MattDaBeast

Chapter 5 - Business: Mindset and Leadership

I'm obsessed with teamwork. Working as a group and valuing connection are paramount for me as someone who intends to spend the rest of my life working outside the 9-5 workforce. Deciding you want to be a self-sustaining human being outside the safety net of a traditional company is incredibly audacious and tumultuous, and finding long term success requires the skills that won't be talked about much on message board or social media. It takes discipline, maturity, sacrifices, and effective strategies. There's little room for error when everything is all on your shoulders, so taking concepts like connection and teamwork seriously are essential for success and fulfillment.

Ultimately, you have to set aside your ego.

Dweck discusses CEO culture, and how the mindset of leaders trickles down to their employees. Fixed Mindset CEOs are threatened by new ideas because it challenges their personal exceptionalism, and this close-mindedness hinders innovation. On the other hand, Growth Mindset CEOs encouraged new ideas and demanded to be outdone, and employees took an active role in progressing the company.

Reflection

I'm reminded of the famous Alec Baldwin scene from Glengarry Glen Ross. I was entranced by it several years ago and saw it as a tough love speech where Alec tells it like it is to some lazy chumps.

I cringe at how blind I was to that scene now. It plays as an outright parody to toxic masculinity, and embraces every lousy mindset possible. You're worth is your bank account. You're a loser and I'm a winner. etc. etc. That's what a lot of the online poker culture feels like sometimes, Alec Baldwin shouting at you that his watch is worth more than your car. It's bullshit, and clearly inhospitable for human life. I don't feel like I even need to bother formulating a real argument for why it's false. I'm just gonna smile and go my own way,

ABC: Always Be Closing... I know this sounds like Mr. Rogers but let's go with ABG: Always Be Growing.

Peace.

Maria Sharapova said that everyone who plays Tennis seriously has a good work ethic, so it wasn't hard work that separated her from the pack. What made her different was "that other thing", the soul of who she was as a competitor, which if often difficult to pinpoint or measure.

You've talked openly about hitting rock bottom as the inciting incident for changing your mindset and re-directing your career. Many players go through a rock bottom period and search for a new path, but they often don't find the success that you did. Why do you feel you were able to turn things around for yourself while other equally well-intending and competent people struggle to find momentum in the direction they want? If you have "that other thing" as competitor or as a person, what would it be?

Hey Saulo,

You mentioned in this thread learning to study relevantly and I was curious what your study habits were like as you moved up, and what they're like now? How have your studies translated to concrete strategies?

For instance, I see you posting a lot of overbet hands and that's something I tend not to do much. Is this something you do by feel against capped ranges and risk adverse player pools or did you do a lot PIO work + texture / pattern recognition to find spots that encourage large overbets?

Thanks! Keep up with the updates! :)

Chapter 4- Sports: The Mindset of a Champion

Are the players winning at HSNL gifted naturally or did they nurture their talent? Society tends to prize the idea of natural talent, but real champions work tirelessly to become great.

And it's ultimately about CHARACTER. Some people succeed more easily at poker and have more natural talent, but Dweck argues longterm success comes from hard work and self awareness, which leads to dynamic solutions that resolve shortcomings effectively.

Players praised for their talent in a fixed mindset will be unlikely to put in enormous effort because effort is for untalented people. Believing you're special breads complacency and ignorance of your faults, whereas growth mindset people identify their faults quickly and change them.

Reflection

I've looked at HSNL pros in the past as gifted talents that I could never aspire to. In 2014, I was playing 400nl/600nl on Bovada and I looked at that as what my peak would be. I thought the game had maybe passed me by and I would be stuck at small stakes for the rest of my time in poker. I had so many self-limiting labels for myself that only served to get in my head and hold me back.

I don't know if I'll ever make to HSNL, but I believe that I could get there with the right training, focus, and execution. There's nothing standing in my way. There's no talent, no labels, no gatekeepers, no run bad. It's me. It's always been me. It's always been me, the cards, and the discipline to make the right play on the hand in front of me. I can do better. I can make it there. And I'm gonna have a really good time whether I make it or I don't.

Peace.

I'd fold without a read. You're very far up in your range and it's highly exploitative, but most players aggression falls off dramatically in big pots, especially when the the river doesn't change the integrity of the board. Your range looks like you have a lot of TT-QQ, and a handful of Kx, and when the river doesn't threaten a vast majority of your turn calling range then villains are less likely to move you off that.

If you see this villain 3-betting habitually or showing aggressive tendencies then it's a call, but you'd be shocked by how infrequently we have to call when the pool under-bluffs significantly.

Call with TT 100%. There's gonna be some players that only jam a tight range here, and a lot of button clicking recreational players ripping it in with random stuff. If we're readless then I'd do some research to find out the average tendencies of your player pool, or at least make a best guess averaging out the multiple potential ranges your up against.

Ultimately, it's more of an MTT-type question, but I'd call with 99+, AQs+, AKo totally readless. I think you could probably call wider, but I'm making a conservative estimation.

I'd just fold unless you had compelling spazz reads. Your range is uncapped, villain won't have worse for value, and it's hard to believe he'll have a lot of natural bluffs considering he'll probably c/r flush draw on the flop a decent bit.

Aceone Letting go of the obsession over outcomes and focusing our attention on process is the core of many great stories. Arrival was my favorite movie from 2016 because it articulated the idea of surrendering to the inevitabilities of life beautifully. Amy Adams discovers her future daughter will fall ill and die at a young age after Amy makes contact with Aliens who give her the ability to see forward in time. The conceit of the film is that she chooses to fall in love and have the child anyway, despite knowing the fated outcome.

We're all gonna die, and fail repeatedly along the way. I'd rather live like Amy and say yes to the twists and turns then be stifled by the anxiety of how things may go wrong. Yes, it'll go wrong. I'll walk away from poker one day. But today I'm here to be a champion.

Chapter 3:The Truth About Ability and Accomplishment

Wow, you got a 9/10. You must be really smart!
Wow, you got a 9/10. You must have worked really hard!

It's natural to praise people for good traits like being smart, but Dweck argues this instills a fixed mindset and generates counter-intuitive outcomes. It makes sense if you think about it. "If I get good grades that means I'm smart, so if I get bad grades that must mean I'm stupid. I better do whatever I can to ensure I don't get bad grades!" This attitude encourages cheating, risk aversion, and an avoidance of criticism. An attack on our work is an attack on the label of who we are, so we become less likely to accept it.

This mindset also appears to plague the education system. If teachers have a fixed mindset, then they will interpret students who get bad grades as "stupid" and won't give them as much attention. However, teachers who believe in the potential of their students can achieve incredible results. Dweck writes, "There's a lot of intelligence out there being wasted by underestimating students potential to develop".

The education system chapter hit me. I dropped out of high school when I was 18 years old because I was depressed and lost, and I always wished the faculty knew how to deal with me. They were nice and my school had resources. They tried, but something was always off. It took me years to figure out things for myself, and today I officially graduated from college with my B.A. in Film after 6 1/2 years. I guess I'm glad that I didn't give up on myself just because I was hurt.

Your winrate isn't fixed, and it doesn't reflect your potential. Been stuck at micros for years? You can break through. You have to trust yourself, love yourself, and use your imagination to fight through problems. Message a RIO Pro and ask to chat with them on Skype. Message every RIO Pro and ask them to chat with you. Keep going and keep growing.

I'll leave the progress stuff for another day because this was a long journal. Have a nice day everybody! :)

Nice job updating frequently and sticking with it. Maybe you could add audio commentary to your videos?

Best of luck, Pedro! :)

Cool blog! What's the story with moving to China? What triggered your interest in poker?

Best of luck!

I think betting here vs recs is likely to get picked off because there's a great volatility in what they'll call with. Some will fold Tx and some will call you down with 55. I would need reads these players are risk adverse before overbetting, especially considering your hand blocks missed fd.

Chapter 2 Review: Inside the Mindsets

I never stopped trying to be qualified for the job.

This quote remind me of Scorsese talking about the importance of being an eternal student of film. Becoming a master at something doesn't mean that we don't learn, but our endless curiosity about the things we love lead us to excel. Effort is a key factor here.

When do you feel smart? When you're learning, or when you're flawless? Dweck argues that feeling smart when you're flawless means you're only happy when you're perfect right now, and will avoid risk and progress to ensure perfect results. However, if you feel smart when you learn then you'll take on more challenges.

There's been times for me where I obsess over winrate and want to pursue a stellar bb/100 to subconsciously prove a sense of worth. This torches my mental game because when I have bad sessions it means I'm not worthy, I'm a fraud, and this whole poker thing is a fool's errand. This attitude is self-sabotaging because we exhaust so much mental energy on what our "label" is instead of accepting it as a challenge and an opportunity to grow and learn from our mistakes.

Day 2:

How did I progress? I did well at keeping calm in the midst of a lousy morning session. I reminded myself after quickly getting coolered that "failure is going to happen in poker and it's how we react to it that matters." I regrouped instead of spiraling mentally and finished my session in the green.

How can I progress further? I'd like to be more diligent in reviewing my largest lost pots. Review is really valuable, and I'm not checking my big leaks well enough.

Yeah the article sums it up well. Thanks for the recommendation. It could be the next book I read after I finish Mindset. ;)

Thanks Ryan!

Thanks Mancuso! =)

Thank you! I think it'll be an interesting one at least. :)

Chapter 1 Review: The Mindsets

The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.

This stood out to me a lot, and clarifies the importance of having a strong mindset. People with a fixed mindset tend to avoid challenge, because poor outcomes mean they're stupid or incompetent. Basically, Outcomes = Finite Self-Label. Want to a avoid a bad self label? Don't risk a bad outcome. This attitude stunts our growth and minimizes progress.

People with a growth mindset see failure as an opportunity to learn and believe our abilities can improve through practice, determination, and effort. They also have greater self awareness of their faults because their pride isn't so wrapped up in not admitting them.

Day 1

How did I progress? Anytime I lost a big pot I forced myself to answer "what can I learn from this?" I lost a medium sized pot to a player who binked a lucky river in a 3BP and immediately started fuming over his luck, but, when I made myself answer what I could learn, I noted he called my 3-bet OOP with JTo. 3 minutes later I was ready to check back the river in a 3BP, but remembering his wide starting ranges decided to shove for value. He called, and I won a 110BB pot. I was hooked on the "what can I learn" question and found all sorts of notes for the rest of the day.

It looks like your 4-bet range is a little tight. I would consider mixing in 4-bets with KQs/KJs and some TT as well. It's also extremely advantageous to 4-bet hands like KQs when the BTN 3-bettor is an undisciplined reg 3-betting too many suited connectors as 4-betting suited broadways naturally punishes those hands. I'm not saying that's the case here, but it's good to think about what factors would incentive you to adjust your blueprint ranges.

I'm betting ~1/5 pot with my range on the flop, and barreling more on low cards that don't connect with either range. I bet a much more polarized range on broadway cards as it connects with him much more, and a board that's less likely to change deincentives c-betting. I've done less grid work in 4BPs, but if I recall barrel percentages were generally pretty high because of the shallow SPR.

We should c-bet more frequently OOP as stacks get shallower, which is what happens in 3-bet pots. The reason is that c-betting allows us to realize our equity more effectively out of position as opposed to check-calling, and we're less worried about getting raised. C-betting also prevents IP from checking and getting to see the turn for free, where our check option is less valuable because it doesn't allow us to see the turn card.

The high c-bet has more to do with stack-to-pot ratio than the fact that it's 3-bet. If we were 200BBs deep, then OOP would be insensitived to check significantly more in 3-bet pots because IP has much more playability with deeper stacks.

gl gl gl! Will be following. :)

I don't think you can fold this. Players react very poorly to 1/3 cbets, and their raising ranges are usually pretty goofy and contain inappropriate bluffs. This is too far up in our range to make an exploitative fold.

The check-range strategy is nice to help keep control of our range when we don't often have much of a range advantage and we're deeper OOP, and it also lets us conserve mental energy for more winrate-relevant spots.

Keep in mind that checking range requires us to check-raise much more against stab so it's important to not go into auto-pilot and check-call too frequently (especially on low boards).

I'd C/C turn, C/F river. If you're confident villain is a rec, then he can bet the turn worse for value to see cheap showdown. Calling a river jam seems pretty bad because, unless you have a read, the general player pool isn't going to bluff often enough and he checks back his Tx / JJ now. Don't worry about blockers when they don't have enough bluffs in the first place.

@girth

You feel good when you book a win because it's appeals to a feeling of safety, whereas booking a loss challenges your safety by subconsciously threatening your livelihood. So when Nick says to challenge the credibility of what you gain by quitting, I believe he means that your livelihood isn't actually being threatened by booking a loss because poker is such a macro game and you'll win in the long term. You're essentially letting the "animal" part of your brain win that is concerned about safety, when it's in your best interest to continue playing because your real goal is to maximize your winnings.

I think it's a great idea for you to prioritize defining your purpose in playing poker. It's a lot harder for the animal part of your brain to win out if you have a clear purpose to point to, and I can understand how that gets stagnant if you're just collecting money in your bank account each month without really DOING anything with it. I can't really give advice without projecting what I would do, but you know if things feel off. Finding inspiration often involves some "time away" to get perspective on things. It's hard to gain insight on a problem when you're in the thick of it.

Just throwing in my 2c. Good luck!

I haven't put a ton of thought into preflop this year, so the quiz called attention to core concepts that I wasn't really paying attention to. I think the most salient takeaway was focusing on the equity of hands and not as much on pot odds. The ATo fold was shocking to me and I never would have even considered it. It's possible we can make it profitable versus the player pools, but it was eye opening that I don't yet have that base-level understanding of where to start from.

If there's something I'm curious to learn more about, I'd like hear what incentives the construction of 3-bet and 4-bet ranges. For example, what is the difference between a bad 13% 3-bet BB vs SB and a good 13% 3-bet BB v SB? We see how delicate range composition is postflop, and what our resulting counters are for it, but I don't have the same knowledge for preflop construction. Basically, I'm curious to learn more about what influences the equilibrium preflop.

And I'd ultimately want to use that information to keep it simple. I'm less interested in hearing a list of various percentages for every combo of hands I could have, and more interested in learning the most relevant core concepts on what defines good preflop play. If I can use that to draw up dynamic preflops strats versus 2-3 player types, then it seems like a good way to press out winrate that is totally invisible to a lot of players.

Thanks Nick & Ivan.

Cool article, Kevin. I find that teachers / leaders who have spoken to me with words of encouragement have led to me accomplishing much more, while those who've been critical caused me to coil up in a ball and second guess myself. I tend to retract and focus my attention on not making mistakes, as opposed to working in a "flow" state where I'm thinking about much less consciously. A big part of maturing for me was learning to only surround myself with people who I feel communicate with support and encouragement, and I believe it's helped a lot.

Awesome blog by the way. Keep going!

1) 3-bet
2) 3-bet
3) Call

Hey Nick,

I'd like to respond to the discussion of intimate community learning vs public packs. I applied for the CFP group a short while ago and I was interested in the access to your paid content, but I was genuinely excited at the prospect of working with a group of dedicated individuals. Finding a group of motivated and positive poker players to work with can be really difficult when there's such a high concentration of negative people in the poker community (look at this thread recently). So using your content and guidance to lead the group was an exciting prospect.

Anecdotal story. I'm a filmmaker and lived at a house with 9 other people for a month as we worked on producing a film. We all worked literally 12 hours+ a day every single day and it was a fulfilling and generally awesome experience. I'm 100% sure we worked so tirelessly and efficiently because we were all accountable to each other, supported a common goal with our personal vested interests, and were lead by an experienced director. I learned more from that than any formal education has taught me.

Anyway, I wound up buying PIO Unlocked and really enjoyed the content, but I have no plans to buy any future public packs. Implementing the techniques you lay out in both your paid and public material is hard to do consistently without other people, regardless of how accurate your material truly is. I don't think that's because of student laziness necessarily, but it's human nature. We just work better as groups for a multitude of reasons. So even though I'd be interested in your public packs, I wouldn't be excited enough to actually buy them because I don't trust myself to execute on your strategies well enough alone. However, if you focused something on community-based learning then I'd be open to it. I was willing to put down $30k for it this past winter.

Take that for what it's worth. Thank you for doing what you do and putting out so much free content. Your generosity and commitment to over-delivering for everyone that touches your business is a great example of how everyone should conduct themselves.

Peace.