WSOP-2013: Week #15

It’s Sunday, so time for a recap of this week's prep/progress toward WSOP-2013:

• Preparation:
• Pregame. Added a sub-bullet to one of my preflight check list items that reads: "It's OK to call with speculative hands preflop in LP if deep enough, but don't call down postflop. I forgo fold equity this way. Raise or fold!"
• Postgame. Reviewed a handful of hands I lost from the previous week, but didn't spot anything significant that I did wrong.
• Off-Table.
• Forums/Hand-of-the-Day. 
• Disagreed with the majority vote in a HotD in which you're at a final table of a major event with a moderate chip lead. There are big jumps in payouts. A short stack on the button shoves. SB folds and you're in the BB with A4o. Do you call? I argued fold, but the majority seems to think calling is OK. I believe there are a lot better hands to call this with than a raggy Ace. Ask yourself: what are you trying to achieve with this call? Be the sheriff? Eliminate a player? Increase my stack a small amount? None of these are valid reasons. Folderoo, me thinks. Otherwise I agreed with all the other majority votes in HotD.
• Found some time to read forums again. I'm mostly giving up on 2+2 for strategy stuff because there seems to be a number of non-qualified posters clogging up what would otherwise be good discussions. (Though I still like some of the other 2+2 subforums, like Poker Theory.) In lieu of 2+2, I'm poking around in the SeatOpen subforums, which are small but good.
• Blog Entries. Wrote one Bug Tip on minimax, plus started drafting a couple of posts that didn't get finished. 
• Books. 
• Read a post by Mason Malmuth on 2+2 that his company is going to be publishing an upcoming book by Dan Harrington called "Harrington on Modern Tournament Poker." I'm definitely buying this book when it comes out (Note what I wrote back in WSOP update #13 on book here about the first three MTT HoH books).
• Pulled Professional No Limit Hold'em off my book shelf and did a little studying on pot commitment again.
• Continued hacking away at WPT, V's 1 and 3.
• Videos. None watched.
• Podcasts. Played catch-up on some of the 'casts I've stockpiled but not listened to. 
• Health. Ugh. Stood on the scales of justice this morning and wasn't too pleased. Worse, I've got yet another week-long biz trip starting tomorrow morning, so it's going to be a tough one again... sigh.
• Other. Played a few short sessions of DD poker for the hell of it.
• Technique:
• Preflop. Been experimenting more and more with opening up wider calling ranges preflop with the intention of floating weak-tight players IP on the flop. Made quite a few bucks this week taking down pots when checked to on the turn. Trick is picking the right type of opponent to do this to.
• REDi. Nada.
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control. Nothing significant to report here.
• BRM. Now that I cashed out a healthy chunk of dough from my online account, I'm finding it really hard to step down and play in the $10NL games. My achilles heel in the long run, me thinks...
• Discipline. Dusted off a technique I've used successfully in the past to play really solid poker: talk to yourself aloud when playing as if you're teaching someone else the game. If done right, this will really keep your preflop game on track. E.g,. "I've got Ts8s on the button. A tight EP player min-raised. Blinds are probably going to fold. I'd normally like to call here IP with a deceptive hand, but he's not deep stacked enough to make this +EV. Let's wait for a better spot. Fold."

$ Results:

• Tournaments (Online). Bad news: Played only one $11 full-ring STSnG the entire week. Good news: Took first place for $45.
• Tournaments (Live). None played. (This one is starting to worry me a bit, as it's been a few months since I've played live (due to travel); I really need to find some time soon to get in live play.)
• Cash Games. Cash net gain of about $60. Somewhat choppy/swingy results, with a number of big ups and downs. Had two set-over-set hands, one good, one bad. (Note that my Bug Tip this week was precisely on ignoring these types of big swing cooler hands; it's the long run, mimimax, gradual gain of bucks that matters, not these big variance events). Here's the graph:

Summary: In general a meh week. I'm pretty discouraged that I'm not finding enough time to commit to MTTs or even STSnGs, so I need to work on this. I'm also very discouraged about the anti-progress I'm making on the health front. The good news, however, is that the bankroll is in pretty good shape, and that I'm mostly on track for funding a WSOP trip in June purely by poker profit (knock on wood this continues).

On to the next entry in this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug