The first executive decision I’ve made on my way to learning more about the game and getting better, is to play shorter sessions. No more autopilot. No more fatigue-induced tilt. The idea is this:

By playing shorter sessions, I have the energy to make the best decisions at all times. Sometimes, those decisions are different than my autopilot decisions. By practising, I make the better decisions part of my autopilot arsenal, and will therefore be able to execute these new strategies by reflex and can use my conscious thinking to learn NEW stuff to put in my autopilot arsenal, and…

You get the idea, I’m sure.

I believe this will hurt my net profit for July, since I’m playing fewer hands. Perhaps even August. But I’m expecting the investment to pay off in a fairly short time, so perhaps by September my win-rate will have increased enough to compensate for the fact that I play fewer hands. I have no problem believing that I make somewhat-easily corrected mistakes worth 1BB/100 today, which means that I should be able to double my win-rate if I actually learn these things properly. Double the win-rate and I only need to play half as many hands to achieve the same profit, and there ya go.

I need to work on my aggression, first and foremost. I’m too passive postflop, and although that alone isn’t enough to achieve an increase of 1BB/100 in win-rate, it should probably get me at least part of the way there. I’m also slightly too loose postflop; not that I’m chasing draws but I’m calling down a little light. I’m not convinced that this is a leak (since people bluff waaay too much at 5/10) but I should at least consider raising the turn in position once in awhile, since raising with ace-high may fold out a six-out draw and carries the same cost as calling down.

…

Huh.

That’s interesting. I just had an mini-epiphany of sorts. If the pot is big enough to allow my opponent to profitably draw to six outs, and I can get him to fold if I raise, then a turn raise may be better than calling down, if I’m already willing to go to showdown. I.e., if the hand goes

The aggressive SB opens, and I raise with AJ in the BB. He calls.The pot is 6 SB.

The flop comes 8-5-5, SB checks and I bet. He checkraises. I know he can do this with any two. The pot is 10 SB.

The turn is a deuce. He bets. The pot is now 6 BB. If I raise, he’ll get 8:1 on calling, and he’d be wrong to fold any hand with more than ~5 outs. I.e., if he folds any hand at all, it’s good for me. Even hands that I dominate, since he has plenty of outs to counterfeit my better kicker since the board may end up double-paired which can mean that we split.

The gain of this move is somewhat offset by the fact that he may 3-bet with worse hands some of the time (forcing me to fold, which is a disaster) and it may also stop him from bluffing the river with a worse hand. I need to figure out what values for aggression and WTSD I’m looking for to pull this off.

Anyway. My mini-epiphany might not have been worth all that much after all. But I feel that what matters is that I’m actively thinking about poker again. It’s been awhile.