Iron Mike

Run bad, blog less. This always happens, but what can you do. The last few weeks have been rough, but I have learned a lot, which is good. Ha the blog title is a reference to Mike Tyson. Recently I watched his documentary called "Tyson." It was pretty entertaining, inspiring, and sad too. This guy never stood a shot from the beginning. He lived such an awful childhood. Here are some things I took away from the film.

1) Mike was extremely disciplined to go from a street thug to heavyweight champion of the world. When he began training for the golden gloves competition he had all aspects of his life in perfect order. The man was a well oiled machine. Its odd that a Mike Tyson documentary inspires me. Whatever works I guess. But I've been hitting the gym 4 times a week, waking up early, paying all my bills on time, organizing my move to Texas. Its actually quite impressive to see how much I have matured in the past year and several friends have commented on that.

2) Tyson has the attitude and intensity of a champion. I may not step into a ring trying to break eye sockets, but I need that kill or be killed attitude at the tables. Everyday someone is trying to take my money. Poker is a very primal and predatory way to make a living. The strong survive. You prey on the weaker players, and you must be able to fend off or beat, the stronger ones. If I don't stay on top of my shit, I will get passed up, and eventually lose my money or have to drop down to easier games.

The games are getting harder and the regulars are getting better. Anytime I catch myself thinking, "damn the regs are better, there are less fish than I remember" I stop and say "fuck it you get better, destroy these guys, and move up." The guy who gets caught worrying about the state of the games, is the guy who either drops down, or stays at his current stakes. The fact of the matter is the higher you go, the steeper the climb is, but having that cut throat mentality, may be what takes you the extra few steps. Who knows, I sure as hell don't because I never made it past 10 20, but I just don't care anymore. I'm going to give it all I got until I have nothing left.

There are some things I started doing differently to improve. One week I spent a few days just calling down in a ton of hands. Conclusion: fish are bluffing me more postflop than the regulars. Pre flop I need to stack my pairs lighter in late position, such as 99 and TT, which is a near auto stack now. AQ is tricky, but I do need to start felting with it a bit more. As for the fish, those guys are firing 3 shots more than anyone else. My new philosophy is, if the fish is not a passive nut peddler, call with most top pairs or even weaker as long as some draws miss. I could not believe what I saw from fish when I started calling down lighter.

I flat 88 in sb to a fish otb and c/c 2 st on T234. The river is another 4. I look at my notes and my read is "aggro fish, does weird shit." Ha not much for notes, but anyway he over bet shoves the river and I snap off his A high. A regular might not even bet A hi on this board, if he does he just 2 barrels the turn and gives up. I'm done folding anything relatively decent to fish.

The regs however are more honest post flop, and screw around pre flop. So you adjust accordingly. Hardly any regs fire the 3rd shot. And the ones that do, I caught recently, so they have toned it down I assume. Also, aside from game selection, seat selection is even bigger. If a table only has one fish, you need position on him unless he is a massive donator. Otherwise, your life really does become hell because you cant isolate his limps and you battle with other regs.

Lastly I am starting to think more about what I am representing when playing a hand. Back in the day I might bluff raise a 279 2c flop and fire a turn A, because it worked. And that still is effective versus the fish, but now versus the regulars, I fire different cards. And here is where I just started thinking about firing three shots as a bluff for balancing purposes. On that 279 board, should I decide to bluff raise, I am now more inclined to fire 3 shots (empty the clip-the phrase I coined)if a T,6, or club hits on the turn. The reason being is that against a good player I can represent 8T,68, or the flush. This would have to be in a late position or blind battle because I am more likely to call pf with 8T and 68 in those positions. The most important thing is understanding which regulars are the elite ones, and who gives you a lot of credit. Then you can use this play. Everyone else, you just fire when the board gets scarier.

A few months ago I went on a run for nearly 115k, then lost 15-20 of that back. Now I regained that 15-20 again and just break even a lot. Ha this job has sucked for the last month, but the previous 4 were awesome so you take the good with the bad, and go back everyday with that Tyson mentality. I am moving to Austin in 7 days. It is pretty surreal and I'm psyched to get into my new apartment. Sometimes I feel that I will miss some friends and family back home, but this move in necessary for many reasons. My excitement outweighs my apprehensiveness. Life keeps getting better, no complaints here, just wish I could win some flips on the felt. Later.