Question 1: What is your motivation for playing poker? (Be as vague or specific as you want with this one, but try to think of all the reasons and elaborate on them.)
I play poker mainly because I enjoy it. I enjoy the challenge of trying to work out the best move to make against my opponents. I sometimes think of it much like a puzzle made up of lots of pieces of information that has to be solved using the clues I am able to pick up from my opponents play. However the puzzle is always changing, as different opponents have different styles, and some of them will change how they play depending on how they view their opponents, requiring a very dynamic approach.
I also want to win money. Eventually I would like to be able to make regular cash-outs that will supplement my normal income as I have just begun studying at university.
Question 2: What are your weaknesses when playing poker? (What are the mistakes you know you are doing during your games? Are you playing while tired? Are you tilting easily? Want to see the showdown too much? Write as many as you think are affecting you.)
I think that my weaknesses can be split into three groups;
External factors -> Firstly, I have a partner and young baby, and they are still my number 1 priority. This means that finding time to play / study poker is difficult. Often I chose more to play than study or review my sessions. Sometimes I also get distracted and start checking emails or playing with my PT3 HUD / stats / graphs.
Psychological -> Because I want to give my time to my family, I often play at night as there is no other time I can. If I end up playing a long session, it becomes late, so I play a lot when I am tired leading to short attention span then tilt – usually becoming weak/tight, or stacking off with TPTK
Occasionally I have a really good run of sessions where I win a large amount, and then I start to become overconfident, and will then lose a lot of what I have just won.
…..Am I addicted? …..maybe, definitely obsessed! Pokerface
Technical -> Sometimes I place to much value on top pair / over pair hands (this has improved thanks to the first school), though it gets reinforced when opponents show a lower pocket pair, or TPWK.
I very often either bet or fold post flop. The h/w from the first school definatley showed that I often like to fold hands with decent equity if faced with a bit of aggression - so would like to improve my equity understanding.
I hardly ever have a plan for how I would like to play the hand, so I really want to work on this one a lot.
I win more from the co than the btn... not sure why, and don't know how to find the reason or fix it.
(I'm working on this at the moment - again thanks to the first school)
Question 3: What does it mean to play tight-aggressive? (Describe in your own words what playing tight aggressive is, and why does it work.)
Tight = is usually used to mean playing few hands – playing only those that stand to win consistently, and those where you have the advantage of position.
Aggressive = means that when you want to play, you are more likely to bet or raise than to call.
Tight Aggressive = I think that this means if you decide to play it may be based either on your cards or on an opportunity you believe exists; but will not be with really sub-standard cards or random over aggression.
Tight aggressive works in my opinion because firstly because you are mostly folding the weakest hands that many opponent will play. Secondly, by looking for good opportunities to target weaker opponents, you can force them to give up in many spots. Thirdly, by taking the initiative with aggression you force your opponents to react to you, so you may win just by betting, but even if called your tightness will usually mean you already have the better hand, or are likely to improve to the better hand.
