winner13 Check
Drizzt28 Bet (3.93)
winner13 Call (3.93)
River (Pot : $13.10)
winner13 Check
Drizzt28 Check
Showdown winner13 shows: (two pairs, Fives and Fours)
Drizzt28 didn't show hand (Ac Js)
winner13 wins: EUR 12.45 (with two pairs, Fives and Fours)
Rake: EUR 0.65
Game ended 2010-01-17 08:47:05 CET
Hand #4
Submitted by : Mariuslol
Game # 1540363449 - Texas Hold'em No Limit EUR 0.10/0.20 - Table "Assisi Italian chat"
Players(max 6):
kari85 (EUR 22.80 in seat 1)
Sklansky$s (EUR 20.00 in seat 2)
greco72 (EUR 4.55 in seat 3)
Drizzt28 (EUR 21.10 in seat 4)
tato33 (EUR 19.75 in seat 5)
TIAMO (EUR 7.38 in seat 6)
Dealer: Drizzt28
Small Blind: tato33 (0.10)
Big Blind: TIAMO (0.20)
Showdown TIAMO shows: (three of a kind, Eights)
Drizzt28 shows: (a pair of Queens)
TIAMO wins: EUR 17.13 (with three of a kind, Eights)
Rake: EUR 0.90
Game ended 2010-01-17 14:07:47 CET
Hand #5
Submitted by : Mariuslol
Game # 1543856031 - Texas Hold'em No Limit EUR 0.10/0.20 - Table "Borlange"
Players(max 6):
danieleco1 (EUR 12.73 in seat 1)
denis_msk (EUR 20.31 in seat 2)
iron555 (EUR 4.00 in seat 3)
Drizzt28 (EUR 24.76 in seat 4)
veikkaus1 (EUR 12.20 in seat 5)
ANDREA341 (EUR 9.97 in seat 6)
Dealer: danieleco1
Small Blind: denis_msk (0.10)
Big Blind: iron555 (0.20)
For some reason forgot to update it, been a few days, instead of adding the bottom half in the other entry, I just post the whole thing here.
Quitting
" Quitting is the one poker topic that touches our regular lives the most directly and most often."
"It is the demarcation between poker and non-poker."
Toughing it out
- The difference between normal manual labour and poker is that, when you do feel out of your A game, and don't feel up for it, you can still do the work, and get a paycheck at a normal job. In poker, you will lose money.
- Everytime you feel out of your game or damaged, you shouldn't necessarily quit. If you're a professional
"This whole quitting topic is deeply complex because each person is different, and each person is changing all the time."
(Just tossing out wide area of nets)
- Each individual needs to learn to know/feel themself good when they aren't on their A game, and what might bring them close to it, or how to refocus.
From Tommy's book:
I have always had very strict policies when it comes to quitting, even when I first started playing poker. Back then I had two main quitting rules that I never broke. I would always quit if I was out of money and nobody would lend me any, and I would always quit if everybody else did.
Taking Breaks
*Very important topic*
- Possible to recharge your engine, back to your A game if it's started to detoriate.
- Usually people take breaks because they want to pee, disturbances, get food so forth
- Really smart to take breaks just to take a break, because you been sitting for too long, you're starting to become flusterd, harder to focus, so forth.
"Walking away is easy. The hard part is standing up."
If you really wanna take on quitting as a skillset, as a new challenge, body of work that you're gonna undertake. The way to do that is thinking of taking a break, as quitting practice, because everytime you're taking a break, you're going away from the table.
(Only practicing the act of walking away in the middle of the table.)
What to do on breaks
*Start thinking of your beaks in a completly different way, you're not taking a break to do anything, you do it to remove yourself from teh game, physically, and mentally, and this takes effort.*
- Doing something that takes your mind off the game
- Just concentrate on the act your doing, on yourself, concentrate on the present tense and what's going on, do the breathing.
- If you play online, It's never smart to play more than 1hour to 1hour30min, take a break, do something, do sit ups, push ups, something.
- The reason why after we've sat down, feel fresh and sharp, playing our A game, then after 1 hour, 2 hours, we just feel, deteriorated, exhausted, flusterd is because we've accumulated mental stuff.
(Like an accumilation of weights, baggage.)
- Take breaks when you feel good. (We have a tendency to take breaks when we feel like shit.) Do it before desperate time.
EVERYTIME YOU TAKE A BREAK, YOU ARE QUITTING
- Have to practice quitting when it's really difficult.
Use the "object of the game" concept to practice quitting.
Quitting "lopping off the C game"
"Lopping off the C-game has such enormous long term effects."
- On your well being, happiness, bankroll, friends, family, so forth.
- We tend not to think in long term, but saving the cash you "waste" end of long session is huge. Lopping off the C game which starts to creep in
"I see quitting as a tool to use toward this higher objective of loppinf off the C game."
"If you want to lop of C-game, you need to trim back the end of your worst sessions."
I was about to go play poker at a local casino. I hadn't slept all that well but I had showered and walked and I had convinced myself that I was good to go. I was at the door, saying goodbye to my wife, when this big yawn opened up on my face.
Wife: "Are you sure you want to go play right now?"
And I'm like, "Yes."
And she said, "Well, of course you know if you are ready or not. I'm just saying, it's never wrong to not play."
It's never wrong to not play.
It's never wrong to not play.
I let those words melt over me for a second. Then I walked to my desk and wrote them down, and stayed home.
Stack size matters
- If the only one with same stacksize is to your left, good idea to quit (Both of you 200bb.) Ideally, you want him to your right.
- If players who are better than you are deep, the worse ones have small stacks, good idea to quit as well. (If not weigh heavily to your decisions.)
Stop losses
- Completly personal, it's about knowing yourself, it's about knowing when you need one, and actually doing it.
- If you get rid of your tilt, you don't need a stop loss.
"You can't fix tilt with stop loss."
- Stop loss are only related on how big your bankroll will be in comparisontment to not stopping.
- A lot of people tilt really bad when they're stuck, stop loss is not only a good idea, it's essential, until they get their tilt under controle.
"Long range stop loss strategies are a good thing."
- Stop losses are a great idea for they who need em.
Quitting: Earn rate matters
"Good quitting requires seeing deeply into ourselves and being able to analyze our actual performance at each moment."
Quitting, pain, tilt and fear
- Quit, and relieve our suffering at poker, so we can play again. When we quit well.
- When you know you're a good quitter, gives you a level of safety and security. When you're not afraid of having those terrible sessions, because you know you'll be able to quit, that relives the fear of that pain.
"From Elements of poker"
I think of quitting as a skill set unto itself, with branching subsets of skills for each type of quitting situation. There's knowing how to quit at limit games, and there's knowing how to quit at no-limit. There's knowing how to quit when you have a curfew, and when you don't. There's being able to quit when you're ahead, and when you're stuck. There's quitting when you feel good, and for when that doesn't happen, you need to know how to quit when you feel bad.
Quitting is a skill, it's a poker skill, it's one that you can work on, it's one that very few people do work on. This isn't on how to play poker, this is how to be a poker player, quitting is becoming a poker player.
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.
Moved to new appartment january 1st but left for canarie islands for vacation until january 9th.
So both the 9th and 10th became mostly moving stuff to the new appartment, its really sweet. 2 rooms 1 kitchen+bathroom 63m2, will prolly make some pictureish blogpost later on when its all finished its gonna be epic as soon as i get my 50'' TV too!
but i started the supernova 24 tabling 100NL grindament at the 10th and have been grinding 5 days now. ive played alot since i wanna finish in 45 days (written like a schedule on my comp to follow 2222 VPP / day ~ 5-6 hours/day at 100NL FR 24 tabling.
ive played alot these first 5 days, almost 10 hours/day and i like starting off hard since im pretty sick right now, nasty cold so i got alot of just dead time at the appartment so i try to grind alot. Im pretty much going at the phase atm to finish in like 30 days or less but ill keep at the 45 day goal so i can take some more time off for friends, gf and such!
13600 VPP in 5 days feels good and i decided to not look at my results more then once a week since thats not my main focus, just try to focus on playing solid poker to get this supernova shit done.
When i checked my results after 50k hands i was alittle shocked actually, felt like ive been running shit this whole time, but actually im doing pretty well for the first time 24 tabling.
Im not a fullring player in my soul, and i dont expect to win alot really during this grind rush for supernova. I just wanna get it done, im gtd 6000$ for bonuses/milestones, ill get supernova done and as long as i atleast breakeven im happy. since 6000$ is alot for me over just 45 days as it is.
but if i can win anything at the tables too that is just a great bonus.
This far im pretty happy w the results, if i can keep almost 3bb/100 over the next ~300k hands ill be very happy indeed !
Not the biggest sample for a FR masstable grinder, but if i can keep this rate maybe i will continue to FPP whore after supernova too, its really good money for me.
But the main plan was just to go back to the 200NL 6max/HU shots and try to improve as a player.
But we will see, its all about the moniez in the end
Gl and ty for reading!
PS i love neytiri, i want to have human/alien babies with her...
Whew, finally finished up a fun exciting 11k Hand PLO50 session. I have been trying to learn the game of PLO lately and finally feel like I am seeing some improvement in my game. The whole PLO process has not been good to me so far but I feel like in the long run I will have learned alot and will pay off. I have played some in the past, a few tables only and had good results so naturally last month when I started playing I jumped into 5/10 6m PLO on Stars and ran well and was up +15k. Then came the running bad aspect of the game where I dumped it all back and was convinced I was good at the game but just running bad. Finally after losing about 40k playing 1/2-5/10 PLO I decided that a self-ban of limits for Omaha was in order and I setup a freeroll thru 2p2 that if I play higher then .50/1 PLO I would owe a bunch of people money. For some reason I cannot allow myself to play less then 24 tables when I do play (the whole vpp obsession thing I and many have). At first, not knowing really anything about the game, I was losing at a ridiculous rate but was also running pretty fucking terrible. I feel I am gradually progressing at the game though and am learning quite well. I really want to get SNE by July so I feel like learning to 24 table PLO profitably will be a huge, huge help to that overall goal and the money I may lose will be made up in the end. So I will be grinding the 25-50PLO games on Stars for January-February and working on improving my game. My self ban for 100-200PLO ends in March so then I should be able to take a shot at those games.
Here is my 11k hand PLO session I played this morning at 50PLO, I took a break down about 21BI and refocused, turned off my HUD and proceeded to crush. Actually ran at EV for one session finally, which has been rare in my experiences at the game so far.
As far as NL has been going this month, I have been doing fairly well. I am only allowed to play up to NL200 for awhile since I am not really rolled to play higher and am trying to focus on only playing 6max games, rather then mixing in full ring as well. Here is my graph so far for the month, missing about 10k hands, +1k profit from my other computer.
This is a mix of PLO and NL, all the money I am down is from PLO lol
Current Hands for January5k
Current VPP: 35,144
I am in 4 Hand pools this month so I basically need to play 200k hands or I lose a few thousand so I will be getting it done no matter what
So much notes on this episode, I'll have to cut it in 2, adding the the second part tomorrow night.
Quitting
"Quitting is the one poker topic that touches our regular lives the most directly and most often."
"It is the demarcation between poker and non-poker."
Toughing it out
- The difference between normal manual labour and poker is that, when you do feel out of your A game, and don't feel up for it, you can still do the work, and get a paycheck at a normal job. In poker, you will lose money.
- Everytime you feel out of your game or damaged, you shouldn't necessarily quit. If you're a professional
"This whole quitting topic is deeply complex because each person is different, and each person is changing all the time."
(Just tossing out wide area of nets)
- Each individual needs to learn to know/feel themself good when they aren't on their A game, and what might bring them close to it, or how to refocus.
From Tommy's book
I have always had very strict policies when it comes to quitting, even when I first started playing poker. Back then I had two main quitting rules that I never broke. I would always quit if I was out of money and nobody would lend me any, and I would always quit if everybody else did.
Taking Breaks
*Very important topic*
- Possible to recharge your engine, back to your A game if it's started to detoriate.
- Usually people take breaks because they want to pee, disturbances, get food so forth
- Really smart to take breaks just to take a break, because you been sitting for too long, you're starting to become flusterd, harder to focus, so forth.
"Walking away is easy. The hard part is standing up."
If you really wanna take on quitting as a skillset, as a new challenge, body of work that you're gonna undertake. The way to do that is thinking of taking a break, as quitting practice, because everytime you're taking a break, you're going away from the table.
(Only practicing the act of walking away in the middle of the table.)
What to do on breaks
*Start thinking of your beaks in a completly different way, you're not taking a break to do anything, you do it to remove yourself from teh game, physically, and mentally, and this takes effort.*
- Doing something that takes your mind off the game
- Just concentrate on the act your doing, on yourself, concentrate on the present tense and what's going on, do the breathing.
- If you play online, It's never smart to play more than 1hour to 1hour30min, take a break, do something, do sit ups, push ups, something.
- The reason why after we've sat down, feel fresh and sharp, playing our A game, then after 1 hour, 2 hours, we just feel, deteriorated, exhausted, flusterd is because we've accumulated mental stuff.
(Like an accumilation of weights, baggage.)
- Take breaks when you feel good. (We have a tendency to take breaks when we feel like shit.) Do it before desperate time.
EVERYTIME YOU TAKE A BREAK, YOU ARE QUITTING
- Have to practice quitting when it's really difficult.
Use the "object of the game" concept to practice quitting.
Quitting "lopping off the C game"
"Lopping off the C-game has such enormous long term effects."
- On your well being, happiness, bankroll, friends, family, so forth.
- We tend not to think in long term, but saving the cash you "waste" end of long session is huge. Lopping off the C game which starts to creep in
"I see quitting as a tool to use toward this higher objective of loppinf off the C game."
"If you want to lop of C-game, you need to trim back the end of your worst sessions."
I was about to go play poker at a local casino. I hadn't slept all that well but I had showered and walked and I had convinced myself that I was good to go. I was at the door, saying goodbye to my wife, when this big yawn opened up on my face.
Wife: "Are you sure you want to go play right now?"
And I'm like, "Yes."
And she said, "Well, of course you know if you are ready or not. I'm just saying, it's never wrong to not play."
It's never wrong to not play.
It's never wrong to not play.
I let those words melt over me for a second. Then I walked to my desk and wrote them down, and stayed home.
So looked through a boywonder thread. Here's some words of wisdom.
I have been recieving a few PMs from people who are in fact winning players, but have trouble logging hands. Often, I believe, the big issue is a fear of loss more than anything. I mean, if our hourly was given to us variance free at the end of each day, I am sure most of us would be in front of our computers sunrise to dawn every day up until early retirement. Thankfully, poker does not work like this.
I believe that the fear of the (future) loss, is often much more daunting than the actual loss itself. I think that feeling a certain amount of anxiety about losing can have a greater effect on you than the actual loss. Humans have a much bigger fear of fear, or fear of the future, than they have anxieties over the present moment.
Once you have lost and you are done, you should become fully conscious of your emotions and surroundings, and realize that if you are in a position to be reading this thread, you are still better off than 95 % of this planets population. Next time, when your dysfunctional and negative thought patterns eventually emerge (like they always do), remember that moment of clarity when you did indeed lose, and it wasn´t the end of the world.
"You do this for me, I do this for you, the former."
Reciprocality
"In the world of reciprocality, it's not what you do that matters most, and it's not what they do. It's both."
- No thing in poker is isolated. (I bet, that was good, it's in correalation to what you opponent does.)
" Reciprocality says that when you and your opponents would do the same thing in a given situation, no money moves, and when you do something different, it does."
Information reciprocality
- It's as simple as not giving up information in situations they would.
- Each time you don't give out information, you gain.
(example, raging after bad beat, making comment, so forth, just stay quiet, muck the hand, nothing.)
"There's two sides of the information coin at all times, there's giving information and receiving information."
The Information War
- Recieve more, and send less, and you win the information war.
(Anytime you can isolate a situation, where you're able to do something diffrent than they do, which is profitable, which comes again over and over again, you're gonna make a ton of money.)
- Important to put effort into sending less information, and recieve more.
- You work on moving less, moving ur tongue less, eyes less, hands less, shoulders less, everything.
- Where does the money come from ? Is it just from playing good? No. It's from playing diffrent than they do.
- Giving off little information is profitable.
- Over time, this will add up huge.
The origin of reciprocality
- From duplicate Bridge, where everyone plays the same hands.
- In poker, a good way to see if you played the hand well is, at the river, when hands are shown, imagine you had his hand, he had yours, and then play the hand out in ur head. What would have happend.
"Reciprocal Analysis"
Reciprocality
- Look for, create, and amplify profitable differences.
Life: Can look at it with life as well, for instance, you eat meatballs and spaghetti and get stuffed, the other guy eat some salad and yogurt, and you sit down and play poker.
" Mine for reciprocal gold inside any decision that impacts your poker game."
- Any sort of health asspect is major. (Correct sleep, working out, so forth.)
- If you feel good and sharp all the time, you earn a hell of a lot more money.
Reciprocal analysis
- Example: You bet the river, he calls, you reverse the street, you get his hand, he bets, you would have folded.
"You can use this tool on just one street, or a combination of streets."
Reciprocality in action: Look what people aren't doing, and do that, till they find a counter strategy, then do something else people aren't doing. (Example, when people started 3 betting light, then people started 4betting light, so forth.)
Acting Last
" You can think of there being two positions: last and non-last."
How strong is acting last? It's strong, so strong. The act of being last is monumental.
What does this mean as far as reciprocality matters?
"If you can act last more than they do, you have created an advantage."
Acting last. how to create it?
- playing the button more often than they do
- folding the blinds more than they do
- And how you decide to play in the high jack and cut-off (Play it really aggressive.)
- Multiway pot, you're middle position, first guy bets, you raise, guy behind you fold, now you're last on turn and river.
"Anytime you take action which puts you last more than they do, you made a reciprical advantage."
Bankroll reciprocality
- How you partition your money, and where it actually physicly exists, compared to your opponents money.
"Anything that is not your A-game, we are defining as tilt."
"Tilt reciprocality is anytime you tilt less than your opponent would in the same situation."
Tilt reciprocality is your slippage matched up against everybody else's. Tilt reciprocality recognizes that any reduction, however small, in the frequencies, durations, and depths of your own tiltings will always have the effect of favorably widening the gap between your tilt and theirs, thereby earning immediate reciprocal advantage. To make money from tilt, you don't need to be tiltless. But you do have to tilt less.
Rolling with the reciprocality flow
"There's no absolute right or wrong way to play poker, ever. It's entirely dependent on what other people are doing."
* That's why being adaptive and flexible is critical.
- You want to have all the skills available, play extra tight when they are not, and you need to play looser when they are not.
- Preflop % Is something to always be looking for.
Reciprocality and mindfulness
- Be more mindful than your oponent in situations where it is more profitable than mindlessness.
- mindfulness can be seen as a renewable energy sources which never goes dry.
What is the diffrence that makes the biggest diffrence? The ultimate reciprocality?
As it turns out it has nothing to do with the diffrences between ourself an our opponent, and has everything to do with how we are today, and how we are tomorrow.
And that's why this practice with mindfulness is the ultimate
place to mine for recpirocal gold. Because what we are really doing when we remember to put more attention to what is happening now, than we did in the previous hour, day, week, is that we are generating profit, in ourself, in our lives. By making ourself happier people.
What this mean?
If we want to try and take the concept of reciprocality, and apply it at it's very highest level, toward the objective of reducing our suffering, the suffering around us, then all reciprocality should be thought of as being internal.
I haven't blogged for about a month now and have been getting alot of PM's asking if I am going to blog and update. Had a pretty adventurous end to the year. I won my prop bet at the beginning of the month for 33k and felt on top of the world. I took my play to the mid-high stakes on stars and right away started up about +25k. Around this same time is when I started losing alot at 10/20. Soon after I found PLO.......I started up about +12k playing 5/10 PLO and thinking I ran the streets, within the next 3-5 sessions of playing to many tables/bad game selection/to much HU/running super horrible, i was -20k in the game. Nice like 35k swing. Yes some of it was running bad but most of it was the tilt/playing bad/lack of self control that led to all of this. Soon after this I was jumping back and forth from PLO and NO limit and basically losing at both. I went home to Chicago for Christmas and while there I dropped another 15k in one session of 3/6 PLO, i mean what the fuck am I thinking at this point. Pretty soon my +25k month at the tables turned into being a -25k month at the tables. GG $50,000 dollars.
At the time of all this I was a little mad/sad about it all but really not that affected. I have been trying to figure out why that was. About 1.5 years ago when I started playing poker, I had nothing, no money, no car, was just living in Chicago in the city. Grinding it out, hooking up with random city women, hanging with friends, going to beach. 1,000 dollars seemed like 1 million to me at the time. Over awhile I started actually making money though, bought a nice car, nice bed, fancy clothes, ton of fun toys/amenties, took trips, ate awesome food. I never really thought I would have any of this stuff to be honest at age 24 or ever in my life really, so the fact that I can lose all that money and I still have this other stuff left over plus a good amout online/offline when before I had nothing kinda helps me not feel as bad. Idk if this is good also and is probably really hurtfull overall in the long run. People have suggested that setting some goals for myself and practicing a better bankroll management will be good for me and I agree. I really don't act like the money is real/usually just try to run it up as high as I possibly can before hitting the inevitable losing. I am trying to come up with some for this year/the near future, whether that be buying a home, new car, invest a certain amount in long term, or something of that nature. Still really undecided on what I want to achieve and until I figure all that out, I fear I may have more repeats in the future.
Here is last month's graph
I did end the year up a good amount from a combination of my prop bets/fpp/milestone/tables/stakes and live play so all was not to bad about 2009.
All of that said I have been trying to come up with a good plan for this year. I am 100 percent going for SuperNova Elite this year as I feel I can attain it fairly easily and won't take to much time for me to do so. I am hoping to get better at mass tabling PLO and become a slight winner/breakeven player while collect mass amounts of VPP. Will be starting the year off playing 100/200nl 6max and some plo100. I also became "official" with the girl I posted in my last blog that some interesting comments to say the least lol. I am finding it interesting to find some common balance between hanging out with her/playing alot of volume of poker. She gets mad at me because my sleep schedule isn't normal and I am bad at sticking to a plan but thats how I have been the past 2 years. It is hard to just snap out of all that while still being a poker player. We spent New years together with some other friends and had a pretty great time, also took a little mini-vacation to Palm Springs and got to do a little hiking in the mountains, I defintly sucked it up during all of this and kept falling on my ass lol.
Here are some pics, hopefully better thoughts this time lol
haha far right hand side
Started off the Hike in my jeans, quickly bought some sweat pants though because spent to much money on those jeans to ruin them
Random pic of Lindsay
She does lurk the blog comments so hopefully the comments aren't that mean-spirted this time around as I don't think she looks bad as is very beautiful in person haha
Going to start posting more frequent updates as I go towards with SNE
Current VPP: 25,200- On, Pace
Monthly Profit: Not good lol, need to combine both databases
As always thanks much for reading and leave comments
Continued with the summary of the best bits from Phil Galfond's Well =]
Q: You also mentioned that when players have coaches, they often don't ask the right questions. In your opinion, what are some of the things most players should be focused on but aren't?
A: Along the same lines, a player should go through hands he's played or is playing and say "I (bet $x/called/raised/folded) because _____" Is my logic good?
The coach should ask more questions about what the player is thinking... "why is (bet x) better than (bet y) or c/r?" "What hands that you think he can have are you hoping will call/fold to that bet?" and listen to the players' response. For the first session, the coach shouldn't volunteer what he thinks the correct play is IMO.
Q: How long (hands/time) does it take you to identify fish in the games you typically play in?
A: If I'm paying full attention, not too long. If there's a new player that I don't recognize in a big game, I make sure to watch his play, and go back and look at any hand he showed down. That's where I get the most info.
Q: What are the top 3 or so indicators that first tip you off you are playing a fish? (what are the ones that first surface, as opposed to ones you only figure out over time)
A: If someone is playing a ton of hands, or open limping all the time, you can expect them to play badly elsewhere.
The second fastest is probably bet sizing. Usually regulars keep to a standard bet size style.
Usually what helps the most is seeing a shown down hand, and realizing that whatever logic he was using doesn't make sense. I know thats vague but I don't have an example in mind.
Q: What are the key reads that you find most important to use? or the ones you use most frequently? ie. how he plays draws? how thin he valuebets? timing tells? etc?
A: Flop and turn play are big for me. How light people call flop/raise flop is important. As is how often they fire turns, and with what hands. Are they pot controlling top pair? Are they checking the turn back with 8+ outs sometimes or always firing?
Q: What do you think is the most important game trait a HU player can have to be successful and why? Tilt control, patience, hand reading, aggression, game selection, etc.?
And what do you think was the most profound concept or tool you added to your HU game while developing it?
A: Tilt control is huge. Hand reading is important in all poker, but moreso heads up, because less hands play themselves.
I realize as I'm going down the list, everything is important, heh. You have the right idea. None are really more important than others I would say, and HU poker isn't THAT much different than regular poker.
I think though, understanding and adapting to an opponent is the most important thing I've learned to do for my HU game.
Q: What do you think the number one misconception about poker is? (On 2p2, not the general public consensus that its all about bluffing)
A: Ugh, so many. I basically don't talk to non poker players about poker. They're all so retarded when it comes to poker.
Misconceptions the average person has:
-they understand poker
-it's mostly luck, I'm gonna lose eventually
-tv pros are the best
-it doesn't take intelligence
-poker players are low life degenerates (becoming less and less true. I get personally offended anytime this stereotype is reinforced)
Q: 1) In a lot of your responses you mention the importance of having the right thought processes at the table. Can you please elaborate on what some of the correct thought processes are and what a player should be asking himself or thinking about at the table and during a hand?
A: Your question is a good one, but one that I would answer over 12 hours of coaching or an entire book. In short, you should be asking yourself why you want to make a play, ever play. If you have a good reason for it, better than your reasons for other plays, then you should make it.
Q: can you elaborate further around especially betsizing and timinig tells. Do you have any labels on patterns that you use?
Do you have any suggested reading covering this?
A: Betsize and timing tells are learned with practice.
The best general tip I can give on the subject is, there is always a reason everyone bets the size that they do or at the speed that they do. Often it's because they want you to do something, either consciously or subconsciously. Try to figure out what they want you to do. Then, don't do it.
Yesterday when playing I ran into this really fun player, vip 90 or so. And as often happens in Poker I didn't get the best of it. These 4 hands happened in close proximity, maybe 10-15 minuts apart.
But the cool thing was, after the first one, I laughed about it, and complimented the guy, not to be rude or obnoxious, but just to not get angry or play worse.
When it happened again I felt I calmed 8 seconds after it happened and it didn't affect me, was a great feeling. And had no resentment towards the opponent or anything. When it happened a few more times I started humming, singing to myself, writing sick notes on the guy, and I felt I had humongous edge, I also got this symmetry going, so he didn't want to play big pots with any of the other regulars. I doubled him up from 5e to 98 at one point, but ended up winning back like 70e of it because of the way I handled it.
(Doubling him to that much is like almost 20 bi's for him, since he bought in for 5e, I think that's the right way to look at it, and if I don't tilt from that, I don't see what will make me tilt =])
Ok, sorry for the rant, just really happy about it and wanted to express myself.
- Mindfulness is the oposite of mindlessness. Unfortunatly how most of us go about living our lives, puppets on a string, doing anything people want us to do.
- One of the most common misconception about the buda stuff is "you want to empty ur mind, get rid of the feeling" But it's the oposite, you observe your thoughts, you observe your feelings. Witnessing them.
- None of us are ever rarely a good witness.
"Mindlessness is our normal state of mind." (Our default operating system.)
"Mindfulness is intentional awareness."
"Mindfulness melts away anger" (If you get really angry, and you become aware, you tell yourself I am angry now, then it will go away.)
- Mindfulness is a tool which directly relate to how you play poker, will tilt less. And carries on into your regular life. (See it as a tilt reduction tool.)
Breathing
- This is the best tool there is for practicing mindfulness. The reason is, it's always with us, we're always breathing.
- The act of being mindful, is putting ur effort and ur mind to something which is happening right now. Mindfulwalking, standing, sitting, looking, listen, so forth.
(All ways you can look at mindfulness, but the one that trumphs them all, is breathing.)
To practice minful breathing, there is 2 main ways
* Counting you breath
1 in, 2 out, 3 in, 4 out, 5 in, 6 out...... (count to 10, then start again.)
* Following your breath
" Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out."
- The only practice you'll ever need, if you want to train yourself to be mindful of your thoughts and your actions, and what's going on around you."
Benefits: Forcing your mind away from it's own wrenching, ongoing thinking.
- In the moment you gain the benefit of not being consumed by your thoughts
- And when you do do it, you can't help but notice, that you are consumed by ur thoughts
- Take the training wheels off, and count when you breath out, in then out and two on the second exhale.
"And when you lose count, that's fine. It's like, the whole point. That we can't hold the count is a symptom of an affliction that counting cures.
Breath > Body calms mind > Mind calms body
(Like a circle of effects.)
"The breath is the link between the mind and the body."
- If you can do this at peak agitation, there's tremendous benefits
"The moments when you're most agitated are exactly those moments when you're most lost in your thoughts."
- The more practice you do, the better you get at it. Increase the % of mindful breaths in your life.
* The intense way of doing this is Meditation.
* The closest synonom in the English language is Concentration.
(Bringing your mind to focus, listening to stuff, great skills for poker.)
Poker is so distracting, we're constantly being dragged into the past, thinking of the future, noise, anxiety, so forth generated in your mind.
- Very smart to practice them in your life, then drag them into poker, or vice verca.
The four postures
We are always doing one of four things in life
* Laying down
* Walking
* Sitting
* Standing
What's so awesome bout this is, if our objective is to put more mindfulness in our life. All we have to do it put more of it into when we're doing one of the four things.
Something to try: Lay down on ur bed, have ur legs straight, arms on ur side, just do some breathing, a few breaths. Even if your tired, laying there in bed, the act of focusing, can wake you up, and you'll become more vitalized.
- The act of concentrating will give you more energy.
Walking: A practice to do at home, practice at going very slowly, and breath once every 2 or 3 steps, back and forth, concentrating on ur feet, on ur breathing. What happens is when ur doing other stuff, instead of ur mind going bzz, you'll do it other places, a casino, buying groceries.
(Maybe not smart doing this in public lol.)
Standing: Stand straight, mindful breathing, can do it anywhere.
Sitting (Biggest one of all, the posture we're in when we play poker):
*Will increase the winrate of ANY poker player*
- Posture, and there's breathing. Arrange your leg straight down, spine straight. Like a sphinx sitting. It's gonna be a huge improvement of not having good posture.
(Unrealistic sitting 1,5 hour in correct posture, but any amount of time is a huge improvement, just keep adding time, even if it's just 30 seconds.)
- Singletasking and online poker: Don't multi task when multi tabling, msn, phone, mail, looking at tv, so forth.
- Interessting thought: When someone calls you, and your playing poker, either stop playing take the phone, or don't answer. It's disrespectful not giving someone your whole attention.
"Play when you're playing."
Mindful listening
- When you're in a concentration, the other person starts talking, you concentrate on your breathing.
(What will happen the mind energy which would normally be thinking of, what am I gonna say next, yeah I have a story like that, yeah he's wrong. You'll be more likely to actually be hearing them, hearing what they are saying. And it's a beautiful thing when you can keep the conversation on the other person, but not be faking it, but actually interested. And that happens when your own thoughts arent stirred by what they say.)
"So easy to be consumed in your own reality all the time"
- The way to break that chain of churning thought is the tool of mindful breathing.
When to practice
- You can do it all the time
"Think of being agitated as an opportunity to practice not being agitated."
- Being bored is something that can be eliminated with mindful thinking, because your observering what's happening around you all the time, no matter what it is.
(The main thing about it, it takes time before you get the benefits.)
Shedding mental weight
- Understanding practicing will make you more thoughtful/tiltless, understanding, easier to enjoy moment to moment, you do actually have to do the work.
position
anticipation
door A door B
reciprocality
the rake
the rules
lopping off the C game
(play when ur most awake, most energtic, don't eat a big meal so on).
"Losing less is a form of winning."
Examples of C game: Playing too many hands
(Become aware that ur in C game, ignore all D rank hands.)
Find out where your bars are, and remember them when you feel on ur c game. And never go below.
door A door B (applies to any betting decisions).
Always have 2 options, betting or checking, not saying one is better, but you always wanna be looking, which one is better.
- Have the concept of seeing everything as a choice. (You have an option)
- Look for every little bit of edges you can find (site, table selection, rake deals so forth).
Position
- "There's really only two positions. There's last, and non-last."
(Like,4 way multiway, 2nd to last isn't in position).
- Whoever is last has huge advantage, not 2nd to laste.
- It doesn't matter if you don't understand position, it's so fundementally profitable to be last, comparing to be non last.
"Acting last is like taking a drink of water. We don't have to understand why it's so good for us to know tht it is. And the benefits are unaffected by our understanding of them".
- Adjust ur betting strategy, in a way that results in you being last more then them.
Positions crushes dominaces hard (AT vs AK blabla osv). Dominance is overrated.
Example: if one guy in last pos has KJ, early pos has KQ, chances of a K actually hitting the flop is same as a set. And when it does happen, the late position guy will lose a lot less than he would if he was oop, and win a lot more when he hits.
Anticipation
- The only thing you need to anticipate is a bet or a raise.
- In theory, if you're good at anticipating, you'l Never ever ever ever ever.... be surprsied.
- If your oponents check, you bet, and he check raises you, if you right then and there have to make a decision, didn't see it coming. You should have already decided.
A) It will make your bet better (When you already considderd he might raise).
(Or if you told yourself, if he check raises, I'll fold)
It's easier to let go, but if you get surprised It's really easy to get sucked in or make a mistake.
"Plan the street."
Ps, It's really really hard to not get surprised (omg omg now what)
- Takes a lot of training, it's a big emotional spike, and by anticipating it, you're ready, and more focused. Repetition, focusing on that task.
* Makes your mechanics eerly scripted
anticipation = better betting and less tilt
The Rake
"Separate the rake as a business expense."
- The rake is huuuuuge
Rules
"Don't think of any rule as being good or bad, or right or wrong."
- When we have resistance to our rules somewhere else, it throws us of. "Mind noise" and that can have only one effect on us.
- Don't wanna sit at a casino thinking "ffs, that is a dumb rule"
* Be in complete acceptance. Adapt to new rules (buy ins, bettings, blind structure, so forth). (Avoid creating a negative state in your mind).
- Righting thinking is, avcourse there is gonna be new rules here and there. The rules is the rules.
Goals and Targets
- People have a tendency to not want easy goals, because goals should be hard to obtain. So people then tend to set goals which are unobtainable, because then it won't matter if you don't make them, because it's so far fetched. (I wanna play perfect poker, I want to never tilt.)
- People want to avoid hard goals they could in theory be able to reach, but don't want to feel like a failure when they don't reach them within the given timelimit.
"Just because you don't hit a target doesn't mean you're a failure."
Methaphor: If you throw a log in the ocean, then like to throw rocks at it, sometimes you'll get close to your target, sometimes you'll miss and sometimes you'll hit
Success or failure is detrimental to a poker player.
- Much better to think of whatever sort of projections of things you hope to happen in the future, of targets, you aim, sometimes you make it, sometimes you miss it. (You pick up another stone and go at it again).
Goals have an inherent time frame that takes you into the future (We don't want to be in the future). We wanna play our A game NOW!!.
Targets: "Playing this next hand well, or saying the right things" Targets can be in the moment.
" A target can be a constant stream of present tense attempts."
- The word targets leans us to right thinking, and goal takes us to all the places we don't want to be.
The four noble truths of C game
- C game exists (I you're gonna be a poker player, you're gonna have a c game. No way around it)
- the cause of C game. Desire, attachment. Exactly the same cause of all suffering, and rears it ugly head in poker and causes C game.
"Only when we truly understand the cause of C game, can we move to the third noble truth. Which is how to end it."
- The cessation of C game: How to end it, how to be unattached, how to be not full of craving.
- The instruction. (The eightfold path). The instructions which digs right to the heart of undoing the cause of C game, which then will undo the C game.
May sound weird but feels pretty scary, not played that much on here. But I notice I really feel it when I lose a stack, 100e just seem so much, and I think, crap, that's 5bi at 20nl. And I'm trying to feel if I'm playing scared after that, didn't feel like I was on tilt or anything wrong, but when I lost a few all ins in a row I just closed the tables.
Hi guys. I have $25 left on my UB account which I released AFTER I withdrew from there stupidly so I want to exchange that for $25 on either Stars or FTP. I'd be ok with paypal or neteller exchange if there's no interest. PM me please!
Started watching Tommy Angelo's video's after recommendations from a fellow lp'er.
Was really interesting and cool to watch.
Here are my notes
Right view: (Anything that isn't wrong view)
- Seeing things as they are, having no delusions.
- Example of wrong view: When we are result orientated (When we base an alayzis of a decision on how things turn out, rather than basing it on the decision itself.) Happens when we analyze a betting decision, quitting decision etc.
- Right view: Not being results orientated (result orientated just an example)
Tilt
- "Tilt is any non A-game performance." (Tired, under bankrolled, emotional unstable, etc.)
- Anything that changes your good decisions, to making bad decisions, is tilt.
Being results orientated effects our evaluation
Example: We make a play, it didn't work out, and we think we made a horrible play, and can easily put ourself on tilt, even if the play might have been pretty good.
The professional:
- The little Angel/voice on your shoulder
- What if there was a guy, who had to make money of poker, or die
*All of his decisions will be based on his poker, what he eats, when he sleeps, what he thinks, anything in his controle, it's all metagame for this fictional character*
- What if all "my" decisions were based on maximizing my poker profits?
* Will influence on how I will behave (wouldn't badmouth the casino, want people to be happy, and come there, want players to come there and play. So last thing would be, say something bad about the Casino).
- What if all my decisions including what I say, were based on profit, what would I say, what would I do (How you can use "The professional" as a guide).
More examples of wrong view
- The whole idea by being bugged all day by a hand is something you want to let go
- Any time you think "I finally got a hand, I finally won a pot etc" let it go
- "There was this total fish at the table" (There's no fish/donk/at the table, wrong view) let it go (Look at them as trees instead lol)
- Having a big pair, waiting for an Ace to come (terrible view)
- Hating anything a fish(tree) /regular does is wrong view
Look at things for what it is, there's no room for fear
The gray area
That part of poker strategy evaluation, when you just don't know what the right play is or was, and you never will. And it's built in the nature of the game.
"The decisions that bother us the most matter the least."
(Decisions where your EV was 50% wether you would have bet or folded).
In our mind we're latched to take one side or another
- You don't want anything in/around the grey area to cloud/bother you mind. Don't get stuck in the quagmire of the grey area. All it does it bring us down
Belive and accept that a lot of decisions are very close, and neither would make a diffrence
- Suggestion: Recognize when you've come upon one of those, analyze them, and think what you should have done, then move on. FAST!
(Usually these decisions who get loooong threads on the forum, with a myriads of opinions who's right and wrong, and people fight to the death about it. When you find these, move along).
Interessting fact: 75% of all poker players think they play better than the other 75%.
The grey area is so huge, allows any of us to over evaluate our own play.
More on right view
- A good poker player wants to put himself in +EV spots, by evaluating profitable situations
- A guy who finds a table which looks really juicy, might say: Wow, a table full of fishes(trees) who sucks ass, I'm better than all of these isn't evaluating, he's juding
Judge versus evaluate
Judging is when you bring in type of words which move towards wrong thinking. When you attatch to those words, it detracts from your ability to evaluate.
Improving from the top up and the bottom up
A diffrent approach to how you spend the energy that you put toward improving your score.
- Improve not only your A game, but your C game aswell
- Conciously spend 50% of your energy improving your C game, so when you're losing/playing bad, you don't lose that much, and can get faster back to your A game.
Example of C game:
- You get stuck, and you start playing looser, chasing your losses
(A lot has to do with awareness)
Be honest with yourself, say to yourself (When Im stuck i play to loose, i need to keep tight).
- Bad beats
- When you play bad (compounding tilt)
(When I play bad, I'm very harsh on myself, and go on tilt)
- When too tired, when drunk, berating the fish, so on so on.
(Monster leak to critizise other players.)
Ungracious, un generous way to treat another human being. If your motive is purely profit, there's a much higher road to take.
Summary of Right View
Myself:
- To look at yourself with no delustions, no distortions. It means to be able to step out of ourself and observe ourself in a situation, and be able to objectively evaluate what we are doing without emotional entanglement. This is the rightest view of all, that can help us at the poker table, and anywhere we are. Especially if we find ourself struggling with strong emotions we wish we didn't have.
Example:
Driving, it's one of the most irritating thing we do. People who might be calm and compassionate, lose their cool when driving.
(Right view does not say, you should be good all the time, you should improve yourself. Right view is just the act of being able to view yourself, and being able to say "I am angry now" Without saying "there's something wrong with me for being angry"
- Better off if you can label your emotions
My opponents:
- They're an obstacle, in the way (Look at them as just tree on a golf course). And not hold them accountable, or be emotionally evolved with them. And will let you properly evaluate things.
My play:
- Be constantly aware that you have different levels of preformance. A B C game. What right view does, doesn't pretend your in ur A game all the time, opens your eyes when you're in their C game. Everyone has them.
- Being aware of the diffrent level you preform at, and being aware of which ones your in.
- Knowing your actual weaknesses and strengths within the betting strategy. (Calling big bet to bluff, not being comfortable being the one who bluff etc)
- With no delusions or distortions, step outside yourself to give a good evaluation
End thought
What makes something right view, is the lack of wrong view. (The lack of judgement, the lack of emotional attachment.) The thing added on to a "story". Just tell it honestly.
In my goals for December I wanted to train 12 times this month, I ended up on 7 times. But I'm fairly happy about that, because I've been struggling a lot with my illness, and hasn't been able to train.
When it comes to pokerstudy, I'm happy. I've seen around 15 vods and done quite a bit of reading, only problem is I keep reading 40 pages into something, then stopping, finding something else to start on, then something else. I really should finish a book.
I wanted to try and play 80 hours of actual poker this month (On the table)and ended up with 84 hours, so that's really cool.
For my winrate, not so cool. I really want it higher, and just wanting it isn't enough. Need to put more effort into it.
38,159 hands on 20nl (euro) with a winrate of 1,76BB/100 269e = 13,5 buy ins up.
But I I raked quite a bit, and I'll get around 480e in rakeback, so total profit = 749e
So next month I'll start with taking shot at 50nl, and if I drop down 5bi I'll move down to 20nl.
My final stats:
VP$IP 22.38 / PFR 17.85 / WTSD 26,7 / AF 3.0 / 3B 6,7 / Fold 3B 68 / Fold BB to Steal 76 / Fold SB to steal 85
When I look at positions it looks fine, I think, vip on the button is 30% and utg is 17%. I'm winning from cash from the last 3 positions, and losing tons of SB and BB (But those are blinds, can I avoid that?)
And the graph looks weird as always, the blue one in a straight consistent line up, green one goes vertical, slightly up, and the red goes down down down.
I'm reading through his well, and found it to be a siiick read. So started collecting things/notes, quotes and stuff for myself.
(That means everything here except the questions is from Phil).
- There can be a thing as too much aggression, does something to your range, so you have to fold to raises a lot. Just have it in the back of your head. For balancing purposes too
- Forcing yourself to play is always a bad idea, both financially and emotionally.
- No monetary goals, and try to work out regularly and keep friends in ur life.
- Moving with peopel who play/study/love the game, watching them play, and discuss talk about diffrent lines is something that made me grow sooooo much
- (Quote from a discussion with Durrr on a hand) he had something like weak top pair and was facing a big river bet. He was like, 'I think a call is better than a fold' and I thought to myself, 'yeah I agree' and then he said 'but I would shove' and I exploded. I realized that you should think of every possible option you have in nlhe. You usually have a ton of them.
- If you are near someone who plays poker and is smart, spend as much time around them as you can if you want to improve your game.
- realize that you have more options than you think you do. Thinking outside the box, turning made hands that are good enough to call into bluffraises that turn out to be even more profitable, cbetting 1/3 pot in a rr pot, etc.
* Ephipanies (or how you spell it)
- how to use your style/image and balance your range accordingly. I started out being pretty nitty before realizing that I could use my image to bluff. Then I started to get called down. I got angry, like 'I'm so tight, how can they call!?!' before figuring out what my ranges really consisted of in certain spots.
- every time the action is to you, it's an opportunity for you to make the perfect play. Thinking about poker that way is great for your game.
- I've realized that working out regularly helps your game more than you might think. I highly recommend it.
- I think the three most important areas of intelligence in regards to poker are logic, probability, psychology. They actually are pretty close in order of importance, and change depending on game structure.
- one of my strengths is that I'm self aware.
- Smart to get a coach early on, for a slight boost in your horly win rate is really significant in the long run
- Tommy didn't teach me the things I wanted to learn, but he taught me the things I needed to learn.
- A lot of people don't get the most out of coaching because they ask the wrong questions.
In poker, every player has personal motivations.
* Through watching their play, you can get a general feel for what they want, what they fear or worry about, what they are comfortable/uncomfortable with. Most importantly, you get a feel for what they want, at their core.
* These are generalizations, but are true for most people who play these ways. You can find out more specific details about a player's personality by paying attention.
* a nit is afraid of losing a lot of money with the worst hand. They're uncomfortable in big pots with marginal hands. They often fear coin-flipping for a lot of money.
* The loose passive player usually plays for fun. He wants to see flops and wants to showdown his hand. He wants to see if the cards in his hand can match up with the cards on the board, or if they're good enough to rake in a pot. He wants to see your hand.
* The Bad LAG wants to win THIS POT. RIGHT NOW. Anytime he gives up on a pot it's because he's holding himself back. He likes to gamble, and usually doesn't mind getting his money in without proper odds.
(He often (but not always) has pride issues, meaning he wants to show you how big of a man he is. If he trash talks, you can be especially confident that he has pride issues. This means that he very badly doesn't want to be bluffed off of a pot or miss an opportunity to bluff himself. It also means that if you have any history with him, whether you won a big pot, showed a bluff, got bluffed by him, really anything, he's more likely to bluff you or call you down light.)
* So those are his main character traits. What else does he do differently?
Phil's old Stats:
21/16 preflop, 2.4 total AF
W$WSF 45.45%, Went to SD 28.88% , W$@SD 55.56%
Flop AF 2.6 Turn 2.0 Riv 2.5
Q: Everyone always asks this, but what do you think are the biggest differences between the really good nosebleed players and your average 25/50 regular? Is it just small details?
Phil's A: Intelligence, time (different point in career), Being able to play shorthanded and adjust to players.
A lot of it though is honestly variance and being in the right place at the right time. There are a top players who aren't any better than some 25/50 players. They just ran good at good times, and have the roll and the risk taking ability to play in great games. It's not that rare that a 200/400nl or plo game is softer than a 25/50 game going on at the same time.
Q: Do you agree with the idea that 1 or 2 tabling higher stakes will help your growth as a player better than multi-tabling medium/lower stakes?
Phil's A: Yes, less tables definitely. Especially with another smart player watching you and discussing concepts. And especially HU tables.
Higher stakes, not really. It might make you a bit more interested, and the competition will be a bit tougher, but you might not play your best. You can learn a lot about the game 2 tabling fish hu though.
Q: What dictates your decision to quit/go on with any given session?
Phil's A: The one thing I learned most from Tommy Angelo, is how awesome quitting is.
You should pride yourself in making a good quit. I really mean that. When I'm playing and make the decision to quit, I'm very happy with myself.
The two real reasons to quit are if playing is -EV financially or -EV emotionally. I know the latter isn't a real thing, but I use it all the time.
Basically, if for whatever reason I think I'm not a favorite (or a very small favorite), I'll quit (Ideally).
Or if I'm unhappy or stressed out by playing, or would be much happier doing something else, I quit (Ideally).
Reasons you become -$EV should be obvious, and you should realize when you are unhappy.
- Phil Quotes:
"Think of what your opponent wants you to do, and then do the opposite"
"Saying position is important in poker is like saying distance and direction are important in golf."
"It can never be that wrong to not play"
'Approach every decision as if it were tomorrow and you were looking back upon it'
Phil's thoughts on going through rough downswings; confidence issues, tilt, emotional effects, etc.
* It's easy to play when things are going well. How a player deals with a bad run is what defines him as a poker player.
* The most important thing is the be honest with yourself. Admit when you aren't focused or playing your best. Take breaks all the time. Get outdoors if you can. All the time means every 90 minutes or less.
* If you're afraid of losing your seats, take 3 minutes and walk into another room, do 20 pushups, go to the bathroom/grab some food, and come back.
* Taking time off when on a downswing is always a better idea than you want to admit. Getting away from poker for some reason usually helps you get your confidence back.
* Be willing to quit games when you find yourself tilting at all. Most people tilt by going on autopilot and don't realize they're tilting.
* I think it's probably possible to stop most of your tilting. It's very difficult though. Understanding that you tilt, and being able to identify it and quit is your best bet by far.
* Also don't play tired, unless there's a very big fish in the game.
Q: in playing the highest stakes, aside from the rare and egregrious fish, what are some subtle distinctions between winning/marginal/losing players?
Phil's A: think that a lot of medium-good but not great players probably undervalue betsize/timing tells. Especially against weaker opposition.
Q: Also, do you believe that some inherently winning players (that is, with the skills to win) end up losing longterm, and vice versa?
Phil's A: Some players are smart enough and work hard enough to win, but lose because of 'soft skill' leaks. Things like game selection, BR management and tilt control.
Q: Looking back what are some things you would change or stress for someone looking to get to your level to do or not to do? Any mistakes you made a lot that took you a few times to learn?
A: The best thing I ever did for my poker game was meet other people who played poker. My poker friends and coaches helped me move up 3x faster than I would've on my own.
I'd also recommend trying to eliminate autopiloting. Too many players can't make the jump into bigger games because they don't know how to think for themselves. They just play a TAG cookie cutter style and think it will continue working because they crushed the lower limits with it.
Some rant about goals: I think it is very important to identify your goals as a poker player so that you can act in a way to achieve them.
Do you just want to have fun playing? What’s fun for you? What would keep you from having fun? Do you want to make money? How much? When? In the next two weeks? For the next 10 years of your life? Can the big money wait? Do you want to keep getting better? At what game? Why?
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(two pairs, Fives and Fours)
(three of a kind, Eights)
its gonna be epic as soon as i get my 50'' TV too!
5k
