Book Review: The Mental Game of Poker

Sklansky taught us the math, Harrington and Miller taught us the strategies, and Jared Tendler now teaches us The Mental Game of Poker!

In the introduction to TMGP 1 Jared writes: Tilting and playing your best happen for predictable reasons and occur in predictable patterns. He proceeds to teach us how to recognize these reasons and patterns. He then teaches us how to control them. TMGP 1 focuses on the negative aspects of your game - tilting. Whereas TMGP 2 focuses on the the positive aspects - playing your best. These are ground-breaking books that offer an extremely useful toolset for improving your game.

I have only just finished my first read through of TMGP 1 and 2. However, there have already been several immediate improvements in my game. His description of the learning process has allowed me to quickly isolate two important distinctions between my A-game and my B-game.

I knew that I often lost big pots by overplaying top pair hands. TMGP 1 helped me notice that this usually occurred at the start of a session. I was making mistakes before I got into “the zone”. By simply implementing a warm-up routine (just as you would in any other sport), I have eliminated a very costly leak in my game.  A pretty obvious and effective solution!

The other change has been to reduce my number of Zoom tables. Most of my cash game skills lie in what Jared terms conscious competence, which means I have to think in order to use these skills. Running four Zoom tables just doesn’t allow me enough time to do this consistently well. Therefore, I am practicing these skills at a reduced volume. With continued practice, more and more of these will transform into skills that I don’t need to think about to do well. They will move into my unconscious competence.

I am also working on several other areas of my mental game that are not as quick and easy to fix, such as my bad habit of moving up stakes when tilting. Although I do better understand the type of tilt that leads to this habit. Addressing the root of this problem will take a sustained effort.

TMGP 1 and 2 are written in an easy-to-read, nearly oral style. It feels as though the author is talking directly to you. The content is well organized and structured. You are presented with a methodology founded on three theories of learning which in turn are supported by practical examples and client stories (from high stakes pros).  Each chapter culminates in a clear route toward self improvement. There are no answers in the books though. You are taught how to create your own mental map, but you will have to put in the work in order to reach the goals.

I found the greatest strength of the books to lie in how the truth of each element presented hit me like an epiphany. I would learn something new, yet its implications were immediately obvious. The hard work of incorporating the element into my mental game will take time, but the learning process necessary to move forward is clear. Reading TMGP has fundamentally changed the way I think about poker and about learning in general.

If you are serious about poker, then TMGP 1 and 2 are must reads. My recommendation may not carry much weight, but check out the reviews by pro players on his site! You can also find out more in this forum thread where Jared Tendler along with co-author Barry Carter have been active helping members at the Pokerstars PokerSchoolOnline.

I purchased The Mental Game of Poker 1 as a Kindle e-book and won a copy of The Mental Game of Poker 2 in the thread above. Thanks for being a great guy with the way you handled my ineligibility in that contest, Jared. And, thank you both for writing these game changing books.

Who would have thought an inchworm could be so profound!

GL and have fun at the tables!

Roland GTX

What am I Hoping to Flop with this Hand?

Here is a link to a blog I recently posted over at PokerSchoolOnline. If you are struggling at the microstakes this little trick might help you stay out of trouble.

What am I Hoping to Flop with this Hand?: Assessing your Flop Potential

GL and have fun at the tables!

Roland GTX

How Was Your Summer?

All is good on my end. After nearly six weeks away from the tables, I am finally getting back into the groove. I am taking poker more seriously than ever and my results indicate that I have gotten a decent handle on Zoom cash tables at 25NL and lower. I have been mixing it up with 6-Max and Full Ring. Most of my online play is at Pokerstars, but I drop by Full Tilt now an then. I would play more tourneys there. However, I find it hard to run games on both sites simoutaniously. I tend to time out too often.

I have been pretty activite talking and writing about poker, but all of that is happening at PokerSchoolOnline.

Here is a link to my June/July Update. Aslo, if you want to follow a real pro, I suggest checking out xflixx. He is a PSO trainer and now a member of Pokerstars Team Online! He has an excellent video blog that on Facebook that he updates daily. He is scary good!

GL and have fun at the tables!

Roland GTX

I have recently taken a short break from Full Ring in order to learn a bit about 6-Max. You can follow my running account of this on the PSO forum: Roland's 6-Max Challenge

I've also had some fun as a tournament commentator for PSO! Pokestars offers a 5K guaranteed tourney for a select few of its pokerschool members, and a few of us hand analyzers have been commentating the final table. If you are curious take a look for yourself. The video is at the end of this blog post by ArtySmokesPS.

 

Things are going pretty well. My game is steadily improving. I'm making better decisions. And I have been profitable.

GL and have fun at the tables!

Roland GTX

March Review and Zoom Strategy

I am happy, and more than a little relieved, to have done well in March. If you recall, I tilted in February. Since then, I have been focusing on the basics and getting back on track. The only negative issue with March was that I didn’t get to play as much Zoom as I had hoped. There were several promotions running early in the month stealing my cash tabling time, then Easter break. Sun and fun in the mountains snowboarding with the family was fantastic. Although it did result in an all-expenses paid five day vacation in the hospital. Lying there with a morphine infused brain infused allowed for some deep, meditative reflection. Among other things, I learned that I missed poker more than smoking! I haven’t had a cig in over a week:) Not to mention, my son was quite happy to inherit my snowboard gear. Enough about that, let’s get back to poker and the details from March.

Tourneys

WBCOOP and MicroMillions were fun, but I didn’t get rich in any of those. Congratulations once again to EvokeNZ from PSO! Read my previous posts if you want the WBCOOP details.

Omaha tourneys. If you haven’t taken the PSO Omaha Quiz, I strongly suggest you do so. The free tickets are great. The game is fun. And most importantly, the competition is soft, especially in the new variants such as Courchevel!

I took 2nd in the very first Courchevel tourney I played. It was 48 man turbo. I also played a handful of Rush tourneys on FullTilt. I cashed in several and took 2nd in one. No big scores, but ok for the ROI.

Cash Tables

I tried to win a Milestone hand while that promo was running at the start of the month, but no love. I did play one session of 20 tables at 10NL and 16NL! That was fun and I actually ended up about two bucks. However, this level of multitabling is not something that I would like to do every day. I didn’t play any hands at higher stakes this month.

Zoom

I played 13K hands of 25NL Full Ring Zoom. I made some good plays and bad plays, but the month went great. Once again, I didn’t quite reach my $500 monthly profit goal, but I was way ahead of my daily average for the days I played.  Here  are my results.

Improvement

Most of my improvement this month has been small tweaks and incremental adjustments. The better I become at postflop play, the wider an opening range I am using preflop. When I first started Zooming I was a Rock. I slowly opened my range becoming ABC. Now, I am slowly gravitating from being an ABC player and a TAG. Regardless, I still stick to my same basic principles though. I look for spots that offer a clear line rather than simply a theoretical +ev spot.

For example, let’s say I’m in the big blind. It folds around to a reg who raises from the btn and a weaker player calls from the sb. I will fold a hand such as A9o. I may well have the best hand preflop, but I find A9o very difficult to play post flop with such a weak kicker. Rather than getting involved in an unclear situation, I just fold.

If I had a hand such as A5s, I would call in this spot and treat it as a speculative hand. The straight and flush possibilities make this much hand much easier for me to play than the A9o hand, even though the A9 hand is actually “stronger”. If I get a good draw great, I’ll play aggressively. If I flop a pair I might bet, but I won’t risk too much of my stack with “just a pair”, whether it be the A or the 5 that has hit.

If I have a hand such as A10s or AJs+, I am now more apt to 3-bet preflop. (Note 3-betting or flatting is a bit villain dependant.) This usually wins the hand, but again, I get very careful postflop if I get called. The advantage of 3-betting is that it usually gets at least one opponent to fold. Playing post flop in a read based situation is much easier against one opponent than against multiple.

I take the same approach in hands that I open. Let’s say I’m in the CO and it folds around to me. I fold hands such as A9o because I find them difficult to play post flop. Whereas, I would open with a hand such as 67s. This is a good example of where my opening range is widening. A few months ago I would have wanted 10Js to open from the CO. As I improve my postflop play, primarily through my ranging abilities, I can confidently play a wider range of hands from this position.

In other words, I try to play hands that have the potential for more than just top pair, or high card. I want to play spots where I can hit a set, a straight or a flush because these are the spots where I can confidently play for stacks. Hitting a pair, but no draws, as would always be the case with A9o, still gives me a plan B to fall back on, but it is not my main line. I focus on pot control when this happens.

This is a general description of my overall approach to cash tables (and all Omaha games..) However, I found I needed to add in two extra elements before it became successful: opponent stack sizes and stats.

I try to avoid playing against short stacks. They tend to get all in too quickly. This leads to too many all in spots than I am comfortable. Again, I sacrifice, potentially +ev spots by doing this. Yet, I don’t care for all the variance inherent in these 60/40 spots. I prefer to take a safer route. On the other hand, I will gladly call a preflop UTG raise from a deep stacked Rock if I’m holding a speculative hand, because the implied odds are so good if I hit.

Secondly, opponent stats can have a big impact on the hands I play AND how I choose to play them. For example,  I will fold my 67s mentioned above if one of the blinds has a highl 3-bet%. On the other hand, I will steal from the sb with ATC against an tight bb.

All in all this approach seems to be working for me. Yet, if I get overly aggressive, I can lose a stack or two quite fast still. I need to constantly work on improving my game (allowing me to play more hands) while staying on the sweet spot I seem to have found. This has not been very easy, but it has been very fun!

Goals for April

I want to get in at least 20K hands of 25NL Zoom. Hopefully I can have a big month both volume-wize and profit-wize...

Keep watching videos and posting hands for analysis at PSO. Hand analysis is my favorite. I continue to learn so much from feedback on my own thoughts, as well as, reading how others (esp. Dave and Gareth) approach Zoom hands.

Keep improving my Zoom game! Rather than getting complacent, the more I learn, the more I see the complexity of the game, and how much I don’t know. This entices me to work even harder at improving.

Good luck in April!

Roland GTX

2013 WBCOOP Wrap Up

All the cards have been dealt in the 2013 WBCOOP. All that remains is to see who comes out on top of the leaderboard, and who wins the coveted ”Best Blogger” award. I’m not a contender on the leaderboad, but I still have hopes of being considered for the best blogger. Trying to type with my fingers crossed is not easy!

The WBCOOP Main Event took place yesterday. I min-cashed, but wasn’t able to bring my A-game. I had to sit out several long stretches in order to make dinner, pick up the kids, etc. I love poker, but I still need to keep my priorities straight!

Congratulations to TIGER CENTE (India) on taking it down! Although, I still can't find his blog... (Edit: Thanks for the link EvokeNZ) And congratulations to chillipops (UK) on his 27th place finish making him the deepest running PSO member!

Leading up to the Main Event, I played in five more WBCOOP tourneys since my last post.

Event 20 PLHE Turbo: Out 120th. Just call me bubble boy!

Event 23 NLHE Big Antes: Out 264th. Don't ask...

Event 24 No limit Omaha hi/lo: Out 101st. Min-cash for a $5 SCOOP ticket

Event 26 PLO8 6-Max: Out 92nd. Min-cash for a  $5 SCOOP ticket

Event 28 Horse: I lost track of time and didn’t play the event. Wasted ticket...

All were rather uneventful card-wise. However, the chatter at the tables and in the PSOforums was fantastic throughout the entire competition. The social buzz is really what the WBCOOP is all about, and with that in mind I consider this year the best WBCOOP thus far. PSO showed its strength with members making the final table on very many events. A few times there were several members at the same final table! Railing them was great.

I ended the blogger competition with 1 final table, 5 SCOOP tickets, a min-cash in the Main Event and a ton of fun. The SCOOP schedule is not yet released; therefore, I’m unsure if I will be using my tickets on MicroMillions events or waiting for the SCOOP. I do hope to play in the MicroMillions $5.5 Zoom tourney though. Zoom is great!

The Big Bang

A few other events occurred during the WBCOOP that are worth mentioning. Firstly, a blogpost of mine at PSO won a ticket to the Big Bang Freeroll. This is a competition only for members of the various Pokerstars poker schools, including PSO. There were 257 entries. I ended up 23rd for a nice cash, but peanuts compared to Mr mendes and marvinsytan from PSO who both made the final table. Both were also in the WBCOOP. Nice running gentlemen!

Full Tilt vs Pokerstars 

I also play on Full Tilt. Rush tourneys are a blast, not to mention pretty soft! Well, Full Tilt had  a promo last week called  ”The Professionals vs TeamPokerstars” which promoted a series of heads up battles between the biggest names on both sites.

Isildur1 vs Bertrand ”ElkY” Grospellier

Durrrr vs Isaac ”luvthewnba” Haxton

Gun Hanson vs Daniel ”Kid Poker” Negreanu

We needed to pick the winner of each match. Get one right and win a 10K freeroll ticket. Well, I hedged my bet by putting it all on Pokerstars. This was fortuitous since Pokerstars swept the series. I won three freeroll tickets and a $20 bonus for getting all three correct! Winning the tickets was good, winning the cash was better, but watching the big guns go head to head was a real treat. Great promo FullTilt!

That is it for now. I’ll let you know how my quest ot parley all these tickets into real cash turns out. Plus, I will probably be taking a closer look at 25NL Full Ring Zoom in my next post.

Roland GTX

WBCOOP Midway Update

The blogger competition at Pokerstars has been quite fun thus far. It has generated a ton of freindly socializing at the tables and in the forums/blogs, especially amongst all the PokerSchoolOnline members. It has also generated a bit of confusion. Let’s look at that first.

Last year, we voted on the best blog via PokerNews. A winner was then chosen by Pokerstars from among the top ten. This was fun, but being popular does not necessarily corralate with being the best – or does it? This year, we haven’t seen anything at PokerNews. Being curious, I mailed Pokerstars support. 15 minutes later I had an answer from Ginou on the Support Team.

”This year, players are not required to vote on the blogs. The winner will be decided internally by a judging panel.”

Great service as usual – thanks Ginou!

There was another issue as well. Participants were supposed to get 10 tickets to be used in any of the 30 WBCOOP events. Many got 20 or 30 tickets. I got 20, but they were adjusted to 10 the following day. Yesterday, However, I noticed that all my remaining tickets had been removed!? I fired off another mail to Support. Once agian, it didn’t take long for them to reply with an explanation of what had happened. Apparently, my blog was accidentally submitted twice. I don’t know if this was something I did, or a technical glitch. Either way, while correcting the number of enties and tickets issued, they removed more than they should have. They reinstated my remaining six tickets immediately. So, no harm, no foul. This turned out to be lucky for me. Had it taken longer to fix my tickets, I wouldn’t have been able to play in last night’s Event 18.

Thus far I have played in five events netting me 50 leaderboard points, 3 SCOOP tickets and a WBCOOP Main Event ticket.

Event 2 PLO 6-Max (102nd for a $5 ticket)

Event 7 NLHE 6-Max

Event 8 NLHE

Event 12 Stud H/L (74th for a $5 ticket)

Event 18 PLO Turbo (8th for a $33 ticket)

Playing scheduled tourneys makes me appreciate how great Zoom and SnGs are. They always fit my schedule no matter when when I want to play. With the WBCOOP, I have had to make my schedule fit the game times which is not always easy. The four o’clock games are while I’m preparing dinner for the family. I’m usually picking up one of the kids from practice when the  eight o’clock games are starting, and the midnight games make for a very late night. Playing is well worth the effort though.

Due to the times and the fact that the tickets were free, I have played in several events where I really don’t know what I’m doing. This has been fun and a great way to gain some experience playing something other than No-limit Holdem.

In Event 2 PLO 6-Max, I won a few big pots early then time banked my into the money. This ensured my spot in the Main Event. By the time we neared the  bubble, my stack was so short that I had no fold equity and time banking was my best option.

Events 7 and 8 were supposed to be my strong runs, but neither went too well. KK

Event 12 was Stud H/L. This was my first time to play any form of stud poker online. I didn’t have high expectations. My approach was similar to PLO8 though. I only played hands that had potential for scooping the pot. This worked surprizingly well. The few hands I played got great flops and big pots giving me a nice stack after the first hour. This tourney was going to be an all nighter and I doubted I had much of a chance at winning it. So, at one in the morning, I sat out confident that my stack would carry me into the money.

Event 18 PLO Turbo. I love anything turbo, but haven’t played much PLO. I like hi/lo better. This turned out to be a very fun tourney. I landed on a table with several PSOers. ggervacio was there (congrats on cashing in the Sunday Million!!!!)  TrustySam was there (and cashed too!!!). As usual, she made sure everyone was happy with her positive, friendly comments. A bit later one of PSOs big guns, ahar010, got seated with us. He caught a bad case of ”right move, wrong result”, but it was fun playing against him while it lasted. We had a PSO party going on for a while, but finally I got moved to a new table.

Similar to event 12, I played a pretty tight range of starting hands. I know enough to judge my own hands, but didn’t even try to put others on a range. It was fit or fold post flop for me all night. Thankfully, I either flopped well or got lucky in most of the hands I played. I was chipleader early on and remained among the top spots all tourney. I went to the final table with the 3rd largest stack. With eight players remaining I was UTG and  the chipleader was in the big blind. I look down at AA66.

There were several short stacks on the verge of getting blinded out and I would have preferred not to tangle with the chipleader, but AA66 seemed too good to pass up. I made a 3x raise for about 20% of my stack. I was afraid that a smaller raise would get a string of callers. By making a solid raise, I hoped that I would isolate the chipleader since nobody would want to tangle with a utg raise looking strong and a deep stacked chipleader. This worked. It folded around to the big blind who 3-bet me for most of my stack. He hadn’t been getting out of line, so I gave him credit for having a real hand.

This was where my lack of knowledge became an issue. AA66 looks strong, but I had four different colors AND no connectedness. I had no idea of hand equities in PLO. How does my hand compare to something like KQsJ10s? Nevertheless, I got the situation I wanted and 4-bet all in. The chipleader had AsQdQhJh and made a straight on the river knocking me out in 8th. I still don’t know if I made a good play or bad play. I’ll have to get the hand analyzed by someone who knows PLO.

This was a great evening. Running deep in a game that I’m not that familiar with makes for a fun, low-stress tourney. All the socializing at the tables, especially with the PSOers, made for a huge added value!

That’s more than enough from me already LOL! Good luck to all bloggers with the remaining tourneys. Sandtrap777, we are all rooting for you! He is currently high up on the leaderboard. And good luck to all bloggers in the ”Best Blogger” competition as well. I think Raiser has a real shot at a repeat with all his good deeds.

Roland GTX

Roland GTX: Best Moment on Pokerstars

Roland GTX
I've been a regular at Pokerstars since 2008 and
 this is my third year taking part in the WBCOOP.

I have always gotten a kick out of landing at a table with big name players whether it be spacegravy, Boku87 or a Pokerstars Pro like Johnny Lodden. I vividly remember being struck by fear and awe back in 2009 when Shaun Deeb got seated next to me in a tourney . I was thrilled to death having that guy at my table, but scared to death to even consider playing a hand postflop against him. To be quite honest, I did my best to stay out of any hand that he decided to play - LOL!

No, I can’t boast that I stacked one of these players. They are all scary good and I was just another bug to be crushed.  But, watching players of this caliber grind, seeing the hard work they put into their game and the skill they bring to the table has always been a great source of inspiration. Moreover, I do have something in common with them.

We all play poker for the love of the game...for the thrill of running deep. We all play with a desire of making a final table... with the dream of winning.

Playing with the pros has given me some great memories, but my best moment playing on Pokerstars was when I experienced the dream for myself.

Last August I registered for a $5.40 turbo Knockout tourney. There were 2960 entrants and a 12K prize pool.

I had an average stack size throughout the early stages of the tourney. With about 300 players remaining I finally won a big hand becoming chip leader at my table - nice! I was ready to put my big stack to good use and I got dealt some big hands. Unfortunately, I lost the chips pretty quickly when my AKs bricked against pocket pairs twice in a matter of minutes. This was looking to be another ”almost” deep run. I was disappointed, but managed to keep my focus.

I stayed alive by apparently picking good stealing spots. Not getting called kept me in the game, but it kept my stack short as well. With 50 players remaining I was in 46th place, short stacked, and very desperate. I got dealt AK again and moved all in from early position. The table chip leader 3-bet trying to isolate me but the big blind joined the action making an all in call. Both opponents had pocket pairs. I bricked the flop and could feel the sweat brewing on my forehead. I bricked the turn and felt a tear of frustration welling up. And then I rivered an A tripling my stack - oh yeah! I was still alive, but still under the average stack size.

Half an hour later were nearing the final table bubble. I really wanted to make my first final table of a scheduled tournament. Squeaking my way to a final table didn’t sound like fun though, nor did it seem like a realistic option. It folded around to me in mid-position. I decided that I wanted to play my 55. I shoved and got insta-called by the big blind holding AK. Now it was the villain’s turn to miss every street. My five’s held, I doubled up, and "presto", I was sitting with an average stack at my very first final table!

I wanted to text my poker buddies so they could rail me, but I was afraid of jinxing myself - LOL! My pulse was racing and I felt great. Now I was playing to win. But, would I have the guts to pull the trigger when the time came?

I did a quick check on the other players at the table. None of the others seemed too scary thankfully, except for one solid MTT grinder. He was the first to get knocked out of the final table though. He shoved 88 from the small blind and the big blind woke up with 99 knocking him out. I didn't play many hands except for re-raising all in against the chip leader who kept minraise-folding preflop. That felt great! I proved to myself that I could pull the trigger.

Players kept getting knocked out and eventually we were down to the final four. There was one big stack while the rest of us were pretty equal. This was a turbo so the blinds and antes were high.  Everyone was in push – fold mode.

I called a preflop shove holding AQs and had the villain dominated as he was holding A4. My hand held. We were down to three and I was now the chip leader for the first time in the tourney.  A few hands later I called another all in, this time from the short stack. His 99 was no match for my JJ.

Finally, I was where I had dreamed of being, heads up at the final table of a real tourney. First place was worth $1872 and second paid $1397. This was going to be my biggest cash no matter what happened, but I wanted to win. I wanted to know that feeling of pure elation, no second guessing myself and no regrets.

I had a 4:1 chip lead and the villain was passive. I kept hammering away at the villain’s stack for ten hands and got him down to shoving range. Then I picked up A6o in the small blind and decided that was good enough to go with. I shoved and the villain called with A10. My emotions plummeted when I saw that he had me dominated. But a 6 on the flop put me ahead and another 6 on the turn ensured the win! Triple fist pump – oh yeah! Victory was mine!

The three and a half hours it took to play the tourney were filled with emotional ups and downs charged with fear, excitement, and adrenaline. Making my first final table, achieving my first big win and taking home my largest online cash definitely made for my best moment on Pokerstars!

Sharing that moment on both of my blogs resulted in a ton of great feedback and support which allowed me to savor the moment even longer. Poker is best shared with friends!

You can find me at the Pokerstars forum PSO: www.pokerschoolonline.com

Here on my blog: www.rolandsroom.blogspot.com

And on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RolandGTX @RolandGTX

Remember to vote for your favorite blog entry at PokerNews once the voting starts!

GL and have fun at the tables!

Roland GTX

Private Coaching Sessions Revisited

If you remember, I won a private coaching session at PSO back before Christmas. The videos are now available in the PSO library if you are interested in watching...

I learned a ton. Perhaps you will too.

Coaching Roland GTX Part I

Coaching Roland GTX Part II

GL and have fun at the tables!

Roland GTX

January Update

My $500 monthly profit goal is already met, and we still have a week left to play. I’ve been profitable at tourneys and cash games. Good stuff, but still plenty of room for improvement.

Here are my January results to date (Jan 24th):

Improvement
 * I learned the implications of a polarized board
 * My cash gaming experience is finally showing results in my tournament postflop play
 * It seems like I’m improving as a hand analyzer at PSO

Tourneys 
Played 12 tourneys in January to date and have cashed in 7 for a nice 302% ROI
Notable finishes were:
 * 2nd place in two $4 Rush tourneys
 * Cashed in the $27 6-Max TCOOP Event 1

I sure can’t complain about my tourney results. Imagine running +300% ROI for a year LOL! Nonetheless, I am very dissatisfied that I ended both of my heads up battles in 2nd place. I don’t like losing and I don’t like wasting opportunities.

I also wasted another great opportunity in a 12K Guar Rush tourney at Full Tilt. 300 players remaining (top 90 ITM) and I am in the top 20 with a big stack. I get dealt KK on the btn. I Raise and get called by the big blind who has an even larger stack than mine. 88Q on the flop, I c-bet and get called again. K on the turn giving me the nuts, I raise and get reraised – Jackpot!

I’m going to be the tourney chipleader after this hand. I am 100% focused on sizing my bet properly in order to get all in on the river and don’t notice the FullTilt warning sound (it is not the Stars beep beep beep). Before I manage to write in my raise amount, I get autofolded from the hand for using too much time! Rather than doubling up and becoming chipleader, I spewed a large part of my stack and finished outside the bubble. Not my best moment...

Cash Games
Played 18 000 hands total
 * Profitable at all stakes played: 10NL Zoom, 25NL Zoom, 50NL FR and 100FR
 * Avg Daily Profit. $13 (below my daily goal)

All good... but my goal was to average 17 bucks a day running six zoom tables. I have been well under my 17 dollar mark. After a close look at my stats, it is clear that my BB/100 is significantly better when I play fewer tables. So, for February I will cut down to playing only 3 Zoom tables. This gives me time to think rather than running on autopilot.

Apparently I still don’t let go of AA when I’m running on autopilot either. I had 6 hands that weren’t bad beats, but rather simply really bad play on my part. In all six, it was fairly clear on the flop that my TPTK or AA was in trouble, and it was crystal clear on the turn. Yet, I ignored the obvious and gave away my remaining stack. These few hands ate a third of my profit and kept me from my 17 dollar a day mark. 6 hands out of 18 000 cost me nearly 200 dollars...

VIP Status
 * Earned 1100 VPPs in January
 * Earned first $ 10 Stellar Reward
 * Earned Silverstar Status for February

Weekly Plans for February 

Five sessions multitabling Full Ring Zoom
 I have cut down from 6 tables to 3 tables, and play only 25NL Zoom now. This seems to give me better quality, more profit and plenty of FPPs.

1 session single tabling Regular Full Ring 
This is a repeat from January. I’ll be playing either 50NL or 100NL. Also, once I have ensured Silverstar status for March, I will play a bit more here rather than multitabling zoom.

1 session for Tourneys
Hopefully with a 300% ROI again

My game is steadily improving, but I really need to focus on minimizing my losses with ”just a pair” hands. My main improvement goal for February is to have zero spewed stacks from these spots. Getting beat is fine, getting unlucky is fine, but giving it away when I am clearly beat is unacceptable.

All in all january has been a fun month and I am happy with my results. Things are going in the right direction and I have identified a few specific leaks to focus on for February.

I hope you are improving and your bankroll is growing, too!

GL and have fun at the tables!

Roland GTX

Goals for 2013

2012 in Review

In previous years I played mainly for fun and wasn't too concerned with good bankroll management. Typically, I would win at microstakes sngs, then spew my profit taking shots at considerably more expensive MTTs.

This pattern broke last January when I made two important changes. Firstly, I bought HoldemManager and started analyzing my own stats. Secondly, I joined the Pokerstars PokerSchoolOnline (PSO) and got serious about learning. These changes made 2012 a milestone year for me:

• I learned a ton!
• I was profitable!!
• I won my first scheduled MTT!!!
• I became a cash game player!?
• PSO hired me to teach microstakes cash games!??! (That was completely unexpected!)

2013 Goals

My plan for 2013 is to continue improving the strong parts of my game and to continue reducing the leaks. Spesifically, I want to meet the following goals by the end of the year:

• Keep improving
• $6 000 in profit
• Goldstar VIP status

Writing up a list of goals is easy, but achieving them requires sticking to a solid gameplan. Here is mine:

Improving

I am improving my game by working on two fronts. Firstly, I am learning by using all the resourses at PSO. There is a huge video archive, live training, hand analyses and a forum. All the trainers (except me LOL) are scary good pro or semi-pro poker players. And, it is all free...  Secondly, I am analyzing my stats and reviewing my hands. Doing hand analysis for others at PSO also helps improve on my own game. It forces me to review the fundamentals on a daily basis. I have two spesific learning goals for the year.

Minimizing my losses
This is actually more a question of discipline rather than learning. I play pretty ABC poker at the moment. I can play ninety nine hands out of a hundred great with a decent profit.  Then I can make one very costly mistake by overplaying a big pair like AA and KK, or top pair top kicker with AK. One mistake can get me stacked and leave me with a losing session. Learning not only to recognize when my AA is beat, but to actually fold it, will have the geatest impact on my overall profit. Remember "It is just a pair"...

Moving beyond ABC poker
I am decent at straight forward ABC poker. This is good enough to be profitable at 25NL and lower. At these levels the opponents make enough mistakes on their own that I don't need to get tricky. At 50NL and 100NL, players are better and make less mistakes though. At these levels I often need to induce mistakes from opponents. Moreover, I need to be aware that they may be doing the same thing to me. My goal is to take my game up a notch so that I can profitably multitable at these stakes.

Building My Bankroll

In order to reach my yearly profit goal, I need to make $500 a month, or about  $17 a day. Most, if not all, of this should come from cash tables. Based on my results from the past few months this seems achievable. I have averaged 24 bucks a day so far in 2013. The biggest threat to building my bankroll is containing my urge to reg for MTTs like the Sunday Million or to sit down at 200NL cash tables. If I bink a tourney great, but in general I'll be playing cash games to build my bankroll and tourneys for fun.

Goldstar VIP

I have been a Silverstar for the last few months. Now that Pokerstars have reduced the VPPs needed from 750 a month to 500, remaining a Silverstar is easy. Goldstar has been reduced from 3000 to 2500 VPPs. I had 1552 VPPs in December. I won't reach Goldstar until I can multitable 50NL profitably. I don't expect to reach this goal until the fall.

Weekly Goals

Some days I play long sessions, and some days I don't play at all. All in all I average about one hour a day playing poker. Here are my weekly goals:

5 sessions multitabling Full Ring Zoom

I play for one hour exactly in these sessions and have six tables running. This works out to about 1800 hands an hour. The main purpose of these sessions is to make money and generate VPPs. At the moment I run four tables of 10NL Zoom and two 25NL Zoom. As I improve, I will be slowly replacing the lowest buyin tables with the next level up. I never run these sessions for more than an hour or I lose my focus. 1800 hands an hour is a lot of clicking and fast desicion making. Zoom is fun!

*After each session I review the hands where I won and lost the most. Each week I will take a closer look at my stats in general.

1 session single tabling Regular Full Ring at higher buyin level

This session is meant to be a learning session. I sit down at a single table one level above my normal buyin. Currently, I am doing this with 50NL and sometimes 100NL. I focus 100% on this table and bring my A-game. In this way, I gain experience at the next level before tossing it into my multitabling sessions. I also get to work on making all the minor adjustments to my game which will be necessary to take it to the next level. Thus far I have been profitable at both 50NL and 100NL, but I am not able to multitable at these levels.

*After each session I will post problem hands on PSO for review.

1 session for tourney play

I want to play less sngs and more scheduled tourneys. I will be playing Rush tourneys on Full Tilt, especially the multiple entry, rebuy tourneys with a gaurantee. I will be playing Zoom tourneys on Pokerstars as well as other Turbo tourneys that fit my time slot. I am striving to final table a big tourney. However, getting deep requires a fair amount of luck. So, I have not listed it as a goal for the year. I do want to be profitable at tourneys for 2013 though.

That is my plan. I'm sure there will be adjustments in the months to come. I'll keep you updated on my progress.

GL in 2013and have fun at the tables!

Roland GTX