Slipping Back Into Bad Habits

Things have took a bit of a downward turn over the past few days, and I have started doing things that I thought I had irradicated from my game i.e. Making Stupid Calls when I know I'm behind and also playing tired.

Up until Christmas I was mainly playing on Sun Poker which is a Crypto Site and was struggling. Since then, I've been playing on Full Tilt with a fair amount of success. However, the Rake Back and Bonuses on Sun are pretty good so I decided to play there over the weekend and managed to lose 3 buy ins through 1 loose call when I was behind and another couple of poor plays which I shouldn't have made. As a result of this I have withdrawn my money from there and am not going back for a while. I'm annoyed at myself for even going back to play there.

Work's a bit chaotic at the moment it always is at month end - an occupational hazard for Accounting jobs, made the mistake this evening of playing when tired. Something else I thought I stopped doing.

Not sure if I'll be able to play for the rest of the month, it might be a good idea to take a break for a few days any way and read Elements of Poker which arrived yesterday and recharge the batteries.

Video Link

I made my first video earlier this week, which was at 50NL. Its not the slickest production in the world and I can only improve with practice but I found it beneficial to discuss hands out loud.

The link is on the Right under the video links section. If any one wants to watch it and make any comments there more than welcome.

Having seen nothing but good reviews about it I've got Elements of Poker on order hopefully it will turn up soon.

I'll have a proper update over the weekend.

Moving Up Permanently

Since the start of this year, I have been gradually adding in 50NL tables to my play at the same time cutting down on the number of tables I play from 4 to 3 so that I can follow the games better until I feel comfortable at this level.

After a poor start to the month which seems to have happened to alot of people, and I considered moving back to 25NL and scrapping the 50NL tables, I've managed to turn things round in the last 10 days or so.

Over the weekend, I've decided to concentrate on the 50NL tables for the time being and not play any 25NL tables. I am working to a strict 5buy in loss level before moving back down to 25nl which I hope I don't have to use because I don't plan on having to. I'm also going to give myself a 2 buy in stop loss limit for any session as this is when tilt sets in with me.

Things I Need to Work On

There are a few area's of the game I need to work on which are as follows: -

• Interpretation of Agression Factor Stats and using these to my advantage - Ryan Daut touched on this in his video last week where he said people will c-bet and then shut down if called which leads to high Flop Agression and lower Turn/River AF's. This is definitely true with me and was something I 've been thinking about so want to look into further.
• Putting people on hand ranges and following the games better.
• Table Selection

Poker Books

After seeing some decent reviews of the book by various people, I am planning on getting Elements of Poker. Other books I want to read are Psychology of Poker andThe Poker MindSet. Also, Dan Harrington's cash game books are due to be published next month which are two books Ialso want to get as his MTT book's are supposed to be some of the best around.

Marc (Disconnected) has made a couple of posts lately that because of the increase in resources available to us, we need to dedicate enough time to each element at the same time not forgetting to play. This is so true and one thing I need to address is that I'm not commenting on blogs too much lately which I am going to change particularly Group Blogs even if what I write is rubbish most of the time.

A Couple of Useful Links

I've found these blog posts over the past couple of days both of which I think are useful and helpful.

This first post is from Sir Neb and is a post about putting people on hand ranges. This is an area where I know I'm weak so any pieces of advice on this topic are always welcome

http://sirnebsblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/hand-ranges.html

The next post is from Verneer's blog earlier today and is in connection with classifying the level of coaching you require to improve: -

http://www.cardrunners.com/members/index.php?option=com_mamblog&Itemid=29&task=show&action=view&id=8666&Itemid=29

I am seriously thinking about getting some form of coaching next month using this month's Rake Back to pay for it. Hopefully I will get about $100 for the month which may get me 2 lessons but definitely 1.

I would class myself as a level B player at the moment, as the Turn and River are definitely where I lose most of my money.

I've been playing break even poker over the past week or so. Got myself a solid base to build on for the rest of the month. Hopefully avoiding the stupid few days I seem to have every month.

I'm a bit behind on commenting on other people's blog particularly group one's so need to catch up on those over the next couple of days.

Every Monday night for the next 3 months, I should be doing a Sports Quiz which is run on a League basis. Each team sets the quiz once during the period the quiz runs for. We set our's last week which was a bonus as we got it out the way. Unfortunately the team that should have set the quiz tonight didn't turn up for some reason.

Update & a Couple of Hands

As with most of the other members of the Study Group I had a pretty awful start to the year although I have to a certain extent managed to turn it round.

I've cut down on the number of tables I play from 4 to 3 but have added a 50NL Table to what I'm playing alongside 2 25NL tables.

The 25NL has been going well but I'm down about 3.5 buy ins at the higher level. To be honest I'm not overly happy about that because I am 99% certain I can beat the 50NL game but have made a few bad plays which have cost me. I'm going to take a bit of a break for a week or so at 50NL but will come back to it shortly.

Here's my graph for 2008 so far and a PT table. I'm a bit tighter than I have been of late which is mainly due to tightening up a bit after the indifferent start and being a bit more cautious at the higher level but that will change once I have made the necessary adjustments.




Here's a couple of hands I played this evening at 50NL which to be honest were badly paid by me: -

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1913279

The other player in this hand was playing 55.79/30.53 and I thought initially he was reraising with nothing much. However, I should have got the message after the raise to $18.75 and folded at this point.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1913304

On this hand I got a bit suspicious and becane very oassive post flop. The problems with this hand were caused by raising when UTG. I shouldn't have even got involved in the hand.

We've added some additional people to the group to give us more options due to Time Differences etc and hopefully we will push eachother and make us all become better playerd.

A Comment That Made A Crucial Point To Me

There was some useful comments on my last post which I am definitely going to bear in mind. Something Martin (DodgyKen) said struck a chord with me and what he says is true. Thinking back alot of my money is lost calling raises on the turn/river when I don't have a strong enough hand to do so. The comment he made was as follows: -

Turn raises almost always have one pair beaten at the lower levels

This got me thinking there are undoubtedly other 1 line comments that are made in the Forums/Blogs etc which seem insignificant but is actually a very important piece of advice that I think I'll remember but when I'm caught up in the middle of a hand get so engrossed in it that I forget these snippets of imformation and revert to my old foolish ways. I'm going to start making a list of these and review them before the start of every session until they become automatic features of my play.

Here's a couple of hands I played this evening neither of which need any comment but the 1st 1 kind of illustrates DodgyKen's point accept its a Flop bet I' respond to but this could quite easily apply here. The 2nd one I just like for obvious reasons. More of that one and less of the first please!!

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1891020

He's playing at 24.87/14.81. Maybe checking behind here for pot control would have been a better play but I felt I had to bet out to try and protect my hand. The size of my bet compared to his remaining stack when he came over the top of me kind of gave me no option but to call.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1891052

Flopping Quads is always +ev. I'm actually amazed that the short stack folded to the River bet which I tried to set at an amount to get the BB to come over the top of me and the shortstack to go all in. I got the rest of BB's stack a couple of hands later.

After yesterday's moaning session I am alot happier today and was actually quite pleased with how I got on other than the 1st hand above. I'm in a better frame of mind than I was but the kind of sessions I've had lately is probably where we learn more about ourselves and the game.

Good luck.

When Will It End?

The end of 2007 and the start of 2008 have been pretty disastrous from a poker point of view. I feel as though I'm on a permanent downswing which is never going to end. I guess I'm doing something fundamentally wrong because all I seem to be doing is winning small pots and lose big one's. Back to the drawing board I guess. At some point pretty soon I'd like to see some return on the work I've been doing lately. Any way here's a few hands. I'll post some more tomorrow: -

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1885938

The other player here is playing at 38.89/6.94/2.90.

I guess the fact that he called my c-bet on the flop should have set the alarm bells ringing here. I am kind of thinking now that I should have check call/folded the Turn and certainly under no circumstances should I have called the all in reraise.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1886001

This player is 36.84/15.79/1.54

I never saw the straight coming here. I'm fine with what I did up to the River. Maybe I can get away from this then on a draw heavy board but in view of his Stack Size I'm not sure.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1886032

This hand is actually quite funny. There is no way I am ever laying this down on the flop and will do the same thing every time unless someone tells me I 'm being a bit stupid. I ran this through Poker Stove and I'm only a 53% favourite against 2 players here on the flop. On the Turn this had increased to 69% but the money was already in on the flop. I thought both of them were drawing which is what I wanted but Rivered again.

BB is playing 38.5/22 and UTG+1 is at 55.56/2.22.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1886068

This hand is similar to the 1st one. I've posted this on the forum. The other player is a Card Runners member and is playing at 17.71/14.17/5.10.

This is a horrible flop for my hand but I'm still going to bet out here which is what I did. The call should have told me everything I needed to know. As if there weren't another draws on the board, the Turn decided to add another straight and flush draw to the mix. I think the bet here is probably questionable I now favour a check call/fold depending on what he does. There's no way I'm ever going to call his Turn Bet.

That will do for know I'll post some more tomorrow.

Hopefully that's the end of the negativity for a while.

2007 Review and 2008 Aims

For me from a Poker point of view, 2007 has been a disaster from a results point of view. I feel as though I have been running bad all year apart from a couple of months. Now this is what I would have said last year. However, having found Card Runners and changing my game drastically I know that aside from Variance, there are reasons why we run poorly and it is mainly due to poor decision making. For me this is most flop and is a continuing battle for me to get this right as I am losing far to much money Post Flop and this has to change or I will seriously have to consider whether to carry on.

I'm not particulary Results orientated other than I'd like to see an improvement in my results over time. My game has improved so much and I changed it dramatically over the course of 2007 and I would like to see some benefits from that because I'm not right now and there is no comparison between the player I was at the start of 2007 from where I am now.

My bank roll at the start of 2008 is the same as it was at the start of 2007 mainly through Rake back and bonuses fortunately. At the start of 2007, I was playing Full Ring 50NL mainly on I-Poker. In the early part of the year, I lost about half of my bank roll because I didn't really understand what I was doing. I understood the basics but I think people sussed me out because I was so tight and new when to play back at me or when to pass if I was strong. At this point I decided to find a Coaching Site and discovered Card Runners and the Low Limit Grinders Community which was set up and ultimately the Study Group that has come from that. CR has changed my game for the better in that I have switched to 6-max and totally changed how I play for the better. For instance in July my VPIP was 11.92, and PFR 10.69 over 12K hands whereas in December, I played 11K hands and my VPIP was 18.31 and PFR 16.88. I didn't find it difficult playing at 18/17 in December either and can't believe I was that tight looking back. I am happy with my play pre flop at the moment and know where my weaknesses are which is Post Flop and I am prepared to put so much work in in order to make 2008 a successful year for me.

Reading the blogs of the DodgyKen, Dice, LuckySob and Sir Neb just shows where we can get to if we put the effort in and want to succeed which I do.

Thats the negativity over with here's what I want to achieve in 2008: -

1. I'm currently playing at 25NL and trying to build some 50NL tables into what I am playing by the end of the year ideally I'd like to be a good 200NL player.
2. In the 1st couple of months of this year I want my Post Flop Game sorted out once and for all. I am going to work so hard at doing this so if I fail it won't be for the lack of trying.
3. Use and learn from the resources available to me - Watching Video's, Contributing to the Forums through Posting hands and reading other peoples posts. The same with the Blog ensure that I post here regularly and also read the Group and other blogs on a regular basis and learn from what I am doing.
4. Contribute fully to the SSNL Group we have going.
   
5. Add some Heads Up and other types of Poker to my game.
6. Try and Average 20K hands a month if I can. This will depend on work committments if I have to put in as many hours at work as I did last year then this won't be possible.
7. Have at least 1 day a week when I don't play.
8. Look into getting some coaching. This is something I want to do but my bankroll is not at a level at the moment where I can consider paying for a coach. I learnt so much in a group session with Verneer that I can see the benefits of doing this but need the bankroll to do so.

I think that's it no doubt there's other's but I'll review them as time goes on.

I'm not going to make any specific goals for January at the moment as its going to be another month of studying the game for the most part.

Year End Bank Roll $1,457

Finally good luck to everyone at the Poker tables in 2008.

Chris