Simple Poker Logic

I hate bad beat and/or run bad whines  but this month is something special, you name it and it’s happened over and over every session. I won’t bore you with the details but it’s been physically painful in it’s regularity and I’m actually overjoyed to be break even for Oct thus far.

Normally I’d never lower myself to make the above whine but it sets the tone for my “ultimate beat” story.

On Monday I took a few too many “for the team” and caught myself steaming a little so I decided to quit for the day and hit the gym,  I even managed to close the tables before doing something silly for stacks.

Feeling quite proud of my self control I even shut down the PC, “can’t run bad with the plug out” I thought. It turns out I can run bad with the plug out, when I restarted my PC the next day I heard the sickening mechanical whirrrgrunchpeeew sound of a dead hard drive attempting to come to life.

New hard drive plus data recovery service = another couple of buyins down the drain.  Maybe I will get lucky and lose this months HH

Things are getting really hectic with various business projects and family stuff all competing for my time.

I’ve also got quite a few students enrolled with a healthy waiting list established so I won’t be able to take on any new enquiries for at least a few months. I will still be fully available to all current students and all students who have already made enquiries or waiting arrangements with me.

In the course of business this week I’ve been pricing a lot of various items, new vehicles, flights etc.

It hardly seems possible but people, even sales people are getting less well mannered. Here are three hot tips for selling anything (especially to me)

1) Don’t spend 10 minutes telling me how little money you are making on this transaction.  I don’t believe you nor do I care.

2) Don’t rant about “wasting my time” the second I mention that I looked up the internet for price comparison.

3) Don’t adopt a tone that suggests I should feel guilty for giving you a chance to quote me.

Seriously, my 4 year old knows that if you want to buy/sell/get  something your first job is not to piss the other person off.

End of rant.

Currently very busy working on all sort of strategy concepts for this seasons DeucesCracked series “Playbook”. I’m working with Josh Plotkin (Stheif09) and with two episodes already finished I’ve learned loads already, the only downside to all this is that I’m playing even less poker.

However that short term loss is well worth it, Josh’s concept for EP1 “Expected Value is Additive” blew my mind and changed how I think about poker. It really set the bar high so I’m doing my best to get some high quality contributions in.

We are aiming that each episode contains something new ,  different and previously unseen,  in today’s near saturated poker training market that’s not easy but hopefully the end result will be worth it.

I just finished reading “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin. A very interesting and very informative read, although it doesn’t mention poker it probably has got me thinking more about my game than any poker book ever has. I strongly recommend this for all players.

There are two main points that have hit home after reading this book.

(1) Good/great performers (and therefore poker players) are not born they are made

It’s funny how people with zero or very little poker experience will almost always suffer from the disillusion that there is a hidden “soul reading gift” and that they might just have it. Clearly that’s what makes the game good – no one thinks “Hey, maybe I can play chess really well even though I don’t know the rules”.

From the moment we start to learn the game we begin to realise that this “poker gift” is a myth. We go about improving our talents and almost everyone will show an improvement in performance.

Then, at some point the myth strikes afresh, we plateau at a certain stakes. The next level seems just out of reach, shots fail, break even stretches ensue. Mix all this with the mind fuck that is variance and soon we start to believe again…. maybe those other guys just “have it” and I don’t.

(2) The only way to improve performance is to work damn hard. Every. Single. Day.

It took more than just emptying a bucket of balls at the driving range for Tiger Woods to get good (insert joke here). Likewise it takes more than reading listening and watching videos to move ahead of the curve in poker.

There is no secret code, no quick fix, no shortcut to getting good at this game.  The only thing that will move performance to the next level is to push yourself beyond what you already know with long hours of poker study.

95% of my play this year has been at Ongame 5-max, for some reason half-way through last month I decided to have another pop at the FR tables. I guess they looked juicy and I do need to keep myself in touch with that game for my FR  students.

It just doesn’t do it for me any more though, folding AK pre-flop, gritting my teeth with overpairs when raised on the flop just are not much fun. Ranges are just too damn tight that the game really only comes down to who can make the disciplined folds most often.

I suppose I’m being unfair on the game that has served me so well and yes, this is partially because I ran super bad for a while but there’s nothing to match the thrill of playing shorthanded on a euro site with stacks flying all over the place.

I’m still going to keep coaching the FR for  and will of course be playing if the game is super good, but from here on in it’s mixing it up Scandinavian style.

Just out over the weekend was the last in the series of “Full Ring Squadron” over at Deuces Cracked. I was lucky enough to take part in 4 of the episodes, first teaming up with my good friend Threads13 then luckboxing (again) my way into sweating The Godfather of Mid Stakes FRNLHE Sean Nolan.

I sweated Sean for a 1000NL session, I thought it turned out pretty interesting and the session ran on well over the normal 60mins so we got a bonus vid out of it too. As always Sean was excellent in his thought process and it was an honour sweating one of the best around.

Just a note to everyone that my coaching rates are going up on the 1st Feb.

Single Sessions – $70/Hr
5+ Bulk Sessions – $60/Hr