Best of luck

Alright. I’ve had some pretty good days since my last entry here. Those days weren’t all that profitable but they were good as far as feeling like I’m moving forward. I feel like my game is getting better and I’m not thinking of the things that tilt me and distract me from my game (namely the topic I mentioned in my first post).

I realized that if I’m thinking of something like that then that’s all I’ll see everytime I lose a hand in some weird way, or bust out of a tournament.

This is What Helped

I took a shot at a higher buy-in. For me this is a $6.50. I’ve been mostly playing $3 BI but I’ve been wanting to move up ASAP. However, while playing the $6.50s I noticed that I was getting outplayed more often than I was at the lower BIs.

Maybe that sounds like a bad thing to you--and it is--but it makes me feel better because I’m not seeing as many “bad beats”. And that tells me the things I was seeing at lower stakes was partly due to the increased variance that comes with playing weaker/unpredictable players.

And when I get outplayed I know that I just got better. Now have another hand I can go back and study and learn from.

That’s the thing that really sucks about bad beats. Sure, when they’d happen before I started to wonder if it was the site conspiring against me. But when you add that to the fact that it feels like there’s nothing you can learn from simply getting unlucky, it starts to feel like studying is pointless.

And that’s My Breakthrough

I realized that if I go back through those hands, maybe there’s still something I can learn. Before, I felt like there was no need to study a spot where I shoved with AKs knowing villain was weak, only to have him outdraw me. I mean, what can you learn from those spots?

I did the correct thing, villain made a mistake and got lucky.

However, now I’m asking ”why?”

Why did he do that? Was there something I did previously that made him think I was bluffing too much, or that I was a weak player?

Does villain just think everyone is bluffing all the time?

Either way I get some info.

And if nothing else I can note and tag that player, which is something I really wasn’t doing before.

I think posting that first entry here really helped me out. I’m going to keep it up. Soon I will have better things to discuss. I’ll have more concrete goals and examples. I’ll have more hard data. And hopefully more improvement.

But for now, I’m just stumbling my way through this, trying to get better and not bust before that.

Alright alright. I'm actually finishing up something now.

A couple days ago my bankroll was getting a bit thin again. I’d been playing reg speed MTTs (10 to 12 minute blinds) and it was not going well.

A big problem I have is that I seem to make it past late reg then bust almost immediately after. Sometimes I’d even have a healthy chip stack and find myself with a great hand that just doesn’t hold up.

I don’t know much about ICM yet, but it’s my understanding that it really only applies to final tables. However, I feel like there’s some sort of ICM implications throughout the tournament. Especially once late reg ends.

I’m trying to learn more about this… I guess, early ICM implications is what I’d call it.

Whatever it is, I feel like there’s something I’m not understanding about this stage in a tournament. Sure, I bust a lot before late reg but I consider that normal. Maybe I’m wrong. And maybe the fact that I often bust after late reg is normal as well, but the fact that I do it so much tells me that I have some sort of leak there.

I’m hoping to hire a coach soon. This week in fact. I know of a guy who has offered his services to help me learn CREV. I think he offers regular coaching as well. So I’m hoping that will help me bring my game to the next level. Between learning CREV to study better, and any coaching I get, I feel like my game will see drastic improvements over the next few weeks.

But that’s just the first step in what is going to be a long journey. I can’t wait to look at these posts years from now and see how far I got.

In the meantime I’ve gone back to playing the small field turbos. I've always had decent luck with those, and whenever my bankroll is getting short I play those to build it back up.

I hesitate to start playing these again because it seems like all the MTT crushers agree that turbos are bad. And I understand how the faster speeds increase variance, but it doesn’t seem to be a big problem for me. Right now at least.

In fact, like I said, I use them as a dependable way to build my bankroll back. I kinda feel like the increased variance from the speed of the tournament might be evened out by the smaller fields.

It could just be that my style (if you want to call it that) is better suited to turbos. Or it could be that I grow too impatient in normal MTTs.

I’m not what most people would consider “a patient guy”. But I don’t think it’s impatience necessarily.

I think it’s got more to do with the fact that I can play for hours only to bust for $0 and not know if I’m doing the right thing. I need to know that I’m moving in the right direction or not.

Being a fairly new MTT player, it’s hard to know if what I’m doing is good or bad.

It’s normal for MTT players to lose a lot of the tourneys we enter. But for new players that’s a tough pill to swallow when you’re unsure if what you’re experiencing is bad play or just a normal part of the variance involved in MTTs.

For me, turbos are a faster way to spot leaks, fix them, and move on the next one. If I bust out of a turbo after late reg I haven’t invested a ton of time. Maybe an hour and half or so. But there’s always another one waiting and ready to go.

That doesn’t seem to be the case for MTTs, at least not at the stakes I’m playing.

Playing turbos gives me the wins I need to keep my confidence up. Not to mention the wins I need to keep the bankroll up.

It’s a faster feedback loop, which I think is important for newer players.

So this week will be spent in the turbos, trying to build the roll. Next week I hope to get back to some MTTs. I’ll probably also sprinkle some MTTs in this week as well but they won’t be my main focus.

GL everyone!

Ok. I think it's close enough to midnight that I can finally start posting and commenting here again without ruffling any feathers. Most of the day today was spent just kinda watching videos and going over hands. I haven't interacted at all here which feels kinda odd to me, especially when Sam Greenwood released a new vid.

Today I went back to basics with my studying. I realized that I've been spinning my wheels with my studying. I don't really know how to use the tools I have and I don't know what to look for when doing hand reviews. I mean, I've got the basics. But I don't think the stuff I'm doing hasn't gotten me very far. It feels like whatever I'm doing is only enough to keep me where I'm at.

But I have to move forward. I need to make progress. I'm the kinda person who loves to continue learning and getting better at whatever it is that I'm doing. I don't feel like I've done that with poker lately. Things have become stagnant.

This week and probably most of the month I'll be spending less time on poker and that means there's a huge potential to fall behind. So I think this is the week I need to hire a coach and start getting real insight into the game.

Anyway... that's it for now. Just a quick update.

Well this month has flown by! Unfortunately I had a ton of travel for work these past few weeks and I'm just now finishing all that. I haven't been engaged much here but I have been lurking. Now that I'm off the road I plan on increasing my time here and on the tables.

New Study Group!

I joined a study group, which was a much needed step for me. The group isn't too big and I feel like in the short time since I've joined I've already seen some improvement. The biggest thing I've learned from the group is Bankroll management.

Until now, I've basically just played whatever buy-ins I felt comfortable with. I'd deposit whatever number I could get away with that week and just basically try to stretch it as far as I could.

I've blown through a lot of money playing that way--playing various levels with absolutely no plan. Some days I'd play $1.50 SNGs, the next day I might play $5.00 or $6.00 MTTs. Every now and then I'd join a $15 MTT. And once I inevitably lose that, I'd start playing $.50 SNGs again to build my roll and try to avoid depositing again.

I was really gambling, playing like a rec despite the amount of study time I was putting in. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

Here's My Plan for the Month

Bankroll

I'll be sticking to my bankroll very strictly. I'll play only the games I'm rolled for 100x or more. I'll even play well below that to work on my multitabling, 3betting and other things related to aggression. I'm not working on increasing aggression however. Instead I'll be working on trying to eliminate the passive areas of my game that are causing me to lose EV. Not going for thin value, etc.

Volume

Volume is the other part of my game that has been severely lacking. I realized that I've only played about 300 tournaments since October. That's not good enough. The other guys in my study team play a minimum of 250 MTTs each month. So that's my goal for this month.

Study Time

I'll be laying out a more organized study plan soon. But right now this the basic outline.
Study group: 2 hours Tuesday night & 2 hours Saturday afternoon.
Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 1 hour studying RIO, videos, or reading. (1 hour min).

So that's it. Basic stuff for now but i think it's going to help a lot.

1) Only Play Games I'm Rolled for 100x or more (100x being the absolute max).
2) Solo Study sessions; videos, reading, anything poker related.
3) Volume Volume Volume