Widgewilliams's Blogs

June 2011 Update

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 3:11:35 -0500

It's been a while since I've been active here for one reason and another (mainly work, studying, and getting in shape, plus girlfriend issues) anyway.

A quick update.

I was losing on PartyPoker consistantly. I thought i was playing ok, though clearly I wasn't as I was losing. I've recently moved to another poker site and signed up for rakeback via Outstanding Poker and I haven't stopped winning.

The two main reasons for the change in results are these I think:

1. There were too many TAGs on partpoker. An average table would see 1 fish, 2 or 3 TAGs, a nit or two, and me. At the site I'm now playing at an average table sees 3 or 4 fish, 1 or 2 TAGs and me.

2. I was calling FAR TOO MANY preflop raises with hole cards i would otherwise raise with had I been first in the pot.

I've still got ALOT too learn but i've moved from playing $0.02/0.04 tables to playing $0.02/0.04 and $0.05/$0.10 tables. I've increased my opening bankroll (at the new poker site) by 300%, and today in 2 hours I made more than I earn in a 10.25hr shifts at my job.

So overall I am pleased. Still got a way to go before I'm actually in profit and making money, but im learning, im enjoying, and im getting better. Thanks Outstanding Poker

Turning a corner?

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 2:27:53 -0600

well now, its been a while. Ive lost, ive lost and ive lost some more. I have started to win though i think, though with only 5954 hands played as hero 3 its uncertain whether thats just a blip to my losing trend. I know i'm still terrible at hand reading but I am playing more selective aggression based on my opponents stats.

	Hours Played	Hands	USD	$USD/hr	USD EV	VPIP	PFR	3bet	Agg Factor	WTSD$	W$SD
As Hero 1	44.65	4580	-99.02	-2.22	-90.66	28.5	16.2	4.1	3.38	24.6	30.2
As Hero 2	392.25	80762	-313.98	-0.8	-304.56	20.1	15.2	3.6	2.2	32.8	46.6
As Hero 3	25.53	5954	16.74	0.66	27.53	20.5	15.7	3.8	1.44	37.7	53.3
Total	462.42	91296	-396.26	-0.86	$367.69	20.5	15.3	3.6	2.2	32.6	46.3

Note to Self

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 9:16:16 -0500

Fold to 3bets more often, unless AA-QQ (and positional additions). You are losing money.

If you havent hit your set on the flop you dont NEED to see the turn. You are losing money.

You suck at hand-reading and you need to fold more, alot more.

The miraculous power of brainwaves

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 3:09:02 -0500

Recently I mentioned how i had made a couple of mp3 binaural beat tracks and how when listening to them my win rate seemed to improve dramatically, and i was clawing back my losses.

Not entirely convinced that the tracks were responsible I played several thousand more hands and went on a massive losing streak.

So yesterday and this morning I played while listening to the binaural track again. The result?....3 sessions, 2 hours of poker, 518 hands played, 823bb up.

Now it is too soon to say whether the track is itself improving my game. Certainly I am not consciously changing my game when listening to the track but I certainly seem to somehow be playing much better.

So the experiment must continue and I'll keep you up-to-date on how it progresses.

But if anyone is interested in trying it for themselves i can either post/link the track ive made, or email it to you. Its only 5 mins long, just set it to repeat in your media player. If it works for you then post your results

Back from Cornwall

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:45:07 -0500

I've just returned back from a week down in Cornwall which was sunny, sandy and very nice. Downloaded a couple of poker apps onto my mobile to keep me ticking over. So ready to get back to the grind now. Hopefully the break will have done me some. I had a very bad run prior to my hols which saw me drop way back down to my lowest level of loss. Time to sort that out once and for all.

The only way is up (12 buyins today)

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 6:35:46 -0500

Another good session this morning. I was playing 3 overlapping tables, and lost my stack on two tables very early in. Despite that I perservered and ended the session $10.38 up after 924 hands. Thats 2.5 buyins.

Ive now played a total of 12864 hands and my current loss is $80. Prior to the last 2500 hands that loss was $119, so ive managed to claw back $39 dollars so far.

Time to sleep for abit and then another session.

Update. I only managed to sleep for a couple of hours and it showed. Was down $20 within the hour. On the two tables I went $10 down each on my poker wasnt terrible, but everything seemed to go against me, i was being called constantly and couldnt even take down cbets where id hit the flop. In the end i got quite jumpy and was folding hands on the turn or river when i was probably ahead.

I thought about quitting for the day but in the end simply left my money on the table, closed down the two tables I was losing on and opened up two more. In the end I clawed back that $20 and finished the session $11.41 up.

Ive noticed there is a tendency in me to want to get that money back at the table I lost it on, as though to somehow prove something, either to myself or to the players who took my money. I must resist the urge to do that.

Update:

Ok, so i managed a third session. 1500 hands and up $26.99. I've now made up $77 from my low point of $119

Todays results: 2994 hands and £48.78 up (12 buyins)

Average Stats for 3 sessions.

VPIP: 21.9

PFR: 17.2

3bet%: 3.6

AF: 2.2

WTSD: 32

W$SD: 48

The times they are a-changing

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 2:44:43 -0500

It is too early to be sure, but it appears that finally things are beginning to click and im not losing.

The last three days have seen me end my sessions in profit. Not a huge amount to be sure. $5.09, $7.47, $4.57, and $11.41 but thats money in the bank regardless, and it comes to 7 buyins at my stake level.

Looking at the last 15 tables I played I left 11 of them in profit. One of them I was $8.10 down and no matter what I did I ended up losing. Is there such a thing as an unlucky table?

So it would seem initially that somewhere in my head the knowledge I'm gaining from being at Outstanding Poker is finally beginning to integrate itself and over the coming weeks I'll be able to make up what i've lost.

I'm still not folding enough to cbets from my opponents, but overall i think im making better decisions and my W$SD is hovering around the 50% mark.

One thing that I do think has helped is that I've made a 7hz theta wave binaural beat track which ive been listening to while playing over the last couple of days. Theta waves help with focused attention.

In the last week I've also been watching Tim's first 17 videos over and over at 2*speed with a  7.5hz binaural beat track for accelerated learning, which ill continue to do daily for the next couple of months.

Sawtooth

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 3:15:35 -0500

I'm still losing at the 0.02/0.04 microstakes. My Holdem Manager graph is a series of sawtooth waves. Slow diagonal increases followed by sharp downward plunges. The last 6000 hands saw me as low as $76 down. Not much to some maybe but if I call it 19 buy-ins that might give it some perspective. With that said the last 1000 hands I have made $20 so things are improving.

Discipline, Concentration. Those are the the keywords I need to maintain. When I am disciplined and concentrate I play winning poker, when I'm not then I play losing poker.

Resist Temptation. I build up a nice stack (150-200 buyins) and I get cocky. Winners tilt I suppose. I enter a pot with more marginal hands, am more willing to chase a hand, more inclined to believe my opponent is bluffing and end up losing my stack. This I must work on.

There has been the occasional suckout/cooler thats nearly brought me to tears. One that springs to mind is holding KK with the board coming AK58A. Nice fullhouse one might think. It is but not when the opponent slowplays AA to make four of a kind.

Anyway, I think I'm improving though there's still lots I need to learn. I'm still very poor at hand reading, equity, value betting and the like.

Let's see what the next 1000 hands bring.

Bankroll Depleted - Lessons Learnt and Plan of Action

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 3:35:30 -0500

Ok, so on my last payday (2 weeks ago) I deposited £50 (79USD) and today it has all gone and my bankroll is zero.

Is this a bad thing? Well, yes and no.

Obviously i would prefer to still have a bankroll, and i would prefer it to be getting bigger each time I play. Oh well. So what positives can I take from this?

First is that it took me twice as long to lose it while playing more hands than it did the previous month, so i'm clearly improving In general over the course of a session I am making money, then I'll make a couple of bad calls and end up losing half my stack or more, with the inevitable rebuys.

Second is that overall I lost £94 (152USD) so somewhere along the way i actually won £44 ($70USD).

Of that £18.80 ($30USD) came from non showdown winnings, with the remaining £25 ($40USD) coming from winning at showdown.

However, the simple fact is that I ended up losing £76 (122USD) when I went to showdown.

The stats support this.

WTSD: 25.3%

W$SD: 30.2%

I'm simply going to showdown when I shouldn't even be still in the hand. I need to be folding more often than I am, and do so earlier in the hand. This is my major leak.

Were I to do that I would now either be in profit, or at least breaking even.

I am also calling 3bets too often, and not folding to cbets often enough. These are my main secondary leaks.

I am being too aggressive on the flop and flop cbetting too often rather than check/call check/folding where appropriate. I imagine this is actually quite a common experience for beginners who know they need to apply aggression but fail to apply it selectively.

And finally, I am not 3betting steal attempts often enough, squeezing enough, or 3betting enough. I am also double barreling far too often. These are my tertiary leaks.

There are others but those are my main leaks.

It is two weeks before I get paid again and can reload my account.

Plan of Action for the next two weeks.

1. Continue to review and review the Outstanding Poker Videos.

to review and re-review Tim and Rob's videos
to continue to make notes on all the videos
to compile all the notes into a giant mind map to put on my wall, and to review that daily.

2. To use HEM's leakbuster, and Robs leakfinder videos to further identify and understand where and why I'm giving money away, and what I need to do to plug those leaks.

3. To replay and analyse all my previous sessions, to identify bad moves on my part, and to understand what the profitable play should have been.

4. To spend an hour a day observing tables in order to better develop hand reading skills and put the various players on hands and ranges. To use the hand history to see what moves the various players made, and to see if I was right with the hands or ranges i had people on.

5. To watch a Sit and Go, or MTT Video or two, and play some freerolls.

Plan of action upon payday.

1. To reload

2. To play less actual poker. To establish the discipline of reviewing a previous session prior to starting a session, playing a session, and then analysing and reviewing that session, daily. So instead of playing a 90 minute poker session:

15 minutes: review the previous session (earlier that day, yesterday, etc)
60 minutes: play a session of poker
15 minutes: review that session, replay hands, analyse what went wrong, what went right, make notes.

3. To introduce a weekly review and make plans for the following weeks play focusing on areas to improve, new skills to introduce etc.

4. To continue watching and learning from the videos.

5. To play a SnG, or MTT freeroll once a week for a change of pace.

So in summary. I've lost my bankroll and have 2 weeks of not playing poker aside from the occasional freeroll; so i've two weeks to learn, to study, to develop, to improve. In one sense then it is a good thing I've depleted my bankroll this month. I will gain much from it.

Aggression, aggression, too much aggression.

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 6:16:20 -0500

Just had a lovely little session. Only ended a buyin and a half up, but I was dominating a table full of TAG's and was the big stack in the house. I was bullying those babies around big style.

I couldn't help but feel though that I was abit too aggressive, I wasn't meaning to be. I was just trying to make the right plays. I had a few ups and downs and there were times when I wimped out of a call, though seemed to effortlessly make up my losses. I was C-betting far too much too. 100% Flop Cbet, but it was working and no-one was standing up to it, except for a calling station on my immediate right. I feel I should have done better with my WTSD and W$SD but all in all a good day at the office.

I'd decided I'd try some 3betting today and I love it. It worked really well.

Here are my stats for the session.

Hands: 181

VPIP: 27

PRF: 23

AF: 30!!

AtS: 41%

FtS: 63%

3Bet: 10.7

WTSD: 17%

W$SD: 20%