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".

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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.

Night 4 of Cash

The first two nights felt awesome. I was running the tables and my reads were crystal clear. I played last night and also felt like I had a great session. There were a selection of hands that I felt like were good opportunities to learn (some winners and some losers). All three nights I was up in the session. BUT, I am really trying hard to focus on the long run and not the financial success of each session.

Tonight has been a bit on the rough side. I'm a little tired and I have been bleeding a bit. I don't think the first half of the session was bad because of being tired, but it has started wearing on me a bit. It's nothing too out of the ordinary, but it's one of those nights where AK keeps missing and my c-bets are getting raised/floated and my double barrels aren't working (and I know the triple won't work). Or when I decide to triple, I'm getting called down...or I get KK and everyone folds to my raise. I'm getting 3bet when I have crap and they are folding when I have big hands. I'm really trying to not nit up and stay aggressive, but at the same time pick my spots, but I think I might be forcing a bit toward the end of the session. I'm playing a bit more passive pre-flop but then I'm attacking post flop without telling an accurate story. I think partially because I accidentally saw how much I was down for the session earlier, it has made me a little hesitant to 4-bet. Okay, enough venting.

As per the advice in the latest book I read, I am using this session as an opportunity to push through and focus when the night isn't so hot (which I do believe in so long as you are keenly aware of your mental state). By hunkering down and focusing it will only make me stronger. I've got about 100 or so hands to go to hit 800, so I'm going to finish strong.

-----

So the last 100 hands were pretty much like the first 700. Tons of action when I'm bluffing and zero action when I flop the virtual nuts. Oh well, such is variance. If I had to grade the sessions on overall playing ability (and NOT results or running good) I would roughly say:

Day 1: B+
Day 2: A-
Day 3: B
Day 4: C

I'm giving myself a C mainly because of mental state. I realized toward the end of the session that I was becoming passive pre-flop and a bit spewy post flop. I needed to probably 4-bet in a few spots (I only 4 bet once tonight and got jammed on) mainly to make them think twice before 3 betting me. I did, however have some good moments as well. I made a really good Ace high call in a relatively big pot when my read was that their pair got counterfeited. I also did a good job of moving tables when there weren't enough fish.

So it wasn't all bad. But I definitely have some things to work on when sessions aren't going my way. I mean, it's not like I started going crazy and spewing chips. It was more of a slow bleed. I need to recognize when the bleeding is growing and then make the necessary adjustments (and also learn what those adjustments need to be).

2nd Night of Cash

I really felt great playing tonight. I was a bit on the tired side, but my reads were spot on. There are definitely some hands that occurred that are situations I need to work on, but all in all it was a great session. I bluffed at the right times, 3-bet, value bet and induced action.

I'm not sure what the final result of the session was and it really doesn't matter. I was working hard not to even really know what my stack size was except for the purpose of how many I had in relation to the other people. They were just chips used for ammunition.

I only had one major hand go wrong with JJ on a ragged flop where my read was that they were super strong. I played the flop fine, but my radar really went off on the turn. I ended up jamming it in anyway though and lost a buy-in there. But overall I think I was up about $150 or so. Either way it doesn't matter though. My goal right now is number of hands.

I felt really comfortable 4 tabling and I think I'll be able to add 5 after a few more nights. I ended up with 716 hands after about 3 hours of play. I might of been able to keep the session going, but I'm trying to ease into things a bit. I need to get used to the consistency and the amount of hands. When I was playing tournaments it was different because a lot of the time I was just waiting for a good shove spot vs. using my brain to think through multiple lines of a hand. I want to build my endurance up so I'm able to have longer sessions that are productive.

Good first cash session

Tonight was a good first session. Not necessarily in terms of winnings (although I was up $120.30 playing .50/$1), but more in terms of how comfortable I was playing. I actually started the session pretty card dead and wasn't getting to involved in many pots. I wanted to, but the situations just weren't there. I started with 2 tables and after about 30 min I added a third. I won a few small pots, had to fold a few hands I didn't want to and got looked up on a couple of bluffs. BUT the success was in just staying focused on flowing on to the next hand. I didn't wallow or start getting frustrated because things weren't going great. I'm in this for the long haul and I took a very business like approach to the session.

One cool thing about multi-tabling cash games is that its easier to get over tough hands. Stuff happens, but then you are forced to just keep playing new situations and eventually forget about what happened. You just kind of keep playing and then let the dust settle at the end of the night to see if you've made any money. Some stacks at some tables are up and some are even and you have no idea how much you've lost at those tables. This will help me break the habit of getting attached to stack sizes and being upset if my stack goes down.

Another good lesson that I re-inforced to myself was when contemplating between two plays, go with the one with your strongest & initial gut feel (i.e. I probably should X because his range is strong, but he could also have this range, so maybe I should Y.) Without going into the hand too much, a tight player that I had no info on check/called a ragged flop after raising pre. He checked the turn and i felt I should check behind with TT for pot control, but then I changed my mind because I thought he could also have pairs that were smaller than mine. I bet and then he raised and I ended up folding because his line was super strong for a tight player.

I also decided to use the Full Tilt colors for tagging players:

Green = loose/passive/stationy fish
Purple = spewy aggro
Light Blue = tight nit
Orange = regular player
Red = really good aggro
Yellow = decent aggressive

Versus my goals, I felt I did well for my first night:

Hours Played: 3
Hands: 631
bb/100: I'm not even close to being able to report on a big enough sample size

Cash Games it is

I decided that despite being primarily a tournament player that my current goals for consistency outweighed my love for chasing the big cash. I also have a strong desire to play a more deepstacked game and my time limitations make it challenging for me to play long MTTs. Once I came to a logical conclusion, it was a no brainer decision.

I'm very excited about this new forray and am ready for the challenge. I'm not naive and I know there will still be swings. I also am fully aware that I am playing with "real money". I've been playing long enough to appreciate the game.

I am also excited to treat poker like a business and focus on the long-term metrics of the game. I have a plan for the volume I need and I have a "work schedule" ironed out to achieve it. My initial goals are the following:

1. Work up to 840 hands per day or 16,800 hands per month (this is approx 3.5 hrs of 4 tabling full ring games for 25 days a month). Once I work up to and am comfortable 4 tabling, I will add more tables.

2. Earn 5bb/100 hands - I see so many different rates that people say is "good". I think 5bb/100 may be a little on the high end, but I will just play through the first 50k hands or so and see where I stand.

Anyway, tonight is my first session. I would say that I will post some results, but after one night that's pretty counter-intuitive to grinding. I will post results based on more important metrics such as how comfortable I felt playing, my reads, etc. I think I'm going to start 2 tabling and then add a third or possibly 4th table. I usually 3 or 4 table tournaments, but I want to be comfortable with table flow first.