German Soldier Majestaet

Originally posted by Majestaet
Hi Erik,

I would say I am struggling most with my confidence. After a few losing session I am often unsure about my game (even on my preferred limit, where I proved my skill for a few 100k hands). Instead of grinding like a robot and just waiting for good side of variance to come, I am thinking about my game too much and unneccessarily try to change things in my game. I also avoid to move up limits too fast, I think the reason is that failing there would destroy my confidence.

This a trend i start to see with almost all the guys that struggle with confidence issue. The focus lies on things that to a large extent is out of their control short term, results. And since the "long term" is always going to be in the future you need to find something in the present moment to focus on.

Are you doing any of the following when it comes to your sessions?

• Warm-Up
• Session goals for learning and improving
• Post-Session Analysis

Originally posted by ErikStenqvist

Originally posted by Majestaet
Hi Erik,

I would say I am struggling most with my confidence. After a few losing session I am often unsure about my game (even on my preferred limit, where I proved my skill for a few 100k hands). Instead of grinding like a robot and just waiting for good side of variance to come, I am thinking about my game too much and unneccessarily try to change things in my game. I also avoid to move up limits too fast, I think the reason is that failing there would destroy my confidence.

This a trend i start to see with almost all the guys that struggle with confidence issue. The focus lies on things that to a large extent is out of their control short term, results. And since the "long term" is always going to be in the future you need to find something in the present moment to focus on.

Are you doing any of the following when it comes to your sessions?

• Warm-Up
  No! I read about it in "The mental game of Poker" ( I am reading this at the moment). Sometimes I do three deep breathes before starting...but it should be easy to make a real warm-up a ritual/habbit.
• Session goals for learning and improving
  Really rarely. One reason is that I am not learning much new things...but yesterday I focused on the UTG-Opening-range from pleno1's seminar. And imfromsweden and ZioMiohave done a short stats analysis. Due to this I am also trying to improve my stealing ranges and a few other things. But there are many things in my game, where I do see much potential. But the best should be to work at these things one by one and not to many at the same time.
  How would you manage this? Concentrate on just one thing till it is learned to the level of "Unconcious Competence" and then go on with the next point? Or working at more than one thing at the same time (how many?)? And in which way: Session1: Problem 1 and Session2: Problem2 or concentrate in each this to each problem I am working at?
• Post-Session Analysis
  I am doing this. I look at my Session-graph, I control my stats for any big aberration to my normal stats. I also take a short look at the biggest pots I have played to see if I missplayed some of them (hands where I was unsure are marked during the session and I take a look at all of them the next day in the morning). Sometimes I take a look at my starting and final hands (especially to "prove" my bad luck after bad sessions )

It would be nice if you could help me with some hint how to manage to work on specific problems during sessions (one by one, two at the same time, three alternating,...???).
To the warm-up: Do you suggest something specific here? Something that seems to be the "philosopher's stone" and must be tried out first? In addition I will read this part from the book and try out some suggestions for warming up (and cooling down).

1. [*]Warm-Up
No! I read about it in "The mental game of Poker" ( I am reading this at the moment). Sometimes I do three deep breathes before starting...but it should be easy to make a real warm-up a ritual/habbit.

2. [*]Session goals for learning and improving

How would you manage this? Concentrate on just one thing till it is learned to the level of "Unconcious Competence" and then go on with the next point?

3. *]Post-Session Analysis
I am doing this. I look at my Session-graph, I control my stats for any big aberration to my normal stats. I also take a short look at the biggest pots I have played to see if I missplayed some of them (hands where I was unsure are marked during the session and I take a look at all of them the next day in the morning).

1. This will be covered in the upcoming series so i think that is a muchbetter way for you to earn the WU correctly To be continued.

2/3. Take he two biggest issues and work on those until you feel confident and it seems effortless for you. Keep it simple and focused, don't ge tdistracted. Also mark these hands were situation you are working on occurs. At least 3-5 hands and really break them down. Many players focus only on the big pots, but they can be very small EV wise since the small spots occur with such a high frequency . Try to evaluate to the best of you ability to which concept is costing you the most money.

This is the HUD I am using at the moment. I do not have any pop-up and rarely use notes. This cant be optimal

Short explanation of the stats:

-the four stats on the left top side: Fold2steal(overall)/Resteal + Fold SB/BB to steal under the horizontal line
-the five stats on the right side of this: Steal/Fold2resteal + CO/BU/SB-Steal under the horizontal line
-on the right side: Player name (black here) + amount of hand + VPIP/PFR/3Bet pre
-bottom: -first line: Foldto3Bet when raised and it was not a steal/WTSD/W$SD/4Bet/Foldto4Bet
-second line: CBetFlop/CBetTurn/FoldtoCBetFlop/FoldtoCBetTurn
-third line: AF(overall)/FlopAF/TurnAF/RiverAF

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Is there something obvious I should improve? Any important stats missing, any basics that need to be changed? Btw I play with stacked tables (amount of 7 at the moment, but want to incerease this later) and use PT3 (PT4 when a new PC is bought). I know that this is very individual and depends on the player, but a few suggestions would make me happy (or maybe links to good videos about this topic).

Just some stats I highly recommend everyone to use:
- Fold BB vs SB steal:
Should be the most common autoprofit spot on NL50/100 (if you 3x and villain folds more than 62,5% you got autoprofit..), and there are a lot of guys with 70+)

-Fold BU vs CO-open:
There's a huge range among the players. Some fold 70%, some 90%... If you got some tight guys behind, you can widen your CO range dramatically

u get an idea of these situation by looking at the overall stats, but just like to have them separately:

For your HUD I'd recommend adding Riv CBET/FTOCbet.
Don't know whether you got enough sample for making this helpful. But if you have it's interesting whether he is folding 40/30/60 or 40/30/30 ( against player1 I barrel the Turn a lot, even if he's almost never folding, just to setup a bigger pot for a highly profitable riverbluff)

Well, that's everything for your HUD

But some popups would be nice as well. I like having a positional 3betpopup:

It's just interesting to know how much he's 3betting BU vs CO or BB vs SB. You'll recognize the guys that 3bet only KK+,AK Blinds vs EP pretty fast... Goes with sample again, if you only have 500 hands/reg this popup won't help a lot

You can do the same for foldto3bet

So far, best regards
Steffen

Hey!

just wanted to check in and see how everything going on the mental side of things

lack of motivation...

my SH-"career" develops sooo slow...at least I am playing on a solid level since I reduced the number of tables and also improved a few things

I only played 25k hands and less than 40h this month...not very much in the semester break without writing any exams...

Originally posted by Majestaet
lack of motivation...

my SH-"career" develops sooo slow...at least I am playing on a solid level since I reduced the number of tables and also improved a few things

I only played 25k hands and less than 40h this month...not very much in the semester break without writing any exams...

How come the lack of motivation? Was there anything that happened or are the current results not showing up as quickly as you had hoped? Are you having monetary results?

The results suck:

And the longer the results dont show up, the harder it is to find the motivation to play (or to play well, if I play (although this is not a problem at the moment...I am not tilting and play on a level thats ok for me)). 18.6k hands are NL100 (lost 21 stacks) and 7.4k hands are NL50(won 2 stacks)...not what I was expecting when starting with the Bottcamp and playing SH...but the samplesize is much too small and I have to force me to grind a little...

Originally posted by Majestaet

And the longer the results dont show up, the harder it is to find the motivation to play (or to play well, if I play (although this is not a problem at the moment...I am not tilting and play on a level thats ok for me)). 18.6k hands are NL100 (lost 21 stacks) and 7.4k hands are NL50(won 2 stacks)...not what I was expecting when starting with the Bottcamp and playing SH...but the samplesize is much too small and I have to force me to grind a little...

Do you have a warm-up routine to make sure you are ready to play your best? Do you sit down with specific session goals?

I am meditating before my sessions. And before I start with my first session I make a time schedule for the day (when do I want to play and how much hands per session). And I also write down one or tweo aspects of my game that I focus on (and try to mark hands with this specific situations to analyse it the next day).

This helps to force me to play the last days...

...but the results really suck! I am not absolutely sure if I am playing my best poker all the time and my confidence is critical. My march-Graphs just look like the graphs of a real fish! I lost 20stacks (7stacks beyond ev) at NL50 last 3 days (8,1k hands)...thats -24bb/100...

I am reviewing my sessions and notice that I have many unlucky situations and do not play that bad, but after losing ~40 stacks in March within only 34k hands it becomes hard to believe that it is only variance...

I would understand this if playing Omaha or maybe Limit Holdem instead of NL FR, but just changing from FR to SH cant be such a big difference, I think. Especially if playing less hands/hour and tableselecting better.

I will give it a try for a few more sessions the next days...continue if it works or "back to the roots" if not (and try it again later).

I think I vent enough for now For all those who think "What a poor guy": Real life is on an upswing at the moment, financing of my study is safe and my roll is still big enough to play whatever I want (Just to cheer up myself a little bit...)

Originally posted by Majestaet
1.I am meditating before my sessions. And before I start with my first session I make a time schedule for the day (when do I want to play and how much hands per session). And I also write down one or tweo aspects of my game that I focus on (and try to mark hands with this specific situations to analyse it the next day).

2.This helps to force me to play the last days...

...but the results really suck! I am not absolutely sure if I am playing my best poker all the time and my confidence is critical. My march-Graphs just look like the graphs of a real fish! I lost 20stacks (7stacks beyond ev) at NL50 last 3 days (8,1k hands)...thats -24bb/100...

3.I am reviewing my sessions and notice that I have many unlucky situations and do not play that bad, but after losing ~40 stacks in March within only 34k hands it becomes hard to believe that it is only variance...

1. Great keep doing both. the long term results will benefit greatly from that.

2. I recommend breaking it down with the strategy coaches here. Whatever the conclusion is you want to look into it asap.

3. Play the game of looking for good variance. Have a notepad were you only write down good variance. Focusing on the positive will balance your concept of variance out a ton. Focusing on the positive won't change variance, but it will keep you happier and calmer.

Happy to hear life is rocking! Cheers!