New 50K Hand Challenge- Done By 16th October 2008

So,

I've moved most of my roll to Party poker now. The advent of all the new 'speed' tables on AP 1-2 combined with the extortionate rake taken for the BBJ meant that I'd rather play on Party. I think that the amount of lose in bonuses is more than made up by the greater choice of tables and the lesser rake on Party.

I've noticed the players are much more aggro than on AP. To the point where I hardly ever fold any piece of the board to a checkraise in position on the flop to a regular. This is a new thing for me.

My first 5k hands on there I've done well I think getting used to the software and adjusting to the different players on there. I've ran terrible in all in spots however, and so my actual winnings are $500 down compared with $1.2k expected winnings.

Having taken this time to make the jump, I sorted out a couple of other things with my HUD, namely including a 'flop check raise' stat that I think is more pertinent on Party than on AP, given that regulars don't like to give you the pot oop by simply check folding too often.

100bbs are the order of the day on there, which is fine as it means I'll have decent comparitive experience whenever I do get 200bbs against someone.

With the move, and with the aim of giving myself direction and purpose, I am to begin another 50k hand challenge, with the aim of making $10k i this time. I expect the 50k hands to take around a month, so by the 16th October I should have them completed. If I'm way short of that, time to get a coach and sort my life out I think.

If I'm somewhere about $10k, then I'll probably do another 50k 200NL hands before looking to move up to 2-4. If I exceed $10k by a decent amount then I could move to 2-4 straight away and look to get a coach then as well.

In doing this challenge, it's important that I know exactly how I'm going to make my money, what my plan is and what my edge is. This way I can review my hands after every 2k hands or so and ensure that I'm sticking to the plan and that I'm playing well enough that I actually have an edge and should be making money.

Where My Edge Lies

1) 3Betting regulars in position. Identifying those who will fold too much to 3bets, those who will check fold a lot of flops, and those who will call light and spew in 3bet pots. Obviously different strategies for all 3, which are listed below.

• Fold too much: 3bet them almost with any 2 IP. Understand that a standard CO open raise to $7 means that a button 3Bet to $21 means they have to fold 67% of the time to be instantly profitable. Be cautious on flops when they don't fold PF.
• Call light and fold too many flops: 3bet a wide value range, and any 2 suited cards. Understand the correct board textures on which villain will most likely checkfold, and double barrell scarecards if necessary. I should fold to any resistence.
• Call light and spew: 3Bet a decent value range vs them, tone down the bluffing range. Be prepared to give them rope to hang themselves postflop where appropriate, and value bet good hands very strongly. Rarely fold TP to them in 3bet pots.

2) Isolating the bad players (VPIP of 40+) frequently when I have position. Increasing the frequency of my MP and CO raises when the fish is in the blinds in these positions in order to get HU and in position vs him.

3) Removing all traces of FPS. Although I may sometimes genuinely think that there is EV in bluff raising a tight player's river value bet, from experience I cannot be certain that I don't just want to do it 'cos I'm a degen. For this reason, they are practically banned for the duration of this 50k hand experiment. I'll have to take the EV losses on the chin, if any, but something tells me that I might just be saving myself a bit of $ in reality.

4) Lower Variance: If in doubt of whether to shove or fold in PF or flop situations, I will fold to lower variance and to save myself money. Why does this save me money? Because my natural tendency is to WANT to gamble, to shove all the money in and make people fold. If there is a shovy decision that I think is fairly EV neutral, the chances are that it is not EV neutral at all but -EV, with my brain pushing up the supposed EV chances in my head cos i want to GAMBLE. I have to allow for this.

5) Mental side: Super Important this one... I think a real edge is to be had over other 4-6 tabling regular 'robots' by carefully thinking through each and every decision before it is made.
I also think that after learning the 'basics' of 200NL, tilt control is the single most important skill to master. If I have one stack per session shipped to me by a tilty customer, then it is super important that I maximize that edge by not in turn tilting off any pots myself. I think this edge in itself is a huuuuge one, actually understated by 2+2 and the like even considering how much is spoken of it.

I'll be reviewing HHs after session and talking about aspects of the above to make sure that I'm applying everything correctly.

Day1- Not happy with my play after only 145 hands. Namely one hand where I shoved all in with AQ hi in a 3bet pot OOP. Villain made a wierdo call with a pair of 7s and I had some equity, but still the point is that I didn't obey point 4 above, about lowering variance and accepting that the very fact that I think shoving is a marginally +EV play probably means it's quite the opposite. You can see it here.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3200116

Laters for now:

Daniel