A new persona.
A couple of weeks have passed since I busted my live bankroll.
I’ve journaled. I’ve felt my pain. I’ve done other things.
Now I’m antsy. I want back in.
Can’t go back without a plan though, and I have a session with my coach on the books.
I’ve pulled $2000 out of an investment account in order to restart the roll. This will be the last life-roll money I’ll be able to contribute for the foreseeable future. At 1/2/5 its only 400bb, but it’s all I have.
My plan is a full reset. Get some coaching, gain a new direction, and just try to do what my coach says. Some of how I plan to do this is to create a new ‘poker persona’ — a poker character that I can get into when I sit at the table. I don’t know what this persona will be just yet, but I know I have to be able to leave my ego and my preconceptions behind. Hopefully this is a way to do it.
I chatted for an hour with a very successful player who shares my coach. He shows me his study/play schedule and it’s intense. Heavily regimented, and its 50–60 hours per week of study and play. His progress has been steady bricklaying — incremental learning of spot after spot after spot. He’s a full timer though, and my weekly 50–60 hours are spent at the day job and not playing poker. He gets done in two months what I get done over the course of the entire year.
He’s an inspiration to me, but I know that I can’t do what he’s doing. I don’t have the time available. It’s also clear after this conversation that my coach won’t be able to just throw out my entire game and give me a complete reset in a one hour session. There’s too much to do. It’s still all on me.
My coach breaks down my primary issues.
“Your big leak is that you put too much money in the pot in too many spots. It’s too easy to win your stack. You have to be more defensive. You need to look for more data points or else you blow up.”
He’s right of course. Overvaluing made hands, overaggression, multiway blunders into uncapped ranges — those have been my primary leaks for as long as I can remember.
“It’s hard to win a good player’s stack. A pro will force you to do everything right in order to win a stack.”
We go over some hands and thought processes to illustrate the point.
It’s a different framing for me.
For so long I was trying to attack spots where villains have enough folds, and now I’m building a strat around suppressing villain’s value.
But ok, so be it. What I was doing wasn’t working. Let’s try something new.
I need to make it incredibly difficult to win my stack — even at the occasional expense of getting value.
I take a break and try to let it all settle in. I need a new persona at the table.
…And then it comes to me all at once.
I need to play poker the way the Floyd Mayweather boxes.
Floyd Mayweather was the greatest defensive fighter of all time.
Impeccable footwork [preflop] — never off balance. An educated jab [cbet] that was constantly probing his oppositions defenses and setting up his power punches. Infinite patience in the ring. He would always spend the first few rounds [streets] gathering information on his oppositions gameplan and abilities, and then would systematically take that plan apart over the course of the fight [hand].
And above all, Floyd almost never took the big shot. He was never knocked down in his entire career. He took away is opponent’s offense before unleashing his own.
I’ve been playing too much like Roberto Duran. Just coming forward and taking shots in order to land my own, and getting caught in the process.
I need to play the way that Mayweather boxes. That’s the persona.
I’m inspired now. Let’s get in a session.
I grab half of my entire bankroll and sit in. It’s Saturday, it’s Texas, games are good.
Things are up and down a bit at first, but I’m still only part of the way through my first buy in.
I’m dealt AQo on the button and call a raise multiway. Not squeezing right now — I can’t take the variance.
75 in the pot and the flop is Ac 7c 4d.
It checks to me and I check through. Play defensively. Look for data points. Don’t get stacked.
Turn is the 9s.
It checks to me and now I have the green light to bet. No traps left in the field when they check again, and I have essentially TPTK. I size up to 50 and get one caller. This guy been playing tight and I haven’t seen a bluff from him yet.
River is the Qc — completing the flush and giving me two pair.
Villain now perks up and leads out for $150 into $175.
I know that this river sizing is heavy value. Lots of flushes in range. I know that when fish donk river into the turn bettor that there are no profitable bluffs because they just have a lot of made hands. I beat some two pair here, but really only A9 and 79 make sense there. I know I’m not getting a good price, so my calls have to be very accurate.
I don’t know if villain perks up like that and leads A9 or 79 into a flush completing river like that. It’s possible even those hands don’t exist.
I make the fold and villain claims a suited connector that rivered the flush.
I text the hand to my coach. He’s impressed.
Poker karma engages and I go on a rush.
I get thin value from JJ on QQ5 3 K. Turn checked through and I bet the river in position and got looked up by 99.
I pick off a bluff with JJ on T87 6 Q where villain had KJo and kept betting small sizes.
I squeeze preflop with AQo and get two callers, then I flop TPTK and get it in vs a draw and a Q who both brick out. More than tripled up in one hand.
I get it in again with AQ, this time vs a tilted fish who stacks off with AJo. I hold and win another stack.
I threebet 98dd vs a fish and get two callers. Flop 67T and I get it in vs A7o when the A comes on the turn.
Session is over. Starting bankroll almost doubled. Confidence renewed.
I review my notes and I still made mistakes, but there’s been progress and rungood. I bluffed into an uncapped range in a small pot one time. Still gotta shake that. I made one peel that was too light for the sizing. More to clean up.
Stay consistent.
Play like Floyd.
Adopt the new persona.
