GES, Day 3

Got in some more Full Tilt time and did some reading also.  Played two 9 person SNGs, a fifth and a win.  The win was actually well-earned; 3-handed play took quite some time and I was proud of the way I focused and picked my spots.  Once again, it comes down to having the guts to translate that same type of play to the real felt.

Playing: 1.25 hours
Reading: remainder of July issue of Bluff
Watching: none

Race to 10k: 73.5 online, 202.75 total

The reading was educational. one article in particular stood out as one I am going to refer back to and take some notes.  It covered 5 lessons to use if you want to get better; specifically, five different types of play to practice which, when put together, will cover most scenarios you will come across in both tournament and cash games.

Something for the future: I want to make a short list of strengths and weaknesses in my game, to help me figure out what to focus on when I play.

GES, Day 2

Played a little and read a little yesterday.  This amount of work is what I hope becomes the minimum, or close to it.  I had planned on reading more but was falling asleep and found myself skimming over passages.  Gotta know when to fold 'em.

Playing: 30 minutes, online (Full Tilt)
Reading: half of the July issue of "Bluff"
Watching: none

10k Update: 72.25 online, 201.5 total

One thing I was thinking about yesterday was just how little actual experience I really have.  Take away the SFPT, and I have played in a total of 2 tournaments, and 10 hours of cash game play.  That amounts to exactly squat in the grand scheme of things, and thus gives me a lot of hope.  I feel as though I have made a ton of improvement already, and getting additional "real" experience can only help  - both in terms of putting it into practice, and learning new things.  It's just a matter of committing to getting to the casino to play.

Day One of The Education

Off to a decent start - I spotted some WSOP coverage on ESPN and at the same time played a bit on the Kindle.

Playing: 30 minutes, WSOP app
Reading: none
Watching: 2 hours 2102 ME coverage on ESPN

While watching, I came up with a couple items I need to work on, and which I am going to work on during the next SFPT tournament (which I consider to be a step closer to reality than playing online for fake money). 

10k update: 71.75 online play-money hours, 201 total hours

I have decided that when I am permitted to play online for real money, this will constitue a separate column in the 10k spreadsheet.  It may be that once that day comes (probably years from now), I stop playing for play money altogether, but who knows.

An aside: I do have some hope that with NJ set to go live with real-money poker in the fall of this year, NY might not be too far behind.  One of the state reps (King) is known to be a proponent of online poker, and there is also (I'm hoping) a bit of the big brother/little brother dynamic that won't allow Little Brother to have something Big Brother doesn't have.  Additionally, since the governor has long been in favor of brick and mortar casinos (making him clearly NOT anti-gambling), there is chance he may be swayed in favor of online gaming by the revenue it could bring.

Grinding, Education Style

If I'm going to take this seriously, I think I need to treat it more like a school course.  That means assignments, homework, and tests.  To that end, I have now resolved to do something poker-related every day.  This could be playing, reading, watching TV or videos - anything where I can at the least learn by observation.

In order to keep track of my progress, I am going to use this blog.  I will make an entry if not every day, then every couple of days, cataloging what I did, how long I did it for, and anything I learned in the process.  From there, I hope to formulate plans that will further this education; things like specific strategies to try out,  ways to test myself, etc.

I've found that I often come up with ideas or come to realize general poker strategy when I'm not really trying to do so.  I've had such mini-epiphanies while watching WSOP or HPT coverage, or reading an article that has nothing to do with strategy.  I'm banking on that continuing.  I also need to move into some more specific strategy sessions.  The books haven't done it for me so far (though I have yet to read the applicable parts of Super/System), so I might have to pony up for some training software.

I will also use this space to track my "Race to 10k" progress (update every time I play in any form), as well as my wins and losses when I play live.  I'll also note how far along I've come in my Bracelet Hunting goal.

Bracelet Hunting

I like having tangible goals - things I can work toward, achieve, and say, "okay, I did that.  What's next?"  So far, the main goal in my poker journey has been to simply become a better player.  That's important, but it's also not tangible in a simplistic sense, and it's also something with no end date.  In poker as in life, the goal should be to improve until the day you die.

However, I now DO have a tangible goal.  I want to, and will, play in a WSOP bracelet event.

"Bracelet Hunting" is a term used by some pros, including Jason Mercier, as a hash tag on their tweets about the WSOP, and is also the title of a YouTube series by Jason Somerville, chronicling his experiences at this year's WSOP.  It also happens to be a quick and easy way to describe my goal.  I want to save up enough money to play in one of the lower buy-ins.

I understand that it may take some time to save up enough money, and that's fine.  But as soon as it's close, the planning will begin, and I'll make it happen.  I hope that a number of my friends can get there for the experience, because God forbid should I go on a heater I would love to celebrate with everyone.

To be clear: I have no dilusions about being able to win.  I highly doubt I would even cash.  But I would be in the game, and you can't win if you don't play.  And even if I don't cash, I would have the experience.

Every day that goes by, it becomes more important to me to be in the game.  And by "game", I don't mean just playing poker, I mean life in general.  Get out there, have experiences, make memories.  It just happens that playing in a WSOP event is one of the things I have wanted to do for some time.  By shooting for this goal, I am proving that I am done talking.  Time to make it happen.

Here are two pics from the WSOP Facebook page that give a pretty great impression of what it would be like if I actually, by a string of luck and miracles, won a bracelet.  The first is Mark Radoja after winning the $10k heads-up tournament; the second is Jonathan Taylor after winning the $1,500 NLHE:

Plugging Away

I miss playing in the casino, but I'm making due with what I have.

Had two home games recently, a cash session and a tournament.  I barely count the cash session as poker thanks to the prolific number of multiple-wild and just plain luck games (and as such, the time spent playing these games is not recorded in my "Race to 10K" spreadsheet). 

The tournament went pretty well; I finished second of eight entrants and hold a solid second place in the season standings.  Heads-up could have gone better but thanks to...let's call it, outside influences...I played pretty loosely and paid the price.  Fate rewarded me for sending everyone home with $11 on the lotto tickets.

I've been playing quite a bit of play money Full Tilt lately as well.  Last week I tried out the Matrix format, and after a rough start, have been absolutely destroying it: two days ago, three firsts and a second on the four tables; and yesterday, two firsts, a second, and an 8th.  I won the overall matrix both of those times.

Why is that?  I thought about it for a while, and I have concluded that the fast-paced format makes me (and others I'm sure) focus more on the probability and actual cards; what is instead of what might be.  In other words, trusting the math - something I am still working on in any poker format, especially with starting cards. 

One thing I AM learning more about when it comes to starting cards is how to adjust what I consider an acceptable hand when playing short-handed.  I have written before about how "any face card is good heads-up", but there is a variant of that lesson to be had when playing short-handed as well.  Mainly, don't be so down on things like A/rag suited and the like.

I really vacillate, sometimes multiple times a day, on whether I should be spending so much time with play money.  I like the challenge, and I like how I play there.  I also like the practice I get in seeing hands quickly - by that I mean, I have but a few seconds after people flip their cards to see whether they have something or are on a draw, and what that draw is.

The key to moving my success to the actual felt is going to be less fear, as I've said before.  I play with no fear on the virtual felt; I just have to translate that to real life.

I have been making progress on an actual plan for a bankroll, with any luck I can get that started in the next couple of months and maintain it for the duration.  

Live from the TS Poker Room

Got to play quite a bit at Turning Stone last week, in both tournament and cash settings.  Some notes:

Tournament
The tournament was $40 plus a $10 bounty; add in the dealer tip but subtract the coupon I had and the seat cost $32 - not bad at all.  It was also a re-buy tournament, which I severely dislike, but hoped to use to my advantage if people were overly aggressive during the re-buy period.

I got off to a decent start, but took a huge hit when I raised with pocket queens, got two callers, the second re-raised me after a 9/2/J flop, and I called and he had pocket deuces.  I was on tilt for a while after that; the same "physically angry" feeling returning that I used to experience all the time but hadn't in quite a while.  What made me mad was that I put him on a bigger hand (something like pocket jacks or J/9 suited) post-flop, but called his re-raise anyway.  Stupid.

Talking it through later with Tina, I realized I should have gone with a bigger pre-flop raise.  I had forgotten two things: a small pot is better than no pot, and it isn't always wise to attempt to trap. 

The remainder of my chips got in the pot in a much better situation, holding A/4 clubs and the flop giving me the nut flush draw.  I got two callers but couldn't hit, and that was it for me, still steaming.

By this time, the re-buy period had (barely) expired, so I finished 38 out of 41 players.  Still, factor in those that were KO'd and bought back in, and there were at least ten more who were "out" before me.  Here I sit trying to rationalize.

One of the ones who finished ahead of me was Tina, who ended up 15th - without, it should be noted, the benefit of a single re-buy.

Cash
After a quick trip to the bathroom, I headed right back to the poker room and saw an available seat at 1/2 NL.  In hindsight, I probably should have taken a few more minutes to calm down, but I didn't know how long there would be a seat available.  So, I jumped right in, and quickly realized I was at a table with eight regulars. Fun.

All joking aside, it WAS fun.  The people were hilarious, led by the Asian guy to me immediate right, Jeff. 

Action didn't take long to find me - what hits me first hand after I get my chips?  Bullets.  Of course.  I called a $12 pre-flop raise, but folded post-flop to a $24 bet (not wanting to piss away a third of my $150 starting stack on the first hand when my aces got cracked, as they always do).  It was a smart move as it turned out, because both of the people still in the hand would have had me beat.

Otherwise, I didn't have many good hands, lots of two off-suit face cards and the like.  I found myself having an aversion to non-paired hands that didn't contain aces, so a lot of times my K/Q or K/J would be folded post-flop if I didn't hit.  Not helping was my huge headache; not sure where it came from but it made it hard to focus, despite numerous conscious attempts to do so.

In the end, I had played for six and a half hours at the table, and finished down $31.  It was my first losing cash session, something which was in my thoughts near the end, and really shouldn't have been.  Years of playing not to be first out in the SFPT have gotten to me, and switching gears between cash and tournament play is something I'm going to need to work on.

Lessons
To sum it up in one word: RAISE.  Do it more often, and be aggressive about it.  There's no reason min-raises should be my only raise.  I have to start controlling the action more often.  I can't always have the nuts.  Speaking of nuts, I simply need to grow a pair.

There are a lot of reasons why I play scared, and I am finally beginning to understand what they are.  Money is actually only a small part of it: I come to the casino fully expecting to lose every cent I bring.  I just want it to last as long as possible, which is a terrible way to play poker.  I also found myself thinking about playing Let it Ride and saving enough money to do so, another unwanted distraction.  Finally, the lack of regular trips to the casino - I don't know when I am going to be back, which brings me back to wanting the money to last as long as possible.

Solutions?  Bring a separate bankroll for poker (something I really should have anyway) and plan trips on a regular basis.  Both are relatively easy, and things I just figured out while typing this recap.  Viva writing. 

Now, if NYS would just get it's collective crap together so Fingerlakes could have a poker room...