OP: Enjoying the ride and not sweating the results

Some of you might remember me and the last operation I attempted. If not, allow me to introduce myself. I'm the guy who checks the bottom line every day. You know, that results oriented guy. I'm the guy who fails to comprehend the concept of long-term. I'm that angsty guy that wears his emotions on his sleeve, needlessly putting himself at the mercy of variance and perceiving it as something he should have control over. I'm the guy who grinds for 6 months, faces adversity, gets discouraged, quits for a year, then comes back to repeat the cycle. I'm that guy who is afraid to fail.

I don't want to be that guy anymore.

I was never a great player, but my panic and self-doubt was unwarranted. I grinded my way up from 5nl to 50nl. Granted, it was at the micros, but I was still a winning player. I'm not exactly sure what went wrong when I got to 50nl, but I suspect that it was simply one downswong that led to an overreaction, which resulted in a state of permatilt. There were some leaks in my game for sure, but I think these may have been amplified by a self-defeatist attitude.

How can I avoid this from happening again? I'd like to think that I could develop some mental toughness, and overcome the irrational anxiety of short term results. But that is easier said than done. I'm probably exaggerating a bit about my being a pussy, but there are some personal issues at play here that can not be corrected overnight. It's going to take some work.

For now, I'm going to take the easy way out. I'm going to ignore the results altogether. I've removed $ and BBs earned from the reports page of HEM, and I'm going to shield myself from even being aware of results for as long as possible. There are many variables about this game that are beyond my control, but one thing I can practice is the art of not giving a fuck. My singular focus will be playing a lot of hands and improving my game. For now, that's all that really matters anyway. If I do it the right way, good results will follow. I'm a smart guy. I have confidence in myself to learn, grow, move up to the midstakes, and crush them.

My obsession with tables and graphs had another detrimental consequence; it took all the wonder and joy out of the game for me. Agonizing over swongs made poker a painful chore. I will not do myself such a disservice any longer. From this point on, I will embrace the learning experience and have some fun!

In my last operation thread I set monetary goals, posted hands, and whined a lot. I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to chronicle here, but it will probably have a more light-hearted tone. I think I'll post most of my hands in the BC since they'll get more exposure there. This thread may actually have very little in the way of content, come to think of it. I guess the main reason I'm posting this here is because there are a few very nice people on FTR that have lent me moral support in the past, and by making my intentions public, I provide myself with extra motivation to soldier on.

I'm back. And hopefully, this time, I'm here to stay.

Oh, I omitted some details. I have about $1300 in my stars account. I used it as a sort of bank account and transferred a hundred or two during my hiatus. I'm probably very rusty, so I'm going to play 10k hands or so at 25nl, and see how I feel about my game. I want to make a concerted effort at putting my opponents on ranges on every street, and taking more detailed notes, so I'm going to limit myself to 4 tables for the time being.

I just played a short session, and played very poorly. This was to be expected. I think I'm going to filter out fast tables on Stars, because I had trouble concentrating in a few situations. This was my train of thought in one hand:

Folded to me in MP, I have 88. Raise. Weaktight supernit who never 3-bets calls on the button. Blinds fold. Flop is J54 rainbow. Hmm, how much of his range hit that? Probably just JJ+ and AJ. Maybe 44-TT, but he is extremely nitty. If I cbet, what part of his range calls and what part....

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!

Fuck it, I'll c-bet.

I think I played poorly because I feel that I played poorly. In the past, my perception of how I played in a particular session was probably heavily influenced by the results, despite my efforts to be objective (not to mention the fact that deep down, I know the results are irrelevant in such a small sample). Furthermore, my perception of the results were not always accurate before checking them. Sometimes I'd estimate that I dropped a few buyins when I in fact had got winner. To me, this means that my appraisal of my play is now more honest, because I really don't know how much I won or lost today, and so the results are less likely impair my judgment.

I have some kinks to work out with my HUD. When it displays mucked cards, it places them above the wrong people. This probably has something to do with my preferred seat, but I haven't managed to correct it yet.

As you can see in my thought process above, I did make a concerted effort to put people on ranges and base decisions upon them. It is by no means second nature to me, is time consuming, and needs a lot of work. Hopefully I'll improve soon with practice. Today I'm just getting my feet wet and logging some hands. I still have a good feel for preflop hand selection, but my postflop game needs work. Hopefully 10k will be enough hands at this level to replug my bigger leaks and improve on hand reading

good luck, glad you're back!

Thanks Courtie.

I just finished a good session. I ran pretty hot for the most part, but I also feel that I played much better than last time. I made 2 or 3 pretty dumb mistakes, and felt lost in a few spots, but overall I was much more comfortable post flop. I took a lot of notes and made good use of them in a few key hands. I'm still not paying enough attention (hardly any at all, lol) in hands that I don't play, but I did take notes on just about every showdown I saw in the hands I did play.

I made an effort to think about ranges more, though I would characterize them as "fuzzy" much of the time. When I see a 40/10 limp, I find myself thinking more about what's not in his range than what is. Against such players I tend to excersize more caution on wet boards, and probably give them too much credit when rags pair or straights/flushes complete. I know that I should probably be able to narrow things down based on their postflop actions, but I don't feel comfortable speculating too much with all the wacky stuff I see loose fish do. Though it's counter-intuitive, I feel more comfortable playing pots against tight players because I can more accurately estimate their ranges. I'm not saying that I would prefer to play more pots against tight players, just that I feel like I make fewer mistakes against them.

I've been doing one thing a lot in particular that may seem obvious to most, but it's something I think was missing before and will help tremendously as I develop it. It's what I call "folding ranges" and "calling ranges". There's probably some other name or theorum for this, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's something I've read about before but never fully digested. It's so simple, I'm kind of ashamed that I never gave this more thought before. Basically, every time I'm considering betting I ask myself how many worse hands call, how many better hands fold, and how many of said hands are in their range. If I feel like worse hands usually fold and better hands usually call/raise, then I obviously won't bet. Conversely, when I think their range consists of better hands that fold and/or worse hands that call, I know that betting is +EV. I now find myself doing things I'd never even consider before (because I was simply basing decisions on the strength of my cards), such as checking OOP with TPTK and overpairs against a nit who I know either flopped a set or is way behind. In fact, one of my favorite lines OOP is now the c/c because many opponents will bet more of their losing range than call a bet. It's not the only thing I base decisions on, but it's the first thing I tend to think about now.

It's a bit dim, but I feel like a light is going off in my head. I have a feeling that I'm on the verge of an epiphany. I think this skill would be easiest to develop by reading lots of hand histories and practicing the thought process. If I put some work into it away from the tables, I think my hand reading skills could go from nonexistent to superb.

My HUD is still giving me headaches. On one table the stats will be correctly aligned, but on another table they'll be all out of order. If I try to correct the order, then the first table will then get jumbled. This is really getting on my nerves.

I'm somewhat pleased with my decision to not look at the results. I lost half a buyin with AA preflop against a shorty. Under normal circumstances, I would probably check HEM immediately and see whether that hand put me in the red for the day. It's something that could potentially ruin my session, especially if it happened more than once. Since I couldn't do that, I forgot about it almost immediately. It didn't phase me at all. The only times I found myself getting frustrated were the few instances where I made plays that I felt were ill-advised. This is a very good thing.

However, there is a major drawback. I can not review my hands in HEM without my net wins/losses being visible. Before my first session I tried moving the columns all the way to the right so I would have to scroll to look at it, but they revert back to their original position after hitting the refresh button. This means that at some point I'm going to have to man up and stop hiding it from myself. The longer I put it off, the worse off I'll be since I can't evaluate my hands. What I might do is continue the experiment for my 10k hands at 25nl. When it's over, I'll do a thorough examination of my hand histories. Hopefully by that point I'll have practiced not giving a shit about results to the point where I've made a habit of it.

Hopefully.

Using HEM? Just sit at one table of 2NL so you dont risk any money. Hud options set up seating prefrences for PStars. It will take like 30 secs just have preferred eating on stars. Then go through seat 1-10 or whatever size tables you play on in the HUD options Until you find the correct one. Its alot easier than you'd think as i had the problem at first as well. Good luck with your OP sir. Im working on handreading also. But i am very new soo.

Originally Posted by Schya

Hud options set up seating prefrences for PStars. It will take like 30 secs just have preferred eating on stars. Then go through seat 1-10 or whatever size tables you play on in the HUD options

I do use preferred seating on Stars, and I did try tinkering with the preferred seat settings in HEM, but it didn't help. I will go to a 2nl table as you suggested, though, and sort this out before starting another session.

What a bummer. Due to severe thunderstorms, my internet cut out in the middle of a session. I only logged 100 hands. I might try again in a little while, but for now I don't feel up to it. I did sort out my HUD issues though. Hip hop hooray!

My next session was quite brutal. I played well for the most part, but ran terribly. I did play one hand very poorly, and it stuck out in my mind. I can't grab the HH, but it basically went like this:

I get JJ in the BB. 18/16/2 in MP raises, 60/5/1 on the button calls, and I call because I hate 3-betting out of position. Questionable?

Flop comes Txx rainbow. If it was just me and the fish I'd value bet this all day, but because of MP I decide to c/c. I figure that the only hand he'll likely call with that I'm beating is AT, whereas he's very likely to c-bet AJ+ and underpairs if checked to. MP bets half pot, the fish folds, and I call.

Turn is another blank. Since villain probably bets pretty much his entire range on the flop, I still have no idea where I'm at. I know as much as I did last street, so I decide to c/c for the same reason as before. Villain bets half pot again and I call.

River is another undercard, but completes a flush. This doesn't concern me too much, because that's a very small part of his range. However, I'm still totally lost. Betting doesn't make much more sense than it did on the last 2 streets, except for the fact that the flush got there. Even so, it seems ill advised because he's probably never folding any hands that beat me. And it's slightly less likely now that he calls with AT. I check, and he bets half pot, not leaving much behind. I don't think it's very likely that he triple barreled with something like AK. If he was value betting every street, most of his range is beating me, except AT. I fold.

Now that I've written it all out, it doesn't seem like I played it that badly in hindsight. At the time I felt like I played it pretty poorly, but maybe this is just an example of why playing OOP sucks. Or maybe b/f is a better line on the flop or turn, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now.