Poker Journal Entry #3: Starting to Get on the Right Track
Poker Journal Entry #3:
Starting to Get on the Right Track
The point of this
blog is to share with you how I went from decades of having no clue to the
beginning stages of being on the right track as a studying poker player. The point of this blog is NOT to expose other
people’s content for free in the process.
I am going to be pretty vague about the things I learned from this
particular program so that if it sounds like it would help you, you can go buy
it fair and square for yourself.
The program I
signed up for was the Raise Your Edge elementary cash game course. Above is the first bullet list of information
I learned from my first day watching and taking notes on the course. The first thing I had read everywhere to
begin formulating a strategy was to find ranges and learn them. As an educator, I know that the best way to
have information stay in your brain is to turn it into something new.
My first days of
studying were all about trying to generalize the information I was receiving in
order to make it into bite-sized pieces of information that actually made sense
to me. I also tried to focus on what
things were different from my previous assumptions about the game. If I already knew something intuitively there
was no reason to put it into my study schedule, that was for new items only.
The list above goes point by point explaining
what new information I learned that first day.
It starts with the line, “Button vs. RFI is much tighter than I thought
(the earlier the raiser the tighter it gets.”
I know that seems super easy for a lot of you, but I wouldn’t have
written it down if it wasn’t new learning for me. I thought you basically just tried to play on
the button as often as possible. That
included disregarding who raised and from where. It also included flat calling a ton on my button
(I was not a big fan of a 3-bet although I was considered an aggressive player,
bad combo!)
In total honesty,
I had only really had large financial success playing heads-up poker and I was
trying to bring an outdated HU strategy to the 6-max streets. I do not suggest that approach to anyone
looking to break into cash games successfully.
The main reason I don’t suggest it is that position only matters in a
very basic way in HU. It matters a lot,
but there are only 2 positions to learn about.
In 6 max you have to learn how each position reacts to each other
position which exponentially grows the learning which is required. That resulted in me deciding it was too much
and that I shouldn’t worry about position at all… bad judgment!
The second note I
took was to let me know that the cutoff and the hijack were even tighter than
the button when someone else had raised first in. This seems easy to me now when I look back,
but I am laying it all out there so you can see how ignorant of the basics I
was when I started out. I think it was
Epictetus who said (and I am paraphrasing) having grey hair doesn’t make you
wise, it just makes you old. You might
have lived a long life without learning much at all or reflecting on the things
you have experienced, and those are the things that bring wisdom, not time.
I just basically
had a list of hands I liked and no matter what position or raises before me, if
I liked it… I played it. If you take nothing away from this post other
than this, DON’T PLAY LIKE THAT. Find
someone who can fill you in on what to do and why you need to do it. Raise Your Edge elementary cash course did
this for me, but there are unlimited different ways you can tap into the
information I found. Just make sure you
show up with a clear mind and an ego that is prepared to let someone else know
better than your current thoughts on the subject.
My mind was blown
by seeing how to play the blinds correctly.
I had always just used that same list of hands I liked, and I played
them, period. Now I was seeing I was
supposed to call a raise with K9o in the BB vs. Button and at the same time I
was supposed to fold A9s in the SB if the pot was raised by an early position
raiser. I also saw that as the RFI size
changed I was supposed to change my actions in response to those bets. I felt amazed, but also overwhelmed by the
number of variations I needed to learn.
Luckily for me, I
had already taken on some challenges in my life (losing 200 lbs, quitting
drinking, etc.) where I had learned that if I worked a little bit to improve a
little bit each day then I would be amazed by my progress if I just STUCK
WITH IT. That is what I decided to do so
I started a notebook and we can talk about that process next time I write a
post for you. Thanks for reading and
have a great life until next time.
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