About Me:
I started playing poker seriously appx 5 years ago. It has been my main source of income for the last 4 years. I started out at 2nl on FTP and worked my way up to small stakes. I got stuck at 200nl for a long long time, which led me to create my previous PGC thread Beating Tilt and Crushing 400nl. In that thread I chronicled my struggles to transition to 400nl. Most of my struggle was caused by tilt. I reviewed, took/posted notes, and implemented a lot of things from the book The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler.

I've since transitioned to 600nl where I started off a little rough but have turned into a solid winner there. I also play 2/5 and 5/10 live several times a month.

In addition to playing poker I coach and manage a stable of cash players for Imawhale staking group. This has been a great opportunity for me and I've learned quite a lot about another aspect of poker.

The (New) Problems:
1knl is kicking my ass. I recently lost my database so I only have 22,000 hands of 5/10 tracked in my HM. My winrate over that sample is -4.09bb/100. I had another 10k hands or so at 5/10 before I lost my database with very similar results. I don't think these games are significantly tougher than the 2/4 and 3/6 games I have been beating over the last year.

I think the 2 biggest reasons I've been losing at 5/10 are tilting (again) and lack of focus while at the tables. These two things feed into and build on each other. My tilt can cause me to lose focus and make mistakes, causing more tilt. My lack of focus causes mistakes which lead to tilt and further loss of focus.

I've been working quite a lot away from the tables on the book Applications of No-Limit Hold 'em by Matthew Janda. The book has really opened my eyes to a new way of approaching poker problems. Unfortunately, I've only barely started to implement this style of decision making into my gameplay. This is due to not being completely done with the book (it takes a lot of work), but also because I haven't made a concentrated effort to do so.

My volume was piss poor for the last 6 months of 2013. This was due to a number of factors. I traveled a lot (Vegas for 3wks, Maine for 2wks, Kentucky for 1wk, D.R for 1wk). I dedicated a lot of time to coaching and managing my players at Imawhale. I was lazy. Even with my added responsibility and almost a full 2 months away from home between July and December I could likely have doubled the amount of hands I played without much work. I allowed myself to get a little too comfortable and procrastinated often.

Goals:
- Show a positive winrate at 1knl over a 100k hand sample
- Win 150k between live and online play (I may adjust this up depending on whether I adjust my volume goals up)
- Re-Implement Mental Game strategies to reduce tilt
- Implement GTO decision making into my game in a focused and methodical way
- Play 50,000 hands online in January, reevaluate volume goals at the end of January

In the following few posts I will include some graphs as well as my plans on how to achieve my goals.

first

Good luck coach!

200nl-600nl



1knl


Smaller sample sizes than I'd like to show, but I made a noob mistake and completely lost my database. It was actually a little heartbreaking because I had hands all the way back to my start at 2nl.

It would be easy to say my loss at 1knl is due to variance over a small sample size (and I'm sure some of it is), but I've played a lot of poker and I know enough to know when I've been off my game. Tomorrow I plan on formulating an implementation strategy. I'll post it here once I have it figured out.

Gl with your goals coach! No doubt you will succeed!

Gl Sean

Can't beat 200nl trololol

Jk best of luck man will follow

good luck

you can get there

do work homie

gl

I've been very busy doing late Christmas with my family for the first week of January (my father was in Afghanistan on Dec 25th). Now I'm ready to get back in the saddle and start grinding.

I've played under 1,000 hands so far in 2014. Meaning I have to cram 50k hands into 26 days. This is clearly doable but will require a pretty drastic change in my playing schedule. If I play every single day I need to play 1,923 hands a day, but this isn't really likely to happen. I will spend at least 1 more day with family and want to have 2 other days away from the tables. So that leaves 23 days of play or 2,173 hands per day. I tend to 6 table but there are times when the games are pretty mediocre and I only play 4 tables. If I average 5 tables at 67 hands per hour per table (going off HM) then I need to play 6.5 hours per day.

I don't think I've played 6.5 hours per day for more than a few days in a row in quite a long time so for January I will be making a hard and fast rule of ABSOLUTELY NO 5/10 WHATSOEVER. This is to protect myself from playing the highest stakes while potentially burnt out. I'm not entirely sure how well I will play while increasing my daily play time by such a huge amount and I want to play smaller stakes while I experiment. In addition to the no 5/10 rule I will limit myself to 400nl and below until Tuesday Jan 14th. Again, for the same reasons. I want to give myself a full week of increased volume before I mix 600nl back in. This means I will be playing a mix of 400nl and 200nl. I will try to keep my average BB above 3.0 during this week (meaning more than half of my hands will be at 2/4).

These two goals work together in many ways. I will start doing my Warm Up and Cool Down every session.
My Warm Up
1) Shower if its the first session of the day
2) Review Session Goals
- Quantitative Goals (volume goals, table hours goals)
- Qualitative Goals (stay focused, focus on 3betting ranges, etc)
3) Quick Physical Warm Up (50 Jumping Jacks)
4) Remove Distractions
- Skype
- Chrome
- Phone
5) Review Marked HHs, if no marked hands review any random medium sized pot (with a focus on how I should play my entire range to be unexploitable)
6) Deep Breathing, Stating Goals for Session


My Cool Down
1) Evaluate Play
- Level of Focus Throughout Entire Session
- Effect of Tilt/ Control of Tilt
2) Did I make any avoidable mistakes?
- Was it a technical or mental mistake? (these often overlap)
- What can I do to avoid repeating this type of mistake?
3) Review any marked hands with a specific focus on playing overall range unexploitably and why/how I should or shouldn't have deviated


Both of these will come as a result of the other work I do so I don't have any specific work to do on them right now. As with everything I am doing, this may evolve and change as time passes.

I've been listening to the audiobook An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. In it he talks a little about what he did to prepare to become an astronaut. He said it was as simple as saying to himself before every decision "What would an astronaut do?" And then he did that thing. "Would an astronaut eat ice cream and watch a movie, or run a mile and study for an hour?" This struck me as an absurdly simple but powerful way to frame decisions.

In a way, I think wording it "What would an astronaut do?" instead of "What would Niel Armstrong do?" is significantly better. If I asked myself "What would Phil Ivey do?" before I make decisions either in game or game affecting life decisions, my answer would probably be "I have no idea" or "Be a poker savant". I think framing the question as "What would an elite poker professional do?" is much better. Because 'elite poker professional' elicits a much different life vision than 'Phile Ivey'. For all I know Phil Ivey is a degenerate gambler who bing drinks often. But the 'elite poker professional' doesn't.

Not sure if that makes as much sense to everyone else as it does to me.


------------------

I am getting a very late start on the day today so I will limit myself to 4 hours of table time. I will play 2 separate 2 hour sessions starting in just a few minutes.

Gogogo!

Just finished my second session. played a little under 3.5 hours total (played an estimated 2175 hands but I wont know until i can download the bovada hands), but much of that was 8-10 tabling. I got such a late start today that even playing the last 30 minutes or so I felt very tired. Tomorrow I will get a much earlier start so I'm not rushed to cram in the hours.

Cool Down
1) Evaluate Play
- Level of Focus
I took a note at the 55 minute mark of the first session that my mind started to wander. I cut down the number of tables for a bit and refocused. I also found myself fast clicking at several points in the session. I had to remind myself to slow down a few times.
- Effect of Tilt/ Control of Tilt
I snap peeled a 3b with 44. We were slightly deep, I had position and it would potentially go multiway postflop so I could somewhat rationalize a call, but its still a poor peel.

2) Did I make any avoidable mistakes?
- Was it a technical or mental mistake? (these often overlap)
The above mentioned preflop peel with 44 was poor. I also had a few spots where I acted too quickly and immediately after I clicked my action I realized there was a better play.
- What can I do to avoid repeating this type of mistake?
Either cut down on the number of tables or rearrange the layout. I have an idea for table layout that may work better that what I am currently doing.
3) Review any marked hands with a specific focus on playing overall range unexploitably and why/how I should or shouldn't have deviated
I marked 21 hands for review. I will make sure to go over a few of them in the morning when I'm a bit less tired and give them the attention they deserve.

glgl

considering you database: I don´t know which site you were playing on but you might wanna give it a try asking them to send you all played hands by mail. I did the same some years ago at partypoker and got severall zip files with all hands I have ever played on the site.

None of the sites that we can still play on in the US will send hands.

weird that you only play 4-6 tables, just assumed every online grinder played 8+.

gl kid

You might be surprised at how many midstakes players cap out at 6 tables.

edit: Or maybe I might be surprised at how many play more?

Some coach that lost database.. hmm.. Suspicious! GL man!

6 tabling tilt monkey also checking in, gl man

Hand Review from 1/6/14

http://weaktight.com/6378738
I marked this hand because I was curious whether I should be floating or raising flop with this hand in general. I think a decent way to approach this spot is to raise my gutshots without a backdoor flush draw and float my gutshots with a backdoor flush draw. I might need to raise my Axhh hands (which I usually just call as a standard) to make sure I have enough flushes in my range on heart turns if he calls my raise. If I don't I will end up with a lot of gutshots with no heart and just a very few combos of combodraws on flop that got there on turn. I also probably can't slowplay AJ if I want to have so many gutshots in my raising range. So i could go with a strategy of raising AJ/combodraws/naked gutshots/any random backdoor diamonds i might have and flatting with set/any Ax/any Jx/gutshots with a backdoor. Without counting combos is looks like I need to split my Axhh into both groups otherwise my turn ranges get pretty weak on hearts, probably I should raise the Axhh with low kickers and flat the Axhh with high kickers.

http://weaktight.com/6378803
Here's a hand where I think I used to cbet by default because its easier, but my hand is not strong enough to vbet as its flipping or worse with MOST of the hands that villain will continue with and its almost invulnerable to the hands which villain would fold to a bet. I like my line on all streets. Villain ends up showing a very loose peel preflop that I took a note of. Not enough history yet to know if he peels that loose as a standard.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?6638926#
Weaktight doesn't like hands from ACR so had to use another site to convert. Kind of a tricky spot. I think I played it reasonably well but I'm going to go through it in more detail during study group with benjaminbarker in a few minutes.

http://weaktight.com/6378949
Villain was relatively unknown at this point but looked to be on the passive but reggish side. After a few hundred hands with him its clear that he is actually just a tight passive fish and this is a very clear fold as he will always have KT+. From a GTO perspective its a must call spot as I will basically never have a stronger hand than this when I check back turn. But in reality, even vs normal regs its pretty close with his sizing and I maybe should have gone with my gut and clicked fold here.

Played 4 hours today, but was 11 tabling so I still got in more hands than my goal

Cool Down
1) Evaluate Play
- Level of Focus
I stayed very focused today. Much better overall than yesterday I think. I got a little antsy towards the 1.5hr mark of both sessions. I think this is because I generally don't play longer than 2 hours at a time so I've sort of trained myself to be ready to wrap up around 1.5hrs in. I could potentially work on fixing this by having multiple session lengths. Like maybe 2/3 of my sessions are 2 hours but 1/3 of them are 3 hours, so that during my 2 hour sessions I don't get that 'ready for it to be over' feeling. Not sure if that will work tho.
- Effect of Tilt/ Control of Tilt
Caught myself quick clicking quite a few times. Its easy to get in a rythm when playing so many tables and just click without thinking. I slowed myself down by taking slow deep breathes and verbally saying "Slow it down."

2) Did I make any avoidable mistakes?
- Was it a technical or mental mistake? (these often overlap)
I made a few quick click mistakes. And there was a point in the session where I got a little frustrated when things weren't going my way that lead to some overly ambitious barrels and peels.
- What can I do to avoid repeating this type of mistake?
I just need to keep doing what I am doing. When I catch myself getting frustrated and or quick clicking, I need to breathe slowly and deeply and bring myself back to slow and steady and calm.
3) Review any marked hands with a specific focus on playing overall range unexploitably and why/how I should or shouldn't have deviated
Again, I'll do this in the morning. Tons of marked hands, of which I will try to review 3-4
I marked 21 hands for review. I will make sure to go over a few of them in the morning when I'm a bit less tired and give them the attention they deserve.

Hand review from 1/7/14

http://weaktight.com/6381868
This is a bit of a loose peel preflop, but villain opens 21% from UTG, there is a fish in the SB and none of the regs at the table are particularly squeeze happy. Even so, flatting in MP might be a mistake while flatting from CO or BTN might be correct. When villain checks this flop I expect a lot of folds so stabbing seems super standard. I should probably bet 1/2pot with my entire range given how weak his flop checking range is (and how likely it is to only c/f or c/r). His call is a bit unexpected but he basically never has a hand like AQ imo, so its mostly smaller overpairs and hands like A6/A7 that didnt want to cbet with some occasional tricky/trappy large overpairs or sets. Turn bricks off and its extremely unlikely I get a fold and I have very little equity when called so giving up is the clear choice. When he leads river I doubt he is ever bluffing and it seems unlikely that he ever value bets his 88/99 type hands so I have to put him on the tricky/trappy portion of his range for the most part, making this a clear fold spot. I make the bad call and he shows a super unexpected hand (but it still beats me). I took a note of his line, but I'm unsure if this is something he does often or if he was just mass tabling and forgot he was the PFR so took a c/c line.

http://weaktight.com/6381901
Experimented with some nonstandard sizings here. Not sure if this is something I should do more often. If I do I need to really expand my 3 street value range to keep myself somewhat balanced. Like 77 probably needs to be a 3 street value hand in order to balance myself if I'm 3 street bluffing a hand with as little equity as JT on this board.

Heading to go see a cirque du soleil show so I can't get any more hands in, but I have a pretty interesting one where I face a turn overbet in a 3 way pot.

Graph and stats for the first 2 days. About to get started playing for today.

solid start man, I'm sure you're going to succeed if you keep tilt in check

Just because this guy is my hero

Wow previous thread is sooo gd - am currently using it as a guide to helping deal with my own mental game issues, thx for the linkup.

GL with this one man, will be followong