First two months recap, always keep improving

This year has been quite a rollercoaster to far, but in a good way. I'm glad I learned some valuable lessons the hard way in my first month so I could quickly kick myself and get my game back on track. I don't even know how my play degenerated so much in January. I started by running a bit bad, then I played more weak-tight, which worsened my results, which made me play even more weak-tight. The last session was a total trainwreck, enough that I had to take a break and figure out how my solid game had devolved to such a mess. Kids, don't let this happen to you :





This was mostly 100NL, with about 15k hands of 50NL in the middle. Ugh. I knew I could do so much better, but I guess I was still stuck in year-end Supernova-grind mode where I played like a nitty zombie. Fortunately, I picked up my copy of Small Stakes Hold'em and suddenly remembered what solid poker was all about ; controlled aggression. Coupled with what I learned about mid-February on my preflop leaks & new techniques on focus & flow-state, I was able to completely turn my game around and get some solid results :



This month started with about 15k hands at 50NL and the rest at 100NL. Notice the difference in redline alone, which is such a huge part of poker at the small stakes & beyond. Even though the redline isn't the be-all end-all, I think it's a good indicator of your reading skills/aggression and generally solid poker. It's funny how everytime I play well, I magically run good and when I play bad, I run bad. I think this is even more evident in my last 1k hand which I mentionned in my last post. That last 1k my concentration was gone but I still played it to "finish the session".

Did I run bad? I went all-in with KK and lost to AA, I lost 2 40bb stacks 4betting AI with mid pairs to a higher pair. But was that really bad luck or bad play? The KK was 150bb deep with a nit reraising my UTG raise, something I could have easily avoided by flatting PF to setmine. And while both 40bb stacks were against aggressive re-raisers, those were players whom I had 4b pretty aggressively over the session (and them always folding), making it that much more likely they were 3-betting tighter against me. These are the situations which look like bad luck but in reality, a lot of these spots can be avoided with solid reading skills/understand table dynamics, small things you don't pickup when playing half-heartedly.

Thus I came to a very important conclusion ; volume will never be my primary focus (which means I will never try for SNE). I've always been happier as a poker player when I felt I was playing solid, but this month I learned some key skills to playing great poker with peak concentration. While I do want to play more in the future (44k hands in a month as a pro is pretty abysmal volume), I don't want to make hand count a priority. Just as I don't look at my results often (usually every 15-20k hands), I don't want to get concerned over how many hands I play over a session.

In practical terms, this means focusing on my health & energy levels (going to bed/getting up at reasonably early hours, eating well and generally having a balanced lifestyles), and making sure that each time I play poker I consciously direct my efforts toward playing in a flow-state. Then I can play and not be concerned by anything but killing the game until I feel my concentration waning (which usually happens around 6k hands).

If I can succeed in doing that, i'm 100% confident that my winrate and results will take care of themselves and I will be a much happier/fulfilled poker player in general. In short, despite my low volume, this has been one of the most important months in my poker career and I look forward to playing the best poker I can in the coming months!

The Most Important Poker Skill

It's funny how it can take a lot of time to really *get* a concept. It's often a process that's different for everybody. Sometimes you only need to read something once and it automatically clicks. Sometimes it might take weeks, months or even years before a concept truly sinks in and becomes a core part of your arsenal. And today, I think I had one of the most significant ah-Ha! moment in my poker career.

What was this big revelation? It's actually really simple, so basic that it's often overlooked, or at the very least is not given nearly enough thought ; poker requires focus. I can already hear you laugh, thinking "did it really take you years to figure that out?". Actually, yes! Now, i'm not talking about basic focus. If you're watching TV and not really paying attention to the game, you're obviously doing it wrong. No, what i'm talking about goes deeper than that.

I always knew that getting complacent with poker can quickly drain, if not outright kill a winrate, but today I realized how quickly this shift can happen. Here's what happened ; it was a typical session and I was doing good. My reads were solid and I was very confident in both my folds and vbets. I wasn't thinking about my results or how many hands I had played and I was intently focused on the game. After awhile I was feeling a little tired and hungry so I decided to take a quick break.

I checked my hand count, saw that I was about 1k short of today's goal so I took a few minutes off, made myself a sandwich and came back... however something had changed. I was now playing to finish off that last 1k (out of 7.5k) instead of playing poker to win. This might seem silly but it's actually a huge difference. My killer instinct was gone, mistakes quickly added up which tilted me because of how stupid some of these mistakes were. Although I did finish my 7.5k, that last 1k hand was almost certainly -EV given how many mistakes were made.

What's the lesson in all this? It sounds so simple yet it's importance cannot be overstated ; to truly own at poker, you must be intently focused on winning and killing the competition. This is not something that's exclusive to poker, athletes often refer to this state as being "in the zone" or being in a "flow-state". This is not a new concept for me but today, the contrast between being "in the zone" and completely losing my edge was so strong, so obvious that it made me realize the true importance of playing only when in that state.

I remember poker genius Boywonder saying the real difference between a 2000NL player and a 200NL player is consistency. This means that in a purely theoritical environment, a 2000NL player is not that different from a 200NL player. However, the 2000NL guy will almost always play "in the zone" and therefore make a lot less "execution" mistakes than his 200NL counterpart. While this is true in any competitive game, it goes double for poker since the penalty for losing focus can be very steep.

So why was today so significant for me? In the end, I think today's events allowed me to analyze myself more accurately, which will allow me to not only know when i'm in the zone, but also to consciously monitor and alter my concentration when needed. Re-reading this, I know it seems really esoteric but I think this particular realization is a cornerstone in any serious poker player's career because it allows you to do three important things :

1) Consciously alter your mind to work in a flow-state
2) Honestly monitor yourself to accurately assess your current state
3) Stop playing as soon as you feel the flow-state slipping

When i'm in the flow-state, my reads are precise, my math decisions are obvious, I always feel 2 steps ahead of everyone and i'm extremely confident. It's funny how often I magically "run good" when I play in this state. However, when i'm not, as in today's last 1k hands, I feel confused, lost and i'm spewing left and right, losing (or not winning) many small & medium bets, not to mention the occasional stack-off blunder, all things which can very quickly make the difference between a big winner and a struggling break-even player.

I honestly think these 3 skills are more important than anything else in poker because if you can't master yourself when it matters, all the theory and strategy in the world can't help you. Thus, if you want to improve your game, remember that while your opponents will change, the one person you will always have to control at the table is yourself. So be honest with yourself, get your game on, get out there and play to win!

Going for the throat, leak-fixing that just falls into your lap

February has been going great so far, a huge improvement over weak-tight January. I've rekindled my killer instinct by re-reading Small Stakes Hold'em and my redline is thanking me for it! It's funny how sometimes improvements come from seemingly random events. In one hand this month, I open 99 in EP, get called in blinds. I flop the nut top set, make a hefty bet and get called, ditto OTT. River a full house and shove about a PSB, thinking he either had a lower FH or a busted draw. Villain goes in the tank and finally says "Frank H?", tanks some more and says "should have 3b my AA and see you fold PF" and folds.

My read was wrong but I didn't think much of it and continue playing. However, over the next 10 mins, the guy gave me a total preflop whooping, 3-betting, 4-betting and even a 3b/5b where I attempted to 4b bluff him. Everytime I had a weak hand and folded. Just as I were ready to start adapting, he shut down completely. Later on, I was browsing friendlypoker and I saw a post with his name "1k$ in 1 day" and I looked at the graph inside. I just couldn't believe a nitty player could do so well in 1 day. Some of it is variance of course, but I was intrigued.

He happened to be online at the time so we started chatting. We happened to have completely opposite playing styles. I tend to prefer LAG while he was squeeky tight around 12/9 and we started exchanging tips and pointing out leaks in each other's game. We started talking about different strategies with different hands and he pointed out how tight I was to resteals and how easy it was to exploit me. I had always known I was too tight to resteals but I never gave it that much thought until that day.

It's funny how that particular 99 full house ended up being worth a lot more than a mere pot. After our conversation, I really looked in-depth at many spots in my pre-flop game that were badly in need of improvement (IMO, preflop was my weakest street up to that point). After that I played a few sessions, tweaked my preflop game with new strategies and it worked wonders. I really think that fixing those leaks will have a big impact on my bottom line. I look forward to find out how it works out over a good sample and I am psyched to play some poker!