- Preparation:
- Pregame. Am using my preflight checklist more and more. Also, added an entry to it this week: "Wait for the cards to come; when the deck is cold, just be patient. Forcing things only makes things worse."
- Postgame. Looked at a number of hands from previous STSnGs and MTTs that I've played this past year. The good news is I did some serious post-mortems. The bad news is that some of those hands died very ugly deaths to get themselves onto my autopsy table in the first place. Wow, how on earth did I think I was actually playing some of those hands properly at the time? FPS and slowplay seem to be the theme du semaine.
- Off-Table.
- Forums/Hand-of-the-Day. Didn't read any significant forum posts. I also didn't post any written responses to HoTD, but I did take the quiz every single day this week, and I was surprised (in a good way) that I agreed with the majority votes each time.
- Blog Entries. Posted two entries, one on cbetting, the other on DD poker sims.
- Books. Continued poking away at WPT:OHaaT* V's 1 and 2, plus I cracked open V2 of HoH**. The odd things about re-reading Harrington is how, uh, dated some of the tactics are in light of the high skill level of your average player these days. Now, don't get me wrong-- the books are still chock full of gold, but some of the hand examples are, uh, well, uh, dated (this is the best word I can come up with). Against newbies and fish, I think the HoH advice would work fine, but against serious thinking players at today's tough tables... well, I'm not so sure any more. The WPT books in comparison seem much more in line with how the modern game is played.
- Videos. Watched a short video on cbetting and went-to-showdown stats on the HM2 blog site. Good general stuff worth watching.
- Podcasts. Downloaded three 'casts, but none were actually listened to this week.
- Health. Hey, it's friggin' turkey week, okay? Okay!?
- Other. I've been trying to play at least one DD Poker sim per day. As I mentioned earlier this week (here) I definitely see the benefit of getting in large quantities of hands via a simulator like this. Of course it's not the real thing, but I'm finding that I can try out different strategies against various types of opponents, including things like opening ranges, c-bet ranges, and so on. It also reinforces good habits if used properly. (Plus it's just plain fun to play.)
- Technique:
- Preflop. Tried out a bunch of different starting hand ranges in the DD Poker sims. Two things jump out at me: 1) you've gotta be *really* careful early in a big tournament not to ding your stack too badly chasing speculative hands-- pick your spots carefully; and 2) poker is *soooo* much easier when you've built up a big stack and can bully the rest of the table. :-)
- Postflop. Worked on cbetting strategies and ideas.
- Emotional Control:
- Tilt Control. No significant tilt issues to speak of this week.
- BRM. Playing well within bankroll in tourneys, but am pushing the envelope a bit in cash games.
- Discipline. Had a couple of good cash sessions where I was extremely focused and actively worked on position, starting hand selection, putting players on ranges, etc., and it really paid off.
- Tournaments (Online). Played only three small stakes STSnGs, but made a net profit of $35 for the effort.
- Tournaments (Live). None played.
- Cash Games. Didn't play much, but when I did I crushed the games. Added about $100 to the 'roll this week in about five hundred hands of play over about four hours total. I'm going to cash out much of my online moola this coming week, as the online 'roll is getting big enough that it would now hurt if the feds decided to raid the Merge site, a'la Black Friday. Fool me once, shame on you.... Anyway, here's a graph of a typical day I had at the cash tables this week:
 |
| Can't complain when your daily cash graphs look like this. Even better is that most of the profit is red line money; meaning I'm getting other players off their hands a lot more than usual and not relying on showdowns to win. Strict Preflop Hand Selection + Discipline + REDi + Aggression = $$$ |
All-in for now...
-Bug
*WPT:OHaaT: Winning Poker Tournaments: One Hand at a Time
**HoH: Harrington on Hold'em
"Tried out a bunch of different starting hand ranges in the DD Poker sims."
ReplyDeleteThat seems to me to be the best use of the sim program -- experimentation with different strategies for "free."