BLOG – The World Series of Poker Europe and ‘macro game’

BLOG – The World Series of Poker Europe and ‘macro game’

Monday, 27 September 2010

I’m shattered. Since Thursday my schedule has been: up at 8am; write news and online news for Bluff Europe; jump on the train for an hour to arrive at The Empire for noon; report on six hours of poker; return home for 1am or later; repeat. You’re welcome.

I’m hugely tired, being a lazy bum who writes freelance from home and is unused to rolling out of bed for a working day, let alone a twelve-hour one. When I close my eyes all I can see are racks and stacks of pink and yellow chips; when someone speaks I find it odd that they don’t have an American accent; the sight of Phil Ivey no longer fills me with an odd combination of admiration and dread. OK, it kind of does but I’m getting more used to him.


This brings me to my next point – I’m really tired, so it wouldn’t be a good idea to open up six tables of Omaha or enter a load of turbo tournaments right now. Not that I would instead of reporting on the action here, you understand. The about ‘macro game’ really spoke to me because it pretty much sums up the reason why I’m not playing mid-stakes NL and earning four or five figures a month despite almost four years of poker.


My micro-game is fine – this being the basic fundamentals from knowing hand rankings to continuation bet theory to how to play in 3-bet pots. Well, I say fine: it’s never fine, you always need to improve and I know this but for the stakes I’m bankrolled for ($0.25/$0.50 NL and
below) my micro-game makes me a winning player.


Macro game, though? Not so much. To quote directly from MyPokerLab, macro-game refers to: “the general characteristics of a player beyond their hand-to-hand decision making abilities. This includes, but is not limited to:


Good bankroll management, tilt control, intelligent use of tracking and stats, table and opponent selection, diligent note-taking, efficient multi-tabling, self analysis, opponent analysis, as well as
having the commitment to put the hours in, play enough hands, and constantly applying yourself.”


That’s what I have trouble with. Bankroll management is good most of the time but I don’t mind taking shots if I think I can profit. This has cost me in the past but then again it enabled me to become semi-regular at NL100 before a sick downswing. Tilt control I’m much better at now than I was a year ago but it’s still a factor in my not-as-good-as-I-want winrate.


Basically, that article sold me on MyPokerLab because it hit a nail that’s been bugging me for some time square on the head. Odds are that macro-game affects you, too.



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