40k Hands Review

I'm kind of busy tonight but I decided to do a 2/4 session review. So since August when I moved up to 2/4, I have gotten in 40k hands. I played a lot of hands in 1/2 but still that's pretty weak. Anyways, my results in 2/4 is definitely weak. I am a "winning" 2/4 player but not by much within that sample size.

I decided to look through all the 200bb+ pots, winners and losers. I noticed were when I first stabbed the stake where I made some questionable plays. It was a natural FPS where you are trying to over compensate for the change of stakes. It's kind of interesting doing a bigger session review like this. You can really take a step back and think about the game.

Think about this statement: The pots where I truly made a long term profit are the ones where if I was in villian's shoes, I would NOT make the same mistake.

There are spots where I turned a deceptive strong hand against a flopped strong but weaker hand, and I win the pot. But if I were in villian's shoes, I would have paid me off too. Those are not long term profitable situations. When the fish stacks off calling you down with bottom pair, where you would never make that same mistake, that's a long term profitable situation. Basically those are the spots where you go "OMG, what an idiot!". If you can keep yourself from making a mistake(one that villian would not make in your shoes), then you will be at worst neutral ev.

The game is really as simple as a game of mistakes. Whoever makes more loses, and whoever make less wins. What is interesting is that your style of play can possibly cause others to make more mistakes against you. Obviously a nitty player is going to get folds from good players all the time. So these nitty players really primarily hunt on mistakes of the really bad players.

Anyways, throughout this review session, I noticed that majority of the big pots that I lost, they were mostly cooler situations. And on majority of the pots I won, most of them were really poorly played by villian. I mean I would never make that same mistake by those villians. And not to give myself an excuse, but I have not had one single flopped set over set and I had plenty against me. Other than that, I do notice I have spots where I can improve on. I will definitely work on that, so I'll stop making costly mistakes. All of this is good because it gives me some confidence that I will win in a long run and I'm making some good decisions.

This point is related to the point I made about playing less hands with regulars. It's very possible that your edge against a certain regular is zero in a long run because you'll make some mistakes and he'll make some too. As we know, the short term results might show that one player is winning more than another but long term, this might not be so. It's actually very hard to gain a huge edge against a solid player. And as you move higher and higher in stakes, you will find more and more regulars that are doing things that are trying to gain a small but significant edge. Even in 2/4, there are plenty of fish that will make big mistakes against you. There is no point in targeting regulars because there are easier money out there. You will still need to do enough to let those regulars know that they can't exploit you, which is always involving a small variance. As long as you keep their edge on you close to neutral, you are safe to do your share of fishing.

I think it's very important to keep that as your perspective when sitting on a table. I know many times I see a certain regular on the table and I know a certain exploitable tendencies about them, I have a long term edge against them. But let's really think about this, the knowledge I have against that regular is probably only 0.5ptbb/100 but against a typical fish, you can gain up to 10+ptbb/100 long term because they make so many mistakes against you. So what is the better play? Sit and exploit that regular for that 0.5ptbb or sit with the fish and play more hands there? Simple answer, right?

All this talk is really trying to stress on thinking long term and not short term. Guacho from CR stresses a 100BIs BR, it's definitely not a bad idea for long term success. I mean I don't want to go into this whole argument. My point is that there might be a (extremely slim)chance in your poker career where you are down 50BIs and you are still playing profitable poker. I can't even imagine this downswing myself but even being down 50BIs, one should never let that sway him from playing his A game. You might lose 5 BIs to a really bad player due to suckouts, but as long as you know you are +ev against him, you will be ahead in a long run. So just play and keep making those decisions. Don't worry about being up or down X after one or two sessions, it makes no difference in a long run. If you were told by a god that you will certainly lose your whole BR down to your last bb, but you are promised to make billions climbing back up, would you do it? EV is ultimately a promise by some god out there that in a long term, you will be in the positive, not negative.

Anyways, I'll leave it at that. I think I left some good thoughts here.