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Q&A: Post-flop Hand Reading, Facing Cbets & Desperation Tilt | #221

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In this episode, I answer your questions with actions you MUST take right now to improve you post-flop play and your reactions to losing big money.

In episode 220, I discussed how a weekly study plan will improve your study efficiency and avoid poker overwhelm.

Q1: Hand Reading On-the-Felt (2:55)

From: Ricardo Valenzuela

Q: My question to you about the hand would be if you were playing this hand either live or even online, how long would it take you to be able to break the hand down without the use of Flopzilla and would you still come up the either the same or close to the same conclusion?

Action:

Over the next 5 days, play strictly one table focus sessions where your goal is to hand read the first person to enter the pot in every hand played. Depending on how they enter, the sizings they use and their player type, picture in your mind the preflop range they are playing with.

When the flop hits, gauge how well their range hits the flop. And then narrow that range in your mind through the streets based on the actions they take.

This kind of practice won’t make perfect, but it will help to develop your intuitive senses of your opponent’s ranges.

Background:

I have to admit, I cannot do this type of exacting practice on the felt, and who knows if I would come to the same conclusion. With more time to analyze a situation off-the-felt conclusions for sure are better than my on-the-felt conclusions.

But, hand reading exercises lead to better decisions and I’m more frequently thinking about my opponent’s ranges.

If you’ve seen my 66 Days of Hand Reading videos on YouTube, then you’ve seen me take 15-20 minutes and make very exacting choices when it comes to assigning a preflop range and narrowing that range through the streets.

For example, I learned that most turn check-raises or cbet raises I face over dozens of hand reading exercises taught me they’re mostly done with 2p+ hands. Now, it’s easier for me to spot the strength in their play and fold most of my TP hands vs a raise.

Another thing hand reading exercises teach us is that somebody can only have hands on any street if they had them on the previous street and preflop.

239Ar Board Example

For example, on the turn the board is 239A and you have a set of 9’s. You were the preflop 3bettor and they just called your cbet on the flop. On this Ace, you could be beat by AA or 54 for a turned straight.

But, does your opponent call with those preflop and just call the flop? Possibly, but highly unlikely in a 3bet pot. AA most of the time 4bets or would raise your flop cbet. 54s is not a likely 3bet calling hand preflop. They could call with 54 on the flop, but if they can’t have that hand preflop, they can’t get to the turn with it.

One final thing to keep in mind, though, is that your opponent’s prior showdown hands will influence the preflop range you put them on. So, if you’ve seen your opponent call a preflop 3bet with AA or 54, then you’ll take that into account and maybe approach this Ace on the turn differently.

 

Q2: Hand Reading and Quantifiable Stats (7:00)

From: Chris Baltzer

Q: This week I’m studying Hand Reading but I’m not sure what quantifiable stats I can track to monitor any progress I make. Any suggestions???

Action:

For the next 20 hand reading exercises you do off-the-felt (1-2 per day), choose hands that revolve around one skill you want to improve. Maybe you want to understand your opponent’s cbets more. So, choose hands that went to showdown where you faced a cbet.

Next, figure out which stats will be affected by your improved understanding. In this instance, you could track Fold to Cbet and Raise Cbet. You would track these stats before and after your 20 hand reading exercises.

Background:

Don’t do hand reading around a random hand every time. Choose one theme of study for the entire 10, 20 or even 66 hand reading exercises.

Here’s a bit more detail on exactly what you can do while working on Facing Cbets.

Every day do a full hand reading practice where you faced a flop cbet and it went to showdown. As you narrow your opponent’s range, use their Cbet stats (flop, turn and river) to gauge what hands you can remove from the cbetting ranges. This will give you tons of practice analyzing your opponent’s cbetting patterns on different boards and you’ll gain a better grasp of the cbet stat in general.

In every session you play during this time, have a “facing cbet focus”. So, before you call preflop, visualize their range. Also, take a look at their Flop Cbet and Turn Cbet (in position or out of position) before you call preflop so you know what to expect from them on the flop.

Tag hands that are confusing or interesting for study the next day. You can also do your hand reading on some of these tagged hands.

Recommended Quantifiables for a focus of “facing cbets”:

  • Call PF 2bet by position
  • Win rate when calling 2bets preflop
  • Call Flop Cbet – both IP and OOP
  • Win rate when calling the flop cbet
  • Raise Flop Cbet – both IP and OOP
  • Win rate when raising a flop cbet
  • Call Turn Cbet – both IP and OOP
  • Win rate when calling the turn cbet
  • Raise Turn Cbet – both IP and OOP
  • Win rate when raising a turn cbet
Start your audiobook learning by picking up ‘Preflop Online Poker’ through Audible.com. Click the pic above to begin your free 30-day trial or to purchase the audiobook version if you’re already a member.

Q3: Desperation Tilt (13:20)

From: John Berry

Q: My biggest (and I mean super big) problem: I suffer from chasing losses – usually after a bad beat, but it could just as easily be after a session of bad play. This tends to lead to more reckless bad play in a desperate attempt to recoup my stack as soon as possible, which leads to deeper tilt, which can lead me to blowing my entire bankroll.

Any practical advice you can share would be great.

Action:

Whip out a piece of paper and pen and write down the early signs that signify your desperation tilt is increasing and the specific things that trigger your tilt. The more you know about how you’re affected the better you will become at handling the situations.

During your play sessions from now on, take regular hourly or half-hourly breaks from the table. Use the break to assess where you are at mentally. Go for a walk, use the restroom or do some push-ups. Do things to take your mind off of any beats or losses you suffered.  Only return to the table when you’re in the right mental space.

Background:

This is not a quick and easy fix. This type of tilt is a buildup of all the anger and desperation you’ve felt in the past, so it’s going to take concentrated effort to fix.

One of my favorite poker books is Jared Tendler’s The Mental Game of Poker. You can get this on Audible.com.

Chasing losses is something too many players deal with, and he discusses it starting on page 145 in the “Desperation Tilt” section. A desperate player will do anything to get back those losses and it’s a form of accumulated tilt/anger/frustration at losing.

Here’s a logic statement to tell yourself before each session you play and after you suffer a big loss:

“Losing an entire stack is part of the game, so I accept that this will happen sometimes. But, I’m going to earn more stacks from my opponents than they earn from me due to my superior play and my ability to stay in control.”

In the book he gives a 10 step strategy for getting over Desperation Tilt on page 148, and the 2 tasks I gave you within the Action to take a moment ago were numbers 2 and 4.

I highly recommend that you read everything starting on page 145 in order to help you get beyond this form of tilt.

Pick a Challenge (16:40)

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode:  I just gave you 3 different potential Actions to take, now it’s your time to shine! Choose the one that’s most applicable to what you’re striving for right now, and step into action.  Playing and studying with purpose are the best ways to improve your game. To help you out, here are some inspiring words from Lieutenant Rasczak in Starship Troopers…

“This is for your new people, I only have one rule: everyone fights… no one quits.  You don’t do your job, I’ll shoot you.  You get me?”

Support the Show

So many poker peeps upped their game when they purchased the first new webinar of the year: Poker’s Bread & Butter Webinar.  Thank you so much to:

John Sanford, David, John Zimmerman, Johan Cederlund, David Hanner, Alexander, Daniel Blumenstock, Brian, Quiet Jim, Jeanien Green, CJ Bell, Michel Boulos, Laura Sadowski, Chad O’Donnell, Aleksey Abdulov, Oliver, Zeljko Arnaut, Trent, John Gray, Ajit Challa, Mary Anne Fontana, Matt, Brian, Wayne Weeks, Thomas Ternay, Terry Miah, Lewis Sterling, John Walsh and Jim Rush

Adam Lenin purchased the Smart HUD for PokerTracker 4.  The HUD comes with 6 custom popups as well as specialized color coding for the most useful stats.  It’s perfect for getting the most from PokerTracker 4 and your online play.

Afonso purchased PokerTracker 4 through my affiliate link.  As a thank you, I sent Afonso the Smart HUD so he can get to exploitin’ ASAP!

Up Next…

In episode 222, I’ll discuss cbets and taking more action this month.

Until next time, study smart, play much and make your next session the best one yet.

The Math Behind 7 Tilting Situations and How to Respond | Poker Podcast #210

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I discuss 7 tilting situations, the math behind each and what you can do to respond effectively to them.  It takes lots of work to get beyond tilt, and this one’s going to help you immensely.

In episode 209, I answered 3 questions about playing 3bet pots, improved cbetting and set mining.

Improving Our Reaction to Tilting Situations (2:50)

Tilt is a bankroll and win rate killer, and you must get beyond the things that tilt you most often.

Poker is one big math problem and by knowing that, you’d think that we could look at poker totally rationally and logically, and emotions should never be an issue. But of course, that’s not the case.

There are so many things that happen on a session by session basis (and multiple times per session) that can cause us to get angry, frustrated or upset. These negative emotions can lead to what all poker players fear the most: TILT.

Sometimes we’re able to get beyond the anger or the frustration and move on to the next hand with clear rational thought and +EV decision making. But, other times these things set us off and we begin spewing chips with bad calls and bad bluffs.

The goal of this podcast is to help you train your brain to be less reactive. We need to become aware of our emotional responses and learn to control them. With each tilting experience we face, we have an opportunity to improve our reactions. We can take a deep breath, calm our emotions and respond with a +EV decision.

We don’t have any power over what happens at the table or how our opponents act. But, we do have 100% power in how we choose to respond.

As we practice being calm and controlling our reactions, over time we’ll get better at it. The goal is to eventually not allow anger or frustration to cloud our judgment and to be able to respond thoughtfully 100% of the time.

For the 7 situations today, I will discuss the math behind each to help you understand or at least to look at the situation from a logical, rational perspective. These mathematical insights may help us to get beyond the emotions that the situations nationally bring forth.

After discussing the math, I’ll give you some tips on how to appropriately respond to each.

1. Missing the flop over and over (4:55)

Do you know how often an average preflop 2betting range misses the flop?

It’s surprisingly often. Your average opening range is probably around 25% or so (less in the EP and higher in the later positions), but, we’ll use 25% as an average.

25% range and Flopzilla

Given this range, how often do you think it hits top pair or better on the flop or an open-ended straight draw or better? The answer is only 34%!  If you only hit the flop 34%, you’re missing 66% of the time. That’s 2 out of every 3 flops you see as the preflop raiser.

With something that happens more than half of the time, why does this cause our frustration to rise? If something happens more than half of the time, we should come to expect it and learn how to deal with it.

If 66% of the time you came home and your kids didn’t have their homework done yet, what would you do about it? Would you just yell at them every single time that they need to get their homework done? Or, would you try to design a system and create a plan for every day after school that will help them do it before you get home? Yep, I’m right there with you; create a system.

Tips to Respond:

1. Expect to miss every single flop, and be happy when you actually do hit it. If you expect to miss it, you won’t be as upset when it actually does happen.

2. Choose the right sizing for your bluff cbet. Just because you miss the flop doesn’t mean you can’t still cbet. Against most opponents, cbetting can convince them to fold a majority of their hands. Just choose the right size that will accomplish this.

3. Consider your opponent and their stats before you decide to bluff. Take a look at their Fold to Cbet, their Check-Raise stat and their Raise Cbet stat before you make that bluff. And if you feel really uncomfortable with bluff cbetting, drop down in stakes and do some cheaper bluff cbetting practice. Cbet bluffing in a 2NL game is much less stressful than your normal 25NL game.

2. Overcards to your pair on the flop (7:40)

This is a very common situation. You raise preflop with QQ, you get 2 loose-passive callers, and then the flop comes A54. “Dammit! Things were looking so good until that flop. FML.”

Let’s look at the math behind the situation. How often does your strong pair become an underpair on the flop?

  • KK, according to Flopzilla, will be an underpair on the flop 21% of the time
  • QQ: 34%
  • JJ: 42%
  • TT: 44%

The lower your pocket pair, the greater the chances there will be at least one overcard on the flop. Now that you know how often this is going to happen to you, you should just come to expect. Hopefully, this expectation of an unfavorable flop will help to lessen the pain of it.

Tips to Respond:

1. Look on the bright side… this might just save you money. The other day I was dealt QQ and I 3bet preflop. The open raiser just called and the flop came A54. I figured this opponent has AK, AQ and AJ in their open/calling range. So, I didn’t make the cbet and my opponent didn’t like the Ace-high board either because we both checked it down. At SD Villain had KK to beat my QQ. Thank goodness he was a passive player in general and wanted to slow-play those KK preflop. And, I saved a lot of money thanks to that Ace on the flop. Sure, looking back at the situation, maybe I should’ve made a bluff cbet. But I didn’t, and I ended up saving myself some money.

2. Try to remember that just because the overcard comes on the flop doesn’t mean your opponent hit that card. If they fold often enough to cbets, like 60% or greater, you should generally throw out that bluff cbet. If they decide to call, bummer. Just give up the hand unless you turn or river something good.

3. Loose aggressive players on your left constantly 3betting you (10:05)

At any table, take a look at the players who are on your left and gauge how often they 3bet. For any player whose 3bet is greater than 10% by position and versus your position, expect a 3bet. If you expect the 3bet, then once again, you won’t be so angered by it when it does happen. And because you expect that 3bet, you’re going to be just fine opening and then folding your hands, or you may even choose to adjust your preflop ranges because you’re expecting that 3bet.

Tips to Respond:

1. Tighten your open-raising range. Your opponents won’t realize too quickly that you tightened up. This is your opportunity to have more hands within your open-raising range that you’re willing to defend with. Now who’s taking advantage of their opponent’s style of play?

2. Leave the table. If these players are making it too difficult on you, and you do not want to try to fight fire with fire nor narrow your ranges, leave and find a better table to play on.

Life’s too short to play on unprofitable and un-fun tables.

3. Open raise with hands that you’re willing to 4bet with. These might be outside of your normal ranges, but you want to punish them and take down their bluff 3bets. Suited Aces make for very good 4bet bluffing hands, as do KQs and maybe even KJs. All of these hands have pretty good blocking power to AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK and AQ.

4. Being targeted by strong players (12:00)

This is related to the prior tilting situation. Sometimes you come across who you suspect is targeting you with aggression. Maybe it’s both preflop and post-flop. When you suspect this, make a note of it and think about the situation you’re in. Why are they targeting you? Are you opening-raising too frequently? Do you fold to 3bets or cbets or check-raises too often?

Your answers to these questions will help you determine the proper strategy to use against the player. Utilize their stats to gauge how they may be displaying too much aggression, and devise strategies to exploit their exploit of you.

Tips to Respond:

1. Play against them in position. This only happens once per round if they’re on your direct left. But, if they’re two or three seats over, you have more opportunities. They may choose to ignore a positional disadvantage and still aggress against you, but that makes their aggression a bit more risky and they may be less inclined to do so. And with your positional advantage, you may be able to turn the tables on them.

2. You can leave the table and find another more profitable one.

3. Pull them up in your PokerTracker 4 database and dissect their play. Now that you’re off the felt, you have more time to look at their showdown hands and find patterns you can exploit in their play. Do they size their bluffs smaller than value bets? Are they honest on any specific street? Do they get aggressive with draws but slow play their made hands?

Check these out:

The featured song in today’s episode was called “I Tilted” by Luigi Cappel.

I was interviewed by Rahul Singh of Pokernews India.  Check out the article.

Start your audiobook learning by picking up ‘Preflop Online Poker’ through Audible.com. Click the pic above to begin your free 30-day trial or to purchase the audiobook version if you’re already a member.

5. Suck-outs (15:20)

Suck outs used to set me on tilt until I learned a bit more about them. Here are some things I learned:

1. We remember the bad suck outs that hurt us, and we tend to forget the good ones that helped us. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone back through my database during a study session and found a hand that I completely forgot about. Like times when my T9s sucked out against AA. Or hands when my gut shot sucked out against top set.

2. I don’t have the best short-term memory, so I don’t remember bad beats the next day. Since I realized this, I’ve decided to just get over them quicker. So, now I often don’t remember them even an hour later.

3. I understand that just because your hand is ahead now, that doesn’t mean you will win at showdown. This is about understanding probabilities and sometimes an unlikely event is still going to happen.

Preflop Example:

Pocket aces versus 54s has about 80% equity. That means that if the money got all in preflop, the AA would win 4/5 times. This means 54s will win 1/5 times. I used to think to myself. “AA! I’m going to win this hand no matter what.” But that’s not the case. We all know the luck involved in poker, and the luck is there for you and for your opponents. This understanding should hopefully curtail the anger you sometimes feel for preflop suck-outs.

Post-flop Examples:

  • Your set versus a fd will win about 74% of the time. That means that 26% of the time, or ¼, your set will end up losing.
  • Your TP versus a bdfd has 94% equity. It’s almost a lock, but 1/15  times you’ll still lose the hand.
  • Your overpair AA versus a gut shot has 65% equity. So, the gs will catch a better hand 1/3 times.

Here’s the takeaway: Inferior hands still have some equity, but they cannot fight the math indefinitely. Most of the time the better hand will win. So, be understanding when things don’t go your way, and be thankful when you’re the one who sucks out.

Tips to Respond:

1. Be happy you were such a favorite and made great theoretical value. Your fishy opponents can’t escape the math forever.

2. Take a five-minute break. Just step away, go for a walk, use the restroom, drink some water or do some push-ups. If you’re feeling good, get back to the game. If not, end the session.

3. Keep in mind that you suck out just as often as your opponents do. What comes around goes around.

4. Be happy that suck outs exist because that’s what convinces the fish to make terrible plays. When your opponent calls with the gut shot knowing they are behind, they made a huge mistake and you just made tons of theoretical value from them. This is what makes poker profitable.

6. Fish building huge stacks (18:55)

This doesn’t put me on tilt, but I’ve heard it affects others. Some players get angry when the fish wins three or four big pots in a row and goes from 100 big blinds to a 400bb stack.  Suck outs happen and they can happen consecutively. I’ve seen fish build 500 big blind stacks before within 10 minutes at a table.

Tips to Respond:

1. Keep this logic statement in mind:

Every dog has their day, and every fish gets filleted… eventually.

2. Now the fish has more money to give you with their bad decisions. Be patient and wait for good opportunities to play against them.

3. Winner’s tilt is now a possibility. This fish is winning so much that they can begin to feel invincible. So, they start calling and betting in terrible situations. You can use these opportunities to bet and raise for extremely good value when you have your big valuable hands. Don’t try too hard to filet these fish. Let them jump into your boat, flop around a bit and land on your cutting table. You’ll be there waiting with knife in hand.

7. The fish won’t fold (20:10)

Even the weakest of players know about bluff cbetting. They’ve learned to not get blown off the hand so easily. So, how do you know you’re up against one of these non-folding fish? The first thing you’ll do is look at their Fold to Cbet stats on the flop and the turn. If it’s anything below 40%, they don’t like folding.  And if it’s as low as 10-15%, they absolutely hate folding. So, when an opponent is not folding, what should you be doing? You should only be betting for value. Remember my motto:

If they ain’t folding, we ain’t bluffing.

That’s the critical thing that too many good players sometimes forget. They’re so used to betting and getting their opponents to fold, that when they come up against somebody who is not folding, they forget about the option to check.

Tip to Respond:

1. When they ain’t folding, you ain’t bluffing. Value bet only against these non-folding players. If that means you must occasionally check and give up on a pot, so be it.  Just be patient and wait for the right hand to come along and get max value from these non-folding fish.

Challenge (21:30)

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode:  Choose the one situation out of these 7 that tilts you the most often and work on it in every session this week. You know it’s going to happen, so plan for it. Take the tips I gave you and put them on a sticky note on your computer. Add any other tactics you can think of to help you deal with the anger as well. Read the sticky note before your session to help you keep in mind what you’ll do when the inevitable tilting situation occurs.

Now it’s your turn to pull the trigger and do something positive for your poker game.

Support the Show

Chris Carney supported the show when he picked up PokerTracker through my affiliate link.  I sent him my Smart HUD in appreciation for his support.

Up Next…

In episode 211, Peter “Carroters” Clarke will be on the podcast again.  He’s the author of The Grinders Manual and he’s got some killer GTO-related strategy to share with us.

Until next time, study smart, play much and make your next session the best one yet.

Revenge! | Poker Podcast #118

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Should we want revenge?  This poker podcast is about dealing with troublesome and tilt-inducing players at the tables in a smarter and bankroll saving way.

In episode 117 I presented you with my 4 steps to H.A.N.D. Reading in Poker.

Revenge!

Doyle Brunson: “Poker is a war.  People pretend it is a game.”

To win this war of poker, you must understand your opponents.  You have to figure out their weaknesses and devise strategies to attack them.  But all the understanding in the world won’t help you if you allow your opponents to put you on tilt.

We’re at a table and a particular villain, let’s call him Victor, just seems to be holding over on us:

  • He keeps showing up at showdown with better hands than us.
  • He stays in longer than he should and turns or rivers his hand.
  • Victor seems to be able to read our soul and bully pots away from us.
  • He keeps stacking the fish at the tables, the same guys we’re targeting, and all the chips seem to be flowing his way.
  • He’s using his position and aggression to make life difficult on us.

Things are getting so bad that Victor’s putting us on tilt!  So, we end up giving in to our baser instincts and we start tilting and going for revenge.  “I’ll get my money back” is something keeps repeating in our thoughts.

This is a disaster in the making.  Instead of going for revenge, there are some better tactics to take.

Switch Seats

This is easy to do in a LIVE cash game setting, but not so easy online and impossible to do in a tourney or SNG.

As soon as a better seat opens to the left of Victor, pounce on it.  Toss a chip over there and say, “Dealer, seat change.”  You can even preempt it and tell the dealer ahead of time that you want a seat change, and when one becomes available, he’ll lock it up for you.

This might not relieve you entirely of Victor, but it’s a step in the right direction.  Having position will allow you to act after Victor and will make it hard for him to use his aggression against you.

If you’re playing online cash games, some sites might still allow you to leave a seat and click on another one to take it.  If your site allows it, do it.

Switch Tables

This is a no-go for tourneys and SNG’s, but in LIVE cash or online cash, this is piece of cake.  This will relieve you of that irksome Victor, unless he happens to be at the next online table.

Tighten Up

For some reason, this didn’t occur to me for a very long time.  If you’re getting bullied, tighten up your range (ditch the K7s and go with KJs+).

By having smaller, stronger ranges, you’re opening much less frequently and you’ll be able to defend vs Victor’s bullying aggression way more frequently.

Looking the numbers, let’s say you’ll only defend with a 5% range vs a 3bet.  If you’re opening a 20% range, you’re folding to the 3bet 75% of the time.  On the other hand, if you’re opening 10%, then you’re folding to the 3bet only 50% of the time.  He’ll have a much harder time 3bet bluffing you, and when he does, you’ll have a hand that can stand up to him half the time.

Take a Break

Sometimes all you need to get back in the correct head space is to take a quick breather.  Sitting out of the tables, hitting the head, going for a quick walk, doing some pushups, playing some Angry Birds, those are sometimes enough to clear the anger away and be able to get back to the business of poker.

Victor’s out, we’re in

So, if you’re getting owned by Victor, just avoid him.  If he’s in a hand, you’re out unless you’ve got a strong hand willing to battle him.  If he’s directly on your left, this is a tough one to accomplish, but, if he’s 2 or 3 spots away from you, this is definitely an option.

End the session early

For some of us, the only way to avoid this situation and to not tilt our stack off is to just end the session.  Of course, changing tables is a good option, but if we’ll still be tilting even without Victor at the table, then we’re just better off ending the session.

If this is the case for you and you find it hard to prevent the tilt from ruining your session, then I suggest you read Jared Tendler’s ‘The Mental Game of Poker.’  It is such a great book and an eye opener to dealing with tilt, anger, fear and everything else that leads us away from our A-game and causes us to stay and challenge Victor to get revenge on him.

Off the felt studying of Victor’s play

This is something that won’t help you in the session right now, but will help you the next time you deal with Victor.  Let’s talk about studying Victor’s play in two scenarios: LIVE games and online games

LIVE Games

The key to dissecting Victor’s LIVE game play is to take copious notes.  Pay attention to every hand he’s involved in and take note of bet sizings, the board cards, plays like c/r and donk leads and how often he seems to 3bet or cold call or open raise.  Of course, showdowns are extremely important.  So for every showdown you see, take note of what he has and the board cards along with his street by street action.

I’d recommend doing this surreptitiously.  Don’t let him know you’re noting his play.  You can take notes on every hand at the table with Evernote or another app, but just pay particular attention when he’s involved.

Noting that he likes to donk lead with fd’s or he calls down with 2nd pair or 3bets seemingly any Ace will help you understand his game and devise strategies to combat him.

The next day when you’ve had some time away from Victor, whip out the notes and start figuring out how Victor plays in certain spots, what he likes to do with certain hands and draws, and use this knowledge to formulate a plan for the next time you face him.

Online Games

Everything above is applicable to the online Victors of the world, but with online poker we’ve got a leg up on our studies… we’ve got PokerTracker 4.  This program does all of our note taking for us.  We can review every hand that we’ve seen Victor play.  All of his showdown hands are easily seen, as well as every check-raise, donk lead, 3bet and river bet.

We can filter through our database of hands on Victor and use it to devise strategies to turn the tables and start soul reading him.

Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode:  Make a plan now for how you’ll react the next time you’re being put on tilt by a player at your table.  Don’t wait for it to happen, because you know it will.  Plan now so you can react with a calm mind instead of tilting your stack off in pursuit of revenge.

Now it’s your turn to take action and do something positive for your poker game.

Up Next…

In podcast #119, I recorded a session commentary while playing one table of 25NL on ACR. I discussed blind play, post-flop bet sizing, exploiting opponents, PokerTracker4 and my Smart HUD.

Until next time, study smart, play much and make your next session the best one yet.

Tilt & Bad Sleep | Q&A | Smart Poker Study Podcast #10

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Bad sleep can come about because of tilt and negative emotions surrounding poker.  I help one of you get to sleep better at night and work on your tilt issues.

In case you missed it, in episode 9 I talked about how volume sessions are important, how to increase the volume you play and I give you great strategies into how to get the most from each volume session.

Q&A – Bad Sleep & Tilt | Podcast #10

Today I answered LTU Maximus’ question sent in via email:

Hello Sky,

It’s me again, I have few mental issues at the moment :

After longer sessions (during the weekends), I mean 4 hours play at least at evening 20:00 – 24:00, i am really struggling with the sleep. I am dreaming poker, cards, situations and etc all night and my sleep is so bad and it’s really keeps me tired in the morning. It doesn’t matter I have good or bad sessions, might be worse after bad sessions. Any suggestion to clear my mind before sleep and get better sleep? 🙂

Another problems is about Tilt, if I’m loosing big pots no matter against donk with good hand and if I’m ahead, or against very tight NIT and with premium hands, I am starting damn chatting in the chat box. But it happening for 3-5 min after lost… And the worse happening i start feeling bad why I wrote like that and etc…

My main problem and I’m working on it now is to learn how to fold AA, KK, QQ or AK after flop against good tight players or nit… when they reraise me after flop or Turn, it’s big leak and I know that in that level 10 NL nearly nobody is bluffing just few really few players capable to do that and including me 🙂

Thanks again Sky!

P.S. trying to catch up your podcasts, just listened first two. 

Good luck!

Thanks LTU Maximus for the email and the great questions.

1. Terrible sleep after poker, regardless +/- session

You need to clear your mind before you go to bed.  End sessions by 11:00 to 11:15.  Read a book, watch tv, fold laundry and do something non-poker related.  A lack of sleep can lead to mental fatigue, which can lead to poor decision making and going on tilt quicker/more often.

Also, don’t end your session with review.  When you leave the tables, LEAVE THE TABLES.

You also need to take breaks every hour or so while you play.  Dedicated concentration for too long at a stretch can hurt your brain.

2. Tilting and chatting about it (assuming Maximus is berating the opp)

Read Jared Tendler’s book ‘The Mental Game of Poker’ and dive into your tilt issues.  I think you suffer from Entitlement Tilt (I do as well although I’m working to get past it).  This is when you feel like you deserve to win and you were robbed when you lose.

When you find yourself with a strong hand, don’t think “Yeah, I’m gonna win his stack.”  You should have thoughts like, “How am I going to play this on the flop/turn/river to extract value” and keep paying attention to the action in the hand.  Often you’ll find you can throw away AA on the turn or river if you’re thinking clearly through the hand and determining the likely strength of your opponent.

NEVER CHAT!!!  I can’t stress this enough.  Don’t let him know he made a mistake or that you’re on tilt.  “Don’t tap the tank” totally applies.

3. Can’t lay down good starting hands post flop

Don’t get married to hands. Use those player type tendencies, along with relevant stats and the action in the hand to determine if you’re beat or not.

Do hand history reviews on big pp’s that you lost lots of money with. Look for commonalities in each hand.  What is it that you’re missing that’s causing you to make the mistake of not folding when it’s obvious you’re beat.

Get out of the “I always lose with Aces or Kings” mentality if you’ve got that.

A great general rule of poker is, “Attack weakness, avoid strength.”  Don’t ignore what your opp’s are telling you with their checks, calls, bets and raises.

Podcast Challenge

Here’s my challenge to you for this episode: If you find yourself in any negative mindset over situations in poker like a “My AA always gets cracked” mentality, study this mindset in your next study session.  Find ways to dispel it like going through your database and finding the truth, asking your poker buds about it, or finding an article or podcast that covers it and do some digging.  Chances are you aren’t the first to have this, and there’s a way for you to fix it.