boring short answer - Study more, play more. Repitition is how you get good at something, I studied more and played more.

More detailed -

I think when you mention that live players struggle with how to get better, that statement is true because it's hard to get better live.

This ties into some of my other points, there is no database, most sample sizes are really small, you're making most of your decisions based on stuff like someone's physical appearance rather than a HUD full of data. It's tough to get better playing 30 hands an hour.

I got a lot better because I started actively working and studying whilst playing mostly online. I'm usually playing 1/2-3/6 online against really good players while playing hundred of hands an hour. I'm also playing more HU which forces you to get more comfortable in a lot of these marginal situations.

Playing online was also a huge breathe of fresh air, as I think it is a lot more challenging and engaging than just showing up at Venetian every day, folding a whole bunch and being bored for a while.

If people ever see me at a live game, I get really antsy and need to stand up and walk around every half hour or so. I just don't really enjoy sitting still and monotonously playing cards with my brain off. That's part of why I usually start talking to people about random ****. It is boring to me and not really engaging me.

When I play online, I usually play 2 hour sessions, take a break to go eat, go workout, play video games for an hour or two, whatever. Then come back and play 2 more hours, do something else, come back and play 2 more hours etc etc. When I drive to the strip, I can't just leave and do other stuff, it's not really practical so I'm sort of locked in for 5-8 hours.

As far as how I think you can get better by playing live, I would say to just engage yourself more. Oftentimes live poker is just really robotic. Live is more of a battle against yourself than it is against the other people. Not tilting or doing dumb **** out of boredom is a really underrated skill in live poker. I would almost venture that being a good poker manager is more important than being a good poker player. Engage yourself by taking notes and thinking about hands after your sessions. When I played at Foxwoods I had notes a mile long on every reg and used to talk aloud to myself on the way home in the car about hands I played that day and evaluated whether or not I think I made the right decision.

So for myself, I think I got a lot better by playing in tougher, more aggressive, 6max online games. The live games seem a lot easier to me now compared to the online games.

The best piece of advice I can give is to just avoid robot mode in live poker by keeping yourself constantly engaged, it's hard though, which is why I felt like I stayed the same for a while.

I hope that answers it

I knew it! RobFarha agrees with me = I'm the next RobFarha.

But really, another great personal take on an important aspect of the game of poker.

Thanks man, appreciate the response. You definitely answered my question. I've been able to improve what you call "poker manager skills" over this last year at the live tables, but now I want to get better at poker. I've never thought of online poker as a tool for improving my live game before, but it makes perfect sense. I'll be signing up.

Biggest part of being a good poker manager is being good at personal finances imo.

I just started reading your thread today and I'm only on August 2012 atm.

Throughout this entire time though I couldn't help but ask you:

Did constantly being alone during your grinding ever start to take a toll on you? When you're winning it's obviously much easier, but during the downswings and having to overcome that yourself must have been pretty tough.

Follow up question: If you had the opportunity to go back in time and re-live this experience with a "partner" - someone who had the potential, you got along with, and wanted to also make this a living - would you do it? This is all assuming you would never play together, 10-12 hour grind sessions was nothing new to him (so no worries of him wanting to leave early), and was capable of handling his own for the most part.

Not really. I'm speaking about how I felt literally years ago, but I'm pretty sure being alone at Foxwoods never bothered me. Just to put this guys question in perspective for people reading, when I first started playing live I used to get room comps at Foxwoods/AC and spend 2-3 days there by myself sometimes. Was never really bothered by that at all, in fact it was actually kind of refreshing because at this time I loved playing poker (not that I don't now, but the flame dims after years and years of course).

Oftentimes I played during the week because I would want to hang out with my friends who are off work on the weekends. This is not even a close decision for me, would so much rather hang out with people on Saturday than be grinding better games on the weekend, a mindset I still have today.

So when I was losing at Foxwoods, I was never really bothered by being alone because I had so much other stuff going on in my life that standard downswings weren't the end all be all for me. I was either coaching baseball or spending time with my friends going out while we're all newly turned 21 year olds.

There are a few times in my poker career that money has gotten to me, but nothing involving being alone.

I still remember calling my best friend the first time I lost $1,000 in a day and asking him to go get some food. I just needed someone to vent to a little bit and definitely feel like I could tell this dude anything. Having people like this in your life is really important and a big part of why I teetered back and forth with my decision to move. That 1k felt like a million because I was thinking about all the **** I could buy with a thousand dollars.

More recently, I had my first 10k+ downswing (over like 2 weeks) sometime last year and that bothered me a little bit too. Not nearly as much as the -1k day a few years ago because obviously even though the dollar figure is much larger, I am infinitely better equipped to handle it.



No.

For one - I don't trust anyone in the poker world. If I'm at Foxwoods with a few thousand dollars on me, I don't feel comfortable sleeping in the same room as someone that could rob me.

Assuming that this person is one of my close friends from CT that I would unequivocally trust with my life, still no.

You're now taking on twice the burden of all the negative aspects of poker, while not really benefiting from the good stuff twice.

I think having "poker friends" is cool and all, you can talk strategy and help each other with good games and such, but the way you're phrasing this question makes it seem like you and your poker buddy are attached at the hip and regularly do all poker related activities together. I think it's a bad idea and not really a spot I would find ever find myself in.

My whole life I've marched to the beat of my own drum

The Number Won

When you strive for perfection,
Desire get confused and you could lose your direction

If someone is to take one thing from the hours I've investing into writing this blog, it's this - be involved in poker, don't be consumed by poker.

I've been doing really well lately in poker and life.

I've actually been playing quite a bit of live poker the last week or so, had about a 4 or 5 day span where I was firing off at least 8 hours a day, most of it being in good 5/10 games at Venetian that don't come around super often. March Madness got me to go out and play live again.

Even though I usually have a lot of negative things to say about live poker, I didn't mind playing a bunch of days in a row this time because I enjoyed the games, enjoyed playing with some out of town guys splashing around and having fun. It's less of a robotic, boring grind than it usually is given that there are new faces.

Of course people will attribute my happiness to money, as many poker players incorrectly do. Or attribute my happiness to being in good games, very small portion of why I dislike playing live has to do with the profitability of the games. A below average live game is usually better than an above average online game. Coincidentally I feel as though I've been playing pretty well with good results, even over long draining live hours that I am not as accustomed to.

I can promise that me enjoying myself is not a direct product of winning money in poker. It's a much more enjoyable experience to avoid the headphone, ipod, I'm God's gift to poker people, as well as the miserable berate everyone break-even nit guys regardless of my result in the game.

I suppose I've run well with my cash game table draws because even in games that aren't phenomenal I've not wanted to stab a fork through my eye watching people complain and talk about 1337 poker strat.

Even in big pots I lost I didn't really care too much cause the stress and burden of poker are not on my shoulders as much anymore. I usually avoid hand histories these days but this is a fun one and there's a point to the story.

Some aggro kid raises and gets a bunch of callers, I squeeze the BB with KK.

J95, I cbet, turn is a low brick, I check call, river is an offsuit ace. I check and he bets 600, I make the hero call and lose to A2

Then another guy at the table says "yeah, A2dd is the only hand that made sense there", sarcastically. Despite the fact I just lost about 1200 dollars in absolutely ridiculous fashion, that **** was funny and I started laughing. I really wish I folded river just so I could see him flash me the 2 and be completely perplexed.

So even when things didn't go my way I didn't really feel angry, or tilted at all, or any sort of negative emotion.

I think a lot of it is becoming desensitized to how much silly, stupid **** can happen in poker based on how many hands I've been playing online. I can also completely shrug these things off because everything else in my life has been great. This is still, the single most important thing to me.

In order to be a successful poker player over the long haul you have to be a successful person.

Success is measured in different ways, people are different and like different things.

I for one, at my core, am quite an angry, testosterone driven lad. I like playing sports, I like competition, I like working out (most days). I play softball 3 days a week with non-poker friends here in Vegas, I play golf once a week, I work-out 4 times a week these days. I also have a girl that I spend a lot of time with that balances these things out. Poker revolves around this stuff, not the other way around.

I know a few of my poker friends do yoga and meditation type things as their physical exercise/mind clearing things.

That sounds incredibly boring and terrible to me. I have absolutely zero desire to do that.

I am pretty much the opposite, I've been doing a lot of boxing the last few weeks and love doing that for cardio and stress release.

These two things are pretty opposite, I am certainly not saying one side is right and one side is wrong. The idea of standing in front of a heavy bag in intervals and throwing combinations probably sounds just as appealing to them as yoga does to me.

The point I am making is that there needs to be something. Something that you enjoy outside the casino, outside 2+2, to get you away from poker and to relax and release the stress that naturally comes with poker. For me it is playing sports and punching things, for some it's yoga, reading, board games, whatever it is is not the point. There just needs to be other stuff or you will be a deplorable live grinder.

I would also like to clarify that I am not completely lumping the entirety of live players into the category of miserable. I feel as though it might come off that way sometimes. There are a lot of really cool people I've met that grind everyday that do not fall under this category.

However, every time I play live poker I'm constantly reminded of the droves of grinders who seem to always be upset all the time. I'm not a psychologist but my best guess would be that their mood rises and falls with their stack.

When you make poker a piece of your life, as opposed to the entirety of your life, I feel your poker skill will increase as well as your winrate and bankroll.

Nice post bro. Quite an accurate description of live poker and sentiments that I share. I think your perception of yoga and meditation is off. I'd be thoroughly impressed if you could handle meditating 10 min/day for a month, and you might see some huge benefits in poker and life. It is akin to flow activities like hiking/boxing but ultimately more focused and present. And yoga: I'm a heavy weightlifter and sports guy myself, and yoga is incredibly challenging. There are also heaps of fit girls in yoga pants.

I am aware of both these things

I've done p90x yoga back in college and that was the hardest day of the the program.

Just doesn't appeal to me is all. I know it's not easy.

I am not trying to brag but one natural ability of mine, no matter how useful is the ability to desensitize myself on a whim. I love being able to drive down the freeway, and have some jackals cut me off, and just take it in stride and think about how it had no effect on my emotion because I don't like to focus on that negativity.
Nice post. I will add that sometimes I have to force myself to act "mad" or "angry" when I lose a big pot, people expect a normal person to swear under thier breath. after this one bad beat this one lady at the table says about me, "how does he not have a reaction to that, it has no effect on him". So a lot of times now I will cuss or act pissed now just so people, and especially regs and villans don't see that I have it under control like a pro should.

^ totally unecessary

May 19 wsop foxwoods iam dead money see ya there


Sent from my XT1063 using 2+2 Forums

great post Rob.

my mood correlates heavily with what my stack is. I was chatting to a lady in a great game for hours, asked about her kids, her stories and was genuinely interested and in a good mood (because I built up my stack). I convinced her to straddle and once we did we then both started poking fun at the nit regs/grinder types who haven't spoken a word in hours until they put a stradle on too. She got deep too by coolering a bunch of people. a little bit later I lost most of my stack when she called a raise and called my squeeze with K5o and hit 2p on the river. I got super mad, not openly to her or anyone else, just mad that my stack I built up for hours was lost in that way. I went into a shell, not able to talk to her much anymore or keep the mood light at the table. Shortly after she racked up, calling it a night and the table broke shortly after.

I know it's a problem of mine that my mood correlates with my stack. my question is, did this ever happen to you and how did you get rid of it? Is it a function of just playing more? It's not the money either that makes me mad as I'm not playing for a living, just I always hated the feeling of losing, no matter at what and it usually isn't a problem in sports, maybe the opposite even, but in poker it seems so detrimental. Any thoughts on how to get better at this?

Thanks.

Mark,

I know I'm not Rob, but in my opinion the money matters too much to you. I believe this is common amongst all poker players. I've definitely had the same situation happen multiple times. In fact, sometimes it still does. I never get mad at the player, but losing a big pot tends to make me quieter and more focused. No one likes losing. Period.

My advice is to TRY to just act in a jovial and good spirited manner all the time. Obviously this may seem like common sense advice. The other thing I'd say is to maybe play a level smaller. I noticed for me personally when I was playing pretty high that losing would always impact me much more than if I were at a lower level.

Lastly it probably is a matter of experience as well. People that play a lot and have been around the game for a long time typically tend to take losing better than most.

Hope that helps a little bit.

hey rob I caught that hand on my way to the bathroom...u in 9 and kid was in 2. Saw you call the river and simply nod. Zen my man!!!

+1

also, link please if anyone has one to the pure post.

cliffs:

Rob is getting his dick sucked on a consistent basis.

Rare honest cliffs.

He's right.

It's6am. I'm very drunk and just ordered 70$ worth of wings.

I'm drunk and sitting on a floaty device in my driveway (not a pool) with a friend.

I have plans to have a hot tub party with various girls sexually interested in me (I have a girlfriend kinda) next week.

#reallife #willregret #hero

Also i can say you are one of very few people that I would consider myself in debt to so if you ever come to vegas please let me know if you need something and I will do my ****ing best.

Balance your emotion range.
D***. That's deep.

drunk posting from a pool floaty in the front yard as the sun rises ITT.

thanks!

Definitely gotta catch up sometime.

You don't table-change? That's a huge reason why cash > mtts.

Can't table change if there's 1 game

Hi Internet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3XquGJfL_I
semi nsfw video

She deserved that, she a bird, it's a bird trap
You think if I didn't rap she would flirt back
Takin' off her skirt, let her wear my shirt before she leave
I'ma need my shirt back

Hi internet. It's young Robfarha, I used to post on this board many moons ago.

In all seriousness, for the first time in a long time I've been starting to feel like there isn't enough time in the day for me to do everything I want to do.

As is the recurring theme of this thread and an accurate reflection of my life, everything has been going pretty good this month. I think I played live poker twice this month and lost both sessions. For some reason I felt like playing yesterday and drove to Venetian and lost a thousand dollars playing 2/5 in like 4 hours or something. Got it in a flip spot and lost, couple coolers (where I folded and probably saved money). I'll be playing a few more times now that WSOP is coming up and I plan on playing some 2/5 and 5/10 at Rio for the most part. I will also be posting my WSOP package for sale in about a week or so. I plan on playing the main for sure and selling at 1.25, playing the monster stack for sure as well but don't know if I'm selling. I may also play the millionaire maker and will probably try and sell a little bit of that.

I'm very, very, very happy with my routine as of now. Everything seems to be going to well. Unfortunately (lol, fortunately though) I leave for a week of vacation in Cancun, Mexico in 3 weeks so my routine will probably be shattered after that.

It's sort of funny, probably 95% of the people I've told I'm going to Mexico ask me, "oh for poker?", no, for Corona and laying out on a beach, right before WSOP.

I've been playing softball 3 times a week, working out at least 4 times a week and playing poker just about every day. Unfortunately my online results were pretty bad this month, but were previously going well.

Thinner edges = more variance.

Physically I am in the best shape I have ever been in, including college. I think it's a combination of me being in the prime (or at least close) of my life and a really strict work ethic with working out. I started lifting right after me and my friends booked the trip to Mexico and have stayed pretty steady.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=003t7MfHriU

My only hiccup is that I drink a lot, so my body fat is still too high but I do feel very strong right now.

Poker wise I've made some small improvements. I have spent a lot of time studying and replaying a lot of hands and running filters through my database to see where I am screwing up. It's actually nice to have a big enough sample where a lot of the things I am seeing actually matter and aren't totally attributed to variance.

Very happy with sticking to my routine, doing all the fun stuff I want to do while simultaneously playing a very respectable amount of online hours.

The key for me is segmented sessions. It makes everything else possible as well. Wake up - eat - poker for 2 hours - gym - poker for 2 hours - video games/random stuff/softball - poker for 2 hours - bs on the computer - sleep. That's a pretty average day for me and it works out great because I never really feel burnt out anymore. I attribute that to both being in much better physical shape, much more mentally focused and much more driven within poker.

That's all, just a very small update to let the internet know that I live.