Boywonder - In The Cage 2/11/10

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by nigelreopoker

Hi and thanks for doing this.

What is your ultimate goal in poker? Do you desire to play the nosebleeds?

Why did you black out the pfr stat on your graph before Christmas?

Do you rate Isildur1? Is it Viktor Blom?

Why is snus only popular in Sweden?


Cheers

No, no desires except making a living and supporting myself and people around me.

Just in case there was some way of people being able to track my sn´s, that paranoia has somewhat decreased now.

The only real railing I have done in years was this guy, and it was awesome to watch and disturbing at the same time. Don´t know if it´s Viktor, though.

Don´t smoke or do snus, but it's probably a cultural heritage. Besides, because there is smaller risk of lung cancer and you are not inhaling smoke a lot of people in Sweden think snus is "the healthy tobacco option".

[Faramir]

1) Do you listen to music during a poker session? If so, what kind of music?
2) Are you more math or more feel/instinct orientated?
3) You don't play with HUD, how many tables can you play without playing focussed and make best decisions on all tables?
4) I have some troubles when making big river decisions when my hand is pretty face up as 1 (top) pair, and I check oop, and villain bets. How do you decide wether villain is trying to push you off or just valuebetting a better hand? (LEVELING WARS, how do you decide which level villain is on?)
5) What do you think of players that have a wide flop raising range IP (draws/ TPGK/ overpairs/ sets/ 2 pairs /2 overs/ gutters) And how would you battle them? It's usually very tough to continue in the hand without showdownvalue, and 3betting usually isn't appropriate.

[ninjapoker]

Hi Boy,

more questions:

I know that you have multiple projects going on, such as Playing, Coaching, University and Leggo.

Dont you feel that the more things you do, the worse you are at doing them? This is something that I think affects a lot my game and my general life: having multiple projects that requires a lot of effort.

[MattUK]

What specific type of studying/training would be most useful for the typical MSNL reg these days?....Training videos, reviewing hand histories daily, reviewing opponents, etc.

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by HairyG

Hi Boywonder,

You said in an earlier reply that you think the games will to some degree or another become tougher. I would just like to probe a little further into your thoughts on that subject.

Firstly, your winrate seems to have barely changed over the last 18 months, judging soley on the graphs you have posted on 2+2. Is this because you are managing to maintain a rate of improvement that it is at least equal to the competition (or maybe a greater rate since you have comparable winrates at higherstakes)? I guess what i am trying to establish is how rapidly the games are getting tougher - Have you noticed a huge difference from 2008 to now?

Secondly, how much do you beleive the games are evolving versus getting tougher? For example, i think the guys who wrote the mathematics of poker state that optimal poker, you should play in a manner that exploits your opponent (but in turn could be, and probably is, exploitable). So for example, are there a lot of plays you notice now that are reactive to exploit plays that were being over used some time in the past, but are in turn exploitable? Or are we just slowly but surely edging towards 'non-optimal but unexploitable poker'. Hope that question makes sense!

Lastly, something that is of significance to me personally - if you had to start over again playing 25NL 6-max, with the knowledge you had when that was your regular limit, could you find your way up to 1000NL easily enough? Or would it take years because of the current state of the games?

Sorry for so many questions - but thanks for your time!

Again, don´t spend too much time thinking about the games getting tougher so not the best person to ask, but in my case I believe that I have improved enough since 2008 that the games actually don´t feel that much tougher. At least my winrate hasn´t changed much. All this could obviously change in the future, but I am fine with that.

I think that yes, players styles have perhaps changed somewhat due to everybody these days being so afraid of being explotable, and I guess yes, people are taking advantage of others trying to overuse exploitation in a much better manner than they might have done two or three years ago, like reraising people that frequently isolate limpers.

An very hard question to answer, I am afraid. My gut reaction would be that depending on volume the journey would look somewhat similar as there are a lot more resources out there then when I was coming up, but haven´t seen the state of the lower stakes games for a while.

[Bazclef]

Do you follow any rules for when to check your cashier? End of each session/day/week/month?

A lot of top players advocate shot-taking when there are really soft spots in high-stakes games. Correct me if I'm wrong, your style seems to be to grind the hell out of a limit until you've beaten it comprehensively before moving up.

If a game arose at say 50/100 with 4 regs who you knew were at a similar skill level to yourself (or slightly below) and one raging fish (-20ptbb in the game) - and lets say the seat available is directly opposite the fish - would you play in it? And if not, why not?

... also, how is your english so good?

[nldonkey]

Great first video on Leggo, looking very forward to more.

You have mentioned before and now again in this "cage" about working on your game offline as one of the reasons why someone can beat 5/10+. I've been an MSNL reg for 4+ years now and I honestly have no clue how someone can work on their game offline aside from looking at the odd hand history, so if you can explain here or perhaps in a video exactly how you go about doing this it'd be fantastic.

Thanks for doing this,
nldonkey.

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by Probability

can you outline how you suggest improving the mental side of your / someone elses game please?

Very hard thing to do in writing in a short period of time, but my mental game takes it´s base from one state, which is the present. learning how to be in the present, instead of dwelling in the past or anticipating the future, is mental game, is mindfulness.

Spiritual practices such as meditation help us with this, but a poker-sessions can be treated as a spiritual practice as well, if we can decide to view them as such.

A practical example of mindfulness being something you can practice all the time, at every moment;

Next time you are washing your hands, take a moment to listen to the water running before you start washing. Feel the water, take a few extra seconds to look at your surroundings, smell the soap. You will see that this experience is dramatically different from the million other times you have washed your hands. This, is mindfulness.

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by Graffa

hey, i wrote you a pm. but ill ask here too

Hey there, you wrote in your blog, that you would analyze some HandHistories and some villains. Could you demonstrate, in a Video how you do that ?! Especially how to analyze a specific villain. I and for sure a lot of others would profit from it.

maybe you could give just one or two examples of analyzing HHs and villains.

greetings

I have only done one video, and will now focus on the second which probably will not have this format. But I will give it some thought as an interesting potential future video.

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by eulalie

hi boywonder,

thanks for doing this,interesting thread.

could you give me a rundown of your ideal schedule for a "full days work"?,including how much time you spend studying/playing/taking a break,etc

Every day is different, but my schedule is important in as much as it is set and followed.

As far as poker goes, I would say that on the days i play I would average theree to four hours of play, and between thirty and fortyfive minutes of reviewing my own play. But this can vary, very much so especially these days in conjunction with school, so very hard for me to say.