Ski Day - Made in Spain

So today I went skiing with Angel, Evaristo and their girlfriends (although their girlfriends decided to stay in the cafeteria for reasons that will become apparent to the reader after the first two pictures).

We went to a ski resort named "La Covatilla" which is probably the smallest place I've been to in all my years of skiing. Small is not necessarily bad (;P). However, in this case it was not only small but also pretty warm, which means that instead of snowing it was raining for most of the day... Skiing while it's snowing is not too much fun but it is tolerable (particulary if you haven't skied in a long time and it's the first day of the season). However, skiing while raining is hell...

We got to the place early in the morning and this is what we found: rain! Here Angel is trying to convince me that a few drops of water are actually good for you (like Guinness)

Half way up the lift the drops of rain turned into snow (although the consistency was half water and half snow)

Evaristo and I half frozen on the ski lift... At this point I'm totally soaked... even my underwear is wet. The combination of rain at the bottom of the slopes and wet snow at the top is "typical Spanish"... that's probably why Spanish skiers are tougher than northern European... we are used to more extreme skiing conditions!

Lunchtime... I'm about to freeze... (we obviously didn't go back to the slopes after lunch)

So that was our ski day... ok, ok, I'll admit it: I wish there were real mountains in Spain with decent snow and not this watery crap...

There you go, I said it: I wish the Alps were in Spain... we may have to go over there and conquer them someday ;P

Tomorrow I'll be flying to Florida so I'm not sure whether I'll be able to post any updates...

Good Poker Session

Hi, I'm back... I've been playing for less than one and a half hours and I've made $221.57 so it's been a pretty good session. Here are the stats:

and a graph of the session:

Today I've played NL50 so making over 4 buy-ins in less than 1.5 hours is not bad at all (that's a winrate of $180/hour). As I've already mentioned in this blog, lately I've been finding it very hard to focus while playing poker: for some reason it seems that I can't stop thinking about Lady Waterfall while I'm playing so a couple of weeks ago I decided to move down from NL100 to NL50. I think it has been a good decision because there are more donkeys, swings are smaller and I can still make a decent hourly rate.

I think it's a bad idea to play at your highest limit tables if you're having problems concentrating so I'll stay at NL50 until I get over my current personal issues...

Tomorrow I may go skiing... I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I hope you're happy...

Poker Thoughts: 3-betting Preflop

Today I've pretty much wasted my day so far: I had to pick up a certified letter from the post office and after driving all the way over there it was closed. I then went to the gym and it was closed also. Apparently today is a holiday in Spain so I haven't been able to do any of the stuff I wanted to do before leaving for Florida.

I've decided to play some poker (yes, I've purchased a legal license of Poker Tracker 3) but before that I'll write the promised post about 3-betting preflop. First of all, for those of you who don't know what 3-betting is, it's the same as reraising. That is, putting in a third bet after someone has already raised.

Usually, poor players don't 3-bet a lot. It's not unlikely to see players with just a 1.5% 3-bet preflop percentage. These players will only 3-bet with AA, KK and sometimes QQ. Therefore, their 3-bet range is hugely polarized, meaning that when they 3-bet you know that they are holding a monster and you can fold your hand without losing any money. By 3-betting only AA and KK players make your decisions very easy: if you raise and get reraised by one of these players you just have to fold and move on to the next hand.

In order to balance your 3-betting range you need to 3-bet not only your premium hands like AA and KK but also other hands that may be a little bit more speculative. This way your opponents will not be able to put you on a monster every time you 3-bet and you'll make their decisions post flop a lot harder.

Here are a couple of points to keep in mind when 3-betting.

1. 3-betting is required in order to balance your range of hands and hide your monsters (if you only 3-bet AA and KK you're helping your opponents make the right decisions when playing against you). A 5% 3-betting preflop percentage is reasonable.
2. 3-betting against certain opponents can be very profitable because they will put you on a very strong hand and usually fold preflop. Aggressive opponents tend to raise a very wide range of hands when they are on the cutoff or on the button. Take advantage of this tendency by 3-betting from the button or the blinds.

Example 1:

$0.50 BB (6 handed)

UTG ($80.25)
MP ($46.70)
CO ($73.50)
Button ($33.31)
Hero (SB) ($52.70)
BB ($46.20)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8, 9
2 folds, CO raises to $1.75, 1 fold, Hero raises to $5.75, 2 folds

Typical situation: CO is 21/12/3.2 (he will open-raise 12% of this starting hands, meaning that he will probably open-raise up to 20-25% of his starting hands from the CO and button). When he raises from the CO as he usually does I give him no credit and 3-bet from the SB with my connectors (which play well against his range of hands).

CO folds his hand and I take down the pot right there.

Total pot: $4

Results:
Hero didn't show 8, 9 (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $4

Example 2:

$0.50 BB (5 handed)

MP ($53.80)
Button ($146)
SB ($49.50)
Hero (BB) ($98.55)
UTG ($39.35)

Preflop: Hero is BB with J, 10
3 folds, SB raises to $2, Hero raises to $6, 1 fold

Here, everybody folds to the SB, who is once again an aggressive player (25/18/3). He raises trying to take down the pot (with those stats he will probably raise there with pretty much any hand). I give him no credit and 3-bet him knowing that I will also have position over him for the rest of the hand.

Total pot: $4

Results:
Hero didn't show J, 10 (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $4

Example 3:

$0.50 BB (6 handed)

SB ($24.60)
BB ($33.75)
UTG ($33.10)
MP ($26.24)
CO ($52.30)
Hero (Button) ($51.05)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9, K
2 folds, CO raises to $1.75, Hero raises to $6, 3 folds

Once again I take advantage of my position against an aggressive player who open-raises a lot preflop (19/17/2.3) in order to 3-bet his raise a take down the pot preflop.

Total pot: $4.25

Results:
Hero didn't show 9, K (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $4.25

Workout Reconsideration

I should get out of here (“here” being my office). For the last few days I’ve been staying late trying to finish as much stuff as possible because today is my last day at the office (tomorrow I’m driving to the plant, next week I’ll be attending meetings in Florida and the following week I’ll be out of here). However, it seems that work never ends: there is always new stuff that comes up regardless of how many hours I work so I think it’s time to call it a day and go to the gym. All the stuff I haven’t finished will have to wait for… who knows how long...

A couple of weeks ago I started reconsidering my workout routine in order to make it more functional, that is, my workouts must serve the purpose of improving my performance in at least one of the following sports: skiing, sex and climbing.

Obviously, working out will, in general, improve your performance in any sport. However, if you’re interested in specific sports, there are certain workout routines and exercises that will help your performance more than others. After some introspection, I’ve decided that the two factors that I’ve not been paying enough attention to are aerobic resistance and grip so I’ve been introducing some changes in my workout in order to address these two weaknesses.

Aerobic endurance is easy to improve: run! I’ve never been a fan of running but lately I’ve been forcing myself to run at least twice a week and I’m already feeling the difference (the good thing about being bad at something is that it’s easy to notice even the slightest improvements). Both skiing and rock climbing require brief periods of pure anaerobic strength and relatively long, baseline periods of sustained aerobic effort so I think improving my aerobic resistance will improve my performance in both of them. In the case of sex and mountain climbing (the Mont Blanc goal for example) it’s even more apparent that endurance is critical.

On to the second weakness: grip. Last summer I only went rock climbing a couple of times but I got a bit frustrated because, even though I was feeling strong, the first thing to go was my grip. And, once your forearms are gone, you’re done climbing even if your other upper body muscles could keep pushing. I had never done a forearm workout before but I’ve been doing some research online and now I’ve included grip exercises in my weekly training routine. Hopefully I’ll gain strength and endurance in my grip as well as strengthening individual fingers, especially the thumb. I’ve read that static hangs on a bar is the best way to improve the strength of your forearms so I’m doing that as well as some forearm curls with dumbbells. After a few weeks with this new workout I should go to the climbing wall in Ciudad Universitaria to see if I feel any improvement. The forearm workouts are not going to help me with any of my other two sports (well, maybe if we consider that jerking-off is sex…) but as long as they improve my rock climbing I’ll be happy.