March Goals

March Poker Goals

1) Begin the transition to Pot Limit Omaha
PLO is a game I've always wanted to pick up. It's newer than NLHE and the game is "less solved" since there's much less learning material out there. Edges are therefore bigger and the potential to earn money is higher. Also, since money basically flies around in PLO, it's much easier to earn VPP's. So I'll be able to reach Supernova VIP status much quicker if I play PLO. Also it just looks like a really fun game (with lots of variance too). I want to try learning it!

PLO became quite popular among NLHE players around 2008. So I'm a bit behind on the learning curve. But hey, you gotta start somewhere.

Study material for March:

• Donkr strategy guide "PLO from scratch"
• Pot Limit Omaha Poker by Jeff Hwang
• Phil Galfond's essential PLO videos on Run It Once

That's a lot of reading material to cover and I'm not sure how far I'll with each this month. The sooner I get a grasp on how to play the game, the sooner I can start grinding hands. So I'll sacrifice some hands at the tables this month for study time instead. Finishing all of Phil's videos should be easy. I just need to remember to take some good notes, so I don't forget the material.

2) Earn 5,000 VPP's on PokerStars

This should be a breeze compared to February's goal of 12,500 VPP's. But I did have to drop down to NL100 which only earns at around 0.28-0.3 VPP/hand and I don't plan on playing that much NLHE this month. My main goal this month is really to just learn PLO. Hopefully by the end of the month I can start mixing in some PLO once I get a grasp of the game.

March Badminton Goals

Same goals as last month really.

1) Continue to fix/strengthen my wrist

Gonna implement exercise bands and my training racket into my regime at home.

2) Badminton or Insanity workout 5 days/week

Sweat 5 days per week, no excuses!

February Goals Review

February Poker Goals

1) Finish Applications of No Limit Holdem by Matthew Janda and create study notes [Pass]
I was finally able to finish the book and start digesting the material. Lots to think about for sure. I'll probably be referring back to these notes for the remainder of the year. Two things I really want to get better at in the future are:

• Advanced Bet Sizing: having multiple bet sizes for different parts of my range. Larger bet sizes (including overbets) for the polarized parts of my range, and smaller ones for my medium strength hands and bluffs.
• Balanced Ranges: realizing which parts of my pre-flop range fall into which 'action slots' on certain boards; and then balancing them with bet sizing. By 'action slots' I mean the following:
  [Check/Fold]     [Check/Call]     [Check/Raise]     [Bet/Fold]     [Bet/Call]     [Bet/Raise]

2) Earn 12,500 VPP's on PokerStars [Pass]
It boiled down to the last day of February but I managed to achieve this goal. My shot at NL200 was going well for the first half of the month, but I started getting slaughtered in the second half of the month and was forced to move back down to NL100.

This is definitely the biggest downswing I've had in the past few months. But I'm not going to get discouraged, as I'm fairly confident that luck just wasn't on my side based on my session review notes.

Session Review Statistics:

I played my mental A-game more than 50% of the time, which is great. B-game indicates that I tilted at one point during my session, but then recovered. C-game means I tilted and didn't recover.

Only 1 in 3 sessions I felt I played my absolute best at (1). Close to 50% of my sessions were (2) which is basically my auto-pilot mode. Not entirely surprising since this has been an incredibly busy/stressful month at work for me. Hard to demand my absolute best after a rough day at work, so I'm OK with this as long as my (2) game keeps improving and (3) game (where I actually played terrible) goes away completely.

This is just my feeling of how I felt the luck swayed in my favor (1-lucky, 2-neutral, 3-unlucky). I try to be as honest as I possibly can when making a rating, but I know there will always be some bias towards bad-luck due to the nature of human psychology. For reference, my January results were: (1-23%, 2-45%, 3-32%). 

That said, there were a few days where bad luck lead to bad play, and I need to work hard on making sure this is minimized in the future. When I did tilt this month, the main reasons were:

• Running Bad Tilt - 5 counts
• Mistake Tilt - 2 counts
• Hate Losing Tilt - 1 count

The logic injections I need to make while experiencing these situations while playing are therefore:

Running Bad - Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is that the latter thinks they do not deserve it. The professional does not run good or bad. He just plays.

Mistake - Perfection is not attainable but if we chase perfection then we can attain excellence. Even Phil Ivey makes mistakes.

Hate Losing - You have less control over variance than you think. Just keep making the right plays and the money will come in the long run. To win at poker you have to be very good at losing.

Finally, reading GodlikeRoy's blog helps put some perspective on downswings. Even though he plays a different game (PLO) it just goes to show how much variance there is in big bet poker, even for a winning professional player.

3) Produce 2 new poker videos [Fail]
I have to admit that I completely failed this goal. I was planning to do these on my weekends, but I ended up snowboarding every single weekend. And the one weekend I had free, I went to a badminton tournament instead. To make up for this, I'm going to post some hand history reviews in another post with my thoughts.

Hand Analysis #1

February Badminton Goals

1) Continue to fix/strengthen my wrist [Conditional Pass]
My wrist was really starting to feel better this month. I managed to play in a tournament this month and walked away satisfied with my play. No huge unforced errors and made a good come back to win game 3 against one of the Ryerson varsity teams. In the game we got knocked out in; we just got out-classed by Waterloo (ex-junior national champions). Later in the month I ended up falling off a rail at the snowboard park and guess how I landed? On both my wrists. Luckily I was wearing wrist guards, but they weren't on tight enough so I still ended up getting a little hurt. What a slow recovery this has been... but at least it's still improving.

2) Badminton or Insanity workout 5 days/week [Pass]
I didn't do Insanity on all my badminton off days, but I still worked out nonetheless. I managed to break a sweat at least 5 days a week, every week this month, so to me that's a pass!

NLHE Hand Analysis #1

Hand 1 - Defending Range in 3-Bet Pot

UTG	$243.83
UTG+1	$200
CO	$331.40
BTN	$375.21
bdon22 (SB)	$222.16
BB	$455.61

Reads: BB is 23/15 with a 3-bet of 9.3% over 113 hands. 16.7% 3-bet in BB (12 hands). AFq 65/71/38. WWSF 70%. Small sample but appears to be quite aggressive pre and post-flop.

• Pre-Flop ($3, 6 players)Hero is SB
• 

4 folds, bdon22 raises to $6, BB raises to $17, bdon22 calls $11
Analysis: It's blind vs. blind so ranges tend to get wider as it's more like a heads-up match. Considering he 3-bets 16.7% in BB, I have to defend KQo here. His light 3-betting range could include many bluffing hands like suited aces, suited connectors/gappers, and maybe some King-rag sutied or Queen-rag suited hands as well.

• Flop ($34, 2 players)
• 

bdon22 checks, BB bets $18, bdon22 calls $18
Analysis: We flop TP2K and this is a board that BB is likely to bet all of his bluffs on. We block AK, and it's unlikely BB 3-bet us pre-flop with 33/77 making sets very unlikely. His value range here is very narrow: AA (6 combos), AK (8 combos), K7s/K3s (4 combos), KK (1 combo) - 1.4% of hands total, or about 9% of his total 3-betting range. We also chop with KQ (6 combos). 

I would check/call some medium strength hands here such as A7s, 88-TT, Kx, and some strong hands like 33/77 or the occasional KK/AA that I slowplayed with pre-flop. It's very hard for him to 3-bet me with a bluffing hand if I check/raise; and he might continue bluffing with those on later streets. So I think check/calling my entire range on this board might be best (but I'm not sure).

• Turn ($70, 2 players)
• 

bdon22 checks, BB bets $45, bdon22 calls $45
Analysis: The 2c brings some flush draws and straight draws onto the board. If BB is holding a hand like A5, A4, 65, 54 or two clubs, this is a great turn card for him to bet again. We know from his aggression frequency stat that he likes to stay aggressive on the turn 71% of the time (very high). It's difficult for me to call 2-barrels with 7x and 88-TT here. 

Against this range, I have two options: check/call or check/raise. Check/raising makes sense if I have one of the best hands in my range (sets) that I can balance with some bluffs like 65cc/54cc/Axcc.  To protect my check/calling range, I should still sometimes check/call this turn with strong hands like AA, K7s and some draws like AQcc/AJcc that might still be able to river some showdown value. Otherwise my range becomes too capped and villain can recklessly over-bet on most rivers.

• River ($160, 2 players)
• 

bdon22 checks, BB goes all-in $375.61, bdon22 goes all-in $142.16
Analysis: BB effectively bets $142.16 into a $160 pot. We are risking $142.16 to win a pot of $302.16. Therefore, if we call, we need to win at least $142.16/$444.16 = 32% of the time to break-even. The question is - will BB bluff this river 1/3 of the time or more?

Looking back at his turn range, we saw that his range still contained a lot of bluffs. None of those hands made their draw on the river, and none of them can expect to win the pot at showdown either. So in order for him to win the pot with those hands, he must bluff with them. 

From BB's perspective, the 7 on the river is a helpful card for him, because it removes 2 of the 3 combinations of 77 from our range. From my initial analysis on the flop, BB can't have 33 or 77, and we block a large % of his value range by having a King ourselves. Additionally, we don't hold any clubs in our hand, which increases the likelihood that BB is holding a busted club draw himself. On the other hand, after we called flop and turn, it's very likely that a smart villain won't expect us to fold a King on the river, so he may decide to shut down with most of his bluffs. 

Let's give BB a river value betting range of: AA (6 combos), AK (8 combos), K7s (2 combos), KK (1 combo) - total 17 combos. And a bluffing range of AQcc, AJcc, ATcc, QJcc, JTcc, T9cc (hands which block the best bluff catchers in our range KT-KQ) - total 6 combos. Plus we chop with KQ - 6 combos. Against this range, we have 32.14% equity according to Equilab, so it's a break-even call. As soon as we decide to add some more bluffs into his range, all the baby Axcc hands and suited connectors like 65s and 54s, it becomes a clear call. So against an aggressive opponent, we should call here.

February Goals

February Poker Goals

1) Finish Applications of No Limit Holdem by Matthew Janda and create study notes

I'm almost done the book now but going over it a second time to compile notes may take some time.

2) Earn 12,500 VPP's on PokerStars

Last month I earned 7,500 VPP's mostly 2-tabling $100NL. This month I've moved up to $200NL and I won't limit myself to 2-tables unless warming up or making a video. So this target should be achievable. Plus there's a nice cash bonus at 20,000 VPP's YTD so that should be a good incentive to play a lot.

3) Produce 2 new poker videos

I had a few comments that my poker videos last month were too long. So this month I'm going to try making shorter videos that are more to-the-point. I haven't decided the content yet, but it will likely be a hand history review format.

February Badminton Goals

1) Continue to fix/strengthen my wrist
I mentioned recently that my wrist is feeling a lot better. It is, but it's still not 100%. I need it to be 100%! I'll continue everything I did last month (physio, stretching, exercises, wrist widget, ergonomic mouse).

2) Badminton or Insanity workout 5 days/week
I have to admit I've been slacking a bit with my workouts. There isn't a lot of time in my days considering poker is almost a second job to me. But that's no excuse. I feel like I'm able to keep up in doubles, but in singles, I get crushed because of my lack of cardiovascular endurance. On non-badminton days, I'll try to grab an Insanity workout. They're mostly under an hour and the interval training is perfect for badminton.

Snowboarding in Killington, VT

Just got back from a 3 day snowboarding trip with DC Events in Killington, Vermont. Conditions were fair. A bit icy on day 1 with poor visibility due to the fog, but by day 2 things were a lot better. Overall I had a lot of fun and it was nice to get a break from work and poker. But I'm not sure if I would do the bus thing again as it took 11 hours each way!

Here's a video I put together from one of the runs called "Great Eastern". It wasn't the most challenging run but the way it flowed and the scenery along the way made it my favourite run from the trip.

January Goals Review

Poker

• Learn more about Game Theory Optimal play by finishing Applications of No Limit Holdem by Matthew Janda [Conditional Pass]

I only ended up reading about 2/3 of Janda's book. This isn't a book you can just pick up and read. Your mind has to be in study mode and I was finding it difficult to read some days after a long day of work. That being said, it's definitely changing my game for the better. I want to not only finish reading the book this month, but re-read all the summary sections and create my own set of notes to study from later.

• Sign up for Run It Once elite membership and review all of Ben Sulsky's videos on GTO play (and also contribute more in the forums) [Pass]

This goal was met. I have a set of notes that I've taken from all of Ben's videos. The next step is to study them each day until they are internalized.

• Review my Holdem Manager database for Q4 of 2013 (140k hands) and identify my biggest leaks (spoiler: it's playing from the blinds) [Pass]

I made a dramatic change to my blinds play this month after watching Sean Lefort's RIO videos on playing from the blinds. He advocates a tighter linear 3-betting strategy from the SB and a looser defending strategy from the BB. I didn't play enough hands this month to obtain a significant sample on this change in strategy, but it just feels better overall. My non-showdown winnings line has also seen an improvement, although I'm not sure if it's purely coming from my blinds play or just getting better at poker overall.

• Use what I've learned from all of the above to construct a more balanced strategy against stronger players [Conditional Pass]

I started constructing some of my pre-flop ranges. I'm finished with single raised pots from most positions except for BTN and BB. This month I will have to work on finishing this. I think a future goal would be to revise these for playing against short stackers who open raise to 2.5BB and 4-bet shove for 40BB, as the math changes significantly.

• Reduce the # of tables from 4 to 2 so that I can step away from auto-piloting and force myself to think clearly about each decision [Pass]

I stuck with playing less tables for the first half of January and, combined with the videos I made, it had quite a positive effect on my game. I have to say that I cheated on this goal towards the end of January to try and reach PlatinumStar. But I don't feel too bad about it. I was getting a little tired of studying and I had a huge itch to just play a ton of hands. Moving forward, I need to let myself do what I'm motivated to do in the moment. I think more progress will be made in the long run this way rather than sticking 100% to a rigid goal structure.

• Bonus Goal: reach PlatinumStar VIP status [Pass]

Yep.

Some statistics:

• Played a total of 23,062 hands with a winrate of 3.47 bb/100 excluding bonuses
• Played 1,977 minutes and earned 7,371 VPP's (promotional VPP's got me to PlatinumStar)
• Produced 3 videos where I analyzed my own play
• Spent 40+ hours working on my game away from the table (videos, books, studying, etc.)

Badminton

• Fix my wrist [Pass]

My wrist feels a LOT better this month. In fact, this is the best its felt since before I injured it. It's not 100% better yet, but I'd rate it at about 90%. I'm stoked that the all of the counter-measures implemented (physiotherapy, stretching, exercises, wrist widget, and ergonomic vertical mouse) had such a dramatic impact on the improvement of my condition.

Overall I would consider January to be a success. 

I'm motivated to do more of the same this February: a mix of studying and grinding for poker, and bringing my wrist back to 100%. But before that, I'm heading out to Killington, Vermont tomorrow to enjoy a weekend of snowboarding with friends. It's about time for a break!

Platinum Star!

After a 3.5 hour grind session tonight I hit Platinum Star! Feels great to hit my monthly goal with one day to spare.

Although Platinum Star shouldn't be too difficult to reach at NL100, I spent the majority of January studying and playing fewer tables. So I'm more than happy with this result.