Because I no longer have a weekly update for my chase for the VPP record, I am going to start doing a quote of the week post every weekend. I’m not going to commit to a topic, but its safe to say many of the quotes are going to be about poker. I hope you enjoy these quotes.

“The idea of “creating a 3bet and 4bet dynamic” is totally retarded. You don’t just 3bet bluff for the sake of creating a dynamic.”

-Max responding to a question from an “Ask me anything” thread.

There is a lot of different strategy advice I see discussed whether as a question to me, in a video, or in a forum that are very wrong. This whole creating an aggressive dynamic concept is one of them.

I’m not sure I can say it any more succinctly then Max did, but I will expand on it. The whole point of playing more aggressive is because you feel like this aggression is exploiting your opponent. For example, if a player is folding to your 3bets 70% of the time, you should more aggressively 3bet because a 3bet with any 2 cards vs this player is profitable. Any hand you decide to fold preflop vs this player vs his strategy is passing up a +EV opportunity. One of the positives of this move is in fact being payed off more lightly when you 3bet a good hand when or if he adjusts and this is great overall when or if you adjust back to a tighter 3betting style.

But if you are facing a player who is 4betting a very thin value range as well as bluffs and is folding to 3bet 50% overall, 3betting aggressively is your worst strategy. If your opponent is competent, the more you are 3betting, the more +EV his strategy becomes.

Playing suboptimally (i.e. 3betting a shitload or 3betting very little) is something you do to maximally exploit someones strategy as best you can. A suboptimal adjustment for the sake of itself is illogical. If you feel like when you begin to play an unknown player that he is likely to play too tight and snug, by all means maximally exploit him by playing aggressive in the spots in which he is playing this way. But call it what it really is.

Right now, I’m in the midst of one of the most epic downswings I’ve ever had in my career. I’ve been focusing on mainly super turbos recently and at first it was going well. I anticipated intially, given the winrate ceiling seems to be about 3% for even the best players, that super turbos would give way to some ridiculous swings. When it was going well, it seemed like maybe that wasn’t the case, but wow was I wrong!

It’s been pretty brutal the last couple of weeks. As any of you know who have been through a really terrible run, when you are running really bad, you start second guessing the crap out of yourself and your confidence is shot. I started experimenting with tons of different strategies because I felt like I had to be doing something wrong. In hindsight, I definitely had some leaks but the downswing made them seem bigger than they were. I felt like I had to do something drastic when I really didn’t. I started doubting what I knew someones preflop range was because it just seemed like I had to be wrong.

However, when I thought about it more, I realized that when I was upswinging initially, I had the exact opposite effect happen. I thought I had mastered super turbos, that I was better than everyone else and there was no need to work on my game. I didn’t really assume ranges, I did basically what I felt like because it worked. In both cases, I was swayed by my emotions of good variance and bad when I was trying to determine the correct play.

And this is where I came to this realization. I can’t just play and play and play and tweak my strategy from that, because what I assume my opponent is doing is almost always swayed by variance. What I need to do is take time while I’m not playing and talk to friends, do some math, work with some of the amazing programs available to poker players, and watch videos, and from that think about different spots and strategies. From that, I can figure out whats best and improve in spots I’m struggling with. I estimate that the time I spend doing this is about 5% my total poker work, when in reality I should strive for it to be more like 20-25%. Especially when learning a new game like this.

I despise the hell out of this downswing. But without it I would have never came to this realization, and for that I’m thankful.

Not talking about the song.

This year I have had a higher fish to regular ratio at HU SNG’s, but I have not had nearly the kind of success. And I feel like the reason why is because I am getting killed by loose stationy fish. I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t a winner against them. But why is this the case?

My instincts and adjustment tool set seem to bode much better vs a fish who can fold well or a tight, aggressive or passive regular. For people who have played me, this is fairly obvious. I’m a bluffing machine. I wouldn’t be surprised if I bluff fish more than any other non fish in the world. But this isn’t an honor I’m proud of having.

However, while bluffing vs fish is a problem, I don’t think it’s my biggest problem vs maniac fish. My biggest problem is not postflop, it is preflop. It seems if I do not stop and think for a few seconds, I can’t help but raise every hand on the button and call all those pretty cards out of position. The problem with playing loose out of and in position is it gives me more air and weak hands postflop. And versus someone who doesn’t fold and plays very aggressively, this is the worst possible strategy.

So my second goal for this month: Play a more optimal strategy against loose, aggressive, stationy fish.

In other news, the play a lot of tables experiment is going decently. Sometimes its difficult to focus that hard. I want to just go into robot mode and relax. But I’m trying to catch myself dozing off as much as possible and reaffirm my goal.

Every time you sit down to play poker you have a goal. You may not realize this or you may just vehemently deny it, but you do. Some people say it’s good to have a goal, but when you aren’t clear about the goal it becomes a problem. When that goal is one of the usual, default poker playing goals, it becomes the source of anger, tilt, and leads to terrible play. But if you can set a clear goal that is beneficial to your poker game, and become aware of when you stray from that goal, you’ll find yourself a calm, focused, poker playing, chip-taking, money-making machine.

One of the most common goals that poker players subconsciously set is “I want to win.” There are many ways to satisfy this goal. You can 1) Win a pot by making a good play 2) Win a pot by sucking out 3) Win by making a fortunately successful, terrible play. There are also ways that you will fail at this goal. You can 1) Lose a pot by getting sucked out on 2) Lose a pot but making a bad play 3) Lose a pot by making a good play but running into the top of your opponents range. Since in a 3 hours long session a good player will probably only win 55-60% of the time and in any moment a you can lose 100% of the time, this goal of wanting to win will leave you angry and upset about every other time you play.

But we don’t have to use this default goal, we can create our own. We can create goals that aren’t at the hands of something we can’t control. When I sit down to begin a poker session, I open up a word document and write down my goal for the day. Yesterday it was “Go to time bank as much as you can.” So throughout my session, I would look back at that word document and check in with myself. Am I taking my time enough to go to time bank consistently? No? Ok let’s try to take a little more time. By taking myself back to this goal, especially in times that I’m getting unlucky, I begin to focus on what is going to make me play my best instead of what I can’t control.

Here’s how you can come to your own goals. Think about how you are and what you do when you are playing your best. Here’s 3 of mine:

1) I’m consistently going to time bank on post flop decisions.
2) I’m thinking of alternate ways to play my hand instead of my initial reaction.
3) I feel calm

All these are clear, pointed ways for me to play my best. And most importantly, when I accomplish them it I’m able to recognize it. This means during a session, when things aren’t going well monetarily, I can feel a sense of calm knowing I’m accomplishing what an objective Max wanted to accomplish. Really, the goal doesn’t even have to have anything to do with making money, “I want to have fun.” It could not have to do with the way you play but what you play, “I want to play my most profitable stakes.” Or it could be statistical, “I want to play 3bet over 15% of hands.” Regardless of what it is, your poker session is only going to be as good as your goal. So set a great one.

I was playing a regular at 10/20 HU a few days ago. I got in a river spot where I decided the best move was overbet bluff, and because I was feeling goofy I decided to bet $1 less than his entire stack. To my surprise he shoved all in. I was now faced with an odd situation. I was bluffing but I was getting 4000 to 1 odds on the call. Although the situation was comical, it represented some thoughts I had been having about playing well and being confident.

When I am on my game I make a lot of very good big folds and a lot of very good big bluffs. When I’m off my game, these moves elude me. But what is different when I playing well and when I’m playing medicore? A lot of it has to do with confidence. I am getting 4000 to 1 odds on calling an all in. The amount I absolutely positively have to be sure he didn’t misclick or do some sort of odd spazz is absurd. This is representative of making good plays in poker. A lot of the time I am in spots where I’m pretty sure my opponent isn’t bluffing so I should fold, but decide to call because I’m not sure how good my reasoning is. Confidence means you believe in your own ability to think well. Can you make that good bluff that no one else would ever think of making? Can you make a big fold even though you have a very very strong hand?

This concept isn’t just important when it comes to playing, but also when it comes to getting better. I don’t know if any one factor caused me to go higher up the ladder of stakes than 98% of other poker players who put in the time and effort I did (-1% to appear less cocky), but I’m pretty sure there is one factor that was instrumental to my propulsion: Playing like I knew what I was doing, even though I sometimes didn’t.

This is what I mean by playing like I know what I’m doing. Every time I sweat a player during a coaching session, they generally refuse to make a decision without my okay. “Is this the correct play?” They ask me.

“Fuck if I know.” I think to myself, half meaning it. Getting good at poker isn’t about making the correct play, it is using and integrating the correct logic. Doing something that happened to be correct doesn’t mean you did that something well. In my best months as a poker player, I was doing shit that was so far away from what everyone else was doing that my winnings were the only thing keeping me sane. I took a huge leap. I saw a reason to play totally differently than everyone else was, and even though I really wasn’t sure these differences were correct, I stuck to them. I made huge folds, bluffs with no equity, and extreme adjustments. I was considered a crazy player in the forums, terrible by some. But a year later, my play from one year ago doesn’t seem so crazy.

I didn’t end up folding the infinity to one odds call, but it reassured me of something important. Do not be afraid to do something no one else is doing even if you are not sure it is correct. There’s a thin line between stupid and genius. And the more times you walk it, the more you will be able to walk on the good side of it.

One of the best assets I have had as a poker player is connections with very good poker players. This sort of connection is not uncommon for online players; they normally at least have one friend who is very good at poker. However, even though picking the brain of a great poker player can be a tremendous benefit to your game, not everyone approaches it in the correct fashion. They ask questions, but they don’t ask the right questions.

Because of poker forums, or maybe just sheer laziness, online poker players have come to a specific way of learning how to play poker that’s flawed. This way of learning goes something like this: Player A plays hand, Player A posts hand on poker forum, Players B, C, and D chime and with answers like “fold” “call because he knows you have nothing” “raise because his range is weak.” Player A then agrees with one of the answers and now knows the right way to play that hand… probably.

Later, Player A may complain to me that he isn’t learning anything, that the answers to his hands are getting shorter and shorter and he hates that everyone’s so lazy. What he doesn’t realize is he’s the one who’s lazy, or shortsighted, or both. The fact is that there are so many ways to ask a question on a poker forum, besides using hand histories, but because that’s all he sees he assumes it’s how all the great players learned how to be so good, but it’s not. I was thinking of this the other day when I was talking to my friend Sauce about Fullring and I was talking about UTG. I explained to him that everyone raises really light UTG and I wasn’t sure how to take advantage. I told him that many players will raise UTG with about 15% of hands, almost never 4bet a 3bet, and play relatively tight besides sometimes calling pairs thinking they may have set value and sometimes weird hands like ATs. From this, we talked about different options and I learned a lot about how a great player decides what to do preflop given a range. If I we’re to take a standard poker forum approach to this question, like posting a hand where I reraise bluffed, got called and then didn’t know what to do on the flop, I would have never learned as much as I did. Sauce might have posted, but he would have just said “cbet” or “I wouldn’t reraise pre.”

And this is my point, it’s not that good players don’t want to reveal information to you, or they’re lazy, or they have some conspiracy against all poker players to try and keep them dumb. It’s just that most question they get are dumb (even though in your mind it seems smart, and it might be if you weren’t posting the hand history but instead just posing a question). Because poker isn’t played in a vacuum, it’s a big math problem that everyone will be happy to help solve for you if you just ask them to. But you’re not, you’re showing them a hand history and then asking them to read your mind and extract your reads that you didn’t actually mention. I realized that every single person I know who struggles with poker has not once shown me anything more than a hand history or asked me anything more specific then “how do you beat aggressive players?” If you ask more pointed questions, I think you’ll find that great players will be more than happy to give you very correct, very in-depth answers.

On another note, I’m playing the 10k hu today and hoping for an all-twin final table.

My life has been filled with excitement over this last weekend. As you may know, Danny and I are sports fanatics, especially when it comes to Football. We we’re born in Washington DC and lived there until with were 9. Because of this we both love with Washington sports teams. I’m borderline obsessive. I probably look at sports forums every day, even in the off-season, hoping to find some good news. Sadly, this had made my life miserable because no Washington sports team has won anything since 1991.

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Source: http://kevinmartineau.blogspot.com/

Four days ago, I don’t think I could have sat down at a poker table and truly felt fine if I lost a buy in. Downswings can be tough, losing a buy in can change your whole strategy. For me, it prevents me from making a big fold, making a bluff in good spots, and playing too weak/passive in general.

I used to have the idea that there is no reason why I can’t sit down at a table and play my A+ game as long as I have the intention to. As long as I try to focus as hard as I can, I will play well. But its simply not true. You can be tired, mad, angry, upset, hungry. You can’t always will yourself out of a bad mental or physical state. Occasionally, you need some sort of break to retool your thought process, keep you on point, and think about how to adjust to the opponent your playing. It can be in the form of a short break, where you just take 5 to 10 minutes to get a drink of water or lay back in your chair and do some analysis.

But it can also be a long break. This weekend I went to Vegas and forgot about online poker for a few days. When I came back last night and sat down at the tables, I felt refreshed. When I was in my downswing, my self-evaluation circuits went hay wire. My mind was so wrapped up in the downswing I failed to maintain a clear evaluation of how well I was playing.  But when I sat down last night, I was able to analyze clearly whether my play was good or bad, regardless of the results of my actions. And when that happens, whether I win or lose is irrelevant: I know I’m going to play at a level where I am going to win money in the long run.

Strive to be the best at poker, but don’t put unrealistic expectations on how well you can play all the time. You are going to have a session where your focus sucked,  your hand reading was poor, and your mistakes were plentiful. But a break can help turn that around. And over the course of a year, turning those B- sessions into B+ sessions can mean a hell of a lot of money.

Lets face it. All of you secretly admire delusional poker players.

Yesterday I shoved bottom pair on the river as a bluff and my opponent called with midpair after successively deducing that I was bluffing. Afterwards, my analysis showed that the bluff was bad, as the results would suggest. Consequently, It was hard to feel good about my game after I made a big mistake.

Today I played a HU SNG against a player who was chatty. He had a stack of about 900 and I had a stack of about 2100. With 15/30 chip blinds, he limped in position preflop and I decided to check my 52 off suit. The flop came 854 two tone. I checked and he checked behind. The turn came an 8. I decided to lead the minimum, 30. My opponent raised me to 120. My thoughts were he would have cbet an 8 and any other nut hands on the flop, so he must be bluffing. Hoping to call down a continued bluff on the river, I called. River was a Queen and I checked. He bet 200 and I quickly called. He showed J6 off suit for Queen-jack high and I took down the put with my pair of fives. I knew he played the hand badly, but he didn’t. “Wow you %&*$&*@ station.” He wrote in chat and continued to berate my play. He didn’t think he made a mistake, he felt like I made a mistake of calling. In his world, he played it flawlessly, he just didn’t know I would play so “badly.”

Now you’re probably reading this and saying to yourself “Well, Danny is clearly evaluating his game well and this other clown is clearly an idiot.” But I disagree, I think this guys mental game is fantastic.

Think about it: You are perfect. You are amazing at poker. Everyone you are playing is such a clown. If it wasn’t for bad luck, you would have the best winrate in the world. Losing money? It’s variance. Bluff got called? What a station. Can you imagine how good this feels? To “know” all this is true? On the other hand, look at me. I think I make mistakes. Sometimes, I have a session where I played badly and likely had theoretically lost money from sitting down. Sometimes, I make a bad bluff or I make a bad call. Remember that time you were drunk and you don’t remember what you said to this one girl but by the end of the conversation she said she wanted to punch you in the face?… Well, maybe you don’t but I do… wait what was I talking about again?

A famous psychologist once said that there is value in every behavior. So maybe that delusional player who thinks he is the best player in the world is going to experience deficiencies in some part of his poker game. But can’t we be delusional too, just better at it? Can’t we think we are the best in the world, and it is only a matter of time of working our way through our mistakes for us to get to that point?