This is actually the fifth poker journal I've written, but I haven't yet posted the other three that I wrote in the interim. Those will come up sometime soon.
In the meanwhile, I've noticed that I'm starting to play both a little too cautiously. Actually, the problem isn't that I'm playing too cautiously, it's that I'm having great difficulty getting good reads on players. I'm not exactly sure what the best means to improve this is, other than to attend some other poker games, and possibly some tournaments, and try and see other players in action, which will hopefully give me more insight into how other players operate.
Practicing with Graham, I was able to get an accurate read on the hand he was playing a little over fifty percent of the time. This isn't too bad, but it wasn't too great either. I'd like to be able to bump that up to about seventy-five percent.
One of the things that I really need to concentrate on is watching how other players are betting based on the size of their stacks. Generally speaking, I think that the more chips someone has sitting in front of them, the more likely they are to play loosely, and thus the more likely they are to be bluffing. This isn't true for everyone, but it's something I need to watch for and try to get a read on. The next time I go out to play, I have the following goals set out for myself:
- Every time someone raises before the flop, make a mental note of it, and try to place them on a certain hand. If the hand goes to showdown, see what it was that they had, and make a note of that.
- Keep a count of how many times each player goes to a showdown.
- At least once, call a bet that I think I'm likely to lose on, just so that I can see what the opponent is betting against me with. Don't worry about the money that it'll cost.
Nothing too big here this time, just some general rules to follow to try and get my game on the track that I want it. Hopefully observing these things will help me figure out.
I'll update this journal on Thursday after my game.