New Perspective; Training Mental Skills

So I've had a couple of days to marinate on how to improve my leak of chasing losses during a session. I believe that this is a skill that must be drilled like any other skill in order to make it automatic. I also think that tilt control is the same thing. I used to have tilt control in tournaments, but multi-tabling cash games introduced a new dynamic and it also is a skill I must re-apply consistently. Knowing how to apply these skills and practicing the skill so that it is second nature are two different things.

So, in order to progress forward and develop these skills I will be doing the following:

1. Training myself and drilling reps making disciplined decisions outside of poker on a daily basis. Self-discipline is a mental skill that can be applied to all areas of life and I will be starting with simple things on a daily basis. So far I'm starting with not texting while driving, doing dishes when they have piled up, not adding sugar to my coffee and getting out of bed when I wake up (instead of snoozing)

2. I am only going to look at how many hands I've played (and not wins or losses) and will stop my session whether or not it is shaded green or red. Of course there will be two exceptions:

a. If the session is going exceptionally well, I will keep playing (and still not look at the results).
b. If the session is going exceptionally bad (not just running bad but if I am also not playing optimally), I will check and see how close I am to my stop loss of 3 buy-ins.

Once I improve my discipline, I will also add in a third exception:

3. If I'm playing great and there are huge fish at the tables, yet I'm shaded red. In this case, I will make sure I'm not near my stop loss. If I am, I will leave the session. If I'm not, I will continue to play BUT I will stay focused on playing optimum poker and NOT trying to get back to green. I will also not force plays against the fish in order to stack them. I will just keep playing good poker.

So basically I am putting mechanisms in place that will enable me to focus on just playing poker and not being results focused. This, along with training my own self-discipline is going to be a major positive direction in my game.

Why Can't I Just Leave the Falkdfja;kdfin Table?

I have noticed a trend now of the last 6-7 sessions. I am playing great and making great reads and then I get involved in a pot where I stack off in a marginal situation. While sometimes it is somewhat of a cooler (like KK vs. a set on a ten high board), it has also recently been when I'm jamming my chips in pre-flop with AK only to be up against AA or KK. Or I'm making a bad read vs. a tight short-stack and end up way behind. It has also been situations where I speculate in a situation where I'm out of position because "he can't always have something" and end up losing a 40-50bb pot.

So each play in a vacuum isn't the end of the world, but what is happening is that I'm letting each one get under my skin and it starts to manifest. Each small loss after that adds ever so slightly to the tilt. Next thing you know I'm down for the session.

Example from the last couple of sessions:





Chasing losses is my single number one leak. Now it's not that I start to splash around and want to see flops with any suited card or start limp/calling from out of position. I think I've gotten my C game to a point where I can still play decent and recognize situations. My problem is that I stay in the game "hoping" for some big hand to happen where I make it all back and while I am waiting, along comes a marginal situation where I convince myself that I am ahead when it's clear I'm behind. Or I know I'm behind and then I pick up a draw on the turn and because the pot is so big, I chase it anyway ignoring pot odds because I can "end the session positive".

It's really such a stupid, ego driven mentality. And I KNOW not to do it. I even have the following posted on my computer to help me re-focus if things start going bad:

--------------------------------------------------------
What's my job?

1. What range of hands does this particular player have?
2. What is the most +EV decision?

Take your time to analyze the situation, no matter what the hand is or who the player is.

Discipline.

Poker is one big session. Fight to improve when things are going bad, but if you are not playing well and are around your stop loss, just stop and live to fight another day.
---------------------------------------------------------

So obviously something has to happen. The way I see it, I have two choices:

1. Hang my head and assume I'll never be a long term winner in cash games because of this leak.

2. Step the fck up and either improve my discipline when stopping sessions or get better at dealing with adversity...or both.

See, it's not just about feeling like I want to leave a session as a winner (or at least not a loser). That desire to not lose has to go deeper than that. There is a reason WHY I am having trouble just stopping the session when I am literally saying out loud "okay, time to stop so you don't tilt off any more money". One is certainly a matter of self-discipline and training myself to just let go. But I've had down sessions before and had no problem leaving a table. And I also fully recognize that poker is one big session and it doesn't matter how you do each individual session.

I think it's that B and C game things are showing up that I often times don't let bother me. For example, I got it in with AK vs. KK, which in hindsight may have been a mistake. But either way, I didn't really let it bother me. I marked the hand so I could look at it later and went on with my session. I then started playing really well and felt like I was making progress upward. Around 11:45pm I decided to see how many hands I had played and when I refreshed Holdem Manager, I saw that my session was red (meaning negative). I was surprised and disappointed, but knew that it had to be somewhat close to even and I told myself I would play until about 12pm and, in the back of my mind, thought I could win a few more pots and would leave the session up a bit. Around 12am, I looked and I was down $50. I was a little disappointed, but still wasn't a huge deal and I told myself I should stop now and be happy that I played the session well overall. Of course, for some reason (which I still need to discover the reason in order to fix the problem) I said "just a little longer to see if I can leave up...just 100 more hands...just 15 more minutes." Well, in those 15 minutes I got caught in a marginal spot with TT and lost about $70. I played a little longer, then won back a bit, then decided to "just play a little longer" and stacked off with JJ on a ragged flop when EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING said I was behind, yet I stacked off anyway.


So...something is happening that either:

1. Makes me feel like I can't have a negative session even if it's only a few bucks(pressure to win, ego to have a pretty upward graph, etc.)

2. Makes me beat myself up over negative results (or at least making a negative EV decision)

3. Is causing me to slip into my B and C game too easily (not being fresh, letting baggage from previous sessions affect my play, perfectionism)

Okay, obviously I'm not going to find the magic answer in one blog post. I know I'm onto something and I know that it is a combination of multiple factors. I really think it has mostly to do with #3. I know how to play well and I know all of the psychological components of the game. I also think that this is just part of the learning process for me to go through when playing cash games. Maybe I'm expecting overnight results with a skill that, while I recognize that it is important, that I haven't drilled enough times where it is part of my subconscious. Those skills being to emotionally detach in cash games and the discipline to leave a session. Because I expect a lot out of myself, I am further beating myself up when I don't perform the skill and the cycle continues.

Starting the night with some kid tilt

Tonight will be a good opportunity to step up my game and focus when other stuff started tilting me. Without going into the details, when you have 3 kids under 8 years old at home and you have to put the kids to bed by yourself, it isn't always easy. I have to make 100% sure they are actually sleeping before starting my session, otherwise they will keep saying "I'm not tired, I'm scared, etc." It's all an act now and they know it but sometimes you just gotta play the game or it escalates into something worse.

At this point I think they are asleep, so I'll be starting the session a little later than normal. My goal tonight is to really focus on individual player tendencies in order to put them on a range of hands. I'm adjusting to some of the more straight forward play at .50/1, but at the same time I don't want to lose sight of those players who are thinking at another level. It's a constant game of adjustment when multi-tabling so I am going no higher than 5 tables tonight in order to fully think through the situations without feeling rushed or missing a step.

------

Wow, I started off the session feeling great. I was playing awesome and had great reads on each of the players. Then it all started to crumble...a guy called my 4bet with A5s and hit 2pr vs. my AK, QQ got sucked out on at the river by 44 after calling two streets, my set of kings got beat by JT and I didn't even see it. I value shoved the river thinking he had an Ace or two pair. My graph for the night is sad. I really tried to keep it together and managed to only make one tilty play. Obviously I ended up down for the session and now that is 3 2-3 buy-in losses in the last 4 sessions. I am fully prepared to move on from tonight and I know that variance will turn around. I did manage a couple of suckouts of my own tonight, but they were both kinda cooler situations anyway. There were a couple of questionable hands, but all in all I think I actually played great tonight. Sure, I'm disappointed in the results, but I definitely found some new fish tonight to it will all even out.

Competitiveness in Poker

Now that I'm multi-tabling cash games, a few leaks are getting exposed every once in a while when I have subtle tilt creeping in. And it is the source of the tilt that also manifests itself into the result of tilt. I figured out that what actually tilts me is just losing in general. I'm a very competitive person and I don't like to "give up". I don't like to be bluffed and I don't like losing pots.

When I played tournaments, I don't think releasing a pot wasn't as much of an issue because of the implications to my stack size. I was okay letting it go because I didn't want to risk losing a big pot and taking a hit to my stack. In cash games, I can just reload. Plus, when multi-tabling you have to make your decisions quicker so you have to not get caught up in the moment. I'm still learning to make sure I go through the steps of assigning hand ranges when 5-7 tables need my attention.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not constantly spewing chips because my ego can't handle losing a pot. It's more about specific spots against specific opponents and only when I have a little tilt setting in. I tend to not want to believe aggressive or really bad opponents and I put blinders on to the other factors in the hand. I may recognize them, but I ignore them because I don't want them beating me. For example if an aggro opponent 4bets me and I decide to 5bet shove, but I ignore that they are doing this from early position and they know that I have a good hand (yet why are they still 4betting me? Oh wait, they have KK.) Or a donkey checks and insta-calls flop and turn bets and then insta shoves the river. They are obviously drawing, so what hand is most likely that they have? 2 pair no good, why am I calling?

Well the one thing that I thought I knew, but am gaining a deeper appreciation for, is that in poker the "winning" and "losing" isn't about each individual hand. It truly is about long-term expected value on each decision. You have to look at pot odds and decide how often they have a hand that beats you and how often you are ahead and then make your decision accordingly. If you are getting 3-1 odds and you think they can be bluffing here more than 25% of the time then it's a call. Sometimes you will be right and sometimes you will be wrong. But you can't want them to be bluffing 25% of the time in order to justify a call because your ego wants to call. You have to inject logic and make a decision based on the way the hand played out and your history with that opponent. I think often times people get competitive and they justify decisions based on what they "want" the outcome to be. This is something that must be trained. I think it is part of my C-game and one of the things I will be working on is improving my C-game. I won't go into what that means too much, but I suggest watching videos from Jared Tendler on CardRunners. Basically, he says that your C-game is what shows up when you are tired, on tilt, etc. It is when you are on auto-pilot and your game is stripped down to only the aspects you don't have to think about.

Back to the concept of winning an individual hand, you can win a hand by folding and that can be a victory. When someone bets what seems to be a better hand and you fold, you can have pride in saying "nice try buddy, you aren't getting that extra $70 out of me". They may have gotten there on a draw, but what's in the pot is owned by the pot. By not calling that $70 bet, you can look at it as "winning" $70 because it's $70 you didn't lose. Or if you want to get technical about the math, let's say you figure you are only ahead 25% of the time. The $EV that you won is $70-($70*.25) = +$52.50.

Since I'm on the topics of improving my skills, something I'm learning and still need to work on is adjusting to different types of opponents on the fly while playing several tables at once. I'm still getting used to what all the HUD stats really mean in terms of interpreting someone's tendencies. I don't want to rely on them, but I also want to make sure I am making appropriate decisions when I haven't been able to observe their play. Sometimes I'll make a play based on stacks & bet-sizing but I have no reads and the play will be wrong because it didn't make sense for that particular person.

So moving forward, my goal is to do what I did last night and only play 5 tables so that I can focus on making reads and assigning hand ranges. This will help me interpret HUD stats better and just overall tendencies in cash games. As I make it second nature, I will start adding more tables. And now that I'm aware of my competitiveness being a leak, I can start identifying spots where it takes over and becomes something that affects my $EV.

Rough Session

Starting the night having trouble folding big hands. QQ on a 9 high board vs. a set of 9s was kind of a cooler based on the way the hand went down. But in another hand I turned a flush on a paired board where I was sure no one had a set, then when the T hit the river and I got raised big I was sure I was beat but there were literally only two hands that could beat me, a king high flush or TT and I called and was shown TT...he knew I had a flush so he could only raise with a hand that beats me...i justified the call thinking he could have a smaller flush.

Other than that, my flopped nut straight got in a 3way all in when a set hit quads, a super donk made 2 pair vs. my QQ for a stacked off pot and there were a few other all in pots vs. short stacks where they tripped up against my top pair.

I did my best to control tilt and after being down about 4 buy-ins (I was down 3.5 in about an hour), I took a break. I had originally decided that I should have a stop loss at 2 buy-ins but a few of the tables were really juicy and I didn't think I was playing bad. After the break, I was doing okay but I really felt like tilt was creeping in and it was affecting me in that I basically stopped 3 betting and I was being a little passive. Then after realizing this, I got TT in a 4 or 5 handed table and I 3bet the button. He had really tight stats and playing back at the nits was something I have been trying to work on...well, when he 4 bet me the tilt affect set in and I justified the fact that we were short-handed to shove it in. Honestly, I don't know if it was good or bad, but he's a nit so he has a real hand. A new table popped up and I noticed he snapped me off with JJ...luckily when I came back to the table there was a T on the flop. I knew then that it was time to stop the session. I made it back to around a 2 buy in loss, but I wasn't happy about how I got there.

Overall tonight was kind of a train wreck. I mean there were a few good hands and I think for the most part I controlled tilt early on, but then the suckouts kept happening and even though I wasn't going on monkey tilt and bluffing off my stack, I wasn't playing my best. Once again, I am not focusing on individual sessions. I care about the long run and making +EV decisions. This session was a tough one after running and playing good for the last 4. I'm going to call it a night and review some hands tomorrow to see if I could have gotten away from a few of the big ones and even a few where I could have made more. I think I still sometimes let my tournament experience influence me and I assume people are going to stack off with crap. In cash games, it seems like if someone is getting it in they have the goods (at least at .50/1). Maybe not everyone, but definitely the regs.

Stop trying to outplay the regs

Somehow regs always have something when they call the check-raise. Don't 3 barrel them because their hand has high value. They are playing 20+ tables and aren't calling to try and outplay you.

Not sure why I even called in this hand...horrible spew. I think I looked at his stats and wanted to outplay him since he had a high aggression factor..dumb.

***** Hand History for Game 42393791309 ***** (Poker Stars)
$100.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, April 08, 11:21:05 ET 2010
Table Aten V (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Seat 1: DP388 ( $119.00 USD )
Seat 2: Wakegod ( $100.00 USD )
Seat 3: outside_lol ( $113.40 USD )
Seat 4: AcEsUp8599 ( $267.55 USD )
Seat 5: malik089 ( $217.10 USD )
Seat 6: alan333 ( $104.25 USD )
Seat 7: DannyOhBoy ( $122.80 USD )
Seat 9: Prooxy ( $101.50 USD )
Prooxy posts small blind [$0.50 USD].
DP388 posts big blind [$1.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to DP388 [ Td Js ]
Wakegod folds
outside_lol folds
AcEsUp8599 folds
malik089 raises [$3.00 USD]
alan333 folds
DannyOhBoy folds
Prooxy folds
DP388 calls [$2.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4h, Qh, 8s ]
DP388 checks
malik089 bets [$4.00 USD]
DP388 raises [$12.00 USD]
malik089 calls [$8.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3c ]
DP388 bets [$17.00 USD]
malik089 calls [$17.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 7c ]
DP388 bets [$37.00 USD]
malik089 calls [$37.00 USD]
DP388 shows [Td, Js ]
malik089 shows [Ac, Ah ]
malik089 wins $135.50 USD from main pot

Gave up on this one since I just knew...Definitely not profitable vs. someone running 12/8/1.4.

PokerStars Game #42393036664: Hold'em No Limit ($0.50/$1.00 USD) - 2010/04/08 22:53:41 ET
Table 'Aten V' 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: DP388 ($100.50 in chips)
Seat 2: cocxiphe ($188.50 in chips)
Seat 3: outside_lol ($100 in chips)
Seat 4: AcEsUp8599 ($281.10 in chips)
Seat 5: malik089 ($114.95 in chips)
Seat 6: alan333 ($105.05 in chips)
Seat 7: DannyOhBoy ($103.25 in chips)
Seat 8: TitFed219 ($100 in chips)
Seat 9: gappo2009 ($101 in chips)
DP388: posts small blind $0.50
cocxiphe: posts big blind $1
TitFed219: posts small & big blinds $1.50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DP388 [6s 6c]
outside_lol: folds
AcEsUp8599: folds
malik089: folds
alan333: folds
DannyOhBoy: raises $4 to $5
TitFed219: folds
gappo2009: folds
DP388: calls $4.50
cocxiphe: folds
*** FLOP *** [8d 8h Ts]
DP388: checks
DannyOhBoy: bets $7
DP388: raises $12 to $19
DannyOhBoy: calls $12
*** TURN *** [8d 8h Ts] [Qd]
DP388: checks
DannyOhBoy: checks
*** RIVER *** [8d 8h Ts Qd] [Jc]
DP388: checks
DannyOhBoy: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DP388: shows [6s 6c] (two pair, Eights and Sixes)
DannyOhBoy: shows [Th Jd] (two pair, Jacks and Tens)
DannyOhBoy collected $48.05 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $50.50 | Rake $2.45
Board [8d 8h Ts Qd Jc]
Seat 1: DP388 (small blind) showed [6s 6c] and lost with two pair, Eights and Sixes
Seat 2: cocxiphe (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: outside_lol folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: AcEsUp8599 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: malik089 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: alan333 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: DannyOhBoy showed [Th Jd] and won ($48.05) with two pair, Jacks and Tens
Seat 8: TitFed219 folded before Flop
Seat 9: gappo2009 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)


Other than those, I had a decent night. A lot of ups and downs. Got AA and KK cracked for full stacks and managed to end the night up getting spewy players to shove into my nuts. Part of it had to do with better table selection. I download a cool tool called TableScan Turbo and I'm using it to score certain things about tables to pick the best ones.

Started a little rough, made some adjustments & then ran good

Good session tonight overall. I lost a few chips in marginal spots where I got feisty and didn't commit to the river on a couple bluffs or hands where I was either way behind or way ahead. It was mostly in pots vs. aggressive regs or people I didn't have enough hands on. I did really well with that last session so made a mid session adjustment and corrected that leak. I just gotta work on not taking 3bets personally.

I'm a big fan of a new move...donk lead the flop with a big hand then check raise the turn. It's a lot of fun and puts more money in the pot. There are times when check/calling the turn might be better but if I'm playing an ego player it's a great move when they look me up.

I'm also getting better at playing big hands fast on flop in order to get more money in the pot.

There were a few pots where I jammed the river and I felt like I could have check the river and gotten them to bluff shove. One was a 44KKx board when I had AK. There was a lot of money in the pot and I thought the guy was committed, but really what would he call me with there other than another K or quads. I should have gave him a chance to turn his hand into a bluff with the way I played the other streets.

Overall I am really liking cash games and multitabling. You almost always have a hand to play and I love having lots of stats on my play to use for improving my game.

Focused Session

Goal for the night: Think through situations fully

Fully = what are his stats, position, history, other factors

Mid Session note: One thing I am doing tonight is resisting the temptations to make moves or fancy plays without solid reads or enough hands on someone...or making big moves against hyper-aggressive players without confident reads or outs.

Post Session notes: Tonight was a great session. Not only did I run good (which obviously helps), I was able to pick much better spots than I have in the past. I was also able to maximize my winnings with my big hands and minimize my losses when behind. I felt like I had great reads, even though I was 6 tabling for most of the night. I was in tune with game flow and it really paid off.

Session stats:
3.63 hrs
1026 hands
VPIP 17.5
PFR 12.5
3bet 7.0
Agg Factor 2.91

Overall my stats are much lower than I thought they would be, but they are roughly in line with how I have been playing. I'll do a deeper analysis and figure out ways to up this a bit without becoming too obvious and having to deal with more 3bets. I'm surprised my 3bet stat is so big, but I think it more had to do with running well. I'm usually between 5 and 6.

As usual, I'm not posting bb/100 or $ won since I am not focusing on each session. But we'll just say I had a good night.

Tilt Prevention & a Rough Night

The session has started pretty rough and I feel like I'm starting to misfire a bit. I'm going to use this as an opportunity to learn how to overcome and prevent tilt during a session. I am going to dig deep and focus on not doing the things I've notice happen when I tilt:

1. Force pots
2. Lose sight of reads and put blinders on
3. Ignore reads and "hope" they fold, don't bet, etc.
4. Speculate out of position
5. Call on draws hoping to hit instead of putting them on a hand and being aggressive when it makes sense
6. Tighten up afraid of trusting my reads because I might lose a big pot
7. Involve my ego in decisions facing bets/raises

For now, I am going to tighten up just a bit and re-focus on asking the questions "what do they have" and "what do they think I have".

----

Well, I stayed cool until the end when QQ got sucked out by JJ on the turn for a buy-in. Tonight was rough...like really rough. I don't even know where to begin. Suckouts, bluffs not working, not laying down big hands when I know I'm beat, etc. For the most part I don't feel like I played that bad, but I had everything not go my way. I certainly lost more pots than I won and the ones I lost were sizeable. After the QQ suckout, I took a break and looked at my session stats to see if I should stop the bleeding early tonight. To my shock, I was down $363.15! I figured I was close to 2 buy-ins, but I had no idea it was over three. I know from past experiences that putting in a stop loss now is not even an option. As much as I may want to try and at least make it a respectable night, playing now will only lead to disaster. If poker is just one big session, I can pick a better spot and play another time. I'm still making progress forward and I knew I would take some steps backward, but I didn't know it would be this big. I've still only played 7 sessions and 5433 hands, so it's way early. I'll just stop for the night and keep grinding on.

Great Session Tonight

I don't even know my stats or my results for the night, but I know I had a good night. I felt confident in my plays and made some big laydowns. I extracted from the fish and got aggressive players to fall into my traps.

Now it's not like I ran incredible, but I felt like I played well. As far as plugging leaks go, I made a conscious effort to open up my game a bit from early position and focused on not going crazy with double and triple barrels without a confident read.

I really only had one hand that I didn't play well and I'll go ahead and put it out there as a reminder of what not to do. The villain in this hand is very aggressive and 3bets a lot. See my analysis below.


PokerStars Game #42058954499: Hold'em No Limit ($0.50/$1.00 USD) - 2010/04/01 22:46:06 ET
Table 'Nata' 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: DidYouSeeWHy ($100 in chips)
Seat 2: mydodi ($138.30 in chips)
Seat 5: RudiTurbo ($102.20 in chips)
Seat 6: NYIsles_fcp ($100 in chips)
Seat 7: booger369 ($116.55 in chips)
Seat 8: Porkie Pine ($94.55 in chips)
Seat 9: DP388 ($119.60 in chips)
DidYouSeeWHy: posts small blind $0.50
mydodi: posts big blind $1
xpjsx: sits out
JuantotheC: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DP388 [Kc Jc]
RudiTurbo: folds
NYIsles_fcp: folds
booger369: folds
Porkie Pine: folds
DP388: raises $2 to $3
DidYouSeeWHy: raises $8 to $11
mydodi: folds
DP388: raises $16 to $27
DidYouSeeWHy: calls $16
*** FLOP *** [Qd 5h Td]
DidYouSeeWHy: checks
DP388: checks
*** TURN *** [Qd 5h Td] [Qh]
DidYouSeeWHy: checks
DP388: checks
*** RIVER *** [Qd 5h Td Qh] [3h]
DidYouSeeWHy: checks
DP388: bets $24
DidYouSeeWHy: calls $24
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DP388: shows [Kc Jc] (a pair of Queens)
DidYouSeeWHy: shows [Jd Js] (two pair, Queens and Jacks)


I felt like my 4 bet in this spot was good. When he flats my 4bet I know he has a good hand. I feel like I can put him on a finite range of TT-AA. I think he folds or shoves 88-99 and he likely shoves AK. I feel like he's either trapping me or wants to see the flop texture before deciding what to do. I don't think I've 4bet at all, so he probably doesn't put me on a super wide range. When he calls, and this board comes Q5T, this hits two sets in his range. I also think JJ will call a c-bet and based on his range I'm not ready to go all the way here. I think my check is good because it gives me a free card to the straight where I can stack him. On the turn, this isn't a good card for me because it now becomes very hard to rep anything. If I had a big pair, wouldn't I have bet the flop for value? If I had AQ wouldn't I have bet? Even if I was being tricky with AQ, it is hard for him to put me on a single hand. So the river comes and I just didn't want to give up the pot. I knew it was wrong but I bet anyway. What am I representing here? One leak I need to work on is when I'm about to bet, if I am cringing "hoping" it will work, then it probably a bad bet. I was able to correct this in future hands tonight, but it wasn't like I stopped being aggressive. I had a few successful double barrels and 1-2 3 barrels.

Understanding My Stats

I finally started really trying to understand the stats that are compiled by Hold'em Manager. I had some hunches, but it is really eye opening. I only have about 4,000 hands in there (I would have more but my computer recently crashed and I lost some data), but it's enough to start noticing tendencies that I can work on.

I am basing this on some articles written in the HEM program that are based on a study of 5,000 different players and how their stats in certain situations relate to their overall win rate at bb/100 hands.

Without going through every stat, these are the ones that I need to work on:

Turn Cbet% - As a former nit, you would think my % would be too low, but it's actually too high. This is one of the few stats where if you are too aggressive, it will cost you money. The highest win rate is with a turn bet % of between 40.8 - 45.3%. At 51.6% and above it's actually a negative win rate. My rate is 51.1. I think what is happening is that I'm getting slow played a lot and I'm just blind betting the turn hoping to get a fold instead of really looking at board texture and player tendencies.

Fold to Flop Cbet% - When I'm in a hand, I like to be in control. If I wasn't the pre-flop raiser I'm often not giving a lot of resistance in the hand. Now that I'm seeing this stat, I realize that I'm not raising c-bets or floating enough. The ideal rate is 56.8 - 61.7%. Once you are folding more than 61.7% it's a steep drop in win rate. But it also drops when you are pushing back too much (folding less than 56.7%). I've been folding 63.1% of the time. So basically, I need to pick a few more spots to raise c-bets on boards where it was unlikely to hit my opponent or if they fear that it hit me.

Position - HEM lets you see what your stats are based on %. As a quick summary of ways it looks like I can improve, I need to find ways to lose less in the small & big blinds. I'm not exactly sure why I'm losing as much as I am, but I suspect it is in big pots where I've 3bet light and double & triple barrel too often. What's crazy though is that I'm running 98.94bb/100 hands on the button and 1.14/100 hands in the cut-off. I'll have to find out why I'm not winning as much in the cut-off.

Another thing that is interesting is that my VPIP and PFR stats in early position are really low. To me that means that I am not stealing from early position enough and it probably explains why when I do get big hands in early position that I'm not getting much action. It doesn't mean I need to go crazy, but I definitely need to open up a bit. I could bump it up from middle position as well. Upping both of these stats will also increase my overall VPIP/PFR stats to be a little more on the aggressive side and should increase my win rate.