Overlooking self control
Have you ever read articles or threads on poker forums about the ingredients that make a poker player successful? Invariably, near the top of the list is "Bankroll Management." Somewhere on the list you'll usually find: minimizing tilt, strong analytical skills, game selection, and confidence, among others. What I'm here to say today is that most of the traits that make a poker player successful can be lumped into two major categories: 1) Analytics and 2) Self Control.
As you can guess, “analytics” really encompasses everything related to formulating decisions based on math, how certain hands are typically played, current game conditions, and history. Basically it's the art (and science) of data gathering and processing.
Alternatively, the second general category, “self control,” has more to do with handling your emotional state. It could be anywhere from overboard elation of sucking out on someone, or the tilt resulting in being on the other side of the coin.
I believe both of these general categories are equally important in being a successful poker player, but I believe the second is often overlooked. Let's talk a bit about a fictional "blog hero" in some different poker situations. Our hero, by most definitions, is a “good poker player.” He understands basic preflop play, knows how to read hands reasonably well, and he has a decent grasp of basic poker math. Perhaps our hero even understands advanced lines, takes hand reading beyond level 2 or 3, can do some more advanced EV calculations, and he knows how interpret his image and game conditions to help him make better decisions in the hand. Our hero is somewhere between the range of “decent” and “expert,” much like you and me. In other words, his analytical skills are reasonably strong and he’s a winning player because of it.
Often, various aspects of these “traits of winning players” will fall into both general categories I talked about earlier. Let's take bankroll management as our first example. Most people will tell you that for a NL game of stakes $X/$Y you need a minimum of N buy-ins to handle the natural ups and downs without going broke (assuming you're a winning player to begin with). That's the analytical side. It usually doesn't take people long to conceptually understand why it's important to have an adequate bankroll. The part people don't consider, until it's too late, is their self control (or lack thereof).
Here's the example of how self control is often overlooked. It doesn't do our hero much good to know they need 30 buy-ins (or whatever number you choose) if they don't follow their own rules. “Oh there’s a big donkey at the table, it doesn’t matter that I’m sitting with 50% of my bankroll on the table, I have an edge.” That’s a pretty glaring aspect of non-existent self control. Time and time again, I see people who are otherwise very good at the analytical side of poker failing miserably on controlling themselves from taking unnecessary risks with their bankroll. Similarly, how often have you seen someone go on a bad run and get their account real low and instantly their answer is to find someone to “flip” (agreeing to go all-in preflop no matter what your cards are) for it to try to double up quick. Instead, perhaps they just take whatever they have left and put it all on the table at the highest stakes it allows. I think we’d all agree that these blatant acts of recklessness are a detriment to our hero, but I think it’s worth spelling out precisely why.
When our hero puts a large percentage of his bankroll in play at higher stakes than normal, it has several adverse effects. 1) It’s likely his edge is smaller than normal. Bigger games generally have better players. 2) Psychology, it’s difficult to think clearly when playing with “case money.” Let’s face it, if our hero was thinking clearly to begin with, he wouldn’t be playing with it all on the line. As a result of one and two, 3) our hero’s supposed strengths (his analytical skills) have been diminished, leading to worse decisions on average. In combination with the other reasons, 4) our hero’s variance is increased because one stroke of un-luck will result in the inability to exploit future positive EV situations (in other words, no more money = no ability to recoup losses). In one of Sklansky’s early books, he mentions that it can be correct to pass on +EV propositions now if losing would prevent us from exploiting a higher EV proposition in the future. That is the essence of #4 and is the basically bankroll management in a nutshell.
I’ve often wondered what causes people to make such critical errors in self assessment. Is it an inaccurate perception of their skill advantage vs. other players (analytical trait), or a denial of the reality that variance could cripple them? Or perhaps self indulgent vices such as an “ego thing” where they’re not willing to drop down to a level they feel is “beneath their abilities”? Perhaps it’s just the burning desire for a quick fix – i.e. good old fashion laziness. Whatever it is, it really amazes me that bankroll management tops most lists as the #1 trait good players possess, because in my opinion it should be trivially easy to attain and undoubtedly the least complex concept in this very complicated game. Keep in mind, when I’m talking bankroll management, I’m not referring to risking a small portion of your bankroll to take a shot higher stakes game. I’m referring to taking unnecessary risks in which a negative result would cripple your ability to recover.
How about another commonly listed trait: game selection. There's the old adage that goes something like: "What good is it to be the 6th best player in the world if you only sit with the 5 better players?" It's obvious why as a poker player you want to sit in a game where you have an edge on a daily basis (let's save the arguments for 'testing yourself' and 'taking shots to move up' for the time being). If you have a positive expectation in a game, you'll make money in the long run. We all know this. That's the analytical side. On the other hand, how often have you seen someone like our hero, an otherwise excellent player, refusing to play a level lower than normal when the games at their regular stakes are harder than average? Or how about when the one donator at the table busts and leaves and our hero stays in the game with the other good players where his edge might be small or nil? It happens all the time. For some reason, it’s very difficult for our hero to saddle up and find a softer seat, why? I have a feeling it has to do with some of the reasons mentioned in the above paragraph.
Another example is when our hero tries to be, what I’ll call, a “super hero.” He sees another player (villain) he’s never seen before and assumes that’s enough to warrant sitting in. After all, if villain was any good, hero would have encountered him already, right? In fairness to our hero, this line of thought is often correct and is at least some piece of information about an otherwise unknown online opponent. So naturally he sits with him at a heads up table or two and the games begin. Right away it seems like the poker gods have taken to our villain this match. Most turns seem to be a scare card for hero and when they aren’t the river gives the villain a better hand. Hero assess he has an edge, but at this point he’s down 4-5 buy-ins and his head is more focused on just getting it back. “Another couple pots my way and I’m done,” he says. Another river in villain’s favor and frustration in hero really starts to set in. Before he knows it he’s tilting and down 6 buy-ins… you can see where this is going.
Our hero is so focused on simply getting back to even, he forgets that there’s no rule that states you must win back the money from those you lost it – yet we see this all the time. I believe it’s where the poker term “stuck” (meaning, to be losing money) came from. “Sorry I can’t leave, I’m stuck in this game.” Hero needs to ask himself who’s in control – himself or the red numbers in pokertracker? I’m not saying hero should abandon a hugely +EV situation because he’s getting unlucky, but I am advocating a constant reevaluation of your edge in a game – which isn’t determined by simply answering the question “how bad is my opponent?” which hero seems to think. Instead it’s a combination of questions and answers including: “how bad is opponent and how well am I playing? how has our recent history effected the momentum of our match and what am I going to do to alter/continue the current flow?” Stay in control, Hero, You can dew eeeeit!
As you can see, when our hero loses control of himself, his weakness begins to dilute his strengths and a slippery slope can often begin. A big edge becomes a small edge, which causes the swings to be bigger, which increases the likelihood of a huge downswing, which leads to more tilt, which inhibits our hero’s normally stellar judgment, which leads to a smaller edge, and on and on… Before you know it, our hero has spiraled himself into a –EV situation in which only his luckbox can save him. After all, is this really any better than the poker pro who can’t pass a craps table without rollin’ the bones a few times?
So who is our hero? Our hero is you, our hero is me. Our hero is the player you most respect in your game and he’s the donator. He’s everyone at one point or another. The more self control you have, the more you can avoid the pitfalls our hero trips into in my examples above. I’m sure you can name many more common traps people fall into. At some point, all of us are likely to repeat the mistakes our hero made above and more. The trick is quickly recognizing them and regaining control to allow our strengths to shine through and pull us out of a tough run. Stay in the driver’s seat and do something to reinforce it. Set some hard and fast rules if you have to. Stop-losses can prevent a good player from maximizing his EV, but only if said player can keep his same positive expectation when losing buy-in after buy-in. Be honest and be true to yourself. It’s the first step in keeping control. Be in a constant state of evaluation of yourself and your opponents. Recognize when they’re out of control and figure out how to exploit it. It’s part of the game within the game and it’s how most successful players continue to play their A game day in and day out. In poker terms, that’s truly heroic.
Aaron.
Picture Blog
What a busy month of March. Pokerwise, I'm on the verge of my first ever losing month in 3 years of playing. Fun stuff. I took a ride in the delorian to check out last year's March. I noticed the coincidentally poor results I had last March, of course that was back when I was first starting at 2/4nl. Now I'm taking shots at 10/20 and 25/50. I feel like I've come a long way since then, even reading some of the old hand analyses that I made then. I wont dwell too much on poker related nonsense in this entry though, I want to talk a bit about my time off.
We took a 14 hour road trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. Leaving at 6:00 pm central time, we finally arrived at about 9:30am eastern time to Missy's family's shared mountain house that sits on the top of a hill in Crossnore, NC (population 250). It's pretty far removed from modern civilization, which is a good thing to get away. It's so different than what I'm used to... there are people living in run down shacks, old school buses, and trailors as far as the eye can see. Pretty sad really, but the people there seem nice for the most part. All of these people living in simply terrible conditions, and they have all their junk and trash spread out across thier "yard". Certainly, it's always good to have a reminder of how good you have it, even if you've played 45,000 hands of break even poker and feel like you constantly run terribly (oops, i wasn't going to get into poker bs).
So while in NC, we mostly saw the natural sites, ate some local food, went up to Grandfather Mountain (named because the profile of the mountain looks like an old man laying on his back), checked out some waterfalls, drank some beer by the fire, watched college bball and just spent quality family time. All of those were nice ways to get away from my typical routine of having my nose glued to the computer screen playing thousands of hands of poker. I did manage to bring along the laptop and go through some hands in PT and do a little work on the new website, but other than that we kept busy enough driving along the mountain roads that I didn't have a lot of extra time to spend with technology.
Onto the pics... Of course I managed to sport the poker hoodies on the trip ;-)
Missy and I by a waterfall
Near the dam at the bottom of the mountain from the house
By the frozen water fall
On top of the Blue Ridge Mountains
Another day at the Blue Ridge Mountains
Beer and Roasted Marshmellows by the fire after a hard day of relaxing
Missy at Grandfather Mountain
Me on Grandfather Mountain
Both of us at the top of Grandfather Mountain
Being goofy at the mountain house
Torturing the dog
On Wednesday we left the mountains of NC to head back to KC, taking a detour through Memphis, TN, where I had a doctor's appointment. The checkup went fine which is always good news. Finally late thursday night we were back home.
Since then I've been putting in a good number of hands with similarly crappy results. Hovering between -7k and +1k on the month. ughhhh.
I've got a mini rant about March Madness and basketball in general, but I'll save it for another day. Also tax time is around the corner and I have some things that will help you prepare your taxes if you've made some money playing poker. It can be complicated. I plan on hiring a CPA this week to get it all done.
Later,
Aaron
Road Trippin'
About to leave on a 14 hour drive across the midwest to head to a small town called Crossnore, NC. We're staying at Missy's family's mountain house up there for a few days with her parents and some extended family. Wednesday we'll swinging back through Memphis, TN for a doctor's appointment of mine. It's going to be a loooong haul, but it should be fun once we get there.
Poker has been pretty much a disaster this month. I'm back to basically even (actually, slightly in the red, less than 1 buyin). I've just ran so bad (and made some poor/high variance plays) since that night at 25/50nl I talked about in an earlier entry. It has just flat out sucked. I'm not sure how many hands I've played, probably in the neighborhood of 35k, and nothing to show for it other than headaches.
We're getting back from the roadtrip around the 23rd of march, which means I'll have exactly 1 week to turn this month into something. I could be on the brink of my first losing month of poker. The closest I think I've come before that was 1 year ago in March, where I think I was basically break even for the whole month. So that blows.
I think it'll be good for me to get away from the game a bit, but honestly I plan on spending a good chunk of time going through poker tracker and looking at the hands I've played as well as getting some good study time on the other regulars I find difficult to play against. Hopefully a week of no playing and no internet will recharge me for a marathon week of poker at the end of March.
If by some chance I can find some internet access in this hillbilly haven we're travelling to, I'll get some pictures up on the blog.
good luck,
Aaron
Busy busy
Well as you can see my goal to regularly update my blog has gone to shit. I'm getting real bad at that lately. Lots of stuff going on. Somehow it seems like I have even less time as a pro poker player than I did sitting in a cubicle for 8 hours a day? Weird huh...?
I think I might have lost touch with reality a bit... or maybe I'm just taking on additional responsibilities. For the last couple weeks Missy and I had been dog sitting her parent's mutt named Roscoe. For the most part he's a good dog...doesn't bark too much, generally has a pretty clueless demeanor about him (which is hilarious), and is fairly loving. Before meeting Roscoe I basically hated dogs, but for some reason he loved me from the start. It tends to make some people jealous though ;-) Here's a pic of Ros:
Who knew such a little dog could be such a handfull... of course most of the blame goes on me for being freakishly paranoid about him having an "accident" in our new house.
So besides that, my uncle and I are in the early stages of our own Internet business. I won't get too much into the details of it, but suffice to say it's going to start taking up a major part of our day if we actually make it happen. Jason and I have always wanted to do some sort of business together, and I think this one might acutally make it off the ground. Him being the database/data modeler guru and myself being the programmer, we can definitely make any website/application happen if we put our minds to it. It's a huge undertaking though, no question about that.
Oh yea, poker. Been playing a lot of that too... Poker is irritating me this month. I ran decently well for the first few days but it's been all downhill from there. The downswing started when I decided to follow a hugely known FTP fish and play some higher stakes. At first he sat at a 10/20nl table (which I've been wanting to take shots at anyway), so i quickly got a seat two to his left. A good place to be. Another seat opened and I had my buddy (jalexand42 on 2+2) snag it. He usually plays 2/4 and 3/6nl so understandably he didnt want to put up $2k to chase a fish. Well being the +EV bloodhound that I am, I offer to take half his action. Not after too long, he gets into a sweet spot vs the mark, with top two pair. Naturally the clown flopped bottom set so bam - jalexand gets stacked and I'm down a grand. Add in a few more missed flops and all of a sudden jalexand is down 2800, which means I'm out $1400. Oh well no big deal...then the fish sits at 25/50.
So I get on the waitlist for the 25/50nl table. There are a couple well known sharks sitting there as well, which makes me even more uneasy about taking a shot at stakes 5x what I normally play. I decide not to sit unless I get the seat directly to the fish's left - ie the "jesus seat" as it's known. Sure enough I do.
I went in with the plan of playing super tight, but as the game progressed I pretty much played my normal game preflop, and took one or two "variance reducing" lines postflop, and 251 hands later I was down just under $8,000. Great. Most of the pots I lost were medium-sized $3k to $4k pots... stuff like I reraise 2 guys with KK, flop comes A high and I shutdown after a bet. Or I have JJ vs KK and I lose the minimum (which is still like 1500 heh). Or I just reraise pre and miss the flop all together. Standard stuff.
So obviously that puts a dent in my month since I'll have to make it all back at 5/10nl. As the month stands now, I'm at 28,560 hands and $8,177.75, which is pretty terrible. About 1/3 of those hands are at 2/4 and 3/6, the rest at 5/10 save for 500 or so hands at 10/20 and 25/50.
So after the shot taking failed, I ended up running terribly at 5/10nl as well. I've made a few bad calls and bluffs, and I've played a little more LAG this month which has made me more inclined to make some additional speculative calls, throw in a day where I lost 5 different stacks on beats of 3 outs or less (not a fun day) and you have my current monthly total. Oh well, as the saying goes "that's poker!"
I need to try and get away from 8 tabling once I get into a big hole. I did that last month when I was down so much at one point. I've become very good at handling 8 tables at once, but I really think I'd play better if I stuck to only 6. It's hard to justify to myself playing fewer hands after losing to a bunch of beats and setups though. At that point, I just want to get to the "long run" that much quicker, but I need to learn to be a bit more patient. There are some people that think it's simply impossible to have a good grasp on the table dynamics when playing so many tables. I would agree somewhat, but with practice I think I've done a good job at it...That said, playing so many tables doesn't help me learn and think through every situation as closely as I could on only 6, and if my ultimate goal is to make it to 10/20nl and higher, I think I need to get back to playing fewer tables to concentrate on playing perfect poker.
Here are a couple fun hands for you to ponder. I think I played these pretty well, but without some well thought out reads and history, I wouldn't advise trying this at home:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?897712
http://www.pokerhand.org/?897717
http://www.pokerhand.org/?897732
Let me know if you have any questions on those hands.
Mom and dad are going to be in town this week, and on Friday Missy and I are road tripping to her family's house in North Carolina for the week...which means I'll be without Internet and poker for 7 straight days. It's going to be tough, but I'll have the laptop with my latest pokertracker db to analyze some hands while I'm away. I'll try to throw an update before we leave, but honestly with Mom and Pop in town, I probably won't get too many hands in anyway.
Run better - Play better,
Aaron
February Recap and March Goals
Been lazy on updating the blog, but I wanted to throw something up here before we got too far into March. February was about as turbulent of a month as I've ever had. Twice into the red to the tune of -15k, and roughly 80k hands played, I was actually pretty proud of myself to recover to get to +20k in the PT green.
My original February goals just centered around getting the hands in and playing my A game. Well for the most part I think I accomplished my goals, but I did have some days where I was probably on my B or C game, and on 8 tables at once... which can mean bad things... but alas I'm much more proud of my accomplishment in February of making about $20k then my January of making 40. In Feb I proved to myself when I need to I can put in the hours 8 tabling... I think there was one day I played 7-8 tables for like 14 hours and something ridiculous like 9k hands. Certainly, those aren't optimal conditions and I wouldn't advise doing that a lot, but at least I proved to myself that I can if I need to...and it certainly did help dig me out of a hole because of it.
To recap the month, here's a PokerTracker screenshot that shows just under 50k hands I played at Full Tilt and PokerStars, then I also had another 29,193 hands at another site (where i ran exceptionally bad) that doesn't work with PT for a whopping -$7,368.
So the totals ended up being: 79,082 hands for +$20,771.41. Obviously, this sucks in terms of winrate... you can see my results on stars/full tilt were ok as far as winrate goes, but when you add in the other site's disasterous results, it really brutalizes the per hand rate. Anyway, I'm not going to complain about $20k but still I need to play and run better.
On to March and my goals for this month. First I should mention that I'll be travelling through Memphis and North Carolina the 3rd week of March so I'll have zero internet access for a whole week. I'm not sure how I'll survive. I'm only somewhat joking. Sadly...
So I'm basically working with a 3 week month. My goal is going to be another 60k of 3/6 and 5/10, hands with $30k in profits. I think it's doable if I put my mind to cranking out the hands and hopefully run decently. Also, add to the goals that I want to (read: NEED to) qualify for the WSOP Main Event, and also possibly some smaller early events. This is going to be my year to take a shot at the WSOP as well as some juicy side games in Vegas this summer. I've already spent about $800 playing qualifiers with no luck. I played one qualifier where I made it down to Heads Up, winner gets the seat, but couldn't fade the big draw when I got all in on the flop with Q
Q
lost to A5 hearts on a 9 9 7 board. Of course the 6 on the turn... GG me.
If I can manage, I might take some shots at some good 10/20 games if I run well early in the month. I think it's important to always try to keep pushing through the limits, and honestly I think that's one of my biggest weaknesses. Unlike some of my friends, I don't have a lot of "gamble in me", and I think that's one of my biggest downfalls. As the stakes go up, so does the aggression and players' skill, so the ability to make thin calls/raises for big money becomes paramount...I need to keep progressing up. Hopefully I'll run well early and find some good spots at 10/20 to take a shot.
Oh yea, add to my list of goals more frequent blog updates with strategic content ;-)
Aaron
