I'm currently reading Tony Holden's sequel to Big Deal, which was an account of his year-long quest to masquerade as a professional poker player and get to the WSOP main event. Fun book. A little short on actual poker play, it's still strangely comforting to read about another fellow WSOP wannabe winner musing on his game, surviving life's bad beats, and plowing ahead anyway. If you get a chance, I suggest reading the first book, Big Deal, well, first, and then picking Bigger Deal up. I received both books as gifts for the last two Xmas's, and I'm finally getting around to finishing up the second one.
Anyway, I'm up early again, musing about my own game, Xmas, and what I'd truly like to focus on in the coming year. Here are some random ramblings on what I want Santa to bring down the flue this year:
Cash - Hold'em
Grinding, grinding, grinding. I've been winning fairly consistently at the $25NL stakes (knock on my wooden bug head), making a fairly steady 4.3PTBB/100 ($12.50/hour) for my grinding efforts over the past 3-4 months, but I remain inconsistent at the $50NL level. I think the problem is one of "scared money" so I'm resolving for the new year not to play at the higher stakes until my bankroll can fully support higher limits. I'm also resolving to try not to play when I'm just in the mood for a little action. Poker is a skill game (the art of the game, after all, as Tony H. said, lies in minimizing chance), and 90% of the time I'm focused on playing Perfect Poker. The other 10%, however, is when I just sit down and seemingly play a half-assed, blow-off-some-steam, let's-gamble-and-let-Luck-take-over form of poker. During these tilt stints, I invariably end up giving back a chunk of my bankroll. I need to find some way to short circuit these periods of play, so I guess what I'd like the man in the big red suit to bring is some self-awareness of when I'm slipping into this destructive behavior mode.
Cash - Omaha
Omaha, for me, is a strange game. In one sense, I think it's actually easier to play than Texas Hold'em. Reads are actually much harder to narrow on players, but at my stakes, super accurate reads really aren't that important. Instead, when I'm playing well and winning at Omaha, I'm really just reading the board and asking myself a) how strong my hand is, including wraps and draws; and b) how likely does my opponent have a big (or bigger) piece of the board. In other words, a specific hand range read isn't really what I'm doing, but instead I'm trying to look just at the probabilities that my hand is behind or ahead, given the betting actions of the opp. When I'm losing at Omaha, it's because I'm not doing this step in my head. Said another way, my biggest leak in the game is just the recognition of when I'm likely beat... and then listening to that little voice that is telling me that I should fold. Santa, if you're listening, I really need a louder inner voice that can get my attention when I'm behind in an Omaha hand.
Tournaments & Sit-n-Go's
I haven't played many of these this past year; cash games have been my real focus, but I do recognize that to get better as an all-around poker player, I need to play more of things. I actually really enjoy tournaments and SnGs, and I would love to play more, but time continues to be a problem. Looking through my cash game stats, I see that my average session time is just 0.26 hours, or a little over 15 minutes at a stretch. Yikes, that's a short little period of time to play poker. My M.O. is usually to sit down, open a couple of Rush tables, and get in a 150 hands or so before Life jumps in and tells me I have to get on with other commitments. The problem with Tourneys and SnGs is that you need to carve out 1-2 full-time hours at a stretch to give them a serious go. Finding this time continues to be a problem for this busy bug. With that in mind, I would ask St. Nick for some regular, weekly blocked-out periods to focus on tourneys.
Other
As some of you know, I'm taking a stab at putting together some beginning poker training materials for people new to the game. Like most players, I've endured a lot of hard-earned lessons and roller-coaster ups-and-downs to get to the point where I'm now a consistent cash-game winner. I think that codifying these lessons and organizing my thoughts and methods and strategies into a "system" of sorts is something that could help a new player get off on the right foot in the game. Why do this? Part of me just plain likes teaching, and combining two things I like (poker and teaching) is a good combination for me. I also recognize that this effort will likely result in me, myself, getting better at the game. I'm a big believer in the old saw that if you want to truly get better at something, try teaching it to someone else. Once the end of 2010 settles down a bit, I'm hoping to hit this effort pretty hard. The biggest impediment to doing this thus far has just been my wandering attention span. For instance, I'm currently putting together some information on why Position is so important, but my gnat-like attention span continually spirals me off on tangents and false-leads. Yes, it's fascinating to try and fully understand the subtleties of heads-up play in and out of position, but it's not really progressing the effort of putting together any actual, useful beginning training material. Santa, if you're listening, slip some Focus in my stocking on your way back up the chimney.
There's a lot more I'd like to ask Santa for, but the truth is that I'd be thrilled to find just one of the above items under the tree on Xmas morning. Hell, I'd be happy with just another good poker book to read!
Hope you all have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, or whatever it is you celebrate at this time of the year. And may Santa Claus bring whatever poker-related wishes you may have true.
All-in for now.... ho ho ho...
-Bug
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