The Swings and Spins

The past 2 weeks have been characterized by change. I switched from playing 6-max SNGs to playing a format I use to grind a lot; spin and goes. The games still seem to be fairly soft, with players at the $15 level making some huge mistakes, which due to the chip EV format of them (winnter take all) benefits directly. In other words, due to the lack of ICM it's way harder to get punished by someone making too wide of a call on the bubble. Due to my mediocre results in the 6-max SNGs (<1% ROI after 1k games) I decided to make the switch, and have enjoyed the ups and downs that come with playing these hyper turbo lottery style tournaments.

When running bad, I sometimes enter a strange state. I finally managed to come up with a term for it. I call it "platonic paranoia". Platonic paranoia is a non-emotional state in which you assume your opponets have know your strategy/actual hand perfectly and are respondning to whatever you are doing. You are not emotional because you feel like this is just a fact. You then try to counter what you think they are doing to counter you, and end up plaing hands in all kinds of strange matters. Not getting value when you should, calling hands that you shouldn't etc.

The counter to this mindset is to remember that poker is a very hard game, a game of making less mistakes than your opponents. You don't have to play perfect, nobody does. I call this mode "The counterpuncher", it's a mode were you play your own solid game, and wait for your opponets to over extend into you. Then you get them. You don't have to "do" anything.

For accountability, here are my results for the first little bit:

Hope all is well, whoever and wherever you are!