I've spent my first 3 months playing at pokerroom.com, and its time for a change of scene. Time to concentrate on building a bankroll. Let the bonus hunt commence. Just call me Ahab.
I guess its time for a quarterly review.
From an initial deposit of $127, I'm current at $300. Its not a wild profit, Its not a tearaway success. Its a hell of a lot of work for very little money. But thats fine. The profit is largely bonus free, which is how I wanted it. I've been more centred on education and experience than bankroll building up to now, and quitting the bonus trail gives me an uncluttered and honest perspective on how I'm doing. Its also an incentive to learn. I've done ok. I could do a hell of a lot better.
It has been educational. The losing streaks, the balls out raging tilt, the bad plays, bad habits, bad mindsets. Limiting up, and crawling back down again. Each one an almost inevitable, and valuable experience.
I've read books, forums, online articles. I've thought I understood them. I've lost, and I've read em again. And again. I've bored several of my friends with poker talk, strategy, odds, rehashed hands played both badly and well.
So what am I doing well, and what am I doing badly?
Hand selection: still needs tweaking, but I'm much happier than I had been. I still need to peractice, think about, and read about mixing up my hands in certain situations. Specifically, hand selection in playing against LAGs. When to reraise to isolate. My current thinking is too unsubtle. Tight in early, looser selection in late when the opportunity to reraise to isolate presents itself. When the opportunity isn't present, reraise only with premium hands preflop. At the moment, I'm finding smart loose aggressives are dictating too much of my play to me. A subtler understanding of the texture of the table is required. I need to pay more attention to my position relative to the action, and let that factor more into my decisions. I can reraise the LAG in late with AJo and be happy I probably have the best hand. But if the Rock of Gibraltar UTG has called, the texture of the hand is different.
Aggression: I've done a hell of a lot of work on this of late, and yielded some good results. Developing the aggressive side of my play has helped my hourly rate overall. Bluntly put, when I properly apply it, it contibutes significantly to my hourly rate. I'm more aggressive with pocket pairs. I'm less agressive in certain situations with AK, AK, AJ, KQ. When applied improperly, its disastorous. Its a good addition to my play. I'm more aggressive in certain situations with drawing hands, re valuebetting, or semibluffing. I'm less aggressive on the river, and more on the flop. Again, I'm having some problems in this regard recently with LAGs. Both varieties. Again with the need for subtlety.
Observation: Another area I identified that I wanted to work on. I think of observation, aggression and hand selection as essential to one another. I don't use pokertracker (though I will pick it up for record keeping, hand history and personal play trend analysis) or gametime to watch whats happening at the table. Its my preference not to. And I have had a hard time developing the patience to sit tight and watch whats happening for the next 40 minutes of folding. But I've worked on it, developed it, and the skills and patience I have gained have helped feed into the advantages I'm gaining from working on other parts of my game.
My jump to The Gaming Room has presented me with a variety of new challenges. Play is noticeably tougher than I'm used to. The LAGS are smarter and willing to lay down. The rocks are tighter. Its tougher to find and exploit the weaker play I've become used to. Pots are smaller, showdowns are rarer, and in general, players seem to be more observant. Its an interesting challenge, and one I'll have to master to move on. My game is at the stage where my best game can beat the tables I'm playing at. So time to knuckle down and beat it then. I'm down 50 dollars so far for 20 hours. Some mistakes. Some bad laydowns, and some bad bets. And some bad beats. But even still, I'm playing well enough to come out ahead. Just. If I bring my A game.
So time to hit the books and brush up on my game. Time to work on heads up aggression, player targeted strategy, and the best course of action against loose aggressive players.
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