Taking Stock

I am writing this blog after what was the worst session of my life last Thursday, It has forced me to have a good look at my poker game. I will give a bit of background first, the trigger was against a player who until the hand in question occurred I had down as being a decent reg over around 1000 hands. I raised in the c/o with pocket 7's (standard) he flatted in the BB. flop came 2h 7h Kc, obviously i am thinking bingo here. I bet he calls and the 10c hits the turn. He donk leads this card, now quite a few draws are here so I want this pot over with so I shove it in. He calls and turns over Jh3h the 3rd heart hits the river and I lose a big pot to pretty poor play. This isn't the problem, I am happy with my play, I got it in good and he sucked out big deal. The problem was this happened to me:

This in itself wasn't the worst thing, what was bad was I went on to play for a further 2 hours and lost about 5 buy ins playing what was very possibly the worst poker of my life.

I have had a break and it is continuing for the weekend, this is to analyse my game and evaluate it honestly. What is coming out of this is a number of home truths that I have to sort out if I am ever going to become truly profitable at this wonderful game. My biggest issue though is quite fundamental, I just don't think before making decisions enough. I tend to make autopilot style decisions which are often ok but also a little thought could have brought a better outcome. I have a ton of information available with my HUD, my HEM and also the notes that I take pretty religiously. In the heat of battle though I tend to make snap decisions, I raise, I call, I fold within a couple of seconds. Yet if I am honest with myself, where you to ask me why I am making the play I am the answer would be it feels right 9/10 times. Now my aim when I begin playing again is to really think the hand through, think what hand my opponent may be carrying on with, think how strong I am do I really want a bloated pot with a middling hand etc and use the time I have available to make informed decisions as often as possible.

I am using my time off to have a read of some books that I feel will help me to improve. I have Jared Tendler's mental game of poker to read, and also Annie Duke's book Decide to play great poker. I have gone for these 2 as they are more about decision making and in Tendler's case mental game obviously. Basically my A game is ok, I can play profitably and win. I know my pot odds, my drawing odds, hand strengths etc all the basics. My big problems occur when I need to make a decission, I get check raised on a 2,5,9 rainbow flop and I have aces and all of a sudden I am like WTF i have the best hand and your raising me lets get it in. I don't stop and think what they do this with, I don't look at my HUD and think "he's got an aggression factor of 0.0000001 and he is check raising me on a dry flop, I should be cautious". I have loads of information at my fingertips and I just don't use it when it matters.

I feel that this is the direct result of the person I am in real life. For those that don't know, I am a industrial chemist by trade and had a degree in Forensic Science. This is great but I deal in absolutes, a reacts with b and gives c, in my working life this is great but for poker this is horrible. There are no absolutes, everything depends on the situation, who the opponent is, what the board looks like. For too long now I have been searching for a strategy to win at poker, I have read them all Fee's, Verneer, Harringtons books etc etc trying to find a way to play. Now for a beginner this is fine, hand charts stop you losing money and rules help but to be a really good player, I feel you need to shed these training wheels and ride alone eventually. I have started on this road I play each hand to its merits, not just because someone tells me I should raise this hand from the button. I have made a start but until I change the way I think (or don't think) during a hand I will always be break even which is what I am at the minute. All right I am a rakeback winner but I should be beating micro stakes poker by now, and if I think about things I will be.

So here are my new rules which I will be applying to my game:

1- Take time to think things through, don't make snap decisions.

2- Stop thinking about money, look at the decisions made and if they were right while reviewing sessions.

3- Don't let people's bad play tilt you, we want to make people make bad decisions, the outcome is inconsequential.

I hope this helps me to improve, I have been playing poker for over 2 years now and its about time I stopped the baby steps and started to progress. It will take a lot of effort but the basics are there I just need to think at a higher level than I do currently.

Thanks for reading and I hope some of this helps you, it certainly has helped me to get all this down!