T
titan72offsuit
Enthusiast
Silver Level
Just recently I listened to a poker podcast in which the discussion was creating a blog to help improve your poker play. Thus, I thought it might be a good idea to post a blog of sort here twice a month which will serve two purposes:
1) Will keep me focused on my goals
2) Hopefully will lead to discussion from other members which in turn will improve my play
To give a little background about myself I began playing poker about 2 years ago. It was pre-black friday and when I started I was out of the country. I had planned to make my first deposit when I stepped foot on ground back in the states but the day before I was preparing to leave to come home black friday hit. So that kinda messed up my plans. I then decided to make a small deposit on a site and played pretty well in the tournaments and SNGs but quickly realized I was a terrible cash game player. So the last couple of months I have concentrated strictly on cash games.
As most people do at the beginning of the new year, I made a list of goals to reach in hope to help me improve my game. The goals were:
1) Work on my cash game play
2) Move to another site
3) Learn how to use a HUD
4) Post some hands in the cash game analysis thread
5) Set apart some time each week to look thru hand histories
6) Become more involved in the forum
So far so good. I have moved to another site, started using both PT3 and HEM2 until I decided on HEM, posted hands in the cash game analysis, and have became as involved as I can on the forum when time has allowed. With those now pretty much accomplished I have to soon come up with another list to keep my focus.
After moving to a new site it re-enforced what I had already knew, I was a bad cash game player. I made an initial deposit of $125 and was down $25 after the first 1k hands 4-tabling 4nl 6-max. Over the next ~1700 hands I grinded back to even and then lost another $20 in a matter of 500 hands. After deciding it was my opponents bad play and not my own, I began 2-tabling $10nl 6-max thinking that better players played $10nl and am now showing a profit overall for the last ~1200 hands.
When I began reviewing my hands I realized that it was my play that was the reason for the losses and not the play of my opponents. I was 3-betting too often and too light against the regs in which the tables are full of and was 2 and 3 barreling with air way too often. Since then I have tightened my 3-bet range, and cut down my CBet % and have began to see more success.
Overall I think the following combination has led to me playing better recently:
1) Cutting down from 4 tables to 2
2) Picking better boards to Cbet on
3) Tightening my 3Bet, PFR, and button raises
4) Identifying the regs and adjusting my post-flop play
5) Staying out of the BVB battle
Another area that I have began to experiment with is a 2.5xBB raise from the BTN rather than my normal 4xBB raise from the rest of the positions. After doing some hand history reviews I was finding that while a players overall 3Bet % was around 2.5-3.5% 3Bet percentage from the blinds was a lot higher. This has accomplished a couple things for me. I have been able to call these higher 3Bet %'s with hands that I am willing to play in position while keeping the pot smaller. I am interested to hear what you guys think about this.
As always I am open to any constructive criticism and suggestions.
1) Will keep me focused on my goals
2) Hopefully will lead to discussion from other members which in turn will improve my play
To give a little background about myself I began playing poker about 2 years ago. It was pre-black friday and when I started I was out of the country. I had planned to make my first deposit when I stepped foot on ground back in the states but the day before I was preparing to leave to come home black friday hit. So that kinda messed up my plans. I then decided to make a small deposit on a site and played pretty well in the tournaments and SNGs but quickly realized I was a terrible cash game player. So the last couple of months I have concentrated strictly on cash games.
As most people do at the beginning of the new year, I made a list of goals to reach in hope to help me improve my game. The goals were:
1) Work on my cash game play
2) Move to another site
3) Learn how to use a HUD
4) Post some hands in the cash game analysis thread
5) Set apart some time each week to look thru hand histories
6) Become more involved in the forum
So far so good. I have moved to another site, started using both PT3 and HEM2 until I decided on HEM, posted hands in the cash game analysis, and have became as involved as I can on the forum when time has allowed. With those now pretty much accomplished I have to soon come up with another list to keep my focus.
After moving to a new site it re-enforced what I had already knew, I was a bad cash game player. I made an initial deposit of $125 and was down $25 after the first 1k hands 4-tabling 4nl 6-max. Over the next ~1700 hands I grinded back to even and then lost another $20 in a matter of 500 hands. After deciding it was my opponents bad play and not my own, I began 2-tabling $10nl 6-max thinking that better players played $10nl and am now showing a profit overall for the last ~1200 hands.
When I began reviewing my hands I realized that it was my play that was the reason for the losses and not the play of my opponents. I was 3-betting too often and too light against the regs in which the tables are full of and was 2 and 3 barreling with air way too often. Since then I have tightened my 3-bet range, and cut down my CBet % and have began to see more success.
Overall I think the following combination has led to me playing better recently:
1) Cutting down from 4 tables to 2
2) Picking better boards to Cbet on
3) Tightening my 3Bet, PFR, and button raises
4) Identifying the regs and adjusting my post-flop play
5) Staying out of the BVB battle
Another area that I have began to experiment with is a 2.5xBB raise from the BTN rather than my normal 4xBB raise from the rest of the positions. After doing some hand history reviews I was finding that while a players overall 3Bet % was around 2.5-3.5% 3Bet percentage from the blinds was a lot higher. This has accomplished a couple things for me. I have been able to call these higher 3Bet %'s with hands that I am willing to play in position while keeping the pot smaller. I am interested to hear what you guys think about this.
As always I am open to any constructive criticism and suggestions.