OoT4NKoO

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 used to play poker just for fun, I had vague understanding of position but hardly ever put it into practice. Then as the months passed I became more and more fascinated by poker, I played as much as I could, read a book and a couple of articles and started understanding why I was doing what I was doing in certain situations...Then I started playing online, which threw me off my game very quickly. My motivation then changed from playing for fun to trying to be the best I can be and earn a little bit of money, but I am only breaking even which is why I have decided to take a short break to read/watch as much as I can to improve my game, I will also be looking at some coaching sessions in the new year to plug any obvious leaks I haven't picked up on.

Question 2: What are your weaknesses when playing poker? (What are the mistakes you know you are making during your games? Are you playing while you're tired? Are you tilting easily? Want to see the showdown too much? Write down as many as you think are affecting you.)

I believe my biggest weaknesses are tilting and lack of bank roll management. I have already got a better understanding of both of these by reading articles on PS, the Q&A with Jared Tendler thread Mal suggested was a brilliant read and has helped my understanding no end. Another weakness I have is judging my opponents range by reading HEM2 stats, any help with this will be greatly appreciated.

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.)

A tight aggressive poker player is someone who plays a small range of starting hands in an aggressive manner. I believe this works well in a number of ways...By being tight you represent a strong starting hand range which gives you a good table image this usually makes stealing from passive players who limp from early position when you are in co/btn much easier. By being aggressive, raising and re-raising you are more likely to win more pots, you cant make someone fold by calling or checking.

Homework 1 done. Hopefully I didn't mess it up too much, any feedback welcome.

T4NK

Hey T4NK,
Good luck with the dash to NL200.

Which stakes are you starting at?

We are in quite similar positions having played poker a while but now returning online to build a solid game and mindset.

I am trying to get together a small but dedicated study group of those playing NL10&NL25. I sent you a request via community tool, give me a shout if you are interested.

MD

Welcome to the Course and Best of Luck. Good job! Homework #1 Done!

Easiest way to fight against tilt is to set up stop-loss technique. Which means if you for example have lost more than 3BIs for a session then you just stop the session for some time. The BI amount is set up from your own results. Some may put it higher, some lower. Also after the stop you can spend some time with evaluation part to become better.

Another option against tilt is to set yourself shorter sessions which might avoid you from tilting. If you playing longer sessions then it's more likely that during that session you can get upset. So work on your game and try to find out what makes you tilt and try to fight against it.

BRM is very important aspect of poker, which is kind of must to follow. If you ain't following it it will lead you just gambling money away. During tilt phase it could also be the case that you are more moody and which means that you are going to lose more money away. If you don't have a proper BRM then it will lead you to the losses. Therefore try to follow strictly to BRM and set up the buy-in rule for yourself what is a must need. Standard would be ~25BIs at least which for some is even aggressive BRM.

Most of the weakness you wrote can easily be fixed by posting hands (analyzing your session). We will start writing feedback to your play. Usually negative feedback will put you into thinking phase and trying to fix all those leaks. It's almost the same as you lose money, you will remember it more than winning part. By this situation it's gonna be that negative feedback you gonna remember and try to avoid them next time.

Tight style is usually called playing selected hands. Like following the Starting Hand Chart. Aggressive should be also pretty clear that already the word says how you should be playing. But the problem playing aggressively is that you have to watch that you don't play too aggressive. Find good spots, find good targets. About The tight-aggressive strategy you can read in this article: "What is the Big Stack Strategy?"

Hopefully you will enjoy being with us here and will enjoy the course. In any case you have questions about anything then feel free to ask it, I will try to respond as soon I read it.

Good morning all,

MD; Thank you for the encouragement, I will be starting at NL10 and hopefully working my way up, I will employing a 35BI strategy, which may seem a tad conservative to some but I believe this will work best for me.

I am definitely interested in the study group, however I will not be playing again until the middle of November, my original plan was to wait until the new year but I feel I know so much more now just by reading and watching videos on here. Thanks to all the guys who have but in huge amounts of effort into making this site the best poker resource on the web.

Veriz; Thank you for the feedback and information. I will definitely be implementing a stop-loss technique and shorter sessions when I start playing again, most weekends I would play 2 - 10 hour sessions, which could be very profitable or I could tilt half my roll away, although I think the days of 10 hour sessions are long gone now I have a Fiancee and 11 month old daughter.

Once I start playing again I will be posing hands on a regular basis which will hopefully plug any major leaks, like you said negative feedback is what will stick which in turn will make me a better player in the long run. Once I have a sample of 30k - 40k I will be looking into some private coaching which will hopefully take my game to the next level.

Thanks for reading

T4NK