Elevate Your Game

I was going to write a long rant of a blog post about how bad I'm running this month, but I think I'm going to try to touch on another topic instead. Cliff notes of what it would've said: I lost $900 on May 2 but I'm only down $300 on the month now. Yesterday I ran $600 below allin EV and still made $350 but felt depressed. FML

So anyway, enough of that. I realized a long time ago that bitching about poker isn't going to get me anywhere, so I try to keep that to a minimum. I know I've bitched a little bit to a few of you on AIM this month, but it's nothing epic and usually just a one line like "Jesus can I run any worse?" Enough of that; what I'm going to touch on today has to do with the evolution of poker. I haven't really planned this out, so it's going to be a spewage of words, but whatever deal with it.

When I started multi-tabling full ring a few years ago on Party, I had no clue what I was doing but still made some money because the players were THAT bad. However, I didn't know what bankroll management was, so I lost my roll playing 3/6 and 5/10 with like 10 buyins or something. Fast forward to the summer of 2007; I started playing on Full Tilt and in my first month back at multi-tabling full ring at .5/1 I made $5k so of course I thought I was the shit. Really, I was just running fairly good and the players weren't THAT bad anymore, but they were still bad. Several months later I decided to go pro, which looking back now was such a risky endeavor that I can't even fathom anymore. I had a misconception that I was good at poker back then, when in reality I wasn't...I was just better than most of my competition. Well guess what, the players only got better and the tables only got tougher. When Februrary of 2008 rolled around, the games were significantly tougher than in the summer of '07. We can thank 2+2 and Cardrunners for this. So what'd I do? I joined Cardrunners.

The thing with Cardrunners and the effect that it's teaching tools have on it's members, is that a lot of players just emulate what they saw in a video because they saw CTS do it or whatever, but at the same time they don't know WHY they're doing it. I used to be the same way. During the summer of '08 something clicked and I started to think on my own a little more about why I was isolating limpers w/ 98s and not limping behind with it, or why I'm not cbetting certain board textures, or why I'm trying to showdown ace high. It was only during this time that I really started to think about the game of poker a little more seriously and not just try to emulate what I saw others doing. Fast forward to present day. I'm constantly trying new things even though for the past few months I've been killing 1/2. This month I'm playing a little looser and am increasing my 3bet percentage two-fold. Why? So I get better. I want to challenge myself to be the best player that I can be, and playing the same way in autopilot or whatever isn't going to help me keep ahead of the evolution of poker. If you don't continually challenge and evalutate yourself, poker is going to pass you by and before you know it you're going to be the one they call a rakeback pro because the games got tougher and you didn't do anything about it.

As an example, I'm working on increasing my 3betting to learn how people adjust to preflop aggression. When I move up full time to 2/4, this is going to be an important skillset to have. Also, lot's of other players are emulating what they see in videos, like Raptor 3betting a ton of hands on the button, and by me working that into my game I'm able to think like my opponents, and hopefully adjust properly and out-think them. I am playing a little looser this month because I want to work on handreading a little more, which really isn't all that difficult if you play 14/10 or whatever. Yes, you still have to handread, but you're not in as many marginal situations where handreading is crucial. I review hands in HEM after every session; and not just my biggest losing hands. I even look at the hands where I cbet or double barrel and assess my bets based on the players and board texture. Quite often I have a hand history where I open it up and think "My god that was a horrible double barrel because that turn card doesn't nearly improve my range as much as it does his..." etc.

In summary, poker is a game of evolution. The players only get better, so if you're think you're good now but you haven't talked over any hh's with anybody in forever, haven't tried new things at the tables, haven't thought about why you're doing what you're doing...then you have some work to do. If not, your winrate is going to plummet from 2ptbb/100 to 0.5 ptbb/100 before you know it. I urge you to continually challenge yourself and to be honest with yourself. Am I one of the top 5 regs at 1/2 on Cake? I think I am. But that doesn't matter, because I know every other player is going to improve, so I need to improve faster. I don't want to be in the top 5, I want to be at the very top.

See you all at the top!