Today was so depressing. Not because I ran bad, not because I lost a bunch of big stacks, not because variance fucked me. It was all down to myself, after 3 hours I was playing so bad, punting, stationing, just playing truly awful
I was going to the bathroom every hour and I could barely look at myself in the mirror. Now I know that sounds so ridiculous, I just really, really live for Sunday. Half way through my session I was telling myself that by Tuesday I'm already going to be looking forward to Sunday but we're not even 1/3 of the way through my session and I'm acting like it was all over.
I always start off badly, it takes me a while to get into my A game, a while to really start crushing, not making mistakes etc. I regained some composure and finished SCOOP main low with 150k coming back on Tuesday and more importantly came 2nd in the Sunday 6max on .fr which is my top 3 tournaments on Sunday. I ran really well in the last 2 tables I won ako vs aks vs Monsterdong who is a very, very good friend of mine and really didn't want to win like that at all. I had played awful all session and then I got lucky with ak vs ak, I really didn't deserve it. On the final table I lost 7/8 flips but I was actually happy about it. I had been down to 2000 chips and span up ridicuously, I really do feel a lot of the time like I have a right to win, like fuck these guys who just turn up, its not fair if THEY win and I don't, but here I didn't want to win. I had played very poorly and I wasn't a rightful winner by any means.
Yesterday was so different. I won the 109r and I thought it was probably the best tournament I've ever played.
I started the day pondering between eating something outside and going to the gym and starting later or just getting into it. I'm sad to say I chose to play but for some reason I really wanted to do well. I think this was either the first or second hand of my entire session..
http://www.boomplayer.com/poker-hands/Boom/13921053_3983774889I snap folded the flop within 2 seconds, I just knew it was the right thing to do. Today at the start of my session I wouldn't have. I would have found an excuse. I actually spent 900 on the 109r today. I made bad decisions, bad bluffs, bad calls etc. I don't think this is a flop anybody would really attack so early. I can't think of many hands he would choose to just go nutzho with. I had jdjt on my table and I 3bet a fish and he 4bet me and I just instantly folded JJ. Today I would never have done that I would have talked myself into it. Like I said in that speech the other day, this game is all about inches. We find our edge from making small decisions that add up. If you make 4/5 mistakes then its so so costly.
This is the next hand from the same tournament thats pretty interesting.
http://www.boomplayer.com/poker-hands/Boom/13922529_ECBD08EE10I would previously play this differently. Perhaps r/f flop. Perhaps bet bigger ott, perhaps check turn/decide river. But in this scenario I think my range plays slightly better by betting smaller. I'm going to go out and say now that I think the trend in tournaments will be to bet very small in certain situations. Not small like this, but smaller. Like 4bet to 19bbs pre flop and then bet 1-3bbs on the flop. When SPR isn't a huge concern its pretty interesting. We actually get a surprising number of folds when we bet this small and people really struggle to defend enough of their range.
Examples of ways where you can exploit people..
We raise pre flop, bb defends. We cbet 20% pot. Lets say the flop is 933r When our opponent gets to this flop he has to start defending all Q highs, J highs (80% right?) etc and in reality people just don't do it. But lets say people do defend correctly and then we pot the turn (have to defend 50% of their range vs our turn bet) then on almost any board they are going to be making a big mistake against us as its really difficult to continue. Defending from the BB is the new trend, everybody knows how to "defend" but do they really? What exactly is their game plan? And are people doing enough to adjust? I think if we cbet 100% of flops with a 20% bet size and then 100% turn bet size + frequency then its just going to be so difficult for 90% of regs to compete with our strategy, nevermind all of the different things we can do on the river. This is just a basic idea (small flop/big turn) you can think really complex on different things that may work well, 20%, 20%, 130%, its extremely difficult for villains to range construct well enough to defend all three streets optimally.
I just see everybody scrolling to have pot and then adding a bit if they are weak or taking a little bit off if they are strong, checking back all their top pairs, never barreling at all on certain textures. It just seems so easy to play against? Play about with it, its fun! Try different sizes and do some proper hand analysis and see how much your opponent has to defend optimally vs your sizings. A lot of guys who "crush" cbet super high. One of the top 10 players in the world cbets 94% over a large sample, cash game players may look at that and think jfc lolmtters, but if you can manipulate certain stack sizes, understand how to adjust your sizes to textures and work out which opponents folds to your 20/20/130 and which fold to you 20/80/75 then you can really have such a huge edge imo.
Anyway moving on the next hand was
Not trying to brag here, this was a very tough turn call though. Its very hard for him to just have pure air here, but had some read which I won't go into here. More of just a fun hand
http://www.boomplayer.com/poker-hands/Boom/13923322_C90E04C5B6The last hand for now is very interesting too. I actually think I got it just about right here, but at the time I was very unsure on the best sizing.
http://www.boomplayer.com/poker-hands/Boom/13923890_A59F9D66E7I think he's probably overcalling river abit. I think he should call when he has a diamond in his hand and fold without, it would probably be better to call with a7 here than with aj/aq though as he doesnt block those missed draws as much. If I'm valuebetting 8/9x+ for value I really do have ALOT of combos when I defend here from the bb.
Horses did well again today, we had a win in the hot 16.50 for 15k and a SCOOP final table for 15k as well.
I leave for Monaco in exactly 2 weeks and stay there until the day before SCOOP where I will take very little time off and then the day that SCOOP finishes I am supposed to be flying to Vegas the very next day. Maybe it all proves a little too hectic for me, I'm not quite sure, definitely keeping my options open though.
Tomorrow I have to grind as I will play SCOOP Main event (high) and try and get a stack through to day 2. Tuesday I will try to stream SCOOP/Super Tuesday/888 and whatever else but having a few technology problems. Will let you know if that changes though.
Just watched the first 4 episodes (leaked) of game of thrones. Won't say anything for spoiler value but was somewhat underwhelmed, maybe I was just too tired when I watched though.. Will watch again over next week or so, have been watching Better Call Saul and love that so far!
gn all <3
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