Quote:
Originally Posted by chmuah
First off, this thread is great.
For my part, I live in Canada so I'm able to play online and put in some time. Playing is important, especially at the beginning. There's a rhythm and flow of a game that you almost absorb subconsciously. I feel like that's a fundamental part of any player's poker education.
Sparks, I'm thinking through some of the things you're talking about (or have thought through them in the past). Here's some of my recent experiences/revelations in the hopes that they help.
I recently returned to playing after quitting a decade ago. It was a real wake-up call. I ratcheted up a bunch of profit after a couple good sessions and then dumped all of it plus about half of my bankroll over a handful of really bad sessions.
After my last bad session, instead of steaming and licking my wounds I went out looking for relevant threads in the 2+2 archives about losing sessions, playing bad, and starting over. There was one (I wish I bookmarked it) where the author was basically saying: poker is hard, and playing is only one part of how we improve. They advised something along the lines of we should be studying/reviewing twice as much as we play.
Somehow this really set off a lightbulb in me. I realized that I was playing badly and took comfort in the fact that the game is tough and will require effort and study. Over the next few weeks I hardly played and instead started to read and re-read books, watch videos, revisit hand histories. I started to do the work.
But the most important thing I did was begin to focus on my frame of mind when I play. I'm reading Jared Tendler's The Mental Game of Poker. Using the concept of the A-game (our best, most mindful, tuned in poker game) and the C-Game (our tilting, foolish, awful play), he explains that too often players try to become better by improving their A-Game instead of correcting the mistakes that burn them in their C-Game. So, while I've been trying to learn and absorb new information, I've been trying harder to remove some fundamental mistakes from my game while playing lower limits. Hand review is key for this.
Once I feel like my game is solid and I'm able to play in a focused, effective way, then I'll take a shot at my old stakes.
One other thing I've done is begun listening to The Mindset Advantage podcast on my morning commute and watching good players play (whether Limit Hold'em or otherwise) on YouTube and Twitch. This has had a huge impact on my frame of mind because when you listen to professionals and see their decision-making process, it kind of rubs off on you a little. Not to say you're gonna suddenly jump up to the nosebleed stakes, but you start to adopt some of their sensibility.
There's an app called Holdem LAB on Android. They have a free and a paid version. I've used the free one while watching videos. If I see a move that I don't understand, I run the equities and often learn a lot.
Good luck with your growth, Sparks.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'm in the same boat with the bad sessions. You'll see a thread here about taking shots at 4/8 that I created. I was doing well at my 3/6 game until I went to vegas and went back into the negative... I just go back and review my books and stuff, just like you.
I have the Tendler book. I've heard mixed things about it. Don't think Mason is a fan iirc on his book reviews, but ive seen good reviews elsewhere. I'll dig into it at some point. too many others to read atm!
Holdem LAB is great! Thanks for telling me about it. Super easy to use and the free version seemed sufficient for now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DougL
Nice thread.
My go-to would be equilab, download it and learn to use it. The way I learned to put people on ranges was through posting and replying to hands on the forum. Any time you talk about a hand, simulate the hand in equilab and include the results in your reply. When you start, people might say "he never has those hands" or "he's got to be way looser than that".
At the table? Take that feedback and refine. Think about a guy who plays about half his hands and you've seen raise hands like AQs and JJ, but you watched him limp ATs from UTG. He limps UTG, you might go into equilab, open the hand assignment screen and type 40%. The software will light up the top 40% of all hands. Then you remove the hands you think he raises. That's the start of your sim. Doing this, arguing ranges, and thinking about the process will really improve your game. Then the villain shows up with some hand not in your range? You have to decide if he was bored or think about how you were mistaken about his overall strategy. One small issue, many bad players don't understand hand equivalence and hand ordering the same way we do.
Good players like to raise people who are bad, say people who limp. So in a 20/40 game it folds to BTN+3. He limps. Next player (who might be close to decent) doesn't raise, but instead limps. A) His range is pretty well defined. B) We're starting to re-evaluate him being semi-decent, because he's potentially worse than that.
If you look at great hand readers, they're looking for clues that are giving away ranges. Actions like over limping can define your hand to being mediocre in ways that decent players just know you're playing small/mid pairs, mid suited connectors, and some other "probably should fold" marginal hands. As you get experience assigning ranges, these ideas will become clear.
Will check out equilab. Why 40% though? that's a a lot of hands, well beyond ATs. Also, what is "Hand Equivalence" and "Hand Ordering?"
I will definitely start doing what you've mentioned.
