Update, thoughts on math.

Well, today is the start of the WSOP main event and I wish everyone good luck that are playing in it. This year I did not really try that hard to win a seat and I am kind of kicking myself a little. Next year it is going to be my number one goal and I think that I will start setting aside some of my bankroll just for WSOP qualifiers. I got close in one satellite and was disappointed.

I have really been crunching numbers and working on different spreadsheets and such to look at different situations in tournaments. One situation that I have been working on is the blind defense where you have someone that is stealing your blinds aggressively and what kind of stack do you need and cards to play back. It is very interesting to me when I looked at different situations and how the numbers work.

I took Ms of 10, 8, 6, 5, 4. For those of you that don't know what M is, it is your stack divided by the preflop pot size. small blind plus big blind, plus antes would make up the pot, divide this into your stack and you get M.

M is a very important number as it takes into account what it costs you to play a round. It is more telling than your BBs, because it takes into acount antes and the small blind that you have to pay. When used in conjunction with your BBs it becomes a very valuable tool.

No limit hold'em is a game in which aggression really is rewarded. You can win a hand several ways. One, your opponent folds to your bet. Two, you have the best hand come showdown. When you fold you cannot win, obviously, but you also cannot lose anymore, and it is often important to remember that.

I played in a tournament today where I watched people call down with hands like KJs and ATs when they had nothing, not even a draw. They just kept blindly calling down bets and throwing their stack to the wind.

You need to have a plan of attack when you play a hand. You need to be willing to let go of AK when you miss, other times maybe you make a play with it, maybe sometimes you reraise to that weak flop continuation bet, but there is no crime in folding an unimproved AK hand especially on the turn when faced with a big bet. Now, if you have a very short stack you should look to get all your chips in pre-flop with a hand like AK. This illustrates that you cannot play one hand the same way, as this is poker and it is always evolving depending on table dynamics.

I have had an ephiphany this week and it has given me a great feeling of confidence when playing. It is always dissappointing to lose a hand at a key moment because of a "questionable call", but in the end it is just the cards evening out. We cannot get caught up in the bad beats. There are no bad beats. The cards just come as they will come. Today, I had 76s which I limped from the button in an opned pot. The board came 7K6 and I bet 2/3 of the pot. I was called by the SB and then the 2 comes on the turn and he bets all in. I should have realized that he had a set, as this is my custom to think set when people shove like that, but I had a read on this guy that he was not the most solid of players watching him bet 500 in a 60 chip pot earlier, so I called with my two pair. My call in hindsight probably was poor when looking at his bet. I actually closed the table when I saw his set of 2s thinking, oh, well, that is how it goes. I clicked back a couple minutes later just for fun because I had a feeling that something wasn't right. Sure enough I hit a 6 on the river and won the hand. The cards just evened things out.

The better understanding you have of the math of situations the better your play will be. Today I shoved in the face of several weak limps and was rewarded by taking down pots and keeping my stack where it was or chipping up. You have to be able to make these moves.

I feel as though I am on the verge of something very nice, time will tell.