Quick update today. I've played two more sessions and not really sure what to think. Small loss yesterday, fairly sizable one today. In both days I lost big pots with a set of 6's. Both times the money went in on the turn. Yesterday the villain turned a flush and today the villain turned a straight. I failed to pair the board either time, though still happy with both. Other than that its been a lot of failed barreling that has caused most of the loss. I've definitely been looking at this a lot more closely and being more selective, but I still seem to get called a lot even in what I think are great barreling situations. I'm pretty sure I'm just running into some hands.

Lately it seems like the only times I'm winning is when I cooler someone. Thats not necessarily bad but its hard to feel good about a session when the only thing that went right was being on the right side of a cooler. I can't really point to any hands where I did anything all that special and it makes me feel like I have no skill advantage anymore and I'm just sitting there waiting to cooler people like some old nit. Obviously this isn't true because lots of things I do that I consider "standard" are things that give me an advantage over other players that do different things. Definitely just a product of variance but its a phenomenon that I've experienced before and its one of the types of run-bad I find particularly annoying.

Also a side note, I experimented a bit with buying in deeper today since I've gotten more comfortable with playing a deep stack from the times I've been up. The times I have been deep I've noticed some advantages it can have so I've been thinking about trying this for a while and an off-table conversation with one of the better regs made me finally decide to try it. It was only one session, and the fact that I lost means anything I would say would be extremely results oriented. I still plan to experiment with it more, and will probably start slowly increasing my buy-in until I reach the cap.

Gonna take off tomorrow and grind hard this weekend.

Glad you are doing that.

Once you get used to it, you will find that buying in deeper (ie. 150 to 200BB) has many many advantages.

It allows you to push around the min buy $200 scared money very effectively.

It allows you to bet out the draws much more effectively.

It allows you to be patient and stack off another big stack for 300/400/500+BB pots... one of those hands can make your night.

Cheers and see you in a couple weeks.

S

this "damage" that occurs from the Phenomenon(Hand over hand) that seems to be happening to you has a lot to do with what I see as a leak about your play stylistically... I saw this when you used to post your specific hands. I am sure you can figure out what it is but suffice to say, risking OR calling off your entire stack as a function of ones normal operating procedure is really leaky in my humble O... even with the absolute nuts.

It's results oriented ideology and can lead to massive stack swings, and while a more controlled value betting range doesn't insulate you from the hand over hand, it does help to Limit damages when it does occur.

Every player needs to decide for themselves how they want to play and far be it for me to tell someone else how to play.

Maybe I'm missing something but how can getting your stack in with the absolute nuts be a leak? Our goal should be to make the most +EV play at all times. I'm all for avoiding all ins in neutral ev situations to help out with variance, but it shouldn't be a concern any time a play is positive.

then I can not help you.

Okay here it is...

Making maximum value in a hand is NOT always going "all in" because... If your opponent is folding his marginal made hands just because he's got fold equity when you go "all in" with the nuts , your leaking value. One needs to control the thinness of their value bet in order to maximize that value.

Another thing this control does is it helps mask hand strength, and over a period of time you potentially get called off thinner by players "wanting to see" with there marginal holdings. "all in" polarizes your range... thin value bets merge your ranges and opens more possibilities.

I am not saying there are not times to go all in when you are sure you are in front, but in general I think those times are more profitable following a three, four, five bet shove scenario.

Yea I hear what you are saying Mschu but because I don't post stack sizes that often, when I say we got all-in, it doesn't mean I overbet or that it went bet-raise-reraise-reraise to get it all in. I think thats just causing some confusion. I'm a huge advocate of thin value betting and I make small bets all the time in order to get it. I do overbet sometimes, and lately it has cost me in a couple situations where an opponent folds a hand I never thought they were folding and would have called a smaller bet, but my goal is always to bet an amount I think will achieve the highest value based on what I estimate my opponent's range to be. I never just "get it in" with a hand just because I have a hand that I deem to be strong enough to play for stacks.

You have said a couple times that you are surprised how often I get involved in all-ins, but imo if you are playing 100bb stacks and not getting all-in fairly regularly (like probably once a session on average) then you are leaving some value on the table. Sitting deep is obviously different so if you are playing 200bb+ effective a lot then I would expect much fewer all-in confrontations.

Getting stack all in with the absolute nuts isn't the leak, its the too aggressive betting line.
Al

@MSchu: Kush's leaks are more related to the Rhino..... Not related to poker

indeed, you dont post stack sizing and other intimate information and I am sure that is where some confusion comes from. it certainly makes it seem that you are going all in regularly as a function of trying to bet others out of the pot. maybe it's just because you talk mainly about pots where full stacks are being played fro and not necessarily just interesting hands.


ignored.

haha I had to look this up, no chance.

Yea this rarely happens. Sometimes I end up all-in while going for thin value in marginal spots, but if I'm bluffing/barreling it almost never leads to an all-in.

Sorry if it came off as that. This is why I don't like to post hands unless I post all details but since this isn't a strat thread I rarely post everything.

Bunny Ranchicas!

Well its been a fairly wild ride the last couple days. I think I've played extremely well but unfortunately have run bad in some big pots. Yesterday I got KK in on a Q96 flop against JT and lost to the J8 run out. I came back pretty well, made a nice hero call with 2nd pair. (a hero call is when you call knowing that your hand can only beat a bluff so in order to call you have to be extrememly confident the opponent is bluffing) From there I ran up a nice stack before having to bet/fold away my profit, ending break even.

Today I was in 2nd out of 3 on a board of AA694 with AK against A8 and 66. That, along with about 3 other pretty tricky spots made for a not so fun night. Luckily being on the right side of a couple other pots kept the loss small.

I'm very happy with my play though and I have been very focused at the table, particularly yesterday.

Also, sick brag, met poster Limon when I saw him walking through the poker room and recognized him from when he commentated on Live at the Bike. His thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19...m-shyt-457839/) has influenced me a lot, and I'm pretty sure I referenced him in that long post I did when someone asked why I'm doing what I'm doing. So even though is was probably extremely weird, I wanted to say hi and thank him in real life for his contribution to my development as a poker player. I sorta stumbled through a somewhat awkward 2 minute conversation but whatever, I woulda been mad at myself if I didn't.

Nothings worse than the hidden Pocket Pair in that situation. Even though you know you are probably beat, you still have to call off a re-shove for stacks.

Good to hear you advocate getting it in!

jk, I suck at cards anyway.

Are you sure you met Limon and not Sideshow Bob?

More 2/5 the last couple days. Yesterday started out rough when I got all in on the turn as a 3:1 favorite and lost. Rebought for the max (200bbs) which was the first time I'd ever bought in cold for that much. Very first hand I pick up 88 in the BB, flop top set and get stacks in by the river and ship a quick double. From there I won a bit more and ended with a decent win.

Today I started off with 200bb again, which I think I have gotten comfortable with after finally taking the plunge on it yesterday. I started off well at the must move table, mostly from making a full house beating a smaller full house. At the main game my run good continued for a while until I iso'ed a couple limps, got 3 bet, and folded preflop. Now thats not too significant, but right after it, I looked down at my stack and realized I was $50 from my 5/10 goal. So before the iso I was $20 away. Thats the closest I had gotten, and unfortunately it is still the closest I have gotten.

As soon as I realized it I was sorta mad because I didn't want to play with a monetary goal in mind so I fought hard to just play and not worry about it. I think I did a reasonably good job of that, but it just didn't work out. As much as I tried to just tell myself not to worry about a number, I would be lying if I said it wasn't in the back of my mind from thereon out. I don't think I made any different plays because of it, but I was definitely thinking about it.

I was pretty confident I would get it today but close as I got, I couldn't crack it. I played a quite a few pots against another poster, ty71087, who I had played with before without knowing who he was on here. One came right after I was $50 away where I misread my hand, thinking I made the Q high flush on the river but I had the Q instead of the Q. Truth be told I would have bet the river regardless but I thought I had just hit my goal and flipped my hand over and was like "whoops".

From there I went up and down, hovering between 2 and 5 hundred from my goal. There was one huge fish at the table and I got into lots of great situations against him but I just couldn't get him. Late in the session two more splashy guys came in and again I got lots of great situations but couldn't connect on any flops, and there wasn't any stealing to be done with the super fish in every pot.

I wanted to stay longer because of how good the table was but I was too tired and had lost focus. I was a bit discouraged to not be able to crack my goal considering how close I got, but I am happy with how I played. And in the end, I'm still very close, actually the closest I've been post-session before, so I'll get there soon enough.

Took me a while to catch up with this thread but glad to see you're still going strong. It's clear through your writing that you're a much better player now than when you started this thing a few months ago.

Quick question, why not just take a couple BI shot at 5/10 just to get it out of your system? Buyin short, only play a couple hours, whatever. You mentioned that you're conservatively rolled from 5/10 which means you're comfortably over rolled for 2/5. Seems like the arbitrary goal you've set yourself is becoming more of a hindrance to your progression than say, aggressive bankroll management.

Congrats on the success so far, stay grounded, stay hungry, and good luck!

Thanks man, I think you are correct in that its becoming a bit of a hinderance. I noticed it before and corrected it, but then when I got really close it happened again.

Because of this, and the fact that I'm going home for the holidays in about 10 days, I think I'm just going to play 2/5 until then, and then when I get back in January I'll take my first shot at 5/10 regardless of BR. I think this will be better for my mindset. Not that I had any doubt before, but this just further shows how stupid money based goals are in poker.

......................

I had a rough session last night, probably 60% run bad and 40% play bad. On the bright side, I feel like I learned a lot because after the session I extensively reviewed about 4 hands where most of the loss went to and I think I got a lot better in doing so.

Most of what I attribute my play bad to last night was not being focused. The last couple sessions I have hit a wall at about the 3 hour mark and can hardly keep my eyes open. I'm fairly certain this is a result of not keeping up with my workout routine the last couple weeks and its starting to catch up with me, so I'll be back on that today.

get away from the table... recharge. I take weeks off at a time, even months.

you live close to good outdoor activity, all you have to do is hook up and we can go hiking, catch a flick etc...

Is this because you bought those annual passes to the Thunder Down Under show and you just can't stop yourself from going every night?

BTW, I'm going up to Summerlin next few days and have some guest passes to the LVAC there. LMK if you wanna join me. I know you'll probably say no, but figured I'd throw it out there.

^yeah... hook up with some folks, get off the table for a while... at least a day or two and take part in other activities. makes you a better more well rounded player.

PM'ed you a little something taylor.

Yea I took off tuesday so I didn't really want to take another day off. I don't think the problem is not enough time off, but when I take time off I sit on my arse. Just finished a workout and feel much better already. Its crazy how something that is supposed to take energy gives you energy.

Hey you stashed those in my backpack and you know it lol

Yea you're bringin some of the meetup crew right? Let me know what day, I've been wanting to play some pickup bball lately, maybe we can get a game goin.

Thanks, looks interesting. Though I saw the words lecture and exam on that page and my stomach turned a little haha

Yale University man... check it out fo sho when you have down time.