3,947 hands

Some New Resolutions

Irexes recently wrote a post titled The Irexes Principle and the Napoleonic Player, and needless to say if you know the man, it was excellent, and humbling. Now I can't give that article all the credit for my newfound urge to make some changes to my poker goals, but it definitely had an impact.

What influenced me was his reiteration that not only is poker strategy (cards, pot odds, metagame etc) not the only factor in a winning game, but that it may not even be the most important factor. Keeping your ego in check and thus playing within your bankroll limits, maintaining control over your tilt and keeping an eye on the long run rather than the short probably are the most important factors.

With Jared Tendler's new sports psychology (ie tilt control) videos at stoxpoker, my recent move to 100nl, running well and probably getting over my head, and finally Rex's article, I've decided it's time for some changes.

Doing things like checking my results in-game, posting daily results here and keeping a close eye on my bankroll for ego-boosting reasons just isn't going to fly. My long-term goals are basically to scrap all of the above. I know this can't be done overnight, so I'm going to start with small changes and gradually work my way to a zen-like state where results have no affect on me and tilt becomes a non-factor. I think for the sake of the blog I'll be posting my results bi-monthly instead of daily now.

So, a few of the short-term goals for, say, before July:

• Stop posting daily profits results. Instead, report the number of hands, and how well you played, including the replays for the particularly interesting/well played/poorly played ones.
• Post results on the first and fifteenth of every month.
• Stop opening poker grapher beside your tables to check your results.
• Check bankroll size only when you feel you've been running bad enough for it to get close to being too small for 100nl.
  
• Re-watch Jared's videos and take notes.
• Read Zen and the Art of Archery; buy and read Elements of Poker; read The Poker Mindset.

That's all I can think of now, but I'll see what else I can come up with later on.

Bruised Knuckles

Sorry, no fight story. I mentioned before that I busted my speed ball swivel, and a few days ago I ordered a new one from rival boxing. It was a little pricey, especially with the shipping, but the thing works great, and I've been beating up the speed bag like every day since it came. Unfortunately my pinky knuckles are nice and swollen now, and I think I might have a bone bruise on both hands from going at it a little too hard and too long (that's what she said).

Anyways it's a lot of fun, and especially with the new smooth swivel I'm actually getting pretty good. Maybe I'll upload a video or something for fun. Then you can see the garbage dump that is my backyard too :D

The Grind

The last non-1st/15th post where I write updates. I swear :)


June has just been killer. It has definitely been swingy, and especially so in dollars since 100nl is obviously double the stakes that I was playing last month. I missed one day of playing, sat down the day after, and felt rusty as hell. Don't know what did it to me, but I lost a good chunk that day, and I've been just grinding since. That day I stayed up sooo late grinding back what I'd lost and was constantly checking to see if I'd broken even yet. How silly. That was definitely another factor in making me want to make some changes.

Holdem manager has been great. Aside from some speed issues with mass stat retrieval, everything's going very smoothly and I'm very happy with my purchase. I've now moved my whole poker 'operation' to HEM from PT2, and it's been smooth sailing since.

I'm in a little bit of a rush now, so I'll just end this by plopping some hands on you here:



Villain was a lagtard and I don't think I can get away here. He was like 50/25 over a decent sample, but even so I was pretty unhappy getting it in on the turn.



Bluff against a reg. meh. This kind of sucks because I want to post content for the blog, but also was going to post some of these in HA. I really truly felt I could fold out an overpair here, on the turn actually. Noted that he couldn't fold even TT here, I guess I'll just valuetown him next time with obvious beluga plays.



Iffy flop & turn play OOP, but villain was another lagfish and bets like his whole range here. Just a set up.



Another marginal one. I have a problem underestimating my opponents' hand strengths when I've been aggressive. He was a reg and I felt he was doing this with any draw, any pair, bluffs and of course big hands, so I went with it.



No, you can not have his username :)

He hit and run. I hate hit and runners. Like nazi-level hate.

Yaddayaddayadda some bad beats, now some winning hands:



UGHHH this guy was so juicy. I had like 4 fish to my right at that table, and he was probably the worst at like 70/5/a million. He bet every flop, couldn't fold to bets or raises, and so I basically limped behind with any hand with any kind of potential. Unfortunately this hand was just part of the big picture, and he somehow only lost like 3/4 of a buyin to me overall.



Really this one was blind aggression after the flop. PF was up against a reg who steals too much, so I restole. BB's cold call is either something marginal like 22-TT or a slowplayed monster, and I can't really give reasoning to my CRAI on the flop. Going to review this one myself in depth and see what the ideal play is. I obviously really lucked out on that one - 6 outer, booya!



vs another lagtard





Much closer than it looks as he's a pretty tight reg. Still not sure about this one.



Also against a nit. Was actually worried about the bigger ace a little bit.