Challenges - Poker

30 Day Podcast Challenge Complete | Podcast #36

By Sky Matsuhashi on February 17, 2016 5

I did it! I completed my 30 Day Podcast Challenge! Day 30 of 30 is here. Thanks for listening and joining me on this adventure.

In episode #35 I taught you why you should develop ways to tackle the regs in your games through skill #10 in Ed Miller’s book ‘The Course.’

30 Day Challenge Complete 100% =)

I’d like to look at my completed challenge in terms of it being a SMART Goal.

Specific

One new podcast every day was a very specific task. This is a poker podcast so it would have to be poker related. Plus, I developed a format for my podcast so I’d have to follow that, I couldn’t just record myself speaking for a minute and release that.

Measurable

Absolutely measurable in that I released one every day and I can see how many downloads each episode got. I can see which topics got lots of hits and which ones didn’t, and that gives me a small gauge on what the audience wants.

Achievable

Absolutely achievable, one podcast per day. It actually takes anywhere from 4-6 hours per podcast to create and release, and as long as I was dedicated to it, it was achievable. It did cost me in that I played hardly any poker at all in this past 30 days, but I’ll make up for that in the coming months to remain on track for hitting my yearly goal.

Relevant

Totally relevant in that the more time I spend podcasting now, the better I’ll get at it and sooner. This has been a great experience and it’s taught me a few things:

I can do a podcast at the last minute, assuming I’ve got 3 hours or more to get it done and I’m motivated enough to do it.
Having a plan in place really helps to keep on track. I created a topic list for the entire 30 days and doing that allowed me to just follow the plan. If I had to come up with a new podcast topic each day would’ve been very difficult.
I learned the editing and posting process for my podcast very well, and I’ll be able now to teach it to others if I want to free up my time for other pursuits.
I learned a lot about controlling my breathing and my pace of speaking to make my audio more palatable to listeners. (although this is still a work in progress)
I increased my overall comfort of being in front of a mic and putting my thoughts out there for the world to hear. This increased vulnerability, putting myself out there, I believe has strengthened me and made me more confident in my ideas as well.

Time-bound

This is actually built in to every 30 day challenge. This wasn’t a challenge to just do 30 podcasts, it was a challenge to do 30 podcasts in 30 days.

Challenge

My Challenge to you is to develop your own 30 Day Challenge and start it soon so you can finish it by the end of March. Make it something that in doing so you’ll be a better person by the end of it.

It can be something poker related like studying a minimum of 1 hour per day, not allowing yourself to limp into pots for 30 days, or to play 10 SNG’s minimum per day
It can be fitness related like building your squat max from 225 pounds to 275, taking your kettle bell exercises from 10 minutes to 25 minutes, or getting up to 50 pull-ups per day.
It can be health related like dropping carbohydrates from your diet, getting 8 hours of sleep every night, or even dedicating 1 hour a day to play with your kids.

Whatever challenge you do, make it SMART related. You’ve already got the “Time-bound” aspect of SMART goals built into this with the 30 day time frame, but make sure to build your challenge around the other aspects to SMART goals which were Specific, Measurable, Achievable and Relevant.

And, please include me in your challenge as an accountability partner. Let me know what it is via email to sky@smartpokerstudy.com and I’ll follow-up with you to encourage and help you along the way in your challenge.

30 Day Challenges to Build Good Poker Habits | Smart Poker Study Podcast #7

By Sky Matsuhashi on January 19, 2016 1

Use a 30 Day Challenge to instill new habits in your life and to achieve your goals.

In case you missed it, in episode 6 I told you my very own 2016 SMART Poker Goals and how I plan to achieve them.

30 Day Challenge, Podcast #7

Podcast Mission

By the end of this podcast you will know how to build healthy habits with 30 Day Challenges and how to get the most out of the time spent completing the challenge.

Habits

Habits are something we repeatedly do and we find them hard to quit doing it. They can be good (positively affect your life and those around you) or bad (yep, bad). Today we’re focusing on the good habits.

Awesome Quote:

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle

Excellence in any endeavor is long-term success and building great habits is a key to long-term success. As discussed in episode 3 about the book ‘The ONE Thing,’ I talked about how discipline isn’t real, it’s just habits that you have that appear to be discipline to others.

Some healthy habits for poker players:

Daily study
Daily exercise
Eating healthy
Getting enough rest
Ranging opp’s with each hand played or observed
Always being aware of stack and pot size
Considering what to do on the next street before we act on the current street
Having opening ranges we follow for each hand we play

30 Day Challenges

Use a 30 Day Challenge to build good habits. I have to admit that 30 days isn’t normally enough to build a habit, but it’s a great place to start. As I talked about in episode 3 about ‘The ONE Thing’ (there I go mentioning it again… Best. Book. Ever.) it takes an average of 66 days to build a new habit. So, if you find success over the 30 days, hit it for another 30. BAM! Habit built!

5 Steps to a Successful 30 Day Challenge

Let’s look at the 5 Steps with one specific habit in mind that we want to build: the habit of poker study one hour every day.

1. Have a SMART Goal

This gives you a compelling reason to do the full 30 days: it will allow you to achieve a specific goal. For example: “By the end of 30 days I want to have a strong grasp of SNG play so in the final 5 days of the challenge my ROI will be 20% over 150 SNG’s.” This fits the SMART poker goal criteria and studying daily will help us achieve it.

2. Make a plan

Now that we have this 20% SNG ROI goal, we can make a plan to attain it while hitting our 30 day study challenge. So, maybe we’ll study each of the following SNG Topics for 4 days each: ES, MS, LS, OTB, ITM, ICM and HU. That’s 7 topics for 28 days. Spend the two additional days on studying common SNG leaks, and BAM, we’ve improved our SNG game and completed our 30 Day Challenge. Two birds, one stone… word!

3. Start Small

If it’s new or tough, start small. Can’t study for one full hour each day? Start day one with 20 minutes and add 2 minutes per day to our study time. On day 21 we’ll be at 60 minutes, and BAM, we’ve gradually built our tolerance up to 60 minutes.

4. Plan for failure

If it’s tough and worth doing, plan for failure. Keep the following 3 words in mind: “Don’t miss twice” For this particular challenge, if we miss a day we could wake up 30 minutes earlier than normal the next day and do 30 minutes of study, then later in the day do our normal study plan. BAM! We’re caught up and back on track.

5. Create a Reward

You’re much more likely to succeed if you dangle a killer carrot out in front of you as a reward for completing the 30 days. Reward yourself with something you’ve been wanting for a while.

Sign-up below to get my 30 Day Challenge Tracker – it will help you complete your challenge.

My 30 Day Challenge starting today: 30 days of podcasts!

Goal – By February 17^th I will have 36 podcast episodes posted. Why? The more I practice now, the better podcaster I’ll be (and sooner).

Plan – I’ve got all 30 days of topics laid out. I know when my interview and Q&A episodes will be, so I’ve just got to work the plan and record and post daily.

Start Small – not really doing this as I don’t feel it’s necessary.

Failure – If I fail to post an episode, the next day I’ll do a quick Q&A episode, then follow it up with a normal strategy episode after that. I promise you now that I won’t quit, and I won’t miss twice!

Reward – After posting each podcast, I will allow myself to watch one episode of Breaking Bad which I’ve never seen and my wife got the DVD’s for me for Christmas.

Podcast Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: set your own 30 day challenge! Follow the 5 steps above and email me what your challenge is and why you’re doing it. I’d love to go over all of these in a future podcast.

Heads Up Poker Challenge

By Sky Matsuhashi on November 12, 2015 1

I was looking for a way to improve my SNG results as I’d been seeing too many 2nd place finishes and not enough 1st place finishes. I also recently came 2nd place in a big MTT which was great but a little disappointing b/c 1st paid about 25% more prize money. I felt that my big issue was that I wasn’t adjusting to my opponent’s play as I should, so I decided to do something about it. One of my solutions was attempting…

The Heads Up Poker Challenge

Getting into more Heads Up (HU) spots is the quickest/easiest way to improve your skills in HU play, so I decided to play 100 HU SNG’s.

This is a format that I have very little experience in, but I knew that some of the best players in the world are HU experts (like Ike Haxton) and following in their footsteps can’t be a bad move. Getting more 1st place finishes is prolly the best thing you can do to increase your overall ROI in SNG’s and MTT’s, so purposeful practice in this format will lead to more success in that endeavor.

Why?

This challenge will force you to:

Ditch the tight playing you may be comfortable with
Play your A-game and go with your reads
Tryout different styles of play and see how they fare vs differing opponents
Adjust to player’s different opening and defending ranges
Learn how hands change in value in HU play vs 6max or full-ring play (TP is more valuable HU than in a full-ring game)
Get more flop, turn and river experience that you’re prolly lacking
Get lots of practice with ICM implications and the maths behind bets & calls in post-session studies
Play out of position a lot over various streets which will make you a stronger, more adaptive player
Get in the habit of paying attention to game flow and tailoring your moves based on your recent history in the match
Get plenty of short-stack experience to improve your push/fold game

5 Steps to the HU Poker Challenge

Complete 10 HU SNG matches each day over 10 consecutive days
Record your results and lessons learned in-play (get my personal tracker below w/detailed instructions)
Incorporate into your daily studies either HU SNG articles, videos, forum discussions or coaching to really get the most from this. Learn, implement, review, repeat.
Daily review of at least 2 matches from the prior day, either winning or losing, but should be ones you found particular difficulty in the opponent you faced.
Compile the total results for all 100, and now this is your goal to beat as you continue to play HU SNG’s in batches of 10 or more.

My quantifiable results were as follows:

Profit = $16.18 >>> Not what I’d like, but at least I’m up ?

# of Games Played = 106 over 7 sessions ☺

Total $/Game = $.15 >>> NOT SO GOOD ? C’mon, I want at least 16 cents per game! ???

ROI = 4.18% >>> Now I’ll be shooting for 8%+ ?

# of Games Won and % = 60/106 = 57% >>> Not too shabby, but shooting for 60%+ now ?

My non-quantifiable but highly valuable results were as follows:

I’m constantly finding myself thinking, “How can I exploit this opponent?” Like literally, I’m thinking that line in my head all the time, and not just in HU situations. I’m paying more attention to my opponent’s style of play along with our recent history at the table, and I’m using those to my advantage. I feel much more confident in my play as well, so that’s leading to more success at the tables.

Playing = good, reviewing = GREAT!

Just playing the 100 matches isn’t enough. You need to review at least 2 out of the 10 matches you play each day, hand for hand, and look for the following:

Assess your play and your opponents. Was your strategy effective vs his style? What changes could you have made to take advantage of his tendencies?
What were your ranges based on your actions, and what were his? Were you accurate in your assumptions of his range? Why or why not?
Look at the match from your perspective, then look at it from his. Did he see anything in your plays that you didn’t intend for him to see? Was that river bet you made after checking back the turn bluffy or value-y to him?

Continual Heads Up Poker Play

This isn’t a “one-and-done” improvement technique. I learned so much from this challenge, that I’ve also committed to playing at least 10 HU SNG’s every week from here on out, and I’m recording the results and lessons learned from those as well.

If you decide to embark on this journey of 100 HU SNG’s in order to improve your play, please let me know how you do in the comments below!

Looking for another challenge? Check out the 3bet Re-Steal Poker Challenge.

Study, practice and play with purpose, and make your next session the best one yet!

3bet Resteal Poker Challenge

By Sky Matsuhashi on July 2, 2015 0

I’m subscribed to the mailing list of TransformMyPoker.com, and the coach behind the site, Nick Wealthall, recently sent out a poker 3bet re-steal challenge he called ‘Re-steal for the Win.’ I decided to take him up on this to see what I could learn from it.

I play a lot of MTT’s and this seemed like a good way to increase my aggression (I find that I’m much too nitty and don’t loosen up like I should as the tourney progresses) and test out something that, frankly, I need more experience in.

Reason for the Challenge:

In the challenge video, Nick Wealthall says:

You need to stop playing to survive, and start playing to win.

Playing to survive, to not lose, IS a sure way to lose. This is a mindset I’ve had for a long time that I’ve been working on changing. I want to be the type of player who goes after pots, who tries to win and constantly asks himself, “How can I win this pot, off of this opponent?”

The 3bet Re-steal Poker Challenge allows you to practice upping your aggression, which is needed to accumulate chips in order to give yourself the best chance at winning the tourney. Aggression wins tourneys. The winningest players build stacks by putting pressure on weak, timid opponents on each street and getting them to lay down before showdown.

3bet re-steals are one of the tactics that the best, most aggressive players implement in their games.

3bet Re-Steal Poker Challenge Steps:

Choose how many tourneys you’ll run this experiment over
This begins when your stack is at 15-22bb’s
Make an all-in 3bet after an open raise (don’t do it after an EP open in the first three spots). Do this with hands that have at least some value and post-flop playability (any A, suited K’s, good Q’s, connectors – especially suited). Don’t question, just do it!
Record the results. When it does/doesn’t work, what hands call you, what opponent types call/fold to you. To use my 3bet Re-steal Poker Challenge Tracker, get it below.

My Findings

I decided to do this over 15 different MTT’s which took me a few sessions to finish.

Quite often I got folds when it was the first few times I did it at a table. I was shoving hands like A2o, QQ, Q7s, 98s, AKo, 88, J6s and loads of others. Of course, I can’t be sure of what they folded as most don’t fold and show, but I’ve got to assume they folded hands better than the Q7s and J6s hands.

Re-steals got less effective as I did it more often

I found that after doing it 3 or so times at a table, opponents would pickup on my 3bet aggression and I would start to get pretty light calls from weak players by hands like 88, ATo, KJ and A3. Most of the time, though, opponents were calling with top 10% hands: JJ+, AJs+, AQo+ and KQs.

Ace blockers really help vs weak opponents

I learned that when facing these weaker opponents, it really helped to have an A in my hand as a blocker to them having an Ax that they’d be willing to call with. Often, my 3bet re-steals with 98s or QTs would get called by A8 or A4. If I have an A, they’re less likely to have one, which makes my chances of a successful steal higher.

Choose hands that have decent equity when called

By choosing hands w/ good post-flop playability, when called I still had decent equity with lots of the hands I shoved. I marked lots for review later (I use PokerTracker 4 and Flopzilla to analyze hands). I found that I would often be just a 37% to 63% underdog with hands like 98s vs AKs or a 45% to 55% underdog with a hand like QJs vs ATo.

In the first 6 MTT’s I did it regardless of my opp’s stats, but after this I decided to tighten up just a tad and do this to either aggressive openers or those with high Fold to 3bet stats. The frequency of folds I got seemed to increase, but I didn’t keep good enough records to actually count how many times I did this. I kept track, but with so many games running at once I know I occasionally forgot to record a few hands.

Step 1: good hand… Step 2: check opponent’s stats

One great benefit of doing this challenge that I will take with me from this point forward is the impulse I have to look at my opponent’s stats every time I have a hand that might be worth 3bet re-stealing or for value. This is key as the more likely they’re opening light or fold a lot to 3bets the more often the re-steal will work.

I highly recommend taking on this challenge yourself if tournament aggression is an issue for you. And if the cost of doing this is a factor for you, just do it online in lower stakes games so any losses don’t hurt your bankroll too much.

If you decide to take on this challenge yourself, please let me know how it goes in the comments below.

Make your next session the best one yet!

30-Day Challenges to Improve Your Poker Game

By Sky Matsuhashi on May 13, 2015 0

30-Day Challenges can be tough, but I believe they are the best way to make positive changes in your life. They say it only takes 30 days to form a habit, and we all have lots of habits we’d like to adopt:

Eating healthy, no fast food

Exercise daily

Make new friends

Watch less TV

One Vegan Meal Per Day (100%)

Our First 30 Days Together (97%) – did something special for my wife every day, missed one

Complete the Miracle Morning Every Day (100%)

No Coffee for One Month (100%)

Daily 30 Minutes of Play with My Boys (100%)

My next one will be my first poker challenge for the year: Study Poker 1 Hour Every Day. I’m sure you can see the value in this. I’ll start it on May 18^th.

Poker 30-Day Challenges

Regarding poker, there are many positive poker habits that I’m sure we’d all like to make our own. Here’s a list of Poker 30-Day Challenges I’m considering this year (the first two I’ll do for sure):

Daily Warm-up before session (I’m sometimes overeager and fire up tables right away)

Post a hand on a poker forum each day

Give up alcohol

Read a poker strategy article each day

Read two poker strategy books, one every 15 days (break each up into 15 parts)

Record 30 minutes of game tape each day and watch it the following day

Write a detailed post about one HUD stat each day; broken down 8 ways from Sunday

Create a Twitch account and broadcast a session every day

There are so many more I can do, but if I get all these done this year that would be amazing! Here’s a snapshot of my current 30-Day Challenge Tracker that you can download here:

I think it’s time you started your own 30-Day Challenge to improve your poker game.

What 30-Day Challenges are you going to take on this year? Please let me know in the comments below.