. Bets small OTR for thin value? 4bets bigger as a bluff? 3bet range seems fairly static OOP. JJ+, AK. Likes to slow-play in 3b pots. Bet twice in 3bet pot IP w air on K74r and give up river. Flat 3b OTB w T9s, Ch back A88hh flop, Bet heart turn and brick river as a bluff. Cbets slightly bigger than 1/2 pot w air in 3bet pots? Will iso-raise as wide as K4s, 85s OTB. TIght squeezing range JJ+, AK. Most often seems to be one and done IP, occasionally firing two, but very rarely firing 3. Ch/c 44 as PFR on 567hh. Ch/c AJo on QJ9r. 3bet depolarized OOP. Hands like 99 and QJs as stacks get deeper. Not aggressively barreling. Ch back 98s on Q87hh OTB. Cbet A6o on J95r OTB. Bet turn OOP w AJ on T653.

Preflop Ranges: 11% UTG - 55+, AJo+ ATs+ KTs+, QTs+, JTs, KQo

                        13% MP - 22+, AJo+, ATs+ KTs+, QTs+, JTs, T9s, 98s

                        25% CO - 22+, A2s+, A9o+, broadways, SC's, better suited gappers

                        48% BTN - too lazy to write this out. Anything reasonable.

                        26% SB - Same as CO

Some stats: WTSD 23%, WWSF 42%, Agg factor 3.05, cbet 72, turn cbet 49, fold to cbet 59. SB reraise steal 8.4%, BB reraise steal 3.8%. 4B 7%, 4B range 1.1%. Fold to 4bet 22%. Fold to 3b 61%. By position EP 31%, MP 48%, CO 62%, BTN 70%, SB 55%. Fold to cbet in 3b pots 63%. Bet OOP 38%. River agg freg 26%.

SB vs. Steal - Fold 89%, 3b 8%, call 3%

BB vs. Steal - Fold 82%, Call 14%, 3b 4%

Some quick conclusions for now. I'll look at this again later as I spent the last two hours looking through my HUD and so I'm somewhat tired:

I can get away with stealing pretty wide as he will play tightly in the blinds. I will just give his 3bets from the BB a lot of respect, but I can call some hands IP against his wider SB 3bet range. I don't want to 4bet him very often since he has a low fold to 4bet. Pay attention to his cbet sizing in 3b pots and also watch for his 4bet size being bigger as a bluff. I can attack his CO and BTN ranges pretty aggressively since he will fold a lot to 3b in these positions and also fold too much to cbets. I will only very sparingly 3b his EP ranges since they are tight and he does not fold often to 3bets. Give him credit when he squeezes

Postflop, I can bluff-catch one street and usually give up against later aggression, since he will most often just be one and done. Give his 3 barrels respect as he seems to very rarely fire 3 streets as a bluff. I can also bet 3 streets IP against his checks as PFR to see if he is willing to call me down w middle pair type hands.

This is all I have for now, but as I said I will look at this again and let the info absorb and see if I can think of any other ways to exploit this villain. As always, any help with this is appreciated. I basically just winged this and wasn't sure all the stats and filters I should use, etc. Props if you made it to the end of this post.

Edit: I forgot to add in that I think I can attack his iso-raises fairly aggressively by 3betting as well because he doesn't seem to adjust.

I've been thinking about my poker goals a decent amount the last couple of weeks, so I thought it'd be a good idea to write them down to keep me on track. I looked over my sessions in HEM, and I've played anywhere from about 70-80 hrs per month over the last few months. So basically about 15-20 hrs per week. I would like to get this above 20 for sure and closer to the 25-30 hr range. I will also be trying to keep my session times shorter, preferably 2 hrs or less.

Goal number 1: absolute minimum of 20 hrs for the next two weeks working closer to the 25-30 hr range.

Secondly, I usually play 4 tables but I've been working my way up to 5 or 6 without any problems for the most part. As long as I don't feel my decisions are rushed and it's not taking away from my reads, I would like to add an extra table or two.

Goal number 2: work up to playing 5 to 6 tables comfortably, while making sure it isn't negatively affecting winrate.

Lastly, I would like to put more focused effort into my work away from the table. I'm always pretty good about watching videos and have also been contributing a decent amount on the forums, but I feel this isn't enough. I heard Krantz talking about taking an extended amount of time on how to exploit specific villains in his latest video. Therefore, I would like to take an hour or so each week focusing on a villain that I play against on a daily basis and writing my conclusions here or elsewhere. The other idea I had was to focus on a specific concept each week, and writing all of my thoughts about that concept.

Goal number 3: Devote 1 hour a week studying one specific villain or focusing on 1 specific poker concept and write out conclusions.

If anyone has any thoughts on how I could improve or add to these goals, I'm always open to suggestions.

I've had some good success at 200NL so far this month, so I decided to take a shot at 400NL. There was a pretty big fish sitting directly to my right so I thought it seemed like a good time to do it. Unfortunately, it didn't go the greatest. The fish ran pretty hot against me, my aces didn't hold, and I ran an ill-timed 3-barrel bluff against a reg. I felt a little bit uncomfortable playing such big pots, maybe even more so then other times I've played at higher limits. Oh well, I'll be back. Here are a couple of the big hands from the session:

Merge Network $2.00/$4.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1696126
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (MP): $401.00
CO: $265.80
BTN: $413.90
SB: $658.16
BB: $400.00
UTG: $279.63

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is MP with A A
UTG calls $4, Hero raises to $15.00, 4 folds, UTG calls $11

Flop: ($36.00) A Q J(2 players)
UTG bets $30.00, Hero raises to $94.00, UTG raises to $264.63 all in, Hero calls $170.63

Turn: ($565.26) K(2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($565.26) 9(2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $565.26
Hero shows A A
UTG shows T K (Ace High Straight)
UTG wins $562.26
(Rake: $3.00)

Merge Network $2.00/$4.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1696127
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (MP): $456.40
CO: $296.63
BTN: $422.55
SB: $125.50
BB: $489.00
UTG: $779.25

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is MP with A A
1 fold, Hero raises to $12.00, 3 folds, BB raises to $38.00, Hero raises to $95.00, BB raises to $489 all in, Hero calls $361.40 all in

Flop: ($914.80) T J 7(2 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: ($914.80) K(2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($914.80) Q(2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $914.80
Hero shows A A (Ace High Straight)
BB shows A K (Ace High Straight)
BB wins $32.60
BB wins $423.30
Hero wins $455.90
(Rake: $3.00)

Things have been going pretty well lately for the most part. Last month's results were pretty good considering I didn't run the greatest at times and I also managed to make the move 200NL with fairly good results. This month has also started out decently well although I had a pretty poor session today. What I took away from today was that it's going to be hard to have good results when villains are flopping sets in 3bet and 4bet pots. But what can you do, we have to get slaughtered from time to time. I'm just upset about about a couple of large mistakes that I made while I wasn't playing my A game. This being one of them......I'm still not sure that it was a terrible play, but obviously the board ran out horribly for me. FWIW, the guy tanked and called which makes me feel like it wasn't that bad, but he was probably just slow-rolling me. I probably shouldn't be doing this against a villain that I don't have a great read on at this point. Oh well. Live and learn, right.

Merge Network $1.00/$2.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1674743
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP: $252.96
CO: $182.55
BTN: $330.66
SB: $237.60
Hero (BB): $424.61
UTG: $359.52

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with K Q
2 folds, CO raises to $4.00, BTN calls $4, SB calls $3, Hero raises to $18.00, CO calls $14, BTN calls $14, 1 fold

Flop: ($58.00) 3 T J(3 players)
Hero bets $30.00, CO folds, BTN calls $30

Turn: ($118.00) 2(2 players)
Hero bets $78.66, BTN calls $78.66

River: ($275.32) 2(2 players)
Hero bets $206.49, BTN calls $204 all in

Final Pot: $683.32
BTN shows 3 2 (Full House - Twos over Threes)
Hero shows K Q (Pair of Twos)
BTN wins $680.32
Hero wins $2.49
(Rake: $0.51)

I just finished my best session in awhile and I can't help but think about spending money. But then I thought about 2 weeks ago when I had a really good week and just thought it would continue indefinitely. I then proceeded to blow a bunch of money at the bar/strip club (getting drunker than any 28 year old really ever should) and just thought "oh well I'll just put in more hands next week and problem solved." Of course, I ran terrible the whole next week and wished I hadn't blown so much money last weekend (granted, it was a fun night). I guess the poker gods have a way of bringing us back down to earth. Hopefully I'll learn from my mistakes. Anyone else have this problem?

I just got done looking at results for the last week or so. It wasn't too bad considering I ran about 9BI below EV and still managed to turn a small profit for the week. I can't really complain about that. I ran pretty bad most of the week, but had a really good session on Saturday and I'm starting to get back on track. I took some more shots at 200NL the last couple of days which actually went decently well. I think they could have went really well if I could have just had some hands hold up and also gotten away from some hands preflop. I really need to learn to fold KK when I'm facing a cold 4bet. It seems like it's always AA.

I had some tilt issues in the middle of the week where I didn't play my A-game. It seems like I'm pretty good about not tilting for the most part, but when I go through a stretch where everything seems to go wrong in a short time span, that's when I start to play poorly. I do a lot of dumb things like paying off turn ch/r against weak players and also talk myself into other calls I know I shouldn't make. I really need to plug this leak and control my emotions better at all times. I'm perfectionist when it comes to this and I can't allow myself to slip. It's just not acceptable.

On the upside, I did put in a lot of volume this week and didn't let running bad affect too much for the most part. I just need to monitor myself a little bit better when things aren't going so well, so I can be a little bit better about quitting or taking a break.

I also finally got around to picking up a monitor for computer this week. The only problem is that I don't have a desk until the one I ordered from Amazon gets here in a week. I kind of have a bad habit of just playing on my laptop in the living room. It isn't bad when no one is home since I just leave the TV off, but when my roommates are around it can get a little distracting.

As for life, I'm still not sure what the future holds. I've been mostly just focusing on poker the last few months while rehabbing from wrist surgery and trying to figure out if I'm going to be able to continue my baseball career. It looks pretty bleak right now. I've been having more problems with my wrist and just went back to the doctor last Thursday. He told me that my tendon is basically rolling over the bone right now and if it doesn't start feeling better in a few weeks the only thing to do is to get another surgery. So for now, I'm just resting it for a couple weeks until I can really test it out and see if it's going to get better or not. Sucks. I've basically forgotten what it's like to be healthy and am just really getting sick of dealing with doctors and everything else.

But to end on a good note, I think my best accomplishment of the week was learning this Radiohead song on the guitar. Or at least most of it. The last two minutes of this song just blows me away.

Btw if anyone wants to go to see them next month in KC, I'm having trouble finding anyone that can make it as of now. One of the best bands of all-time imo.

I've been meaning to start blogging for awhile now and after a session where I was constantly value cutting myself and running into the top of ranges, I thought it was good time. All in all, I can't complain, though. I have been running good for the last couple months so a little run bad was probably due to happen. The good thing is that I feel like I played pretty well today minus a few mistakes I know shouldn't ever happen. I need to be a little harder on myself in this regard, but I was happy that I didn't really feel tilted through the rough stretch. This has been my main focus lately, as I just finished reading "The Mental Game" of poker. I'm really trying to focus on the things I can control. Playing my best and putting in volume.

I still managed to end the week up about 7 or 8 buy-ins, so not a bad week at all, especially considering I was out of town last week and didn't have a chance to play at all. I feel pretty good about my overall game and I'm hoping to make the move to 200NL by the end of this month or next month. I actually took a couple shots this week, just mixing in one table with my regular 100NL tables and felt ok about it. The first session I was a little spewy, but I feel like I'm winner at these stakes and should be fine with the move once I get comfortable.

Oh and I have to add this hand in here. This is from earlier in the week when things were going well and I actually thought to myself, "wow, this is when you know you are running good." I'm not really sure how I missed that I was timing down. I guess I used up my time bank and didn't notice it, so when I was trying to figure out how much to bet, I timed out. The guy was a pretty big station so I was planning on bombing the river. Maybe subconsciously I'm just this good.

Merge Network $0.50/$1.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1636134
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $49.56
SB: $171.46
BB: $46.21
UTG: $24.09
MP: $258.58
Hero (CO): $181.65

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is CO with J J
2 folds, Hero raises to $3.00, 1 fold, SB calls $2.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($7.00) J 3 8(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $5.25, SB calls $5.25

Turn: ($17.50) Q(2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $14.00, SB calls $14

River: ($45.50) 4(2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Final Pot: $45.50
SB shows T 9 (Queen High Straight)
Hero mucks J J
SB wins $43.23
(Rake: $2.27)