Wednesday, 30 April 2008

May 2008 Targets & Experiments

So here is my target league for May 2008. I mentioned there was just one target worthy of Premier League status but after more thought the top league is already taking shape.

Premier League

1. Review every hand of each session played where I VPIP and see flop.
(Thanks to PT3 for making this possible)
2. No looking at stats during session. This is a tilt indicator and must stop session immediately.
3. Give study full 100% concentration. It is not an inconvenience!

Championship

1. Work on understanding of Leverage.
2. Cascade tables during session if more than 2 tables.
3. Develop session checklist.
4. Improve session review spreadsheet.
5. Follow Monthly Play/Study Cycle as follows:

1 Hour Study 6 Max
4 x 1 Hour Sessions
1 Hour Study MTT
1 x MTT Session

Lower League

1. Find 200NL coach
2. Monthly PT review filters
3. Study Pocket Pairs stats by position
4. Study 3bet Pot Stats
5. Website
6. Learn Omaha
7. Learn Full Ring
8. Learn HU

Tuesday, 29 April 2008

Setting Targets

I have been a bit slack in setting myself targets over the past few months and am going to make more of an effort in this regard.

In the absence of targets I tend to be a bit too results orientated and forget what I am trying to achieve. Problem is I have set myself targets in the past that were fundamentally flawed.

The poker mindset has a good section on setting targets and has helped me stop setting silly targets like “win 4+BB per 100 hands this month or else you suck” but I still I seem to set targets that are dismissed very quickly (usually a week tops!) and this is what led to the title of my blog. My wife tells me I am way too fickle (typical Tottenham fan :-) and that I need to stick to the targets I set myself. That’s the whole point of targets right?

Well yes, but some of my targets are more like experiments and if I am clearly getting things wrong I would prefer to go back to the drawing board immediately, rather than wasting time trying to achieve a target that is clearly flawed. Having said that I want to expressly state these ‘experiments’ as this forces me to review and analyse rather than just ditching them because I have a couple of bad sessions.

So here’s my solution to setting targets:

I am going to create a monthly league for my experiments with promotion and relegation depending on how they perform.

Premier League

This will be the holy grail for an experiment. If they make it to the Premier League then they have proved their worth and will feature in every set of monthly targets. It is very difficult to make it into the premier league and but once an experiment gets there only serious and consistent underperformance will result in relegation.

There is currently just one target worthy of premier league status and this will be revealed in my targets for May 2008.

Championship

This is the division for experiments battling for Premier League status. They will be thoroughly tested during the month and will have to work extremely hard to prove they are worthy of promotion. Those that do not live up to expectation may get another shot at the Premier League next month but may also be relegated to the Lower League. Experiments relegated from the championship are likely to drop out of the league altogether pretty soon after.

Lower League

This division will be made up of experiments that have tried and failed in the past, most of which claim to be sleeping giants, together with new experiments that have not yet had the chance to make the top. All experiments dream of making it big but for now it is a long way off.

So now I have a system in place. All I have to do is stick to it!

Saturday, 26 April 2008

Repping a monster or just tilting?

I don't post hands much but wanted to test out the replayer recommended by Disconnected.

Pretty cool site http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/index.php

Hopefully this will work!


Tuesday, 22 April 2008

Rant: Full Tilt Poker = Bunch of C***s

They still won't give me rakeback and yes I am bitter.

Excuse they give is that I am attached to an affiliate (even though I signed up directly via their website) and when queried I got a bullshit response from their support department saying it's against privacy policy to tell me who I am attached too. They can offically go fuck themselves.

When I win the world series my mission will be to stop as many players as possible from playing on FTP - then they will regret treating customers like this :-)

Thursday, 17 April 2008

Poker Break

My daughter is visiting us this week and so poker has been on the back burner. Is nice taking a break when you have started the month well ;-)

I did play for an hour or so on Tuesday to make a video for my microstakes group. For this session I wanted to demonstrate my flexible aggressive (FLAG) style which I beleive to be optimal for SSNL.

Obviously I dropped a couple of buy ins!

Thursday, 10 April 2008

Review Cycle

So far for April I have managed to stick to the following cycle:

1 Hour - 50NL 8 Tables
1 Hour - 100NL 4 Tables
1 Hour - 200NL 4 Tables

At the end of each hour I look through all of the VPIP hands using PT2 replayer and make notes on any errors made. For the most part it has been marginal 'errors' like missed cbets and double barrell opportunties which really could have gone either way.

During a review yesterday I made a note 'spewy flop call of half buyin stack check/shove on 788 board' and realised that my pure spew plays have been few and far between this month. Also I have had no real tilt issues as the play/review cycle forces me to spend time away from the tables when I am most likely to play badly (ie after a tough losing session).

Friday, 4 April 2008

Quick Update

Have been mega busy with coaching and poker study lately!!!

Had a bit of a software disaster with my microstakes group last week. Mikogo and Skype just couldn't handle 8 people at once so we have agreed to change the format slightly and pre-record the sessions. On reflection I think this is actually more beneficial as everyone involved can really prepare for the review sessions and I think people will get even more out of the revised plan.

50NL coaching is going very well. All my current batch of students are coming to the end of the intro course with high confidence levels and for the last few sweats they have all run like god. Happily their heater is so big it reached all the way over to me when I had a rare chance to play myself yesterday!

For April my target is to play short 1 hour sessions and review EVERY vpip hand played during that hour before I am allowed to play again. Is actually much easier than it sounds and I have started a log of errors for a permanent record.

Play - review - improve.....repeat.....