Looking Forward into the Month of April

As many of you are aware at this point, Lee Jones made an announcement last week that the Cake Network will be raising the minimum buy in to 30 BB.  Though this worries some people who are glued to their short stacking methods, I am actually looking forward to it because I see it not as an obstacle, but as a professional challenge.  I already have certain plans in place, but I will be spending much time on StoxEV to find new optimal strategies.

Other than that, I just got my new Dell 30 inch monitor on Friday in the mail.  Though the cost of almost $1,000 might seem insanity to some people, I was really turned by the idea of having 2560 X 1600 resolution and being able to fit what I thought would be 12 Pokerworld games with no overlap on one monitor, rather than 9.  Though some people can bring their A-game to 2 or even 3 monitors at once, I am definitely not one of them.  I can only focus on one screen at a time and any games designated to the second might actually be negative EV, though I will never really know for sure.  To my surprise, with the improved resolution of the Dell, I can now fit 20 Pokerworld games with minimal overlap!  That definitely sounds like too much at this point, though I very much expect to be able to profitably play 16 games at once for the first time ever.

As an aside, I also plan on getting back into SNG's, full stacking, and limit hold'em as well.  I have tried my luck at several thousand hands of limit so far, and though I have found the experience to be fun, I do realize that I need some serious brush up work to be very competitive.  I did find myself purposely calling down very light at times, often with very little chance of winning, just to see how the opposition is playing and to make notes.  Thinking about this method give me an idea for a simple piece of advice on what I believe that everyone should take a day to do (myself included), and that is just to watch several tables and just fill up your notes in as much detail as possible.  Try to standardize all of them beforehand so that you will be able to read it later quickly.  Also, try your best not to instinctively judge what your opponents are doing as either right or wrong.  If you see them do something that worked (or at least almost worked) that you would never have considered doing, resist the urge of privately writing them off as a donk.  Rather, do your best to figure out why they would take such a proposition.

In David Sklansky's amazing new book DUCY?, which is 2+2 shorthand for "Do You See Why?" makes a great argument for always using this sort of analysis before making any investment or taking any proposition, particularly when it seems that doing so would be a no-brainer for yourself.  After all, Sklansky makes the powerful point that if you are either unwilling or unable to figure out what the other party is hoping to gain, then most likely YOU are the sucker.