200z writeup; my top 10

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200z writeup; my top 10

I told some of the other zoom guys i would do a writeup on my experience at 200z, so here it is.  I took most of this month off from playing, but these are my hands from mid April onward:

EV 3.2bb/100

It's a smallish sample so I'm not going to bother guessing at my real winrate.  I thought i played my A- game on average throughout, but I think i improved enough over the sample to say that it would be my B game if i started the sample today.  I think you can improve really quickly in whatever your regular game is by just paying attention,  so here are my top 10 things to pay attention to at 200z. 


10 maximize your vpip from the blinds.  very few players are defending enough, especially in multiway pots.

9 Start overbetting more.  imo there are constantly spots where you should be using a 1.5PSB or > river sizing .

8 lower your OOP flop c-bet (at least vs the solid regs) until you get better at visualizing equity distributions.  Mess around with textures in flopzilla or use any of the other tools available these days. EDvis is a good one.  

7 limit your strategic options OTF/OTT.  Don't try to balance an additional line unless you think it's giving you significantly more EV.  Without a lot of hours of study away from the table looking at a lot of textures, you'll usually just end up losing control of your range and end up regretting you ever tried.

6 fold more OTR.  my fold vs river c-bet is 65% in this sample in both 2bet and 3bet pots.  Exploitable, sure.  But imo it's right for the games.  If you notice a good reg abusing you, just get more solid vs him.  keep it simple.

5 if you're an aggro player by nature, be honest with yourself about having a tendency to over-do it.  I've heard this referred to as "young man's syndrome" in other competitive arenas, and I think it's a good label.  If you would define yourself an aggro/creative player who has a well rounded understanding of the game, but your winrate is < 2bb/100 in these games , my first guess would be that you have a tendency to force aggression in bad spots.

4 stop trying to make significant changes in your game until you are capable of playing your personal A game at least 90% of the time.  If you're not in control of your emotions, you're juggling too many moving parts.  Straighten out your inner game FIRST.

3 keep a daily journal.  mark any hand that either

-creates an uneasiness in you during your session

-stimulates a new clarity in your understanding of the game

your goal should be to continually refine your level of subconscious integration, as opposed to having to actively retrieve knowledge.  Once you really understand something, you don't need to remember it.  For the grinder, this frees up massive amounts of energy in-session.  You can use that energy to maintain awareness over sustaining your A game and trusting your intuition.  It's free winrate without actually getting "better".  

  

2 hold on to nothing.  challenge yourself to identify your biases and examine them objectively.  IMO the strongest quality a player can have is his ability to adapt quickly and efficiently to a new game.  I was forced to completely revamp my carbon 3/6 style for 200 zoom. There was a short period prior to the graph i posted where i played my carbon style and got my ass handed to me.  It wasn't variance, i was overplaying value and trying to out-maneuver recreational players.  Following this, there was another short period where i made major adjustments to my flop c-bet % and continued to struggle with controlling my new ranges.  I made a note in my journal that i finally felt like i was well adjusted on April 15 (the beginning of the sample i posted).  My point is, if you feel like you're running into walls, trust your gut.  Let your regression period last  50k instead of 500k.  Also  -- post more of your own hands. it's the fastest way to get feedback on your potential leaks.

1 enjoy yourself.   never be afraid to take time off from poker if it's returning you to a more holistically positive state of mind.


i'm currently playing 26/20/8.  If you want to compare any other stats, just ask.  gl all -

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