Amateur Poker Association & Tour
Poker Forum => General Discussion => Topic started by: VBlue on October 31, 2012, 09:00:41 AM
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In preparation for the coming month and for my next blog epsiode, I want to achieve a few immediate changes to my game.
The Process Model is explained by Jared Tendler, in The Mental Game of Poker, as a cyclical approach to playing poker (or any game for that matter). It takes in Preparation--Performance--Results--Evaluation--Analysis. I want to concern myself with the three stages which involve work away from the tables.
My questions to you all:
Preparation - How do you prepare? What do you do before you start a session playing poker? Physical preparation and/or mental preparation? Inspirational - listening to a piece of music/reviewing goals? Setting session goals? Reviewing hands?
Evaluation - How do you evaluate your session performance? When do you do this (straight afterwards is Jared"s recommendation)? What elements of your play do you evaluate (I am working on introducing a scoring system evaluating Concentration, Focus, Session Goals).
Analysis - How much time do you spend in between sessions? What do you analyise? How does it help? What tools/forums/etc do you use?
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There is a thread above this post which is called "It"s Been Very Quiet On the Forum This Week".
This post has had over 70 views, but not a single contribution from the APAT community.
I strongly believe that Jared Tendler is one of, if not the, leading experts in Mental Game strategy.
The Process Model is a big part of a winning approach to playing poker and improving your game.
I know there are some very good players and some successful players in this community.
Are we not able to get some discussion going on this?
I like biscuits as much, if not more, than the next man/woman (Chocolate Hob Nobs, if you want my opinion), but this is a poker forum. I know that I have not been a huge part of this community in the past, but I have tried to get involved on the forums over the years.
Does anyone have anything to say on this?
Thanks all.
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Preparation wise, I do very little. Although before the second day of the Europeans 2009, we utilised the spa in our hotel and whilst floating around like a whale I was visualising the win. Wong mention how that turned out as I will be accused of bragging!!
Evaluation wise, mine usually consists of calling myself a donkey most of the time!! But I look at how my h fun I have had playing poker, which I get from playing a slightly cavalier style of poker and think to myself that I have enjoyed it more than I would just sitting and folding. At some point this will change I am sure, but until then so be it :)
Analysis we usually do as a group of mates (we are largely live players) and its really helpful, as in our group of players we have ALOT of live tourny experience and we all have differing styles. It"s good to listen to the likes of david3103 or phil_tc or Brian "erimus" Harland as they are all damned good players in their own right
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I am assuming we are taking about online poker here. My preparation for live games is generally terrible to say the least, I am not really a live player though.
Preparation - Not anything major, just make sure your mind set is right. The problem with online poker especially cash games is they do not stop. You can play anytime. It is not usually right to play too soon after getting up or straight after getting home from work. Don"t play when too tried or when you are just not in the right frame of mind. This does not need to be anything major either, but if something has pissed you off in work and is likely to play on your mind and interfere with your focus don"t play. If it an early morning session I make sure I have at least had a shower and a tea/coffee first and have been up for at least 90 minutes.
During the session is also important. One of the most important skills is quitting. If the game is bad or you start to get unlucky and it is annoying you then take a break. Go for a walk or watch something on TV whichever you prefer at the time. Music is good as well sometimes. Don"t play for too long, this is my biggest leak and it can be expensive as you stop playing your best game and leaks creep in. I for example start calling when I should be 3-betting and chasing draws when I should be getting it in/folding.
Evaluation/Analysis - I don"t think it needs to be done straight afterwards. You will have used Poker Tracker or Holdem Manager during the session so should have all the hands there to review. I will talk about cash games as there are better people who can tell you about tournaments. I tend to look at the decent wins and losses first. With the losses could I have done anything better to prevent it, usually you will know. Look at filters on hands that went to the flop, is there a spot where you could have picked up a pot when you didn"t, did you try in a bad spot. The more you look at these the more familiar you become with them and the better you get at making decisions at the table. Look at the flop and evaluate the way you have played it. Look to see if there are spots where you should have picked up a pot on the river, are there good spots to bluff raise the river that you missed. If you find something on a player that could be useful make a note in your poker client.
Other tools you can use are Pokerstove (I use Odds Oracle myself, but Pokerstove is free). Forums are great resources, the Strategy section of this one is good but personally if I really don"t know what I should have done in a spot it gets posted here http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?board=24.0, the responses are honest and really very good, these are some of the best players in the country. If you need help using the tools (mainly Odds Oracle as it can be quite hard then there are a fair few people on this board who can help you - PM me if you like)
Post the hands on your blog convert them first and people will comment.Oh one thing even if you disagree with feedback given, and sometimes you will, don"t get defensive about it people are always trying to help.
People to talk too about hands helps as well. If I am really stuck on a run or something I tend to ask advice from people I know are good. There are some people on here who I won"t mention as they may not want to be mentioned.
Also take part on the discussion on the PHA board (link I posted above). It is sometimes a bit intimidating and I don"t always understand what they mean but I just tend to ask them and they then explain. It occasionally goes over my head but I have learnt a lot by posting in there and still do. The strategy section on here allows that as well and is a more comfortable environment for your rec player. However there are not many posts. If you do post there PLEASE make your replies more than a sentence. A post like
"I"m folding here"
is not use to anybody least of all you (it is just basically spam imo). You should be able to explain why you think a certain line is best and when you type up a post sometimes you will find that what you think is actually wrong and sometimes people will make points that make you rethink it. It also enables you to make contacts for discussing your game with when you want some help.
To do all this properly is hard work and you have to enjoy doing it really to get the most out of it. I would have thought there are some people on APAT who can add a bit to this so hopefully we will see some more responses soon.
Maybe PM Noble1 if he doesn"t mind be recommending him, this sounds like the kind of thing he is great at.
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Are we not able to get some discussion going on this?
Its very easy to delude yourself in poker, the luck and variance in poker can mean you might make a terrible play on the river for example bluffing in a spot where your opponent needed to fold 35% but he was actually only folding 10%, he happens to have the very bottom of his range and folds.. I"M A GENIUS we think to ourselves, oh no your not, ""you suck you silly tosser""
and so the cycle goes on, this is the sort of stuff that keeps a lot of players from improving imho...
Now i might be old school in my views on mental clap trap, i think its a load of bollo#ks but heyho if you can make a living peddling this magical cure in the guise of psychology then fine..
Preparation - How do you prepare?
if i feel like playing then i play...
Evaluation - How do you evaluate your session performance?
hmmm i constantly think about it during the game and how all my plays knit together both past and future..
from a cash game point of view looking at just one session in isolation is not the best way rather combing through 1000"s of hands and thinking long term is my goal...
Analysis - How much time do you spend in between sessions?
when i first stated poker then the answer is every waking moment just about... :)
What do you analyise?
everything, patterns of play, i try to spot how plays my opponents make in certain situations or certain board textures how this will effect there ranges in other spots, i try to think what they were thinking so i can tune into them if that makes sense? etc etc blah blah
How does it help?
improves my logic and how i view others strategy/level of thinking and understanding of what they are doing so i can make what i hope is the correct adjustment... for example in the games i play metagame implications have an impact so my normal style of play requires me to be able to play any pre or post style comfortably, i always try to stay deceptive in no limit hold"em adding a new gear or two to my game which i hope i can improve a lot as a player, so i experiment a lot [maybe to much sometimes :)] my objective is always to try to make my opponents think they have adjusted to my play, then i switch the gears on them forcing them to play this constant guessing game so that they make plenty of mistakes, well more than that i will make i hope :)
What tools/forums/etc do you use?
2+2 years ago when there was a good group of lads/lasses who debated without taking things to personal and could play devils advocate giving some good reasoning/logic for certain plays etc etc..
tools wise - pokerstove and CRev calculator , a piece of paper, pencil, rubber :) , a rudimentary knowledge of poker maths, a hand history replayer so i can replay games back looking for any info i missed or misinterpreted/misunderstood at the time or did not apply the info i gained [applies to logic]
Are we not able to get some discussion going on this?
thats my tuppence worth, all in all work bloody hard to understand as much as you can about poker and people, the information war goes - gather, process then adjust.. get good at that and you wont need all this mental game mumbo jumbo :)
disclaimer - just my views right or wrong
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I am assuming we are taking about online poker here. My preparation for live games is generally terrible to say the least, I am not really a live player though.
Yes - online poker. Sorry, I should have made that clear.
Preparation - Not anything major, just make sure your mind set is right. The problem with online poker especially cash games is they do not stop. You can play anytime. It is not usually right to play too soon after getting up or straight after getting home from work. Don"t play when too tried or when you are just not in the right frame of mind. This does not need to be anything major either, but if something has pissed you off in work and is likely to play on your mind and interfere with your focus don"t play. If it an early morning session I make sure I have at least had a shower and a tea/coffee first and have been up for at least 90 minutes.
Jared advocates that this pre-game preparation is very important and if missed can result in the early part of our session spent warming-up, instead of being warmed up ready to play from the 1st hand, which could cause us value from our session. I like the stuff about showering and having a drink, doing your best to be in the right frame of mind.
Some other ideas are to have some specific goals for the session. I have been working on pre-flop aggression recently, so might have a goal to 4-bet every time I am 3-bet, as I am experimenting with this in my game currently. I might also have some other goals to ensure that my focus and concentration are good throughout - like turning off other online distractions (social networks), or perhaps a goal to make a note on each opponent I come across during the session.
I don"t agree with the bit about being tired though. It is important that we learn to play in different states and it can be sometimes profitable, if the game is good, to play our B game, or even our C game for a session. Also, to improve our C game and B game we have to focus on the back-end of our skills and playing when we are not at our best can help improve us.
During the session is also important. One of the most important skills is quitting. If the game is bad or you start to get unlucky and it is annoying you then take a break. Go for a walk or watch something on TV whichever you prefer at the time. Music is good as well sometimes. Don"t play for too long, this is my biggest leak and it can be expensive as you stop playing your best game and leaks creep in. I for example start calling when I should be 3-betting and chasing draws when I should be getting it in/folding.
Again, with reference to quitting, similar thoughts as to those I have shared above apply. I do think regular breaks are important and sure, if you are going to go on monkey-tilt and blow your roll, then quitting is certainly the right thing to do.
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I think Jarad having a required registration on the page you"re linking to is a barrier to discussion.
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I think Jarad having a required registration on the page you"re linking to is a barrier to discussion.
Sorry Des. I did not think that through. It isn"t important to the discussion so I have removed it from the OP.
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Evaluation/Analysis - I don"t think it needs to be done straight afterwards. You will have used Poker Tracker or Holdem Manager during the session so should have all the hands there to review. I will talk about cash games as there are better people who can tell you about tournaments. I tend to look at the decent wins and losses first. With the losses could I have done anything better to prevent it, usually you will know. Look at filters on hands that went to the flop, is there a spot where you could have picked up a pot when you didn"t, did you try in a bad spot. The more you look at these the more familiar you become with them and the better you get at making decisions at the table. Look at the flop and evaluate the way you have played it. Look to see if there are spots where you should have picked up a pot on the river, are there good spots to bluff raise the river that you missed. If you find something on a player that could be useful make a note in your poker client.
Evaluation is something which Jared advocates should always be done immediately after the session. This is not a deper Analysis stage, but purely some kind of an evaluation of your play. What was your focus like? Your concentration? Did you achieve your session goals? How did variance affect your results?
I might score 1-5 in each area I evaluate - for focus 1 would be mashing buttons, 5 would be giving full consideration to the table and individual player dynamics in reaching each decision I make in the session.
It may take only a few minutes to complete this evaluation. As in professional sports where on leaving the field a football team would go back to the dressing room and have an immeidate evaluation of their performance.
The stuff on utilising HUD stats into your analysis is very useful - thanks.
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Other tools you can use are Pokerstove (I use Odds Oracle myself, but Pokerstove is free). Forums are great resources, the Strategy section of this one is good but personally if I really don"t know what I should have done in a spot it gets posted here http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?board=24.0, the responses are honest and really very good, these are some of the best players in the country. If you need help using the tools (mainly Odds Oracle as it can be quite hard then there are a fair few people on this board who can help you - PM me if you like)
Post the hands on your blog convert them first and people will comment.Oh one thing even if you disagree with feedback given, and sometimes you will, don"t get defensive about it people are always trying to help.
People to talk too about hands helps as well. If I am really stuck on a run or something I tend to ask advice from people I know are good. There are some people on here who I won"t mention as they may not want to be mentioned.
Also take part on the discussion on the PHA board (link I posted above). It is sometimes a bit intimidating and I don"t always understand what they mean but I just tend to ask them and they then explain. It occasionally goes over my head but I have learnt a lot by posting in there and still do. The strategy section on here allows that as well and is a more comfortable environment for your rec player. However there are not many posts. If you do post there PLEASE make your replies more than a sentence. A post like
"I"m folding here"
is not use to anybody least of all you (it is just basically spam imo). You should be able to explain why you think a certain line is best and when you type up a post sometimes you will find that what you think is actually wrong and sometimes people will make points that make you rethink it. It also enables you to make contacts for discussing your game with when you want some help.
To do all this properly is hard work and you have to enjoy doing it really to get the most out of it. I would have thought there are some people on APAT who can add a bit to this so hopefully we will see some more responses soon.
Maybe PM Noble1 if he doesn"t mind be recommending him, this sounds like the kind of thing he is great at.
For the last part, I do use pokerstove, but certainly need to start spending more time on equity calculations, something I want to do a lot more of.
I do post hands on another forum I am a member of and the discussions are in depth and have intelligent contributors.
I am also signed up for a 12 month online poker course which is forming the major part of my game analysis. I am pretty new to HM2 so will consider your advice and may come back to ask some better questions on how I can get the most out of the package.
Thanks for your detailed contribution Rodders.
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Its very easy to delude yourself in poker, the luck and variance in poker can mean you might make a terrible play on the river for example bluffing in a spot where your opponent needed to fold 35% but he was actually only folding 10%, he happens to have the very bottom of his range and folds.. I"M A GENIUS we think to ourselves, oh no your not, ""you suck you silly tosser""
Agreed - variance can easily delude us into thinking we are better than we really are. I hope that by finding the time to really look back through HHs and to perform equity calcs, share hands on forums, etc. will keep me grounded.
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Now i might be old school in my views on mental clap trap, i think its a load of bollo#ks but heyho if you can make a living peddling this magical cure in the guise of psychology then fine..
I respect your view, but I am happy that there are enough referees for Jared in the results he has got with his students, some top players incuded, and having attended online skype session with him and got 1:1 online forum feedback from questions posed to him, that he knows his onions and has a lot to contribute to helping me improve my game.
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Evaluation - How do you evaluate your session performance?
hmmm i constantly think about it during the game and how all my plays knit together both past and future..
from a cash game point of view looking at just one session in isolation is not the best way rather combing through 1000"s of hands and thinking long term is my goal...
Analysis -
What do you analyise?
everything, patterns of play, i try to spot how plays my opponents make in certain situations or certain board textures how this will effect there ranges in other spots, i try to think what they were thinking so i can tune into them if that makes sense? etc etc blah blah
How does it help?
improves my logic and how i view others strategy/level of thinking and understanding of what they are doing so i can make what i hope is the correct adjustment... for example in the games i play metagame implications have an impact so my normal style of play requires me to be able to play any pre or post style comfortably, i always try to stay deceptive in no limit hold"em adding a new gear or two to my game which i hope i can improve a lot as a player, so i experiment a lot [maybe to much sometimes :)] my objective is always to try to make my opponents think they have adjusted to my play, then i switch the gears on them forcing them to play this constant guessing game so that they make plenty of mistakes, well more than that i will make i hope :)
Loads of good stuff here thanks. Food for thought.
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Jared advocates that this pre-game preparation is very important and if missed can result in the early part of our session spent warming-up, instead of being warmed up ready to play from the 1st hand, which could cause us value from our session.
I have been working on pre-flop aggression recently, so might have a goal to 4-bet every time I am 3-bet, as I am experimenting with this in my game currently.
It is important that we learn to play in different states and it can be sometimes profitable, if the game is good, to play our B game, or even our C game for a session. Also, to improve our C game and B game we have to focus on the back-end of our skills and playing when we are not at our best can help improve us.
Is Jared expecting me to run "Rocky like" up some steps before I start every MTT session? This pre-game preparation stuff doesn"t wash with me, we are playing online poker not conducting brain surgery. Do enough to make sure you are comfortable when you are playing is about it.
Arbitrary rules like 4 betting every time somebody 3bets you seems ridiculous and surely is just burning money. I don't know how this is going to help your game.
Rather than improving your B and C game, why don't we just play A game all the time? :)
Do you play cash or MTT"s?
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I like Jaffa Cakes but not that big on Digestives. I might buy some Hob-Nobs later as I have never really tried them.
As far as poker goes, yeah The Mental Game of Poker is a book I would not mind reading and I am sure I will do at some point. It has had a lot of good feedback as has Jared Tendler. Not sure what his background as a poker player is (not sure if it matters) but as far as mental game strategy goes he is top notch.
I think Noble got the preparation bit spot on actually. We should play if we feel like playing. There are plenty of other things to do if we don"t feel like playing. I think it links with what I was saying about making sure you are awake and feeling ready before logging on. These have to be sensible parts of what I guess would be mental preparation. Sometime when I miss this out and play when I know I should not be I end up losing at the start of the session and spending the rest of it digging myself out of a hole so what you say is logical. I am guessing it differs for each of us slightly though so we have to find what works best for us.
At the end of a session you know how well you have played. I guess there is nothing wrong with giving yourself a score in a few areas if it helps. I am interested in session goals to be honest, I used to try and give myself goals but have tried not to do that so much and just play each hand on it merit and play for as long as I feel that I am playing well, taking breaks etc as I said.
What do we think are good session goals to have?
I assume the 4-bet every time you are 3-bet was just a hypothetical example. A goal like that should be something like "profitably 4-bet light" as there are spots where you just can"t do it but I see where you are going with the idea of it.
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Rather than improving your B and C game, why don't we just play A game all the time? :)
In my opinion both are impossible :-)
Yeah I know I am being factitious the goal should be to play our A game as much of the time as possible, agreed. That being said I would not disagree with VBLUE (sorry don"t know actual name) that if we see a good game them maybe we should be jumping in even if we know we are not quite going to be playing our A game 100% of the time. This is obviously much more relevant to cash than tournaments though.
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Being as how this is about online poker, and I am **** at that, I will leave it to you intelligent people ago know more about it than I likely ever will.
Really is something I should try and get better at I suppose.
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In my opinion both are impossible :-)
Out of interest, how often would you say that you play your "A" game when you play online? How do you define "A" game?
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In my opinion both are impossible :-)
Out of interest, how often would you say that you play your "A" game when you play online? How do you define "A" game?
I don"t know but you must know what I mean, you just sort of know when you are playing it. The outdraws don"t worry you at all, you have no problem folding when you know the river card has just caused you to go behind and just happily carry on. You feel fresher and are properly focused on the game, you keep making the right plays and don"t get lazy (usually this means just calling to chase draws instead of applying pressure and raising because you can"t be bothered to work out if you should be or not when it is marginal). I will try and post something better later on this as it is a good point.
I don"t think I play my A game more than 50% of the time online or live if I am honest.
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Is Jared expecting me to run "Rocky like" up some steps before I start every MTT session? This pre-game preparation stuff doesn"t wash with me, we are playing online poker not conducting brain surgery. Do enough to make sure you are comfortable when you are playing is about it.
No - he is not expecting you to run up anything before you play.
Some of the "warm-up" stuff you can do, as I have noted, is make session goals, something inspirational like listening to a piece of music or review your short-term/long-term goals, or maybe play a few hands at a lower stake to try some things out, or go back over some training notes, or hand histories you want to help improve your game.
It may not be brain-surgery. What has that got to do with it. Poker is an extremely challenging game in many ways and a warm-up routine is part of a successful game. Look up The Process Model and see how many sports people use it. Non-league footballers are not playing for millions of dollars when they go out to play but will have a warm-up routine. I don"t get your point here at all Mark
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Arbitrary rules like 4 betting every time somebody 3bets you seems ridiculous and surely is just burning money. I don't know how this is going to help your game.
Rather than improving your B and C game, why don't we just play A game all the time? :)
Do you play cash or MTT"s?
The 4-betting thing is to be done over a couple of sessions to experiment with how players react to 4-bets and to see how it affects your decisions when faced with a 3-bet. It is not a fixed rule for the rest of your playing career. I took the advice from Kevin MacPhee. He knows a thing or two about pre-flop aggression.
To improve your overall game you have to work on your weakest elements as well as adding new skills. Everyone has an A, B and C game. It is called Inchworm - a very simple but effective way of describing how someone can effectively improve their overall game.
I play MTTs mainly, but some 6-max cash and speed poker.
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As far as poker goes, yeah The Mental Game of Poker is a book I would not mind reading and I am sure I will do at some point. It has had a lot of good feedback as has Jared Tendler. Not sure what his background as a poker player is (not sure if it matters) but as far as mental game strategy goes he is top notch.What do we think are good session goals to have?
He was close to going pro as a golfer but decided to go for his MSc in Psychology instead as he felt being a golf pro was just too tough for most and he didn"t want to take that route. He has worked with loads of golf pros, met Dusty Schmidt "Leatherass", and drew parallels between the work he was doing with golfers and poker pros.
Good session goals (I have been focusing on pre-flop aggression) might be simple things like playing tighter OOP - only 3-betting and never flatting, flatting more in-position with medium strength-hands like AQ/AJ/KQ, or 4-betting all 3-bets (only for a session as an experiment - not a long-term set in stone play).
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I think Noble got the preparation bit spot on actually. We should play if we feel like playing. There are plenty of other things to do if we don"t feel like playing. I think it links with what I was saying about making sure you are awake and feeling ready before logging on. These have to be sensible parts of what I guess would be mental preparation. Sometime when I miss this out and play when I know I should not be I end up losing at the start of the session and spending the rest of it digging myself out of a hole so what you say is logical. I am guessing it differs for each of us slightly though so we have to find what works best for us.
For us recreational players this is fine, but for some pros or semi-pros volume is key and they might need to play despite how they feel. I don"t disagree with much of it for us. There is some stuff on playing when not at your best but I will add more later on it.
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I assume the 4-bet every time you are 3-bet was just a hypothetical example. A goal like that should be something like "profitably 4-bet light" as there are spots where you just can"t do it but I see where you are going with the idea of it.
It was an idea from Kevin MacPhee, advocated at a level or two below what you currently play, to see how 4-betting 3-bettors can simplify later decisions and to experiment against different opponents to see how effective it was in getting 3-bettors to fold, or being 5-bet by tight players and having an easy decision to fold your own hand (for example).
If you click it back, I forget the actual percentage, but you do not need to get folds too often for it to be a profitable play long-term. I can add more on this later if interested?
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Out of interest, how often would you say that you play your "A" game when you play online? How do you define "A" game?
This is a great question Mark. Jared was telling me how I should put some time into defining my A game from my B and C games. So what elements of your game would you evaluate to determine how you play?
Perhaps it would be focus (which I class as taking in all the nuances of a game - position, stack size, opponent tendencies/HUD stats, ranges, etc.), concentration (avoiding distractions bascially), and then some other elements like reading the game well...I"m struggling to think more right now. You then build a picture of your A game, B game, and C game. Maybe a C game tendency would be playing too many pots OOP, or limping instead of 3-betting in position (for some people anyway). You might make a common mistake that you have rectified but it slips in at times so is part of your C game still when yo forget or repeat the mistake.
I am Mark too Rodders :)
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In my opinion both are impossible :-)
Out of interest, how often would you say that you play your "A" game when you play online? How do you define "A" game?
I don"t know but you must know what I mean, you just sort of know when you are playing it. The outdraws don"t worry you at all, you have no problem folding when you know the river card has just caused you to go behind and just happily carry on. You feel fresher and are properly focused on the game, you keep making the right plays and don"t get lazy (usually this means just calling to chase draws instead of applying pressure and raising because you can"t be bothered to work out if you should be or not when it is marginal). I will try and post something better later on this as it is a good point.
I don"t think I play my A game more than 50% of the time online or live if I am honest.
I think this is a good reply. And honest. I probably don"t play my A game more than 50% either, if that.
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I am just not sure that a "warm up" would help me. I dont see how it would change the way I play. My goals are longer term focussed. Maybe I am massively deluding myself but I think I play my A game >80% of the time.
The general point I was trying to make is that sometimes there is no need to over complicate poker. The absolute best way to learn initially is to play as much volume as possible and get yourself into lots of spots that make you think. Supplement that with some strategy, reading/videos, PHA boards and your well on your way.
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Jared advocates that this pre-game preparation is very important and if missed can result in the early part of our session spent warming-up, instead of being warmed up ready to play from the 1st hand, which could cause us value from our session.
I have been working on pre-flop aggression recently, so might have a goal to 4-bet every time I am 3-bet, as I am experimenting with this in my game currently.
It is important that we learn to play in different states and it can be sometimes profitable, if the game is good, to play our B game, or even our C game for a session. Also, to improve our C game and B game we have to focus on the back-end of our skills and playing when we are not at our best can help improve us.
Is Jared expecting me to run "Rocky like" up some steps before I start every MTT session? This pre-game preparation stuff doesn"t wash with me, we are playing online poker not conducting brain surgery. Do enough to make sure you are comfortable when you are playing is about it.
Arbitrary rules like 4 betting every time somebody 3bets you seems ridiculous and surely is just burning money. I don't know how this is going to help your game.
Rather than improving your B and C game, why don't we just play A game all the time? :)
Do you play cash or MTT"s?
strategy :)
nothing wrong in experimenting if you have some reasoning/logic behind why you are doing it and that you can learn how various players will adjust or view you...
for instance in short handed games with 100bb stacks if 3betting light puts your opponents on tilt, [and is definitely a weapon to use at the tables] but many players overuse it a bit in my opinion, then think what 4betting light will do..
light 3betting became very popular since about 2006 ish and its important to know some ways to combat this technique at 100bb eff, you can 4bet bluff but plan your range so that you call a 5bet shove with a good portion of your bluffs [cos mathematically you will be making a mistake a lot of the time if you are 4-bet/folding hands] so when you happen to 4bet for value with QQ KK AA AKs then your bluffs help cos it doesn"t give away the strength of your hand, this sort of approach is fine for when you are oop.... when we are ip facing a possible light 3bet then its a different ball game @ 100bb eff then you can call a lot more to make handreading more difficult for your opponents, and to avoid the mess of 4-bet/folding incorrectly, playing within this framework we would just call all of our opponents 3bets with our good, excellent, and sometimes speculative (for deception) hands... this makes it difficult for our opponents to know when we have a monster and their mistakes are amplified and hopefully with good reads we minimise our mistakes ;D
say if u played a very loose-aggressive style and u was constantly being 3bet preflop because u was opening with so many hands from all positions then go ahead and shove all in with aces, kings, and ace-rag (suited or unsuited) as long as u perceived the light 3bettor as competent :o and u think villain is reraising u with more than 7.8% of his hands then it will be +ev [do some maths] i mean that 7.8% could look like this 88+, ATs+, KTs+, QJs, AQo+ and if your oop only calls the 4bet shove with QQ+ AKs AKo then you"ll print money :) but in game we all know full well they are 3betting all sorts of crap most of which they will have to fold to a push so the shove shows an immediate positive expectation, if villain adjusts and manages a call with 99 for instance and u happen to have A5s even then pretty much you have 30% equity, this style of 4bet shoving play @ 100bb stacks is difficult to adjust to and u will get frequently absurd amounts of action [but be ready for the variance roller coaster and have a good sized bank roll ;)]
just note though u have to get your reads right to make/play this adjustment 8)
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Preparation - My preparation is very important. I make sure my son has been bathed and has gone to sleep. I then prepare a few snacks and a load of drinks. I then run a bath for my wife to make sure it is ready for 55 mins past the hour so I can come up and scrub her back. I then feel ready to bust some major chops on the online felt
Evaluation - I don"t write anything down but I do think through hands and try to make sure I have made the correct decisions during the session. If it is a late session and a decent score then I just think GTFIT - shiiiiip!!!!!!
Analysis - A weakness in my game. I find this too time consuming. I have a job and poker is my hobby. If it was my job and I actually played enough hands/tourneys for analysis to be effective, then I would spend a lot of time on this.
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Preparation - My preparation is very important. I make sure my son has been bathed and has gone to sleep. I then prepare a few snacks and a load of drinks. I then run a bath for my wife to make sure it is ready for 55 mins past the hour so I can come up and scrub her back. I then feel ready to bust some major chops on the online felt
Evaluation - I don"t write anything down but I do think through hands and try to make sure I have made the correct decisions during the session. If it is a late session and a decent score then I just think GTFIT - shiiiiip!!!!!!
Analysis - A weakness in my game. I find this too time consuming. I have a job and poker is my hobby. If it was my job and I actually played enough hands/tourneys for analysis to be effective, then I would spend a lot of time on this.
Probably the best post I"ve read for a long while :)
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I am just not sure that a "warm up" would help me. I dont see how it would change the way I play. My goals are longer term focussed. Maybe I am massively deluding myself but I think I play my A game >80% of the time.
The general point I was trying to make is that sometimes there is no need to over complicate poker. The absolute best way to learn initially is to play as much volume as possible and get yourself into lots of spots that make you think. Supplement that with some strategy, reading/videos, PHA boards and your well on your way.
The last two sentences I agree with completely. The caveat I add about reading strategy and watching videos is that there needs to be a well-thought out approach to working on the front-end of your game and equally focus on the back end, as if you don"t do both the gap between C game and A game just gets wider as the front-end moves on, and the back-end stays where it is - the Inchworm theory.
When the brain takes on new information it goes through four stages of learning (think learning to drive a car). Unconscious incompetence - you do not know what you do not know. Conscious incompetence - you know what you do not know. Conscious competence - you have learnt something new but need to think about it when doing it, Unconscious competence - you have learnt something to an an instinctive level.
If you keep only working on new information and not working on correcting your C game mistakes it can potentially be damaging to your game. It is like an inchworm, the C game stays where it is but the A game is much further along - think bell curve. We want both games to move on together so the gap between them remains small.
Also, a lot of people read a strategy book from cover to cover and think they now have that new knowledge, when it takes a much more methodical approach to learning and applying it to your game for most people.
Volume and PHA boards are certainly a great way to learn.
The purpose of the warm-up is so you are ready to play from the very start of play. Think professional football. The team go out on the pitch, they stretch, they perform warm-up routines (strikers take shots against goalkeepers for example). They go back into the dressing room and they might have a pep-talk from the coach/manager. Someone will put some music on. They fire each other up. When they are on the pitch and the whistle blows - they are ready to play. Now think about this if they just turned up, put their kit on, ran up the tunnel, lined up, and the whistle blew. Would they be prepared?
I recognise that poker in not a physical sport, but is a sport right? We do agree on that, in one format or another? So, we have to prepare. If we do not, then we are preparing during the initial stages of playing.
If we wanted to play more aggressively pre-flop, I might review some hands from a previous session where I flat-called my ATs in position with 40bbs behind 4 limpers, when it could have been a spot to raise. I might think about the nuances of that hand. I might look over some notes from my coaching on this subject and remind myself of what conditions I am looking for to 3-bet or 4-bet and write out some session goals. I might get a drink, put on some music, re-read my short-term goals - looking for some inspiration. I might turn off my social networking tabs and my phone.
Am I now better prepared than if I just finished watching TV, turned on my laptop, and fired up some cash tables?
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Preparation - My preparation is very important. I make sure my son has been bathed and has gone to sleep. I then prepare a few snacks and a load of drinks. I then run a bath for my wife to make sure it is ready for 55 mins past the hour so I can come up and scrub her back. I then feel ready to bust some major chops on the online felt
Evaluation - I don"t write anything down but I do think through hands and try to make sure I have made the correct decisions during the session. If it is a late session and a decent score then I just think GTFIT - shiiiiip!!!!!!
Analysis - A weakness in my game. I find this too time consuming. I have a job and poker is my hobby. If it was my job and I actually played enough hands/tourneys for analysis to be effective, then I would spend a lot of time on this.
Analysis - sure. It is a personal choice how much we put into our game depending on what we want to get out of it. I understand if poker is purely a hobby and you have better things to do than study the game much outside of playing time.
Evaluation - is always better to evaluate hands away from playing otherwise you are in danger of thinking about a hand you have just played and not the one you are currently playing. This would come under Analysis.
If time is an issue - even just looking over 1 or 2 hands per session would probably be a big help.
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I drafted this last night. What do you think?
Preparation - 15 minutes pre-game warm up and preparation:
1.Review short-term and long-term goals. The session is about playing poker. Remind yourself why you are playing and what your successes will look like
2.Review my A game, B game, and C game. Cut out the mistakes of the C game and instead focus on the elements that make up my A game
3.Make any session goals I want, in line with my current game analysis and coaching
4.Review any coaching notes or hand history feedback that is relevant to the improvements I am working on currently or my session goals
5.Prepare drinks, snacks, and session music
6.Inspire the coming session with a favourite piece of music, short video, or reading some quotes
Evaluation
Score each of the following areas on a scale of 1-5, 1 = excellent, 2 = very good, 3 = good, 4 = poor, 5 = very poor:
1.Achievement of session goals
2.Focus on the session and avoidance of distractions
3.Concentration on the game and all the nuances as opposed to just mashing buttons
4.Tilt-control
5.Range reading skills
6.Overall decision making ability
7.Note-taking
Also take some game-flow notes or thoughts about hands I want to analyse later.
Did I see any progress in the work you I am doing on my game?
Anaylsis
1.Review last sessions hand history and post one or two hands for discussion - 1 - 2 hours
2.Breakthrough Poker Coaching (online coaching course material) - 1 hour - 1.5 hours
3.Mental game work - 1 hour - 2 hours
4. Equity calculations - 0.5 hours to 1 hour
Total work per week - 5 hours
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Quick question. How much time is dedicated to actually enjoying playing?
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Odd question, but all the time I spend playing (or certainly mostly all).
I play two evenings per week, and can play three on occasion. Usually something like 10-15 hours each week, but nearer 10 most.
I also take equal enjoyment from studying the game and working on all these different elements. I think a lot of the skills here are very transferrable to other parts of life.
Is there a suggestion from you that if you take it a bit more seriously and put work into improving you cannot enjoy the game? Or am I reading too much into your question? I suggest that it is much more enjoyable for many players when they do work on their game and figure out how to get the best out of themselves and study how to win.
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Odd question, but all the time I spend playing (or certainly mostly all).
I play two evenings per week, and can play three on occasion. Usually something like 10-15 hours each week, but nearer 10 most.
I also take equal enjoyment from studying the game and working on all these different elements. I think a lot of the skills here are very transferrable to other parts of life.
Is there a suggestion from you that if you take it a bit more seriously and put work into improving you cannot enjoy the game? Or am I reading too much into your question? I suggest that it is much more enjoyable for many players when they do work on their game and figure out how to get the best out of themselves and study how to win.
I think the suggestion is that work and study doesn"t sound like fun to some people.
I"m more enjoying studying other things than poker at the moment but I fully agree with the principle that studying the game can be enjoyable as well as playing it.
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Sure - I can see that. Some people want to just play, I get that. I have been the same for much of my poker playing time.
I guess I"m talking to those people who want a little more, or certainly want to give a little more of themselves to the game.
Maybe a recreational player who sees poker as a semi-pro income.
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Sorry, work has put me in an utterly vile mood, that was of no use to anyone and utterly pointless to a good thread that people are enjoying.
Apologies again
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Cheers Stu.
I haven"t come on to be hostile. I hope I haven"t been.
I get a fair bit of free time in the day and I like to talk about poker and explore ideas and thoughts. The forum was looking a bit quiet and I hoped to stir up some lively conversation. I blog too, so it helps me with ideas for that too.
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Some really good mental game tips Here (http://tommyangelo.com/)
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No no no, you haven"t, I was the one being hostile and for no good reason. I need to sit down and give all this a good read as I probably have the potential to be a good online player, but for some reason it fails to capture my imagination and attention like live poker does, my attention span when playing online is horrendous!!!
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Quick question. How much time is dedicated to actually enjoying playing?
Actually Stu your question and point is a good one. You do have to enjoy poker in some way otherwise all of this is pointless and you will see better results if you actually enjoy the game as well and all of the work you do on it will be easier. If you have two players of equal skill but one is enjoying the game and the other one isn"t the one who honestly enjoys themselves playing will do better.
When you take an outdraw or a cooler, it will have less effect on your mental state than if you are enjoying playing. If you are actually bored and just playing because you kind of sat down and logged on and started playing because it is what you do then you are likely to get annoyed more easily by the game and start making the less effective plays that I assume would make up part of the B and C games.
So yes asking how much time is devoted to enjoying the game is a good and important question that we should be considering and if it is not enough that should be corrected if possible. This is probably the reason I have been so inconsistent in the last couple of years as I have definitely lost the love for the game and I have become a worse player because of it. Anybody come across this and know what to do about this *lol*?
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I reckon the best way to improve your poker game is to find players who are better than you and to talk hands through with them regularly. Also, if you play a certain way find people who play differently and get their input into why they do what they do. Personally I really enjoy strategy discussions with some of the internet kids who have helped me see things differently in certain situations and I believe my game is better as a result.
I think different approaches work for different personalities. I"m not one for graphs, lists, or writing down my goals every time. But that doesnt mean I won"t want to improve or think about and discuss what I could have done differently. At the end of the day we"re dealing with a game where we have incomplete information, and we have a mix of playing styles. I think there is a danger of putting too much emphasis on preparation and the like, but it depends what we mean by preparation. To one, writing down aims and reviewing them with a score will work, to another a good chat with a respected mate would work better.
I do believe your mental state does determine an awful lot, so this is a good discussion thread. I know that sometimes I sit down "in the mood to gamble" and other times I"m ready to knuckle down and really focus on making the right decision on every hand. I expect a mental coach would try to kill off that first personality, but personally I quite like it ;D ;D
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I reckon the best way to improve your poker game is to find players who are better than you and to talk hands through with them regularly. Also, if you play a certain way find people who play differently and get their input into why they do what they do. Personally I really enjoy strategy discussions with some of the internet kids who have helped me see things differently in certain situations and I believe my game is better as a result.
I think different approaches work for different personalities. I"m not one for graphs, lists, or writing down my goals every time. But that doesnt mean I won"t want to improve or think about and discuss what I could have done differently. At the end of the day we"re dealing with a game where we have incomplete information, and we have a mix of playing styles. I think there is a danger of putting too much emphasis on preparation and the like, but it depends what we mean by preparation. To one, writing down aims and reviewing them with a score will work, to another a good chat with a respected mate would work better.
I do believe your mental state does determine an awful lot, so this is a good discussion thread. I know that sometimes I sit down "in the mood to gamble" and other times I"m ready to knuckle down and really focus on making the right decision on every hand. I expect a mental coach would try to kill off that first personality, but personally I quite like it ;D ;D
Good post Glenn. I think I pretty much agree with this
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Rather than improving your B and C game, why don't we just play A game all the time? :)
I wanted to come back to you on this Mark as I think some further explanation may help you to understand what Jared means when he talks about Inchworm - here is my intepretation.
The concept of an A game, B game, and C game is built around a bell curve shape. At the front-end is your A game and at the rear-end ::) your C game. Everything in-between is your B game. (A bell curve looks a little like a D laid on its wide with the two ends tapered.
What is your A game now, will become your B game later, as you learn and improve. It is likely that you only play your A game a small percentage of the time and your C game, hopefully, too. The rest is your B game.
Because new information has to go through the four stages of learning I described earlier under the Adult Learning Model, it is only when new information is learned to either Concious Competence or Unconcious Competence that you can include it in your A game, and also your B game. If you are Unconciously Incompetent (your not even aware of a strategy - let"s say set-mining - then it is not in your game at all so will autmatically form part of your C game as you are just playing pocket pairs poorly mostly and only ocassionaly by luck playing them better). Once someone tells you about set-mining or you figure it out yourself you become Conciously Incompetent until you start to understand the whys and wherefores of how to do it.
Back to A Game - you go and watch a video/read a strategy article or just become aware of 3-betting and 4-betting (you are new to poker and only know about limping, raising, and calling raises pre-flop) but you have not mastered how it works, why, when to pull the trigger and when not to, etc. It takes time to work this into your game and to become proficient at it. You might start with 3-betting and 4-betting in position 100% of the time, and the refine your strategy from there, or you may only 3-bet your value range and not understand when to bluff or semi-bluff. You might stick to some "rules" you learnt from the strategy you read/watched. This new information when applied correctly pushes your play into - A game, but as it is all new most of the time you are making some good moves and some mistakes - B game, and sometimes you apply it poorly and just get all confused when to and when not to - C game. Eventually, you get so good at it your A game now includes this new strategy and you mostly get it right. So, you cannot always play your A game, or even 80% of the time, as new concepts take time to become proficient at.
Your old A game, with no 3-betting or 4-betting in it as you didn"t know about them (you were Unconciously Incompetent), is now your B game or even C game. In your new A game you instincitively know how to react so you 3-bet bluff those high VPIP players and pick up lots of uncontested pots, you start flatting medium strength hands against opening ranges you dominate, and you 3-bet for value only when those rocks open (you are now Concsiously Competent and becoming Unconciously Competent as it becomes instinctive). But now you start to learn about targetting weak players and how to deal with them. You learn about different player types, how to isolate, and which players you can value bet to death, when players will not give up and you have to give up the bluff you are running, etc. (a new skill that you have become aware of so Conciously Incompetent, but have just started to learn about hoping to become Concisously Competent and then Unconciously Competent) This new skill is added to your game but you are very new to it so your A game now includes this but you don"t do it well very often so you play only your B game most of the time again. Occasionally, you make a mess of it and you get distracted by applying new skills and your 3-betting and 4-betting suffers so you play your C game sometimes.
Also, you game is suffering as you make some mistakes set-mining and sometimes flat in position when you could raise and sometimes set-mine when it is not profitable due to effective stack sizes. If you do not work on this mistake and concentrate instead on learning more new strategies the gap between your A game and C game gets wider - so you work on the poor parts of your current game as well as adding new skills.
Imagine charting all your poker skills - there are some that you do very well, some you do well most of the time but sometimes you get spot on and other times make a mess of, and there are other parts of your game that you are very poor at - A game, B Game, and C game. Everytime you learn something new you moved your A Game forward (stretching the front end of the bell curve) but your C game stays rooted until you improve those mistakes. Everything inbetween is your B game.