Adrift in a stream of information

I recently watched an Ed Miller Webinar on the subject of information dominance. Ed talked about betting patterns and being able to use the information from those betting patterns in certain spots to be able to dominate some of your opponents.

The webinar resonated with me. Roughly four to six weeks before I saw the webinar I was lucky enough to start sitting at the same live tables as a New Zealand guy of Indian ethnicity who was charming, interesting and could play much better poker than me. There were a number of hands where he appeared to make a big call with second pair and be good. Then on one hand he said words to the effect of "You gave me this information previously. And it would be bad for me to not act on it. I call.".  And, again, he was good with second pair. His opponent had shoved with a draw and didn't get there. The recent history was that in a similar spot perhaps thirty or forty minutes earlier, both of the players  had been in a similar hand where the Villain had shoved and then shown his hand with the semi-bluff.  The light-bulb moment for me was that even though we were both sitting at the same table, I was failing to take on board and interpret the information that was readily available. Both in hands I was in, and just as importantly, hands I was not in

My major goal for the short to medium term is to improve my focus at live tables and to be able to reconstruct betting action in large pots so that I can better analyze Villains betting patterns.

Over the past couple of weeks since I saw the Ed Miller webinar I have been sitting down at the start of each session with the intent of keeping track of the betting action so I can observe betting patterns. I have found this is not easy.  And that often I am still waking up in the middle of a big pot where I have folded pre-flop to wonder who the initial aggressor was and how the betting action had unfolded. It seems I can keep track earlier in a session. And when I am tired it currently seems that it is almost impossible for me to keep track of the action in a hand I am not involved in.

Not surprisingly, the issue of improving focus during a session is a topic that has been addressed by several authors. To this time I have found several sources of information that seem to be relevant.

• Tommy Angelo's "Elements of Poker". In particular, for me, the information he provides with respect to quitting, and the information in the "Elements of Performance" section on focus seem most relevant. One of my major leaks has been to keep playing when I am tired. Whenever I do that I seem to have my biggest losses. Even if I have been a buy-in or two up, if I continue when I am tired I may end a buy-in or two down. So being aware enough of my own internal state and being able to quit when I am tired is a leak I have been working on.
• Jared Tendler's Mental Game of Poker 2 has a section on Focus.. Both this book and Tommy Angelo's book make reference to meditation as being a way of building mental strength in the mental skill of focus. Tommy uses a gym related metaphor where if you go to the gym to build physical strength you set up a program where you perform a number of reps of an exercise so that you can increase the strength of the muscles being exercised. Similarly, for mental strength to improve, there is a requirement to undertake regular, repeated mental exercises to build that strength.
• The Power of Full Engagement is a book which emphasizes the importance of being aware of energy management and how to manage your energy across the day. Plus the follow up to this by the same author Be Excellent at Anything are both well worth reading. Note: I found the titles for both these books to be a little off-putting. Specifically that they seemed to be a little towards how a snake oil salesman might title a book. But I was very surprised to find that, despite, for me,  the off-putting title, there was a lot of valuable information in both these books

Both Tommy Angelo and Jared Tendler mention meditation as a way of improving the mental strength and skills required to be able to better focus for longer. To this end I have upped my morning meditation sessions from 30 minutes to 45 minutes. While I was meditating in an irregular fashion over the past couple of years, over the past month since I have landed in Melbourne, I have meditated every morning.

Going to the gym and completing one workout will not result  in a significant change to fitness or muscle mass.  Improvements in both those metrics requires regular attendance at the gym and discipline to ensure that a regular schedule is adhered to.  Similarly, for me to improve my focus I believe that it is a skill that will not improve overnight. And that I will need to review on a regular basis how I have been travelling with respect to my ability to focus at the tables.....  I suspect this is a topic I will be blogging on again in the future..