Secrets of the Amateurs

I think I might start posting a bit more on here, there are a few interesting things I want to talk about. Regarding my own game, I've been completely turning it upside down over the last couple of months. I had a coaching session, which was definitely worthwhile and immediately plugged a few obvious leaks. I stepped down in stakes for a month or two (while still spinning it up on Sundays of course) to try to work on my game.

Recently I've picked the whole thing up and given it a good shake, I've done a lot of analysis with HEM and picked up a remarkable number of clear, systematic leaks. Some of them I will be able to talk about in forthcoming posts, some of them I'd rather keep to myself. I read Clive Woodward's book this week, and while I care little for either Rugby Union or the world of business management, a lot of what he says can be applied to any field in which you are trying to excel. Recommended. One point he stressed was to thoroughly examine those practices that everybody just does because everyone else does and that's how you do it. Check all your assumptions. That's what I've been trying to do, with some interesting results. I also found Jared Tendler's book very interesting and am trying to apply some lessons from that too.

As recent posts on this blog, well recent in terms of scrolling down the page if not in actual time, have been quite focussed on TV poker, a few thoughts on the current state of play. I have been watching some of the current Late Night Poker run and I have to say it's hard work. Vicky and James do an excellent job on commentary but the actual poker, and this applies to much of TV poker lately, suffers because the players are too good!

Allow me to explain. It's not that they are great in a lot of cases, they're just not making very many obvious fishy mistakes. Watching people play <20bb stacks more or less correctly is dull as fuck! I'm not blaming anyone for playing that way, or saying I'd do anything different, but since this format shifted towards higher buyins and smaller fields I think the entertainment value has really suffered. All the fun comes from watching fish disrupt the normal flow by making odd plays, and seeing how the better players cope. Matchroom addressed one end of the problem by having deeper stacks, but in my opinion made a big mistake by effectively excluding weaker players. In the end I think they have realised that the single table tournament format is basically dead and are trying new things instead. Late Night Poker chugs on, but I wonder for how long.