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-disclaimer: This is a very long entry, I wrote most of it for "therapeutic" reasons :) so don't complain if i over wrote please ; -)......If you want to skip the analysis of my leaks and get to my totally awesome bluff, just go all the way down. Enjoy-
So, like I've written before, I've been dedicating most of my time to NL cash this month. This is the main reason for my lack of tourney results lately, I havent really done much because I haven't played much, and when I do play I end up goofing just to start the cash game.
Anyway, there are 2 things that I've learned this past month playing the 10/20 nl game. They are the leaks that I've had hidden inside me and never really recognized until I saw how much money they've been costing me. I'd like to think that I am one of the best regular players in that game, but I am certainly not the absolute most profitable because of my leaks. This is something I plan on working on in the next months, if I get this down I can easily be the most profitable player in that game.
The following leaks might seem extremely easy to fix, but infact they are by far the hardest. They can easily be difference between the best player in the world and the 2nd best, and so on.
# 1 leak i need to fix-
Is to stop making plays that I KNOW are wrong. I was listening to Eric Lynch's podcast on P5's and they asked him what is the biggest mistake he see's players make and he said "This might sound obvious, but by far the biggest mistake people make is doing things they know are wrong, crying calls hoping you might win, missing value bets, etc.." He couldn't be more right.
In the game I play, you'll get run over if you are folding too much, and you'll go broke if you are calling too much. It's finding a balance that is key, I tried figuring out every day for the past two weeks how many mistakes I have made that have lost me money and the amount is HUGE. Of course I have made mistakes that have made me money, but they don't come up nearly as often. My biggest mistakes are calling value bets on the river to get a peek at the other guy's hand, this is dumb because a value bet in 10/20 is anywhere between 100/500 and that can add up QUICK. I'm not saying that I'm making terrible calls, they are certainly hard folds to make and folds that many other players wouldn't be able to make, but folds that SHOULD be made nonetheless.
Here is an example of a hand I think I played pretty much perfectly until the river.
I raise As10s from MP, my left calls 60 PF and has about 2k behind (i have him covered by 2 buy ins or so). We see the flop HU and it comes Ax Ac 5c I check, he bets pot which is 120, I call, turn is a rag 2d I think I check he bets 250 leaving himself 1300 behind, I make it 750 with the intention of folding if he shoves. VERY tough to lay down if he shoves considering he'd only have like 750 left for me to call and the pot would be giving great odds. Instead he calls, at this point a call tells me he has me beat 10 times more than a shove would, it seems like a AQ or AJ type hand that says "im going broke if he has AK, I might as well not give A8 the shot to fold". The river is a Qs and denying my better judgement that told me "just check and fold dude!" I shoved, he of course had 55 and I lost 750 that I didnt have to lose in that hand. This was not a call I made, but in theory it's the same thing, it is lack of discipline and going against my good card sense just to avoid being curious when the hand is done with.
In the next few weeks I'll be working on trusting my gut instinct not just for big ballsy bluffs and calls, but for big ballsy laydowns as well when I think it is correct. Of course there will be situations where I might have the feeling that I'm beat but I won't be able to fold like when someone shoves a 942 board and I have AA, if I go broke I go broke, but Im not mucking to just a bet and a shove if I don't know for a fact that I'm beat. There is a fine line between being a pussy and being able to lay down huge hands, balance is key.
My 2nd leak
Is that I tilt like a monkey on steroids. I always like to say that I don't tilt, because I don't that often...90% of the time, tilt to me is not wanting to quit having a losing session and playing till 11 am just to turn a profit, these times I feel I still play great and I usually recover my losses. Even though I am recovering my losses this is still a HORRIBLE habit of mine and it usually leads to the other 10% of the time. When I go on monkey tilt and start hemoraging chips in every direction. It's something to behold, and it happened to me more times this week than it has in the past 3 months. The other day, I had a 45 minute span where I suffered the following beats :
AA < K5 on a K83 board with no flush draw AI on the flop. K10 vs Q10 playing HU on a KJ58 board all in on turn river 9. AK vs AJ all in PF vs a mega donk. And even though the following isn't technically a beat I still considered it one at the time, AsJs on a Ax 7s2s board vs 72 and i brick.
Needless to say I lost at least 7k in that 45 minute span, 7k isn't much at those limits, those beats happen and I should be able to take them, quit, and make my money back the next day. Instead I shoved in 3 times with the very worst hand trying to make my money back in the next 5 hrs, and I lost 12k total. As if this werent enough i decided to go tilt $1k in a 5/10 PLO game because I figured that is the best place to tilt, luckily for me it worked out and I won like $6k back in 30 minutes, or else I could have been down 13 or $14k for the day. The next day I did well, but then it happened to me again on saturday, where I ended my session up 1 buy in but decided to sit back in, as I lost 1 buy in I tried making it back and lost another and another and finally I was spewing again and I couldn't stop.
It sounds easy to just say "well, quit tilting then" but everyone says that and very few actually follow it. It's not easy to control AT ALL when you're playing so seriously. I've never had problems with real addictions like smoking, drugs, and alcohol but I can certainly compare tilt with those type of addictions. You lie to yourself and say "nah, im good, I'll just keep going, I can quit if I lose one more buy in, last one...I'm still playing well, just running like shit, all I need is a good rush, it'll come, it'll come..." eventually you're staring at your cashier account and beating yourself up for not quitting when you started making mistakes. It's a sick feeling that only occurs once in a blue moon, but if I don't control it now, I'll either have to quit cash or end up broke one day and I don't want either. It's like Matusow said about Prahlad Friedman "He's the best. But he steams. You can have the best 'A' game in the world and it doesn't mean anything if you steam, you'll go broke".
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Enough with the sob stories check out my biggest bluff in the history of my cash game career:
Okay kind of a background to the hand....I have been playing this guy on and off HU and 3 handed for about 2 hrs, Ive won money off him and really only shown the nuts for big pots but I've called down with huge draws for big pots and folded the river.
I have about $5.5 or $6k behind, and he has just about the same, but I have him covered by a little bit I think.
Button folds, BB limps, I make it 60 with 3s6s, he limp rr's to 200. I call. Flop 7c9c10c (may have been 7c8c10c), I know he doesnt like this flop, but he bets 300, I call, turn As, he checks I bet 800 into about 1k, he instantly calls...
-At this point I put him on the following hands :
Ax with QKJ9 (or 8instead of 9) of clubs, another posibility is Kc10x and hands like that (J10, Q10) , bottom 2 pr or a pair with a str8 and a club draw, and a small chance he has AcKx AcQx.-
The river is a Ts and he insta leads somwhere between 1200 and 1500 leaving himself around $3k behind...well now the only way to win the monster pot is to stone bluff it off of him, if my read is correct, he's not strong enough to call me because I have literally repped a flush str8 or top 2 pr/set......I can't play this hand much stronger and he's never going to put me on a stone bluff considering no one ever really has the balls to shove....only question is "is he retarded enough to call with K10 here?" . I didn't think so, although it was possible... So I shove. He thinks the whole time bank, as my heart literally went 1000 bpm, and then totally stopped for at least half a second when he said "I have a ten" and let his clock run out.....of course I show, and I literally felt dizzy after a hand for the first time in about a year, it was sick. but it felt so good. If he calls I probably stop playing cash for ever. (of course I geve part of it back to him when I went on tilt later that night and he totally hit and ran w/o warning once he won most of his money back)
Anyway that was it, just felt like sharing.... |
