Confidence? CONFIDENCE!

So yesterday was a pretty good day imo.  I traded sweats with RiverRock55 from Leggo and I felt we both gained a good deal from the sweat.  It is pretty interesting, because we think alike in many of the major areas of the game and our style is pretty similar, but we both have things to add and can help each other in various post flop scenarios.  One play he made that was pretty cool imo was on the river when he had KT on a JxxQKr board.  After he checked, villain bet about 1/4 pot or so.  Normally, I would just call here.  However, he went for a small checkraise to like 2.5x and got called by a queen.  Basically, he though based on the bet size that villain was pretty weak and might call a small raise and if he was wrong and villain shoved, it was a very easy fold obviously.  We discussed the hand and both agreed had the bet been something like half pot, based on how the hand played out, we would have just called the bet, since it changes what we perceive to be his range.  I thought it was a pretty cool spot and it further proves I really need to focus on hand reading even more than I already do (which is what I spend most of my studying doing tbh).

It is always nice to have someone sweat you too while in a kinda bad run, because it assures you that you are playing well still.  I think confidence is even more important in poker than it is in golf.  In golf, you always need to be committed to your shot.  If you are between a 7-iron and an 8-iron and you opt for the 7, you better not swing it like a vag, you still have to be committed and accelerate through the ball, just not at 100% of your swing.  You still need the confidence your decision was correct and to hit your shot the way it needs to be hit.  Anything else will lead to a poor shot the bulk of the time and if you do manage to hit a good shot while being hesitant, it is primarily the good side of variance, aka lucky bullshit.  This is no different in poker.  Having confidence at the tables will help you be more committed in your decisions and lead to better results.  It will help you hand read better and not have skewed ranges for the opposition.  It will help you remain calm when things don’t work out the way you think they should.  My confidence was not lacking before the sweat, but it does help to just keep it high and keep it reassured.

One example of this was a hand I played after the sweat.  I will post it later, since I don’t have HHs with me at work.  But essentially, the flop came down Q high and I cbet IP w/ air.  I got a call.  The turn brough a K, and I barreled.  Villain thought for quite a while and called again.  At this point, the pot was like $37ish and I think he had $40ish.  I thought for a second.  I thought his range at this point was primarily something like a medium pp.  He had a made hand and his tanking on the turn and checking on the river was legitimate confusion as to call or not.  As I still had air on the river, I knew I could only win the pot by firing the third barrel, which is something I rarely do.  I just think it is not needed at 100nl too much and is something that can be kinda spewy.  However, in this spot, I was very confident (see the importance here?) in my read of his hand range.  I was also confident shoving the river would make him very uncomfortable.  Going with my confidence and my reads, I did fire the third barrel here.  He thought for about 5 second and folded.  That felt pretty good.  Without confidence, I probably give up on the river, despite my read.  With confidence, I make what I felt was the correct play.  If he had called me, I still would have been happy with my bluff, because I just think it works often enough to justify the shove.  I think he probably folds like 75% of the time there, so the math backs up the shove if my assumption about his folding % is true.  Thinking about the hand and what I think and what villain thinks without leveling myself lead to a decent-sized pot for me and a lack of confidence or a lack of hand reading skills (to go with my nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, and computer hacking skills) would have lead to a lost pot.  That difference there between shoving and getting a fold and just checking and losing is about $75, or 3/4 BI.  That is a huge difference long term.  Confidence will do you well, if you don’t have it, you might as well not play and just take a break.

My confidence is actually really high at the moment, I feel like I am improving and I feel like I am playing very well.  Trying to set up my next lesson with Bazclef, sent him a note this morning, so it will be nice to get something worked out for lesson numero deuce.  I have been working on a few things he mentioned to me, and it has had some pretty good success.   

Also, Tennessee lost to Gonzaga last night.  I am not sure why in the Hell they are playing so incredibly poorly right now, but it is what it is.  Hopefully with a weak ass conference slate coming, they can bear down, restore some confidence and start playing like they are capable of playing.  I thought coming into the year, even with Lofton graduating and a couple key players beign kicked off the team (nice discipline Pearl, maybe Kiffin can follow this, since Fulmer never did, except for Onterrio Smith, who was a Vol before tearing it up at Oregon.  He was sick at UT too, but we can’t look past dealing cocaine, apparently Oregon can, surprised he did not transfer to Ohio State), that we could make it back to the Sweet Sixteen this year.  At the moment, Tennessee would be lucku to make it past round 1, the way they are playing.  They seem like a 7-10 “upset” atm, not too pleased.  Like I said though, they have time to correct the situation, so hopefully they can do that.