Hi, my name is Jonathan and I've always been a weak-tight poker player. I've preferred to think of myself as tight-passive, but I've finally had to admit that I'm just weak. A complete wimp. Like when I play poker people can smell my mangina.

I've started challenge threads before because I always knew about my mangina and wanted to do something to fix it but those threads didn't last very long because I didn't really know what to do to fix the problem. But this one is different. I finally figured some things out recently and made a concerted effort to improve my play, and I've finally seen some results. So part of my motivation for starting this thread is the fun of chronicling my experience but also because others might be able to learn something from my experience - especially those who have their own mangina problems.

I'm not just going to focus on my results in this thread; rather, I'm going to focus on the process of getting better. I'm going to share what I've learned, what areas of my game I'm working on, and the sources I've used that have helped me along the way. I think anyone can learn something from my experience.

My history
I might be different from many of you on this forum because I'm not a young buck trying to be a professional poker player. I'm 42-years old with a full-time job, a wife and two kids. My wife and I both went to graduate school and now work as public servants, so we don't make huge coin. I do think that's part of why I developed a poker mangina: the money means something to me. I discovered online poker 11 years ago when my son was born, right in the midst of the poker boom, but with a full time job and new baby I just never had the time to play much. I deposited $70, lost it pretty quickly, and gave up until a few years later. Over the past 6 years or so I've played micro stakes online, dabbling in a variety of different games. I had some success in STTs and 45-man sit-n-gos and built up a bit of a bankroll but then went on a crushing bad run and saw it all disappear. I always wanted to try MTTs but just never had the time.

About 18 months ago a buddy of mine invited me to play in a local poker league. They play small tournaments with anywhere from 16-24 guys every other Friday night. Part of the prize pool each night goes towards $1000 WPT ticket prizes at the end of the season. They keep points standings based on where we finish each tournament and usually give out 6-7 tickets each season. Some of the guys play $500 or $1000 tournaments normally so the prize isn't a huge deal for them, but it's pretty cool for someone like me who would never spend that much on a poker tournament.

So I started playing in the league last year and min-cashed a few times but that was about it. I didn't win a ticket - I think I finished around 15th or so - and lost a fair bit of money in the process (these are $100 tournaments with $60 rebuys). I started the new season in September hoping for better results and got off to a decent start, min-cashing 3 times in my first 4 tournaments, but then went on a stretch of bustouts through the remainder of 2016. That's when things started to change.

My epiphany

I came home from the last tournament before the holiday break feeling frustrated and discouraged, but I also felt something different. I wasn't enjoying myself. I always knew I was a weak-tight player but I think I made excuses for myself. I said to myself, "Self, you're not naturally an aggressive person so you can't play aggressively like other people. You just have to get really good at playing your tight-passive game and you'll be fine. You can trap all those aggressive guys and make money off them."

So when I busted out I would complain about the fact that I kept getting it in good and losing and convinced myself that it would turn around eventually. But something changed after that last bustout. I wasn't having fun playing my tight-passive style and watching everyone else "get lucky." So this time I said to myself, "Self, something has to change. You don't want to play like this anymore. You can't keep leaving your success up to the cards, it's time to take control." Like an addict that needed to admit he had a problem before he could get help, I needed to truly admit I had a problem.

The holiday break provided the perfect opportunity because I knew we were taking about a month off from the poker league and New Year's would provide me with the excuse to make a change. So I made it one of my New Year's resolutions to improve my poker game and come back stronger in 2017.

Resolutions vs. Goals

We all know that New Year's resolutions don't work. Experts will tell you that's because resolutions tend to be too vague. I want to get in shape. I want to be a better husband. I want to be a better poker player. Resolutions like that don't work because they are too general to motivate action. In order to motivate us to change, and to keep us motivated, goals need to have several characteristics:

1) They need to be specific. How am I going to get in shape? How will I be a better husband? How will I be a better poker player? If being a better poker player was as simple as setting that goal for myself, I'd already be a better poker player.

2) They need to be attainable. That means they have to be realistically achievable. If not, we set ourselves up for failure. So it doesn't make sense for me to set myself a goal of making $1 million playing poker over the next 12 months, or winning the WSOP main event before I turn 45.

3) They have to be measurable. This ties into being specific but they aren't quite the same thing. If I'm going to set myself a goal then it has to be something I can monitor to see whether I'm successful or not. In order to stay motivated to accomplish something, human beings need to know that we're making progress.

To be continued...

So the first task was to set myself some specific, attainable, and measurable goals. I started with the ultimate end goal and worked my way backwards.

Ultimate goal: To get to a point at which poker could be a secondary source of income.

I'm not looking to turn pro or quit my job to play poker, and I don't have any expectations of winning millions of dollars. But I would like to make some money playing poker. If I can make a bit of extra cash to take more vacations and to help with my kids' future university educations, that would be just perfect.

But how do I get there? What is preventing me from being there already?

I felt I had a pretty decent grasp of the basics of the game as I had already done quite a bit of reading strategy over the years and had gained a decent amount of experience playing sit-n-gos. I also felt that I had some genuine strengths as a player: (1) my patience - my ability to grind and pick my spots when the cards aren't necessarily coming my way; (2) my shortstack play; and (3) my short-handed play. I had developed the latter two strengths from playing so many STTs and multi-table sit-n-gos over the years.

My weakness was pretty obvious: I was a complete wimp. When I thought back over the league tourneys I played, I could often point to at least one hand each game when I knew what I should do but I was afraid to pull the trigger. Perhaps I chose to call behind in a prime 3b or squeeze spot, or I opted for checking the river instead of taking a shot at a bluff bet. The good news is that at least I often knew what the right move was; the bad news is that I was too scared to make the move.

So this brought me to my secondary goal:

Secondary goal: Get rid of my poker mangina and become an aggressive player.

But that still wasn't specific enough. I had a starting point but I had to figure out how to actually become more aggressive. Since I'm not naturally an aggressive person, this would take some effort.

I figured this was an issue not with skill, in the sense that I had to learn aggressive moves from scratch, but more with my mindset. I didn't have the confidence and courage to make aggressive moves when I needed to. So I decided to start doing some research to see if I could find any information on mindset in poker.

Mindset in poker

I was surprised and relieved to discover there is no shortage of resources on the topic. The first one I came across was a podcast series called, "The Mindset Advantage." It's a series of 30 min podcasts co-hosted by Dr. Patricia Cardner, a psychologist and poker player, and Elliot Roe, a hypnotherapist and mindset coach. Each episode starts with Dr. Cardner sharing an interesting piece of psychology research and applying it to mindset in poker. Then they interview a professional poker player, who talks about his/her journey and various aspects of mindset.

I listened to a two-part episode with Daniel Negreanu and then went back to the beginning of the series. I was blown away. It was exactly what I was looking for. I learned a number of helpful things from the series:

1) Many, many professional poker players have struggled with mindset problems and have undergone coaching to improve their mindset. Negreanu credits his focus on mindset training with his success over the past couple of years after a lengthy dry spell. Esfandiari credits his recent success to mindset coaching after years of break-even poker.

2) Some of these pros even go as far as to say that with how far poker has evolved over the years and how competitive it has become, mindset training is what now separates the great players from the rest of the pack.

3) Mindset training isn't as simple as listening to positive thoughts. There are specific, concrete things that someone can do to improve his mindset. Negreanu advocates things like setting specific goals each time he plays a tournament. Another one is using positive affirmations and there is research in psychology showing that they actually do help change one's mindset. Many pros also advocate journaling as a way of reflecting on one's poker journey.

4) Many of the pros in these episodes talked about the differences in mindset between good players and amateurs, and I saw so much of the amateur behavior in my mindset. Things like complaining about bad beats and getting jealous of other players' results and how often they get lucky compared to me. This just drove home the point that my mindset was a huge problem and I needed to change it to achieve my goals.

This was fantastic! I felt energized, like I finally had a more in depth understanding of what my problem was and that there were specific things I could do to improve. It was incredibly empowering.

So I decided to adopt a number of the strategies I had learned: I set myself some even more specific goals, such as listening to a certain number of poker podcasts and watching a certain number of training videos each week. I also started a journal so I could track and reflect on my progress. And I decided I would also find some time to start playing an online MTT now and then to practice. My hope was that I could make some solid progress by the time the next league tournament rolled around.

To be continued...

So I spent time over the holidays consuming material. I just inhaled the stuff. I listened to podcasts during my commute to work and watched online videos every chance I got. I'd have stuff playing while I was shaving in the morning and while I was making dinner in the evening. While I worked out. When I got in bed at night. Then I discovered a promotion where I could get a free audiobook of Jonathan Little's new book, Bluff, so I listened to that and took notes. I was like a freakin sponge.

What I did while I consumed the material was I started to identify specific things I wanted to work on. Remembering the characteristics of effective goals, I started to break down aggressive play into more specific moves that I knew I needed to learn. I knew one area where I felt strong: shoving and re-shoving when short. But that was about the limit of my aggressive arsenal.

One move I identified fairly quickly was 3-betting. I rarely 3-bet because I wasn't comfortable doing it without big cards, so to avoid being exploitable I just hardly did It at all. But it became clear very quickly that 3-betting is a core weapon in an aggressive player's arsenal. So I set myself the goal of developing good 3-bet skills.

One piece of advice I gleaned from the mindset podcasts was the importance of separating my play from my results. One of the most frustrating thing about poker is that you can play really well and make all the right decisions mathematically, but still lose. This is usually what starts players on the downhill slide from a mindset perspective. A bad run can easily cause us to lose confidence, which then starts affecting our play. It's like a hitting slump for a baseball player. Failure breeds doubt in our abilities, which just breeds more failure. It is very difficult to watch your bankroll plummet or look at a downward sloping results graph and stay confident and motivated.

So to separate my play from my results I decided I would try to play some MTTs and some multi-table SnGs and treat them purely as a training ground. The objective would be to work on my skills, regardless of the result. I wouldn't even pay attention to where I sat relative to the field, or even to whether we were on the bubble. I just wanted to practice my skills without being concerned about the results. It was very liberating.

I also started keeping a journal so I could reflect on my progress.


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Early in the new year, before the next league game was scheduled, an opportunity came along to play another local tournament. One of the league players hosts his own annual slow structure event with 40 runners and holds some seats for league players. I jumped at the chance to test out what I had been learning.

Overall it was a great experience and a step forward. I didn't cash but despite crappy cards for most of the 9 hours of play, I was able to grind my way to a 13th place finish. But most importantly I felt more confident than I had before. I didn't get intimidated at all, which often happened when I played with aggressive players - especially in an unfamiliar environment. So despite not cashing I felt like I was making progress.

I also identified another area of my game that needed work: playing with marginal hands. There were a couple of spots in the tournament where I leaked chips taking stabs with marginal hands and then backing down and getting pushed off pots, especially when out of position. My default approach, being weak-tight, was to fire a bullet and then go into check-call or check-fold mode depending on the action. This led me to start focusing my training on a couple more aggressive moves:

1) Using check-raises effectively; and
2) Firing multiple bullets (two months later I'm still working on this one)

January 20th was my first league tournament after I initiated my rebirth process. I followed Negreanu's advice and wrote down some specific goals and affirmations in my phone's notepad that I could use to keep me focused and motivated. Here's my journal entry from that tournament (PAMP is the name of the league - Poker At My Place):

"Another frustrating PAMP last night but I was happy with how I played. I was active early and took some pots down but couldn't get a big pot to propel me forward. I got screwed by a mis-deal and had to split a pot that probably would have been a big one and then couldn't get anything going after that. The only possible mistake I made was the hand that crippled me. I was in the BB with JTs and about 20bb. Early position minraised, 3 players called, I shoved. One player called and turned over KTs. I didn't realize how short he was and he said that was the only reason he called. I still think it was a good aggressive move that could have added 50% to my stack with decent equity if called."

So overall I think it was another step forward. I took more aggressive lines than usual but the cards just didn't come my way. And I also identified another skill to work on, which is a common problem for primarily online players: keeping track of stack sizes in live games.

In the days that followed I played a bit online, continued to consume training material, and started playing around with equity calculators to bone up on that aspect of the game.


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January 27 I took another big step forward at the next league tournament. I took second in a smaller field, the first time I cracked the top 3 since I started playing in the league almost 18 months ago. I felt like I played really well and couldn't think of a single hand all night I should have played differently. And it wasn't like I was just running well either - I didn't win a single confrontation with a hand better than top pair. I just picked great spots to apply pressure and hands held up when I got my money in good.

I continued to use goals and affirmations, making a few edits and adjustments for each tournament. It was really helping me get in the right mindset to start with and to keep my focus throughout.

Two weeks later I took another big step forward, taking down my first league tournament. I was on cloud 9. The 2nd place finish last tournament felt good but it was only one good result. This one confirmed that it wasn't a fluke; I was actually starting to see the fruits of my labor. This just made me feel even more confident. I was now within striking distance of a $1000 ticket spot on the leaderboard and starting to really believe I could make a run up the standings.


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I'm glad to hear you are working hard to take your game to the next level. I am happy to hear that you are learning to 3-bet without only the best hand. Good luck!

Thanks man, appreciate you taking the time to read the thread.

So a couple of weeks after my big first victory I went into the next league tournament feeling stronger and more confident than ever before. I set myself the goal of another top 3 finish, which would not only put me right in the thick of the points race but would accomplish something that to my knowledge nobody had ever accomplished in this league: 3 consecutive top 3 finishes. It was not to be.

It turned out to be the one of the toughest tournaments I've played. I had some decent cards to work with and was able to double up early, but found myself repeatedly getting into sticky spots facing aggression with top pair hands. One hand I folded to a big river bet, then encountered almost an identical situation against the same opponent a little while later. This time I called his river bet and he turned over a rivered set. I couldn't get anything going and busted 13th in a small 16-man field.

It was a disappointing result but I remembered the important advice of separating my play from my results. I felt I actually played pretty well but just got stuck in tough spots with marginal hands. However, this has now come up as a theme in my progress: learning to feel comfortable in marginal spots.

That weekend I had my best score online, small as it was. I played a $12 tourney on 888 - I actually registered for it accidentally as I only had $28 left in my account - but I played well and managed to finish 13th for a $49 cash. I was happy with the way I played and got unlucky at the end, running AQ into AK. There was lots of limping at the higher bling levels and I was able to exploit it with raises and shoves to propel me close to the final table.

easiest way to fix a mangina is to untuck it

The next league tourney rolled around and I felt like it was an important one. After my 1st and 2nd place finishes recently, followed by the last bustout, I really didn't want to slide back into a bad stretch like I had through the end of 2016. Not only would this hurt my chances of winning a ticket, with only a handful of tournaments left to play, but I knew it would affect my confidence. So I went into it with the strong belief that I needed to go deep again. I wanted another top 3 finish.

It was a very interesting tournament, almost the exact opposite of the last one. In that one I had decent cards but found myself in numerous tough spots with marginal hands. This time my cards were one extreme or the other: I was dealt QQ-AA a handful of times over the course of the night, and won pots with all of them, but the rest of my cards were absolute crap. There was nothing in between. So the whole night felt like constant folding with the occasional shove. I expected to be out early but somehow managed to grind my way through to a 4th place finish. I didn't accomplish my goal of top 3 but at least I went deep enough to give me some important extra points and keep my confidence up. And that brings us to the present. I now have 1st, 2nd, and 4th place finishes over the past 4 weeks. Not too shabby.

Here is where the points stand, with 5 tournaments left to play:

1) 110
2) 93
3) 81
4) 80
4) 80
6) 78
7) 76 (me)
8) 67

The way the league works, you get 3 points for playing and then extra points for finishing 1st to 8th. Top 3 finishes are huge, as they net you an extra 16, 13, and 11 points respectively. My buddy who got me into the league sits on top - I don't think he's a great player but somehow he has managed to dominate this league, with overall wins in the 3 years he's played. He thinks he's god's gift to poker, so some of my motivation is actually to beat him. That won't happen this year, but you better believe I'll be gunning for him next season.

The race is pretty intense. It looks like we'll end up giving away 6 tickets so I have to finish top 6. Right now 3rd to 7th places are only separated by 5 points. And the guy who sits in 8th is probably the best player in the room but has played fewer tournaments than anyone else. So if he shows up to all of the last 5 tournaments, he could easily jump into the race.

My goal is to finish top 3 overall. Just winning a ticket isn't enough. Now I truly believe I'm good enough to compete with any of them. And after my brutal start to the season a top 3 finish overall would be incredibly satisfying. At this point I have definitely been one of the strongest players in the second half of the season and I want to keep it that way.

During this time I have continued to work on my game, listening to podcasts and reviewing hand histories. One great podcast I've discovered is called the Postflop Poker Podcast and I've been working my way through their episodes from the beginning. I love the way the podcast is organized. Each episode is devoted to a specific hand and they discuss two or three specific examples of that hand from a tournament.

I also discovered another area of my game that needs work from reviewing my hand histories: calling shoves from shorter stacks in close spots. It seems that my weak-tightness comes through in these spots and I typically opt for folding to preserve my stack, but I'm starting to realize this might actually be a key step in helping me over the mid-late stage hump. What I've noticed is that I often get off to decent starts in online tournaments and I'm able to build a stack, but then I seem to hit a wall and can't build beyond that point. I now think that these shove calls may be the key. So a new objective for me is to look out for these spots in tournaments and be willing to make close calls to build my stack, especially when I would stay above 10bb if I lose. To help me do that I spent some time playing around with equity calculators to get a good feel for how different hands stack up against different ranges and what I would need in those spots to make +ev calls.

So that's where things stand now.

In. Because. Effort...

Good luck

Thanks bro

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Subbed!

Really gotta admire your work effort. It`s never to late to make changes,
but you have to put in the dirty work, and thats def the case with you. I might
folow your footsteps and actually put in the dirty work myself. Only time will tell. I also have to say you have a talent for writing, so more of that mister!

Are you only playing live nowadays? I think online is great for learning, since you get to play alot more hands pr hour. But live is def more fun!

onkltim

Thanks for following. I do play online but don't get as much opportunity as I'd like. I haven't updated in a while because I had no chance to play online in the past two weeks.

Played a league tourney Friday night and had a disappointing result, busting in 10th and missing out on the extra points. The whole night came down to one hand:

We're at 200/400 and a tight passive opponent with about 20bb minraises UTG. Folded around to me in the BB with JJ and about 40bb. I had gotten off to a good start and had built a stack early. So I call in the BB.

Flop comes T93 rainbow. I check, villain bets 2k, I call.

Turn is 6. I check, villain shoves his remaining 7.5k. I go into the tank. Against most other players in the room this would be an easy call because they are all pretty aggressive but this player was definitely more on the passive side. So I had his range pretty narrowed to QQ-AA, AK/AQ, and maybe AT. I just didn't have a good enough feel for his game to know that he would shove the weaker part of that range. My instincts told me to fold but I thought this might be one of those spots where I used to always make the weak play, and if I lost I'd still have 20bb to work with, so I called. He turned over QQ.

After that I just wasn't able to get anything going. I slipped down to 10bb, doubled up, and then my stack dwindled again. Went to the final table as the tiny stack and busted soon after.

I was disappointed in myself for not listening to my instincts in that spot. One of my strengths is that I tend to have very strong instincts and I have a bit of a reputation for making great folds. My read on the villain told me he wouldn't shove a missed AK/AQ there and probably had QQ-AA but made the call anyway. If I had folded I would still have 35bb, which at that point in the tourney was a pretty healthy stack. I didn't need to make that call.

I also think I became a bit more trigger-shy after that because I became concerned about the points race and didn't want to take unnecessary risks. So I think I passed up on a few standard 10bb shove spots.

The good news is I just checked the results and what happened after I left was about as good as it could be for my place in the race. The guys ahead at the top finished 1-2 again and none of the guys right ahead of me or right behind me gained any significant points. So here's where things stand with 4 tourneys left:

1) 123
2) 98
3) 89
4) 87
5) 83
6) 81
7) 77 (me)
8) 73

So the race for 3rd to 7th is still pretty tight, with only 12 points separating us. And there are a few players right behind in the low 70's.

So I have 4 tournaments left to finish strong and score myself a ticket. I want to make sure I get some time to play online between now and the next one because I do think that helps me stay aggressive and hone my skills. I rarely get time to play during the week so hopefully I'll get to play a bit this weekend and next.

Just come across your thread - I see you quite a bit in the MTT forums.

It's fine playing an ABC TAG style but to develop as a player you have to loosen up a bit and not be afraid to play with a wider range of hands. It's more difficult but will be more rewarding.

Good luck!


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For sure. I've found that I'm enjoying poker a lot more now that I've opened up my game. Maybe that's partly because I've had some success with it but I do think it has a lot to do with feeling like I have more control over my success (or failure) and just having more fun making moves. Playing weak-tight ABC wasn't enjoyable.

As long as I'm happy with how I play then I don't care nearly as much about the results. Part of what was so disappointing about last night was that I gave up the control by making a very marginal call for half my stack. I need to stay focused on taking control and putting other people on tough decisions.

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Played a $1 rebuy SNAP tournament on 888 over the weekend; min-cashed, nothing notable to report. But I haven't gone over my hand history yet so we'll see. Fast fold tourneys are great for reviewing histories because you see so many more hands over the same amount of time.

One thing I did was I cut and pasted all the hands that went to showdown In which I wasn't involved into a separate document, which I will use to work on my hand reading skills. Without any stats to go on I will go through each hand street by street and see how accurate I can be with my reads just based on the action.

I also thought of another experiment I could try to help with my aggression. Although my game has improved quite a bit, I'm still having trouble increasing my 3b frequency and taking aggressive risks postflop. So to train myself to develop a default aggressive approach I'm going to play my next couple of tournaments online with a strict hyper-aggro strategy. I came up with the following rules, which I will put on a sticky note when I play:

1) Only raise/3b or fold preflop. No calling behind (I never open limp, so that's not a problem). If I have a playable hand, raise or 3b.

2) Always CB flop AND turn.

3) If a villain donks into me, raise.

Any others I should include?

I don't expect this to be a winning strategy but that's not the point. The point is to program my brain to default towards aggression rather than the current passive default. The idea is to be a pain in the ass and pound away relentlessly. It will be interesting to see how well it works and for how long.

It also gives me another idea for a future experiment to work on my BB defence and check-raising.


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Finally got a chance to try out my experiment - or at least a slightly modified version of it. It was a $3 Snap 6-max tourney on 888.

1) I basically played raise/3b or fold and hardly called behind at all, at least until the later stages.

2) I didn't CB 100% of the time but I followed the rule that if I made a CB, then I would always follow it with a second bullet.

I was very happy with the way I played. People repeatedly backed down to my aggression and I was able to build a nice stack. I got hurt late when I was 3rd in chips and my QQ lost to AK, but I was able to rebuild and get right back in it. Got hurt again in a BvB situation when I raised KJ and hit a flop of JJT. I made a small bet, the BB called, I made another small bet on a trash turn, the BB called, and then the river put a flush on the board. I made a small bet, he minraised, I called. He turned over 98s for the flopped OESD, turned FD, and rivered flush. Frustrating as hell after flopping trips but I was able to keep fighting and stayed in it. I ended up bubbling the final table in 7th after running my AQ into AK.

The important thing is that I turned up the aggression big time and played without fear, and it felt great. I can't think of a single hand where I felt lost or wasn't sure if I played it well. Hoping to get some more opportunity to play this weekend and try the experiment again.

Good stuff! Just getting comfortable with playing more aggro is more than half the battle IMO

Just finished going through my first hand reading practice, using hands cut-and-pasted from a $1 mtt I played last weekend. What an incredibly valuable exercise, I would highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't done it yet. It was time consuming for sure - going through hands street by street and writing out ranges - but it was great practice.

A few observations:

1) I have always felt that I'm pretty good at hand reading and this exercise confirmed it. I didn't nail them 100% of course but I nailed a pretty good % of them. And the ones I missed were either hands that were just outside my range, or were micro stakes fish doing bizarre things.

2) Micro stakes players can do some really bizarre things. There were a few hands where I couldn't writ anything other than "wow" or "lol" when I got to the end and uncovered the results.

3) Hand reading is immensely more difficult in limped pots. That might sound obvious but after going through so many hands and making deliberate efforts to read hands accurately, I noticed just how wide ranges can be in limped pots. This drives home the importance of raising limpers rather than calling behind and then not knowing where the hell you stand.

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Good luck man. I'm a public servant as well. Where are you from?

Toronto area. Canadian eh.

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Nice. I'm in Ottawa.