Done moving and time to get serious

Most of the last 2 weeks were spent moving Amber and I out of our apartment and into my parent's house. We're staying until we find the right house to rent in a school system. I also had a slight issue with some of the paperwork related to my right to operate a motor vehicle, which I finally cleared up on Friday. Those are my excuses for only playing live poker twice in the last 2 weeks. They are both out of the way now, and I've started playing alot, both online and live.

I pulled all-nighters at Foxwoods on Friday and Sunday night. The results are really great. Friday night I won $695 in a little over four hours, and Sunday night $240 in 5 hours, for a total of $935 in 9 hours. On Sunday, I could have won more, but played a horrendous hand that cost a little over $300...more about that in a minute.

Obviously, I'm not going to average over $100/hr, even on weekend nights. However, now that I've been in the middle of the night 3 times, I'm convinced that I can average $50/hr without playing in games that require a large cash risk from me. The downside is that I'm up all night, and then trying to catch naps while Amber is at daycare. I'll need to figure out how to schedule sleep and exercise so that I'm taking good care of myself.

My online play has mostly been single table tournaments. I found myself getting pretty bored of the cash games, and I've been refreshed by mixing it up. I'm up several hundred (my records are on my other computer) - but that's not what I'm excited about. I'm excited because I'm finding so many ways to improve. When you play alot, and pay attention to your mistakes, 2 good things happen. The first is obvious - you try not to repeat your mistakes, and you change your style to adapt to something that's obviously not working.

The second is more subtle, but probably more powerful. Your subconscious begins to notice things about the game that can help you. You pick up betting patterns of your opponents without really concentrating on it. I've found myself catching people's bluffs with greater accuracy, and I can't really tell you why, except that my subconscious notices things that just don't add up about how a player played the hand. Certainly I try to do those things thoughtfully, as well - but for the first time, I just find myself knowing the strength of an opponents hand. It's not really instincts - it's learned, but on a subconscious level. The mind is pretty amazing. When this starts happening at live games, I know I'll take my game to the next level. If your subconscious can pick this stuff up by playing on a computer, imagine what it can do when you add observing body language into it's "database."

Here's a little bit about the bad hand that I played on Sunday night. If you don't like math, stop reading now. I'm trying to keep things interesting for the non-poker player, but some of you may find the detailed poker related concepts stuff interesting. It's the kind thing that I'll think about for hours.

I found myself in a big pot with an aggressive player who had an enormous stack of chips - probably over $2500. I had a strong hand, but one that was very vulnerable given the texture of the board (the community cards). On the last round of betting (the "river"), my opponent bet $200. The pot already had around $350 in it. I was pretty sure that I was behind, and if I called I would lose the $200. Sounds like I should fold easily, right? It costs 200 bucks, and I think that I don't have the best hand.

It's not that simple. Although $200 is alot of money to me, I cannot let the amount of the bet affect my decision making process. Here is how I analyzed my decision. With $350 in the pot, plus the $200 my opponent bet, the potsize was $550. I had to call $200 to win $550. Therefore, my the pot was laying me 2.75 to 1 odds. (For every dollar I bet, I had an opportunity to win 2.75)

From there, I have to convert the odds into a percentage in order to help make my decision. I would have to have the better hand only 30% of the time for me to call the last $200 profitably Remember, I'm calling a $200 bet to win $550. So, I decided that I had about a 35% chance that I had the better hand, I called, and lost.

I have no problem with how I did the math. It's absolutely correct. I'm able to do it quickly and without letting my opponents know that I am calculating these kinds of odds.

The reason I say I played the hand horribly was because after thinking more about the information that my opponent had given me, I know that my assumption that I would have the better hand 35% of the time was a terrible assumption. Basically, there was information that I missed - clues that he gave me that I didn't take into account properly. In retrospect, I should have put that percentage at 10-15, and folded the hand. It's something I'm usually pretty good at, but in this case I erred, and it really cost me. Even though I had a winning session, and played pretty well, this is the hand I replayed over and over on the ride home. It's the one I learned the most from. It's also a hand that I probably would have played better online, with help from my now ultra-perceptive subconscious.

Poker is about making good decisions with only incomplete information. The value of my math and probability skills are only as good as the accuracy of my assumptions and observations. It's what makes it a great game. The more you learn, the more you realize you can learn.

I should be playing during the day tommorrow. I'll try to do a quick update with my total results to date after the session.