Dont Stop Believing - Journey

Had another session with Jared, will post a fully thang soon. Lots to look forward to, and I'm foreal about actually applying myself this time.

Winning? wat?

Yep, finally winning again for a change. I really forgot what it felt like, and oh god is it sweet.

What did I change? Well for one I took that huge long three day break from poker. This cooled me down, I took a quick look at my game and saw obvious leaks left right and centre (mainly that I was playing like a raging maniac), and fixed them. I'm back down to my usual 6max style, still changing small things for the better, but sticking to a solid lag/tag style. No 30/26/%12 3bet, raising every other flop as a bluff. It just doesn't work unless you're playing completely abc players, which there just aren't that many of at 200nl anymore.

For those running like shit, please heed my advice: take a break. Seriously, if only for a day, take that break. I hated the fact, but not playing poker actually felt good. I know you insist that you're playing your A game still and that there's little to no tilt involved, but believe me, there is. There always is when you're not running well unless you have no pulse.

BalugaWhale's book now has a price and a release date; you can find the info on his site. There's also an option to get it for a certain amount of MGR through one of their rakeback deals. Sounds pretty good, but moving to a new site with different software, no info on the player pool and having to figure out bet pot and all types of other shit is just going to be a pain in the ass. Might not be worth my time.

I've thought for a while about moving to a different site with straight rakeback, and although that deal is enticing, I just don't think it would be worth moving without a rakeback deal worth more than your standard %30. Stars' support, the familiarity, the info I have on the players I know, keeping supernova, I'm just not sure it's worth it.

I'll think about it a bit, but either way I'll be getting the book when it comes out early May.

It's a little surprising that I started running so well before even having a session (since my recent shitty stretch) with Jared. I've got one booked tomorrow and will get my act back together. I'm almost on pace for a 'good' month in terms of number of hands, but could definitely play more. Spring stuff has gotten itself in the way of that for the meantime. I haven't done any mental game exercises at ALL this month, despite setting a goal to do my warmup/warmdown stuff for %75 (was it?) of my sessions. I dunno, I think I just have to take a step back and look at what I'm trying to do with Jared and my mental game, and get it done. I can't keep dropping hundreds on sessions with him only to dick around and not do the stuff he's laying out for me.

Speaking of coaching, I hope he doesn't mind me mentioning it but Icemonkey9 approached me for coaching a while back and until now I wasn't sure I was going to do it. I still don't have much experience coaching one on one, but I think all the posting and videos I've done have convinced Sean I'm good enough to help him out with 6max for a reasonable price, and we're starting soon! I'll be taking a look at his DB, spotting leaks, and preaching to him what I think is a winning 6max style. Should be fun, Sean's a great guy and hopefully we can get some videos of the sessions out for you up and comers.

I think that's about it. I realize I haven't posted a graph or even a hand on this piece of shit blog in ages, so here's this year's madness. I'm sure you can understand why I was getting so frustrated now that I put the swing in perspective huh? :)

Cooled down?

To recap, March was a disaster, dropping a few grand and tilting worse than I have in a long while, only to nearly break even by the end of the month, lifting my spirits. Then April started with a nice downward ~$4k slope. Since then I took a break, did some fun stuff outside of poker, got back to review my play and get back on the grind. I think I was having a somewhat frustrating break even stint before a few winning sessions brought back some confidence. The biggest difference? I'm tightening up.

One factor in me playing so loose (I think I was 28/24 for a while there, with proportionally high 3bet/4bet numbers) was the HU play on the side. I think I've improved my HU play dramatically lately, and that includes my tilt control during those sessions which was undoubtedly my biggest leak, but it has a side effect of altering my perceived ranges in 6max. I think everyone's making plays when really they simply have hands.

Mr. Paulsson has recently been playing a much tighter >20 vpip style, and honestly I'm starting to think it might be optimal in today's low/mid stakes games. I guess you could swing that argument back and forth, but for now I think my MO should be to drop my game down to somewhere around a 22/20 instead of the approaching 30 vpip style I had.

A big problem with playing tight is that it's an ego thing for me, honestly. I do believe I'm in the 5th percentile at 200nl 6max, and kind of wish more than believe that I can play superduper aggro and run the tables. That of course has it's detrimental side in that I try to play that style, people play back at me or show up with dominating hands in big pots, and I get furious that they 'show up with the top of their range'. Of course I am running like shit lately, but playing so loose is definitely a part of it. While a 19/16 style is definitely exploitable, it very well could be the highest earning style atm. Honestly if you look through the PTR ratings of highest grossing 200nl 6max players this year, most of them are the nits who we 'good' players think we're exploiting! Like 17/14 nits! What the fuck!

Not to mention that with that style they can play a million tables, increasing their hourly wage tenfold or whatever. Fuckers.

Anyways, that's the first thing on my plate: tighten up. Not quite 17/14 or even 20/17, but at least back down to my usual 24/20 or 23/19 or whatever.

Some other stuff on my plate:

I was going to do coaching with BalugaWhale, but looking at the guesstimated price for his new ebook coming out in a few weeks, the courses don't even look worth it to me. The book covers 'everything', is in a format you can constantly refer to and have forever, and is only ~$1000. The course I'm looking at is specific to 'beating aggressive games' (not entirely sure how much content or the variety of content is in there compared to the book), is a one time thing that you can't reread (maybe they record it as a video though?), gives you the advantage of speaking directly to BW himself, but it's almost 2.5x the price of the book. So really you're paying extra to interact with BW and the other students. Not sure the price difference is worth it for me.

The course doesn't start for a while and not all the info is out on the book, it's pricing, etc etc yet, so I'm seeing if I can wait before deciding.

Another thing I need to do is have another session with Jared to get myself even more level-headed and get some goals set out. I simply can NOT afford another blowup like March/early April.

Kind of a scattered post, but that's the way I feel right now.

I almost completely abandoned this month's goals so I could clear my head of poker for a while, and I kind of regret it. Haven't done a bunch of shit on that list, and some of it I think I'll benefit from. If any of you low stakes 6max guys want to start getting some sweats going, let me know.

Cheers guys. I know for some of us cardschatters, poker's been pretty shitty for the last while. Keep your chin up and get through it. Remember those 5k+ months and they'll come back :)