This blog is of a way for me to air my thoughts and feelings in relation to poker, I think it’s hard because you can’t really talk to anyone about it because they either don’t care, don’t understand the game or in my mothers case think it is a game full of degenerate gamblers and nothing will change her mind.
I have taken a long break off poker as I was a losing player and getting pretty fed up. I have watched all the micro stakes and a lot of small stakes series at deuces cracked and have been a member there for almost a year. I watched training videos, read poker books and played a fair amount of hands a week but just couldn’t win.
My problem was that when I would watch a training video I would do just that, watch it not actually study it so I wouldn’t learn anything or half learn something and misuse what I learned during live play and lose money.
I would very rarely review a session in holdem manager and when I played I would be on Skype, go on the internet etc. I could never understand why I couldn’t win because I felt I definitely had the tools to beat 25NL but I would autopilot playing only 4 tables and I can say I probably thought about villains range about 5% of the time which is obviously atrocious for somebody who has been trying to "seriously" study poker for a year.
I also went on monkey tilt a lot spewing chips after losing an all in with KK vs. AK for example. I would frequently move up in stakes to win back my losses and then blow my whole roll. Yes I was one of those players.
So I thought it would be best to take a long break from online poker and properly study the game.
In comes Lego poker. Don’t get me wrong I do think deuces cracked is a good site but it is not so great for a micro stakes player, there videos work in series and they are probably about 75% classroom style. They cover all the basics and don’t really take it much further than that. I found the videos really quite boring because they were just too basic there isn’t really any content there for someone who has an idea of what they are doing and isn’t a total newb.
Lego pokers videos are awesome there is so much content for all stakes and the coaches really do know what they are doing and have a tonne to say. I feel like I have learned so much and I have only watched about 10 25NL videos so far.
I have taken studying poker seriously this time around and frequently pause videos to think about I would do and then see what line the coach takes and also take lots of notes. I have read Jared Tendlers' book about tilt twice and took many notes on that also. I finally feel like I know what i'm doing enough to get back into poker.
I have constructed a proper pre and post session routine, I will be play sessions ranging from 1-1.5 hours taking a 2 minute break every 30 minutes to ask myself if I am still concentrating on my opponents and playing my A game. I am using semi aggressive bankroll management of 30BI, ok not too aggressive haha, and take 3 BI shots at 50NL when I reach 30BI for that stake.
My first goal is to reach 50NL in 50,000 hands, I’m not too sure if this is realist but if I had a win rate of 5bb/100 (2.5ptb/100) I think? then it would take 60,000 hands to reach 30BI for 50NL so I guess if variance is on my side and I play as well as I feel I am capable of I think I can do it. Hey it’s just a goal it isn’t written in blood.
My plan is to start off 2 tabling so I can really focus on my opponents, I have played about 1,000 hands so far and I can honestly say you see so many spots to exploit it is absolutely un believable. When I can focus on my opponents 100% until the point of unconscious competence then I will add another table and rinse and repeat until I reach 4 tables.
I will struggle to get hands in at first because 2 tables aren’t a lot but the benefit of learning more intensely vs. half learning but getting twice more hands in is definitely the better option.
I have moved over to PT3 from HEM. In my opinion if you take time to properly learn what PT3 is capable of, it is much better than HEM. HEM is better for a lot of people because it is straight forward to use but PT3 is amazing because you can make custom stats which makes it much more powerful. I bought a HUD for PT3 from www.crushthegame.com (it is awesome) and also note definitions from the same place for note caddy which are also awesome. I never really felt my HEM HUD gave me much of an edge, is seemed really basic and I didn’t get much out of it. PFR, AF and A% are very misleading stats that just aren’t good and crushthegame's had fixes this problem.