Straightforward POKER: diciembre 2010

To some of the PMs; thank you, and many of your answers can be found in the summary of the previous thread here (sry for not answering personally, and thanks to whoever made this summary);

BW: I believe this winrate is something that almost anyone can achieve with relatively little work... most people just don´t know where to look or lack the basic discipline.

Q: Where should I look?

BW: Your mental, emotional state while playing is 80% of the work, and you can work and take specific steps to get better at that. Being in the right emotional state will allow you to open up your eyes to what you and the other players are doing without being stuck in the previous hand you lost, how much you are up, what you´re gonna eat later, etc.

Combine that with some basic technical steps that can be taken and you got the other 20% to at least achieve enough to live comfortably off poker. I believe that with today’s games and climate, anybody with even mediocre intelligence and some discipline could at the very least make a comfortable living playing this game.

Q: It's always so good when people say that you don't need huge natural talent to succeed at pokers.

BW: To say that you need huge natural talent to succeed in poker is probably very disrespectful to people who have a real natural talent in almost any other field. LOL at saying you need huge natural talent to succeed, at least to the level of making a 100 - 250 k a year playing. Above that I couldn´t tell you, but I will when I get up to that level. Will not be surprised to find another bunch of semi-intelligent slackers that are super mega lucky to have found something to lean on and call themselves "huge natural talents".

The big difference between the average 1-2 grinder and the average 3/6 or 5/10 grinder is definitely not raw talent or God-given natural abilities. It is risk tolerance, bankroll management, game selection, tilt control. All very simple things to reign in with a little emotional control. Once in a great while, just due to the large volume of players, you will get some kind of prodigy that will go from the micros to the nosebleeds very quickly, and not by virtue of luck or "positive variance" but a natural understanding of the game. These people are definitely the minority.

Also, as I mention above, I believe hand reading to be a function of your mental / emotional state at the time more than anything else.

Ever noticed that some days you can put people on hands right and left, other days you´re just fumbling in the dark? They haven´t changed, you haven´t changed, your skills have not diminished. But you are probably not in that same emotional state you were in when playing the first game.

Q: What do you think changed your game the most in terms of becoming such a winning player?

BW: Realizing that most regulars actually were not that solid and didn´t have their own game (most just basically have picked up somebody else’s preflop game that they´ve seen on a training video and have no clue why they are doing what they are doing - postflop they are usually spewy as xxxx). When you start zoning in how to scalp the regs, that´s when you start improving and that´s when you start beating the game for more than 1 ptbb / hour. And the basis for all of this was realizing how much of my game was dependant on playing when in the right emotional state, and learning how to maintain that mindframe.

Most of you guys have no basic technical problems when it comes to this game. You understand pot control, way ahead / way behind, position, equity, pot odds, 3-bet equity, etc. The reason you struggle with the more subtle technical aspects is that they usually require a good and clean state of mind whilst playing and analyzing. If you are on constant subtle tilt you will never understand your own image, your opponents projected image vs the way they actually play, what your history with a specific opponent really means and CORRECT adjustments (as opposed to a couple of 3 bets and now you´re waiting to shove any 2), and what all this basically boils down to; hand reading and putting your opponent on accurate ranges, and knowing what to do with those ranges. These qualities will separate a 2 ptbb winner, from a 5 ptbb winner. I believe that although I display a 4,7 ptbb winrate, I could have easily avoided many situations where I KNEW I was making the wrong play and made it anyway, and could easily have had a 5,5 - 6 ptbb winrate. I take responsibility for these results.

Q: Ok, what kind of prep do you go through before a session? Playing hudless, on a number of tables must require excellent and sustained concentration; I would imagine that you are consistently looking for patterns and methods of the regs when you are not in the hand?

Do you take lots of notes on players, trying to highlight how they play groups of hands or board textures?

Do you have a mental checklist you go through before making a decision during a hand? I have been trying to develop this to prevent auto-piloting (a horrible form of tilt that costs me money) but am having trouble forming a consistent checklist and method.

BW: I go through a studious prep pregame, and I have papernotes around me that I use whilst playing. I have very specific tradition throughout the day. I always start, for instance, by reviewing yesterdays hands. I do take notes on players. Away from the table, even though i am not using a HUD, I will check on a players stats in PT. Do not get me wrong. The PT stats are very valuable, it is just that I personally feel they hinder me during gameplay and don´t allow me to form a complete picture of the regulars.

As for a check-lists, start small. Whenever somebody calls or raises you preflop, jusk ask yourself about his range of hands. You would not believe how many pros fail to ask themselves this one simple question (which they always used to when they were improving). We all know we should, and yet when we sit down we start autopiloting our usual abc game. We´re on the ball the first 5 minutes, and then go into droid mode. Just start out by doing this every time you have any preflop decisions. Then extend to the flop. Then extend to asking yourself about your perceived range (2nd level). If you have been autopiloting for the last 2 hrs, you will have no idea what he perceives your range to be, because you have no clue about your own image. You can add levels as you go on, but do not overdo it. And the absolute most important thing when faced with a big decision, is to first breathe and relax for a couple of seconds.

Have you ever noticed when you get sucked into a hand? Like you have an overpair and you get raised on the turn, you know you´re beat, and beofre you know it you have called anyway? Or what i call the bluff-vortex, when you start with small flop raise, and before you know it you have fired three barrels and you´re all in and get snapcalled by the nuts? What the hell just happened? A 200 bb pot lost out of nowhere!!? If, at any point, you would have just stepped back, taken a breath and realized how little sense your line makes or how narrow his range must be, you would have saved a stack. When you look at it in retrospect, it is very clear to you. This alludes to my earlier point; most of you guys are fine when it comes to the technical aspects of the game, but you need to hone some of the mental and emotional ones.

Q: What’s the biggest downswing you have ever had?

BW: I have diverted from my strict set of rules once since I started playing strictly cash games in january of 07. That diversion led to my biggest downswing, which is 19 buyins I believe (roughly 12 k), and a 45 k hand breakeven strectch. I have had a bunch of 8-10 buy-in downswings. I have never had a losing month, and went fulltime pro in feb / mar 08. I have won roughly 350 k or so playing poker (never really having played higher than 3/6). I have consistently beaten every level I have played, and trust me when I say I am no genius or poker prodigy.

Q: Are you a buddhist, by chance?

BW: I try to live my life in accordance with many buddhist philosophies. The greatest lesson that can be applied to your poker game is the buddhist lesson of being mindful and aware of one´s thoughts and actions at all times. I believe that this is the one single most powerful tool in any game (or profession) and the separator between many of the nosebleeders, the midstakes grinders and the low-limit strugglers. Unfortunately as simple as this teaching is, it is not easy.

Q: is beating 3/6 at 5ptb/100 considered to be super sick now or something? Or am I being leveled?

BW: My point exactly \:\) And I completely agree with you. I believe the interest in this thread has very little to do with me or with my results, but the very fact that this can be done by almost anyone (I truly believe this), and yet so few are doing it. Why is that? And that´s where we return to the emotional control.