My first session today went pretty badly. I was met with a lot of coolers, but also made a few big mistakes. The most notable in this hand:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?852138
I got fooled into thinking that the A actually helped my hand. I mean, doesn't it look pretty?
The opponent there was 40/20/2.5, a flop calling station and a min-raiser. His flop call should be scary enough, but since the original bettor made a minbet, my raise should mean pretty much the same thing as a cbet. And seeing this guy was folding only 25% of any cbets, I thought he might have a flush draw or even some funky K. I don't think he'll be laying down KT/KJ type hands.
This is also why the A is a bad card for my hand. This lets him get away cheaply with a Kx, but also puts me in a bit of trouble when he does have the 9.
Anyhoo, I made the masterly play of going with my hand and he flipped up K9. That's all cool though, because I think I just learned one more thing to pay attention to. These lessons cost more than Raymonds lesson, but I'm not going to make those mistakes again any time soon. So I think in the long run it's all good... Just remember to take away whatever you can from you losses to make you a stronger player!
The first session I ended up losing about $300 so not bad considering I had some coolers and also lost a lot of money in that hand above which I didn't have to. I think I learned a lot from the session though. I then started fixing some food, and decided to play 2 tables while waiting for my fish (the food, you nit...) to get ready in the oven. It started out well, but got met by some crazy play. Like this for example, what the heck is going on?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?852358
Anyways, directly after that I got it all-in pre with KK against AA. So got stacked and ended the session right there lol. Was down $600 for the day, but no biggy considering there were some coolers and stuff.
I played one more session which went pretty well. Actually I was up a bit, then I got in a deep stack situation where I had K high flush and the board paired and he pushed in. I folded, asked if he had the FH, and he said "flush, JT". I'm not sure about that... since I had KJs ;)
Anyways, didn't end up too much in the last session, but was good to have a winning session nontheless. The day ended up at a loss of $412.70 over 1364 hands. I think I played really well in my last session. Made some good reads and played a really solid game. After my first two sessions I made small adjustments to my game as well. I think I ended up in the "have to be aggressive" mindset where I was forcing myself to be aggressive and didn't always have a sound reasoning behind my aggression. I know I can read players very well pre-Ray, so the only thing I need to do is change the course of action I take when reacting to what my opponent does. Pre-Raymond I probably took too many passive routes even though I had a good feeling for what my opp could be holding. Now I'm basically playing the same game as I did pre-Ray, but instead I'm choosing an aggressive route when reacting to my opps. This probably doesn't make any sense at all for you guys... Actually when I read I try to make sense of it, but I can't... Ack basically I just changed the way I view this "new" style. Enough of this lol...
My stats were a bit off today. My PFR was too low, but I'm happy with my aggression. I went 22/16.5/4. I would have liked the PFR to be up to 18-19 at least. But oh well, small sample size.
Now I'm off to make a toast.. Old classic cheese and ham toast... Nice stuff!
Post-Ray Results:
Winnings: $554.56
Hands: 2509
Stats: 23/18/4
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
First day of steamrolling.... Myself ;)
Well I just finished a 2h session 4 tabling NL200.
It actually felt really good and I think I could adapt pretty well to the aggression.
I focused a lot on the tables and reacted well to my reads. Actually I think that has been a big part of my problem. I can read people well, but don't react in the correct way. I have always taken too passive routes in the course of the hand...
Well my sessionen didn't end all too well. Down $613 over 782 hands. I played 24/19/4 this session. My stats so far "post-Ray" are 24/20/4.
It's all fine though, I think I played pretty well apart from one big misread. One thing I noticed is that people start to do some very very questionable plays against you when playing this style, so I ended up in a lot of tricky spots. Oh well it was a fun session, and I look forward to the next one.
Post-Ray results:
Winnings: $142
Hands: 1145
It actually felt really good and I think I could adapt pretty well to the aggression.
I focused a lot on the tables and reacted well to my reads. Actually I think that has been a big part of my problem. I can read people well, but don't react in the correct way. I have always taken too passive routes in the course of the hand...
Well my sessionen didn't end all too well. Down $613 over 782 hands. I played 24/19/4 this session. My stats so far "post-Ray" are 24/20/4.
It's all fine though, I think I played pretty well apart from one big misread. One thing I noticed is that people start to do some very very questionable plays against you when playing this style, so I ended up in a lot of tricky spots. Oh well it was a fun session, and I look forward to the next one.
Post-Ray results:
Winnings: $142
Hands: 1145
Beginning of the "Raymond Way"
A'ight,
So yesterday was yet another land mark in my poker career. I decided that it was time to get a coach...
So why would I want a coach? It's not because I'm a losing player by any means. It's quite the contrary actually. I feel like I've been in the process of becoming a much more advanced player recently. I know my mental game is, and has been awesome. Both in the aspect of not tilting and being very disciplined in quitting in time etc. But also in the aspect of focusing hard on my table and being able to combine an analytic approach to the game while still relying on my subconscious mind to pick up patterns and help me make decisions by giving me the "feel". I'll get back to that later on...
First let me tell you about my experiences with my new coach, Raymond Wu.
What first attracted me to Ray was his devotion to the game. He really seems to take the game seriously and he seems to always want to find new things to improve in his game. He doesn't "grind", he plays poker. And this is a mindset which I think is absolutely necessary to acheive full success in poker. I think Rays approach to this game will shine through in his coaching. I think he will be able to teach how to learn.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
Ok so back to yesterday. At 20:00 CET we had our first lesson. I had some probs getting AIM Pro to work which we were supposed to use for a remote desktop feature. We ended up instead just doing an old fashioned sweating session where we spoke through Skype and I told him my hole cards while he was watching the tables from his client. It actually worked surprisingy well, but I hope that we can sort a remote desktop solution out by next thursday.
Ray seems like a really good guy and an easy lad to talk to. Also he's chineese, which is kind of funny...
I've been playing some NL400 lately, but we decided to start out at NL200 playing 2 tables. This felt good so I could get a sense for his style. I don't think he got much info on my style of play since I double checked just about every move with him for the first session... Silly perhaps, but I think I got a good feel of how he wants me to play this way.
The pre-flop play is very similiar to what I've been playing before. My PF stats have been about 23/17 but I'm now going to aim to make that somewhere in the ballpark of 22/20. The lowering in vpip basically will come from playing even tighter from the SB which I have had a tendency to complete with hands like Qxs and unsuited connecters lately. Drawing hands suck playing oop, simple as that...
The area where I think Ray really can help me improve is my post flop aggression. Ray plays a very aggressive style and his post flop aggression is pretty crazy. I have a post flop aggression of about 2.6 today, and I want that to get to the 4-5 range.
I think the session went really well. I got to feel out his style and I'm definately got a few things that I will take away from this session. I have two interesting HHs from our session yesterday which I will post in my next entry later tonight. We ended up +$471 after 360 hands, so the lesson payed for itself basically ;)
If I do ok this week we will be playing the NL400 games next session which feels good.
We will be having one 2 hour session each week on thursday. My plan is to evaluate each lesson and list goals for myself for the upcoming coaching session. These goals will touch gameplay issues as well as number of hands played, and pretty much anything I can think of.
This blog entry is becoming quite the long one so I'll wrap it up now by giving you my first set of goals and focus points for this week.
Results since Ray:
Winnings: $471
Hands: 360
So yesterday was yet another land mark in my poker career. I decided that it was time to get a coach...
So why would I want a coach? It's not because I'm a losing player by any means. It's quite the contrary actually. I feel like I've been in the process of becoming a much more advanced player recently. I know my mental game is, and has been awesome. Both in the aspect of not tilting and being very disciplined in quitting in time etc. But also in the aspect of focusing hard on my table and being able to combine an analytic approach to the game while still relying on my subconscious mind to pick up patterns and help me make decisions by giving me the "feel". I'll get back to that later on...
First let me tell you about my experiences with my new coach, Raymond Wu.
What first attracted me to Ray was his devotion to the game. He really seems to take the game seriously and he seems to always want to find new things to improve in his game. He doesn't "grind", he plays poker. And this is a mindset which I think is absolutely necessary to acheive full success in poker. I think Rays approach to this game will shine through in his coaching. I think he will be able to teach how to learn.
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
Ok so back to yesterday. At 20:00 CET we had our first lesson. I had some probs getting AIM Pro to work which we were supposed to use for a remote desktop feature. We ended up instead just doing an old fashioned sweating session where we spoke through Skype and I told him my hole cards while he was watching the tables from his client. It actually worked surprisingy well, but I hope that we can sort a remote desktop solution out by next thursday.
Ray seems like a really good guy and an easy lad to talk to. Also he's chineese, which is kind of funny...
I've been playing some NL400 lately, but we decided to start out at NL200 playing 2 tables. This felt good so I could get a sense for his style. I don't think he got much info on my style of play since I double checked just about every move with him for the first session... Silly perhaps, but I think I got a good feel of how he wants me to play this way.
The pre-flop play is very similiar to what I've been playing before. My PF stats have been about 23/17 but I'm now going to aim to make that somewhere in the ballpark of 22/20. The lowering in vpip basically will come from playing even tighter from the SB which I have had a tendency to complete with hands like Qxs and unsuited connecters lately. Drawing hands suck playing oop, simple as that...
The area where I think Ray really can help me improve is my post flop aggression. Ray plays a very aggressive style and his post flop aggression is pretty crazy. I have a post flop aggression of about 2.6 today, and I want that to get to the 4-5 range.
I think the session went really well. I got to feel out his style and I'm definately got a few things that I will take away from this session. I have two interesting HHs from our session yesterday which I will post in my next entry later tonight. We ended up +$471 after 360 hands, so the lesson payed for itself basically ;)
If I do ok this week we will be playing the NL400 games next session which feels good.
We will be having one 2 hour session each week on thursday. My plan is to evaluate each lesson and list goals for myself for the upcoming coaching session. These goals will touch gameplay issues as well as number of hands played, and pretty much anything I can think of.
This blog entry is becoming quite the long one so I'll wrap it up now by giving you my first set of goals and focus points for this week.
- Play 10.000 hands of NL200
- Focus on aggression in every session! Play my draws more aggressively and focus on forcing tough decisions on my opponents at all times. My aggression when I meet Ray next time will be at least 3.6
- Watch at least 3 Cardrunners videos and read through the medium/high stake forums daily. I also need to start posting HHs for crying out loud...
Results since Ray:
Winnings: $471
Hands: 360
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