Wednesday, 7 October 2009

Poker Mindset

OK ... time for reflection on what has been a pretty grim month poker-wise. And I'm going to start by digressing slightly, onto golf story I once read.

Each Summer I really get into golf; into playing it and really into learning it - the swings, the new technology etc. and I read something pretty life-changing a few years ago, an article of Bob Rotella's (Padraig Harrington's / Davis Love III's Mind Coach).

It was all about positive thinking and started off as a story about how Jack Nicholas had told the world that he has "never three-putted the last hole of a tournament or missed from inside five feet on the last hole of a tournament". It's not true - he has - but he'll ALWAYS deny it and even almost fight with you if it means keeping negative thoughts from entering his mind. Read the whole article here if you're at all interested.

So WTF has this got to do with my poker? Well, the long and short of it is that in the four months that Leigh and I have been playing the DS Satellites to the Sunday Million, I ran a $60 deposit up to $993 with a 30% ROI and ITM stats of 15%. Now, as I type this, I'm sitting with almost $20 in my account, stats of -46% ROI and 10% ITM I can't honestly remember playing anything badly / getting my cards in badly that often that it should warrant such a demise. My stats say that I make MORE than my fair share of Final Tables but that I just can't seem to hit the money spots (usually top 2 or 3) in the 10 Man SnG format ... obviously.

So, questions;

Do I have the right mindset for poker?
Am I thinking TOO positively?
Do I think I'm a better player than I am?
Is it my 'ability' to forget bad beats / bad plays that takes me back time after time? And has it cost me over $900?? I suspect so.

I'm now asking myself; what's the 'correct mindset' for poker? I never approach a game (DS or otherwise) thinking I'm going to be out of my depth. That would be defeatist and definitely the wrong mindset IMO. I do approach every game thinking that if I concentrate and make good, educated plays, I will prosper. And if I get a little lucky along the way, I may just be able to hit a decent pay day. If I get sucked out on, hey ho, that's variance and it's to be expected.

I'm going to take some time away from the online tables to have a think about where I go from here. Leigh has offered to transfer some of the joint bankroll (which he's done VERY WELL to build up!) but due to some security issue with my Stars Account he's been unable to.

My workload has just doubled / tripled in the past week or so so poker will be put aside for the next fortnight at least. I'm sure I'll get back to youz soon, positive as ever :)

Saturday, 8 August 2009

Las Vegas - August 2009

I'll blog about my recent Vegas trip on here if it's OK with y'all (I say like anyone actually still reads this) :)

I arrived in Sin City last Thursday night after three long, exhausting sightseeing days in New York so was quite happy to follow through with my family-friendly-holiday plan of relaxing by the pool with a selection of poker and golf magazines for the first couple of days. It wasn't until Sunday morning that I decided to sit at a poker table.

On walking back to our room after breakfast, I overheard a dealer explain the rules / betting for $3/$6 Limit Hold'Em. I wandered closer to the rail to take notes (peeking over shoulders was easy as Seats 1 and 8 were empty); there were two loud-ish women in Seats 2 and 3 who seemed to be conferring with each other (showing each other the hands they were folding etc.) and generally ruling the table chat. The two guys behind them were giving them and their bets too much respect (serial limp > folders). Two European gents in Seats 6 and 7 looked to be involved in every hand and constantly asking / being corrected about their bet sizing, and the older Asian man in Seat 9 seemed to be raising on every flop regardless of how many people were in the pot and taking a large majority of them down with ease. Seat 1 was starting to look very attractive ...

And it was! I don't normally play Limit games but at 3/6, this just looked too good to miss. Within 30 mins (about 15 hands), I had spun $100 up to $232 and had almost single handedly taken out the two European guys and had seriously dented the stack of the Asian guy to my right by playing ultra-aggressive with complete air on all dry boards. Early on with 77 I was raising the arse out of the pot when I hit trips but only won around $30. The chat was friendly so I showed - and I'm sure this turned out to my best decision yet. My biggest wins were with AQo, AKs and 44, none of which hit in any way but which I bet to the hilt on each street, just as I had with the 7s. It was a strangely awesome feeling to get such bets through. Being so used to No Limit I was betting and raising rivers thinking that these guys HAD to call $6 more (surely they're priced in) ... but luckily for me, they were quite happy to fold top pair, weak kickers / 2nd top pair type hands to my relentless re-raises.

After almost two hours, still hovering around the $230 mark, I went on a run of coolers against a couple of the new faces at the table - I flopped top 2 pair v flopped trips, turned a straight only to be beaten by a rivered 8 high flush (seriously!) and ran a Q high flush into a nut flush during a pretty bad period of tilt. All of these took care of the $130-odd profit quicker than I had made it. When Julia and Scott arrived on the rail I was happy to go with them to the Games Arcade having had my first 'poker fix' of the holiday.


My second venture to the tables was to play the 7pm $150 Bounty Game at Treasure Island as recommended by The Duke. I arrived to see three cash-game tables up and running and around 6 others loitering, registering / waiting for the tourney to start. Or so I assumed. The 'tourney' ran with only 7 (yeah, seven) players. Needless to say I was less than impressed. On AllVegasPoker.com they state that this game attracts an average of 35 players and with it being a Sunday night, I expected it to get fairly close to that - the cardroom manager appeared to too. I didn't particularly want to be pulling a late-nighter but I didn't want to be home before 11pm either. With a fair mix of standards but with 5 'regulars', I had a loose idiot regular to my left in Seat 7, a regular who called all Seat 7's donkiness in Seat 1 knowing that K high was good enough 80% of the time, two tight aggressive players in seats 2 and 3, and two floaters / calling stations in Seats 4 and 5.

Predictably Seat 7 left us first after limping into a pot from UTG holding J2s. His stack of 15BBs goes in on the J high flop and Seat 4 holding JKo calls to rake them in. I couldn't get going and finished in 5th after having only seen around a dozen flops in total. Overall I was disappointed to find myself in a $150 SnG - not even a full one at that.

On Tuesday I met up with Kenny at the cardroom at MGM for a walk down to Caesars for their Noon, $85 + $15 game. With only a dozen or so players in the room at 11:30, we decided to walk the extra in the 116degree sunshine to The Venetian which we both knew to be busier and more popular. Their Noon, $150, $7k starting stack game ran with 71 players, with Kenny and I going out within 10 mins of each other (me first around 40th during Level 6). Neither of us could get it going, my best hand in the first three levels being A8o. Kenny got AKo on his first hand and "absolute shite" from then on.

My table was rife with older generation 'regulars' and drunk holiday-maker Americans who clearly hadn't played much before their trip. With the loose idiots on my left I took the tight trappy approach and against the limp>foldy Americans on my right I stepped up the aggression. In one hand early on, having flopped the nut flush with K9s on the button and with 6 players having limped into the pot, I called the 3/4 pot bet of the 60+yo lady in middle position. BB also called (check>called). A brick on the turn, BB checks, Mrs Doubtfire bets out 800 (around half-pot this time), I re-raise to 1800, BB folds and she calls the 1000 more. River bricks again and she checks it to me. If she has a hand worth calling me with on the flop, she's surely gonna call around 2200 more but, feeling as transparent as I was, I tried to give the impression I was uncomfortable pushing my 2.5k value bet over the line. She insta-calls and looks genuinely surprised that her 95spades has been beaten, saying, "I thought you just had an Ace". Cue a few funny looks and sly sniggering. Cue my disbelief that $150 tourneys in The Venetian are really attracting players who limp and are willing to go (nearly) broke with 95s.

After a few failed steal attempts with TJo, KJo and 55 from late positions - having folded to All-In shoves from the two players to my immediate left - my exit hand was with around 5k and blinds at 200/400/25 - a pretty standard JJ v KK.

On the way home I get to thinking; although NY and Vegas was an enjoyable enough family holiday, I would really only look forward to returning to Vegas if it was for a poker holiday first and foremost. There are so many things that are good and bad about Vegas and it's mainly because everything is taken to the extreme. It sounds weird I know, but it's great that it's a busy place but it's just bonkers busy at weekends. The strip is 11 lanes wide but the traffic is stand-still at the weekends. Casinos are great but the constant ding-dinging of slot machines drive me daft pretty quickly. The heat is great (116degrees is actually surprisingly bearable / enjoyable / theraputic even) but ... well, it's still 116!

I arrived back home on Thursday morning with a couple of work issues to sort out and to a day or two of jet-lag. I had suspected I was over it but a sleepless night last night and still being wide awake at 22:30 tonight might prove me wrong.

More than ever, I'm really looking forward to the four days of Poker at DTD at the end of August.

Wednesday, 3 June 2009

A Poker High

My grinding abilities in the $11 turbos which has netted me a profit of around $750 last month has put me on a bit of a poker 'high'. Sure I've won loads more in single tourneys / sessions but to have had the self-control and patience to play within my bankroll and to stay away from games that I normally lose in for the past 4 weeks, and to play well and focused for the most part, I am pretty chuffed with myself.

Leigh is struggling a bit tho ... getting more than his fair share of the bad variance I think. Here's hoping it takes a wicked turn for the better this weekend in the DTD £300 game. We have been sharing good variance stories tonight and mine from earlier today was hitting runner flush with J5d v AsJh on a AdJs5s flop. We were HU at the time and had all the chips in the middle so it helped me reach a Final Table. His was being able to share a pot with 68o v 68o on a 457 board :)

I'm sure we'll keep plodding on with this for at least another month ...

I'll make sure I keep watching the free SnG Training Vids I find in the hope that I can make more than $750 profit this month.

Friday, 22 May 2009

New 'Build a Bankroll' Challenge

Well, after a predictably busy Autumn and Winter, work has calmed down enough for me to be able to commit some time and effort back into poker and Blogging about it.

At the start of May 09, I started a new 'Build a Bankroll' Challenge with Chipaccrual so I'll just make this post an introduction to that. Keep track of our progress on the APAT Forum where Leigh has started a thread.

Thursday, 30 October 2008

Any better 12 months on ... ?

I've been taking a break from Poker again and thinking about what I was doing differently from this time last year (and have I progressed?) ...

This time last year;

1) I was excited to be part of APAT and to be playing against guys I considered to be a class well above me in their Online Events and Live once a month in the APAT Regionals

2) I didn't have 'poker pals' like Derek, Joe, Jim etc. - guys who help me over-analyse hands and plays and listen to my success and bad-beat stories

3) I was enthusiastic about learning about NLHE knowing that I still had soooo much to learn

4 i) I was playing $0.25/$0.50 cash games on iPoker (overplaying and losing big pots with small hands mostly). I had taken a couple of shots at 50c/$1, had some short term success but ultimately failed and stepped back down shortly afterwards somewhat scared to go back

4 ii) I was playing $10 SnGs, STTs and MTTs on iPoker (with limited success)

5) The currency exchange rate was almost $2 : £1

6) I was depositing regularly with no concern for bankroll management. I could afford to dep around £30 once a month and have fun with it before the inevitable reload the next month

7) I wasn't as busy with work / life and it was fairly easy to find 2 or 3 hours at night to play to play for fun - no expectations, just high hopes of a modest return.

8) I had very little experience of Live Tournament Poker

Although I've recorded some very decent results and cashes since and feel I'm a better and more knowledgable player through my friendships with Derek, Joe etc., through being more involved in APAT and RTR, through reading strategy articles in PP / IP mags, 2+2 etc., from having played at higher levels Live in Edinburgh, Paris & Dublin and online as part of our deals / syndicates, I know I still have a long way to go - almost an unsurmountable way to go - if I'm to make it 'worthwhile'. By worthwhile, I mean to consistently grind up a bankroll from any future deposits, to study my past results closely enough to find a game and limit I feel most comfortable playing remembering that I should be playing in the hope that I can step up and back down when I need to. First off, I need to find the enthusiasm and the 'correct' mindset to make it an enjoyable hobby - the way I was enjoying my times at the tables on Oct 07. It's not going to be easy considering that I know, having written this, that I may not have realistically made any progress as a player over the past year as I haven't been able to grind the paltry deposits into a reasonable bankroll.

I know myself that I'm just not at 'that place' just now but it's with help from the exchange rate and with it being as poor as it is, that I'm able to refrain from re-depositing into my poker accounts. Online Poker and especially 'Losing Online Poker' has become so much more expensive recently.

I don't mean to bring anyone's mindset down to my level and this is far from a moan - more me just facing up to a bit of reality.

GL at the tables.

Thursday, 23 October 2008

Lost Passion

I post this with as little passion for poker as I think I've ever had. It's basically just a copy > paste from two emails I've sent to Derek over the past week or so. It makes me feel happy that I'm so busy with work and I've hardly had a minute to myself (when I'd end up playing online).

(from Sun 19th Oct)

lol, (I laugh but could easily cry)

I've just played the £2.65 Sky Qualifier and come 8th of 10. With an M of 9 and with QQ I call from UTG (I've played KK and TT strongly so I'm mixing it up). SB makes it up and BB min-raises to 400. I pop it up now to 800, SB folds, BB calls. Flop comes AAA and SB checks it to me. With 1600 in the pot and with 2000 behind I'm shoving with my FH. BB calls with ATo - obviously! This is NOT a moan. I got them in bad, was outplayed by my opponent and was well and truly violated by Sky Poker but they were gettin shipped in here 100% of the time.

...

I'm keen to get back onto some proper felt but work is hectic and lack of free time / family time is annoying me. Life tilt in some ways I suppose.


(From email sent moments ago, Thurs 23rd Oct)

I don't know how you get HHs on Sky but I could give you a laugh if I can find out ...
I just played a £2 sat (5 players, 1 sat seat) ...

2nd Hand I'm dealt AA. All folds round to me on SB so I make it up. BB raises to 150, I reraise to 320, he shoves for 60BBs, I call (correct play? ;) ) and he has A8o. My As hold up and he's down to 80 chips.

Blinds 50/100, I'm dealt KTs on BB I call SBs raise to 300. Flop comes 47T and SB pushes for 2,200. I call and he shows 44 for trips. WHO PLAYS TRIPS THAT WAY??? If I can bring myself to ever take to a poker table again, I will!!

Last hand of my tourney, QQ with 2,700 behind. I raise UTG to 600, button shoves, I call. He flips over A6o. Board runs AK6 A x

No poker passion taken from that game at all. The guy behind me who had 80 chips after his donk-shove on 2nd hand was CL.

Ye just cannae buy entertainment like that!

Tuesday, 14 October 2008

I'm just bad!

Having withdrawn all but £16 of my roll from BetFair, I took to the 25c/50c tables to see if I could run it up - targetting the £30 mark. Through frustration, lack of patience and general bad play, I managed to get it up to £25 within 20 mins or so until the inevitable swing. Frustrated at one or two hands I played REAL badly, my play got even sillier and the patience went all together and took my £25 with it. I / no one should ever play when not in the mood. Unfortunately doing so has cost me a good bit of my roll over the past couple of weeks.

Since I returned from Glasgow at the weekend, where thankfully I didn't find a poker game, I decided to load my SkyPoker account with £25 and try to qualify for the SPUKT Leg 3 in Edinburgh on 31st January 2009. I played the first of my games last night (a £12 Semi) and was going great in the first hour. I made some great decisions against the right players at the right time and had one suckout - a gutshot straight (Q) hit him on the river after he bet all the way out of position with JTo on the K92 5 board with me flat-calling all the way with KJs - which knocked me from 8k to 3k.

Then, sitting 2nd in chips (12k) and with 18 left, I knew I just had to keep my head on a new table. With 5 seated and with TT in the hole, I raised pf, and faced my first re-raised of the game from the SB. I min-re-popped it up to 4k and was shoved on for his last 4k. For some dumb reason I called even tho I knew I had to be 54/46 at best and was left praying for a two outer against his KK which not surprisingly didn't arrive.

I have nothing to blame but myself and hope that I can put this behind me for the £2.65 Satellite to tonight's £12 game that kicks off in 10 mins.

.