Playing the Parent

My wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl last Wednesday night :-)

Things got a little bit scary towards the end but mother and baby are back at home now and doing great. I am extremely proud of them both.

Whilst in the hospital my newborn daughter soon realised that crying resulted in being picked up from her cot, normally by her dad. After a while it wouldn't take long before the tears came when in the cot, then she gets picked up and tears immediately stop. Put her down a bit later, tears again......repeat.....repeat.....

So in the evening the midwife comes and puts her in the cot. No tears. Just quickly to sleep.

So when being put in her cot (or facing open raise) she plans her hand as follows:

Cry (3bet) vs dad, he will pick me up;
Sleep (fold) vs midwife as she will leave me to cry (4bet)

That's my girl!

Blog Etiquette

So I have stolen an idea from a fellow blogger ------------------------>

Could anyone who knows Malfaire please pass on my thanks to him and let him know I have put a link to his blog on this page as a reward.

Hopefully that is sufficient to satisfy grinders etiquette.

Self Ownage :(

I dropped 17 buyins this weekend and am $3k down for the month to date!

Whilst I suffered some beats I have to be honest and say that I owned myself by:

1) Playing 6 tables
2) Playing too fancy
3) Taking experimental lines

Lately I have been trying some new things, but choosing my spots badly. It is all well and good knowing what a fancy play is but it is much more challenging to apply it correctly, and have a back-up for when it doesn't go to plan. I haven't been planning hands and my game is suffering badly.

What did I say about bet/FOLDING? How does my brain turn this into bet/SHOVING?

I bet you need it? Er, wtf does that mean?

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

UTG		($296.10)
Hero		($341.65)
BTN		($440.80)
SB		($97.70)
BB		($295.65)

Pre-flop: ($3, 5 players) Hero is CO

1 fold, Hero raises to $6, BTN calls $6, 1 fold, BB calls $4

Flop: ($19, 3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $14, BTN calls $14, BB calls $14

Turn: ($61, 3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $34, BTN goes all-in $420.80, BB folds, BTN says "i bet you need it...", $287.65 to Hero ($287.65)?

Whats your plan?

I have started to write an article on the importance of planning hands and how anticipating your opponents’ next move can have a major impact on your game.

I tell my students over and over and over again how important this is but for some reason I have become a little relaxed about it myself lately and need to re-focus.

Hand planning is so important that my goals for September will be very simple and straightforward

September goals

1. Plan every hand and anticipate future actions.
2. Stick to plans and trust reads (bet/fold really does mean fold if he raises!!)
3. Mark and review at least 5 hands per week and be able explain plan and thought process.
4. Post hands on CR for comments and analysis of thought process.

A whole year of 6 max cash

I have been playing 6 max cash games for exactly one year so this is the story so far…..

I really can’t believe it is only a year ago that I decided to switch over from donkaments and give cash games some serious attention. I used a bit of my bankroll to buy the nuts of a computer and put some dollars on stars to use as my 6 max ‘roll’. My surplus bankroll was put into a separate savings account, not be used to top up my new bankroll.

I began at 50NL and started OK but was soon introduced to a thing called variance. Obvioulsy I had experienced variance in donkaments but suddenly everything was much more intense. My daily swings were pretty scary to begin with but I soon discovered Cardrunners and was comforted by similar stories in the forums. For the next few months I worked hard on the fundamentals, watched CR videos and browsed the forums a lot. I focused hard on my pre-flop game, probably too hard, and from some of my early blog entries it is clear that I was by no means a good player. The games were so bad however that I was crushing 50NL and ready to move up.

I found the move to 100NL very tough and was up and down between the levels for a while. There where many “F*** cash games” moments during these times and I was close to quitting on a number of occasions. Fortunately I always came back more determined than ever the next day.

I was now facing better opponents but my biggest problem was my play on later streets (if only I had known that at the time). I was still focusing too much on my pre-flop stats thinking ‘if I can play 21/18 I will crush 100NL’. Well to play 21/18 you need to be ready to play on the turn and river as well because people don’t fold to your cbets so much and this was a problem for me!

With good table selection, however, I managed to grind my roll up and in March 2008 I moved up to 200NL. After a longish breakeven stretch I got some coaching and it was made clear to me how bad my turn/river play actually was. Immediately things improved and this was my biggest ‘light bulb’ moment to date!

I have now played almost 100,000 at 200NL and am beating it for exactly 3PTBB/100. This includes all my pre-coaching numbers and since that ‘light bulb’ moment my 200NL winrate is higher.

Overall my first year of cash games has been great fun and I have enjoyed learning something new every day. I have made good progress, and will hopefully continue to do so, but the biggest lesson I have learned is that I will never stop learning.