Ramble's Ramblings

Yeah that was pretty funny lol!

I was planning on playing, but fell asleep lol while watching a documentary on the soviet KGB.

Originally posted by maythany
fell asleep lol while watching a documentary on the soviet KGB.

any chance you can link this documentary to me. I'm fascinated by anything cold war (particularly submarines... I like submarines).

It seems I'm on a bit of a heater... played 2 sets of 8 tables while my little guy is napping.

After the first set I felt like I wasn't playing optimally - checked my results and was pleasantly surprised that I was ITM 50% and turning a profit. Took note of what I wasn't happy with and started round 2. I finished the second set ITM 63% with a couple 1st, couple 2nd and a 3rd (and a couple of bubbles). ♦ Very happy with my play and the results are just icing on top.

I probably don't have time to get another set in before my kid wakes up, so time to review...

GP: 16
ITM: 56.25% (62.5% counting bounties)
ROI: 44.4%

Hopefully I'll get some more games in tonight.

Time for my weekly results post (although I cheated a couple of times to brag...)

All week I've been playing the $3.50 KO's and am enjoying them. The extra dynamic that the bounties offer is very interesting and I seem to be doing well at them too so that doesn't hurt either!!! ♦

I am very slowly falling behind on my volume goal - I need about 100 games a week to make it and this is proving more difficult to squeeze in then I thought - just 2 more sets of 8 games a week is all I need - but that extra 90 minutes is tough to find.

I am trying to spend more time with family & friends during evenings and weekends and as the weather improves I think this trend will continue, so I need to figure something out quick. I am traveling for work next week though and will be stuck in a hotel with not much to do in the area, so as long the Internet connection is good I might be able to make up some lost ground. (It's been spotty in the past).

Stats for the week:
GP: 73
ITM: 57.5% (1st-11, 2nd-11, 3rd-16, bubble-14, rest-21)
ROI: 27.0%
2014 VG: 765/5000 (167 games behind)

I've been looking at my finish distribution and the above seems fairly representative for any given week... In other words, I have 2 things I need to focus on:
Why am I am bubbling so often?
Once I'm ITM, how do I convert more of those 3rd's and 2nd's to 1st's?

So far I haven't come up with the answer to either of those questions on my own yet - as I am generally pretty happy with my play in those spots when I do my review sessions...

In that small sample you were obviously getting to 4 handed quite a lot. If I kind of normalize that and compare it to my play for last month; my 3rd and 4th are in similar proportions, I have slightly less 3rd much less 2nd and more 1st.

Three ideas; are you still over adjusting from the "don't always play for 1st" mentality? The only time it makes sense to play for 2nd is when you and the other small stack are so disconnected from the big stack. I feel like playing for 2nd is the exception to the rule and that playing for 1st is normally the right way to approach it.

Are you attacking the right person and are you being a bully as the big stack. 3 handed still has fairly high ICM tax and the pusher still has a big advantage over the caller. I've started playing ITM a bit more similarly to the bubble.

Are you feeling comfortable heads up. Perhaps the fact stars has more regs effects this but I've always felt I have a massive advantage over recreational players simply by playing nash heads up. My strategy above 14bb is to determine whether I can outplay them post flop. If I can I'll min raise or limp a lot. If I can't, I'll start shoving fairly early. Against recreational players I feel like I have a massive edge and this actually factors into my play 3 handed.

Originally posted by pauln
are you still over adjusting from the "don't always play for 1st" mentality?

Yeah - I'm finally over that - I always play for first now except for that rare stack set-up where we are both extremely short (<5 bb) vs a dominant stack.

Are you attacking the right person and are you being a bully as the big stack. 3 handed still has fairly high ICM tax and the pusher still has a big advantage over the caller. I've started playing ITM a bit more similarly to the bubble.

I think I am applying pressure in the right spots when I can. What I might not be doing is recognizing when I need to stop applying pressure... i.e. not making that 3-bet shove or making that flop c-bet. I don't think that's it, but something for me to be more mindful of.
My calling range once ITM may be too wide - this was a problem of mine about 4-5 months ago... maybe it has crept its way back into my game. Time to re-examine.

Are you feeling comfortable heads up?

Yes - I've always considered my HU play one of my strong points. Having said that, the numbers tell a different story... so far this year my 1st to 2nd ratio is 93:105, so I definitely need to revisit what I am doing. I most likely am not adjusting enough from Nash based on my opponent or am applying Nash incorrectly - time to study that again.

Thanks Paul - always appreciate your insights.

Just sat down for a quick mini-session. ROI of 70% after 8 games and believe it or not I'm disappointed as I bubbled a game that I had a lock on, because I got cocky against the one player that I had already decided to avoid...

Anyways this hand made me smile... ♦

Poker Stars, $3.20 Buy-in (50/100 blinds) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 8 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

MP3: 1,125 (11.3 bb)
CO: 2,280 (22.8 bb)
BTN: 815 (8.2 bb)
SB: 1,320 (13.2 bb)
Hero (BB): 1,820 (18.2 bb)
UTG+2: 430 (4.3 bb)
MP1: 1,375 (13.8 bb)
MP2: 4,335 (43.4 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q Q
2 folds, MP2 raises to 200, MP3 raises to 1,125 and is all-in, 3 folds, Hero raises to 1,820 and is all-in, MP2 folds

Flop: (2,500) K A 6 (2 players, 2 are all-in)
Turn: (2,500) 7 (2 players, 2 are all-in)
River: (2,500) 2 (2 players, 2 are all-in)

Results:

Originally posted by Ramble
Just sat down for a quick mini-session. ROI of 70% after 8 games ...

... and 8 games later my ROI is -14% as I failed to cash in a single one...
card dead or monsters getting cracked was the theme tonight!
Blech... off to bed.

... and the theme continued tonight. Sunday my BR was at the highest it has ever been and then I blinked and *POOF* gone... aaah well tomorrow is another day!

Haven't played much this week at all - feeling really unmotivated following another 20+ BI down-swing. It seems like I can grind away with fairly decent results overall for a few weeks slowly improving my bankroll - watching that green line rise slowly and then BAM - I run into these 20+ BI down-swings over 25 games... The first few times it happened I reviewed my play and found where I started making mistakes, but it seems like each time it happens, my review turns up less and less...

I decided to take a break for a couple of days and clear my head... then I took a couple more days to run through a bunch of scenarios in ICMizer and re-construct my opening range again. I also re-evaluated how I enter opened pots from various positions with different holdings and think my game is a bit more solid (on paper anyways - since I haven't put it into practice yet).

Ironically, I stopped reading The Mental Game of Poker 186 pages in to the book (on the topic of Motivation) :rolleyes:. I've decided to finish that before the end of the week. I've also book-marked Schnitzelfisch's motivation guides and am going to give those a read ASAP as well.

Last night we had our monthly home game and I was pretty dominant all evening. Cycled through a massive chip-lead then would suffer a couple of huge set-backs on river suck-outs, build back up to chip-lead and repeat... made it HU where I had my opponent covered by about 9:1 and just 5 hands later he walked away victorious... ahh well, I still finished ahead for the evening.

What did your ev line show during these swings?

Originally posted by maythany
What did your ev line show during these swings?

Overall the line is down in these swings with a few bumps in the right direction. I know I've flip-flop'd on the red-line thing many times, but I don't think in these small-sample sizes that much can be gleamed from them... if I get it in versus top of opponents range the line is going down even if my play is correct.

In fact, I don't look at my red-line at all anymore, especially now that I am playing KO's. I feel that reviewing hands is a much better and truer indicator if I am playing well. If I'm in doubt about my judgement in reviewing certain hands - that's when I flag them for further review with my coach (or study group - miss you guys ).

Finished The Mental Game of Poker the other night and have started going through it again tonight to develop my action items (already on chapter 3 again). Should be done by the end of this weekend.

It's really just me and pauln lol!

Ahh well, he's a pretty insightful guy and we have some pretty good conversations.

I can relate to your swings man, I lost 10 buy-ins over 100 games and it really is frustrating.

I got like 60 buy-ins left and I'll probably have to drop down if I lose half of it which I hope I don't.

Since there is a bounty head on each player, the games are going to be more swingy than usual, but definitely more profitable because 5-6 will be recreational players while the rest will range from decent to good regs.

I was actually hoping we could review hands or talk about the games because we're basically on the same boat, but since you got commitments outside of poker and so forth, I won't hold it against you :f_cool:.

And yeah I never really looked too much into the orange and red line until now. It's probably because I am looking for some sort of validation or something lol like my game is good I just got unlucky and such.

I know there's room to improve and I should stop making excuses and review my games like I used to.

Originally posted by Ramble
I know I've flip-flop'd on the red-line thing many times, but I don't think in these small-sample sizes that much can be gleamed from them... if I get it in versus top of opponents range the line is going down even if my play is correct.

In fact, I don't look at my red-line at all anymore, especially now that I am playing KO's. I feel that reviewing hands is a much better and truer indicator if I am playing well.

As the self proclaimed king of the red line (not only because have to explain it to people the most, but also that much of my claim to be a good player is based on it ♦) I basically agree with you here.

The red line still has the sample issues of the green line (although to a slightly reduced degree due to a lower standard deviation), I'd never encourage using it over fundamental analysis (reviewing hands etc.). All I've ever said is that it's a better indicator than the green line (which isn't saying much).

It has all the issues of running into the top of peoples ranges etc so it's a perfect indication. In addition it doesn't account for KO EV (although this is a requested feature being considered currently on hm2)

I only look at my red/green line seriously after maybe 800 games and at that point i'm more inclined to look at the red rather than green. Other than that I'm much more interested with hand reviewing.

Originally posted by maythany
I was actually hoping we could review hands or talk about the games because we're basically on the same boat, but since you got commitments outside of poker and so forth, I won't hold it against you :f_cool:.

The past few weeks have been pretty crazy, I'm hoping this Sunday things will be just a touch quieter and maybe we can get a review session in. I'll skype you & Paul Sunday to see if we can set something up for early afternoon.

Had a coaching session with Alex this evening - one of my favorite sessions with him so far as I really had my eyes opened to a couple of things I was doing on auto-pilot that I thought were good lines, but now I see weren't necessarily so. Damn you Unconscious Competence (or as zachrina says Unconscious Incontinence ), now I need to re-train myself all over again...

HaHa,

I am still here, keeping my eye on progress.
I'm trying the "taking a break" strategy for now. Too much happening in real life, all positive by the way ♦
I will be back for sure.

Hope all is well with you boys? GL

Originally posted by zachrina
I'm trying the "taking a break" strategy for now. Too much happening in real life, all positive by the way ♦
Hope all is well with you boys? GL

Glad to hear things are going well for you - hard to keep a good man down... or as my wife says - "Good to keep a hard man down!" ♦ (Love you Girl )

The lessons learned from my last coaching continue to pay off big-time as my ROI is through the roof (over a very small sample though). I will be traveling for work over the next few days, so I expect I'll be able to get a bit of volume in once I'm back to the hotel...

I had a small skype session with Paul today and just talked about poker in general and I really enjoyed it. He's very knowledgeable and easy to talk to, and his love of the technical side of the game is motivating. It makes you want to learn more, just so you can understand what the hell he is talking about!!!

Originally posted by Ramble
I will be traveling for work over the next few days, so I expect I'll be able to get a bit of volume in once I'm back to the hotel...

Connection at hotel is absolute trash and I'm not willing to risk the drop-outs... so instead I'll be doing lots of review.

It kinda sucks too, there is a major storm forecast for the day I was planning on going home, so instead of risking getting bumped to a flight a few days later, I booked a flight one day later... hopefully that gamble pays off.

It's a blizzard back home and all the airports were closed all day so I'm stuck in a hotel half way across the country tonight... the internet connection is better today though, so I got a few games in. Overall, I'm very happy with my play except for a couple of spots. About 30 games in and ROI of about 6.5%.

Just a quick update...

Overall March was a good month for me. I didn't get a ton of volume in and it started out pretty rough, but that forced me to look at my game again. This is something that I am learning never really ends. So when the downswing comes I just have to embrace it and use it to motivate me to study and review my game in great detail. I also come out of it a stronger player.

It also helps that my coachings with Alex are going very well too. The last two sessions were especially enlightening for me. We took turns watching each other play and afterwards had some great discussions and I took away a few things to work on.

In the past week, I've been trying to get more involved in the study group when I can, but I still feel like I need to make more of an effort there. There are some really knowledgeable people in that group and it always helps to see different takes on the same situation. We had a new guy throw in a hand for review the other day and there were 3 of us commenting and we all had different takes on how to play it. It was really interesting and forces you to re-evaluate - which is always a good thing.

So... stats for the month:

Tourneys Played: 259
ROI: 7.51%
2014 VG: 914/5000 (about 320 games or 6.4% behind goal)

I was at an ROI of about 9.2% yesterday and thought that it would be cool to bust 10%, but obviously that did not work as hoped.