Thanks, Small Stakes... Plus the 40 hour results-free challenge.

[bisonbison]

I just wanted to take a moment and thank you guys for helping me toward the most successful poker month in my brief career. I'm not gonna brag with stats here, but this month's winnings were way beyond what I thought I was capable of at 3/6, and I owe a lot of it to the patient, intelligent posters of the Small Stakes forum, and also bakku. Seriously, thank you to everyone but bakku. And also sfer. And ChrisDaddyCool. But other than that, thanks to everyone not named above.

In honor of this most successful month, I'm posing myself a challenge that I would have been loathe to do before: I'm gonna to spend my next 40 hours at the table paying as little attention to my results as possible.

I'm not going to compare my account balance when I log in and log out. I'm not going to look at my PT summary sheet for the day. I'm not going to see where tomorrow's efforts moved my win-rate. I'm not even going to open the lackluster Party stats box to see how many hands I've played, how many flops I've seen and how many hands I've won. And I'm going to do my best to avoid the mental math needed to add all my current tables together and see whether I'm up or down.

Like always, I'll start playing when I feel like it, but I'll stop when I'm tired of playing, not when I hit some hand milestone. And I'll use PT's auto import/export and gametime windows to track my opponents, but I won't be using it to track myself. My excel spreadsheets will lay fallow, and hopefully I'll start judging a day's play more by its merits and less by its outcome. I've got a 3/6 bankroll of more than 400BB, and it's time to sit back and let that substantial cushion protect me from compulsively worrying about results all the time.

I'm not gonna post in this thing daily or anything, because there are enough logs, blogs and challenges, and god knows you guys read my posts often enough, but I will let you know how it turns out after forty hours. That should be about 10 days, or 10k hands.

In the meantime, thanks for all your help and for putting up with my best attempts to reduce you to quivering blobs of posting fear.

[AdamL]

Congratulations bisonbison -- what do you think were the most important changes you made to your game recently?

[bisonbison]

Congratulations bisonbison -- what do you think were the most important changes you made to your game recently?

The most important thing I did was treat the game with respect. Poker's not easy and, beyond a certain point, it's not something you can improve at passively, so I've tried to re-engage with the game itself.

On these boards, I've been posting more hands in SS, responding to more hands in SS and more readily admitting the holes I see in my game.

While playing, I've tried to be fully present at all the tables I'm playing, more respectful of my opponents (skilled and unskilled), and respectful of the strengths and weaknesses of my own game (and my ability to address those shortcomings).

Poker is a skill game of limited information, and if you focus on the short term variance, the suckouts and the "fish", you forfeit your zone of control.

Clearly, if the best player in the world can go through a stretch of extended losing, the key is never to maximize your results, but to maximize the level of your play. I knew this before, but it's only been the last few weeks when I've really made the effort to internalize it.

[nepenthe]

You're welcome bison, and remember that you have not achieved the Jedi Master status in poker until you are able to limp in with JTo UTG and show a long-term profit. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Seriously, best of luck in your future endeavors.

[Kevin]

Bison,

Congrats - this is great to hear - and just the post that I needed to see.

I have just moved past 120,000 hands in my PT database and it is getting to the point that moving the win rate is like moving the titanic - the worst session might move it down - .5 points and a fantastic session moves it up .5 - yet after a 2 week pay cycle - it is pretty much where it has been for the last 50 or 60,000 hands.

Feeney said that we can increase our hours, our limits, or our win rate - that is the way to make more money. I just picked up a 4th table and it seems to be + dollars without any negative effect on my WR. I have been going back through and studying SSH, TOP, etc. to make sure that I have the blocking and tackling down - yet I find myself addicted to my PT results - scared of variance, so my aggression stats continue to move down. PFR which used to be above 8 is now barely above 7. aggression stats which pushed 1.4 now about 1.2 - all because I do not push marginal +EV plays - knowing that I can wait and pick a better spot - letting my WR suffer because I want to keep SD lower. Even pulling out every two weeks, I have 800 bbs on account for the 3/6 - yet I find myself looking at the cashier constantly. A good group of hands that runs me up and I am going to PT to see if it moved my WR up past 2.5 - only to be disappointed that it is still mid 2.3's and only moved about .2 or .3 since there are now so many hands in the dbase.

So, without emoting any more, I think I am going to take your advice. I am going to play the game for the decision, not the results. If have have had AKo 2 straight hands, pushed it and did not get a favorable board and then get dealt AQs, I will raise again, gladly, even though 7 people will come along - because it is the right decision. Eventually, that will mean a big 25bb pot because they are convinced that I am a maniac (even though I just folded the last 30 hands in a row before those 3). I won't hit the cashier button during a session - nor let the fact that I am up or down affect my attitude about my play or general demeanor to the family around me.

All the charts that I keep continually tell me that I can beat the game. My cum dollars chart and cum bb chart look like an algebreic equation - very linear. The peaks and vallys that were there once are smoothing out as sessions are added on. I should have confidence in the long run, but deep down inside, I think that I am convinced that this is a 3 year hot streak that is bound to turn at any moment and the -20bb session that I sat in is the beginning of the worm turning.

Play hours not results - I am going to start meaning it when I say it. Thanks for your post and the motivation. (now if I could just figure out your Party user name so I could avoid you like the plague)

Kevin

[brassnuts]

I think I need to start playing online just so I can analyze my game.

Oh yeah, way to go bison [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Chris Daddy Cool]

[ QUOTE ]
Seriously, thank you to everyone but bakku. And also sfer. And ChrisDaddyCool. But other than that, thanks to everyone not named above.


[/ QUOTE ]

I hope you catch a yeast infection.

[MicroBob]

Congratulations....and a neat idea.

I actually like looking at my results.
I can usually stay cooler about a losing day that way.
After getting killed for -75BB's in a day "Well...i'm only down 10BB for the week" or something like that.


But when winning it's SOOOO easy to get over-confident and get a bit looser.
And when losing...well, losing can cause problems too.

So I think there is something to be said for your little experiment and I'll be interested to see what you think of it 40 hours later.

[bakku]

Seriously Peter, never get rid of your goatee. With one hand on the mouse and the other under the table, you won't have anything else to catch the tears with.

[bisonbison]

bakku, it's not good for someone as young as you to be so boring. Don't you kids have drugs to cure that?

And by kids, I mean asians. And by drugs, I mean street racing. And by cure, I mean fire death explosion.