took a day off

or a night off last night, and although i didn’t make huge strides in life last night with the new found time, i made some.

let’s get right to the cards . . . .

i’d been cluttering up my desk with notes over the last week plus. truth is, i haven’t acted on many of them. but one struck me, it said “i need to watch more” and that probably came out of running into a series of situations where i wasn’t quite comfortable with any decision. so, i dialed up some vids and watched all but the last of the Scheaffem Put Me In Coach series. love it.

i’ve been running -EV this month (5.5BI over 8k hands, so it feels like a LOT).

last night i had a good session, both mentally and i think playing-wise. so, in order for me to remember what it felt like, i’m posting my notes from it!

Eyes Are On You – which they really weren’t. but what if they were? what if you say, went to CR or DC and made a post that you were playing at 11pm that night and that anyone who wanted to sweat you could flag you down via Messenger. That’s like flipping the autoPilot toggle switch to the off position. Let’s fly this baby on manual!

It’s Not a Drag Race – and this always makes me remember the btimm “i think i lost some value in that hand” cmments. typically, i think i have this slowly sinking red line and then i finally get paid off in a showdown pot and there goes the blue line carries the green line up with it. i don’t tend to win money in the scraps that finish in little/medium pots. i tend to lose money there. umm, the Ryan Howard approach to poker i suppose.

of course then when i miss on one of those showdowns some switch flips inside me thinking that now i need to catch up. it may not be the switch that directly controls my decision making, but it’s there, affecting it somehow. maybe there’s a bank of them, and once so many get flipped, then i spazz out.

last night, i was micromanaging so much that none of the came into play. not even a tingle. it was a decision at hand, and that was it. and those decisions included squeezing value out of spots, because it was proper – not because i need to catch up to some chip stack level that i imagine i should be at. THAT i need to remember and begin to have as a solid way of life.

over the 500 hands (hey, it took two hours and felt like a lot, ok) i played no hand was bigger than 45bb. no getting in stacks the entire night. so, yeah, those value spots are a big deal.

i ended up with a redLine that was down a total of $1.15. i think i know how, but it certainly wasn’t a point of focus.

Turned up the cBetting – i had gotten into a habit of cbetting great boards, or bad boards when i actuallyhave something. last night, i cBet much more. 73% as opposed to 48%. but i didn’t “insta” anything. i sat and thought things out a moment. what do i do if he calls? what do i do if he raises? do i fire again? what do i have, what do they have, how should this play out? ok, i bet.

turns out they folded a lot last night, but i had more of an idea than “i should bet here, and they should fold here”.

Got on a Level – with one Villan to my left. a couple of times over the course fo the night someone shows their cards and i think out loud “what did they think i had?” and the obvious answer is that they didn’t.

that doesn’t apply to everyone at the tables. so, for the first time in maybe forever i took a moment to give individual players credit for their perspectives. “i’ll get a call out of him because he wants to see what i have” or just taking things into consideration and gauging their actions using more data.

some guys watch videos, some guys watch their cards. i should know which ones are which.

Got to Know My Neighbors – which were the guys to my right and left. who lets me steal, who doesn’t. who limp/calls and then calls one cBet 80% of the time. who raises a cBet on every Kxx/Qxx board. etc.

Wait Until It Gets Them – tilt, that is. i was taking down enough small pots that i was hoping someone would finally get pissed off and spazz out. didn’t happen. BUT – it was fun sitting there thinking that if i just sit back and wait, someone, for some reason might light up and go off. even if i wasn’t in the hand. and then, i could take advantage of it. tilt was the demon that went around bopping others on the head, instead of being something that i personally had to contend with.

Hug the Orphans – while i remember pokey talking about picking up orphaned pots, i never was really on the lookout for them. last night i put some effort into recognizing them. without pushing the bet button because it’s exciting, i did put some effort into identifying why everyone would check around a flop. and then i’d fire out at ones that i thought no one wanted to tussle over.

if i’m sitting there waiting for the big pots, i’m overlooking all of that. i’d have an opinion like “i missed that hand, it’s not worth getting into. i’ll wait until i land a hand to work with”.

last night there were no hands to work with. so it could have easily been a flat line if it weren’t for paying attention to the details.

now the disclaimer – i ran right in line with my EV graph. so it felt like christmas not getting outdrawn on anything.

So – i’ve got one more vid in the series to catch, and then i have to keep at it. last night was a different kind of experience, and it was a very nice one

Hockey – i looked up one of templar’s trophies at the bar. he finished a season with a 1.4GAA. that, is nuts. especially in a setting where games were typically 11-4. you just can’t have break downs, ever. that being said, it reminds me of the story of Nate Nash – Goalie Without a Mask.

it was late in the season and we were playing a scrub team. for whatever reason templar doesn’t show up. i think it was the beginning of the end for him looking back at it. so, we find a guy to go in net – but we’re scraping for equipment. we put together a set of leg pads, a baseball glove, a spare hockey glove for a waffleboard. i don’t even know if we had a goalie stick or not, but i do know that we DID NOT have a mask.

Nate was the kind of guy who rode dirt bikes. he’s a half crazy bazzard, but he wasn’t too keen on playing without a mask. so, we decided that it’d be safe if we just didn’t let the other team shoot. don’t get down on the ground, and you won’t take a stick to the head. and if they don’t shoot, you won’t catch a shot to the face. simple enough.

he bought it!

you want to see one tired bunch of guys at the end of a game. we hustled every second of every shift, and i think there were a total of 6 shots in that hour. there’s absolutely no way to justify anything less than 100% effort when someone puts that kind of trust in you. it also proves a point – you know how you get a 1.4 GAA?

every one gets back every single time – always – with no excuses. that’s how.

ok – i’m off to face the day!

September 25, 2009 Posted in: Uncategorized