Long Time, No Blog

It's been several months since my last confession. It turns out that maintaining a blog as easier when you are running good.

January - March

I played a lot of poker in January - March but without actually winning any money. I made the mistake of playing too much when I was working on lots of strategy stuff. In addition to that, the strategies I was working on were not 100% applicable at $2/$4 and $3/$6. Playing close to GTO (Game Theory Optimal) is not a losing strategy there but with the rake, there isn't that much room for profit. Typical low limit opponents themselves play quite far from correct, so you can actually deviate quite far from GTO play to make more profit. But these months have not been a complete waste. Quite the contrary, I learned a ton these months which is now paying of. Sometimes, you need to take one step back to make a few steps forward.

Limit Hold'em

My main game is still Limit Hold'em, only now I play mostly heads-up. Mainly $5/$10 where I run over +5BB/100 over more than 8K hands. Still not a big enough sample size to say anything about my true winning rate but I think it's safe to assume I am a winning player there. This month, I am looking to make the transition to $8/$16. The decision to play heads-up is quite easy for me, as the games are good and my playing style is actually suited best for HU play.

I do play some 6-max occasionally. But only if I can find good tables ($2/$4 till $8/$16) where I can play a simple TAG style and grind a modest profit. If I can't find any good tables, I simply don't play.

Other Games

I have also started learning all the other HORSE games. Only playing LHE for multiple hours a day is just a very sad existence. I don't think I can do that for long before having some kind of burn-out. By playing many different games, I have a wider table selection and I add more variety. I will wait with the other HORSE games untill I become proficient in both O8 and 7CS.

And learning other will make me a much better player overall. especially 7 Card Stud has many different concepts since the structure of the game is very different from Hold'em.

For instance, in SSH (Small Stakes Hold'em), the authors suggest sometimes waiting for the turn to protect your hand since protecting it on the flop is impossible (when the pot is big). This is a valid strategy, even though you will use it once every 50000 hands or so. But this strategy probably originated from 7CS, where you wait for 5th street to protect your hand. But the concept is much more valuable in 7CS for 2 reasons.

1) In 7CS when people fold on 5th, they cannot outdraw you on 6th and 7th. When waiting for the turn in Hold'em, you just prevent people from drawing out on the river. So in 7CS, you protect you hand more since you prevent people to outdraw you on two streets, not just one.

2) In 7CS, your equity when having the best hand against multiple opponents is not as high as is the case in Hold'em, especially against multiple opponents. You can easily be an underdog with the best hand on 5th against 3 opponents. Problem in 7CS is that every opponent is drawing separately, making it much more likely that someone actually hits something. This concept is also known as the Sklansky horse race concept. This makes protecting your hand in 7CS much more important.

Learning Other Games

One very important thing I found out when learning new games is that you need to find a good balance between playing and studying. In the very beginning, I think 100% studying is best. Reading books, watching video's, reviewing data-mined hands. Then when I have absorbed lots of information, the balance becomes something like 40% playing, 60% studying. And with studying I mean reviewing my own hands, re-reading relevant parts of the books. Then as time goes by, it becomes more and more play.

Another important thing when reading books and watching video's is that you must not make any big effort trying to remember anything. Whenever it's hard to remember something, you are probably not ready for that knowledge. Even if you manage to retain the information for a while, you will probably forget quite fast. Ideally, whenever you read (or see) something, the information makes perfect sense right away. Now, learning takes no effort whatsoever and you will probably never forget.