Want to get better at poker? Write about it.

"Learn as much by writing as by reading." - Lord John Acton

Long ago, one of the best things I ever did for my poker game was start this blog. Writing about poker means thinking about poker, which in turn means learning-- which means improving. Other players that I know who have taken up similar habits of blogging about poker, or even just writing down hands and situations and analyzing what they did right and wrong, have similarly benefited from the process. Writing about poker helps your win rate.

Lots of poker coaches feel the same way. They encourage their students to keep records, write down key hands, and, yes, blog. Recently, poker author and coach Nathan "BlackRain79" Williams posted on his blog about the benefits of blogging. He wrote: "It doesn't even matter if anybody is reading [what you write] or not. I had literally zero people reading this blog for the first three years. It didn't matter..."

There's an old adage that the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. I personally learned this years ago in college when I took a night job teaching calculus at a local community college. I thought I knew math before I started that job-- and boy, was I mistaken. Yes, I could solve problems, but no, I couldn't not explain the how or the why very well. The good news is that by the time that first semester was over I easily had increased my knowledge of calculus by more than 100%, and I did so by learning how to explain to others. I literally became an expert by teaching.

I think it was Albert Einstein who famously said, "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother." Whenever I post to this blog, I essentially put on my "explaining hat" and imagine that I'm teaching an imaginary reader something. If I can coherently articulate a concept or idea in writing so that a generic reader can understand it, then by definition I also get it. Which means my game has gotten better.

Way up at the top of this very web page, right underneath the title "PokerBug" are the words Docendo Disco, Scribendo Cogito -- Ship It. The Latin part of this phrase translates to "I learn by teaching, I think by writing."

I'll leave it to the reader to figure out the "Ship It" part. :-)

All-in for now...
-Bug

Yes, I'm Alive...

...just unmotivated to post lately. Dunno why, really. I haven't been traveling much, so that's not a valid excuse. I'm also playing pretty much every day (and doing quite well), so I'm not really lacking for material. Also, Le Monsieur and I continue to poke at our training app, which has been both fun and informative. So not really sure why I'm not blogging. Guess it's just the mid-Summer doldrums messin' with my mind

---

As mentioned, Le Monsieur and I are slowly but surely nudging the snowball that is our training app off the start-up cliff ledge. I've been involved in small business ventures with other people in the past, and a huge factor in the success (or failure) of said ventures is the chemistry of the personalities involved. So far so good on that front with Le Monsieur. We've had a number of short but productive Skype sessions, including one this week where some significant clarity and progress was made on organizing the training material. Good stuff.

---

The week before last I had a big downswing that at the time felt like a punch to the gut. Over a grand lost at the tables. Ouch. I don't run HM2 or PT when I play online (due to the fact that Bovada doesn't allow for it), but the biggest losing hands I recorded in my journal that week were mostly coolers and beats, so in retrospect I don't feel too badly about the run-bad. Yes, there was definitely some poor play mixed in (plus it doesn't help that I continue to donk off money at PLO as I learn the game). Sigh. The good news is I had a very profitable run of sessions this week, and have more than recouped my losses. If the trend continues, then July will be another net positive month for this Bug. Woot.

---

The November Nine is set for, uh, November. A lot of unfamiliar names at the table... with one big exception: last year's November Niner: Mark Newhouse made the final table again this year. Considering the incredibly massive starting field sizes, the huge dose of run-good-luck required, and the sheer marathon nature of the event, this is an awe inspiring accomplishment. Dan Harrington last did back-to-back finals in 2003 and 2004, but Action Dan "only" had to best a combined field size of 839+2,576 = 3,415 runners those two years. Newhouse, on the other hand, had to beat a combined field size of 6,352+6,683 = 13,035, or nearly 10,000 more players than Harrington to make back-to-back tables. Wow.

---

The Guru has been in town for a few weeks, and we've hooked up a couple of times for lunch and general catching up. We also played one very brief (slightly) losing session of Zone poker together, plus a short (slightly) profitable session of PLO. Good to see the old goat back in the States, but alas he's jetting back across the Pacific Pond to his beach hut and family come Monday morning. He's leaving behind a cheesy short-but-good YouTube video he posted on position here. Now he just needs to buckle down and create more of these... You listening, Mark?

---

(Non Poker News)

I've got a non-poker project rattling around in my tiny little brain, and to help understand the scope and organize the material I've been playing around a bit with mind mapping software. I've used this kind of thing in the past with mixed results, but for  this particular project (which has hundreds of constituent pieces) it's been a real boon. I've also used it a tiny bit with the project Le Monsieur and I are fiddling with. The software is web based, free, and very easy to use. It's called Coggle, and while it's not nearly as good as some of the commercial packages, it's perfectly adequate for helping focus me on my new project. Check it out: Coggle.

All-in for now...
-Bug