Willpower is a finite resource

I just finished reading a quick Q&A with the author of "Willpower" over at the Freakonomics blog : http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/22/the-authors-of-willpower-answer-your-questions/ and one interesting question jumped out for me :

Q.Is willpower a single commodity (so to speak), or is there, as I suspect, a one type of willpower for, say, dieting, another one for academic study, another for this, another for that? -AaronS

A.No, there’s just one single resource (or commodity). There’s one source of mental energy for resisting temptation and performing other acts of self-control, and this willpower is also depleted by making decisions. What you experience may reflect the fact that willpower is limited and so people have to allocate it: they use it at the office to work effectively and diligently, but have messy homes and are short-tempered in the evening. Or people who show wonderful self-control at dealing with personal relationships but can’t seem to meet their deadlines.

This got me thinking about my own situation. As the year went by (and still goes by), i've noticed something rather stunning about my poker habits ; I played about the same volume this year, with literally no other work-related obligations, as I did last year, when I studied full time.

With my current pace, I should finish the year at about 120k VPPs, quite a bit less than I initially planned. Thus, it's time for a little introspection. After all, poker is all about playing the hand we're dealt as best we can, not the hand we wish we had. After two years of data, the conclusion I have to draw is that mass grinding isn't for me.

The good news is that I can still make poker work for me as a great second job, maintaining Supernova with relative ease playing 40-50k hands a month. Even by dropping from 24 to 12-16 tables, this is a pace that's fairly easy for me to maintain. This will free up energy I can dedicate elsewhere in life ; starting in January i'm going back to college and starting my Master's degree.

That little Q&A gave me some insight as to probably why my poker volume evolved this way. Although willpower is a finite resource, i've come to realize that different tasks drain it in different ways. Add/bpd certainly don't help, in that managing my mood drains a significant amount of energy, and poker only makes it that much more taxing. On the other hand, i'm very happy with myself in a lot of other vital areas of my life ; relationships, fitness and eating habits being the most important to me.

However I still believe I can do quite well with poker in the long run, since players like Mike Matusow have overcome these obstacles and went on to be very succesful. Thus, it's time to change my attack plan ; reduce the number of tables, play a bit less volume/month, but focus much harder on playing well. When you can't play more, the only way to make more money is to play better. I spent the last few weeks off the tables completely and going through Dynamic Full Ring poker, an excellent book.

Armed with extensive note-taking and study material, I should be back at the tables, sharper than ever, in about a week. I'm pretty psyched and looking forward to it! So take this for what it's worth, and realize that whatever your situation is, there's always hope for your game if you're always willing to get back up, no matter how many times you fall. Good luck at the tables (and in life)!

Always nice to have a little refresher

As poker adepts, we go over so much material, concepts and study that sometimes, we forget some of the stuff that helped us out in the beginning. With this in mind, here's a couple things that I had not touched in years that I went over recently and I felt helped me out.

First of all, "Playing to Win", basically Sun Tzu's Art of War for modern day gamers. I first read this and applied it to FPS & MMOs back in the days and going over it again sharpened my blade, so to speak. A very good book for focus, discipline and the proper mindset you need to develop to become a dedicated winner at your game : http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Win-Becoming-David-Sirlin/dp/1411666798/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312830810&sr=8-1

What can a 2NL player teach you? Probably not how to balance your river check-raise range, but i've seen adepts lose sight of the more fundamental insights that serious beginning players have. Some of you may scoff at the simplicity of these clips, but getting this stuff right is so important (and to be honest, there's some days where I still misapply this stuff) that I feel it deserves mention :

Playing poker to learn, not to make money. Despite making good money, I still think that even after almost 2 years and a million hands later, seeing every single session as a learning experience is VERY important to keep improving (at least to me!). Even though I feel my game is the highest it's ever been, playing to learn is probably one of the most important point that keeps me going in every session as energized and focused on getting better as I can be  : http://friendlyp.ning.com/video/inner-game-4-poker-nubs-play?id=2437628%3AVideo%3A42299&page=2#comments

Accept the realities of poker : http://friendlyp.ning.com/video/inner-game-for-poker-noobs

Poker is not about how you win, it's about how you lose : http://friendlyp.ning.com/video/inner-game-4-poker-nubs-3

Keeping your brain healthy for poker : http://friendlyp.ning.com/video/how-to-take-care-of-your-brain

Last but not least is a classic and has been one of the pivotal tools in my poker journey : the concept of the week series in the micro FR forum. Every so often I like to browse a couple of those threads, just to make sure I didn't forget anything. I feel like I have a solid grasp on most of the stuff there, but every so often I find a gem I missed or that I had forgotten : http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78/micro-stakes-full-ring/concept-week-schedule-table-contents-397190/

Sometimes I get a little discouraged when I look at how much I still have to learn, but when I look back and see just how far i've gotten, it makes me pretty proud of my achievements. Finally, results-wise I should hit Supernova again near the end of month and finally cash in on my first 4k bonus, FTW! (should have been waaaay before but I blew a lot of FPPs on 650$'s and 1500$'s in the past). Currently behind pace for 200K VPP this year but I think there's still hope. Keep working hard, grinders, and good luck at the tables!

Even Steven

Poker can be a humbling experience at times, and it certainly felt that way when I looked back on my year so far :



Fortunately, by 24-tabling I was able to maintain a decent hourly as a rakeback pro, which is certainly better than losing. I wish I could blame this on bad luck but over 300k+ hands, poker is a fair mistress and you get what you deserve. Laziness and wishful thinking brought me to this, and if I want it to change, there's only one thing to do.

I've had much better results in the past and looking back it's pretty easy to see what went wrong. I pretty much stopped studying altogheter, sat on my laurels and hoped the good times would still roll. Fortunately, with a simple decision, and a solid commitment to improving, one can change his poker results dramatically, and this is exactly what I plan to do going forward.

Even though i've faced this issue time and time again, it seems I have trouble accepting the fact that in poker, if you stop improving, you decline. I see now (and hope I will remember) that nothing is ever truly acquired in poker and you are never due anything. Nothing but constant hard work on and off the tables will bring success, up to the very last day you play poker.

Thus I post this now to remind myself of this simple poker truth. One of the things I love most about poker (unlike many "real" jobs) is that you get exactly what you deserve. Going forward, I will make sure I do absolutely everything I can to reach the level of success I know I can achieve. Good luck at the tables everyone, and stay hungry!

Quick update

Quick poker update, as i've not played or posted a lot lately. I've mostly been dealing with RL stuff, as well as spending more time pokering "off the tables", working on my game, my routine, optimizing my days, etc. In April I was logging in and playing 5k hands straight, which was burning me out pretty quickly. Spent most of May tinkering with that and I think i've found a pretty optimal setting (for me anyway).

I ended up dividing my play in 1h40 chunks, so I usually start playing at about 10am, play 1h40, 10mins break for walking around/exercice, another 1h40, about 45mins off for lunch, and another 1h40. (Optional additional 10mins break and 1h40 after if I have time/energy). Nowadays I can pull off days like that and still have solid energy for the rest of my day so i'm pretty happy with it.

The only thing I still have to stabilize for peak performance is sleep and food. I used to be a big night owl so going to bed at 10h30-11h still feels annoying but any later than that and my alertness & energy suffer the next day, which is terrible for poker. Food is also a big deal on game days and I have to make sure I eat a big enough breakfast with constant snacking/drinking during play & on breaks.

Even though i'm not playing a lot lately, when I do pull it all off though it works pretty awesome, and i've gotten to a point where i'm really happy with my game as well, although that's a never ending process. Coaching helped, but the amount of homework I need to do to truly get the most out of it is pretty staggering to say the least!

Only thing left to figure out is how many days/week I want to play and how to split them up. Other than that i'm really happy with my progress (should hit Supernova again in early July). The most important thing for me is to keep poker fresh, stay hungry and always being eager to play and play at my best when I do log in, and so far those goals have been going great and i'm looking forward for more!

Poker can be a frustrating game, post-february results

My goal going forward this year is to hit 300k VPP with a >0.5ptBB/100 winrate at 100NL. If I can manage only that, I will consider the year satisfactory as far as monies accumulated. Fortunately, i'm currently on pace for that :



However, it just feels like I could be doing so much better. I obviously have some big leaks, but I just can't seem to put my finger on the exact spot. With 2 downswings of 20+ BIs over this stretch, I feel like it's not just bad luck (obviously some variance, but still). One thing i've neglected a lot this year is poker study. With enough hands under my belt to analyze my play so far, a very solid database analysis is very much overdue.

Thus, i'll be taking a week off from the tables to focus hard on studying. Going back through most CoTWs, doing a serious digging in my database, along with a complete review with Leakbuster, watching videos, etc. I'm also looking for some coaching from serious, successful >2ptBB/100 over a ton of hands 100NL players, simply because I know where some of my big leaks are, but I just don't know exactly how to fix them properly, so I need a new perspective on my game.

Poker can be a frustrating game at times, but overall, i'm still very happy with my choice. I still enjoy the game a lot, even though it's a lot of hard work. To have real success, one must not neglect any aspect of poker & life : health (nutrition, exercice), knowledge (study, leak busting) and execution (applying knowledge properly, able to apply it well over long periods of time/many hands). I feel confident going forward!

My highest volume month yet

While it's not much compared to sick grinders, 85k hands is my highest volume month since I started playing on Stars in Nov 09. Most of my months hovered around 30-50k, with the exception of December which was at 84k with the end of year Supernova chase. The big difference however is that in this case, there was no 20k sessions marathons (with horrible losses at the tables).



This month has also been an interesting learning experience. I started the first 15k playing extremely laggy both pre and post. This resulted in a very big redline (and poor blue line) but allowed me to learn many spots where my game was lacking. I then cut most of the spew and started playing a very solid/aggressive game, with the results that go with it.

However, as is usually the case when I play solid for awhile, I try to fix imaginary leaks. While leak fixing is not bad in itself, whenever I start to read too many pro threads, I start trying to fix what's not broken. While I may be a little too tight in some spots, and some pros may be able to ecke out a small profit in those spots, in most cases these players are just a lot better than me so when I try to emulate them, I end up spewing massively.

Not only am I not actually fixing any leaks, i'm creating big ones by trying to be a playmaster. Another major pitfall for me is complacency at the tables. It's so easy to drift into weak-tight play if you're not vigilant (with big hits to redline & overall results, as in month's end). Staying very aggressive, especially in position, is so important that letting those small edges go can end up having a huge impact on your winrate.

Thus, I sat down and went through my month, thinking about what I did well and what I shouldn't have changed. I came to the conclusion that my results started declining when I lost sight of the basics in poker. Play very aggressive in position, tighten up out of position. Sounds dumb, but I was starting to do the opposite and it showed badly (becoming weak-tight in position and trying to playmaster out of position. leaking + spewing = sad bankroll).

It's pretty obvious when you think about it. What are the three edges in poker?
1) Hand strength
2) Skill
3) Position

One of my big leaks was overplaying marginal hands OOP against tough villains (even worse in 3b pots). While I like my progress and i'm fairly happy with my game, I know full well that there are many stronger villains than me at the tables. So if i'm playing a marginal hand out of position, i'm already out 2 fundamental edges, which means I need a very big skill edge to compensate. Against tough regs, my edge is at best slim and at worse crushed.

When you think about it this way, you have a very easy fold preflop, or check/fold postflop, even though the hand could be playable against a weaker opponent (bigger skill edge to make up for low hand strength and lack of position). Better to give up a couple additional tiny pots here and there than to spew massively by making huge blunders in big ones. The lesson here is to focus on what you do right. Do keep studying and do learn advanced moves. But if you lose sight of the basics, and especially if you overestimate your skill edge, your results will very rapidly decline. Thus, be honest with yourself and play according to the way things are, not as you wish they would be. Good luck at the tables!

Finally getting some good volume in

It's been a while since my last update, lots going on lately but I have several new ideas for future blogs so fear not dear readers! (yes both of you!) The most important recent change has been my schedule. Ironically, I did the complete opposite of my last post and basically set up a fairly rigid routine for my sessions. Get up, have some breakfast, 5-10mins of breathing/meditation, load up tables and play until I reach 1500VPP (5-6k hands depending on days).

My pace used to be so abysmal that I had only setup a mere 200k VPP as a goal for the year (and was already behind pace at the end of March). Now i'm up to 5 days/week with this routine, on pace for the month, and aiming at 300k for the year! I'm very happy to finally have the motivation, discipline and mood to play seriously. To be honest, what made all the difference was an increase in medication (I suffer from type 2 bipolar disorder, mostly depression with mild mania. Funny coincidence, I just learned today that Catherine Zeta Jones struggles with the same problem).

The boost in energy, motivation and most importantly the massive reduction in mood swings (which really don't mix well with poker) have had a major impact on my poker schedule. To top it all off, I feel my game has reached a new peak. I tried a super-lag approach early in the month, not worrying too much about spew, just to test new things.

While I did spew quite a bit in there, I also picked up a lot of insight in the game, as well as a few new tricks. After that, I watched many videos, spent a lot of time going through my database to keep all the good stuff I learned while also cutting out the spew. Overall, I feel my hand reading and my game have never been better. To make things even sweeter, i've had my sickest day ever at the tables. I'll have more to add on this at month's end.

Until then, my condolences to all the US players, especially those who were full-time players and are now out of a job. Really feels like someone in the family just died. Hopefully things will work out quickly. Best of luck to all people affected by this and to those who fight for our rights as poker players. Keep your head up!