Mind Games

Update

Well, oddly enough, there is no specific instructions on "Frustration" in MGP

So, I'm going to use "Entitlement Tilt" as my target Mental leak.

Entitlement Tilt is when you get angry when you think that you deserve to win but you don't.

This is going to be difficult because, dammit, I DO DESERVE TO WIN

I'm a nice guy, I shower regularly, and I'm kind to small animals.

So today I fought off tilt over a 500 hand 5-Card Draw session that saw me down 30 bb at one point. I managed to hold my self in check, and although I made a couple of unconventional plays, I did them deliberately and for a purpose. (I have no idea WHAT that purpose was, mind you, but I do assure you, there was one).

Throughout the course of the session I had the usual several times where my draws got beaten by better ones.

I hung in there, and did not let fear take over, and continued to CBet and 3Bet properly, and eventually hit a run of non-suckout-space and managed to claw back all but 6 bb.

I felt good about my play, and about my mental state.

I recognized getting on the edge of frustration, and warded it off by reminding myself that I was playing well, and I would get my turn in the luckbox one day.

Feeling entitlement tilt is very often my sit out moment.
I was thinking about your idea of coming up with something logical when feeling frustrated. If you inject the logic first, wouldn't that pre-empt the feeling? Having said that, it sounds a bit robotic though, hmmm.

To avoid misclicking as much as possible, I take my hand off the mouse completely these days until ready to act. This gives me a vital few seconds to try to think, rather than just clicking buttons.

Mrs Vorpal and I took a bit of a break this week.

Her sister runs a theatre in Creston, British Columbia, and was going to open "The Hobbit" with a special midnight showing Thursday night.

On the spur of the moment, we decided to drive there and surprise her.

The trip is 750 km, and over 7 mountain passes, including Kootenay Pass
There are webcams for 6 of the 7 passes. Kootenay Pass has the distinction of being the highest year-round highway pass in Canada.

The driving conditions were "Mostly bare, with compact snow, slushy and slippery sections. Limited visibility at higher elevations due to fog and blowing snow." To quote the road report.
Bear in mind that in British Columbia from November to March that is the road report for every highway in the province except for the lower Fraser valley and southern Vancouver Island.

Quite the surprise.
We showed up at the theatre as the line was forming, and exchanged pleasantries with the people (mostly teenagers) waiting in line.

We had a blast taking the tickets, handing out the 3D glasses and generally harassing the clientèle

On the way, we stopped off to see our grandchildren, who revel in the knowledge that there grandpa is Santa Claus

Here are some trip pics for the skeptics
Gandalf & Galadriel getting ready in Rivendell

Does she look at all surprised?

Gandalf & Galadriel On the job

Gandalf? No, sometimes I'm Santa Claus

The summit of Kootenay Pass in the fog

More scenes on the Kootenay Pass highway

Look for faces in the icicles

Highway 3 Hairpin on descent from Anarchist Mtn

Originally posted by VorpalF2F

Look for faces in the icicles

Wow that's a nice photo

wow! great pics Bruce! Looks like you guys had a lot of fun!

Superb idea, looks like it was a lot of fun! Nice one Santa!

Anarchist Mountain!? ♦ ♦

Originally posted by gadget51
Superb idea, looks like it was a lot of fun! Nice one Santa!

Anarchist Mountain!? ♦ ♦

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_Mountain

Now we both know.

I never questioned the name before.
So many strange names around here...

Awesome pics. They remind me of my place. I want to move to Canada and live near a mountain with that name

Originally posted by MisClick
Awesome pics. They remind me of my place. I want to move to Canada and live near a mountain with that name

The closest town is Osoyoos (pr Oh-sue'-yuss) which is a native word meaning "Hot as hell in summer" ( I think). It sits between 2 lovely lakes, and is one of the top retirement destinations in Canada.

It is the northernmost extension of the Great Sonoran Desert which starts in Mexico and extends all the way up to Penticton, BC

The climate is super dry there, and has one of the highest hours of sunchine in the entire province.

I used to take my telescope there all the time.

wow, that sounds like the perfect place!!! Hot in summer, snow in winter = proper summer and proper winter. That's the kind of climate I like!!! checking house prices ♦

Update
5-Card Draw

5-Card Draw is *supposed* to be a low variance game.

I find it very streaky, though.

I get long stretches of a hundred hands or more with just crap, and then I go on a 100-hand tear and make a bunch.

I had battled back tonight and was up about 10 BB nearing the 500-hand mark when I lost a boat - over - boat hand.

It seems to me that I NEVER win when I turn my two pair hands into full houses.

That is not true, however.
I ran a query on my pokerhands database, and discovered that In 36000 hands, I am + $92.00 in 315 hands when holding a full house post-draw.

However when I am facing a boat I have won only once in the 13 times this has occurred, for a net lost of $10.85 -- or 54 BB

I played no NLHE tonight.

Tomorrow I have an appointment w/ HM tech support who are curious as to why HM2 won't show a HUD on Party fast forward, so I've been getting ready for that.

On the mental side, I'm still doing the hand-by-hand mental assessment, and injecting logic as necessary.

It has almost become a habit to evaluate my mental performance on each and every hand as I play it. I don't know at this point if that is a good thing, an intermediate step or a bad habit.

Some things I've noticed:
♦  I don't like to raise 4 or 5 times in a row, even if the hands are all legitimate raising hands.
♦  I play pocket 7s - 9s more aggressively than Ts or Js
♦  I rely on stealing a huge amount -- but tend to call 3Bets too often.

I start every hand with one or more of these:
"Each hand stands on its own merits."
"I make no decisions based on events of the past, nor hopes for the future. "
"This hand, and only this hand"

I was pretty pleased with my play tonight.
Poker: B+
Mental: B+

Update
NL 4

I was playing today to test the work that HM2 support did fixing my inability to see a HUD on Party FF tables.

I had a fantastic session:

Now that may not look like much, but the big loss early on A used to be a major setback.
After a big initial loss, I would turn weak-tight, and play my big hands passively, and fold most speculative hands entirely.

I continued to play aggressively, playing each hand as the situation demanded.

The two hands marked B also represent a victory. They were fairly good made hands, but I managed to let them go due to the near certainty that I was beat. If I was bluffed off a better hand, then well played villain. Formerly, I would have taken these to showdown, and lost even more.

I wonder a bit about the hand at C
In this hand, the board is fairly wet and made straights are possible on the flop.

Party, $0.02/$0.04 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players

CO: $6.62 (165.5 bb)
Hero (UTG): $11.41 (285.3 bb)
BTN: $3.64 (91 bb)
MP: $3.92 (98 bb)
SB: $8.97 (224.3 bb)
BB: $5 (125 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q:d Q:h
Hero raises to $0.12, MP calls $0.12, 3 folds, BB calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.38) 7:s T:d 6:h (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.27, MP folds, BB calls $0.27

Turn: ($0.92) J:h (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.66, BB calls $0.66

River: ($2.24) 5:s (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Results:

Previously I would have played for pot control here, and won the blinds and a bit. However this player was playing 24/18/0 and had lost almost half his stack at this point.

I posted this hand for evaluation -- I rather think I should have bet bigger. On the whole, I think I managed to avoid all of the mental mistakes I'm currently working on.

Yay me.

In conversation today with some other PokerStrategy.com members, the statement was made that variance increases with aggression.

It seems true on the surface, but without aggression I tend to lose a lot more -- or at least I seem to lose a lot more.

The trick is to be aggressive when doing so will prompt your opponent to make a mistake. If you are aggressive at a time when you opponent is unlikely to make a mistake, then you are wasting your time -- and your aggression.

If you are aggressive TOO much, then you get played back at -- hard.

I offer in evidence this hand from today's 5-Card Draw session.

Dont have a cow, heres your converted hand
PokerStars Limit 5 Card Draw $0.10/$0.20 - 5 players

BB: $4.64 (Hero)
UTG: $2.40
CO: $4.36
Button: $4.16
SB: $3.24 71/41/13/2 v/p/3/af over 117 hands

His ATS was 61%
CBet 70%
but his fold to CBet was also 70%

Dealing Hands: ($0.15) T:heart: J:heart: 6:club: 7:heart: Q:heart: (5 players)
3 folds, SB raises to $0.20, Hero raises to $0.30, SB raises to $0.40, Hero calls $0.10
This was so typical of his play. I was reasonably sure that he was bluffing, and that after I drew 1 and CBet he would fold. I intended to do that whether I hit the flush or not.

First Draw: ($0.85) (2 players)
SB stands, Hero discards 1,
T:heart: J:heart: 7:heart: Q:heart: || 9:heart:
SB bets $0.20, Hero raises to $0.40, SB raises to $0.60, Hero raises to $0.80, SB calls $0.20

Hero showed T:heart: J:heart: 9:heart: 7:heart: Q:heart:, a flush, Queen high
SB showed 6:heart: T:diamond: 9:spade: 7:diamond: 8:club:, a straight, Six to Ten
Hero won $2.30
(Rake: $0.10)

So:
His aggression induced his opponent (me) to make a mistake.
A month ago I would NEVER have bet such a hand, let alone raise it.

It was a fun hand to play.

For his 117 hands, he went 100 hands or so moving up and down between even and +$2.00

Following this hand, though several other players jumped on the "play back at the maniac" bandwagon and he left the table with his tail between his legs and $4.19 of his money in our stacks.

I finally hit 750 FPP on P** today and doubled my bankroll.
$10 bonus, and I spent a 1000 FPP on another $10.
WooHoo

I'm going to use my 37K hands of 5-Card Draw to attempt to correlate various stats to amount won.

More on that later.

Sorry not have noticed your blog before.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
His aggression induced his opponent (me) to make a mistake.

It's not clear to me that you made a mistake. If you go by the Sklansky definition of a mistake, then I suppose you did, but you have to think in terms of ranges, not hands. I think raising a flush draw against an opponent with a wide range who c/f a lot post flop is a very reasonable strategy. Next time you get into the same situation with him and you have two pair plus and 3bet him predraw, what's he going to do? I would say he's going to be even more inclined to pay you off. Just because you do something -EV against a particular hand doesn't mean it's -EV against his range.

Merry Xmas

JB

I spent the afternoon today carefully examining my pokerhands 5-Card Draw database looking for SOMETHING that would explain this graph.

The points of interest are:
A I read the PokerStrategy.com articles on 5-Card Draw by EV Galois.
B Following an exchange in the forums w/ Huricano and JBPatzer, I learn the art of open-raising FDs and OESDs and CBetting unimproved vs select villains. Thanks Guys!
C I have absolutely no idea why things suddenly went so sour. The section from here to D was such a confidence breaker that I fell back into overly tight, passive play.
I do not know what -- if anything -- I was doing wrong.
D to E I just played hit-and-run when I got good hands. I avoided known good players and basically used 5-Card Draw to kill time in the evenings when I didn't feel like playing poker. Even so, all along I was a slightly winning player.
E Around here I realized that with a few more VPPs I could get $20 worth of free cash. I started playing fixed-length sessions of 500 hands. Also somewhere around here, I started this blog, and with it my mental game excursion. I started 3Betting strong hands both pre- and post-draw. Even so, there is a lengthy downswing.

To examine the data, I first eliminated all sessions less than 100 hands.
I then used Excel's pivot chart to view each stat vs bb/100 in turn.

There was a VERY loose correlation between after-draw aggression frequency and winrate -- the more the merrier.

NOTHING ELSE SEEMED TO MATTER AT ALL.

So, all things taken together -- just variance. Why so swingy though?

One other factor I CAN'T measure is who I'm playing against.
When table selecting, I try to pick either unknowns or player's I've coded green, and avoid those I've coded red.

I take lots of notes at 5-Card Draw, since stats may tell you how many he drew and when, but not WHAT he kept nor how he played it.

I'll keep at this limit (the lowest $0.10/$0.20) to 50K hands, then move up to $0.25/$0.50 -- though there is not so much action there.

I had a bit of a nap this afternoon.

I reviewed the data from my 5-Card Draw analysis and concluded that I was not CBetting enough when OR w/ my 2Pr hands. I found that I won a lot at showdown, where all players checked the hand post-draw.

Since I don't OR crap too often, if I could only get a call 1/4 of the time on those hands, I would be ahead.

Well it turns out, that not only do they call, they call LOT. At least to start with, then they fold pre-draw when you OR

So now you can OR crap, and if they call, you can CBet and THEN they fold.

On the mental side, I found I was in the zone.
I was charging into hands, and occasionally getting out-drawn, and having NO EMOTIONAL REACTION AT ALL.

This admittedly felt very odd.
In the past, when there was a 3Bet hand in progress, I had the "fight-or-flight" type physical response. When out-drawn, I would feel let down, disappointed, or downright angry.

In the graph in my previous post, the overall winrate is $0.68 BB/100.
After the last 268 hands, it has gone to $0.74 BB/100

helped in large part by this hand:
Feral Cow Poker
PokerStars Limit 5 Card Draw $0.10/$0.20 - 5 players

Button: $1.63
SB: $4.48 (Hero)
BB: $2.50
UTG: $1.74
CO: $0.10

Dealing Hands: ($0.15) 7:spade: A:spade: J:heart: 4:club: A:diamond: (5 players)
UTG calls $0.10, CO calls $0.10 and is all-in, Button calls $0.10, Hero calls $0.05, BB checks

First Draw: ($0.50) (5 players)
Hero discards 3, BB discards 1, UTG discards 3, CO discards 2, Button discards 1,
A:spade: A:diamond: || 4:spade: A:heart: A:club:
Hero bets $0.20, BB raises to $0.40, UTG calls $0.40, Button folds, Hero raises to $0.60, BB raises to $0.80, UTG folds, Hero calls $0.20

Note that BB has a mediocre flush, and he's capping with it.
Since I had drawn 3, this might be reasonable.
Even UTG cold-called post-draw after drawing 3.

Hero showed 4:spade: A:spade: A:heart: A:club: A:diamond:, four of a kind, Aces
BB showed 9:heart: 2:heart: T:heart: 3:heart: 4:heart:, a flush, Ten high
CO mucked
Hero won $2.40
(Rake: $0.10)

I have only flopped quads once in NLHE that I can remember.

Why did I not raise pre?
With all those players in the pot, it is quite possible that I am beaten already, since a lot of these players limp smaller 2 pr, and I'm OOP

But maybe that tactic is a hold-over from my fear-tilt days.
I'll have to ask Huricano or JB whether it is advisable to raise this.

Oh -- and just to make my wonderful day complete, I hit a full house drawing 1 to 2pr, and WONDER OF WONDERS I out-drew another 2pr => full house.

I'm 2 out of 14 in the boat vs boat battle.

I wanted to see whether or not a much more aggressive strategy would be effective at NLHE

Yes and no.

The trick to being aggressive is knowing when to back off.

I played 275 hands of NL 5 Rush on Full Tilt.
I don't care about my FT bankroll, so it was the ideal platform for this.

I started by overplaying by playing Bet/Raise w/ QQ on a 5KT board, but villain wasn't having any of that, thank you very much, and I lost rather more than I should have to K5

However, I rather liked these three hands.
NONE of which I could have played like this while fear, entitlement and injustice tilt had accumulated to the point of making me a timid, tentative and ultimately a weak, passive player.

I'm not declaring that I have reached "stable confidence".
Far from it. In fact, in at least one of the hands, I got a bit excited -- with the increased heart rate and the whole works.

Hand 1:
I fold AA on the flop.

Full Tilt, $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em Cash, Rush, 6 Players

BTN: $5.36 (107.2 bb)
SB: $2.63 (52.6 bb)
BB: $5.09 (101.8 bb)
Hero (UTG): $12.37 (247.4 bb)
MP: $3.27 (65.4 bb)
CO: $5.16 (103.2 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A:h A:d
Hero raises to $0.15, MP folds, CO calls $0.15, BTN calls $0.15, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.52) 4:c 8:h 5:d (3 players)
Hero bets $0.40, CO calls $0.40, BTN raises to $1, Hero folds, CO calls $0.60

Turn: ($2.92) 3:d (2 players)
CO checks, BTN bets $1.60, CO raises to $4.01 and is all-in, BTN calls $2.41

River: ($10.94) 9:h (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results: $10.94 pot ($0.72 rake)
Final Board: 4:c 8:h 5:d 3:d 9:h
BTN showed 7:d 6:d and won $5.11 (-$0.05 net)
CO showed 6:s 7:c and won $5.11 (-$0.05 net)

I was somewhat lucky in that I got to see what villains had.
The call and raise made me think that at least one of them had hit a set.
I was a bit surprised to see two players calling a raise & call w/ 76.
At least the 2nd caller was getting decent odds.

Entitlement tilt would have me shove here.
Well done me.

Hand 2.
Sorry, mate, I just don't believe you have a hand.

Full Tilt, $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em Cash, Rush, 6 Players

UTG: $2.50 (50 bb)
MP: $2.28 (45.6 bb)
CO: $12.49 (249.8 bb)
BTN: $1.89 (37.8 bb)
SB: $3.69 (73.8 bb)
Hero (BB): $11.47 (229.4 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q:s A:h
4 folds, SB completes, Hero raises to $0.20, SB raises to $0.40, Hero calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.80) 5:h J:c 2:d (2 players)
SB bets $0.50, Hero calls $0.50

Turn: ($1.80) 3:c (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($1.80) 5:c (2 players)
SB bets $0.55, Hero calls $0.55

Results: $2.90 pot ($0.19 rake)
Final Board: 5:h J:c 2:d 3:c 5:c
SB showed Q:h 6:d and lost (-$1.45 net)
Hero showed Q:s A:h and won $2.71 ($1.26 net)

I could not imagine what hand a person could have that they would complete then minraise with, that they would not raise with outright.

On such a dry flop, I held 2 overs which I though worth at least one bet.
I free card on the turn, and a silly little river bet. By this time, I'm just calling out of curiosity. He seems to think he has something, but I sure don't know what. He could have a whole gamut of hands I don't beat.

The whole pot is barely over 10% of my stack, so I'm not really too put out if I lose anyway.

Hand 3.
This is why I like playing deep stacked
Full Tilt, $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em Cash, Rush, 6 Players

CO: $7.23 (144.6 bb)
BTN: $2.50 (50 bb)
SB: $2.50 (50 bb)
BB: $5.21 (104.2 bb)
UTG: $3.03 (60.6 bb)
Hero (MP): $12.94 (258.8 bb)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 7:c 7:d
UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.15, CO raises to $0.40, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.25

Since villain has almost 150 bb, he easily fits the call 20 rule.

Flop: ($0.87) K:h K:d 5:c (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.50, Hero raises to $1.50, CO folds
Since I'm now OOP and w/o initiative, I pretty much have to check on this board, if I bet first, he can 3Bet me with or without a K and I'm gone.

OTOH if he is just CBetting out of habit, then he cannot possibly continue w/o a K, and I can easily get away.

The fear tilt me would have played c/f trying to "protect" my stack instead of using it as a hammer.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Xmas!

a gift for your blog

:diamond:Merry Christmas :diamond:
I didn't play poker at all yesterday or today.

I did visit my daughter-in-law briefly, though and found her boyfriend playing two MTTs on FTP.

He was doing fairly well -- min cashing in the $50 but busting out in the $10.

His play seemed quite sound, and his mindset seemed pretty good too.

He plays only MTTs and large buy-ins, and says he does well.

Hmmmm....

I'll have to think about that. I find MTTs very hard to take, in that the games run so long, and the rewards come so rarely.

Did I mention that I don't handle frustration well?

Maybe I'll play the Daily Dollar on FTP until my FTP bankroll is gone.

Nice Blog