Guest Post - Julius Goat - Focus | Poker From The Rail

Guest Post - Julius Goat - Focus

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

Our boy Julius Goat is back with another hilarious guest post. After presenting us with a few chapters of his highly acclaimed Stupid/System, he brings us his unique way of concentrating his focus while playing the big guarantee MTT’s and making your bets.

I’ve never employed this strategy but I’m pretty sure the “Moonwalking Bear” move is something even your top pros would never see coming. I’m still finding it tough to believe that Julius_Goat has never won a MTT in his career after reading his post. There is plenty more after the jump.

Sharpening your focus or How the Moonwalking Bear improved my game
by Julius Goat

You know how it is. You’re playing a long tournament, and your mind is wandering. You have the latest South Park open (hilarious). Every so often, the poker client screen flickers to the front and you make a quick decision, based on increasingly limited information. Fold. Fold. Call, fold. Cartman. Raise. Fold. Do you know who is aggressive at your table? Who is tight? What does it matter? You’ve been here before. If you get a nice size stack, you’ll pay attention. But for some reason, you just haven’t been getting that big stack lately . . .

That’s right. You’ve lost focus.

I’ve been trying something lately. It’s been helping. The results have been good, but results in MTT are deceptive. No, it’s been helping my mindset. Perhaps it will help yours, as well. One can only hope, and, after all, I’m here to help.

I have the recipe for you now. Here’s what you do.

Ready?

OK, first, you are going to want to take $26 or a level-one token. A token is good for bankroll management, so do that. I recommend one of those $6.50 + $0.40 four seat heads-up shootouts. Very winnable, most players are in a hurry to lose the filter end of their bankroll or just like to overshove.

Next, sign up for one of the fine guarantee tournaments running nightly on Full Tilt. There’s a $28K at ten PM. If you need to wake up in the morning, there’s a $32K happening two hours earlier. If you are a vampire, or a cop on a stakeout, or something, they run at 11:00 PM and 1:00 AM, as well. You’ll figure it out; I know you will.

Now, some good music. No, I said good. Put the Clay Aiken CD down. Damn.

Now, go get your chips, the ones from your home game, and make yourself a stack while you play. I’m serious. Use the colors you like. Remember that these are double-stacks for more play, so you have to make it to T3000. For me, it’s ten whites worth T10 each for T100, eight blue worth T50 each for T400, ten red worth T100 each for T1000 and three greenies worth T500 each for T1500.

You’ve got your stack. Use the rest of your chips to build pots from the blinds, antes, and bets of your opponents.

Do you feel silly? Well, if you don’t, you will. Remember, you are going to want to build the pot as your opponents bet. So you’re slinging ALL of the chips while maintaining your stack. Wait until you are trying to build a pot as the virtual raises and reraises start happening. “Silly” doesn’t start to describe it. But do it, I’m telling you. Do it if you have the slightest problems with concentration.

Here’s why.

1) Tangibility. In the online world, these chips just kind of show up out of nowhere when you bet them, and then they go back to nowhere once they’re won. You don’t have any physical representation of what your bets mean to your overall stack. Yes, you can do the simple arithmetic, but consider it. Arithmetic activates the abstract centers of your brain. There is a big difference between figuring out when the train that left St. Louis going 45 mph and the train that left Chicago going 55 mph and being on one of the trains that is about to have a 100 mph collision, if you know what I mean.

Chips are real. They exist. If you bet one, it leaves your stack, and you feel that loss. If you win and your stack grows, you can visibly see that growth.

2) Deep Thought. The time it takes to make the pot and count out your chips? That’s time you can spend deciding if that is really the course of action that you want to take. Maybe firing a third bullet with air isn’t actually the best move for your tournament. What is this player like? How often has he been raising? Has he showed down before? He limped in middle position, has he done that before? You’ve been paying attention, I know, because every time he makes a move, you’re reaching for pot-building chips.

3) Math. Do this: Whenever the blinds go up, calculate the starting pot and count it out in chips. Have a few “starting pots” set aside, the better to quickly start pot-building. You’ll immediately become aware of such fundamentals as how much is riding on every hand, what your M value is, how that min. raise really does beg for a call. Count out those starting-pot chips and notice, when this level-up occurs, what an enormous effect adding antes makes. Not all level increases are equal, are they? Consider what adjustments you’ll want to make based on that information. You’re going to be quickly calculating what’s in the pot, and thinking about what you are betting relative to what your stack size is.

4) Tells. I’ve been thinking a lot about this one lately. There are all kinds of timing tells. Most of them involve acting very quickly. For example, in an instance when you know that your opponent needs to shove on any flop, there is a slight but significant difference between the time they instantly do this and the time that they pause for a while. The insta-shove means? Well, they could have hit the flop of course, or they could just have a big pocket pair. But you know they have to go all-in here, and the immediate push makes it just that much more likely that it is just a move. You are that much safer calling with your AK unimproved, or your third pair. The expected decision is often the quickly-made decision. But if there is a pause? Well, it could mean nothing but a pause, just a little Hollywood to induce doubt. Nevertheless, it becomes harder to ‘read’. Click timing really is used to read actions by many players. The more ambiguity you can introduce, the better.

The great thing is they are almost entirely unlikely to guess that you are pausing because you are counting out real chips. Which means that the pauses you introduce are spreading actual misinformation. Watch this:

See, when you pause, your opponent is going to think about it (unless they aren’t paying attention either, but hey, that’s fine, too, right?). And they’ll guess wrong. They think your pause could mean A or B or maybe C. But they’re wrong; it’s none of those things. It’s Moonwalking Bear.

Anytime you can in poker, introduce the moonwalking bear.

5) Experience. If you are like me, you aspire to someday play in a big live tournament, but you have almost exclusively online experience. Do you really want the WSOP Main Event to be the first time you are working out pot sizes by eyeballing a bunch of chips? They don’t have an option that puts a little caption next to a stack in live play, you know. Get used to handling chips alone if you are thinking about doing it in public.

6) Fun. Mileage may vary, but what’s more fun than winning a pot and actually scooping it? Come one, get with me.

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