A much needed break and some sage advice

So I have a friend who also plays poker, and is a great player.  He is someone I trust, and we talk quite a bit about strategy and theory, and books, and well, anything related to poker.  I hadn’t seen him since I started tracking my play online, so I was anxious to show him my stats and ask for some advice.  In the meantime, after my losing streak, I decided to take a break.

I was spending way too much time either online or at the tables, and it was beginning to affect me.  I hadn’t been getting enough sleep, and I felt almost chronically tired because of it.  So I decided that a break was in order, and I’ve spent this week just focusing on getting enough sleep and taking care of myself.  I’ve played online with Poker Academy a little bit, but for the most part I’ve stayed away from cash games.

I showed my friend my stats, and talked about the fact that my stats seem to show that I’m too aggressive in some areas, and not aggressive enough in others.  I went through this really long, detailed explanation about areas I think I need to work on, as demonstrated by the stats.  I remember his look; he looked at my computer, and then at me, and said, “That’s not nearly enough hands to draw any conclusions from.”  Basically, I need tens of thousands of hands to draw conclusions about my play.  The nature of poker is that it’s a game of statistics.  It’s about the long run; not the short-term ups and downs.  And 2000 hands is definitely short-term.

So it was interesting to me to hear that.  I seem to let myself get frustrated when in a session or two I lose.  I let it bother me way too much.  It can actually be harmful for me to try and change my strategy based on short-term statistics, as I may be putting too much weight on something that over the long run doesn’t need to change.  So my friend’s advice was to keep doing what I’m doing – don’t focus too much on the stats right now.  He also felt that playing online was too difficult for the reward; there are too many good players to compete with, all of whom are playing at least as well as I am, if not better.  I can actually make more money playing at the local tables, but would benefit from spending time at higher limits like $8-$16 or even $10-$20.  So in order to keep building up my bankroll, playing at the local tables works well; in order to practice and get better, playing online gets me lots and lots of hands and experience with other good players, but won’t build my bankroll as fast.

It’s good to have poker friends.  :)

Oh, and speaking of Poker Academy, did I mention that this was a great program?  I’ve spent a little time drilling myself on post-flop play by giving myself the top 10% of hands (you can configure the software to do this) and about half of the table top 30% – 50% of hands.  I then play hundreds upon hundreds of hands, and work on my post-flop play.  By having the top 10% of hands I get good hands, but which are still vulnerable.  By making sure that at least half of my opponents are playing with adequate to good hands, it mixes it up a little bit; enough that I have to think about what I’m doing.  I spent a long time playing with the percentages, in order to provide a scenario where I always have playable hands, but which are still vulnerable.  This seems to work well, and is helping me with my post-flop game quite a bit.