Recalibration

Recently I started reading Harrington on Hold'em Vol. 3, the workbook, and I must say that this is a very nice read. This is the type of book that you can sit down and read any time any where when you have 10 minutes you can do a hand. The ideas and concepts in this book really are worth the read. We all try, or at least we should be trying to put our opponents on hands while we are playing. Some of us do this better than others, and this is what makes them very succesful. People that are very good post flop players can put people on hands and then you play accordingly.

It would be silly to try and make a move on someone if the range of hands we put them on is such that there is little to no chance they will fold. We must therefore act accordingly. At times I think I have done a very poor job at this. I think it is the last frontier, or hurdle to cross to becoming an even better poker player.

I have also been reading Super System 1 by Doyle Brunson and friends. I am reading the NL chapter, though I actually bought it for Razz and Lowball, and even Stud for that matter. I use to be of the opinion that I didn't really care what was in this NL section by Doyle. I am very sorry that I had this opinion for so long. I wish that this was the first book that I read. I would be even further along in my journey.

I have been playing a lot more MTTs than SNGs lately and I think my SNG game has suffered because of it. I also recently tried Sharkscope out, which is a program that tells you everyone's STATS at the table so you can see who the loser players are. I thought when I first got this program that it was a great tool, but now I am of the mind that it is very counter productive and I have stopped using it. I find that when I know who the really bad players are I let it influence my decisions too much when I am involved in hands with them. After all a donkey can wake up with a hand some of the time and that is why you see a lot of donkeys with lots of chips because people keep paying them off with sub par hands. I will not be using it anymore, except for enterainment value not while I am playing.

I have decided while I am on the big skid that I am on, mainly due to all the MTTs I have been playing. Although I have had success there, and in the SNG arena I have decided that I am going to drop down to the minimum level of play and just concentrate on being patient and getting back to my game. I am going to use the time to concentrate on reading people and making the correct play regardless of the result. I had some really nice success yesterday and learned a few things about reading hands and people, and the best part about it all is that if I bubbled, though, frustrating, it really was not that big of a deal because the affect on my bankroll was inconsequential.

I think a lot can be learned by going back and learning to deal with really bad players and how to play hands with them. This will translate greatly in large field tournaments due to all the bad players that satellite into them. In the past whenever I felt like the stars were aligned against me, like the last few days, I would stop playing and go to the play money games and then just crush people and have fun. I am doing the same thing except I am still playing for money and the other people are as well, and hopefully most of them are playing some sort of game and not just throwing it away with disregard.

There are so many things to learn about playing poker and sometimes we get caught up into the wanting to advance to the next level of game that we don't learn everything we should have at the lower levels. While I am dreaming of the day I can play the 50 rebuy and 100 rebuy and all the other high buy-in tourneys, I will grind my way there absorbing everything along the way. I know that it will come to me if I lay the foundation properly. I am confident that I have what it takes to become a top notch player. The trick is nurturing that confidence and protecting it and giving it all the tools it needs to stay that way even in the face of adversity. There is no secret we can learn that will automatically make us great. No system to be found. Just the hard work to learn and incorporate the things that will make you succesful, where it is second nature and you just know this is the play to be made and now is the time to do it.