A Blog to Somewhere: March Results

Updated 11/25/11 @ 1PM EST

November Goals
[17k]18K Hands (~40% more than last month)
[15k]15K at 1/2 or Higher (35K/50k for 2011 Milestone)
[8] 2+ Gold Articles / Chapters
[13] 4+ Session Reviews
[7] 2+ Coaching Sessions
[x] Work on HU theory (Read an article, examine ranges)
[6] 9 HU SNGs
[x] Get Hands for 2/4.
[x] Find Suitable Rewards for Completing my tasks.
[9] 5+ preflop equity training sessions.

Rewards for Completing my goals in November:

• Note Caddy for HM2: $60

• Razer Mouse Mat $40

maybe?

Hey Guys! I decided to make a teaser video to speculate about whether making more videos would be in my interest. I'd really love some feedback either here or on YouTube. Its my first video of this type and so any critique will be helpful!

Looks pretty good to me bro. Hopefully next one's longer so we can really see you own ♠_cool:

PS. whats the note caddy?

Originally posted by bazerk
Looks pretty good to me bro. Hopefully next one's longer so we can really see you own ♠_cool:

PS. whats the note caddy?

Thanks for the feedback. I also hope to make some longer videos. We'll see how things turn out.

Note Caddy is a new app by holdem manager. It kinda makes notes for you and organizes them. So like, stats is a form of quantitative data and the HUD gives you stats. Notes are qualitative data, and note caddy organizes that info.

The link below has lots of videos on note caddy. You can learn way more about it there.

http://forums.holdemmanager.com/general-support/86341-official-notecaddy-hm-app-thread.html

I just wrapped up another very challenging & intense coaching session with AdamantHQ.

To him, I'm sure its a walk in the park... but my brain starts to melt after about an hour of studying Heads Up play. It literally reminds me of writing a final exam for university.

Heads up is amazingly more complex than 6-max, and I have much further to go before I can totally wrap my head around the game.

Also, having a coach really helps me to challenge myself. Sometimes its easy to ask a question like "what should I do to step up my game" but with an experienced coach this is never a problem.

About the video:

01:03 You decide to b/c turn - raise river, main argument being that this way you'll let him barrel his draws. But he's not going to fold a draw anyway to a turn 3bet. I would just 3bet the turn expecting him to almost never fold. It's quite unlikely that he plays a pure bluff this way. Also he could easily have stuff like J:cT:c that's going to c/c the river.

03:07 solid argument

Overall I think it's a good video... but I don't know who the audience will be. Most likely your villains : D

Originally posted by taavi1337
About the video:

01:03 You decide to b/c turn - raise river, main argument being that this way you'll let him barrel his draws. But he's not going to fold a draw anyway to a turn 3bet. I would just 3bet the turn expecting him to almost never fold. It's quite unlikely that he plays a pure bluff this way. Also he could easily have stuff like J:cT:c that's going to c/c the river.

03:07 solid argument

Overall I think it's a good video... but I don't know who the audience will be. Most likely your villains : D

well if he raise/barrels then he bets the river with zero equity rather than calling a raise with 20% equity. If i 3-bet and get capped then I'm forced to call down against a very strong range of hands. However, if i raise the river instead he'll occasionally miss that value raise with 2 pair.

It may be better to 3-bet right away if i expected him to raise weaker made hands like weak Kx or JT, but I didn't generally expect that.

I actually had to watch the video to find out what i said at 3:07. I heard rrrrrurr, stretch stretch... lol taavi troll.

edit: my intended audience is PokerStrategy.com

So I've really been making loads of progress with my goals, but results have not been to kind.

I'm down about 250BB. I still have a very robust roll for my current stakes, well over 500BB, but the probability of moving up this month is very slim.

I have been working really hard on my game, and the tables have been good, so at this point I'm going to get a couple people to evaluate some recent sessions and put my "on a downswing" plan into effect.

Plan For dealing with Downswing

1. Re-evaluate my goals
2. Fewer tables (2-3 max)
3. Consciously take longer to make decisions.
4. Tighten up preflop.
5. Tighten up postflop. (Fold out the most marginal spots)
6. Table select really really hard.
7. Get some coaching from someone solid.
8. Review hands after a session, take notes.
9. Post questionable hands.
10. Reward myself Every time I do all or most of these things.

Determination FTW

• At 2-3 tables, reaching my hand volume goals is still possible but difficult.
• I'm ahead of pace right now but its tougher to grind when things aren't going my way.
• What I'll do is calculate my hands/hr so far & figure how many more play hrs would be required.
• As long as I put in that amount of time then I still feel I've reached my goals.
• All other goals should be attainable (I've completed most of them already)
• Today I'll be posting a few more hands for review.
• An experienced 2+2er is reviewing one of my sessions this month
• I'm pretty sure my Coach & I are meeting up again soon.
• Taavi & I have been setting up another session as well.

SO,
If I'm frustrated I'll try harder.
If I have a tough decision I'll focus more.
If I find a weakness in my game, I'll try and improve it.
With each small improvement I'll recognize my hard work
and take the next step.

250 BB is really nothing, just one BOOM! +100 BB day and it'll be alright. I guess you already know how swingy this game can be, looking back last month I had six +100BB downers during 16k hands. Nothing to worry about.

Two more things that might cheer you up:

1) Take a look at your all-time graph.

2) There isn't such thing as a downswing. It only exists in your mind. Think about this: you woke up with no memory, only your solid poker skills and solid roll for the stakes. Shouldn't you be happy that you have the nice opportunity to play this high with good edge over the field? Just focus on the current situation. Why should the past count? Sit up. Breathe. Watch The Eightfold Path at DC.

Originally posted by taavi1337
250 BB is really nothing, just one BOOM! +100 BB day and it'll be alright. I guess you already know how swingy this game can be, looking back last month I had six +100BB downers during 16k hands. Nothing to worry about.

Two more things that might cheer you up:

1) Take a look at your all-time graph.

2) There isn't such thing as a downswing. It only exists in your mind. Think about this: you woke up with no memory, only your solid poker skills and solid roll for the stakes. Shouldn't you be happy that you have the nice opportunity to play this high with good edge over the field? Just focus on the current situation. Why should the past count? Sit up. Breathe. Watch The Eightfold Path at DC.

Thanks for the support

Logically, you're right. -250BB runs are inevitable over the long term due to the variance in poker.

I know all that matters is putting in the hands and improving my play.

However, even a person who cannot form explicit memories can learn to avoid new and unpleasant experiences. They still develop patterns of behavior that are derived from new experience even when they could never again recall those experiences.

Being mentally tough doesn't simply require us to forget the past. It has to be something more than that. On some fundamental level, the logic is absent. I don't yet "know" that I am guaranteed to have these runs over the long term by statistical chance alone even though I know, perhaps better than most, that this is indeed true.

Checking the lifetime graph is always a good tip for putting things into perspective. I've been on a decent upswing for months, and perhaps I was getting to used to that.

Anyway, I still plan to try and improve my edge a little more. Its statistically possible for this trend to continue, so my goal is just to make that as unlikely as I can.

Thanks, and lets have that session review soon! Its good for my sanity

Spent some time working on a 5 year plan. Trouble was, I didn't plan how to get there. Time to re-think this one.

Its quite worrying that you have a perceived 3% chance of achieving what would be your ''ideal'' yet a perceived 5% chance of death/suicide.

well, its complicated. For instance, who cares about ideals if your dead... and more than that, I'm predicting that I'm a 75% favorite to avoid anything worse than my current scenario. Today, things are not so bad.

Someone encouraged me to create this plan... and the truth is that I can't just expect one thing.

Edited by stevegold87 : Spam

I woke up today realizing that where I am in 5 years appears to be almost entirely dependent on whether I succeed or fail to master my depression.

I suspect this is in appearance alone. The relationship may be little more than a correlation, and it seems equally possible that success in life will help me overcome depression or visa-verse.

Its also likely there's a third factor which effects both. Maybe I just need the courage to keep trying.

If you think that success in life will cause the your depression to affect you less then the estimated probability thing isn't down to variance, it's down to you. Nothing should motivate you more than if you think your life will be horribly shit in 5 years if you do not work hard to be successful.

You yourself will know if you have the motivation to make your life better and your depression problem better. So based on your honest feelings about how motivated you are to improve your life you can simply change the estimated probability of one scenario (The one which you think you have enough motivation to succeed in) to 100% and the rest to 0%.

If any of that makes sense and you do believe success in life = master of depression

Thanks for the encouragement Wriggers, and you're right.

It would be deluded for me to suggest that I have no control over each outcome. From where I stand now If I do achieve success, then I'll have had a lot to do with it.

There are complications and there are things that I cannot control, but I better focus instead on things I can control and work to figure out which is which.

My question would be: why can't you enjoy your life at the moment, as it is? Just do everything you want to.

Good question. In one context it might not be a fair question, but its definitely tough to answer. The simple answer is I don't know, but if its apparently so easy why is anyone ever unhappy?

I remember on one of the universities walls it read “Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” The quote comes from Aeschylus, a Greek playwright, and ironically considered to be the founder of Tragedy.

If Aeschylus is right, I end up just feeling a bit pathetic because apparently I'm not trying hard enough. Somehow that just doesn't seem accurate.