Mistakes

Success in games means making less mistakes than the other players and I am becoming increasingly frustrated with my error-riddled play. I keep making the same mistakes and these leaks are eroding my profits and therefore my chance to move up levels. In order of frequency here are my top 5 errors, hopefully writing this out will exorcise them from my play and serve as a warning to my fellow donkeys:

1. Playing when tired/bored. This is my biggest leak and a sure fire way to dribble cash away.
2. Getting it all in with top pair/an overpair. This is likely a product of tired play, I often get impatient to trap fish and end up shipping premium pairs to the sole TAG player on the table who shows down the inevitable set/two pair/combo draw with a million outs. I should chant the mantra: small hand small pot, big hand big pot.
3. Playing a crap sit and go/tourney when the cash games are dry. This again relates to problem#1 since I only ever shop around for another game when I am impatient for a decent cash game spot.
4. Playing back at donkeys/over thinking their play. Donkeys are irrational because they do not even know hand rankings in some cases, so level 2 thinking is as far as you will ever need to go. If I catch myself 'representing' a hand or a range I should instantly log off.
5. Limping. Bad players limp all the time with 100% of their range in some cases. To limp speculatively, even in position is to play passively and therefore badly. I need a second mantra: if it is not worth a raise it is not worth playing.

On a positive note my cash game winrate is still good and the other day I got wined at in chat for getting 'lucky' by a short stacked fish who shipped KJ preflop, caught a pair on the flop but lost to my dominating AQ which caught the river. Players who consider 'luck' to be the only mediating factor between them and untold riches are making far bigger mistakes than I am:)

Position is power

Anntte_15 Obrestad famously won a 180 man multitable sit and go tournement playing only position, and looking at her cards only once. She achieved this by putting a post it note over the computer screen so she could not see her own cards and proceeded to hammer any opportunity to isolate weak players and play in position, betting and raising without mercy. When I found out about this it left me thinking that she must have known her opponents' range or tendencies to some degree, to be able to judge which flops to bet. I have never studied the video in full but I watched some of it and it is hard to know how selective the moves were, or if it was literally blind aggression that won it. At a recent home game we discussed the feat and tried a couple of cheeky blind raises in position. I got away with it on one occasion when I was called in the big blind, but the tired villain did not notice I raised blind! One quick look at the low card flop told me it missed the big blind's range by a country mile and one quick cbet took it down!

Pokerstars The Big Game

This post is a response to watching Pokerstars 'The Big Game' episodes, particularly the notorious 'E-dub' first episode in which the loose canon becomes a pardigm of donk play. In the Ernest Wiggins' bio it states that he has been trained up for the Big Game by his girlfriend on how to play poker. However Ernest seems armed with only the priceless disinformation that you should bet your strong hands, limp more marginal hands and fold the rest. Many experts have written that that when you are outclassed at the table, a slightly heavy handed approach to betting, expecially pre flop and on the flop can keep you more or less out of trouble in tournements, but in cash play (esp pot limit pre flop) this strategy turns into a masterclass in bad poker. The biggest problem Earnest has is that he is playing a transparent strategy in which the strength of the cards and his betting is directly proportional to the strength of the hand. Wiggins is playing  Hellmuth's 'Top 10 hands' plus a few more broadway hands which represents around 8-10% of all possible hands.  The rest of the players on The Big Game know this without seeing his cards, because they notice how often he is in the pot. In addition Ernest kindly helps the table by showing them his hands and giving them information about the strength of his holdings. This is how Daniel can raise him off 1010 on a KK4 board after he weak leads with a small bet: Since weak=weak Ernest's $1000 bet into a pot of $7400 naturally gets reraised, because Daniel knows Earnest is holding an underpair by the size of his bet. Part of me watches The Big Game hoping for a loose canon who plays well, like Nadia does in a later series; part of me wants to learn more about donk logic by watching these terrible plays.

Hit and runners

So I'm back to playing micro cash full ring with a new found tightness (15-20 ish vpip) and I've noticed a considerable amount of 'hit and run' play going on. This is when a player felts someone and then immediately leaves the table, usually popping up on another similar full ring game. This despicable practise is intended to prevent other players from working out their style of play and moves. Hit and running is largely frowned upon but it cannot be prevented, and I am not sure of the best way to deal with the problem other than taking a deep breath to avoid tilting.  You can sometimes tell when a player is about to hit and run as they give early warning signs such as overbetting increasingly silly amounts pre flop. They also start cbet potting or donking most flops, even though they started the session limping top ten hands and hardly betting at all.  I guess the passive-aggressive personality type is the underlying cause of such weak play, and that the best way to deal with these donkeys is to know this and factor it into all your decisions. On a final note I read a tip in one poker magazine from a cash game player who reccommended hit and running to help 'beat' a particular limit. The tone of the article was completely serious and it left me thinking two things: 1. I'm never buying this awful magazine again no matter how bored I get on a train journey. 2. I cannot wait until I move up the limits and take idiots like this to the cleaners;)

Tilt

I am on tilt. I know I am on tilt because my hands are shaking and I want to punch a door. However I am taking the most positive equity decision I can right now which is to stop playing poker, breath deeply and reflect on my mistakes. I am playing horrible post flop poker because I have been reading lots of strategy books and watching lots of poker. I am excited about poker and this has led to some disgusting fancy plays where I have 'repped a really strong line' into 'an obvious weak hand' etc. I forgot that at the stakes I play this is madness and I am not even qualified to do it anyway. I traditionally play super nitty poker which has always worked for me and stops working once I start being a wally and 'floating' and such like. I was so  pleased with myself recently when I read in a poker magazine about 'reverse' floating' which apparently is the name for a funky move I have been using to peel one off out of position in order to let an aggressive bluffer in position second barrel and then face a check raise on the turn. I should not have been pleased with myself and I am a very bad donkey indeed. I am such a bad donkey because I let my ego run away with itself and my cash is now following it straight down the drain. I need to regroup and remember that the only reason I just busted out of a sit and go is because my 3bet with Kings was called by Q9off suit which miracled the flop. I need to play with these idiots, but only with solid cards and never out of sodding position!

Creating an image

At the weeked I played in a short-handed fun stakes cash game with close friends and it set me thinking about 'player image' and how 'table talk' affects play.  In this particular game we were trying intensely to read each others' bet sizes, patterns and tells and were having fun trying to psych each other out with misdirection and false claims about hands. I was doing quite well building my stack using a low risk small-ball strategy, successfully chopping at untouched pots and dry boards.  It also helped that I hit and got paid off with a few strong hands that went to showdown early on in the game. This in itself may have created a strong and unpredictable table image but I got a little cocky and decided it would be fun to announce how lucky I was 'hitting all kinds of flops' even though 'I only play premium hands.' I knew that I was trying to be deceptive but I didn't really understand what potential benefits or disadvantages it could have to my game, or to my poker karma.  The old phrase 'pride cometh before a fall' could not have been more apt when I faced a reraise shove after betting for protection on a straightening and flushing turn holding bottom two pair. I convinced myself that my opponent was simply overbetting a straight or trips, as frustrated microstakes players are apt to do when they have taken the worst of it for a while before making a hand. (Donk logic also dictates that big bets look weak and so are more likely to be called.) I did not give enough consideration to the fact that  my opponent a) Is considerably better than the average microstakes player b) Was fully aware that I was frequently leading out with marginal hands and did not need the nuts to play back at me c) Knew that despite my table talk I really am a total rock who was getting mega lucky, and would never call down in that spot, even with 75% equity in the hand. This is why you should never play poker with your partner-she knows you better than you do!