CardRunners

I found that throughout the regular grind, there are times when, for no particular reason, I decide to reflect on my progress, the what has, what could and what should of happened.  These thoughts influence my play, my hopes and my making as a player.   Recently I’ve been reflecting on one recurring aspect which is consistency.  There are different types of consistency, and all are very influential to ones winrate and winnings.  I would love to constantly be able to put in volume while constantly play well.  It’s something which is obvious yet so hard to attain for myself.  I would guess everyone has a unique definition when defining volume and good play; I’d however think everyone would want to attain greater consistency in both.

As my thoughts on the subject haphazardly came to mind, this is a reflection on what I feel affects my consistency.

Concentration.  This is something I know nothing about.  I hear people say it can be trained, improved, worked on.  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s like everything else wherein by working at it you can get better.  Probably is.  I don’t always see it like this.  At this moment, right now, I could force myself to be very concentrated if I’d like.  I don’t.  I definitely could and I’d be as concentrated as I could be.  If I want to be concentrated right now I am.  Basically the level at which I am concentrated flutters with how I feel, what I want.  Maybe overall if I’d be concentrated more often, I’d be better at remaining focused.  In the next year, I don’t want to be better at concentrating; I just want to be focused more often.

Tilt.  I don’t know how everyone defines tilt.  I say it’s when I’m not playing my best or not making the best decision.  Sometimes the best decision is not to play at all.  When I don’t want to be focused I should decide not to play.  I don’t know if you can tilt when you are not playing.  For example, I could find out if playing 6 tables is better then 8.  I could find out the answer to lots of questions about correct ranges in multiple situations and be a better player overall.  I don’t.  If I did I’d be better when I play.  This year I want to tilt less off the table.

Variance.  People complain, I complain, but almost everyone has a love hate relationship deep inside.  It’s my utmost friend when I am not constantly playing well.  It’s my refuge when I play bad.  It’s my refuge when I tilt.  It’s my excuse to explain why I play bad and why I tilt.  It’s my explanation to my results when I don’t like what I see.  The forums are littered with people saying: “Oh, that’s just variance”.  Why doesn’t anyone man up and say what needs to be said when you play bad.  You SUCK!  This year I want to be honest with myself.  That’s the best way to improve!

…

Haha, well I've just turned my PS FPPs into some Futureshop monies (It's a electronics store).  I think I'm due for a new computer.  ATM I'm running on an old (3 yrs) laptop with an even older 19" 4:3 monitor.  It's not a CRT but it was in the first generation of LCD monitors.  Anyhow, I'm not really looking to spend much more then 1-1.5k (I have 1k in gift certificate), but I'd like something that could satisfy my little craving for gaming.  I've dld Combat Arm which is a free online FPS but my laptop as a very hard time running it.  The game really doesn't have great graphics or anything but still, when there's too much action it's starts lagging and that's at the lowest possible resolution with the lowest graphic quality.

So I've been looking on FutureShop's website but haven't made up my mind yet.  I'm really not looking to run any crazy stuff so a simple dual core, 3gb RAM, any CPU, with even an integrated video card is going to serve me quite fine.  The price to get a triple or ever quad core isin't a whole lot more so I'm a little tempted.  The only thing I really really want to get is a 24" monitor...  more space at last.

As for poker thing goes, I've ran meh at one two...  The regs to fish ratio definitely is on the higher side and I really don't feel like I'm a decent winner there.  What I intend to do before playing more 200nl is to gain experience playing HU.  I think that will really improve my overall game in mid to large size pots which is an area I can really improve on.  I'll start off really low @ 50nl to gain some experience and mostly confidence, run about 10-20 BIs or about 15k hands then move up too 100nl and repeat...  I'll probably try and play more then 30k hands there however.  I'll then go back too 200nl 6 max and 200nl HU if I feel good about my HU game.  I played a bit of HU today @ 50nl and really felt good about the way I played so we'll see how that goes.  I'll also be running without a HUD just because I don't think it's mandatory plus it forces me to concentrate a bit more.

I was looking at hourly rates about HU...  If I'm a 10ptbb winner (which I hope I am :D, I actually hope I can be a bigger winner but only time will tell) my hourly should be around $45 playing 2 tables which is very decent.  I could definitely play more tables while table selecting and being a BUM hunter but that would sort of defeat the purpose of why I'm going to be playing HU in the next little while.

Here's my review for the SlowHabit/CTS ebook...

Presentation/looks:
The Ebook is very well presented and looks very professional.  The book features colored figures, charts and examples, we can see that lots of worked as gone into it.  However, english isin't my first language but I was able to noticed multiple typos/errors during my first read.  Apparently that will be addressed in the upcoming edition but I was a little disapointed about that.  It does not however affect any explanations or examples.  There are also two missing figures/examples in the book which is unfortunate, I believed that will be addressed in the upcoming version however.  Another thing I found a bit irritating is it's hard to discern who's writing what.  Basically I know some segments are written by CTS while other by SlowHabit but it's sometime hard to discern who wrote what.  This does not really affect the read or the presentation but I would of liked to have known who wrote every paragraph.  As for the copyright protection...  well basically it really limits your usage which is unfortunate but understandable.  Like mentionned you can't print any of the 80 pages and are forced to read them on one single machine.

Content:
To be honest I really did not know what to expect from an ebook tagged at that price.  I guess if you're looking for a magic book, basically something that will instantly change the way you see poker after a first read, you may be a bit disapointed with your purshase.  This does not mean the book is bad and nothing new, quite on the contrary, this books simply layed out new grounds for me to work on.  While not being an outrageoulsy theoretical book, it made me question my lines, my strategy and general approach to poker.  Basically it sort of opened my eyes to other possible options and variables to consider and it will help me make better poker decision.  I really don't like how this sounds, but I think in order to get the full value of the book I'll really need to work hard on my game and general undestanding of poker.

Fortunately enough, I was already a student of Tri so we had covered some of the material in there.  I had already implemented some new elements to my game.  I feel this book is going to cover lots of loose ends and help me understand the why behind lots of decision I'm making.  A bit more on topic, while covering some pre-flop content (mostly about countering the light reraisers), the book mainly focuses on post-flop play.  Basically exploiting opponents using various lines.  It gives strong examples for every topics it explains while using good logic/math to demonstrate the why behind there decisions.

Final thoughts:
Is it worth 1.8k?  This is a tough question to answer.  For the stakes that I'm playing right now, I don't think it will triple my winrate.  What it will do is help me move up stakes much faster and for that reason I'd say it will be well worth the cost.  Would this book revolutionize the low/mid stake games?  Well if everyone that read it worked on there game, for sure the games would instantly become much much tougher.  Any player that incorporates the concepts explained in this book will become a very tough opponent to play against imo.  On the other hand, there's already lots of sound information that's free and people don't take it.  Would I recommend this book?  This is a sort of funny question to answer.  For one part I'd be really happy if players playing my stakes would not have access to this information yet I'd have a hard time recommending it to a friend.  I guess the fact is in order to benefit from this book you will need to put lot's of work into your game.  It's not a book that will instantly change a bad player into a phenomenal player!  Hard work and this book probably will however!