BelowAverage
4 points
Week One
We had mixed results. The monetary results were good, but the process was somewhat lacking. I played a total of three days since I was away for the early portion of the week. The volume might look like a normal person's daily grind, but I am trying to keep the number of tables down and really focus on quality. For the most part, this was a success. I was very focused and good at thinking about my overall game plan in spots before considering how my hand fits into this.
I struggled quite a lot after the session with forcing myself to get on with studying. I think a few things affected this negatively:
1. It's harder to study when I am winning.
2. MTTs are quite a long, intense grind, and afterwards, I find concentration difficult.
If I am losing for the week, I find it very easy to lock in and study for hours. When I am winning, concentrating for more than 30 minutes becomes an issue. I am a bit torn on whether this is a problem or not; my overall study frequency between this and studying a bit every day is probably the same. I do think it should be possible to study for at least 30 minutes every day while still leaving space to spend hours on studying when I am in the zone and focused. Finding MTTs quite intense is definitely a hurdle to studying. I think maybe forcing myself away from the keyboard for 30 minutes or so straight after the session before coming back to study later might be a good strategy to adopt this week.
Week One Results
BB Graph
$$ Graph
Week Two Goals
1. 60 games with complete focus.
2. 30 minutes minimum studying each day.
3. No checking balance until the end of the week.
The first two are pretty self-explanatory. The third is important for me, as it stops me from getting too attached to day-to-day results. I am well rolled for the games I am playing, so there is no need to get hung up on short-term results.
That is about all I can think of for the week. I would love to hear any suggestions about ways to start yourself off studying when you are feeling unfocussed / tired?
Aug. 5, 2024 | 3:58 p.m.
Switching Gears: From Cash Games to MTTs
I am BelowAverage, I am from the UK and I have been a lone wolf poker professional for around 10 years. I have played about 95% cash games up to now. I have started to notice the effects of working the night schedule and I am start to feel the need for a bit of a change from the usual cash game grind.
I have decided to switch to MTTs. I believe the main benefits of MTTs are that they are much harder to solve/bot in real time due to the numerous variables affecting decisions. They are softer and more lucrative at the moment and are likely to remain so for a longer period. Additionally, I am craving more structure in my sessions and day-to-day life. The morning schedule definitely helps with this. Waking up at 6 am and being on the same schedule as those around me should yield health and social benefits too.
The major problem being that I don't really know what I am doing......
ICM, Bounties, and Risk Premiums are basically a foreign language to me at the moment. That’s without considering the strategic changes required when you’re 15 big blinds deep on the flop rather than 150 big blinds.
I hope this blog will help offer some accountability and keep me focused and on track with my journey. One of the reasons I believe MTTs are so soft is the huge number of variables affecting each decision, making it an intimidating format to study. Not only do you have to learn CEV strategies for different stack sizes, but you also have to understand how different stages of ICM affect these strategies. Then you add bounties into the mix, and things change again.
My Study Plan
I plan to add structure to my study to avoid being overwhelmed by information. I will segment tournament poker and go through each segment until I have a solid understanding of how it works.
- Preflop
- Postflop
- ICM
- Bounties
These are broad segments and will be further broken down. While you could argue that ICM should be at the top of the list, I view ICM as an adjustment to CEV. Therefore, I prefer to have a good grasp of how the spot plays before adding other factors. However, I am new to this, so I am open to changing my approach based on compelling arguments.
To start with, all my study will be 'Big Study,' where I am looking at my game plan as a whole rather than focusing on specific hands or situations. Spending 30 minutes looking into whether I should bet a specific combo on the turn and blast the river, or give up is wasted time when I am still learning the right bet size and frequency to use on the flop.
Daily Goals
1/ Review my study notes every morning
This will be the first work-related activity of the day, whether I am studying or playing. All the stuff I am learning is new, so I need to refresh my knowledge regularly.
2/ Play 20 Tournaments
To learn effectively, I need to apply concepts at the table and put myself in uncomfortable spots. It’s also important to build an understanding of how people are playing and how far or close they are to equilibrium strategy at different parts of the game tree.
3/ Big Study
Go through each segment of tournament poker and try to understand how it operates. The goal is not to be perfect but to gain an executable understanding that can be refined through future study.
Current Study Focus
All my study will be done using solvers. I plan to do it mostly independently at first before looking into coaching or video content. I have spent about three weeks going through preflop play. While I am making mistakes, I am confident that my ranges are fairly accurate, and in chip spots, I am not often completely lost. I am starting to go through Postflop, starting at the shortest stack depths and working upwards. I will probably study up to 40 big blinds, as deeper than that, I have a fairly solid understanding and that time can be best used elsewhere.
Engagement and Feedback
I am going to try at the very least to do weekly updates and maybe some stuff on strategy, but I will let that happen naturally and wont force updates. I would love feedback, I have really enjoyed reading the blogs on this forum, it seems to be a much higher level of content compared to other forums and I am very open to changing my ideas based on others ideas.
Thank you for reading, if you have managed to get this far, I will post the obligatory graphs of my journey thus far underneath.
$$ Graph
BB Graph
Thank you for leaving such a thoughtful post, I really appreciate it. I currently start pretty early so studying before isn't really feasible. Your comparisons to sports do make a lot of sense. When I played before I also had a similar schedule to you, studying in the morning was a really enjoyable way to start the day and I actually looked forward to it.
I think you are right about it being a fatigue problem rather than a discipline issue as today went quite well. I ended up working longer than usual as can often happen with tournaments and as soon as I finished I logged off and went to play tennis for a few hours. I came back in the evening about 4 hours after my session and very easily put in an hour of focussed study.
Thanks again for the comment / interaction :)
Aug. 6, 2024 | 6:56 p.m.