Lessons from Year 1

It's been about a year since I started playing poker on what I consider to be a serious basis. By that I mean that I began to read and study the game, and began to play it consciously with the intention of playing the best that I could, rather than just for fun or to gamble with friends. It's been an interesting year, to say the least. After my first final table, I experienced a relative drought of action, but have since made three more final tables in the past 3-4 months, and significantly increased my number of deep finishes. I won my first live tournament (we agreed to a chip chop, but I had the larger percentage of chips in play and won the final hand to determine the winner) in Atlantic City, and have had a lot of fun and a considerable amount of cursing and throwing of various objects, usually my hat, when I take a bad beat on the river. So clearly I still need to work on my ability to stay off tilt.

I thought I should try to quantify what I've learned over the past year, as well as spell out some objectives moving forward. There's a lot of things in flux for me right now that could impact my plans significantly over the next few months: my b/f would like to move to Vegas, I may be able to take time off work on a government VA benefit to write my dissertation (and play poker), or things could remain pretty much the same with my playing only on weekends and the occasional weeknight. But while some of my circumstances may change and influence my ability to increase my volume, I think my overall goals will probably remain the same.

So what did I learn/improve over the past year or so?

1. I no longer fold too much. I was unaware of how often I was folding with hands like middle pair against a single opponent, and I've made some corrections that have allowed me to find situations I can profitably float with position and determine my position in the hand. When I started, I pretty much never called with anything on the flop other than top pair or better.

2. I have started to learn how and when to bluff. I pretty much never bluffed when I started, not even cbetting (which I now do probably TOO often, so I've got to relearn when it's proper to check), and I've been able to pick some good spots to bluff pre (to aggressive LP raisers out of the blinds), on the flop (the EP c/r against an aggressive player on a flop that doesn't seem likely to have helped), on the turn (floating in position against one barrel bluffers) and on the river (usually with busted draws or when scare cards hit). I still don't really bluff very frequently, and I think that's probably optimal in the early stages of MTTs when no one will even fold middle pair, but in the middle late stages mixing some of these plays in at the right time has been good for me.

3. I've picked the best games for me. For better or worse, that seems to be non-turbo one table SNGs and MTTs. I think I've shown steady results in the SNGs and I have an unholy love for the MTTs that persists despite the bad beats and crushing finishes. My best is 3rd. I will hit a four figure cash, and I believe it will be sometime relatively soon...

4. I think I've improved both my post flop and board reading abilities. I'm still developing these skills, but given the sheer increase in experience I've noticed a greater ability to read board texture and react accordingly.

I'm sure there's more small improvements I've made, but it's hard to quantify. What I do know is that I still have a long, long way to go. That said, here is what I'd like to focus on improving the most over the next year.

1. My middle/late stage MTT play. This is where I seem to struggle the most, and this invariably effects my ability to get deeper and make more final tables. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here. Picking the wrong spots for moves is part of it. Not having a solid grasp of shoving ranges is another. I plan to beg sweats from people and study more about late stage play to try to correct whatever deficiencies I can find in my play.

2. My cash game play. As much as I LOVE the MTTs, the variance is ungodly high. I believe I have a good foundation to play cash effectively as well, I just need to put in the time and make the necessary mental shifts to go from cash to tournament play. Maybe setting aside one evening session just for cash play would be useful in this regard. In any event, if we do move to Vegas and I tinker with the idea of trying to make some legitimate money playing poker, I know I'm going to have to improve my cash play, since I wouldn't be properly rolled to play the type of tournaments I believe I have the highest degree of skill in (the ones with deeper stacks and slower levels - the others pretty much play like turbos, which I'm not that great at).

3. My ability to let go of marginal hands. I'm just now starting to make the shift into classifying hands like an over pair or TPTK into the more marginal category. Previously I've been willing to put too much of my stack in with these type of hands, and it costs me a lot at different stages, I think. If I can develop the ability to exercise pot control, especially with position, I hope to be able to make more effective reads and lose less when I'm beat while still extracting value from villains who will call down with worse.

4. My patience. This is particularly true of my late stage game, since if I'm deep in an MTT I tend to play only that table, and then I get bored waiting for stuff to happen, constantly reevaluating my M, my position relative to the field, etc., etc. I'm not sure that playing a side cash game or some SNGs is the answer. If I were live, I would have to just play the one game, and I think I just deep to develop my poker patience more.

I'm sure there are more things I can improve, but that's what I have identified so far. I may be reducing my volume of play from now until about mid-December due to my upcoming comprehensive examination for my Ph.D. After that, I plan to dedicate a lot more time and energy into my poker game.

Best of luck to one and all, and I'll see you at the tables.

SGT RJ