![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Running on
May. 4th, 2011 01:28 pmLife is just trundling on at the moment. The training is progressing very satisfactorily, and the poker isn't.
When training without the personal trainer, I've decided to shift to a more "pyramid" system of strength training, which entails building up the resistance on the various machines and reducing the repetitions until I reach either 3 repetition maximum (RM) or 5. Then I zip back down to my original resistance weight (this is on machines rather than free weights) and go for a 12-repetition "explosive" (i.e., very fast) set.
This is good for progress, but takes longer to recover from. So I've also decided to stick to just four (sometimes three) strength sessions a week (two of which will be with the personal trainer), and to cut down my cardio exercise within those sessions to little more than a 10-minute body warm-up. On the other two/three days of the week that I am in the gym, I shall stick solely to cardio work, thus giving the muscles longer to recover from strength sessions. If I switch each session the upper body/lower body focus, that gives any muscles that I've pushed very hard about 72 hours to recover. And at my age I reckon that that is what I need.
Next personal trainer session is tomorrow, and we'll be doing some tough lower-body work in the circuit-training room, I suspect. Plus maybe some squats (weight bar behind head resting on shoulders, then 'squatting' down, pausing for a second, and coming back up - probably 60kg or 70kg for a 5 repetition?)
+++++++
The poker remains unspeakably frustrating. I'm glad that I didn't blog about it last night, because I was thoroughly depressed. The reason for this was that I had given myself a good talking-to, spotted some likely flaws (mainly of a weak-tight and insufficiently aggressive nature), and concentrated on taking remedial action. In simple terms these were "stop being scared of a check-raise on a rag-flop, make sure that you continuation bet to the right percentages, three-bet more often and fold/reraise to three-bets more often". I followed all of these rules to the letter, played (I think) rather well, and of course did my bollocks.
And, to make it even more frustrating, (a) I started well, and finished badly, and (b) I didn't even have the compensation of the "expected value" line looking good, because the hands I lost were basically "coolers".
One was a standard three-bet by me in the big-blind (had KK) to a late raise by a laggy player. Flop came J99 double-suited and I can either play it cagily or aggressively. I chose the latter on the grounds that opponent would quite possibly "try it on" with Queens, 10s 8s or 7s. I bet, he raises, I reraise just about a pot-sized bet to put him all-in. He snap-calls with JJ and, amzingly, no King comes to save me on the turn or river. To make it worse, it was a euro table, so it's effectively 50% larger than a dollar table of the equivalent stakes.
Another was AKs on the button, reraised by the full-stacked big blind. This chap was also very laggy, with a moderate percentage of folds to 4-bets in this situation, and also tricky enough to put you under pressure post flop. You can see where this leads if I put in a standard 4-bet. He flat-calls and distributes his all-in bet on the flop in such a way that I could easily call with a worse hand or fold a better one. If I flat-call his three-bet the stack-size tempo is more in my favour. It's a marginal decision whether to 4-bet, call, or even open-shove (a move which has also been profitable on average).
Anyhoo, I took the more volatile option of flat-calling, and the board came down something perfect like A34 rainbow. Villain leads out for 2/3rds and I flat-call again. Turn is another 3. Villain checks, I bet 2/3rds of the pot and HE flat-calls. I'm now in for about 2/3rds of my stack, but I've under-repped my hand pre-flop. AQ and even AJs is in his range here. The river brought another 3, making A3433. He goes all-in, I call and he turns over AA.
Not often that I say it, but, Meh. At least if I had 4-bet pre-flop I could have lost all of my stack more quickly.
While Pokerstars is acknowledgedly tough (winning there midweek is a matter of grinding down the 24-tablers and waiting for the very rare fish), the games on Party seem so beatable (and, indeed, I have beaten them for years), but I'm not beating them this year. Maddening.
Still, I'm only down 4% of my online stack. But the depressing thing is, every week that small drop is looking less like a statistical aberration and more like a statistical norm. Time to start looking for a new hobby, perhaps, but it would be a lot of my life to fill and would be very difficult for a few months.
_________________________
When training without the personal trainer, I've decided to shift to a more "pyramid" system of strength training, which entails building up the resistance on the various machines and reducing the repetitions until I reach either 3 repetition maximum (RM) or 5. Then I zip back down to my original resistance weight (this is on machines rather than free weights) and go for a 12-repetition "explosive" (i.e., very fast) set.
This is good for progress, but takes longer to recover from. So I've also decided to stick to just four (sometimes three) strength sessions a week (two of which will be with the personal trainer), and to cut down my cardio exercise within those sessions to little more than a 10-minute body warm-up. On the other two/three days of the week that I am in the gym, I shall stick solely to cardio work, thus giving the muscles longer to recover from strength sessions. If I switch each session the upper body/lower body focus, that gives any muscles that I've pushed very hard about 72 hours to recover. And at my age I reckon that that is what I need.
Next personal trainer session is tomorrow, and we'll be doing some tough lower-body work in the circuit-training room, I suspect. Plus maybe some squats (weight bar behind head resting on shoulders, then 'squatting' down, pausing for a second, and coming back up - probably 60kg or 70kg for a 5 repetition?)
+++++++
The poker remains unspeakably frustrating. I'm glad that I didn't blog about it last night, because I was thoroughly depressed. The reason for this was that I had given myself a good talking-to, spotted some likely flaws (mainly of a weak-tight and insufficiently aggressive nature), and concentrated on taking remedial action. In simple terms these were "stop being scared of a check-raise on a rag-flop, make sure that you continuation bet to the right percentages, three-bet more often and fold/reraise to three-bets more often". I followed all of these rules to the letter, played (I think) rather well, and of course did my bollocks.
And, to make it even more frustrating, (a) I started well, and finished badly, and (b) I didn't even have the compensation of the "expected value" line looking good, because the hands I lost were basically "coolers".
One was a standard three-bet by me in the big-blind (had KK) to a late raise by a laggy player. Flop came J99 double-suited and I can either play it cagily or aggressively. I chose the latter on the grounds that opponent would quite possibly "try it on" with Queens, 10s 8s or 7s. I bet, he raises, I reraise just about a pot-sized bet to put him all-in. He snap-calls with JJ and, amzingly, no King comes to save me on the turn or river. To make it worse, it was a euro table, so it's effectively 50% larger than a dollar table of the equivalent stakes.
Another was AKs on the button, reraised by the full-stacked big blind. This chap was also very laggy, with a moderate percentage of folds to 4-bets in this situation, and also tricky enough to put you under pressure post flop. You can see where this leads if I put in a standard 4-bet. He flat-calls and distributes his all-in bet on the flop in such a way that I could easily call with a worse hand or fold a better one. If I flat-call his three-bet the stack-size tempo is more in my favour. It's a marginal decision whether to 4-bet, call, or even open-shove (a move which has also been profitable on average).
Anyhoo, I took the more volatile option of flat-calling, and the board came down something perfect like A34 rainbow. Villain leads out for 2/3rds and I flat-call again. Turn is another 3. Villain checks, I bet 2/3rds of the pot and HE flat-calls. I'm now in for about 2/3rds of my stack, but I've under-repped my hand pre-flop. AQ and even AJs is in his range here. The river brought another 3, making A3433. He goes all-in, I call and he turns over AA.
Not often that I say it, but, Meh. At least if I had 4-bet pre-flop I could have lost all of my stack more quickly.
While Pokerstars is acknowledgedly tough (winning there midweek is a matter of grinding down the 24-tablers and waiting for the very rare fish), the games on Party seem so beatable (and, indeed, I have beaten them for years), but I'm not beating them this year. Maddening.
Still, I'm only down 4% of my online stack. But the depressing thing is, every week that small drop is looking less like a statistical aberration and more like a statistical norm. Time to start looking for a new hobby, perhaps, but it would be a lot of my life to fill and would be very difficult for a few months.
_________________________
