Realizations in Poker
The second half of my last month was horrible - I ended up negative during that time. I guess I finally believe the claims about high variance in Omaha. But enough of that, we run bad and we run good.
Early this month, I got my Omaha Poker by Ciaffone and it's great. I strenghtened my arsenal of concepts I stumbled into during the previous month just by playing and learning through error. I find a bit questionable why this book is only sold on Amazon.com, and further yet - Amazon doesn't even have a picture of the cover. Since I had already made my mind about buying the book, it wasn't an issue - but for a person who is just browsing the site to get a random poker book, I think it might be the decisive factor.
The subject I want to talk about today is Improving in Poker. Basically, if you don't have much experience in poker or stumbled accidentally on this blog, I can describe the learning process as the same as in chess. I played a lot of chess when I was younger, including tournaments etc, and I went to a chess club - so just give me the benefit of a doubt that I know what I'm talking about here. Everybody has seen snippets of chess problems in news papers, containing a problem on the board and the reader has to figure out the "right move". As you can probably reason it out, there's infinite amount of problems one could construct for the reader to solve. So solving the problem is not in memorizing the right moves in different situations, but to improve your general problem solving ability by breaking the problem down into smaller pieces, to which you can apply various concepts. That was of course a very stupid way to put it - you either know how to "study" and "improve" in chess or you don't. But it comes down to looking at the problem from various perspectives and just evaluating the solutions to the best of your ability.
And that's how it is in Poker. When I first started poker I had grand illusions that since I could put enormous amount of time and effort into subjects I'm intrigued about (I consider it a strength), I figured I'd be raking in thousands and playing mid-high stakes just after reading all the poker books. I thought that just by going through the effort of getting all the books and reading them, I'd be in the top percent of the field. How wrong was I, in my naive youth. Looking back at my goals a year ago when I started, I can say I have mixed results.
- I've learned shitloads more of theory and ways to analyze hands and situations than I thought was possible. You have to be able to understand poker on a high level just to be able to understand what people are talking about here. A simple game of check/raise/fold has near-infinite layers/dimensions of depth, and the players on high level just think about the game on one level higher than the competition.
- As mentioned above, I thought I'd be at least playing mid-stakes right now. In fact, I find it very difficult just to get past 100nl holdem stakes, for various reasons. Even though I was reading a lot of analysis, studying to improve my game, I just didn't seem to turn into win-every-session player. I had my ups and my lows and every month ended a little bit positive. I figured out I was learning the right things, but I had problems incorporating them into my game.
- Which brings us to the next subject. As mentioned above, figuring out the right betting pattern for each hand - depending on situation, opponent and countless other things - has a load of different permutations on how to play it out. Naturally you have to learn them all and just try to figure out the highest pay/least risk one on the spot. Now, when you learn something new (say for example you read a new concept from Sklansky's book) and you want to incorporate it into your game - this becomes very difficult at first. Basically everything you learn can be used very rarely. There's one specific situation in a thousand hands where a concept becomes the EV+ play. So when you learn a new concept you try to use it in roughly one tenth of your hands, just trying to see how it behaves itself. And you lose value in those situations. It's like throwing a dart really... you miss the bullseye by throwing a little bit left, and you correct your error by aiming a bit right... and now you over-throw it right so far that it misses the whole board. So you balance it out until you find a good spot for it in your arsenal, and learn the new things.
This is especially true with books. Every time you open a poker book you pick up so much new stuff, that you can't even begin to realize where to start adding them into your play. By reading a good poker book, you're looking at something like a month's worth of play just to add the weapons into your arsenal. So yeah, that's about it. Poker is about learning new stuff, and taking the time to play it out so you know when and how to use it. Kinda like math at school.
- Money runs faster in poker than skill improvement, meaning that going up a level every time you hit 20 buyins just doesn't work. You're facing several cashouts and staying at each limit before you learn enough new stuff to try the next level. When I was running hot while still playing 50nl 100nl full ring (Feb this year) I thought I could pass each level in a month, at least that was the goal I set for myself back then. You have one +10 buyin day and you think you're halfway past the level. Wrong! ;)
- All poker study is good. Books are good (some are great). Cardrunners.com videos are excellent, they pack a retarded amount of value for the price and they teach you just the elements that no poker book will ever touch. Improving tilt control and ability to focus is just as important as reading Sklansky books. Analyzing Poker Tracker data is important. Posting your good and bad hands on 2+2 is great tool to improve. If I'd have to estimate my skills, I'd say I could beat 400nl now if I had enough online bankroll to play it safely. Despite this fact, I'm going to get the small stakes no limit book from 2+2 early next year (when I could be good enough for 600nl). Everything makes you better, and you get little nuggets of information from everything you see around you. So yes, I strongly suggest getting all the good and not-so-good poker books even after you become very good at poker, because by investing your time or money into getting them and reading them you improve your poker skill, which in turn improves your hourly profit estimate. So the question on "which book should I get" - I think you should get them all. Be you a broke ass beginner or a money-maker baller.
Personal Improvements in Omaha
Shifting the attention to my own improvement, I'm quite pleased with the ground-breaking discoveries I've made in Omaha during the last two weeks. They seem so huge, even thought they're likely to improve my hourly rate by only a small amount. I won't go into details here as to what they were - they require a complete article - but I feel strongly motivated to play again since I see myself improving at a fast pace in this game, whereas I stopped improving in the RIGHT AREAS in nl holdem for a long period of time to pass 100nl.
I went up to 200plo this week, and I've been crushing it so far. Maybe I've been running hot, maybe just average. I lose pots and I win pots. But I can say with full certainty that with my current set of skills, I'm much better than the competition. I guess my goal is to pack a lot of winning sessions this month to get enough bankroll to move to the next level. Also, I won $2000 from the Mansion NFL promotion. Holla!
Early this month, I got my Omaha Poker by Ciaffone and it's great. I strenghtened my arsenal of concepts I stumbled into during the previous month just by playing and learning through error. I find a bit questionable why this book is only sold on Amazon.com, and further yet - Amazon doesn't even have a picture of the cover. Since I had already made my mind about buying the book, it wasn't an issue - but for a person who is just browsing the site to get a random poker book, I think it might be the decisive factor.
The subject I want to talk about today is Improving in Poker. Basically, if you don't have much experience in poker or stumbled accidentally on this blog, I can describe the learning process as the same as in chess. I played a lot of chess when I was younger, including tournaments etc, and I went to a chess club - so just give me the benefit of a doubt that I know what I'm talking about here. Everybody has seen snippets of chess problems in news papers, containing a problem on the board and the reader has to figure out the "right move". As you can probably reason it out, there's infinite amount of problems one could construct for the reader to solve. So solving the problem is not in memorizing the right moves in different situations, but to improve your general problem solving ability by breaking the problem down into smaller pieces, to which you can apply various concepts. That was of course a very stupid way to put it - you either know how to "study" and "improve" in chess or you don't. But it comes down to looking at the problem from various perspectives and just evaluating the solutions to the best of your ability.
And that's how it is in Poker. When I first started poker I had grand illusions that since I could put enormous amount of time and effort into subjects I'm intrigued about (I consider it a strength), I figured I'd be raking in thousands and playing mid-high stakes just after reading all the poker books. I thought that just by going through the effort of getting all the books and reading them, I'd be in the top percent of the field. How wrong was I, in my naive youth. Looking back at my goals a year ago when I started, I can say I have mixed results.
- I've learned shitloads more of theory and ways to analyze hands and situations than I thought was possible. You have to be able to understand poker on a high level just to be able to understand what people are talking about here. A simple game of check/raise/fold has near-infinite layers/dimensions of depth, and the players on high level just think about the game on one level higher than the competition.
- As mentioned above, I thought I'd be at least playing mid-stakes right now. In fact, I find it very difficult just to get past 100nl holdem stakes, for various reasons. Even though I was reading a lot of analysis, studying to improve my game, I just didn't seem to turn into win-every-session player. I had my ups and my lows and every month ended a little bit positive. I figured out I was learning the right things, but I had problems incorporating them into my game.
- Which brings us to the next subject. As mentioned above, figuring out the right betting pattern for each hand - depending on situation, opponent and countless other things - has a load of different permutations on how to play it out. Naturally you have to learn them all and just try to figure out the highest pay/least risk one on the spot. Now, when you learn something new (say for example you read a new concept from Sklansky's book) and you want to incorporate it into your game - this becomes very difficult at first. Basically everything you learn can be used very rarely. There's one specific situation in a thousand hands where a concept becomes the EV+ play. So when you learn a new concept you try to use it in roughly one tenth of your hands, just trying to see how it behaves itself. And you lose value in those situations. It's like throwing a dart really... you miss the bullseye by throwing a little bit left, and you correct your error by aiming a bit right... and now you over-throw it right so far that it misses the whole board. So you balance it out until you find a good spot for it in your arsenal, and learn the new things.
This is especially true with books. Every time you open a poker book you pick up so much new stuff, that you can't even begin to realize where to start adding them into your play. By reading a good poker book, you're looking at something like a month's worth of play just to add the weapons into your arsenal. So yeah, that's about it. Poker is about learning new stuff, and taking the time to play it out so you know when and how to use it. Kinda like math at school.
- Money runs faster in poker than skill improvement, meaning that going up a level every time you hit 20 buyins just doesn't work. You're facing several cashouts and staying at each limit before you learn enough new stuff to try the next level. When I was running hot while still playing 50nl 100nl full ring (Feb this year) I thought I could pass each level in a month, at least that was the goal I set for myself back then. You have one +10 buyin day and you think you're halfway past the level. Wrong! ;)
- All poker study is good. Books are good (some are great). Cardrunners.com videos are excellent, they pack a retarded amount of value for the price and they teach you just the elements that no poker book will ever touch. Improving tilt control and ability to focus is just as important as reading Sklansky books. Analyzing Poker Tracker data is important. Posting your good and bad hands on 2+2 is great tool to improve. If I'd have to estimate my skills, I'd say I could beat 400nl now if I had enough online bankroll to play it safely. Despite this fact, I'm going to get the small stakes no limit book from 2+2 early next year (when I could be good enough for 600nl). Everything makes you better, and you get little nuggets of information from everything you see around you. So yes, I strongly suggest getting all the good and not-so-good poker books even after you become very good at poker, because by investing your time or money into getting them and reading them you improve your poker skill, which in turn improves your hourly profit estimate. So the question on "which book should I get" - I think you should get them all. Be you a broke ass beginner or a money-maker baller.
Personal Improvements in Omaha
Shifting the attention to my own improvement, I'm quite pleased with the ground-breaking discoveries I've made in Omaha during the last two weeks. They seem so huge, even thought they're likely to improve my hourly rate by only a small amount. I won't go into details here as to what they were - they require a complete article - but I feel strongly motivated to play again since I see myself improving at a fast pace in this game, whereas I stopped improving in the RIGHT AREAS in nl holdem for a long period of time to pass 100nl.
I went up to 200plo this week, and I've been crushing it so far. Maybe I've been running hot, maybe just average. I lose pots and I win pots. But I can say with full certainty that with my current set of skills, I'm much better than the competition. I guess my goal is to pack a lot of winning sessions this month to get enough bankroll to move to the next level. Also, I won $2000 from the Mansion NFL promotion. Holla!
posted by Durandal at 3:10 AM
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