WSOP Recap - Now What?

Just got back from my week long trip to Vegas and I'm re-adjusting to my "normal" life. It's funny how you can play poker for 7 days straight and essentially feel like you are playing for a living and then, wham!, back to life.

If you've read any of the previous posts, you already know that I didn't get my bracelet yet. Am I disappointed? Of course. But I knew going into it that I hadn't put nearly the volume in to make it a statistically realistic goal. I've played a total of 5 WSOP events with two cashes. These are gigantic fields, so in order to win I would need to not only play my best, but also run great too.

I still have big goals for myself and still plan on winning a bracelet as well as a Circuit ring, but now is probably a good time to just chill and work on my bankroll beating the local scene. I'm gonna let the next week or so just kind of happen without setting any new goals. I need a period of time where I just play poker without any sort of extra pressure on myself. No bankroll goals, no anything. Just play, have fun and keep improving my game.

Right now I need to find a good 1/2 game and build up my roll so I'm comfortable playing 2/5. I'm certainly not worried about a skill jump at 2/5. In fact I'm sure I could crush 5/10 games. But I'm still a bit bankroll deficient and I don't want the risk of loss to affect my game. I'll also get myself on a regular schedule playing the legion tournaments. I still don't like the extra charity rake, but they improved the structure so it makes up for it a bit.

I'm also going to put together my own short tournament series. This is really where I'd have the most equity. It would be deep structures, no rake and bankroll friendly. Without online poker, I can't play $20 and $30 tournaments, but a smaller field $50 rebuy or $100 freeze out is good for now.

So the plan for now, is to not really have much of a plan. I'm just gonna let things come to me and see what happens.

The Bracelet Still Eludes

Well, I gave it a valiant effort but came short busting out of the $1,500 WSOP event #38. I started out great chipping up from 4,500 to about 11,000 in the first two blinds levels. I took some hits during the next two levels running my pocket pairs into boards of A9x and K9x, only to c-bet and fold to a raise...both times they showed a set of 9s. I then raise AJ and one of the same guys calls me and checks back a flop of QJTx, the turn is a blank, I bet and he calls. River is a scary card and we both check..he has KQ. Next thing you know I'm back to like 7,000 and go pretty card dead.

I guess looking back, maybe I could have changed gears and gotten super aggro with trash cards but these are hour long blind levels and the beginning has no antes. I also had a very good and aggressive Costa Rican to my left so I didn't feel this strategy made a lot of sense. Unfortunately I pretty much stalled the rest of the day but was able to hover between 15-20bb. Blinds went up and I finally was at 10bb when a player opened under the gun. He was somewhat active and he's someone that has had some TV success. I know his utg range is somewhat narrow but you could tell he was starting to get frustrated being card dead as well. I look down at 99 and decide that while he certainly can have TT+, he can also have AJ, AQ, AK, 77, 88. He may also open KQs and I would think he might mix in some suited connectors every once in a while. So I shove and of course he has AA. GG me. Busted about 400 out of 2190.

So that sucked. I was certainly disappointed, but I don't regret the decisions I made. I adjusted to each table and my chip stack. Tournament poker has crazy variance and I sometimes wonder why I like it better than cash games...but I do. And winning a bracelet is still a goal of mine and something I plan on achieving. I'm going to finish out my trip with a Venetian Deep Stacked event that will hopefully make me push back my flight one day. I'm just as motivated as ever to keep improving and taking down some big tournaments.

Nasty Tuesday

I started the day excited and focused. I jumped into a single table satellite and played great. We agreed to give 3rd place their buy-in back and ended up in 3 coolers...KK vs. AA then AJ vs. AK 3 handed. I still had chips and played short stack ninja and then shoved AJ only to have the BB wake up with AQ.

I then played a daily $235 tournament at the Rio that ended up getting about 900 entrants. It started out well and then went down hill quickly. I lost pot after pot and finally got in a 3 way all in with AK and bricked out. Despite the quick evaporation of my chips, I feel really positive about all my decisions other than one weird hand where I turned my set of 5s into a bluff (I know it sounds weird, but it was the only way I was gonna win the pot... and it almost worked...almost).

At this point I was still feeling great and the lack of winning pots wasn't getting me down. I then decided to play the $185 nightly at the Rio. I started off playing well and ended up chipping up in a weird pot where I squeezed with AK and the middle guy called for half his stack with 79os and tank/called my shove on J89. I binked a K on the turn and had about 60bb. BUT...then I made a big mistake in a pot in a spot that I know better but couldn't let go of the bluff. Without going into the details, I was in the small blind and raised a brand new player to the table who limped in. I then double barrel bluffed half my stack and folded when he shoved the turn. Based on how the day had went, you would think I'd be tilty at this point but I recovered. I then raised QQ, got two callers A on the flop, K on the turn...ugh. After another orbit now I'm down to 8bb and went into short-stack ninja mode. I picked my spots and got myself back to about 18bb. I then got KK under the gun (exciting huh?) and raised. The player next to me who was pretty tight re-raised. I jam and of course he has AA. King on the flop....and guess what...A on the river.

So overall the day started well and got kinda nasty. I really only made two mistakes with one of them I regret. The main reason I regret it is that I didn't listen to my gut. I've been trusting my instinct all trip so far and this is the first time I ignored it. It's a good reminder and it's not a mistake I'll be making again.

Tomorrow is the $1,500 WSOP bracelet event and I am ready to take it down. I've been working hard on my game and feel confident. 5 years ago I set a goal to win a bracelet by 2011 and I'm going to make it happen.

Some Fun Hands in Vegas

So my last post talked about some good laydowns that I made. Let's talk more about some of the hands I won. Here are a few fun ones.

Position, Position, Position - Blinds are 100/200 and I have about 28,000 in chips. Two players limp and I have K9s in the cutoff. I will often raise here to isolate the limpers but my image was somewhat aggressive already so I decided to switch it up a bit. The button folds and the small blind (who I had previously noticed staring someone down hard in a spot that looked like a bluff), stares at me and makes it 1,000. The limpers fold and while I at first thought about folding because "he probably has a better hand", I took a few seconds to think about the situation. I have position with a hand that can flop reasonably well and I can easily get away from top pair with a ton of action if needed. So I decide that instead of playing scared money, that I would see a flop and play some poker. The flop is Kxx and he insta-leads 2k into 2,500. I look at him and his eyes are HUGE, like an owl at night. His bet sizing and his staring is telling me to go away. So I'm pretty confident my king is good here. If he had AA or a better king, he wouldn't be betting so much. So I decide to call. Raising will get all worse hands to fold and better hands to call, so I elect to flat and hope to get value on later streets if he has a pocket pair under the King. The turn brings a second spade (which is beautiful) and he checks as expected. No reason to bet here because it's pretty obvious he doesn't have a King. I check and the turn is a blank. He checks and I bet 3k into the 6,500 pot hoping to get a hero call from QQ but he folds. He probably had something like AQ. But the moral of the story is that having position can outweigh the concept of him "having better hands in his range". It's more about the situation, having position and then considering that my cards have decent equity vs. his range (despite being behind).

Weak Bets from Weak Opponents Usually Mean Weakness - At 150/300 + 25 there are two limpers and I open AJos on the button and get flatted by an older Asian guy in the small blind who liked to see flops. This drug along the limpers and the flop came KdQd4s. There is 5050 in the pot, the Asian guy checks dark and it checks around to me. I could c-bet here, but the flop is somewhat coordinated and often times leading into 3 players here will lose money in the long run so I decide to peel off a free card to try and bink a ten. The turn is a Q and the Asian guy leads for 600. So this seems kinda weird. Yes he checked dark, but if he had a K or Q he wouldn't bet so small into 3 others. I decided that calling was best here because if he had a hand like KQ or 44 for a full house, he would bet the river and I would know where I stood if I hit a Ten or an Ace. The river brought a third diamond on board and he checks. Now I'm confident that he was weak and was just taking a small stab at the pot. This diamond was a great card because now I can represent a wide range of scary cards and get him to fold. There are times that Ace high might be good here, but I think betting is better in case he does have a King or maybe a pocket pair. There was 6,250 in the pot and I bet 3,500 to make it enough to get a fold but also look like it was for value. He folded and I took down a nice sized pot.

The Importance of Breathing - This isn't really a hand per se and could probably be it's own blog post. But for now I'm just going to comment on what I'm seeing is something that is really important (at least to me). Breathing brings oxygen to the brain, slows your heart rate and also relaxes your muscles and blood vessels. All of these physiological effects allow you think clearly and logically, limiting emotion or fear from influencing your decisions. I'm getting myself into the habit of exhaling slowly and then thinking about the situation before I look at my cards. I will also take this same ritual before deciding what line I'm going to take and how much I'm going to bet. I've mostly done this before, but there are times where I've played and subconsciously had my mouth closed and thus holding my breath during a hand. This can sometimes be a whole session of being tense and getting into auto-pilot, leading to impatience (which feeds the cycle of being tense). You will often times see the high stakes players with their mouth's open during a hand. They are in the zone and probably aren't really thinking about how they look. But they are relaxed and focused. Oxygen is flowing and because they aren't tense, blood can flow freely to bring that oxygen to their brains. This is something that has to be natural of course. You can't really "fake" being relaxed. But if you are conscious about breathing, the rest of your body tends to follow suit.

WSOP Trip Update

It's Monday night in Vegas and I've been here for 2 1/2 days now. So far the trip is going well and I'm playing good poker. Here's a quick run down of how things have gone:

Saturday Night - Played MGM $80 nightly as a warm up and had a great first table where I was running over things and even successfully raised blind two hands in a row. I got moved and on the very first hand, I got it all in pre-flop with KK vs. 88 and and 8 hit the flop. I was down to 10bb and got knocked out a few orbits later. Oh well, shit happens.

Sunday - Played my first WSOP event of the year. I set a goal for myself 5 years ago to win a WSOP bracelet and this was my first shot. I went in to the event very confident and had a good table where I had a good read on how to beat everyone. Things were going well until I had to make a bunch of good laydowns. I kind of stalled and next thing you know I'm short stacked and I shove AK and lose a race to JJ. I obviously didn't like busting out, but I was fine with it as I feel I didn't pass up spots and made good decisions.

Sunday Night - Played the nightly $110 at Caesar's Palace and ended up winning it! We chopped it 4 ways, but I was the chip leader and got a little extra. There was a little over 100 players so that was good for $1,800. I played patient and finally got a double up that gave me enough chips to start running over the table. I abused the bubble and it felt great.

Monday - I decided to play the $120 Mega Stack event at Caesar's which ended up getting 680 players. It's a deep stacked event and I started off playing great and chipped up to about 35,000 from the initial 15,000 starting stack. I lost a pot with TT and was down a bit to about 31,500 and then had to make a big laydown with QQ. Two limpers and I raise QQ in the small blind. The big blind (who was a pretty tight player) calls, first limper folds and the button calls. The flop is a nice J45 rainbow. I bet, the bb calls and the button then raises. Normally you'd be happy to get it in with QQ here, but both of the players in the hand were tight old guys who were not capable of bluffing in a spot like this. I ended up folding and the button finally told me he had J5s! WTF? Either way, I'm happy I made a good decision and folded still having a decent stack. BUT...I then stalled and was in shove mode and lost JTs vs. AK. Again, I am very happy with my decisions and wouldn't change a thing about how I played.

Monday Night - The plan was to take a break from the pressure of escalating blinds and just grind out a cash session. We got to the Venetian and the first hand I play is AA. Once again I get into a spot where I have to fold an over pair. Long story short is an older guy donk leads into me on an KsQc8s board, I raise and someone else behind me shoves all in. Based on the strength showed in the hand before he acted, this was very likely a big hand and AA was no good. So again I show discipline and make what I think is a good laydown. This is probably the 5th or 6th big laydown I've had to make with top pair or an over pair. Unfortunately this time the guy shows....Js5s!!! What is it with J5? Regardless, I'm still happy with the fold and think I'm behind there enough where calling will be a losing play in the long run.

So that's where I am so far. I'm playing well and had a good result with the one win. I'm having to make some pretty tough laydowns, but I'm a good enough player to be able to make them. I am very confident that these are not spots where I'm nitting up and folding to pressure. My reads on these players were good and I was not folding because I was scared of losing a big pot or getting knocked out.

There's a lot of poker left to be played and I'm pumped to really win something big. I've played poker for 7 years now and it's my time to shine. It's my time to take it to the next level and accomplish the things I've been working my ass off for. I know that luck will prevail in the short-run and I have been a profitable player since I've been playing. But it's time for me to win something substantial. I have the confidence that I can do it and I'm ready. My next post will be celebrating a big win.

Training Camp Update

So I've started my "training camp" and I've stuck to the plan so far. I've actually added more playing to it. Because I've been laid up in bed, I've been able to put a lot of hands in online. My concentration level isn't one where I can 8 table, but I started at one and comfortably built up to 3. Playing on percoset isn't all that bad.

Again, part of training camp is building up the mental and emotional endurance required for playing poker for days on end at the series. This is an important part of the training process and I'm actually kinda lucky I had surgery so I could do this. Toward the end of yesterday's daytime session, I realized I was starting to tilt a bit. So after a rough day of beats and coolers, I took a break yesterday around 5pm, focused on some other things and came back strong for the night.

Things started off great and I was really zoned in on the game flow and tendencies of the other players. I was making good reads and chipping up nice. I ended up building a top 5 stack as we got to the middle and late stages of one tournament and I was cruising near the bubble. But then it all came crashing down in one hand. One thing I discovered last night was that I still need to work on some emotional aspects of losing control in certain situations. Maybe I got a bit cocky or felt like I was invincible, but as this hand progressed things got out of control quickly and I lost focus on the other players in the hand.

We're down to about 23 (paying 20 but I wasn't really focused on that) and the chip leader to my right raised. I had TT on the button and 3bet and then the BB who only had a bit more, shoved. I didn't really fathom the big stack being in the pot, so when he called and it came to me, I was a bit thrown off. The shove was less than a min raise, so I couldn't isolate and we took a flop of 8d3d5c. The big stack checked and here's where my first mistake happened...I didn't take the time to really think through the situation and assign him a range of hands. I felt like he would have iso'd with JJ+ so I just threw in a 1/2 pot bet assuming he would just fold and I'd iso the short stack. But...he called. This completely threw me off. As I'm trying to figure out what he has, the Td is put out there and he insta-shoved. I got caught up in the moment, and just said "I don't know what you have buddy, but I have a set and I'm not folding". Of course he turns over Ad9d and I'm drawing to 10 outs. I don't get there and in one fowl swoop, I'm out. WTF?

So now it's the day after and I'm trying to figure out what the hell happened. Would I have called in a non-ego driven, emotional state? Not sure. If I had been calm and focused, I would have realized that I needed 3.5-1 to draw to a boat/quads and I was only getting 3-1. I would have logically realized that the ONLY thing he can have here is a flush. This is not a bluff or semi-bluff in this situation and my set of Tens are beat. I know it's easy to say this after the fact, but in this situation it's true. If he had a lower set that was slow playing, he would have checked it down...or at least thought for a bit before shoving. It was like he had shoved before I had a chance to process anything and I didnt' take any time to think about it. So...the question is why?

Yeah, I put a lot of pressure on myself and I take pride in making good decisions. I know this is a blessing and a curse. But I'm glad this happened during "training camp" so I can keep getting better and improving my game in these spots. There is a blog post I wrote almost 5 years ago called "Reset Your Mind for the End Game" and it talks about this very situation. Basically, I had a rough initial part of the day so winning something meant more than it should. I wanted to validate my skills and prove that the morning was just variance (which by itself is flawed thinking). So when I had this big stack and was very comfortable at the table, I may have let my guard down a bit and assumed nothing bad could happen to me. When this hand started to unravel and even on the flop, I wasn't completely focused and I just assumed any bet would take it down. I really didn't think about proper bet sizing for the situation. I just mashed the 1/2 pot button and gave him reverse implied odds to draw. And while my blow up happened on the turn, where I really could have prevented the hand from going the way it did was pre-flop. When I saw the TT, I should have taken a bit more time to analyze the situation and more importantly, had my guard ready. I just assumed he had nothing and my re-steal would take it down. I needed to be mentally prepared for all possible situations instead of being cocky. You have to be prepared for anything in poker and my shortsightedness cost me my stack. It's important to remember, no matter how long you have been playing or concentrating for, that the END GAME is when you need to step it up a notch. It's fine to feel confident, but not so confident that you aren't taking the time to fully think through each situation.

Okay, that's my rant for today. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself and I know my expectations are high. I'm not really "mad" at myself per se, but I want to learn and be prepared for future situations like this when the stakes are higher. The more I'm in these situations the more I can be comfortable in them.

WSOP Training Camp

My WSOP plans are finalized for this year and I'll be playing in a $1k on Sunday June 19th and a $1,500 on June 22nd. Each year I've written a blog post that is more of a mental prep for the trip, but this year I'm thinking about things a little differently. I'm going to treat these next 2 weeks as a "training camp" as if I was an athlete peaking for competition.

So what will be involved in my peaking routine? Here are the skills I need to hone & sharpen:

1. Accurate reading skills and assigning hand ranges
2. Mental & emotional endurance
3. Confidence
4. Acting on my reads

How will I train and peak these skills?

1. Play only Hold'em tournaments
2. Hand history reviews and equity calculations
3. 1/2 hour daily 2+2 forum reviews
4. 1 hour of video reviews
5. Finish 2 additional advanced videos for Pokerology
6. Reduce coffee intake and focus on longer work sessions throughout the day not relying on external energy sources

Mon June 6 - Review HHs on 2+2, Play online tournaments

Tues June 7 - HH reviews & EV calcs, Make 1 new pokerology video

Wed June 8 - Surgery - likely no activity except possibly watching videos and/or 2+2 late

Thur June 9 - Post Surgery recovery - watch videos and read 2+2 threads

Fri June 10 - Post Surgery recovery - watch videos and read 2+2 threads; play online (tbd)

Sat June 11 - HH reviews, 2+2 Threads, play online, watch videos

Sun June 12 - HH reviews & EV calcs

Mon June 13 - Read 2+2 threads, play online (OR play Legion Tournament)

Tues June 14 -Make Pokerology video

Wed June 15 - Watch videos, read 2+2 threads, Play online

Thur June 16 - Wrestling meeting

Fri June 17 - Rest

Sat June 18 - Leave for Vegas!

Live Cash Update

Just a quick update from Saturday night. The house agreed to buy my action, but it turned out to not be necessary. They didn't have enough for a separate 2/5 table so we ended up playing a 1/2 game with a round of Hold'em, PLO and PLO8. It's funny though. The table hated when the Hold'em round came because they know that's my game. In 3 out of the first 4 orbits of Hold'em, I raised the first hand each time and of course they are all like, "ugh...back to Omaha please". It turned out to be a good night though. I felt a bit more comfortable with Omaha and made some better decisions. I crushed it in Hold'em though and took down a gigantic pot when someone misplayed their set vs. my flush draw and we got stacks in on the turn.

I bought an Omaha book and plan on putting some effort into gaining an edge in that as well. Hopefully they will run two tables next week though, as I need to stick with Hold'em since the WSOP is coming up. I'll have a pre-WSOP blog post coming soon.

Limited live options

So I put some $$ on Carbon Poker and last week more poker sites were shut down. Doyle's Room shared the same payment processor of some sports betting sites and then Carbon announced they were not allowing players in New York, Maryland, Missouri and France (huh?). New York was the state that busted Full Tilt and Stars and Maryland busted Doyle's Room.

So...I'm probably going to cash out of Carbon now. So frustrating!!! This basically means I'm limited to live play. So my options are:

1. Play the high rake/fast structure legion tournaments
2. Start running games on a regular schedule
3. Play more live cash

I'll probably do some combination of all three, but #3 is tough because the people that I know that run games, typically run mixed games OR want to start running 2/5 games. Trust me, I would LOVE to play 2/5 games because I feel I have a great edge and can make some good money playing. The only problem is bankroll. It's funny because most people that play around town wouldn't even understand the concept of having a separate poker bankroll. They might use the word, but they don't actually manage a separate poker bankroll.

For me, managing my bankroll is very important. I'm still at a point with my business where I'm certainly not rich and I can't replenish my roll with ease. Keeping my poker money separate from my life money has been something I've been proud of as I never want poker to interfere with my family's financial well being. So now I have a dilemma. Many of the cash games have moved to 2/5 and I don't know anyone who runs a 1/2 game. I'm sure they are out there, but I would need to be invited. I would personally rather play with people I know. Of course, I'm sure at any given game I would probably know someone, but I guess I'm a bit uncomfortable with seeking out a game.

The other thing is that I'm a little embarrassed that I'm not rolled for 2/5. I really shouldn't be since MY definition of being rolled for it is way different than most people who play the game. For me, I would feel much more comfortable having $10k - $15k. But the reality is that I'm still hovering around $2,500. That's only 5 buy-ins at 2/5. Yes, there are lots of people who will buy in for $200 and $300, but to play optimally I can't be worried about losing a couple of buy-ins. To me right now, losing $1,000 would be devastating. Not in terms of the value of the money, but in terms of the percentage of my bankroll. I'm already handicapped with what games I can play as it is.

Now the other side of me that wants to justify playing says "you can crush the game, don't worry...the money you start making playing 2/5 will build your roll up". Is this potentially true? Sure. But at the same time, I could hit a nasty patch of variance...or worse, I could nit up and make overly cautious decisions causing me to play bad and lose money that way. Now...am I a chronic worrier and overthinker? Yeah, at times. If I just stay confident and play a little lower variance style I could grind out some small winnings in the beginning. I may not have as much fun, but I could be profitable. I could also just give myself a 1 buy-in stop-loss. That certainly isn't optimal but it's a way to play.

OR I could talk to the house about buying part of my action. This would reduce my bankroll variance and allow me to play more comfortably. The down side of course is that I wouldn't make 100% of my winnings. But the profits at 2/5 will be greater than 1/2 and it would help me get started. I think they would be open to this as they already talked about staking me to be a house player if they started a 5/10 game. I've already had them stake me for things, but I also hate to always ask for money. We'll see. Maybe I'll float the idea by them to see what they say.

Anyway...that's enough rambling for now. There is a game tonight, so I'll report back as to my decision.

DP

Online play, determination & short stacked plays

So I deposited some money on Carbon Poker last week. While it is definitely NOT the same as PokerStars and Full Tilt, at least it is poker from the convenience of my own home.

The biggest difference really is just game selection and field sizes. I'm okay with the smaller fields since it helps reduce variance, but it does make it less likely to hit a big score. But the game selection at the mid stakes is pretty slim. There are plenty of $5 tournaments, but I prefer to play $20 - $50 games with deeper stacks. Hopefully this will improve over time, but I guess for now the role of online poker is to help me get reps for my live game.

I did just return from New Orleans at the WSOP Circuit event. I did well, placing 24th in a daily $355 and 5th in a nightly $185. But the friend of mine I went with ended up winning 2 rings for over $100k in 5 days. This was obviously a monster run, but he played great as well. He was fearless making big calls and bluffing in the right spots. He made up his mind before he went that he was winning a ring and that determination has inspired me. It's made me even more determined than ever to take down a big live tournament.

Biggest Leak - One thing I still need to work on is my fear of going bust early on in a tournament. I will often times fold in spots with the justification of "picking a better spot". Now I'm not saying that I do this all the time or even that folding in these spots is wrong, but I had a hand that bugged me from New Orleans. Long story short - An aggressive internet player raised in mp and I had TT on the button. I decided that 3betting was the best play...BUT, I did not have a very confident plan for the hand based on how he may respond. I probably even looked a little nervous. I raised 2.8x his raise and thought to myself "he probably thinks I'm 3 betting light here". He thought for a while and he 4bet me for a bit over 1/2 his stack. I considered all options and shoving was definitely in my mind...but then I talked myself out of it because he had put in so much of his stack and I didn't want to look like a fool shoving and him snapping me off with QQ or something. I folded and later on he told me he had A7s. Now he could have been lying of course, but that pot was significant in my momentum and his momentum in the tournament. I hit a downswing at that point and he continued to run over the table....it probably also made me gun shy. But had I won that pot, I would have had a lot more chips, but more importantly a ton of confidence. I still made day 2 and cashed, but I nursed a short stack for like 7 hours and never put myself in a position to win. So these are the ways I'm going to work on this leak:

1. Have a plan for all situations when making a decision so I'm not influenced by emotions
2. Be comfortable with going busto in big pots early IF I have strong reads

Now the good thing is, later that night in the nightly I played without fear and it paid off. I iso-shoved a big squeeze play vs. an aggro kid with 55 and I was right about flipping and won a big pot. I also raised blind with 4s2s and when I hit a flop of 4xKsJs, I raised someone's donk lead and got it in. I could have easily played it passive and just called the flop, but then I would have had to fold the turn. I felt like I had fold equity and the best hand so I took the aggressive route and it paid off on the river.

Goal Setting - So like I said, my friend's determination to win was inspiring and I know that it fueled his big week. He was not going to be satisfied without a win and it helped him have the strength to follow his gut without caring about being wrong. I am determined to win a big live tournament and it will happen soon.

New Desire - I've been thinking about this more lately and I want to back a small stable of players. I've always loved being a mentor and helping others become successful because of my influence. I also like the idea of spreading out my risk. Of course, the problem right now is that I don't have the bankroll to back others. If Full Tilt & PokerStars were still alive in the US, I could back players for micro-stakes online, but with that being dead there aren't as many people like me who are playing on the remaining US sites. So really I would be backing live players and I do have a concept for the Atlanta Poker Fund which would gather a group of investors together to back multiple players at the same tournaments. But that requires me to recruit others who are interested in staking and that is proving to be more difficult than I thought for myself at the main event (I have to shore that up this week...I probably have $6k locked up). Backing others is still something I am going to pursue.

New Strategies with 20-25bb stack - This is another part of my game that I need to keep working on. I sometimes feel crippled at this stage and end up waiting it out until I get shorter so I can 3bet shove. And while my arsenal might be limited with this stack, I need to have some plays I can utilize to keep chipping up here. Here are a few thoughts:

• Don't worry about a 3bet shove feeling like an overbet. If it's the most +EV decision then do it
• Delayed shove - interesting article on Cardplayer on this...basically call a raise in position with good, but not great holdings (i.e. KQ, KJ, AT/A9, etc. and shove over any c-bet). Sometimes you'll get called but they will whiff 2/3 of the time and they can't call. This is good against someone you think might call your pre-flop shove with small pairs or possibly better broadway cards, but will fold on the flop
• Inducing squeezes by flatting raises in lp with a more merged value range. This only applies vs. really aggro players in the blinds, but instead of just trapping with AA, KK, etc. I could consider flatting a raise with a hand like AJ with the intention of calling/shoving over a squeeze. Again, it is player specific and somewhat high variance but when you have someone squeezing with worse Aces and suited connectors, AJ turns into a big hand.
• Limp the button or cut-off vs. players who defend a lot, but won't raise from the blinds. This may seem a bit on the passive side, but it's really more about pot control and playing position. It is player specific and the plan is to bet almost any flop. This isn't a play I would do a lot, but in the right situations it can be the best choice with this stack size.

River plays - One other area I'm going to be thinking about is river plays. I tend to have a very limited bluffing arsenal on the river, but river bluffs can often be very believable. I probably need to find spots where I could bluff raise the river more (not that I need to be spewing rivers, but this is not in my arsenal that much). Obviously it needs to make sense for the hands I'm representing and board textures need to make sense.

Alright, that's it for the giant brain dump for now.

Adapting to Change

Ugghhhhh. So instead of firing up 8 tables last night, I went to the American Legion to play in one of their weekly live tournaments. Don't get me wrong. The field is super soft and I enjoy playing live poker a lot. But it just wasn't the same. Its a turbo structure so if you don't pick up some hands or good bluffing situations early it's just waiting for a good spot to push. And the field is full of old guy calling stations, so you have to be pretty selective about bluffing.

It was kind of frustrating last night because I finally worked out a nightly online schedule where I wasn't playing turbos and I was REALLY enjoying playing regardless of winning or not. I got to play a lot of post flop poker and I was building and keeping big stacks consistently. I finally felt like I wasn't nitting it up all the time and I was in full control. I was also getting very comfortable 8 tabling and getting in the zone.

The other thing that really sucks about Stars and Tilt shutting down is that I could play poker all from the comfort of my own home. I could put the kids to bed and not feel guilty about skirting my family responsibilities to play poker. Now I feel guilty or selfish anytime I want to play. The thing is, I've been playing poker 3-4 times a week for the last 6-7 years now. All of a sudden this freedom is ripped away from me and now I have to adapt to the change.

The thing is, I LOVE playing poker. This is my personal outlet to become really good at something and I have a burning passion for the competition and personal growth it provides an avenue for. This is something that I am not going to stop doing and I'm not going to stop striving to continuously improve and be great at it. If I did not have something to fuel this part of my personality, I would honestly go crazy and be crabby all day.

All that being said, I just need to work out a regular and predictable schedule that is fair to my family and so that I don't feel guilty every time I go play.

So what about the other US friendly poker sites? Honestly it's still too soon to tell in my opinion. I would love to put money on the Merge network sites but with a limited bankroll, anything I put on I would need to be prepared to have it potentially frozen. And honestly I'd be somewhat okay with that if my roll were still over $10k. But for me to deposit $500 right now and it to be frozen would be significant. I'm not going to put on $100 and play $1 tournaments. That just wouldn't be fun for me. I guess I'm still with the wait and see mentality. How long am I waiting and what I am waiting to see? That's a good question. I guess ideally I want the DOJ to publish a statement that says they aren't going after these sites. But obviously that's not going to happen. I think what I am realistically waiting for is either for Full Tilt or PokerStars to be cleared or some confident movement on regulation. Or maybe just for funds to be unfrozen. I think if funds are unfrozen in the relative short-term that will make me more confident that even if the Merge Network or other sites get shut down, that I can still get my money back.

So there it is I guess. Once there is positive word about funds being unfrozen from PokerStars and FTP then I will consider playing on other sites. Until then, I am a live player and I need to adapt to the change and play games where I will have fun and can capitalize on my skill edge (and obviously beat the rake).

Black Friday and Adjustments

So wow...online poker...yeah. I'm still in a bit of a state of shock about the FBI arresting the owners of Full Tilt and Poker Stars and virtually shutting down online poker to the US market. There are tons of articles out there on Pocket Fives, Poker News and other sites about the details so I'm not going to go into all of that.

What I'm going to do is give my thoughts about the potential landscape change and how I am going to personally adjust to everything.

Other US friendly sites

As of today, the Merge Poker network (Carbon Poker, Lock Poker, Hero Poker, etc.), Bodog and Cake Poker still serve the US market. How they process deposits and cashouts is unknown to me, but I imagine they are employing similar means as the big players. I WANT to believe that these sites somehow found a legal loophole for financial transactions and will continue to serve the US market. If they do I will move my money (even though their interfaces suck). The tough thing right now though is that there is A LOT of money tied up in accounts on PokerStars and FullTilt and it may be some time before that money can be moved to new sites. I am personally going to monitor the news for a few weeks and then make a decision.

Macro-economic Ramifications

Poker shows such as the Big Game, Poker After Dark and High Stakes poker will be affected and may even go away since the two major companies spending advertising dollars were Full Tilt and PokerStars. This could also lead to less new players entering the poker economy in the short-run and the overall skill edge decreasing.

Limbo & Resurgence

While there could be a long limbo period (1-2 years) for online poker in the US, 0ne possible positive outcome of all of this is that once things shake out and poker finally gets regulated that there will be a major influx of new players. New companies in the market such as Harrahs and MGM could pump a bunch of new advertising dollars and leverage their existing casinos to promote their online poker brands. This will bring in more casual players and those who stayed away from online poker because of barriers and fears about depositing. In the past, you had to really want to play online poker to put money on, which means people were more serious about wanting to play. While there were still definitely a lot of soft players, I think things will soften up even more.

In addition, more of the poker economy's advertising dollars will now be re-directed to foreign markets which will bring in more new players from other countries (and we all know how bad they play). In fact, if the limbo is this long it may also cause a large group of younger online pros to get "real jobs" and not be so saturated in the online poker world. These dynamics could cause the overall quality of poker play to go down, providing a more overall edge for skilled players.

Live Poker

I think live poker will now see a surge. People still want to play and if online is no longer an option, the traffic at home games, VFW games and local casinos will increase.

New Goals-New Focus

A lot of my poker goals were based on volume. IF the other US friendly sites do not become an option I will have to re-adjust my goals and where I focus my energy a bit. Tournament variance in 1,000 man fields means you have to put in a lot of volume for your skill edge to profit. If I will be focusing my attention on live games, then my volume goals will be different and I will need to place more emphasis on both cash games and Omaha (and other games).

I will need to work out a regular schedule of live tournaments and cash games and adjust my volume goals down accordingly since I can't multi-table. I will also need to re-assess my bankroll management needs. While there are regular live tournaments, most of them are super high "charity rake", so cash games will be in the mix more. The average buy-ins will be much higher now though since there are no live $20 tournaments. But, the field sizes will be much less and I will have a much greater edge on the overall field, so there should be less variance. I'm not exactly sure what this will mean yet but I will set my goals accordingly and work to move up in live stakes comfortably. I want to be comfortable bankroll wise to take at least 3-4 poker trips a year playing the $300 and $500 circuit events and eventually the main events.

How I'm going to study my game and improve now

The great thing about online poker is that you can get experience with a high repetition of similar situations and speed up the learning curve. You also have the ability to review hand histories after the fact and calculate the EV of each situation. This enables you to continuously study, learn and improve your game. If the other sites don't pan out and I end up focusing on live poker, I will need to devise a system for regularly improving my game. This may be taking notes on hand situations while I play for later review, more communication with poker friends about hands, etc. Obviously tools like Hold'em Manager become obsolete, but I still have a plethora of past hands to review. Hopefully, training sites like Cardrunners and PokerXFactor stay in business (and stay in English), so those can still be ways to stay in the mindset of thinking through hands. Obviously live betting patterns can sometimes vary but it's the regular conditioning of your thought process that is important.

Here are a list of things I will do to keep improving:

• Regular blog posts about hand situations and inflections in the game
• Monthly play recap like I've been doing
• Will still keep up with my play stats and volume
• Live hand discussions with poker friends who I respect
• More 2+2 forum reading/posting (since I will have less hands of my own than normal to review, this will increase my repetition of thinking through a hand)
• Possibly keep notes on regular live players, their tendencies and how to exploit them
• From a skill standpoint, I am going to really focus on playing full betting lines and having a plan for each hand, as well as assigning hand ranges. Online this was becoming very automatic and I will need to make sure I translate this to live play.
• I also plan on stepping up my Omaha & Omaha Hi/Lo game since a lot of cash games are mixed. I plan on making an investment in some video training with those games in order to get myself to a level where I am confident in all situations.

Bringing new players into the poker economy

There are definitely major soft spots in the live, local poker scene but over time if no new players are introduced then the regulars keep swapping money back and forth. I plan on keeping and widening my edge and finding more edges to exploit (this could be as simple as finding ways of staying alert when everyone else is tired and making mistakes or knowing when to stop playing)

But I firmly believe there needs to be a way to keep introducing new players into the local live poker economy. Maybe it's through bonuses for bringing a friend, smaller buy-in tournaments, etc. Not exactly sure what the strategy is yet but I feel some responsibility to make it happen.

So what can I do to keep poker going strong?

1. Host regular live tournaments
2. Attend regular events to keep numbers up
3. Host satellite events and set up the Atlanta Poker fund to send players to live circuit events
4. Support the organizers of local games by bringing them new players
5. Recruit new players to the game
6. Regular support of the Poker Players Alliance

Well those are my thoughts for now. We'll see how the next couple of weeks go for the other US sites and hopefully the government will move faster to regulate online poker.

Practicing Tilt Endurance

Wowowowow. Tonight started off as a major train wreck. I've still got 3 tables going and it's taking everything I have to stay focused. I mean I'm building stacks in a lot of the tournaments and then running into nasty spots and have been behind every time. I'm losing flips and my bust outs were all coming in groups.

I also think that playing until 2am last night is starting to affect my ability to recover right now (which I won my live tournament btw). I feel like I'm not fully thinking through situations now and I need to slow it down a bit. So, that's why I'm calling this practicing Tilt Endurance. I figure that if I can pull it together and focus on the proactive elements of the game after being in that many bad situations, it will make me stronger and more resilient for other times when this may happen.

So...right now I'm going to stop clicking buttons and start recognizing situations.

--------

Okay, good recovery. I ended up playing much better and cashed in two tournaments. Nothing big $$ wise, but I played well and put myself in a position to accumulate chips. Felt much better about the night and I think I successfully built up some tilt endurance.

March Recap

Since I've done some mid month progress reports for March already, I'll keep this post brief.

Goal: 100 tournaments
Actual: 53 tournaments played

With my own money
Played 43 (7 were turbo multi-table sngs)
$1,137.80 in buy-ins
$1,136.18 in cashes
- $1.62 in profit

Backed:
Played 10
$1,706 in buy-ins
$155.29 in cashes
- $1,600.85 in profit

Summary
Short month volume wise, but I knew that would be the case sense it was the end of wrestling season. Now that wrestling season is over, I'm working out a 4 day a week schedule where I should easily be able to accomplish the 100 tourney goal. I'm also consistently 6 tabling with a high comfort level so I'm confident I'll get the volume in and still be rested and fresh while I play. My backer and I also decided to add one more night a week of backed games on Wednesday nights. Playing Sundays is great but if I want both of us to be profitable and with the limited volume it makes it hard.

Also, based on my conversation with my backer (see last post), I'm not going to even look at the makeup. He's right. My only job is to play and keep evolving my game. With my low monthly volume it's somewhat pointless keeping up with profit, etc. as a measurement of success. I might have 3-4 negative months and then whammo...one big month. So I may stop doing that in my monthly recaps.

I'm also getting DEEP stacks consistently now. I've been hovering closer to 30-70bb when things start getting into the middle/late stages vs. my standard 10-20bb shove, double, wait, shove, shove, wait, shove, bust.

In March, I also started playing the games I want to play. I stopped playing the turbo multi-table sngs except for some 90 mans on Tilt. I played deeper stacked games where I could exploit my post-flop edge and have more fun playing.

How I Improved vs. February (and some of January's) Leaks

1. Light 3 Betting - Toward the end of the month I really started getting comfortable here. I 3bet blind a few times and started 3betting people I felt were stealing from early position or those I knew could fold. Still needs some practice, but definitely a big improvement.

2. Fear of Mistakes - This last Wednesday, after I had the chat with my backer, I really let a lot of things go. He ended up ghosting me toward the end of the session and I felt very confident in my decisions. I would make a decision for a play and he would chat the same thing. It really validated a lot of my thought processes.

3. Hero Calls - Not an issue at all. Less pressure to succeed = ability to let go of hands

4. Light Steals - Another big improvement. I keep covering my cards and it's really helping. My VPIP/PFR for the month increased to 17/12 and I found myself at several tables running around 25/20 over 100+ hands. Obviously it's all table and situationaly dependent, but I'm definitely more comfortable opening up my game.

5. Double Barreling - I improved here. I think more so in the fact that I was confident in whatever line I decided to take, whether it was a double barrel, check-raise, delayed cbet or whatever.

6. Folding to 3bets - After the session where my backer ghosted me, I started seeing spots where I may have been folding too much with the KQ, AT type hands. This is going to take more practice, possible mistakes and possible suckouts, but I definitely saw some common spots where I'm leaving equity on the table.

7. Long-Ball Bluffs/Alternate Lines - Still needs some work getting comfortable playing certain multi-street lines when in the deeper stages of the tournament with marginal holdings, but gonna keep working on this.

Areas to Work On
At this point I think the biggest thing to keep working on is consistently practicing the above areas. Repetition makes things automatic. Other than that, I think just staying confident and trusting my reads during the later stages without really focusing as much on the consequence of what making a mistake means to my stack. Just play out the line and make the EV decision. Tony Dunst had a good line at the end of the last WPT television broadcast. He said, "It's not about winning the most pots, it's about making the most correct decisions."

Being Backed

Had a good chat with my backer today. I get backed for Sunday tournaments and it's been going well despite being in make up. It's interesting being backed. It's not your money and you assume none of the risk, so you would think this would make me feel free to play however I wanted without the fear of losing money. But for me, it's not about the money. It's about succeeding and doing my best.

The only measurement of how well I'm doing are the results, so I think I've tended to fixate on those a bit much. Even though I'm really improving as a player, the results haven't quite showed it yet. I believe this is primarily due to a rough early start where I nitted up like crazy not wanting to make mistakes and the fact that I've only played 70 tournaments. I recently hit a final table in the $30r, but 8th place didn't make a significant dent.

BUT, despite my worst fears of him thinking I'm not doing well because I'm 10k in makeup, he's totally fine. In fact, he's happy with the progress I'm making. He can tell through hand history reviews that my thought processes are solid. He reminded me that he's had other horses that were 50k in make up.

His exact words: "Don't worry about the make up. Not only don't worry about it, don't think about it. You got it easy, all you do is have to play. Zero risk."

That really helped me put things in perspective...ZERO risk. Who cares. Don't put extra pressure on yourself when, in fact, there is less pressure to succeed then with your own bankroll.

"Just keep trying to improve. I'll help as much as possible and lets see what happens."

So I went into last nights session in an attack mode and I was able to build up deep stacks consistently. I rarely got below 30bb and usually hovered around 50bb. I had an unfortunate pot in the $30r when I iso shoved 88 and the big blind woke up with AA. This left me with about 8bb and I went out in 65th (paid 63). But then my momentum really started picking up and I found myself one of the chip leaders in the 50/50 (the 50 Hundo this week). I really felt a lot more confident with the super aggro players and was picking my spots well 3 betting, flatting, etc. I didn't really think about the strength of my hand and just played the situations.

Unfortunately I busted in like 89th place out of 2300 when I overplayed top pair. My backer was watching me play and vs. a very aggro player he said "play top pair like it's the nuts vs. him". Which of course in concept is correct. However I took the advice too literal and I didn't take the time to read my situation appropriately. Short story, I defended KTos in the bb vs. a min raise. Flop is T45 and after I checked, he checked behind. In my mind he had something of showdown value and was pot controlling. This could be a mid pocket pair or tp with a weak kicker. The turn was an 8 and after I bet, he raised me pretty large. To me, there were red flags. Of course this could be a delayed bluff and I have to consider that. But based on my original read, 88 was possible as was 67 or even T8. Instead of just calling the raise, I jammed and he snap called me with T8. I think because the call left me with like 17bb left I didn't want to call and have a pot sized bet left. BUT at this stage of the tournament it's not like I can't fold the river (if needed). I don't HAVE to get it in here. Plus, by jamming, I'm not getting a lot of worse hands to call me so there really isn't much value. Again, I think I kinda spazzed out and took the advice of "play it like the nuts" too literal. In my mind it was "I'm not going to fold to this lagtard".

Anyway it was a great session overall and I built up a ton of confidence. Ready for more!!

Deep run in $22 rebuy

My session started out with a lot of bust outs, but none of them phased me and I just kept focusing on playing situations. I was finally down to only the $22 rebuy on stars and really got into the zone after a while. I consciously started opening up my game and found myself one of the chip leaders getting close to the bubble. It REALLY helps covering your cards and contemplating decisions first. I made about 4-5 blind steals and one blind 3bet. After I was called I looked at my cards and had flopped 2pr with J7s, but unfortunately the other guy hit bottom set. So I went from about 75bb to around 50ish.

I wasn't phased and was happy with the way I played the hand. I knew I had to change gears a bit since I was running like 25/23 over 50 hands. I did, but as the bubble grew near I wanted to capitalize on it. Unfortunately I kept getting picked off and I had to scale back a bit. The bubble burst and I still had a nice stack of about 40-45bb or so, but then the table dynamics changed with new players and I found it harder to pick my spots. I had a lot more aggressive players to my right and I probably passed up a few too many spots for 3 bets. Since this tournament only plays 36 I knew the final table wasn't too far off. I tried to force myself to not worry about that, but when push came to shove, I didn't want to give up my stack by risking a light 3bet. ****WRONG**** As I type this out, I realize that my subconscious still needs some training. I did GREAT this tournament and honestly played some of my best poker. But as the tables consolidated I kept passing up spots thinking I would have at least some sort of hand I could play. Unfortunately that didn't happen and next thing you know, I was down to 20bb which made it much harder to open pots. I did open one pot with 55 and got insta-shoved on by a really passive player, so I folded with about 15bb. Blinds go up and now I have 10bb with 2 tables left. I did shove once blind, but the big stacks to my right made it really hard to open shove and I couldn't 3bet since I had zero fold equity. I finally shove 89s 7 handed utg+1 and lost to JJ in 15th.

Overall I'm really happy with how I played and I am really seeing where I've had leaks in my game passing up 3bet spots when it gets deep. Not that I need to go crazy, but I have to keep my stack afloat or the blinds will creep up on you before you know it.

Great March So Far

March started off pretty slow in terms of volume because of the end of wrestling season, but the last week or so has been great. I've started coming to terms a bit regarding volume & variance and I've been playing with a very clear head. Eliminating the looming dark cloud of needing poker for income has allowed me to really focus on following my gut in certain spots.

I'm also trying to mix in tournaments with smaller field sizes and better structures. This is helping me feel a bit more in control of my game and I'm enjoying playing post flop a lot more.

Here are some improvements I've made lately:

1. Looking for spots to 3bet 25-30bb stacks - I've made this something I'm consciously aware of, but I'm not forcing it either. I'm considering my options though.
2. Considering my cards last - I'm making myself practice getting logical, emotion free reps thinking through all situations. I'm also not relying on my HUD stats as much, but more on game flow first. I'm thinking "why did they do that?" first. Also, when I only have a couple of tables, I've been covering my cards. I'm not playing blind per se, but I'm thinking about the situation first. Sometimes I will force myself to play blind when it makes sense so that I don't talk myself out of it. Basically, I'm finally making thinking about the situation first a habit instead of just something I do when I'm in the zone.
3. Thinking about who is left to act behind me before I act
4. I'm really considering their logical hand range when deciding my line and decisions - this is resulting in good bet sizing, the right spots for aggression, etc.
   
5. I'm not defaulting to the "standard" play - I'm considering what may be standard for a situation, but I'm also not falling into the trap. While sometimes this can lead to over thinking, I've been trying to make the decision that feels right and remind myself not to over think it.
6. I'm focused on execution - I'm not thinking about external factors such as wanting or needing to go deep, the pressure for money, etc. I realize more and more that you can't put a lot of emotional stock in any one tournament. All you can do is focus on making good decisions. I've learned this before, but as I gain more experience the meaning becomes that much more clear.
   

Here are some things I need to work on:

1. 3 betting/squeezing aggressive early position raisers - not that it needs to happen all the time, but there are definitely profitable spots for doing this, especially from the button or cut-off. I still hesitate because of position and the "what if they have a real hand this time" factor.
2. 3 betting Ax - Very read dependent of course, but I often fold more than I need to with a hand like A7s vs. a button steal. Why Ax? Not because I think it's a great hand, but because I have an Ace blocker, it makes it less likely that they have an Ace and they have more hands that will fold to a 3 bet.
   
3. Stealing with trash - again, I don't need to force it but there are still spots where the stacks & players behind me say raising makes sense. At the same time, there have been spots where I raised the button with trash knowing that the situation/stacks were perfect for the small/big blind to re-steal and I needed to pick a better spot.
4. Calling overbets on the river - Most of the time I fold when it's obvious they have a big hand, but against donkey spewy aggro players I will sometimes hero call. It's usually when I have a bunch of tables up, so just need to think through the spot more and not worry about the other tables beeping.
   
5. I may also be missing calling/iso shoving some spots with A-mid when a shorter stack shoves. Example: A middle position player shoves 8bb and I'm on the button or in the cutoff with A8 or A9. I will often fold here because it's somewhat of a thin spot, but the reality is I'm still somewhat ingrained with habits from years ago where people didn't shove as wide as they do now.

February Recap

Here's a recap of February 2011 went.

Goal: 100 tournaments
Actual: 83 tournaments played

With my own money
Played 68(39 were turbo multi-table sngs)
$1,353 in buy-ins
$1,073 in cashes
- $280 in profit

Backed:
Played 15
$3,480 in buy-ins
$1,596.75 in cashes
- $1,883.25 in profit

Summary

Feb started out being a tough month with a lot of self-discovery toward the end. Up until the 2nd to last day, I had cashed once in the last 54 tournaments on Full Tilt for only $17 and my make up in backed tournaments continued to grow. The weight of tournament variance started to take hold a bit and I started getting frustrated.

BUT I started making a nice rebound just this Sunday with a final table in the $30r and 3 cashes on Monday night (3rd in a 45 man on Tilt, 2nd in a $10 bounty tournament and another small cash). Sunday was actually the first session where I turned a profit in backed games.

When you are only able to put in limited volume in high-variance games your mind can play tricks on you, but I was able to rebound and wrestling season is almost over so I'll be able to play more soon. But, I'm also working on a blog post where I'm taking a step back and trying to figure out what games are best for me based on my goals and my situation. I'm in a good and determined frame of mind, so I'm ready for March.

How I Improved vs. January's Leaks

1. Light 3 Betting - I consciously looked for these spots and increased my 3bet % to 4.8% from 4.2%. I still probably missed a few spots and I there were a couple of questionable oop 3bets that cost me some chips. I'm mostly 3betting in position, but if I am going to 3bet oop, I need to increase my sizing.

2. Fear of Mistakes - I improved here as well, especially in backed games. It makes it much easier when you can focus on just playing good and not being overly results oriented.

3. Hero Calls - I made some progress, but then toward the end of the month some tilt must have set in from my impatience of achieving results as I found myself not able to let go of a few hands when my gut said I was beat. In those sessions, however I was able to recognize this leak and make adjustments accordingly.

4. Light Steals - I definitely improved here. I actually started covering my hole cards with those electronic post-it notes. It's helping force me to make situational decisions first and think about my cards last. I've stolen blind a handful of times as well. My VPIP/PFR for the month increased to 16/12 as compared to 15.4/11.4 last month. It's not a giant jump, but it's an improvement.

Stuff I'm Doing Well
1. Floats - I'm really recognizing good boards and situations to float and bluff the turn.

2. Extraction from Big Hands - I've always been good at this, but I think I'm improving on making decisions between building the pot on early streets and trapping to extract on later ones.

Areas to Work On
1. Double Barreling - Not that I need to force this, but I found myself c-betting once and giving up more than I should.

2. Folding to 3bets - Since I'm still playing a lot of shallow turbos there are less spots where this makes sense, but I also think I get bluffed off of KQ and AT type hands more than I should.

3. Long-Ball Bluffs/Alternate Lines - Again, you can't force these spots but I feel like there are a few situations where I need to mix up my lines a bit so I'm not exploitable. This could be cbet/giving up or calling flop, checking turn and folding to river bet. But, I feel like when I'm calling these river bets that I'm beat by pot control lines too. I also think there are some spots where I can turn my hand into a bluff in deeper stages. In early stages I am better at recognizing these spots, but in later stages I hold back because of the fear of losing a semi-healthy stack.

So that's February. Not the worst month in the world, but not the momentum swing I was hoping for. I ended the month strong however and in just these last few days I feel I've made major progress in both my mental approach and my focus.

Why I Play Poker - Revisited

I was reading back through some old blog posts from 5 years ago and realized...wait!...that was 5 years ago. Time has really flown by and according to those posts I've been playing almost 7 years now. That is really crazy to think about.

Back then I had an "a ha moment" and decided that the reason I play was for competitiveness and for the fun of playing. I talked about how money was a nice by product but really it was a means of keeping score. I still do feel this way for the most part, but I have been putting a lot more pressure on myself lately to use the money I win playing poker to help pay off debt that has built up as a result of now being a business owner.

Unfortunately over the last few months I haven't turned a profit and while I've mostly kept an even keel attitude about variance, it started to get to me the other day. I haven't had to deposit money since I started playing with only a few site transfers to replenish, the funds in my online accounts are basically at zero. NOW, let me also say that this is me being a tad melodramatic because I have a good bit of my bankroll in cash or in a savings account AND had to buy-in with my own funds for some backed games and I'm owed money. But that isn't a ton and I think the psychological affects of not being able to buy into anything right now started pissing me off.

It's been about 4 months since my roll took a big nose dive due to life bills and a big downswing and while I thought my bruised ego was over it, I think I assumed I would have hit a decent score by now to move the line graph upward. Unfortunately I've only had a few minor ups and downs of my own roll and the makeup of my backing deal continues to grow.

I can't tell if I'm being impatient, if my sample size for expecting some movement is too small, if I'm still in some overall downswing, or maybe certain holes in my game are preventing me from achieving success. I'm really in a state of confusion and at a loss as to what to do. I'm hoping that blogging about it will provide some clarity.

As far as my game goes, I truly feel that I'm making big improvements. I mean yeah, I've had a couple of brain farts that cost me a couple of deep runs, but overall I think I'm playing good. I don't think that my feeling this way is some sort of ego protection mechanism where I can't admit that I have holes. I am always looking for ways to improve. And I can confidently say that I have an edge on most fields I'm playing in.

So if that's not it, what is it? Am I being impatient? It's possible. Maybe the volume needed to succeed in online tournament poker is more than I'm able to put in based on my desire to achieve "short-term" results. I mean everyone talks about the swings and when you are only putting in 70-100 tournaments a month versus large field sizes maybe it's simply going to take longer. I mean with even skill level and a payout of the top 15% of a 1,000 person tournament, you are only going to cash ON AVERAGE of 15% of the time. So when you do cash in a 1,000 person tournament, that means you are top 150. The real money is at the final table, so you then have to be top 9, which is less than 1% of the total field (.9%). So...if you final table .9% of the time, out of 1000 tries that is only 9 final tables.

Okay, I just looked at how many tournaments I've played in the last 4 months and not including the backed games, I've played 223. If you just look at the turbos, I played 115. So we're only talking 108 tournaments, of which many of them have more than 1,000 entries. Even if I were running even, I would have only made less than 1 final table.

So I guess I answered my earlier question and it continues to be a question of volume. Time in terms of months is irrelevant if you are playing tournaments with large field sizes. If I was playing the same amount of tournaments with smaller field sizes, I would cash and final table more. Or if I put in more volume in the same period of months, I should statistically final table more. Time only prolongs feelings of running good, bad or even. Time, then only stretches and skews reality and can play tricks on your mind.

So the trick then is to control your perception of reality by either:

A. Reducing actual variance
B. Improving your ability to keep perspective on what your real skill level is and how much variance there is in tournament poker
C. Play more volume

In order to reduce variance, you have to understand what factors influence it and risk in general. Here are a few:

1. Field size
2. Blind structure/time (the faster the blinds, the less time for skill to prevail and the thinner the edges you have to take)
3. Volume of play
4. Information to make decisions (live play arguably provides more info, better blind structure means more time with the same people which means more information, which reduces guessing, which reduces variance).
5. Decisions to take small edges

Higher risk/variance (but in some cases a higher reward):

• Take small edges
• Larger field size
• Turbo structures (which force taking smaller edges)
• Low volume of play
• Low information on opponents
• Play higher % of bankroll

Lower risk/variance (but in some cases a lower reward):

• Take larger edges (less gambling, more confidence in decision)
• Small field sizes
• Slower structures/Deeper stacks
• High volume of play
• High information on opponents (playing with similar players over time, more predictable play, high confidence in reads)
• Play small % of bankroll

Another factor to consider is also the quality of other players:

• Good players = more risk & lower ROI in both short & long run. Too offset this risk, you may need to gamble more since you won't have a skill edge and need to take small edges
• Bad players = less risk & high ROI over long run BUT can be lower ROI in short-run. This means you can pass up some small edges since there are more edges to take and can find higher EV spots. If you have a mix of good and bad players in a game, you can forgoe a small edge vs. a good player since there will be larger edges against the bad players.

Basically, the faster the blind structure and the larger the field sizes, the more volume you have to put in to succeed over the same period of time. Because of the increased variance of fast &/or large field sizes, this also means larger swings up and down. Arguably there is more potential payout in larger fields so IF you can put in the volume you can make more here in terms of ROI. If you can't put in the volume, you are handicapped in the short-run unless you hit a good patch of variance.

So...if you cannot put in a lot of volume and are going to play tournaments, you are better off playing against smaller field sizes with better blind structures if you want more success in terms of winning or making final tables. This doesn't necessarily mean you will make more money but you will make money more consistently.

So what is the magic formula? If you can only put in X volume and want to make X dollars, what field size, blind structure and buy-in should you play?

Well, the answer to this question finally brings us back to the whole point of this blog post. It depends on why you play poker?

Since it has taken me a few weeks to complete this post, some things have changed that affect my answer to this question. We decided to move some investment money around to pay off the debt. This has basically eliminated the burden that has been looming for the last couple of years and has taken the pressure off of me to make a big score. It's hard to know how much this pressure affected my game, but it certainly didn't help. I feel like there will be a new freedom to play for the joy of the game and not the hope of a big cash that would remove stress in my life. Had you asked me two weeks ago why I play, it would probably be some combination of fun hobby and to eliminate debt (with about 75% weighted toward debt relief).

But now...I not only don't have to play for income, I have increased perspective on variance. As I was trying to mathematically determine what games I should play based on my limited volume (limited in comparrison to an MTT pro), I also read a great blog series that did some of the work for me (http://www.nsdpoker.com/2011/01/mtt-pros/). Without repeating this post, it re-inforced just how much variance affects the game. Even the highest skilled players can be losing players even over a 1,000 and 5,000 tournament sample size in large field MTTs.

So to break it down simply, here's why I play:

I enjoy the competition. Which means I enjoy out playing my opponents and I like winning. I want to be the best and I want re-inforcement that I am from my results. I enjoy cash games, but I prefer tournaments because I also like the feeling of beating the field and taking home the top prize. I also like the strategic decisions required based on multiple factors. While cash games present several more meta-game factors and multi-street decisions, the thrill of beating the field out weighs those cerebral pleasures.

So I'm back to where I was 5 years ago...just with more experience and a matured perspective.

Now what?

Now I need to decide where I will focus my time and energy. I still prefer tournaments, but I should mix in more cash games. Also now that wrestling season is over, I can play more and get to more live games as well. Based on why I play the game and the volume I can put in, I really need to focus on tournaments with smaller fields and deeper stacks. This will allow me to feel like I'm actually playing poker and enjoy playing more. The turbos are okay, but it's not as fun to push and pray. It's actually kind of stressful being subject to the poker gods. When you factor in the thrill of the payouts and where I've seen success in the past, I think my sweet spot is mid-stakes rebuy tournaments. This doesn't mean its all I will play, but I should seek these out (and possibly expand to playing on other sites). By focusing on smaller fields, I will final table and win more often (both in frequency and over the course of time) which will re-inforce my feeling of success. This will increase my confidence and reduce stress while playing.

From the above list of risk/variance & reward factors, here is what I chose to primarily focus on:

• Take most + EV edges - I will still strive to make profitable long-term decisions as I am still playing MTTs. However these decisions may be adjusted slightly depending on the tournament structure.
• Play a comfortable % of bankroll - I'll still follow most bankroll management rules as I'm not in a position to replinish fully. But I may have to bend the rules a bit for local live tournaments.
• Low number of entrants (in relation to large field MTTs)
• Slower structures/Deeper stacks
• High volume of play (as much as I can)
• High information on opponents

Based on this, here are the types of games I'll be focusing on (non-backed games) :

• Smaller field rebuys ($10 1r+1a, $20r and $30r when my roll increases)
• Non-guaranteed prize pools - These are less likely to have massive fields
• Deeper stacked guaranteed games - If the field is larger, I want more chips
• Poker Stars Home Games - I'm gonna try and increase the number of players in the league to up the prize pools and use reads to my advantage.
• Local live tournaments (I'll likely mix in a weekly Thursday game or monthly "Big Show").
• Local cash games

This isn't to say that I won't play any turbos, but I will certainly play less of them. Wrestling season is over so I'll have more time to play but if I get an itch and I only have a few hours, I may still fire up a 45, 90 or 180 man.

So that's the plan. I've got to say I'm pretty pumped about going through this exercise. It's really helped me clear my head and know where to focus my energy. I'm excited about the rest of this year and can't wait to play again.

February so far

I've started of February not playing much at all. I've played 23 tournaments, which if I keep this pace I'm only projected to play 64 this month. Wrestling season, the Super Bowl and feeling exhausted have prevented me from playing the volume that I want so far. I can definitely still make it up, but it's frustrated when you want to play yet you know that you'll play like crap because your too tired.

On a positive side, I set up a home game league on Poker Stars and that has gone really well. The first of 10 events had 30 people and the league is now at 43 members. I took 8th in the first event, but I felt like I played really well. I made some big laydowns early and I trusted my reads on some important 3bet spots and a big squeeze pot where the bb had KQ to my AQ.

Anyway, short entry for today. Just feeling anxious to play and not having enough time to squeeze games in.

January Recap

Here's a recap of January 2011 went.

Goal: 100 tournaments
Actual: 102 tournaments played (taking tonight off)

With my own money (gah! I need my bankroll back...stupid life bills)
Played 77 (43 were turbo multi-table sngs)
$1,620 in buy-ins
$1,413 in cashes
- $207 in profit

Backed:
Played 25
$3,523 in buy-ins
$1,668 in cashes
- $1,855 in profit

Reasons for Success:
1. Opened up my game from early position
2. Played a great post-flop game and chipped up nice during the early stages
3. Got out of the habit of c-betting every single flop. Picked and choose my spots wisely. My cbet % was 61.3 where it's usually around 85 or so.

Things to Work On:
1. Light 3 betting - I definitely did not do this enough. My 3bet % for January was 4.2. I need to actively look for more opportunities to attack 25-35bb stacks and close my eyes so I don't see my cards. By 6 tabling I sometimes miss these spots because it isn't part of my normal game unless I have good reads. I need to make these spots automatic.

2. Fear of making mistakes - For some reason, in backed games I'm hesitant in the close decisions and found myself taking a more passive route in the middle stages. I crushed it early when I could play all three streets, but as blinds got higher I found myself blinding out because I either didn't pull the trigger in certain spots (see #1) OR talked myself out of a shove or 3bet shove because it was close (i.e. A-rag or A-mid vs. late position raise).

3. Hero calls - On boards that were kinda scary or people potted I found myself making more hero calls than normal and being wrong. The pot odds were -EV since they weren't bluffing a high enough %.

4. Light steals - I don't think I need to open up too much, but I could use a few more steals with trashy hands when the situation is right. I ran 15.4 / 11.4 / 4.2. Part of that is because I didn't get too deep or short handed as often as I would like. I'm not going to try and force a certain stat, but if I open up a bit in the right situations I could see myself being closer to like 17/13/7 or 19/14/8.