"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.” ― Babe Ruth

Today I cashed in 3 out of 17 MTTs and 0 out of 4 satellites. I have some good and bad news about my cashes, all three were final tables, but I didn't finish higher than 8th. Overall a decent day and I am happy with my play and the fact I followed my plan for the day. Today I did a lot better job of playing a reduced buy-in schedule and again kept my volume down just a tad to increase focus.

In my opinion it is very easy to play more than you study, play to high when we do play, chase when in a downswing, and play distracted with to little focus. I think these are common problems that most poker players struggle with from time to time. I have personally been doing what I can to remove these problems from my game and improve on my game and my approach. I think leading by example is a powerful tool and that is what I am trying to do with Variance101.

After my session I railed the $11 rebuy deep-stack while  Greg "villageidiot1" pwned the FT and shipped the MTT. Good job Greg! As vilageidiot1 was finishing up his onslaught on the $11r I decided I would do a HH review of all my recent tough hands. I also made a post in the Variance101 chat offering to let any of my students join me. Willis jumped at the oppurtunity and we had a great review session for a little over an hour. There were several spots that we ran the equity numbers on and worked with ranges in pokerstove.

 I will say the general point that came from the review was that the aggressive line is usually best. What I mean by that is that I would rather 3b/c or 3b/f with a decent hand in pos rather than flat behind an open. I think it is common for some players to flat opens in  middle and late position with AT+ with a thought of not bloating the pot and having position. But what happens is you catch pieces and end up floating their flop c-bet and get in lots of tricky spots. I prefer to 3b/c or 3b/f and often they flat and we get to c-bet in pos. Most hands play so much better if we are the aggressor.

After the review I did some more work on my website which is coming along nicely. I also got some valuable help from a friend as I was trying to come up with a possible logo. We had several ideas and have a few we kept as favorites, thanks Cody.

Tomorrow will be more of the same. Lots of hard work and focus while following strict buy-in parameters and keeping the volume fairly low by staying around six MTTs or less at a time for the majority of the day. I have also been adjusting my MTT choices slightly and hope to keep working towards the best schedule for my current BR. I miss all the WSOP live streams but when working on focus it's probably better that all the events are done but two. I am ready to have a good finish to July and I plan on working my butt off to reach my goals.

LONG LIVE ONLINE POKER!

If you are interested in taking lessons or need any information contact me at variance101@gmail.com and/or visit http://variance101.com/#.