Try to boost the W$SD...you'd like that over 60 if you can...it just means that sometimes you're staying in the hand with TPHK and having the slightly 2nd best hand.

BK: Okay, so very clearly and slowly, as if you're talking to a child (and not a very bright one at that): I tell you that on my PT, it shows my BB/100 hands number as 9.95. If somebody asked me right now what my PTBB/100 number is, and I've only played NL, I would say to them, very clearly, "My PTBB/100 is _____". Please, for the love of everything good and holy, please, please, please fill in that blank for me. Do that for me and I'll never bring up how to figure out ptbb again. That's a promise. Don't do it and I'll start making up my own stats in unimaginable ways that only I understand and watch them confuse the hell out of everyone else.

I'm starting to wonder how come I don't fall down more than I do with a brain like this.

About the W$SD, I'm going to delve into each loss pretty thoroughly this weekend to figure out where I'm going wrong. I've looked at a few so far and the only thing that sticks out, other than the obvious bad beats like AA against JJ, is that on a few hands I was the raiser preflop, caught nothing on the flop, got my CB called, and ended up checking/checking the turn and river, as did my opponents, and I'd lose ATs to an AJo or AQo to an AKo, something to that effect. On a couple hands where I limped and it was checked on the flop and the turn, I lost when I got a little something on the river only to find out somebody was slowplaying a flush or straight, or just caught a little something better than mine. But usually those river bets were only like $1 or even the minimum. The kind of bets that I seem compelled to call on hands like this. For instance. I had A9o in the BB. I checked it. After the flop and turn the pot hadn't been bet at once. River came up and made two pair on the board. Somebody threw out a small $1 bet and I felt compelled to call it with my ace even though there was really nothing to win in the pot. Lost to a flush somebody had gotten on the turn. I'm sure I'll find more glaring holes as I dig into them a little bit though.

Kramer... If someone asks you your PTbb/100, it's whatever PT says it is... If someone asks you your BB/100 (which is what most people will ask), it's 2x whatever PT says it is... So, in your case, it would be 19.90, and I'd be asking you for lessons...

MVP: Thank you, thank you, thank you! Everything has finally fallen into place and I feel a sense of order all around me. My ptbb is actually 9.95 right now, but only through 4500 hands or so. Believe me, so far I've been more lucky than good. *L* I expect a huge drop at any time now. Speaking of which, I think I'll play a couple hours. But thanks again for explaining it in a way that my pea-brain was able to understand!

Yikes!

I guess I called that. I had kind of a nasty session today, and most all of it was of my own making. I dropped about $70 today. Today was the first day I had a really substantial loss in a hand and not to put a too fine of a point on it: it sucks. I guess it takes lots more experience than I have to be able to take these kinds of hits gracefully. I guess my only goal right now is to not let it affect the way I play tomorrow. What really bites is that it's all my fault, and could've been avoided.

Really quickly, here's what happened in that hand (and as a sort of "what not to do in this situation" type of thing).

I had on the CO. It's folded to me. I just limp. First mistake? Button and both blinds call. Flop [5h][4c]. SB checks. BB bets $1. Here's where I screw up bad. I look at the board and it doesn't look too threatening to me (completely overlooking that the blinds could have anything). I fear that if I raise it up at this point everyone will fold because I can't put anyone on a really strong ace after they limped. So I just call, button folds and SB calls. 3 players left. Turn . Threatening right? Not to me. I misread the board and don't even see the straight draw. In fact at the time, to me, it couldn't have looked less threatening since it gave no flush draws. SB checks again, BB bets $3. Since I don't see the threat I just call again. SB calls. BB is a very loose and aggressive player who doesn't always play the greatest cards; he likes to see showdowns. So I'm figuring that I'll put it to him on the river and I might as well get SB's $3 turn call as well. With the rainbow board a flush was out of the question. River . Suddenly SB throws out a pot-sized bet of $14. Huh? Oh sure, he must've been slow playing his A8 on the turn, or maybe he was hanging around with a K8 and just hit two pair. Maybe he was even slow playing an AK! As I expected, BB calls the $14. I have them where I want them. My set will come out of nowhere. I go all-in; I've got both covered. SB calls, BB actually folds. Imagine my surprise when his little chair started blinking to indicate a win. He had, as you can probably guess by now, [6c], a straight. I lost $50.10 on that hand and it could've probably been avoided with a preflop raise, or at the very least a large postflop reraise. I watched him later and he wasn't very aggressive, and I'm 90% sure he wouldn't've chased that straight if I'd raised it a decent amount.

But doesn't Doyle tell you to never lose most of your stack in an unraised pot? I should've heeded those words.

Damn, I'd rather be bad beat out of $50 than lose it through dumb play.

Aside from that I lost a modest amount on two different hands with two pair. Losing once to a larger two pair and once to a flush. On the latter it was just me in the BB and the SB in the hand on the flop. I had K5, flop came up with K52, two hearts. I even overbet the pot here, he called and a heart came on the turn. I just couldn't believe, when he bet on the turn, that the only player against me just happened to have two hearts in his hand. Well of course he did and I called both the turn and river (not too big of amounts on each).

On the flip side my only decent win was a no-brainer sort of hand when I got dealt AA and somebody pushed all in with AK. If not for that I would've lost about $14 more.

So to sum up my day, I was getting lousy cards most of the time (had VP$IP of 13% and 14% at each table), but when I did get decent cards I made the wrong move in almost every instance. Momma told me there'd be days like this. Should've listened to her too.

But I'll be back at it tomorrow hopefully and we'll just have to see what happens.

Yeah the more I looked at that hand the more I felt the turn was the key. If nothing else, a reraise here perhaps would've gotten the SB to show me his strength on the turn rather than the river. Then maybe I would've gotten a little more interested in his hand rather than focusing almost solely on the BB. Perhaps I would've studied the board a little closer and caught the glaring draw that I'd missed up to that point. And as you said, at least I wouldn't've given him a river draw for cheap if he had missed it on the turn. And, also as you mentioned, something that in my state of mind I didn't consider, a noticable straight card would've frozen me from betting or calling any big bets. Considering how the hand turned out, that might've been the best thing that could've happened. *L*

Sometimes when I get what I'm sure is the best hand there's a cutoff switch that activates between my brain and the mouse finger that I use to click the "all-in" button. Particularly if I bet with what I believe is the best hand and get pushed back pretty hard. When that all-in urge occurs I don't bother to pull back and maybe study the board a little closer to see if I'd missed something important; I'll click all in immediately to make him pay for trying to push me back. That used to be a huge hole in my game. I've learned to control it somewhat and try to make more rational decisions based on the board rather than clicking all-in at the drop of a hat; I've learned to make some tough folds now and then. I guess this little lesson showed me that I'm not altogether "cured" of that yet. I can't remember having a second thought entering my mind when he made that $14 bet on the river, nor when that $14 was called by the BB; I was going all-in and nothing was going to stop me.

Maybe I just need to get lessons like this from time to time when I start to get sloppy, mechanical and unthinking. Hopefully it'll help me focus a little better the next time I play.

Alright, I'm ready to start a new month. This past month came back to bite me on the ass over the last few days. I've dropped about $120 or so in those days, some from bad beats, some from bad plays. I guess the variance I'm always hearing about is finally catching up to me. Still, it wasn't a bad March altogether. I ended the month with a total win of $245 (playing at the $50 tables) and had a ptbb/100 of 8.36. I guess I was due for a bit of a losing streak.

So onto April!

I've been pouring over my PT results (particularly the losses) over the past couple of days, and I've come to the conclusion that I've been playing far too many hands out of position. I'm coming in with hands that can't stand raises, so I'm limping/folding too much, or ones that, should I call a raise, will most likely make me an underdog. So my goal for April is to tighten up considerably in early and middle position.

But I don't want to tighten up too much or poker will cease to be fun for me. I'd rather lose a few bucks here or there and keep poker fun and interesting, rather than stick to rigid rules where I feel like I'm on autopilot all the time. That said, though, it's much more fun to win than lose. So from the first 4 or so positions off the BB I'll only play hands that I'm comfortable calling a raise with (if I'm not raising myself) instead of limping in and praying that it's not raised.

From middle position I want to try and be a little more aggressive, particularly if I'm the first one to enter a pot. Too often I've limped in with a pretty good hand in middle position when I was the first to enter a pot only to have it folded around to the blinds, who both call and end up making me pay for limping. I think I'd rather have it reraised by the button so that I know I'm probably beat immediately, rather than to lose to BB's 72o when my limping AQo gets a flop of Q22 (yes, I have this particular hand in my PT *L*). I'm always thinking someone behind me will raise it up, but I find, more often than not, that isn't the case. I'll experiment with this throughout the month. It may not work as well on the $50 tables as it might elsewhere, but I'll give it a whole month and see where I stand at that point.

I particularly want to do better in avoiding the big losses this month. Especially losing a lot of money with two pair or an overpair. These two types of hands have probably made up for 75% of my biggest losses that have occured within the past month and a half. And also, as I mentioned aboved, I want to try and overcome the almost overwhelming desire to hit the "all-in" button when somebody pushes back at me and I've got a pretty good hand. Some of this I blame on the fast action that online poker creates; it's easy to act without thinking (and it's already plenty easy for me to act without thinking, without something accelerating it even more). So I'll try to start taking at least 5 second pauses (or more) betwen each action I take and hopefully it'll help me slow down some and perhaps, just perhaps, I might actually make a few better decisions than I have been.

$1110.26
This is what I have as my bankroll at the start of the month, so I'll work from there when figuring out how much I win or lose by the end of the month.

That's all for now.

Good thoughts. Usually, when people show strength BACK at you, it's for real...and a good cue to get out. That's a really hard lesson to learn...believe me!

I like your idea about tightening up from EP. There are very few hands you can't afford to drop from there, most just aren't worth the trouble. 8PTBB/100 is a fine figure, though.

You can draw the line as fine as pairs and AK and be just fine...for EP anyway. Once you start getting into MP you can add other hands. EP is meant to be super tight since you're most likely at a tremendous position disadvantage: you can't maximize your draws, and you often can't get max value for other hands since you're at an informational disadvantage. Think about having bottom set pair in a multi-way limped pot in EP as opposed to OTB (on the button)...the latter will most likely get paid better than the former. So hands like KJs in EP are nearly worthless at the low levels anyway...but they become playable in MP and certainly LP.

Try to boost the W$SD...you'd like that over 60 if you can...it just means that sometimes you're staying in the hand with TPHK and having the slightly 2nd best hand.

a W$Sd of 60% is too high I think - you would be weak-tight and leaving far too much money on the table by getting pushed off winning hands by bluffs/2nd best hands - you should aim for W$SD in the 50-55% range IMHO..

Well I'm still in the process of learning how to play (I guess that maybe never stops, but I'm way more towards the "beginner" side of the timeline than "expert"), and it still amazes me sometimes (usually after a hand is over) how I ever talked myself into limping in with such-and-such hand in early position. I think the main reason is that the cards just look so pretty preflop. *L* Just about any suited cards over ten has been enough to make me limp in in early position. It's only after the preflop raise of someone else that I look at my cards again and think, "Hmmm, they don't look so pretty anymore". So I'll try to stick to mostly pairs and AK, as you mentioned BK. I may play now and again with Axs (where x is ten or higher), but it'll have to be at a really, really passive table. I still feel okay calling a small raise with them just for their nut flush and nut straight potential, but I'll watch how that's working closely and if I find that they are just costing me money I'll cut them out of EP. But as I said above, I don't want to get too mechanical, even from EP, if I can help it, so I'll see how they work out this month. But aside from these hands I'm going to do my best to throw anything else away in EP, even if that KQs is looking absolutely stunning today. *L*

Real quick question if you're reading this. What is your definition of early position? If UTG=seat1, what is the last seat# you'd consider early position? This question is for 10-seated games. I ask because I feel I'm sometimes too passive in what some of you may consider MP but I've been thinking as EP. I just tend to notice how many people are left to act preflop after me, including the blinds. So to me, even if I'm in what is seat#4 (according to what I've written above, MP1 according to the converters), all I notice is that I have 6 people left to act behind me preflop and I tend to freeze up with a hand that maybe should be raised just because so many have yet to act preflop. So of course when I limp in and don't catch anything on the flop I have no control over the hand now since I wasn't aggressive and I end up making an easy fold. Or would it maybe be best for me right now to consider the button and CO to be the only LP seats, the two seats in front of them to be MP and the rest to be EP? That's a lot of EP seats but perhaps I wouldn't get myself into quite as much trouble until I know a little better what I'm doing at a poker table. Or would this be considered playing way too cautiously for no reason?

I don't think I lose many big pots pushing back because I think someone's bluffing at me. Unless I see someone get caught bluffing again and again I usually give them credit for a decent hand. It's usually a case of me having a damn good hand and talking myself into the fact that the other person has a good hand as well, but just slightly less than mine and is just overplaying their cards. The real bitch of this is that at times I do find that this is the case, and I think these hands are still in the back of my mind the next time somebody pushes back at me when I have a hand, only this time I'm the one with the slightly weaker hand (and apparently the latter happens more often than the former or I wouldn't be at 48.15% W$SD right now). So I always seem to be getting mixed signals. And up til now I either don't have the experience or good enough reading skills to distinguish between the two. But with two pair (especially a small one) or overpairs (or even TPTK) I really don't have an excuse for losing so much. I just get overambitious, flip off the switch in my brain that controls reason, and take the plunge. That's what I need to avoid and hopefully slowing myself down a little bit will keep me on a better emotional level that I need to be in to make these decisions. I've tried this before. I'd do a 5 count before betting, checking, calling, raising, reraising, even folding and I felt the decisions were much clearer when I was playing this way. But after awhile I think that got a bit tedious and I unconsciously started going a little faster and a little faster. Just lately (probably not coincidentally, while I'm on my losing streak), my decisions have taking exactly the same time as it takes to click on a button; in fact most of my decisions have already probably been made before the other person acts, and that just doesn't seem to be an altogether bright idea. I haven't been giving myself any room for second thoughts.

Well I'll probably start out on my new month tomorrow (I usually don't play on Saturdays). Good luck to everyone and thanks for the help!

EP is defined as UTG and the next 2 seats (in 10 handed)...MP is the next 3 seats...LP is the CO and Button.