I'm 28 years old, father of 2. Been playing 5nl-50nl off and on for past 6 years. I've played A LOT of hands at the micros - I would probably say too many. I love the game and the challenges that come with it. Stepping up to the mental challenge of poker will help me be a better partner, father and overall person.

I've started 1 of these before that went no-where. This thread is for myself as I want an area to easily post 2-3 hands per session. I have one friend in the town I live who is a solid player and it's great to review hands with him (or anyone)...something I don't do enough of.

It's about self-awareness. It's about mentally preparing to making the best possible decisions. With 20 Buy-in guideline I will be starting at 10nl and don't give a **** about how long or when I will have 20 buy in's for 25nl.

Some of the things I do well:

• I Understand the long term is looong
• I have solid pre-flop strategy and hand range analysis (position, betting etc) (could probably still tweak/improve understanding)
• I don't tilt from badbeats or running under EV (usually my own reckless play sets me off)
• I use agression fairly well to pick on villains/situations
• I feel I have an accurate and realistic perspective on where I am with my game and what it's going to take to get better.

Some of the things I will improve on that I currently struggle with:

• Leveling myself (FPS vs opponents for know apparent reason - 4bet bluffs, 3 barelling etc)
• Playing to have winning sessions
• Boredom tilt
• Calling down 2 or 3 streets with 2nd or 3rd best hands because........WTF!
• Play too long (when I'm at ambulance station on call I potentially have hours and hours to play and fry myself.
• Redline fixation
• Results orientated
• Not sitting at tables with JUST regs (no obvious fish)
• Take the time (or end session 5-10 min early) to review 2-3 key hands.

Here's to 2016. The year that determines if I leave poker forever as an online tag-fish with a weak mental game...or the year I develop mindfulness and reach a new level with this awfully beautiful game.

@Outonalimb: Cheers my friend. I am also looking forward to the new year and refining my game. I'm coming back from a poker hiatus of 2-3 years. If you are interested in joining a few of us on our quest for small stakes domination into the new year we'd love to have you in our Skype group!

I'm working on a lot of the metagaming. Particularly with levels away from the virtual tables. I look forward to reading more and hearing from you!

Longinus - Just sent you a PM.

About to sit down for first poker session of the year. Just took 20 min to review some strategy on things to think about when playing pp's from the blind....I'm not surprised to come to the conclusion that it depends....! I'm going to only play 9 tables at a time for the first 10k hands and get a good thought process going.

Things to remember/focus on:

1. Take my time when facing re-raises or large bets even if I have a strong hand (it's not strong relative to a passive reg/fish being aggressive.

2. Keep it simple and don't worry about my VPIP/PF numbers

3. Enjoy the game

Because I want to work on not being results orientated I do not want to be posting graphs after every session. I love a sexy graph as much as anyone (even at the lowest of micros) but I get too fixated on results both if running good or losing.

Every 10K hands I will post graph and do parts and pieces of a database review.

I like the idea of sharing my pre-game study/warm up along with a post session hand review.

UTG was a fish and btn was an unknown. I put BTN on a range of JJ-AA, AK. On that flop with a pot sized bet into a multi-way pot part of my brain said "yep, he's got KK or AA" and yet I still shoved....

These are spots where if we shove ONLY better is going to call - which is obviously stupid....I think this a fold on the flop. Would anyone agree? I know it fairly nitty but calling a PSB on a wet OOP is just yuck (which is why I shoved which is stupiderest.........)

Can anyone tell me how to post a hand with the player stat info beside the stack sizes? I use PT4.

Thanks.

Just played session #2 for the year.

Pregame warm-up - Spent 15 min reading thread on calling small pp from the BB. Lately I've been interested in blind play. It obviously involved the concepts of set-mining and how and when it's possible to steal a few pots away from opponents when you miss and they cbet and give up too much etc..


Villain had cbet 4/4 so thought i'd try a check raise on a crazy wet board.

Is this burning money? What boards are BEST to do this on?



My plan was to fold river if 3rd barrel came. Was seriously considering folding the flop. Not much info on villain. Is 4bet better pre? I think 4bets only fold out worse and keep all hands in that dominate me...

In hand 1, considering your c/r was smallish, he's likely going to continue w/ any piece of it, and unless you peel your set you're pretty much s.o.l.

Hand 2 seems fine

I think you overplayed queens there

Hey Whiskeyneat,

Thanks for your input.

In General would it be better to check raise on dry boards like Kxx rainbow with only the one high card...?

Or is it best to check raise bluff on super wet board like that Q10s8s one I attempted?

Again this is against someone that I'm assuming is cbetting almost 100% of the time in these spots.

I know it is NOT necessary to engage in these spots to beat 10nl just trying to learn and improve.


Coldie - When my game "creeps" or full on tilts towards my C-game I will overplay tp/tk or overpairs.

Essentially my one pair hands are over played by barreling too much or calling too much. I usually opt to barrel or raise/get it in so I don't have to call all three streets....(cause calling is bad)....but its a silly thought process because folding is the move.

Cheers guys.

Short session coming up. These responses got me thinking about raise sizing and overplaying 1 pair hands (which is what I WANT my opponents to do )

EZ game...

Only 2 hands on villain. Typical 3bet three...I just want to analyze this spot thoroughly so I understand when to fold these on turn or river...and when its just all about getting it in...

On the river I sometimes like to check when the board runs out without draw completing. If I had a set here as villain I would raise flop because of the FD....Is this ever a fold on river? What if villain raised the turn?

In this case two gut shots (69 and J9 got there with the 7 on the turn)..

I have to play around the equilab and see how I fair vs the range I put him on for flop:

Equity Win Tie
BU 37.82% 37.82% 0.00% JJ-TT, 88, 22, ATs, AcKc, AcQc, AcJc, Ac9c, Ac7c, Ac6c, Ac5c, Ac4c, Ac3c, ATo
BB 62.18% 62.18% 0.00% QdQh


If I include AA and KK in his I go from 62% equity to 47%...which is poosible but unlikely in his range? ...no 4bet pre?

I hope I get more efficient with equilab soon!

My thought process and mental focus has already begun to slip/creep...

Lately I can't seem to get past a few thousand hands without becoming fixated on results. I start envisioning how awesome it would be to consistently make $15-20 USD/hour multi-tabling 25nl or 50nl...

My last two sessions I caught myself wanting to finish with a winning (green) session.

On the strategy front I need to put an end to over playing 1 pair hands (mostly overpairs).

BIG HAND = BIG POT...

An over pair is only one pair...it's definitely a hand I want to get 2 streets and sometimes 3 streets of value with.

My problem is as soon as my opponent starts betting I still call large bets on flop, large bets of turn and maybe even on the turn.

There is a huge difference building a pot myself by betting vs calling big bets because I have a "good" hand. If some one WANTS to play a big pot at the micro's it's because they have a big hand. Relatively speaking a an over-pair is NOT a big hand.

Keep it simple.

I thought this was a good fold. But I'm not sure if it's worth calling one more street?

When the Ace hits on the turn my thought was, if I was behind on the flop then I am STILL on behind on the turn, which is exactly the reason why I folded to the raise and cold call on the flop.

In this case the raiser was a uber fish (only 10 hands) but was like a 64/0.

Would you fold here?

Subbed for sure. I have PM'd you my Skype if you ever want to talk hands. Good luck with this!

It's 3way, readless it's a fold otf

BTN can easily be raising here worse knowing you barely have 8x in your range. I am definitely calling one street, you are too high up your range to be folding here. I doubt BB has 8x as he would 3b almost always.

This is how you give away a whole buy in.

I'm pretty my bet sizing is close to be too small AND I don't even need to mention how big of an error it is to call it off on the river.

This happened half way through a session that I did not mentally prepare for.

My thought process went something like this on the river, "He could be bluffing. He could have AQ, I call."

Stupid.

In the past I would not have posted or shared the above hand.

I turned into a "I can't find the fold btn" kind of player which is exactly the type of rec player or reg I want to play against.

It safe to say I probably make these big pot mistakes 4-6 times every 10k hands...It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how badly those few moments of C game thinking affect my win rate.

I know I can't be alone.

Here's to being imperfect and bringing to the surface a major leak in my game. Mental lapses in big pots. Gotta keep my cool and stay the course no matter the decisions are.

I enjoy this game. It's fun playing it and I like the challenges. This game is forcing me to look at why I can't do certain things (make clear decisions) in certain situations.

I've played around 7.5k hands this year so far.

I am sharing this from a sticky thread in best of that I decided to read before playing tonight.

Here's to optimal thought processes! Original thread here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69...hreads-430489/

Gross river but clear fold. BL mate, did you realise that fd's hit otr or...?

Oh I realized.... Doesn't matter what comes on the turn or river my head was not in the right frame of mind when I decided what to do.

Villain will get there approx.. 1/3 times on either the turn or river so this situation happens... In order to beat this game I'm going to have fold over pairs on turns and rivers....

Last two sessions I had a lot of fun and felt good. Hardly looked at graph at all.

I'm obviously happy I'm on the plus side of things but I'm more focused on other things:

a) I approximate 5-7 hands where I was playing for stacks and I SHOULD NOT have continued in the hand

b) 10k is a tiny sample, but I feel they its a good benchmark to check in.

c) Focus while playing is our most important skill/weapon. It's MORE important than working on improving A-game play...I would much rather STAY where I'm at with my A-Game then ever have my C-game creep into my.

d) I'm going to run filters for a wide variety of situations that I want to explore. I have never been one to actually used PT4 in this way. I only ever really used it for the HUD and obsessing over my graph.

I'm confident I can crush 10nl with focus. I can beat 25nl as a decent winner and I my A-game play would be a modest 2-3BB/winner at 50nl.

The above comment is only possible if I play my A-Game when I sit down and I recognize when I'm distracted or making sup-optimal decisions.

My main trigger are not bad beats but rather me own poor decision making. After I make ONE mistake in a large pot I often feel like the next big pot I get involved is entitled to be mine!

Some hands and filters will follow.

Okay.

It's amazing how easily habits can slip and I can fall back into more mindless ways. I haven't had much time for volume and because of that when I do sit down to play I just want to play.

It's not as fun warming up for a session.
It's not fun reviewing hands
It's not easy or fun to run range calculations to improve

But by god, winning and crushing is fun. So If I want to be the best player I want to be I have to put in some time away from the tables. I know this is what is needed to crush the micros in 2016.

Here's to having fun crushing and keeping the game simple.

I will review a strategy stickie and then play a session. Afterwards I will pick at least two hands worth reviewing.