The Leak

Tweet

You know what’s funny about my last rant? I wrote it in a fury, as though I’m some kind of online poker pro who’s been stripped of the ability to make a living and now my family and I are starving. I'm so far from being a pro, it’s laughable.

I say that because if you look at my poker stats, I’m not a winning player.  In fact, before 2010, my typical online pokering consisted of me regularly depositing a recreational amount I could afford to lose and either re-depositing once I went broke or hitting a small score and playing off that until I went broke again. 

It's only been in the past year and a half that I was able to withdraw from an online site. The amount was never a lot, but I did it because that’s what I was learning to do from my study on bankroll management. Before learning about BR management, I’d go crazy replenishing the account. So while my game has improved, the truth is, I’ve spent more money on this game than I’ve earned.

I started playing online poker in 2004, and I played off and on through 2007. In 2009, I started playing a lot. Like, every night to the wee hours of the morning a lot. In 2010, I finally started seeing a profit. We’re talking a 6% profit at the micro level. That’s five years of being a losing recreational player.

That’s hard for me to admit. Because – five years. That’s a long time. In four years, people finish college. In three years, I completed law school. F-i-v-e l-o-n-g y-e-a-r-s.  

Dwelling on that realization is uncomfortable because it causes me to face a fear I struggle with a lot - the fear that I'm not a good player.

When people find out I like to play poker, they often ask about the game. I generally respond with, “it’s an easy game to play but a hard game to master and I love it.” When I think about it, the adage tells them nothing about the game unless they play and experience the truth of it for themselves. My 5 years of playing without profit is evidence of that.

During those years, I didn’t watch videos. I didn’t read books. I didn’t scour poker forums. I didn’t follow pros on Twitter. Instead, I played when I felt like it. Often while watching TV. It was fun - a way to pass some down time in the evening and compete.

In late 2009, that changed. I suppose there are plenty who might read this and think, “wth? What took you so long?!” I agree, but for better or worse, it’s my history with this game and I can’t change it. 

Once I realized there were tools and I started using them, I started seeing improvement. And that changed everything.

After Saturday night, though, I realize I’ve just not come as far as I thought.

If I could define the leak in my game in one word, it would have to be: discipline (or lack thereof). I wanted to write something funny, catchy, but the truth is that my lack of discipline is pitiful. If I can’t tame myself, I really need to just admit I'm a recreational player and either stop playing altogether or accept my faults and play the game armed with that self-knowledge.

Here’s how Saturday night went down:

I hadn’t played with my boys in three months. I hadn’t played poker in nearly two months (save one $35 freeze out tourney with the girls at @txcardslingers place). I showed up, got and gave my hellos and welcome hugs, and sat down to play with my $200 buy-in. And for two hours, I folded every hand but two. At the end of two hours, I had a ~$45 profit.

Then, I went on a bit of a run. With 5s and position, I got Qs to fold a large pot. After another hour or two, I was sitting in front of a $575 stack and it was about that time that two of my favorites, having a poor night, got up to leave. Instead of leaving, I started playing around on Twitter and had a shot with a new face at the table, in honor of the birthday boy on my left.

I was laughing and talking more, and began calling behind in family pots where before I'd fold. Gradually, my stack was shrinking.

By 3:00 a.m., we're down to two tables and one of the guys from the other room, whom I just don't like, sat immediately to my right. He played a few hands and then moved three seats to my left. The birthday boy and shooter were on their fifth shot and I was laughing with them. I wasn't drinking, but I was still calling behind and playing hands I knew I shouldn’t play.

After a few more orbits, I found myself sitting in front of a $375 stack and I was fuming. It wasn't the money...it was the self-loathing rising up, I’d stayed too long and I knew it.

I look around and we're 7-handed. There were no more familiar faces, save the prick three seats to my left. I don't tangle with him in pots, but I wrestle with him internally because his very being…well, it gets under my skin. The hands he plays and wins with, the comments he makes after taking down a pot, the way he talks when he’s NOT in a hand: calling for a K when two other players are heads up (KJo v JJs) and saying, “this is the winning hand!” before the cards are dealt and, sure enough, the K flops. He tilts me (more specifically, I tilt myself thinking on it because he’s just being himself and playing his game).

Before you know it, I'm chasing a flush draw on the flop and losing it all to Ks. And I'm going home at 5 o’clock in the morning, empty handed, four hours after the time I should’ve stood up and gone home, with a profit.

Gross.

I was so mad at myself I could hardly speak. I was so mad at myself I was shaking. I was so mad myself I nearly threw my phone through the back windshield of my car walking up to it. I was so mad at myself I probably damaged my transmission when I started the car, put my foot on the brake, and pulled the lever back and forth and back and forth and back and forth from park to drive three times as hard as I could. I was so mad at myself.

I know better. But if I can’t take knowledge and translate it into disciplined action, I will never be a winning player.

That’s the sad truth about the state of my game and my ability. And that’s why my rant from this weekend is funny…in the bitter, “ha, ha, oh I get it! The joke’s on me!” kind of way.

So funny, I can’t stop laughing…because if I do, I’ll cry.

EDIT 9/6 - Might find some things in this post to help with discipline/leakage: DISCIPLINE IS HARD….

***

A comment to my last (cash game) post

Tweet

For some reason, Larry's entire comment wasn't going through in the comments section of my last post.  It's good stuff, though, and I wanted to cut and paste it here in the hopes that his advice will help others, like me, who are struggling with their cash game play.

Larry's comments, and those of Loach, Vera and Ric, are just a few of the reasons why I love blogging, poker, and COMMENTS!  Thanks for reading and commenting, guys.

Larry (@Berroya on Twitter), said:

"Everything I'm about to say is an over-generalization, but the points are useful to learn from.

There are two components to being good at cash games: strategy (when to bet, raise, fold) and emotional control. You seem to be conflating the two a bit, and I've found it helpful to set separate goals for each, and working on them separately. 

Strategically, players who are serious about the game tend to start by trying to figure out what standard or perceived "correct" lines are, by emulating things they see in videos, read in books, hear on forums, etc. It is possible to be a slightly winning player with this approach (although it's getting tougher and tougher), especially at the micros, but it's hard to ever get good from here.

Really successful strategy involves *thinking*. People call it a lot of different things: hand reading, hand ranges, exploiting tendencies...but it all comes down to the same thing: what action will give me the most EV against *this* opponent in *this* situation given the totality of the information I have. Sometimes folding bottom set is the most +EV play. Sometimes shoving second pair is.

Now, your instincts are right -- as a starting point -- at the levels you're playing, because the best play is often to value bet until they play back at you, then fold. But it's never that simple, and I'd encourage you to avoid the pitfall of simple formulas like "I have to get it in with the nuts" and start thinking more actively about things like whether someone stacking you with the nuts was the bottom or the top of villain's range.

On emotional control, it's really as simple as doing everything you can to ensure you're playing your A game all the time, i.e. that your decisions are based 100% on EV and that you are in the state of mind to calculate +EV plays to the best of your ability. For some people it's playing with a big bankroll. For some people it's a stop loss. For some people it's short sessions. Personally, I purposely avoid knowing where I'm at in a session. I pre-determine how long I'm going to play (I have made myself create a chart that I put next to my computer, and a stopwatch to time sessions), I have a strict rule that I *never* look at the cashier while I'm playing, and for the duration of the session I focus on the tables and nothing else. I never play more than an hour without taking a break, and before I start a new session I evaluate my mental state. If I'm tired, tilting from losing 3 buy-ins, hungry, distracted by a basketball game on TV, whatever, I simply don't start the session.

This works for me, and you have to figure out what works for you. I very strongly recommend finding whatever you can by Tommy Angelo (he wrote a great book and has a great video series on deuces cracked) and going from there.

Hope this helps. Good luck."

------------------------

I've Got a Serious Problem with Cash...

Tweet

...cash games, that is.

I've written before about how I began my online cash career in a horrible way: I took 3d in a pretty big $11 MTT, thought that meant I knew how to play poker, sat down at a $1/2 6-handed cash game and proceeded to give away a big chunk of that score.

Since then (late 2009), I've had a real mental issue with playing any cash ring games.

Last year, after not even looking at the cash tables, I took another shot, but played down at the safer $.02/.05 level. Got comfortable there and moved up to the $.10/.25 stake. I feel like I can beat this level. But.

But. Until recently, even though I'm following BR mgmt, I was not following any kind of stop loss planning. Also, when I lose a buyin, I chase that loss to try to at least get back to even. And, I'm also apparently delusional because it's like I have some weird wiring in my brain that makes me refuse to believe it when an opponent's actions indicate that I'm beat. Instead, I am basically saying to that opponent, "here, please take my money because I think I'm a better player than you and have a better hand, even in the face of evidence otherwise."

Am I the only moron who's ever played that way? It is the absolute stupidest, most insane way to play ring poker. But. That's the way I've been playing it.

I'm really tired of it.

I'm also quite embarassed to admit it. And even though my cash game has improved since 2009, it's my tournament play that saves and increases my bankroll and shouldn't it be the other way around?

I blog to be disciplined about my poker. When I write about it, I have to be truthful because as I write about it, I see the things I need to be doing instead to play better, to play my A game. But being honest also kind of sucks because it forces me to see that I'm not one of those players I always hear about and read about (you know, the ones who deposited $50 and turned it into millions). It's taken me 2+ years and I still feel like I know nothing about this game. It can be pretty discouraging at times. Ok, a lot of the time.

So, here are a few things I'm doing to improve my cash game:

1. Quitting when I lose one buyin. Maybe given the variance in poker this too low (my buyin is $20), but until I can better control my tilt, I've got to just quit while I'm ahe...*ahem* $20 in the hole. It's better than being $40 or $60, etc etc.

2. Before putting my entire stack into the middle, I have to be able to affirmatively answer yes to the following question: "Am I 100% positive I have the nuts here?"

Until I can get much better at those two things, I've got to slow down my cash game play.

And that's pretty much it.

What helped you with your cash game? Any advice you can share?

We're off to New Mexico tomorrow for Spring Break. I hope you guys get some time off, too. In the meantime, good luck at the tables!

------------------