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Poker Video: Misc/Other by Tommy Angelo (Micro/Small Stakes)

That's great, but why are the files double the size of the MP4?

Because MP4 uses a significantly better compression algorithm for compressing the audio (HE-AACv2) which allows it bitrates of ~32kbps that sound similar or in many cases better than 128kbps recordings. The combined audio+video is smaller than the standard MP3 setting.

We may attempt some VBR-based encodes in the future but right now we wanted to get these a bit smaller and retain quality, but 42mb is about right, if not a bit on the small side, for nearly an hour of audio in MP3 format.

Rob

This is something that I have been thinking about a lot and the above paragraph makes total sense in the context of a possession.

Translating that into poker and the quest for tiltlessness, how does our enjoyment of when it's going well relate to our possible tilt when it's not?

To use a typical example in NL, we have QQ in a blind battle against an aggressive player and ship over his 4-bet (assume we are totally confident and correct in analysis that all is +EV with the play).

Possibility 1:
Opponent shows JJ, river is a J. I'm totally fine with the fact that I need to disregard the river and concentrate my efforts on taking note of any information that the opponent has given me in this hand then prepare for the next.
Possibility 2:
Opponent shows AA, river is a Q. I think I'm not alone when I say this makes me happy, maybe even elated. I may even feel a little more alert and positive, my confidence is up and I am a step closer to "A Game".

My question is this:
Does our level of emotion in "Possibility 2" have an effect on our ability to control our emotion in "Possibility 1"?

I'm confused because (for me anyway) the positive emotion in "Possibility 2" can have a positive effect on mindset. However in this context wouldn't it be easier to aim for an unemotional reaction to both situations rather than try to filter good and bad emotion?

Instead of answering your question as asked, I'm going to revise it a little bit so that I can give the answer I want to give. :-) Let's pretend you had asked:

Should I aim for an unemotional reaction to both situations rather than try to filter good and bad emotion?

And the answer is...

YES!!

Losing to two-outers and winning with two-outers are both emotional spikes. It so happens that when you win with a two-outer, it means someone else lost to a two-outer, so the increase in EV that you feel isn't just from you feeling good, it's also from them feeling bad. The perfect player in my opinion collects from the other person feeling bad, but he doesn't need to gain extra EV from feeling good since he just plays like a rock-star all the time anyway. And, spikes of elation are caused by the same things as dips of despondency. To whatever extent you diminish one, you will diminish the other.

Meanwhile, it's fine and sensible to prioritize filtering out the bad emotions since they rate to be the most expensive, financially and otherwise.

I'm still very much in the learning process.

As are we all.

Tommy

Another great episode , nice work guys
Im confused about the goals and target discussion , you say goals are set up which result in sucess or failure , but should we not set up goals to help give us a direction , to have an idea where we want to go and then use targets as a means of what we need to do to get there.
As a small stakes player would you say its bad to make a goal which says for example, by the end of the year i hope to be playing and beating X limit. Then realise what must be done in order to acheive this goal and set up your targets.
Do you not think goals help you have motivation ?

Yes.

If i was to set up a goal which was to play 30k hands of poker next month do you not think id more likely play the 30k or close to it rather than if i had set up no goal and just played as much or as little as i felt like ?

I don't know.

Let's make up a person. Joe sets a goal of 30k hands for the next month. Halfway through the month, he has played 5K hands. Do you think the act of setting up the goal will increase or decrease the likelihood that he will play his A-game tomorrow?

The discussion in the series about goals and targets is really a discussion of how we can be careful with our language so that it helps us and not hurt us. It's a topic that is so gray that there isn't even a speck of black or white around the edges.

As a small stakes player would you say its bad to make a goal which says for example, by the end of the year i hope to be playing and beating X limit.

It depends on how bad you will feel if you don't achieve your goal. I think you should use whatever words are most likely to keep you performing well, and not cause mental clutter than can keep you from reaching your [fill in blank here]. :-)

Tommy

I enjoyed this episode. Anticipation was the most interesting thing in this video for me.

What about in Stud, where position can constantly change, that is just emotionally wrecking. It's like one less thing to hold on to. No wonder I feel so lost in the Stud games all the time.

What if you had made up your mind to b/f, but then you get a tell that the c/r is not as strong as you thought it was. Can you still be surprised by that tell?

My goal is to watch every episode of this series

About anticipation:
I am bluff monkey, sometimes I can't help myself and I just make a bluff for my entire stack,
when I shove the river, do I need to anticipate on a call?
Or is the hand over once the stack is in the middle?

Targets vs. goals really was an enlightenment for me, personally. (I had a lot of these and some of them are actually caught on tape.)

Goals set me up for a lot of emotional turmoil. As a habitual goal-setter, I am always looking into the future and falling far short of my goals, because I was taught that if you reach your goal you set them too low. This is a guarantee of mental anguish.

Changing my mindset to trying to hit targets puts me in the moment. A target has no future pass/fail, but is all about the present. Going from "I'm going to play 30K hands this month, to I'm going to set a target of playing this hand at this time as well as I can," is a big change for me. I no longer worry so much about the future, which I cannot control, and focus on the present, which is more controllable.

This eliminated a lot of suffering for me.

Wayne

I enjoyed this episode. Anticipation was the most interesting thing in this video for me.

You and me, both. Second only to Breathing. Both take a LOT of practice. If I could do anything over, I'd put more emphasis on anticipation. This is one of Tommy's biggest secrets. He anticipates so well that he is already in position to be calm before something happens.

I can't do it...yet.

I'm glad you brought this up because I think we didn't hammer it enough and this is my opportunity to do just that.

Thanks.

I don't really comment much here, but these series empressed me a lot. Never thought such topics are that interesting!

THE MUSIC TO THIS SERIES IS SO CALMING! LOVE IT! TOMMY UR VOICE IS VERY SEXY IYAM!

What if you had made up your mind to b/f, but then you get a tell that the c/r is not as strong as you thought it was. Can you still be surprised by that tell?

I meant to go into that. Wayne probably interrupted me just when I was about to. :-)

At internet poker, you might get a timing tell that changes your mind. Or you might plan for it in advance, for example "If he checkraises fast, I'm shoving. If he takes a while and then checkraises, I'm folding."

At table poker, the same kind of "deciding to decide later" type of anticipation can come up, with many more variations, and all of them are fine in terms of being in a proper state of anticipation. There's a big difference between having decided to not decide yet what do to do because you are awaiting the arrival of new information (timing tells or physical tells), and being surprised by the raise itself. Being surprised is always bad IMO.

My goal is to watch every episode of this series

Excellent combo of goals and anticipation! :-)

Tommy

About anticipation:
I am bluff monkey, sometimes I can't help myself and I just make a bluff for my entire stack,
when I shove the river, do I need to anticipate on a call?
Or is the hand over once the stack is in the middle?

Anytime all your chips are in the pot, the only things to anticipate are what you are going to do if you win the pot, and what you are going to do if you lose the pot. I do this every time, and besides it helping me make good quitting/staying/rebuying-amount decisions, it also helps a ton with remaining focused and on my A-game when I lose the pot.

So back to your questions -- "Do I need to anticipate on a call?" -- the answer is yes. If you know you will lose if called, then you should anticipate what your next decisions will be if you are called, as in, quitting, changing tables, staying, and how much to rebuy for.

"Or is the hand over once the stack is in the middle?" Yes, the hand is over for you the moment your chips go in, but the game plays on.

Tommy

Tommy,

I think I might be the opposite from Wayne with regards to C-game. When I'm on my c-game I play too tight and make my decisions too quickly (typically while multi-tabling online). In the games I play in, most of the regulars play as many tables as I do (or more in some cases) and my C-game seems to consistently beat theirs. I know if I cut the number of tables I play in half that my overall win rate would go up, but it wouldn't double.

I was in vegas a few weeks ago and I found that I was in my C-game a lot. I was making decisions as if I had 3 other hands going at the same time. Even though my c-game leads me to making pretty decent overall decisions, I know that I would be playing better if I thought through each hand. While at the tables, I noticed I was not playing my best but had trouble pinpointing what the problem was. Now I know that I was making decisions too fast, but if I had known that at the table then I would not have been on my c-game.

I guess the problem is that my multi-tabling A-game that makes me money is really a C-game for someone playing in a live setting. While I don't play live often or for serious income, I know that developing different poker skills (be it live, heads up, or a different game) will benefit me in the long run.

What do you do to mentally prepare to play your A-game? I can only play one table of a heads-up game online, would that be a good place to work on my A-game? I feel that if I simply cut back on the number of ring game tables that I play, I'll still bring my C-game like I did in Vegas.

Thanks.

Tommy,

I think I might be the opposite from Wayne with regards to C-game. When I'm on my c-game I play too tight and make my decisions too quickly (typically while multi-tabling online). In the games I play in, most of the regulars play as many tables as I do (or more in some cases) and my C-game seems to consistently beat theirs. I know if I cut the number of tables I play in half that my overall win rate would go up, but it wouldn't double.

I was in vegas a few weeks ago and I found that I was in my C-game a lot. I was making decisions as if I had 3 other hands going at the same time. Even though my c-game leads me to making pretty decent overall decisions, I know that I would be playing better if I thought through each hand. While at the tables, I noticed I was not playing my best but had trouble pinpointing what the problem was. Now I know that I was making decisions too fast, but if I had known that at the table then I would not have been on my c-game.

I guess the problem is that my multi-tabling A-game that makes me money is really a C-game for someone playing in a live setting. While I don't play live often or for serious income, I know that developing different poker skills (be it live, heads up, or a different game) will benefit me in the long run.

What do you do to mentally prepare to play your A-game? I can only play one table of a heads-up game online, would that be a good place to work on my A-game? I feel that if I simply cut back on the number of ring game tables that I play, I'll still bring my C-game like I did in Vegas.

Thanks.

critikal,

It sounds to me like you've got good awareness as to what your C-game is, when it appears, and some things you can do to reduce how often it shows up. One thing you might consider is to move making-the-most-money-I-can to a second level priority for a while. If you think you play better by playing half as many tables, but that your hourly earn will go down, well, that doesn't mean that playing half as many tables is a bad idea. I think that if you look at the long run, it's more important to learn how to play your A-game consistently than it is to make a few extra bucks today. If you feel that way too, then now is the time to make some changes to that end. Think of it as training. As to what changes to make, I don't know you well enough to suggest any particulars.

What do you do to mentally prepare to play your A-game?

Oh my lordy. Lots. What I eat, how I sleep, how I walk, how I sit. Pretty much everything I do you could think of as A-game prep. Oh, you asked about mental preparation and everything I said was physical. Well, I guess my mental preparation is done by leaving my mind out it and just trying to be present while I'm playing.

Tommy

What do you do to mentally prepare to play your A-game?

The entire eight hours of EPTPE is dedicated to mentally preparing to play your A game. Don't get frustrated. It is a process, a long process, and results are incremental. I am much better, but way far away at the same time.

Everything Tommy teaches--and I resist--are supposed to improve your A game by lopping off the C game. Do as I say, not as I do.

Good luck.

Wayne