October Update

Just thought it'd help me to put some of my thoughts down on paper as to how I should be playing at the moment.

I've been giving a lot of thought to the fact that I lose so much in the blinds, and related to this; the amount I lose without showdown. With my monthly winnings standing now at $2k, its a crazy fact that I've won $11k at showdown this month, and lost $9k without showdown. I don't think this makes me a postflop nit or anything, jus that in the area of poker I've spent most time on improving (making the right decisions in big pots) I'm doing well, but obviously leaking money elsewhere.

Through HEM analysis, I've worked out that this without showdown leak stems largely from the blind positions, both through giving up blinds too easily and not stealing enough. Putting on filters like 'did squeeze', 'did 3bet' etc reveals an enormous profit. Crossing this with the "didn't see flop" filter shows that squeezing and 3betting are in themselves hugely profitable.

The "didn't see flop" filter is very interesting to me, as in these situations the cards I held were ultimately irrelevant. I can see that I need to up my squeezing in the blinds, and my 3betting in defence of the blinds as this definitely yields an instant profit, even if I give up every single flop.

Another area I'm losing money at the moment is the medium sized pots, that is the pots between $40 and $100. From reviewing HHs, this is becuase too often I call the flop with any two cards, hoping to spike or get villain to fold later in the hand. This is costing me a lot of money... I'm also folding river too much when little changes, therefore I must have made a mistake earlier in the hand...

I'm going to return therefore to my rules surrounding commitment outlined in PNL. That once 10% of my stack has gone in (usually $20), then not another bet will be made/ called unless I want to stack off with it.

My problem with this previously is that I think it makes you expoitable in certain scenarios. Example, I hold A8s; one limper, I raise to $11 and get one caller. Pot on flop is $24. The flop comes 842r. I cbet $16 IP and villain check-raises to $40. At this point I've put in $25, so shoudn't be calling another bet unless I'm happy to stack off.

Sticking to this though in this situation would make me very exploitable... however I the point I'm getting to is that I think being unexploitable is overrated at 200NL. In the case outlined above, I'm going to be folding in future, rather than (what would normally happen) I call this raise and fold to further heat on the turn (which I'm probably always facing).

So... cliffnotes on how I'm going to be playing...

• Squeeze regular and often, (100% depending on stacksizes being ok and no crazy dynamic exisiting with villain).
• 3bet in blinds to steals regular and often.
• If either of the above are called when I'm doing them light, shut down on 90% of flops. Continuing with no equity, especially oop is spewing money.
• Start giving up on flops, as opposed to giving up on turns.
• Apply the rules of commitment as outlined in PNL.
• Continue with my focus on double and triple barrelling certain players on certain flops.
• Don't ever ever ever regret a pot through some overaggressive re-raise bluff made on the river, got that dan?
• Keep crushing at showdown.

Poker's easy. Ennit?

dan