Running on
May. 4th, 2011 01:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksLife 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.
_________________________
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Train on; No worries
Date: 2011-05-07 07:08 pm (UTC)Entirely off the side.
Do you have a favourite porcelain pattern? (Quite important, since most of my family comes from Stoke.)
Or a "silverware" pattern? (Not my family. Sheffield. Nice place.)
And, if one is going to create the perfect dinner party main course, what would you recommend?
OK ... random gibberish. But it's better than no gibberish at all.
Re: Train on; No worries
Date: 2011-05-09 12:22 pm (UTC)No idea on any of the other three questions. The perfect dinner party main course depends on so many things - number of guests, likely preferences of guests, the season of the year, and so on. I've always felt that you can't really go wrong with a leg of lamb, roast with rosemary and garlic and ginger, plus roast potatoes and vegetables of your choice.
PJ