Interview with 60s reg AAnythingKK

Intro:

I'm 19 years old from Sydney, Australia. In 2014 I dropped out of school and

bounced between various training courses while struggling to beat the micros

in various formats of poker. In March last year I joined the Coaching/Backing

group and started playing the $2.50 Jackpots on Fulltilt (I had self

exclused myseld from Spins on Stars until September because I bust a $400 roll

playing $30s) and quickly moved up to $10 Jackpots, then $15 Hypers on Stars.

I started battling the $30 Division in August and had good results but started

playing $30 spins before I had enough games to get in.

My results last year were mediocre at best, I struggled to put in enough volume

to do distrctions at home (living with my mother and two brothers) and putting

in a fairly high amount of study. I feel it's payed off this year as my results

have improved dramatically and I'm now playing 60s with a good (and increasing) cEV.

My goal for the year is to make $100k EV profit on Stars post RB, but to be honest I'll

be happy just being able to move out and support myself financially

A graph of the first 2k games I played this year (~500 30s rest 60s)

Charles Hawk: Tell me what are the most valuable lessons you have learned not from theory but from practice?

AanythingKK: Last year I was super theory focused and I feel like it taught me how to think about the game properly but not how to crush. I had a lot of trouble understanding what peoples ranges looked like in certain spots purely through study. That's a lot of information to process and try and think about with limited gameplay experience. Once I started putting in some real volume I sort of ended up picking it up unconsciously and now it all feels pretty intuitive. That was definitely the biggest level up in my game that I can recall.

Charles Hawk: Tell me about your mentality and everything related with tilt and frustrations with short-run results. Are you immune to it? How do you handle such issues?

AanythingKK: I used to be really bothered by short term results, especially if I had a significant stretch of losing/breakeven cEV. Variance is really hard to understand, people are bad at dealing with large numbers intuitively. I was always concerned that my results were due to me not really being a winner at the games because I had no significant sample to look back at as evidence I was a winning player so I was always doubting myself and afraid to put in volume in case my results just got worse. I found the most effective thing for dealing with these confidence issues was study. The more I studied the better I played, the more I was confident in my plays even when they didn't work out and the better my results were, making long term breakeven stretches rarer and rarer.

I don't tilt much any more, I do procrastinate and make excuses to not play though, like if I'm kind of tired or it's hot or the internet is slow etc. I'm working on addressing these distractions and I can't wait to see how much volume I put in once I move out and have air conditioning, an optimal office and bedroom setup, better diet etc.

Charles Hawk: Do you set short-term goals? What is your ordinary work-day? How it looks like?

AanythingKK: I set short term goals of a certain number of games per day, target cEV at a given stake etc. They're probably too flexible though because lately I haven't been keeping to them at all. I really need to get into a proper schedule again soon.

Typical work day is waking up sometime between 9am-2pm and sitting at my computer 4 tabling 60s or 30s if I'm not feeling great. I usually put in 4-6 PT4 hours of volume per day, which isn't close to enough. My current goal is to drastically reduce the amount of breaks I take and time I waste and get that up to a minimum of 8 PT4 hours per day. I need to get into a more regular sleep cycle as well.

Charles Hawk: Write me how are you improving, which tools do you use, how do you use it? Do you have poker-friends with whom you are talking strategy constantly?

AanythingKK: Since I started playing 60s I've really been slacking with study. I watch a lot of recorded coaching videos and attend some live sessions. I do some HH review on PT4 and I'm looking to do more of that because my results vs regs have been getting worse as my results vs fish have been getting a lot better. I don't really talk that much strat with people but there are a few people I'll run ideas past/discuss what they're working on at the moment. Sometimes I ask for guidance on how to study something specific I'm struggling with. For the most part I study alone and not often enough.

Charles Hawk: How many tables do you play at once? How many games do you usually play per day?

AanythingKK: I play 3-4 tables at once, I was 2 tabling for the majority of last year. There's no reason I shouldn't be playing 150+ games a day but historically it's been more like 50-100.

Charles Hawk: Tell me about your hobbies and off-tables activities. How much free-time you choose to have?

AanythingKK: I have quite a lot of free time but I waste most of it. I'm actively reducing distractions and time wasting activities from my life and scheduling time to hang out with friends/exercise etc. Next month I'll be aiming for five 12 hour work days a week and one half day with a day off.

I used to play a lot of other strategy games but I have a very all or nothing personality and I find it hard to play say Magic: The Gathering at the level I'd like without it distracting me from poker. I watch a lot of TV and I'm getting more and more into cooking lately.

Charles Hawk: If you would need to coach Spin beginner who is transitioning from husngs with decent results, which topics you would start to teach/what would be the first lessons. What would be the first advices?

AanythingKK: I'd start by looking at what ranges should be played from each position and why. BvB play in spins is particularly interesting because the BB plays in position vs the SB, which is very unique. Saying much more than that might be giving too much away :)

Charles Hawk: If you would need to coach Spin beginner who is recreational in poker so far, write down your long-term strategy how to do it.

AanythingKK: The first step would be teaching them to think about poker properly. I feel like historically people have learned poker in reverse, focusing on how to play specific hands in specific spots and then justifying it with theory later. Getting a solid understanding of game theory lets you build a strategy from the ground up and really understand why you're doing things, allowing you to figure out the best plays on your own instead of just copying what you saw someone else do and being lost when an unfamiliar situation comes up. Understanding theoretically optimal play lets you see how people are deviating from it, allowing you to exploit them.

The above it a long process though and would be interwoven with basic strategy, studying ranges and adjustments vs certain players. There's be a lot of focus on how to maximize winnings vs fish at first, then study on reg play as they progressed to higher stakes.

The process would be something like having them 1 table and refer a lot to a range spreadsheet while thinking about the basics of value betting, their range, their opponents range, which hands can get 1/2/3 streets of value, how certain turns or rivers change the strength of their hand etc. From there it would depend a lot on the individual as certain concepts come easier to certain people.