Back to Basic!

We all play poker for a very personal reason, and theses reasons vary much more from one person to another than most of the other games and sports. Poker is not a tennis mach where you just want to win 3 sets over the guy on the other side of the net. Until now I have mostly been chasing as much bonus as possible on all known and unknown sites. During this period I have focused less on learning how to win than avoiding losing as this would counterfeit my goal of collecting the bonus (at least I thought so). This has resulted in a decent amount of winnings for the micro stakes. But the down side of this is that I have adopted a very weak-tight playing style. But instead of winning a few $$ and collecting some bonus after whole evening I asked my self the question. What do I need to do if I want to become a better poker player???

After watching Jason Ho’s SS Foundation videos again I realized I needed short & long term goals. So here they are:

• Beat NL25 FR for 10/bb over the next 100K hands.
• Move up to NL50 FR and make 5bb/10 over the first 100K hands.
• Beat NL50 for 10bb/100 over the following 100K hands.

Well goals are easy to set. But what do I need to do to reach my goals? After talking to Matt Pethybridge I had almost 100 items in my note book. That’s good AND bad because where the hell do I start? I’m not sure but one thing I know for sure is that any plan is better than just fooling around without any plan at all! MY PLAN!

Play 100K hands on NL25

Have 3 different hand charts that go from Nitty – TAG - LAG. Each one of the charts will be played for 30K or 35K hands.

Only play 4 tables and always focus on table selection and look for tables that will suit the things that I want to practice.

Divide my training into 20 different blocks of 5K hands and only have one certain thing to work on.

Make one post at the forums every day.

Always take notes as I play.

Replay the 10 biggest pots from last session before I start a new one.

Reset my HUD in accordance to what I’m practicing.

MY TRAINING BLOCKS!

1. Playing as many hands from the button as possible and trying to outplay my opponents with help of my position.
2. Playing more hands from the CO and play them aggressively, which means knocking out the button. This way I will be able to have the button twice per orbit.
3. Focus on which limpers I can raise with any playable hand from the BTN/CO.
4. Stealing almost every time from BTN and CO and it’s folded to me. If I have a calling station on the button when I’m in the CO I will change tables.
5. Looking for two loose weak victims at the table and trying to play as many hands as possible against them with position.
6. Looking for two weak tight victims at the table and trying to push them off their hands when I have position
7. Start with 1/2 stack and play very aggressive
8. Stealing from the SB, when in the BB. Never let the SB limp in, raise him with what ever crap and adjust to his reaction. If he let me keep my BB and give me his SB it will make a huge difference over 5K hands, not to mention the rest of all hands I will play in the future.
9. Balancing my C-Bets, trying to figure out if C-betting or not, depending on board texture, my hand and his playing style and possible range. My C-Bet% now is far too high
10. Delayed C-Bets. Figure out how my opponents react, will they call with worse hands thinking I missed the flop or will they take a stab at the pot by betting into me on the turn.
11. Double Barreling, who will call the flop and fold to a turn bet and on what board texture?
12. 3-bet lighter in position.
13. Float the PFR and attack on the Turn
14. Raise the Pre flop raiser on the Flop
15. Check raising the Flop as a semi bluff..
16. Find out how to handle a donk bet when I raised pre flop and have position.
17. Turn play, when I have a made hand. How can I set up a plan for getting the whole stack in on the River?
18. River Play, who is bluffing with missed draws, against whom can I induce bluffs, when can I value bet with marginal hands?
19. Defending my blinds against steals, I have to win back at least 50% of the blind money I have to put in the pot, this means the SB stats must be better than (-25bb/100) and the BB (-50bb/100)
20. ???

I’m convinced that it is possible for me to make 10bb/100 at Full Ring NL$50. I am also very aware that it will take a big load of work to achieve it but I will succeed!

Here is my graph for NL25 FR this year before starting this training project: To be continued….