Make 1k

Originally Posted by ImSavy

I'm also thinking of recording myself playing some poker if anyone would be interested in watching it. Would hopefully be talking a long with it but depends upon how well my mic picks up sound and whether it sounds awful or not. Would either be 2 zoom, 4 reg or 1 hu table unsure as to which.

I've done this before, but a long time ago. If you're prone to spewing, recording yourself DEFINITELY helps keep yourself in line, cause you don't wanna be filmed doing stupid stuff

Originally Posted by griffey24

I've done this before, but a long time ago. If you're prone to spewing, recording yourself DEFINITELY helps keep yourself in line, cause you don't wanna be filmed doing stupid stuff

This was my first thought about making videos haha

Any update on the race between you and Ong? It's gone a little quiet lately.

I've not played a huge amount as my laptop has aids and I dunno what Ongs doing. Takes a while to get to 1.5k though so you hardly want an update every $10.

Originally Posted by ImSavy

I've not played a huge amount as my laptop has aids and I dunno what Ongs doing. Takes a while to get to 1.5k though so you hardly want an update every $10.

You're right. I'd like an update every $5.

Your laptop is dying? Bad times.

Graph from today, pretty much sums up the past few days too

BR 83.06

Originally Posted by ImSavy

Graph from today, pretty much sums up the past few days too

BR 83.06

FTR seems to all go on a downswing together. Keep going though - once you've had a few dozen 10BI downswings, you'll become hardened to it.

Originally Posted by The Bean Counter

FTR seems to all go on a downswing together. Keep going though - once you've had a few dozen 10BI downswings, you'll become hardened to it.

Few points I think are quite interesting and probably say a lot about my mental game.

I feel like I have achieved something, but I'm not really sure what. I'm not so sure I'm happy that I feel like I kept my head quite well throughout the whole thing (2 and a bit days of play) but rather like I've overcome some obstacle which I haven't. Variance is a bitch and I haven't overcome it in any way, I also ran incredibly well in a lot of spots even though I ended up not winning them by the final card.

I also kind of feel less motivated to play now. Which I think is a mix of feeling like I've finished some form of challenge, a bad way to think about a situation like this I think, and because I don't want to have to deal with something similar again.

So I have to think that my approach to variance isn't really correct and I'm already kind of aware of this but it's quite hard to change your thought process without constantly reminding yourself which when emotions are all over the place is hard.

Ugh lame. I feel your pain. Variance is a brutal thing!

I don't think many players truly understand how brutal and sustained downswings can be. Fewer still are able to continue to make good decisions and be confident in doing so when they are losing 2-3BI pretty much every session for 5-15 sessions (I know I can't and regularly accentuate downswings). The build up of pressure can become huge over these times in particular and it's natural to not want to relive those emotions, but having that resilience to get back in the saddle sorts out the wheat from the chaff in any walk of life. I'd go as far as to say that if you can use poker to develop your resilience, you're going to see huge benefits to the rest of your life too.

The most relevant thing to me that I've read with the mental game is that the build up of pressure can be dramatically heightened by not having a strong technical approach. For instance, getting majorly tilted by the constant pre-flop 3betting is only because you don't have a strong and well-reasoned technical approach for dealing with it yet. If you don't have that reasoned approached, you'll only end up releasing that pressure by doing something stupid like jamming ATC in a bad spot. Likewise, if you don't truly understand variance through experience, you're not going to handle that pressure well either. That said, I think working on other aspects of the mental game is more important than the technical side if you're smart enough to grasp the technical aspects pretty easily.

this:

Originally Posted by The Bean Counter

I don't think many players truly understand how brutal and sustained downswings can be.

is easier than this:

Originally Posted by The Bean Counter

able to continue to make good decisions and be confident in doing so when they are losing 2-3BI pretty much every session for 5-15 sessions (I know I can't and regularly accentuate downswings)

I'm currently on a 13-14k downer, which is about 35-40 buyins.

I don't think I get particularly tilted anymore. I don't go into crazy spew mode generally, but I do potentially make "how can they have it again" calls, which I suppose is some form of tilt.

It's also hard to keep a good perspective on what is or is not a good call. Right now everytime I triple barrel and get jammed on (when I have a big hand) and I call they alway shave the nuts. It comes to the point where it feels like I literally should just b/f my entire non-nut range. This is in complete contrast to my GTO studying which suggests I should be calling like 30-40% of my betting range in that spot. That's one thing that is hard to balance. It's hard to balance trying to study and implement GTO through a downswing, that's for sure.

I'm just rambling now haha, but it's def a good thing if you feel like you maintained a level head through a downswing. It def can't be bad!

Originally Posted by griffey24

This is in complete contrast to my GTO studying which suggests I should be calling like 30-40% of my betting range in that spot. That's one thing that is hard to balance. It's hard to balance trying to study and implement GTO through a downswing, that's for sure.

I've always thought of GTO as a starting point from which to make appropriate deviations based on villain's characteristics. i.e. if they only every raise nuts on the river vs a triple then the appropriate deviation from gto is clear enough. Or have i got it all wrong?

Originally Posted by daven

I've always thought of GTO as a starting point from which to make appropriate deviations based on villain's characteristics. i.e. if they only every raise nuts on the river vs a triple then the appropriate deviation from gto is clear enough. Or have i got it all wrong?

Yah you're correct. But in spots like - I triple barrel and am faced with a river jam, it's very difficult to know what villain is doing in this spot. The spot comes up pretty rarely and it's hard to tell if his range is more weighted to value or to bluffs, so without any concrete information GTO would default you on b/c approximately 40-45% of your triple barrel range (vs most river shove sizing in 100-110bb pots).

That being said, I think the safe average assumption is to assume the avg reg is probably weighted more towards value in this spot (as opposed to having a GTO distribution of value to bluffs), and thus should prob lean towards folding more often than GTO.

My approach to downswings is this:

For my emotional game, I try to tell myself that variance exists and that I have to be strong enough to play through it and always make the correct play and not be too results oriented. I have an idea of what that kind of player looks like and acts like and I'm always chasing it to get as close to it as I can.

For my technical game, I try to remind myself that not ALL my bad results are due to variance. There HAS to be some bad play in there somewhere, perhaps it is even MOSTLY related to bad play.

Cover both bases. While we ALL do run bad from time to time, we also all play bad in different, various ways, too. You can't control the luck, so try not to focus on that other than not letting bad luck lead to bad play. You CAN control your play, so always be focused on that.

And, bad play and tilt can also creep in when you are on a heater. I've noticed I'll sometimes play different in a bad way when things are going my way. This is also bad. Always monitor your emotions, play, and decisions looking to play optimal as much as you can.