Saturday Night Games ...

Date: Sat, Aug 23, 2008 Professional Internet

Insane action! I'm still running/playing well. Played for like 40 minutes today and decided to call it a day. Alex and I have talked a lot about whether to quit while you're ahead or continue playing. Honestly, I've been in such a good mood lately that I was just really happy to pick up a quick three buy-ins and call it a night. I played a little HU, did some work for CR, and did a bunch of other things.

This is something I've talked a lot with other people about and would fall into the psychology of poker. Namely, the EV for happiness. Yes, I could play even longer, but tonight I was just on fire. It is impossible to keep up such momentum and I have played long enough to realize this. So why not quit at a high point? Over 3 buy-ins in like 40 minutes of play. Let's quit and come back to grind tomorrow.

Let's appreciate today for what it is - a glorious stretch of positive variance and donator donks which left me with a natural high. By quitting now, I will allow this high to tranfer into my life in general and ride the wave. There will be many more days of grinding ahead of us. Tommy Angelo would approve.

Anyhow - here is 100NL so far since coming back and starting to grind:

I've also only had one person contact me about setting up a lesson from the group that has sent me packages from all over the world. Please do so - I owe you :) If anyone else is interested in represening a country, just let me know where you are from and if that spot is open we can work out some coaching or whatever.

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Table Selection ...

Date: Sat, Aug 23, 2008 Professional Internet

So I played a guy HU this morning that I think was drunk. Either way, he was +EV cause he was spazzing out:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3087742

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3087744

The thing about this type of a player is that as long as you exercise any sort of reasonable patience you will end up taking all their money. The worst is when they are down to like $6.65 and they end up winning 5-6 times in a row, run it up to double the buy-in and then insta-leave. This kills me a little on the inside when it happens.

Against a lot of the more aggro opponents that I've been playing I've been limping the button with marginal hands a lot more. This type of player was a prime candidate for this as evidenced in the 2nd hand since he played so crazy post-flop.

I've also been thinking about this idea of errors of omission vs. errors of commission. Basically, the first type of errors result from laziness, impatience, frustration, lack of thinking etc. The 2nd type of errors result from trying something and it being unsuccessful. For example - turning in homework which is incorrect would be an example of an error of commission whereas forgetting to do the homework is an error of omission. I had a soccer coach that stressed this and often pointed out the difference in the type of mistake we were making.

One is clearly better than the other.

I've been trying to apply this to poker as it applies to the win $ w/o SD red line as well as the win $ overall line. I think that someone who has a positive red line but is a break even player is making errors of commission whereas anyone with a steadily decreasing red line is making a lot of errors of omission.

For example - if you decide that you are going to call in position vs. a tight regular with 68s to their MP raise and float a variety of flops. You end up floating an ace-high board betting the turn, and then getting check/raised. This might have been a mistake for a couple of reasons not evident to you right now, but it was still an error of commission where you are actively thinking about your game and putting the other player to the test.

On the other hand, let's say that you call in position with 6d 8d and the flop comes 7s 9h Ac rainbow. The villain - a solid regular - bets and you all. The turn is an 2c. He bets 3/4 pot and you call again. Now this is an error of omission and one which is by far more egregious. You are not putting your opponent to the test, playing without the proper odds, and just playing speculative poker.

By far the biggest error of omission we have as players is tilt. Tilt manifests itself is many ways - not just the ultra-aggro way that most of us associate it with. Playing too loose, too tight, too aggressive, or too passive can all be indicative of tilt - it just depends on what your poison is. The truth is that most of us have tilted in many different ways and don't have one tilt-mode. This is why we can't always recognize that we are tilting.

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Two different mentalities ...

Date: Fri, Aug 22, 2008 Professional Internet

It's been forever since I've updated my blog and a lot has happened in my life. I'm not even sure where to start, so I guess I'll start somewhere and see where that takes me.

I've been playing 100NL. I played about 5K hands on FTP and have just not been happy with my game. Here are my stats for that period. Yes, I'm winning, but let's look at my graph.

My graph for this period:

My red line is just tanking. I feel like I was playing very poor poker during that time and while I was capitalizing on some poor players, overall this style would get torn up if I was to move up to 2/4 and above. I was winning but frustrated with my overall game. I was making a lot of mistakes. A big part of it was just my long spell without playing (due to travel, etc). It really takes it's toll. Yes, I still know all the fundamentals, but a lot of tiny bad habits start creeping back (calling too many times, playing too passive or too aggressive). There was also some tilt involved in people expoiting my poor play.

That said, I decided to start a new database and start fresh. Isn't life wonderful? It's that easy :) My PT stats are really not that much different:

I'm still playing a very similar pre-flop game, but post-flop I'm either letting go of hands early or just playing more aggressively when I have to. Thus, this new mentality is really paying off - notice the graph below:

Yes, my won $ w/o showdown is still in the negative, but I feel like I've stopped the bleeding. Now, the next steps is to pick even better spots and get it into the positive. I sat down with my friend Alex (Zaitsev on CR) whose red line pretty much goes straight up. We looked at our PT stats and they were pretty identical. Thus, the biggest difference in our game is post-flop. A lot of it comes down to:

A) Firing the 2nd barrell

B) Value betting thin on rivers

C) Finding good spots to c-bet

D) Folding on early streets

E) Finding good spots to float

We really need to come up with some good examples of this.

One thing is to just put players that we perceive to be tight/multitablers to the test:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3084746

Calling there with 66 sucks even if we are ahead on the flop. Thus our decision is either to raise or fold. Against a player that's playing really tight, raising there will show a profit. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. This is a very good board for him to c-bet, thus we expect him to c-bet this 100% of the time HU.

2. He will only continue with AK, KK, TT, 55, AhJh, AQs, and AA - which is a very narrow range compared to his UTG opening range.

3. He'll fold enough to make it +EV.

Other than that, I've gotten quite a few postcards/packages from CR members from all over the world. If you've sent me one, get in touch with me! We can schedule a coaching session or whatever else you would like to do. It's been a lot of fun reading them.

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Messing around with a high 3-bet %

Date: Fri, Jul 25, 2008 Professional Internet

So I'm currently in Poland and not playing much. This is because:

A) It would be a shame to travel to another country and spend a lot of time playing poker

B) I am on my laptop which for the most part is -EV for my game. The screen is small. The mouse is one of those touch-pad ones and my HUD display is too big. It's amazing how such little things can effect my game, but they do.

Anyhow - I decided to play a short session to test a few things out. The goal was to focus on 3-betting. Most solid players have a 3-bet percentage of around 5%. This includes JJ - AA, AQ, AK, and a few random hands that they sometimes 3-bet. I decided to go for double that and see if I could get my 3-bet % to be over 10%. I opened up 4 tables of 50NL and played for about an hour this morning on FTP:

A few interesting things came out of this. Here is the graph of the session during which I played 342 hands. Yes, it's a small sample size, but there are some trends here:

First of all, I once again started losing at the beginning as I was feeling the table out. After that, I found the people I wanted to pick on and picked on them. Notice how my red line started just shooting up after a while. I think this is all about picking your spots with c-betting, delay c-betting, pot control, and selective aggression. Of course, the crux of this is positional poker.

Anyhow - this is something that I think a lot of micro and low limit players struggle with and something that I definitely plan on continuing to empahsize and address in the "Crushing the Micros" series. I definitely will also put in a bigger sample size when I get back to the states.

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Global CR / Free Lesson

Date: Sun, Jul 20, 2008 Professional Internet

I've been thinking about how many CR members are from all over the world. So - I decided to do something fun. If you are the first person from your country to send me a letter with the following, I'll give you a free (?) one hour lesson in the format of your choice - video review, PT review, sweat, etc. Here are the items I am interested in:

1. Postcard

2. Paper Money (smallest bill possible is fine) - make sure it's in good condition.

3. A coin or two if possible

4. A few postage stamps. Make sure they are cool looking!

5. Write me something cool about the city in the country that you are from.

I'm going to start compiling all this to see how many active members all over the world CR has. If you are interested in representing your country, please send me a PM or e-mail me at pokerxc@gmail.com . I look forward to hearing from you guys!

On a personal note, I'm leaving for Poland on Tuesday and will be gone until August 5th.

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PLO

Date: Thu, Jul 17, 2008 Professional Internet

I decided to play some PLO today since I really want to get better. I played 50PL since I still suck and don't really know what I'm doing. This is a huge difference between my PLO game and my holdem game. For one, I have a much better idea of the amount of equity I have in different pots as well as lines I need to take post-flop in NLHE. In omaha I'm often lost post-flop.

I have been learning a few things. For one, I am learning to play tighter and hand select better. I played 22/14 today which is really nitty for Omaha. I am also learning to fold when I need to. I was really bad at doing all those things before. Overall, I booked a $200+ win (4 BI) while losing a coinflip (Top set of aces vs. OESD + FD).

Here is a fun hand deepstacked:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2907106

But ... the game is still very swingy so it's more of a rush than anything else. I don't really get that same feeling from hold'em. I guess that's how I used to feel when I played hold'em a few years ago.

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The 80/20 Rule

Date: Tue, Jul 15, 2008 Professional Internet

I'm working on a new series for CR called "Crushing the Micros". It's going to be an in-depth look at beating 10NL and 25NL. In order to test out some of the ideas that the series will explore I've been playing some 25NL. So I played a short session yesterday and a longer one today. Overall I won 6.8 BI's playing some very good poker. There is your standard variance involved (full house losing to quads, KK losing to AA), but as you can see, once I got a hang of some of the things going on at 25NL, I started crushing:

A couple of interesting things to notice:

1. My won $ w/o showdown continues to climb steadily. A big reason for this is my positional play + ability to control the size of the pot on early streets.

2. My positional play:

3. Yeah, it's a small sample size, but surely I'm doing some things right. It took me a while to get my bearings right, but notice what happened after I started developing an image and getting an idea of who the people I'm going to pick on are. This is so important. You have to find your fish. Once you do, this is where your effort needs to go. Don't try to tangle with the few good regulars. This is where the 80/20 rule comes in:

80/20 Rule (Pareto Principle)

This states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In business you can say that "80% of your sales comes from 20% of your clients." In poker, 80% of your profit will come from 20% of the players. So ... what does this mean? That means that 80% of your energy and focus should go into that 20% of the players once you find your "target", you really need to start poking, prodding, and trying to figure out how you are going to take their money.

Don't try to play everyone on all your tables - really focus 80% of your energy on the bad players. This is how you will crush the games.

Anyhow - I feel like the series we'll put out will be really helpful for anyone who is interested in doing well at the micro limits. There is going to be a LOT to take in, but as long as you come in with an open mind, it's bound to help out.

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Funny Hand ...

Date: Sun, Jul 6, 2008 Professional Internet

I had a funny hand in a coaching session today:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2851947

Let's outline this hand using 2+2's checkbox (tm) system:

[x] Villain flops full house with speculative hand OOP

[x] Villain improves on the turn

[x] Villain improves on the river

[ ] PLO

[ ] Villain gets paid more than minimum

I haven't played much poker in the last few days but have been watching HBO's Rome non-stop. I got through all of season 1 yesterday (12 hours of TV ... haha ... I'm a loser) because I just kept on wanting to see what happens next. A combination of being impatient and obsessive led to this. I'm on season # 2.

I love me some HBO programming on DVD.

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A letter to the 6-max grinders

Date: Fri, Jul 4, 2008 Professional Internet

Dear micro/low/mid stakes grinder:

You know that you should spend time learning and playing HU right? You've put it off for too long - like the visit to the dentist that you know you need to schedule but you keep on lying to yourself about "doing it next week". HU at the lower limits is ridiculously profitable - this is what you've heard. It's true. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. Relative hand strength is much lower - top pair is often the nuts.

2. There are just so many fish wanting to spew chips.

3. Players are either super passive or super aggressive. Learn to exploit both types and viola!

4. People tilt so hard.

There are a couple of reasons why you aren't playing HU right now:

1. You've heard that the variance is brutal. Well ... once you become a better hand reader and are able to

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The truth about poker ...

Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008 Professional Internet

See chat below. The full conversation is under the picture.

la2004: omg
la2004: u need to be killed
TheXC: why?
la2004: u are such a fcking r etARD
la2004: AND A FISH
la2004: U CALL WITH 7'S WITH 4 OVER CARDS
TheXC: poker is luck dude
la2004: U CALL WITH ACE HIGH
la2004: I HOPE U FCKING GET KNOCKED DOWN BY A TRUCK
la2004: u are a ******
la2004: and deserve to be killed
la2004: fck u and everyone around u
la2004: i hope u all rot

I would lie if I said that this didn't make me really happy :) Who says there is no interaction between people in online poker? I feel like my HU game is very good ATM. I have a few leaks here and there but overall I think I value bet well, read well, and bluff in the right spots.

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If you are a 10NL or 25NL player ...

Date: Sun, Jun 22, 2008 Professional Internet

... and are break-even over the last couple thousand hands and would like an opportunity to be part of a video series about becoming a better and tougher player player for your limit, shoot me a PM. Here are the things I'm looking for:

1. Played at least 15K hands at 10NL or 25NL - this is your main game. You are not planning to move up in the next month or so.

2. You are break-even or losing at that limit.

3. You have been using PokerTracker3 recently.

4. You play most of your hands on PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker.

5. You don't mind being in CR videos (3 - 6) and don't mind talking during this.

6. You can commit to trying out new things for the next couple of weeks.

So - if this sounds like you, shoot me a private message and you might get some free coaching/advice :) Also, send me a screenshot of your PT stats which show your VPIP, PFR, AF, and winrate.

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Grinding the lower limits (25NL - 50NL)

Date: Mon, Jun 16, 2008 Professional Internet

I've been thinking a lot recently about what it takes to beat the different levels. I've been reading some 2+2 posts about how a lot of big winners from 3 years ago are playing lower stakes right now. There are a LOT of professional 50NL - 400NL grinders. This means that not as much money is making it up to the bigger games. Thus those games are tougher. Yet there are plenty of people that beat those levels for a good winrate. They employ a certain strategy and it works for them. Most of them have pretty major leaks at their current level which better players could exploit yet since the are playing at the lower limits there are not enough people to exploit them.

I've played 50NL - 200NL in the last couple of weeks. It's crazy how different the levels are. For one, the play at 50NL was fairly transparent. I imagine that 25NL is even more so. I think it basically comes down to how the regulars play and whether you can exploit the fish. Most fish at

I think that what it takes to win at the different levels (25NL - 400NL) is a VERY different skill set. I think that playing a conservative, tight style is going be most profitable at 25NL yet not necessarily so much at 400NL. I want to play a couple thousand hands at 25NL and try to identify some of those areas. I think once I'm satisfied I will do the same thing for 50NL, 100NL, and 200NL.

Some of my initial thoughts about winning at 25NL:

1. Play quality hands - cut down on the marginal ones. Tight early, tight late. The fish and regulars will still call with worse. When you hit, get 3 streets of value - don't get cute. Have faith that people won't bluff-raise you.

2. Know how to seat and table select well. It will make a world of difference.

3. Know when to c-bet, delay c-bet, and not c-bet. Know when to slowplay and why. Basically it comes down to "why" do you do what you do? Recognize situations where you will get 2 or 3 streets of value and know what those streets are (flop and turn, turn and river, flop and river). Each is unique and has to be applied properly.

4. Identify basic leaks that the regulars have and that the fish have. Have a set of counter-strategies for those leaks. Group player types and focuse on timing tells.

5. Tailor bet sizes for specific situations. Hand reading is key here.

6. Know good situations to bluff the regulars.

I think that most people have MAJOR leaks in the areas above. That doesn't mean that they can't be winners at 50NL or even 100NL, but they are moving on w/o a good foundation. 25NL is a great place to really solidify the above. It's like taking Algebra II without really getting what Algebra 1 was all about and having teachers just pass you.

Anyhow ... that's it for now. I'm going to outline a few other things later.

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Mixing it up - getting out of a rut

Date: Thu, Jun 12, 2008 Professional Internet

So I played around 1,200 hands today. Stars during the day is just filled with regulars playing 18/14 but very aggro. For the most part I played some break-even poker for most of the morning:

Then, around hand 865 I was sweating Zaitsev for a bit and opened up a HU table. As you can see, the general trend of my line changed pretty quickly. Within a couple hundred hands I was up like 4 buy-ins. People were just playing horribly. It's crazy how much more of an edge I had there.

This got me thinking about how game selection is so crucial to your overall success in poker. When I'm playing HU vs. a bad player his/her leaks continue to compound hand after hand. I basically played vs. 2 players who left after I took their stack and another who left after I took two of his. My edge is so much smaller when I am playing vs. three or four competent regs at a 6-max table.

Some 6-max trends ...

What the hell is up with people 4-betting light? I swear - it's like everyone who has watched a CTS video is doing it these days at 100NL and 200NL. So here the player was playing something like 27/24 and I just felt like I was going to get 4-bet since I put in a positional raise on him. My thinking was "he's going to 4-bet bluff here and I'm going to shove once he does it."

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2749637

He folded really quickly, but I can't remember how often I see people fold to my 5-bet shoves. I feel like the 4-bet bluff is something people at this level feel like they need to do but don't have a good feel for.

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More on that Red Line ...

Date: Mon, Jun 9, 2008 Professional Internet

Here are my last 3K hands at 100NL:

As you can see, this is much improved from my previous play. I have made pretty big adjustments to my play and I think this recent trend reflects this. Malfaire talked a little about his experience with showdown (SD) and non-showdown (NSD) pots in his blog.

I guess the first thing I did to address this was ask myself the following question:

"What common situations do I find myself folding a lot?"

I then started thinking about lines which would re-exploit how opponents exploit my leaks. For example, a lot of people have been raising or floating my 3-bets in re-raised pots. How often do they have a hand though? So my plan here was to bet, expect to get raised, and then shove:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2733638

I expect to be good often enough to either be ahead of a draw or get a fold or have outs often enough to make this +EV. I felt like by thinking ahead I am able to really exploit some of these situations. I've working out a bunch of these other situations but that's a start ...

Basically, as Mark said above, it comes down to reading hands and player tendencies and knowing how to counter this.

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