The Well: cts

[cts]

I thought yvesaint and EMC's threads were really interesting and it was cool to learn more about some other poker players. In yvesaint's thread I mentioned I'd be up for a thread like that to talk about moving up the limits/etc and there were some positive responses, so here it is! Fire away, if there's not much interest no big deal and mods can feel free to lock the thread or something.

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A stranger is being shown around a village that he has just become part of. He is shown a well and his guide says "On any day except Monday, you can shout any question down that well and you'll be told the answer" .

The man seems pretty impressed, and so he shouts down: Why not on Monday? and the voice from in the well shouts back: Because on Monday, it’s your day in the well .

Well this is my “Sunday” in The Well which will consist of Sunday and Monday of this week.

You may ask me any question about whatever you like. Whether it is about Life/SSNL/Poker/Sport or any other subject, I will answer to the best of my abilities.

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[tannenj]

how old are you?

when did you start playing?

are you in college?

what's your poker history (stakes, number of hands at each level, win rates, etc.)?

[cts]

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how old are you?

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19

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are you in college?


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Yes, I'm a rising junior at the College of William and Mary.

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when did you start playing?
what's your poker history (stakes, number of hands at each level, win rates, etc.)?

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I deposited $50 twice last fall and would play $1/$2 LHE, run it up to $800 or so, then lose it all at $30/$60 or so. Sweet bankroll management, I know. I didn't know wtf I was doing at this point.

Then I found 2+2, read some of their books, and made a New Year's resolution to make my last deposit, follow good bankroll management, play well, and if I lost it that was it. So I deposited $200 on Jan. 1 and played .50/$1 full-ring LHE with 200BBs. I moved up every time I got 300BBs for the next limit and made it to $1/$2 pretty quickly. Then when my bankroll was at like $1100 I decided to enter a Party $40k guaranteed tournament for $22. I luckboxed my way into 3rd place for $3,750 or so and this was huge. I immediately skipped 2/4 and 3/6 LHE and jumped into the 5/10 game since I was rolled for it. The games were soft and I kept moving up until I got to 30/60 or so with a $25k roll.

Then I decided poker was so easy that I'd hop into a bunch of no-limit games and fired up eight tables of 2/4NL. Needless to say, this did not go well and I dropped like $4,500 in two hours (yikes! ran bad in addition to not knowing what the hell I was doing). The players seemed bad and I was pissed at myself for losing a good portion of my roll, so in mid-April I set aside $6k to learn NL with.

I started at 1/2NL with these 30 buy-ins and moved up to the next limit every time I got 30 buy-ins for it. My first week or two at 1/2NL I made quite a few mistakes and would lose a buy-in or two each session due to just idiot stuff (i.e. in LHE TT+/AK is the nuts preflop, not quite so in NL). I didn't read any books or anything, just learned through experience, but read a lot of 2+2 threads and tried to post a fair amount. The biggest thing that helped my play as I was learning was going into PokerTracker's Game Notes tab, hitting "Get All", and sorting by Net. I'd then review all the hands where I won or lost a lot of money to make sure I wouldn't make the same mistakes again. I played a lot of hands and moved up pretty quickly, I remember moving up to 5/10NL right at the end of May.

Now I focus heavily on game selection and play anything from 3/6-25/50NL, but mostly I play 10/20NL. I start each session by looking through the 10/20 tables, sitting in the good ones, then the 5/10 tables, etc until I find enough tables to keep me busy.

[Havok]

What kind of things do you do for game selection? I've been working harder on that, and its improved my winrates. But, any of your tricks for finding good tables, or players would be greatly appreciated. I'm playing mostly 1-2$ No limit right now, and dabble in some PLO.

[cts]

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What kind of things do you do for game selection?

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Basically I just want at least one really bad player. I'm not interested in playing at a table with 5 35/7s really, I'd rather have a table with a bunch of TAGs and one 70/30 drooler.

I use SixthSense for table selection, it is a GREAT program that I'd highly recommend for finding juicy games. You can find a link to it in the software section.

[raindust]

Earlier you gave us an idea of the hands you open with. If someone is reraising you alot preflop, will you tighten up your normal range, call the raises, or 3 bet preflop more often? Thanks for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

[mprice024]

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The biggest thing that helped my play as I was learning was going into PokerTracker's Game Notes tab, hitting "Get All", and sorting by Net.

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THANK you. My donkey-ass has been trying to do this for way too long.

[mprice024]

cts: I also play 10-12 tables at all times but find that my reads are sh-t except for what PAHUD tells me. You mentioned that to stay focused you concentrate on action going on in hands youre not involved in. Your personal reads rather than HUD reads obv help you a lot. How are you able to do this w/ so much action going on? Also, a couple software issues - is Sixth sense any better than PTS? Does MTH help - seemed kind of useless to me? Finally THANK YOU THANK YOU for starting the thread that led to _dave_'s betpot AHK script. Go Wizards btw, think you ever play with Gilbert at 25/50?

[Stealthy]

CTS can you give full rundown of your PAHUD setup.

Also if I join a table with a 80/35/3 agro maniac but he is two to my left with a decent TAG between us. Have I table selected well or poorly?

[cts]

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Your personal reads rather than HUD reads obv help you a lot. How are you able to do this w/ so much action going on?

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At the higher limits you play with the same players so often that you don't need an HUD against them, what is important is to review all of their big hands and how they played them while you are away from the tables. I repeat my same hand review process with the hands my tough opponents play.

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is Sixth sense any better than PTS?

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I have both, and the answer is yes. Sixth Sense is much faster, smoother, and has better support.

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THANK YOU for starting the thread that led to _dave_'s betpot AHK script.

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Yea I'm really not sure how I even played with this before, it's such a great tool. THANKS DAVE!

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Go Wizards btw, think you ever play with Gilbert at 25/50?

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I'm a huge Wizards fan! I remember a thread in NVG where people were speculating what Gilbert's SN was, but no one nailed it down.

I played some 25/50 against the screen name "Andres Nocioni" who insisted he was the Bulls player, but later I found out it was cardsharkk who had shipped $10k to UB to play 300/600 LHE heads up [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]