Didn't get many hands in today but won a nice pot at $10/$20, which I was playing because of the guy playing a classic 70/13/4 style. Note the aggression factor though, he did play against c-bets as raise or fold, and followed through if he 3bet pre, so he was "kind of" tricky, and I think that some of the other regulars made some mistakes that helped him run up his 6 buy-in stack earlier on.

I lost $800 early when I raised his c-bet in a 3-bet pot - a situation I thought he would be folding a load of his range, but he shoved. So I was either wrong or just ran into a long-shot, but then got this one: (The turn is a Hellmuth-style instacall, btw, although you can probably infer that when you see his hand)

$10/$20 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com


Stacks:

I'm now up to $13k for the month so $15k should be fine and I have a new, if not ambitious target for the end of the year. Although I started playing full time in March, I now feel like I didn't start PROPERLY until July when I had the roll for 5/10, so I often look at my graphs from that point. Here is it so far:

And means I'll be really happy once I get the extra $14k for $100k for the 6 months to year-end. That implies $200k annually after tax, equivalent to about £200k/year job in the city, at probably 1/3rd the hours. I haven't meant to spell that out (just ;) ) as a brag, but sometimes when the blogs I read are an order of magnitude higher than that I forget that it's actually a really great result, as was $5k/month last spring, when compared to a real job.

I've just been sat back a while thinking about how differently I consider "poker money" and "real-world money". Before I played poker I never had any interest in gambling, and would still be uncomfortable with the idea of putting £200 on red at roulette (I'd much, much, rather spend that £4.50 at the bar), but I am now fine with 5-bet shoving $2k with 88, even though it appears risky/crazy/maniacish/whatever, because I know that the logic and meta-game all workout out to something that isn't really a risk at all.

I think this has been a real development in my game in the last 5 months - thinking back though my strategy I can end up shocked to realise that some spots do make me look like a maniac crazy gambler. I didn't realise it got that way or that it happened at the time, and it's obviously a good thing, but the difference in the psychology compared with actual crazy-gambling play is huge. I'd like some imaginative metaphor like suddenly zooming out to being able to see the code in the Matrix, so micro-decisions that look risky are really insignificant certainties viewed simultaneously as a whole.

To go back to the example with the 5-bet shove of 88: It basically prevents a 4-bet bluff from ever showing a profit when compared with my 3-betting ranges. Even if my opponents realise this and only 4-bet-call TT+ the cost to me (range vs range remember) will be tiny because of the increase in successful 3-bet pots, if those tricky players ever lapse into 1 4-bet bluff again they'll give the cost right back. So rather than feeling like I'm a tilting maniac when my shove with 88 runs embarrassingly into AA (as it surely appears) I feel like I very boringly made the risk-insured conservative play! There are a few spots like that, I guess most involve draws on the flop, that are often the spot of forum questions because they look like tough decisions. I think you can tell the experienced players by the shallowest answers - its close so just bet-get-it-in and don't worry about it, because it will reflect well in other spots!