So I think if I start a new page this will actually begin a new part of my blog… That is my hope.
I am playing on FTP now at 200nl. I can’t thank my staker/coach enough for this and his faith in me as a player. More importantly his faith in the friendship we have developed (online which to this day is weird to me, probably because of my age) and his trust in me to not steal/drunkenly lost/tilt away thousands of dollars. I think that says a lot.
At the same time, since this started I have beat the 25/50/100nl levels for a pretty sick win-rate over 150k hands+. What really gets me motivated is something very unexpected that I realized today. Matt rarely coaches me. I mean RARELY. Hes always quick to let me switch sites for a change, ship more monies if I get uncomfortable with where the roll is at, tell me how much better I am; compared to how good I actually am. Anything to help, but rarely says “hey dude, you fucked that up.”
Because of these things I have had done very little work on my game so far. Quite simply put, none was needed. I have watched maybe 5 videos in 3 months. Those were watched when I was running bad and only for the purpose of seeing if my play was much different than another good players. Never with the sole intention of learning.
Well 200nl has been a different story. I am not in a state of mind where I think the players are much better than me. I actually think quite the opposite. Almost EVERY regular is extremely exploitable. I just didnt quite know how to adjust to the 3b/4b bluffing, etc. It took me too many hands to realize this as well. Luckily I am only down 5-7 bi’s. I am definately down 7 to my coach. But that is in no way a hole. Thats a session or two. At the end of last night I chose to play one more session, and six table. My gameplan that session was to stick up for myself and call a little more in position with hands that have good reverse implied odds. When I hit big draws or hands, I can get it in and make some money! I lost 2 bi in 3 minutes.
So where to from there?
I watched 6 videos last night. Something long overdue…. I can honestly say it helped a ton! Did it teach me anything I dont already know? Maybe. Did it I hear things that I have heard before? Yes. For each video I took notes. My notes were on anything that the author stressed, and I wrote down any verbal material that I thought would be good to motivate, analzye etc. There were a couple thought processes I really enjoyed.
Moving forward yet again, now what? Well…. I am super motivated to play. Yes table selection is A key. Yes I must move tables more than I realized if I will only be 4-6 tabling. Constantly moving. Also table dynamic is crucial. Something I heard today really stuck. In a steal attempt, a constant 3better in the SB can instantly decrease the value of your hole cards. 96s is an easy button steal in most instances. It has no value against a guy that 3b’s light. Now at the same time a fish in the BB can actually “re-value” that hand to make it profitable again.
In the coming weeks I am going to make an effort to watch quite a few more videos. I think though, that I have learned the mistakes I was making. I already instantly consider myself one of the better players at 200nl. I will post the results to prove it in a month. At other limits I would flat out say to peoples faces that I was easily in the top 5. At 200nl there are plenty of good players. Through my study just now of 3b hands through 3 videos on them I have a much better understanding of this limit and the meta-dynamic involved in playing it.
So I just played another session that went really well and my non-SD winnings are going through the roof. I took a nice beat in this hand http://www.pokerhand.org/?3357300. I am interested in thoughts. Villan is 49/25/8.3 and a check-raise of 42% over 112 hands and is the reason I am at this table. I win this hand and I am down $100, up $300 for the session and feeling good. Instead I am down $450 atm and praying for a heater. Regardless, I will do well now that I have put in this extra effort on improving and the future is much brighter.
This was written with no idea of what would be written, so hopefully it is a readable rant.
Oh, and what really sucks is that my HUD doesnt display properly with my graphics card. It sucks so hard. It jumps all over the table back and forth. If I open more than 4 tables it actually gets severely misplaced and runs all over the place. I really cant afford to get a new graphics card right now but man could I use it. This is so tilty. I could play without the pop up stats and just use the std hud wihtout these issues, but that damn pop up is SUPER usefull.
