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.

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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.