What a terrible few weeks it has been. Nothing is going right and I have only myself to blame. I'm running bad and playing even worse. A deadly combination. I wanted to write something up to implement some measures as damage control.
Until I reach my BR peak of £1250 again, I will; - No higher than 10nl, serious leaks have to be resolved before moving up again - No regging the Main every session, play the two satellites instead if need be - No £11 or £22 tournaments apart from the Megastack
If anything, this is for my own mental sanity rather than BRM, as it's been so mentally draining this downturn I can't continue letting myself playing the higher stuff until things get better.
Cash games have been a mystery recently. Everyday I start a session thinking surely how I ran yesterday can't continue, but oh boy has it. It has felt like every AA/KK I have had in the last week has let me down, the most painful of which a 450bb pot AA vs AK pre. And once a few of these have struck my level of play just crashes, becoming too loose with no discipline and calling without the right odds/calling river bets that are never ever bluffs etc. Hopefully after this little entry my attitude will change. I've gone through the biggest pots lost in the last 3 weeks and my god some of them are embarrassing. I wish I could go back in time and slap some sense into me. But all I can do is pray that I learn from these mistakes and move forward.
It feels particularly cruel when in the last 3 weeks I've done more poker studying that I think I have done in years, although to be quite frank, a lot of it isn't even relevant for the games that I play.
Graphs:
Finally made it RB adjusted, but it only makes me more depressed. Since 3 weeks ago, cash results have gone from £350 up to now -£40 down. WTF has happened.
Have also ploughed through the tournament database and found that I've spent £109.80 on the all-in satellites, having only won 1 £33 seat. This seems like a terrible investment of money so I'm also banning myself from these (apart from the new SPT ones ). I have now only just started becoming break-even at all satellites combined now, after bubbling the major one yesterday for £66. Satellites historically have been a pretty good source of my bankroll in the past so long may that continue.
Weekly Goals: [x] Construct preflop ranges for cash games and learn them BY HEART [ ] Play x3 1 hour sessions 2 tabling cash tables, one of them the most reg infested tabled I can find, being constantly mindful of opening ranges, defences and bet sizing [ ] Review 20 cash hands from those sessions outlining my own and villain ranges at every street
Did a fair bit of range work and played 2 sessions 2 tabling but didn't go through the hand histories. Will continue to work on this this week. I want to focus on cash atm seeing as it's been my biggest loss it needs the most work.
Initial BR: £99.90
Current BR: £910.67
No. of Tournaments: 426
Tournament Profit:£685.13
Cash Profit:-£41.91
Total RB: £167.55
No hands to post as they all make me too sad. GL at the tables.
This makes the last few weeks a little bit sweeter
Really huge result, was contemplating YOLO shot taking it anyway and was aware I was about to waste £200+ on satellites in the coming weeks and potentially still not get a seat but here we are. After stone bubbling seats to the summit and sunday major it feels so nice to satellite into one of the biggest ones around. It feels especially sweet having sattied all the way from a £2.3 micro
Super excited about this one, going to study my **** off in preparation for it
nice, I like your BRM it's probs about right for field sizes, if you get any suprising icmizer results can you post the hands in here for us to look at?
I've decided to make a couple changes of how I approach this blog now. For one, I am going to do proper updates on the 1st and 16th of every month. This is to try and be a little bit less results oriented and instead more decision oriented. Secondly, I am scrapping playing cash for the time being. The last few weeks every cash session has just sent me into life tilt and my running bad (or just playing bad) never seems to end so I think it's sensible to scrap it for now, or at least until after SPT online. It's a shame because generally I really do enjoy cash games and there can be quite a few really interesting spots compared to MTTs and it is terribly fun battling with regs better than me. But, with SPT upcoming I want to focus all my studying on tournaments so seems sensible enough to focus on the one variant for now.
nice, I like your BRM it's probs about right for field sizes, if you get any suprising icmizer results can you post the hands in here for us to look at?
Yes I absolutely will do this. Provided I get to the later stages in an MTT soon so I have some spots to analyse...
I'm currently reading Modern Poker Theory by Michael Acevedo and came across a pretty interesting part when summarising attributes of a losing player, i've highlighted a few that are depressingly relevant to myself...
" -Blames variance for bad results -Is often on tilt -Plays too many tables and autopilots, generally playing their B or C game -Doesn't have good sleeping habits -Doesn't take care of their physical health "
Thankfully there are a few that I don't think apply to me; I don't think I have that much of an ego, I think i take criticism pretty well and I would say I have a pretty good work ethic.
So from this I am going to try and work on these factors. First of all, I already mentioned I would play 6 tables max from the beginning of this blog, but I think i've ignored this 90% of the times i've played. This will not only give me more time to think about decisions, but will give me time to highlight the hand ID's of spots I want to analyse the next day. It will also allow to me to do longer sessions. I heard recently on an Elliot Roe podcast that poker fatigue happens after no. of decisions, not after a length of time. I often find after playing 2-3 hours 8-12 tabling I'm exhausted, so with 6 tables hopefully I'll be able to play longer and play the later tournaments from 9/10pm onwards as well.
I've also heard that having a pre and post session 'warm-up / cool-down' is super important. So before each session I'm going to look at biggest pots lost for 20 minutes and then do a 10 minute meditation and after each session I'm going to make a list of what hands I want to look at the next day.
Lastly, I'm going to just generally try and live a healthier life. Eating better, more exercise, meditating daily and trying to get 7/8 hours sleep every night.
My tournament session yesterday, despite ending with a £50 loss, was the first session I didn't tilt in a long time so hopefully that will continue from now on.
Comments
Would normally only post after an update, but didn't want to make you wait.. But, you are right, I definitely am repping a 5
Until I reach my BR peak of £1250 again, I will;
- No higher than 10nl, serious leaks have to be resolved before moving up again
- No regging the Main every session, play the two satellites instead if need be
- No £11 or £22 tournaments apart from the Megastack
If anything, this is for my own mental sanity rather than BRM, as it's been so mentally draining this downturn I can't continue letting myself playing the higher stuff until things get better.
Cash games have been a mystery recently. Everyday I start a session thinking surely how I ran yesterday can't continue, but oh boy has it. It has felt like every AA/KK I have had in the last week has let me down, the most painful of which a 450bb pot AA vs AK pre. And once a few of these have struck my level of play just crashes, becoming too loose with no discipline and calling without the right odds/calling river bets that are never ever bluffs etc. Hopefully after this little entry my attitude will change. I've gone through the biggest pots lost in the last 3 weeks and my god some of them are embarrassing. I wish I could go back in time and slap some sense into me. But all I can do is pray that I learn from these mistakes and move forward.
It feels particularly cruel when in the last 3 weeks I've done more poker studying that I think I have done in years, although to be quite frank, a lot of it isn't even relevant for the games that I play.
Graphs:
Finally made it RB adjusted, but it only makes me more depressed. Since 3 weeks ago, cash results have gone from £350 up to now -£40 down. WTF has happened.
Have also ploughed through the tournament database and found that I've spent £109.80 on the all-in satellites, having only won 1 £33 seat. This seems like a terrible investment of money so I'm also banning myself from these (apart from the new SPT ones
Weekly Goals:
[x] Construct preflop ranges for cash games and learn them BY HEART
[ ] Play x3 1 hour sessions 2 tabling cash tables, one of them the most reg infested tabled I can find, being constantly mindful of opening ranges, defences and bet sizing
[ ] Review 20 cash hands from those sessions outlining my own and villain ranges at every street
Did a fair bit of range work and played 2 sessions 2 tabling but didn't go through the hand histories. Will continue to work on this this week. I want to focus on cash atm seeing as it's been my biggest loss it needs the most work.
Initial BR: £99.90
Current BR: £910.67
No. of Tournaments: 426
Tournament Profit:£685.13
Cash Profit:-£41.91
Total RB: £167.55
No hands to post as they all make me too sad. GL at the tables.
Loose
Really huge result, was contemplating YOLO shot taking it anyway and was aware I was about to waste £200+ on satellites in the coming weeks and potentially still not get a seat but here we are. After stone bubbling seats to the summit and sunday major it feels so nice to satellite into one of the biggest ones around. It feels especially sweet having sattied all the way from a £2.3 micro
Super excited about this one, going to study my **** off in preparation for it
Vamoooo
I've decided to make a couple changes of how I approach this blog now. For one, I am going to do proper updates on the 1st and 16th of every month. This is to try and be a little bit less results oriented and instead more decision oriented. Secondly, I am scrapping playing cash for the time being. The last few weeks every cash session has just sent me into life tilt and my running bad (or just playing bad) never seems to end so I think it's sensible to scrap it for now, or at least until after SPT online. It's a shame because generally I really do enjoy cash games and there can be quite a few really interesting spots compared to MTTs and it is terribly fun battling with regs better than me. But, with SPT upcoming I want to focus all my studying on tournaments so seems sensible enough to focus on the one variant for now. Yes I absolutely will do this. Provided I get to the later stages in an MTT soon so I have some spots to analyse...
I'm currently reading Modern Poker Theory by Michael Acevedo and came across a pretty interesting part when summarising attributes of a losing player, i've highlighted a few that are depressingly relevant to myself...
"
-Blames variance for bad results
-Is often on tilt
-Plays too many tables and autopilots, generally playing their B or C game
-Doesn't have good sleeping habits
-Doesn't take care of their physical health
"
Thankfully there are a few that I don't think apply to me; I don't think I have that much of an ego, I think i take criticism pretty well and I would say I have a pretty good work ethic.
So from this I am going to try and work on these factors. First of all, I already mentioned I would play 6 tables max from the beginning of this blog, but I think i've ignored this 90% of the times i've played. This will not only give me more time to think about decisions, but will give me time to highlight the hand ID's of spots I want to analyse the next day. It will also allow to me to do longer sessions. I heard recently on an Elliot Roe podcast that poker fatigue happens after no. of decisions, not after a length of time. I often find after playing 2-3 hours 8-12 tabling I'm exhausted, so with 6 tables hopefully I'll be able to play longer and play the later tournaments from 9/10pm onwards as well.
I've also heard that having a pre and post session 'warm-up / cool-down' is super important. So before each session I'm going to look at biggest pots lost for 20 minutes and then do a 10 minute meditation and after each session I'm going to make a list of what hands I want to look at the next day.
Lastly, I'm going to just generally try and live a healthier life. Eating better, more exercise, meditating daily and trying to get 7/8 hours sleep every night.
My tournament session yesterday, despite ending with a £50 loss, was the first session I didn't tilt in a long time so hopefully that will continue from now on.
Good luck at the tables
Loose