10:59pm: I often talk about the “battle in the trenches”, which is basically just how you control the tempo in any given match. Even if you play the large pots perfectly, you still need to have a feel on when to take a stab at the small pots. If not for the chips, for confidence and for a change in momentum. Every now and then you will get into a rut where you lose like 9 pots in a row, and you start wondering when things are going to turn around. A good portion of the time you should just continue to be patient, and the cards will start to fall your way.

Or, you could take matters into your own hands and drag the long-awaited pot yourself. There’s a very specific board and course of action I’m speaking of. It is as follows:

Let’s say you hold 67off, and you completely airball the flop. It looks something like this: Kc Kd 3s. Of course I’m going to tell you to bet it, but that’s not all there is to it. There’s something really simple you can do on a flop that contains a pair that, in my estimation, will lead you to drag the pot uncontested roughly 80% of the time. Also note that it doesn’t matter whether you’re on the button or first to act - this works as a lead out move, or if it’s checked to you with the same success rate. This is EXTREMELY effective at the 50/100 blind level, where one “small” pot can change the whole scope of the match.

What you need to do in this circumstance, with this flop is break the flow of the action. Normally, there’s a certain timing/pace at which each hand is played. So what I want you to do is count to ten. When you get to ten, just bet the minimum. Simple as that.

The reason this works so well is because there’s a very good chance this flop missed your opponent. You counting to ten does two things:

1. If someone missed the flop, they will get bored waiting for you to act, and more than likely they will just want to get to the next hand, with you taking so much time to act on this particular one.
2. Even if they have something that would justify a call, they might err on the side caution and fold, as they might construe your bet as a sign of strength. Long pauses followed by bets are almost always signs on strength online, whereas quick bets are usually signs of weakness. People have caught on to this, as most people have graduated from level 1 to level 2 in today’s online poker world.

Even if this sounds completely silly to you, try it out 10 times. See how many times out of 10 your opponents call and fold. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

1:49am: A lot has been made about the effectiveness of notes, particularly as relates to heads up sit n gos and heads up cash games. People try everything to stay on top of their game: color codes, numerical rating systems, and even listing specific hands played by said opponent. Some people swear by it as the only effective way of getting a read on someone, while others dismiss it, saying that whatever notes you’ve taken on someone is over a probably over a small sample size, and therefore cannot possibly be meaningful — because in reality, your notes are only as good as your perception, and your perception is only as good as your logic. So that begs the question: if your logic is faulty does that render your notes totally worthless?

To that I say no because there’s a method to everyone’s madness. You will often find the most intelligent people are also the most disorganized, as they feel more at home when things are messy than when things are orderly. Same thing with poker notes: although they may be inaccurate, sloppy, or just totally incorrect it still helps both the logical and illogical player feel more at home when making their decisions.

So I suppose you’re wondering if I take notes. The answer to that question is yes, although I don’t use PokerStars built in note taking system when doing so. I record 75% of the matches I play on video, and then file the video away tagged with a corresponding text file that contains anything notable about the player. This gives me more room to write what I need and the ability to review the video while the match is waiting to start (by the way, you could probably cook a steak while you wait for a match to start on PokerStars). Unfortunately, I sacrifice accuracy for speed, as it takes me a little bit longer to look up a players notes on my computer than it does by just right clicking their name, and sometimes I don’t have time to do it when I’m playing two games at a time. For the rare times that I’m playing one at a time however, it works pretty well I must say. If you record your matches, I recommend including in the title of each video the opponents name, playing style, total record vs. opponent, and result of the particular match. If you have more than one video against the person, don’t review the notes from the ones where you won. Review the notes from the ones you lost.

So while I’m sure that most of you don’t take notes due to the amount of effort involved in it, let me suggest that you start. Attention to details will get you far in life — not just with poker, but with everything. It starts here, it starts with poker, and it starts today. So get started!

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process