jasonHoldEm
05-19-2003, 03:27 PM
Hello everyone,
This week is just a short update, some quick news, and finally some thoughts about playing regretless poker.
Results
Well, this week started off pretty well, but then quickly went downhill. Suffered some really tough beats (my last four tournament finishes are 5th, 4th, 5th, 4th)...and all of those were on some pretty tough suckouts. I haven’t really made up my mind yet if paradise has better players or just luckier players /forums/images/icons/mad.gif I was in the money 33.3% of the time, but since I only played 9 tournaments it’s really too early for that to mean anything.
The Plan
Ok, Granny said I was allowed to change my mind if I wanted to (Granny is the person who helped to give me a kick in the ass to start this project, so if it’s ok with her, you all have to agree /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif ). By the way, I want to thank Granny for that kick in the ass, because writing these posts is really helping me concentrate on my game. Thanks Granny.
One of my goals is to become a winning player at no-limit hold’em. The few times I've played no-limit, I’ve always enjoyed it because it offers additional opportunities and threats that you don’t see in limit play. Unfortunately, due to my inexperience in the format, I've been a losing player when I sat down at a NL table, but I've really enjoyed it despite the fact I've lost (I hope that makes sense).
Well, I’ve made some decisions and I’m going to have the opportunity to take some lessons with Mr. Bob Ciaffone. As most of you know, Mr. Ciaffone’s “specialty” is in pot-limit and no-limit poker. While I’m sure he could show me a thing or two about limit play, I’d prefer to concentrate on no-limit play while taking the lessons. For that reason I’m going to flip-flop and start playing no-limit games instead.
For those of you that might be interested, Mr. Ciaffone’s website is located here (http://www.diamondcomputersystems.com/~thecoach/index.html) . I’m not going to post his prices publicly (you'll have to contact him for those), but I consider the investment I’m making to be very worthwhile and affordable. If things go well I may even consider signing up for an additional set of lessons after these are finished.
It will take a little while for these lessons to get started (he has to snail mail me some information), but I expect things to be rolling by sometime next week. In the meantime I’m going to focus more on reading than playing. I have several books on my shelf I want to get through, and being able to digest this information will help to provide a solid foundation that Mr. Ciaffone and I can build upon when the lessons start. I still plan to play a few tournaments in the next week, I’m just not going to be playing as many as I had originally planned. Once the lessons get started (and I’ve read some information concerning NL) I’ll be playing more regularly.
I'm also working on a computer program to help me track my opponents and take notes on them. For those who care, it's a VB.NET program that works as a front-end to a Access database. It's nothing fancy, but it allows me track both how a player has fared in the past as well as review the notes I have on them. I think it will help me immensely with table selection in the future (once I've gotten some more players in the database).
Some Quick Thoughts on Playing “Regretless” Poker
I do my best not to complain about bad beats. In the end, bad beats are necessary. If the best cards held up every time the fish would lose so much money they would stop playing (or learn how to play), the solid players would not be able to make any money, and poor Mr. Hellmuth would have to go get a real job.
So, in a way, bad beats are actually a good thing because they reaffirm the fact that people are willing to gamble with long shot draws against what is obviously a better hand. Now, if you’ve mastered that attitude and can take your bad beats with nothing more than a slight grimace at the table, then you’re a much better man (woman) than I am. I still have a lot of work to do in order to get to that point, but I’m working on it. (My wall has a dent in it from where I threw the stapler last night after my aces got beat by runner-runner. /forums/images/icons/blush.gif )
I’m trying to start something new that I call playing “regretless” poker (this is probably not an original term...I’m sure someone else has thought of it before). What I mean by that is being content in the fact you played the hand correctly and knowing - in the long run - you’re going to win more of those hands then you’re going to lose. I’m trying to change my emphasis from winning hands to making winning plays (which will lead to winning hands).
So I went back and looked at some of those hands I took the tough beats on. Surprisingly, I played them all “correctly” EXCEPT for the last one (the one last night where I threw the stapler into my innocent wall). I ended up getting so pissed at the guy, when really his play wasn’t that “horrible” at all. Yes, he made some mistakes (like playing the hand in the first place), but I made one big one that ended up costing me the tournament.
Here’s the hand:
$10 SNG at paradise, four players left, limits at 200/400. I'm in second place with ~T2200, my main opponent is the leader with a stack over 3000.
I’m the button with AA (suits aren't important)
CO folds, I raise, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: 8, 3, T
BB Checks, I let him have a free card*
Turn: J
BB bets, I raise, BB calls
River: J,
BB bets, I raise, BB three-bets, I call (all-in). BB has J2o for runner-runner trips and busts me out.
* Now, I realize this hand could probably be called a bad beat because he played such a crap hand against a pre-flop raise and he managed to hit runner-runner to win. However, I still feel I misplayed it by giving the free card. I'm 99.4% sure that he would have folded to a flop bet. He was simply defending his blind (I had been pretty aggressive pre-flop when I played a hand), and since we was the leader with a pretty big stack I'm betting he just wanted to have a look at the flop to see if he could get lucky. By failing to bet the flop, I opened the door to the one person that could take me out of the tournament.
Anyways, getting back to the point. I'm going to start reviewing more of my "bad beat" hands in the future. If I played them correctly, I'm going to do my best to accept the fact my opponent got lucky with no regrets. I suspect there will be more than a few times where I find out I made a mistake, and - given the circumstances - the "idiot" I was playing against wasn't so foolish after all. In those situations I'll learn from my mistakes and do my best not to make the same mistakes in the future.
Thanks for reading,
jHE
This week is just a short update, some quick news, and finally some thoughts about playing regretless poker.
Results
Well, this week started off pretty well, but then quickly went downhill. Suffered some really tough beats (my last four tournament finishes are 5th, 4th, 5th, 4th)...and all of those were on some pretty tough suckouts. I haven’t really made up my mind yet if paradise has better players or just luckier players /forums/images/icons/mad.gif I was in the money 33.3% of the time, but since I only played 9 tournaments it’s really too early for that to mean anything.
The Plan
Ok, Granny said I was allowed to change my mind if I wanted to (Granny is the person who helped to give me a kick in the ass to start this project, so if it’s ok with her, you all have to agree /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif ). By the way, I want to thank Granny for that kick in the ass, because writing these posts is really helping me concentrate on my game. Thanks Granny.
One of my goals is to become a winning player at no-limit hold’em. The few times I've played no-limit, I’ve always enjoyed it because it offers additional opportunities and threats that you don’t see in limit play. Unfortunately, due to my inexperience in the format, I've been a losing player when I sat down at a NL table, but I've really enjoyed it despite the fact I've lost (I hope that makes sense).
Well, I’ve made some decisions and I’m going to have the opportunity to take some lessons with Mr. Bob Ciaffone. As most of you know, Mr. Ciaffone’s “specialty” is in pot-limit and no-limit poker. While I’m sure he could show me a thing or two about limit play, I’d prefer to concentrate on no-limit play while taking the lessons. For that reason I’m going to flip-flop and start playing no-limit games instead.
For those of you that might be interested, Mr. Ciaffone’s website is located here (http://www.diamondcomputersystems.com/~thecoach/index.html) . I’m not going to post his prices publicly (you'll have to contact him for those), but I consider the investment I’m making to be very worthwhile and affordable. If things go well I may even consider signing up for an additional set of lessons after these are finished.
It will take a little while for these lessons to get started (he has to snail mail me some information), but I expect things to be rolling by sometime next week. In the meantime I’m going to focus more on reading than playing. I have several books on my shelf I want to get through, and being able to digest this information will help to provide a solid foundation that Mr. Ciaffone and I can build upon when the lessons start. I still plan to play a few tournaments in the next week, I’m just not going to be playing as many as I had originally planned. Once the lessons get started (and I’ve read some information concerning NL) I’ll be playing more regularly.
I'm also working on a computer program to help me track my opponents and take notes on them. For those who care, it's a VB.NET program that works as a front-end to a Access database. It's nothing fancy, but it allows me track both how a player has fared in the past as well as review the notes I have on them. I think it will help me immensely with table selection in the future (once I've gotten some more players in the database).
Some Quick Thoughts on Playing “Regretless” Poker
I do my best not to complain about bad beats. In the end, bad beats are necessary. If the best cards held up every time the fish would lose so much money they would stop playing (or learn how to play), the solid players would not be able to make any money, and poor Mr. Hellmuth would have to go get a real job.
So, in a way, bad beats are actually a good thing because they reaffirm the fact that people are willing to gamble with long shot draws against what is obviously a better hand. Now, if you’ve mastered that attitude and can take your bad beats with nothing more than a slight grimace at the table, then you’re a much better man (woman) than I am. I still have a lot of work to do in order to get to that point, but I’m working on it. (My wall has a dent in it from where I threw the stapler last night after my aces got beat by runner-runner. /forums/images/icons/blush.gif )
I’m trying to start something new that I call playing “regretless” poker (this is probably not an original term...I’m sure someone else has thought of it before). What I mean by that is being content in the fact you played the hand correctly and knowing - in the long run - you’re going to win more of those hands then you’re going to lose. I’m trying to change my emphasis from winning hands to making winning plays (which will lead to winning hands).
So I went back and looked at some of those hands I took the tough beats on. Surprisingly, I played them all “correctly” EXCEPT for the last one (the one last night where I threw the stapler into my innocent wall). I ended up getting so pissed at the guy, when really his play wasn’t that “horrible” at all. Yes, he made some mistakes (like playing the hand in the first place), but I made one big one that ended up costing me the tournament.
Here’s the hand:
$10 SNG at paradise, four players left, limits at 200/400. I'm in second place with ~T2200, my main opponent is the leader with a stack over 3000.
I’m the button with AA (suits aren't important)
CO folds, I raise, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: 8, 3, T
BB Checks, I let him have a free card*
Turn: J
BB bets, I raise, BB calls
River: J,
BB bets, I raise, BB three-bets, I call (all-in). BB has J2o for runner-runner trips and busts me out.
* Now, I realize this hand could probably be called a bad beat because he played such a crap hand against a pre-flop raise and he managed to hit runner-runner to win. However, I still feel I misplayed it by giving the free card. I'm 99.4% sure that he would have folded to a flop bet. He was simply defending his blind (I had been pretty aggressive pre-flop when I played a hand), and since we was the leader with a pretty big stack I'm betting he just wanted to have a look at the flop to see if he could get lucky. By failing to bet the flop, I opened the door to the one person that could take me out of the tournament.
Anyways, getting back to the point. I'm going to start reviewing more of my "bad beat" hands in the future. If I played them correctly, I'm going to do my best to accept the fact my opponent got lucky with no regrets. I suspect there will be more than a few times where I find out I made a mistake, and - given the circumstances - the "idiot" I was playing against wasn't so foolish after all. In those situations I'll learn from my mistakes and do my best not to make the same mistakes in the future.
Thanks for reading,
jHE