FazendeiroBH Blog - 2022...
07-14-2022
, 10:09 AM
07-16-2022
, 06:01 PM
07-16-2022
, 06:11 PM
And I just forgot you guys living in the nothern hemisphere are experiencing the summer right now, and as always happens all these years, games usually dry up 
07-16-2022
, 11:55 PM
We all want to learn things instantly and reach out goals right now or at least as soon as possible, but realistically to improve and grow at any skill is a marathon that takes repeated and sustained effort over time.
It's a tough problem to battle with. Lately I am trying to step back and enjoy the journey + appreciate the growth a bit more rather than being so goal-oriented, even when struggling. That feels like a better mindset than constant rush and immediacy.
And hey, getting acclimated to new and bigger downswing numbers is part of the process. The numbers will keep getting bigger in the future too, right?
It's a tough problem to battle with. Lately I am trying to step back and enjoy the journey + appreciate the growth a bit more rather than being so goal-oriented, even when struggling. That feels like a better mindset than constant rush and immediacy.
And hey, getting acclimated to new and bigger downswing numbers is part of the process. The numbers will keep getting bigger in the future too, right?
07-17-2022
, 05:55 PM
Not that having challenging goals, feeling discomfort etc, should be avoided. Quite the opposite imo, otherwise it becomes boring and easy to lose any motivation. The balanced approach is the ideal one. The one billion dollar question is how to achieve that balance?
Living in the past, crying and complaining how unfair it is to move up and not become a winner right away, will never be the answer. Also, fixating on the future, the end journey, seems a good recipe for disaster and failure. Just as having extremely high expectations, a sure way to disappointment. So, let´s have a goal. A challenging one. Then study and work (and keep working, developing, testing, evalutating, correcting mistakes, rinse and repeat) to develop a strategy. Then train so that we can execute it as perfectly as a human being can. And keep training. And grinding. Then remember that, after doing all of this, we can´t become fixated on the end goal anymore, as that would lead to anxiety, struggles and very likely a lot of setbacks along the way, maybe even failure. Just focus on being the best we can be at that moment. And enjoy the game we (hopefully) still love. Very likely considering all these years of ininterrupt play, and even before in the tilt quitting days just to return in a few weeks wanting more
Cheers
is how to achieve that balance?Living in the past, crying and complaining how unfair it is to move up and not become a winner right away, will never be the answer. Also, fixating on the future, the end journey, seems a good recipe for disaster and failure. Just as having extremely high expectations, a sure way to disappointment. So, let´s have a goal. A challenging one. Then study and work (and keep working, developing, testing, evalutating, correcting mistakes, rinse and repeat) to develop a strategy. Then train so that we can execute it as perfectly as a human being can. And keep training. And grinding. Then remember that, after doing all of this, we can´t become fixated on the end goal anymore, as that would lead to anxiety, struggles and very likely a lot of setbacks along the way, maybe even failure. Just focus on being the best we can be at that moment. And enjoy the game we (hopefully) still love. Very likely considering all these years of ininterrupt play, and even before in the tilt quitting days just to return in a few weeks wanting more
Cheers
07-19-2022
, 08:07 AM
Rereading The Mental Game of Poker, and already picked a few insights: we want to improve our A-games, by always acquiring knowledge and constantly studying, but it´s just as important to improve our C-games, by deliberately putting everything we learn to unconscious competence in the most efficient way possible. Having a big gap between our strongest and our weakest games is problematic, we´re humans and won´t be able to remain at our best 100% of the time, regardless of how many goals of - [ ] play my A-game as much as possible - we do.
A lot of the (bad) emotions we get while playing seems to come from our unconscious mind also. Poker is a game of chance. No doubts about that. I firmly believe any player at any stage is vulnerable to develop bad habits, but beginners with no experience are way more. So, we´re playing for a while, 2nl, and seem to be winning over the long term with a small winrate. We try to move up to 5nl and lose. Back to 2nl. We check our graphs and see the redline freefalling. We play and start to pay attention to those donks raising, re-raising us, bet bet bet relentless, and we fold bc they told how underbluffed most of the lines are, how the micro pool doesn´t bluff enough etc. But folding is difficult. Folding is definitive. Lots of humans don´t really like to do it, because this is the equivalent of allowing the bullies to bully us. So we start to call.
Now, possibly the worst thing in poker happen to us: we run good. we call 2, 3 times in a row and catch the bluff. If this run good continues for a while, and we get it right often enough, we will condition ourselves to believe the coaches were wrong and will put into our unconscious competence that being a calling station is good. And leaving bad habits learned from the beginning is pretty hard, because after playing for a while, we don´t even remember what and why we´re doing that stuff. The opposite also may happen, you learn to play tight, go to the extreme side of it entering the #teamneverbluff, try to become a bit better but always get punished for doing it. And we have a new nit born
Cheers
A lot of the (bad) emotions we get while playing seems to come from our unconscious mind also. Poker is a game of chance. No doubts about that. I firmly believe any player at any stage is vulnerable to develop bad habits, but beginners with no experience are way more. So, we´re playing for a while, 2nl, and seem to be winning over the long term with a small winrate. We try to move up to 5nl and lose. Back to 2nl. We check our graphs and see the redline freefalling. We play and start to pay attention to those donks raising, re-raising us, bet bet bet relentless, and we fold bc they told how underbluffed most of the lines are, how the micro pool doesn´t bluff enough etc. But folding is difficult. Folding is definitive. Lots of humans don´t really like to do it, because this is the equivalent of allowing the bullies to bully us. So we start to call.
Now, possibly the worst thing in poker happen to us: we run good. we call 2, 3 times in a row and catch the bluff. If this run good continues for a while, and we get it right often enough, we will condition ourselves to believe the coaches were wrong and will put into our unconscious competence that being a calling station is good. And leaving bad habits learned from the beginning is pretty hard, because after playing for a while, we don´t even remember what and why we´re doing that stuff. The opposite also may happen, you learn to play tight, go to the extreme side of it entering the #teamneverbluff, try to become a bit better but always get punished for doing it. And we have a new nit born
Cheers
Last edited by FazendeiroBH; 07-19-2022 at 08:17 AM.
07-19-2022
, 01:03 PM
So, what are my main mental game problems right now? I don´t get monkey tilts anymore, not even close, so we can check this out.
1) Brain fog/freezes. It doesn´t necessarily happens in game, and other than after a particularly bad run, the main trigger seems to be outside irl stuff, as it´s no coincidence this happens usually combined with stressful moments.
Am I capable of easily identifying it?
Yes, it´s not anger/rage tilt, but some form of depressed mood/apathy. I made some posts before, in my old threads, about how I seemingly forgot how to play, and wouldn´t even understand concepts I already learned/knew. Leading to insecurity. It´s going from A to D game, as all these years I´m pretty sure none of the knowledge was unconscious competence yet. I will talk about it later, but the important thing to remember is that, while autopiloting is bad in general, we need to have a good one, so we can get thru these moments. And also to free mental space to more difficult strategic moves, but I´ll talk about this later in more detail
It usually goes without much explanation, after I come to a rungood phase.
2) Getting angry when facing repeated aggression and feeling exploited/a target. But hey, first of all, it´s a known fact each stake we move up, the game will become more aggressive. This is a universal law guys. Get used to it. Second, the fact they are doing it more doesn´t mean they are doing it enough. By all data and all ppl I talked, 25nl regs (as an average) aren´t 3betting enough, not yet. we should get higher before this moment arrives when they are properly doing it. Second, I 3bet, I know the importance of 3betting/4betting etc, and having bluffs in my range. There come spots where I´m constantly 3betting those guys, because it´s my strategy/range. So, what right do I have to get angry/mad at them doing something I´m doing myself because it should be part of any winning game?
Remember when light 3betting started to become a thing, and authors would write that, in the old days, you could even get into a fight if you repeatedly 3betted someone? Sounds ridiculous right? So it is to get angry because you got yourself reraised a few times.
3) Lack of motivation to put more volume, even though I want to do it, and I know I still love the game. This one is probably the hardest, and I´m not sure (yet) how to attack it. The thing is that my game, all these years, revolved around constant thinking and making decisions, even in relatively simpler spots, because other than preflop I would study and learn, but not train to automate decisions in simpler spots. This leads to problems I talked before when not playing the A-game, but it´s also draining as ****. I believe maybe solving this will make it easier to put volume?
So let´s get back to why working on our autopilots might not be bad at all. We all (hopefully) study, try to keep learning new things and apply them in our games. But a big truth is that we won´t apply those new things, at least properly, to our games if we are not playing our best. Constantly thinking about decisions, especially if they start to accumulate and we aren´t even dominating what we learned a few weeks ago, is stressful, draining, and will lead to failure the moment our brain starts to malfunction. This also increases the gap between our best and worst games, which imho is one of the biggest reasons for those swingy tilty graphs we see even from winners.
No, we need to take the studying/learning process a bit more how I took learning in college. Up to college I wasn´t really your responsible student who would study for exams, do assignments etc. Things always came easy. So, in college (Computer Science), things went downhill in the beginning. Being classified as an engineering-like course, the first class was Calculus 1. And the first test. Boy, it was a disaster. As your lazy school guy, I took the day prior to the test to actually read the textbook. No exercises, no problem sets, nothing. Expecting I would remember everything, from limits, the definition of a derivative, all the way to derivative application in problem solving. And the missing point was exactly not doing the exercises and problem sets, which is how we (normal people at least ) make it become unconscious competence, so we can easily handle the exercises in a test/timed session.
So, I believe the best way to study in poker now is to do it slowly, in smaller areas of the game, develop some form of integrating it in the game (my way has been actually having it in written portuguese, about 10 pages right now ), reviewing it before each day begins, reviewing my hands focusing on whether I applied everything well enough, using all sessions as training (and doing consultations in game, we have a timebank, so let´s use it). And train. I know this can be done in other areas with just a little patience and perseverance. I know it can be done in poker, as it´s just a few days and I´m already way more "automatic" in the lines I studied.
Now, this autopilot should be a never ending work, with adding new, more complex blocks at each new study/integration phase. But let´s not overdo it. Patience. Perseverance.
Not having to consciously think about every single decision, no matter how basic it is for our current skill level, is so important. And so underestimated by me up til just a few weeks ago.
1) Brain fog/freezes. It doesn´t necessarily happens in game, and other than after a particularly bad run, the main trigger seems to be outside irl stuff, as it´s no coincidence this happens usually combined with stressful moments.
Am I capable of easily identifying it?
Yes, it´s not anger/rage tilt, but some form of depressed mood/apathy. I made some posts before, in my old threads, about how I seemingly forgot how to play, and wouldn´t even understand concepts I already learned/knew. Leading to insecurity. It´s going from A to D game, as all these years I´m pretty sure none of the knowledge was unconscious competence yet. I will talk about it later, but the important thing to remember is that, while autopiloting is bad in general, we need to have a good one, so we can get thru these moments. And also to free mental space to more difficult strategic moves, but I´ll talk about this later in more detail
It usually goes without much explanation, after I come to a rungood phase.
2) Getting angry when facing repeated aggression and feeling exploited/a target. But hey, first of all, it´s a known fact each stake we move up, the game will become more aggressive. This is a universal law guys. Get used to it. Second, the fact they are doing it more doesn´t mean they are doing it enough. By all data and all ppl I talked, 25nl regs (as an average) aren´t 3betting enough, not yet. we should get higher before this moment arrives when they are properly doing it. Second, I 3bet, I know the importance of 3betting/4betting etc, and having bluffs in my range. There come spots where I´m constantly 3betting those guys, because it´s my strategy/range. So, what right do I have to get angry/mad at them doing something I´m doing myself because it should be part of any winning game?
Remember when light 3betting started to become a thing, and authors would write that, in the old days, you could even get into a fight if you repeatedly 3betted someone? Sounds ridiculous right? So it is to get angry because you got yourself reraised a few times.
3) Lack of motivation to put more volume, even though I want to do it, and I know I still love the game. This one is probably the hardest, and I´m not sure (yet) how to attack it. The thing is that my game, all these years, revolved around constant thinking and making decisions, even in relatively simpler spots, because other than preflop I would study and learn, but not train to automate decisions in simpler spots. This leads to problems I talked before when not playing the A-game, but it´s also draining as ****. I believe maybe solving this will make it easier to put volume?
So let´s get back to why working on our autopilots might not be bad at all. We all (hopefully) study, try to keep learning new things and apply them in our games. But a big truth is that we won´t apply those new things, at least properly, to our games if we are not playing our best. Constantly thinking about decisions, especially if they start to accumulate and we aren´t even dominating what we learned a few weeks ago, is stressful, draining, and will lead to failure the moment our brain starts to malfunction. This also increases the gap between our best and worst games, which imho is one of the biggest reasons for those swingy tilty graphs we see even from winners.
No, we need to take the studying/learning process a bit more how I took learning in college. Up to college I wasn´t really your responsible student who would study for exams, do assignments etc. Things always came easy. So, in college (Computer Science), things went downhill in the beginning. Being classified as an engineering-like course, the first class was Calculus 1. And the first test. Boy, it was a disaster. As your lazy school guy, I took the day prior to the test to actually read the textbook. No exercises, no problem sets, nothing. Expecting I would remember everything, from limits, the definition of a derivative, all the way to derivative application in problem solving. And the missing point was exactly not doing the exercises and problem sets, which is how we (normal people at least
) make it become unconscious competence, so we can easily handle the exercises in a test/timed session.So, I believe the best way to study in poker now is to do it slowly, in smaller areas of the game, develop some form of integrating it in the game (my way has been actually having it in written portuguese, about 10 pages right now
), reviewing it before each day begins, reviewing my hands focusing on whether I applied everything well enough, using all sessions as training (and doing consultations in game, we have a timebank, so let´s use it). And train. I know this can be done in other areas with just a little patience and perseverance. I know it can be done in poker, as it´s just a few days and I´m already way more "automatic" in the lines I studied.Now, this autopilot should be a never ending work, with adding new, more complex blocks at each new study/integration phase. But let´s not overdo it. Patience. Perseverance.
Not having to consciously think about every single decision, no matter how basic it is for our current skill level, is so important. And so underestimated by me up til just a few weeks ago.
07-20-2022
, 06:32 PM
Big news: A few days ago I finally decided to get rid of my 1.7MM+ database (made a backup ofc, and will probably merge everything for an end of year update). Anyway, other than to have some (old and in more than one case outdated) villain stats, starting again clean is so much better. Btw, quick advice for anyone wanting to start a new database on hem3: it´s not possible to purge and retain villain's stats.
Didn´t get a last time graph though, but at least I have a pic of the main results view for you fellow readers and friends:
And this is the rungood I got after deciding to live in the present, instead of the past:
Think in 3 days I'll get the final RB challenge done.
Cheers
Didn´t get a last time graph though, but at least I have a pic of the main results view for you fellow readers and friends:
And this is the rungood I got after deciding to live in the present, instead of the past:
Think in 3 days I'll get the final RB challenge done.
Cheers
07-23-2022
, 10:31 AM
07-23-2022
, 11:58 AM
07-23-2022
, 12:45 PM
07-23-2022
, 05:41 PM
07-27-2022
, 08:13 AM
Hahah no, I´m not. I used to live there until 2020
Actually this handle was meant as a half joke (although I´m 100% sure I am the only one who understands it lol).
About the BRM, I still have conflicting views about it, but as a matter of fact, using conservative numbers makes me play better and enforces some discipline. I like both effects
Most important thing is that I get a chance to play thru all the possible learning phases, from being a fish at the new limit, to experience the frustrations of adapting to new players, to increased aggression, to the new monetary swings, to which exploits work and which don´t etc, all without too much constant move ups and downs and, ofc, close to 0 chance of busting the roll.
Cheers
Actually this handle was meant as a half joke (although I´m 100% sure I am the only one who understands it lol).
About the BRM, I still have conflicting views about it, but as a matter of fact, using conservative numbers makes me play better and enforces some discipline. I like both effects
Most important thing is that I get a chance to play thru all the possible learning phases, from being a fish at the new limit, to experience the frustrations of adapting to new players, to increased aggression, to the new monetary swings, to which exploits work and which don´t etc, all without too much constant move ups and downs and, ofc, close to 0 chance of busting the roll.
Cheers
07-29-2022
, 05:50 AM
07-29-2022
, 08:10 AM
08-01-2022
, 09:52 AM
Downgraded to 10% rb == goodbye stars, hello bodog
08-01-2022
, 09:40 PM
And before I forget, last month:
+ 120 usd in rakeback and bonuses.
lol sunrunner rb (slum) pro
Anyway, plan for this month is to keep playing and making sound investments, improve my winrate as I will definitely need it (have to improve a lot lol), put decent volume (at least 25k hands again), not get mad or happy due to normal poker short term fluctuations, execute well at the tables, and enjoy the process and keep loving this game.
Cheers
+ 120 usd in rakeback and bonuses.
lol sunrunner rb (slum) pro
Anyway, plan for this month is to keep playing and making sound investments, improve my winrate as I will definitely need it (have to improve a lot lol), put decent volume (at least 25k hands again), not get mad or happy due to normal poker short term fluctuations, execute well at the tables, and enjoy the process and keep loving this game.
Cheers
08-04-2022
, 09:19 AM
08-04-2022
, 01:40 PM
08-07-2022
, 06:46 PM
Yes, I´m running good atm
I´m in my preparation phase to take shots at 50nl. I feel sharp in attacking the common spots (though still not unconscious competence, but I´m doing it well even when not 100% focused, almost 100% without having to consult my playbook*).
Yes, I made a 10-page playbook of how to play and was using it til just a few days ago lol
Clearing the next steps of the action plan I made with my coach, and taking a more sensible look at my preflop strategy, are what I´m requiring myself to do. As long as I do it fast (but good enough to get an A self grade ), I think this month I'll begin taking the shots.
50nl to me would be a huge accomplishment after all those years, being the last micro level. Getting there and establishing a good track record is my goal for the rest of this year.
Wish me success
Cheers
I´m in my preparation phase to take shots at 50nl. I feel sharp in attacking the common spots (though still not unconscious competence, but I´m doing it well even when not 100% focused, almost 100% without having to consult my playbook*).
Yes, I made a 10-page playbook of how to play and was using it til just a few days ago lol
Clearing the next steps of the action plan I made with my coach, and taking a more sensible look at my preflop strategy, are what I´m requiring myself to do. As long as I do it fast (but good enough to get an A self grade
), I think this month I'll begin taking the shots.50nl to me would be a huge accomplishment after all those years, being the last micro level. Getting there and establishing a good track record is my goal for the rest of this year.
Wish me success
Cheers
08-11-2022
, 04:08 PM
A dream coming true: first 50nl shot right now
08-11-2022
, 06:03 PM
08-11-2022
, 07:37 PM
This month so far:
My 25nl sunrun journey
Cheers
My 25nl sunrun journey
Cheers