Nice thread, subbed.
I remember running into you couple of times on 5NL some years ago.

You have made great progress, keep it up, and good luck!

Thanks you sir!

Lmfao Stars withdrawing from the Aus market on "September 11"... How grim.

Daily Update - Thur 17 Aug 2017

Hours Played: 6.8
Profit: -$890

Notes: Grim session. Couldn't hit a flop in any way shape or form and then got ownt by quads to finish me off.

Hand 1

Hero opens JT $15 MP, one caller
Flop: T22 - hero cbet $15, call
Turn: Q - hero xc $35
River: K - hero xc $67
MHIG vs A3hh

Hand 2

Hero opens AKo from LP over some limpers $25, SB calls - is a decent thinking reg.

Flop: AJ9r - Check, hero checks back for pot control and to disguise hand vs trickier reg who will pay off bets vs strange lines.
Turn: A - Villain leads $35, hero calls
River: 9 - Villain checks, hero bets $80, v raises to $380... Kind of annoying but he's type of guy who might rock up with some strange bluffs vs my flop xb line here. Hero calls and loses to 99.

Full Results & Graph: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkK4doh8PHLEgk6pBpFJrgcokPKM

So, how did we go:

[ ] - In any pot I'm actively involved in, slow down and think through everything logically, then think through it again until I'm happy my decision is the best one I could make. - I struggled to have this mentality at the forefront of my mind and found myself going through the motions a couple of times...
[X] - Sizing, focus more on reading pot size and have rationale behind the sizing I choose. - Think I did a reasonable job of this tonight.
[X] - Stay nice and tight from EP - Fairly good job.
[X] - Pull trigger on read. Last night I was right three times and couldn't pull the trigger. Need to go with the gut a bit more in these spots. - Did a little better on this in a couple of small pots but can still be better...

Weekly recap incoming...

Would be interested to hear some of your thoughts on how you go about improving mental game alongside some thoughts about what you did to improve your mental game to get it to where it is today.

Also, how are you finding the grind relative to other jobs in the past, how do you find online vs live etc.

Glgl

Weekly Recap - Fri 11/08 - Thur 17/08

Volume: 47.4 Hours
Profit: -$2,137

How'd we go goals-wise this week?

[X] 45 Hours - I think we can do this by playing a 6 day schedule and hoping games don't break too early. We need to recoup some of week 2's lost time. - Bink!
[X] Gym min 5 times this week. - Bink!
[ ] Tinder date Tuesday night - Tues will be my one day off this week. I have an Old Collegians basketball game vs the First 5 in the arvo... Really looking forward to a relaxing Tues - will take ourselves out to brekky, play some ball, then meet this Tinder chick for a few (or a **** load) in the evening. - Decided to pull the pin on the Tinder date... Did a bit more stalking of this lass and came to find out she likely isn't as good looking as I expected. Just wasn't reeeeally that into it and decided to have dinner with the parents instead lol. Good news is, I have a new Tinder date lined up for this coming week!
[ ] Best disciplined poker every session - No more lazy limps or lazy limp calls or loose UTG opens on 10-handed tables. We need to stay tight and focused 100% of the time. No spew. - Can't say I did this... Were a few large mistakes that cost me.

================================================

Well, what a ****ty week results-wise! We're now down $3,200 over the 123 hours since the start of this thread. -$26 per hour. Which isn't particularly encouraging, I'll admit. But we're not throwing in the towel just yet! We're still on month 1 and I'm determined to finish my first month on a positive note. It'd be brilliant to finish the first month in the black but after this start, I can't expect that to be a likely outcome. Instead, my focus should be on playing my best every session for the next week.

Goals wise:

[ ] 37+ Hours volume - Hopefully we can hit this target in the forthcoming week. We've currently hit 40 hours for each of the previous weeks so I'd like to see 160 hours as a total after the first month. That means we're in a good routine and getting the volume in that we need to be to do this full time.
[ ] Sunday night Tinder date - Super interesting Chinese ex-stripper lined up for shenanigans on Sunday night. Not sure what we're gonna do yet, but I imagine it'll be something along the lines of drinks at a bar. So Sunday will be my "official" night off this coming week. However, Saturday night, I have an old friend's 21st party at an apartment in the city - she's a model and has basically invited 20 other super bangin' models and only a few guys - so it'd basically be a crime not to attend? I'd need to buy a new shirt (smart attire) for it though and I'd probably end up spending a bit on booze and I'd rather not skip a Saturday night session at all. Still undecided about this one.
[ ] Slow motion thinking in big pots - Really want to get into a habit of doing this better... Think through things with clarity and logic and then think through things again. Make the best decision with the best bet size, every time. If I just find myself wanting to bet $X, I need to stop and take some more time and make my intentions crystal clear in my mind - basically giving myself closure that what I'm about to do is the best thing I can do in real time.

Hopefully if I can do all of that, I'll have a happier time doing my first month review in a week's time.

On another note, I noticed I'm now 95kg while weighing in at the gym this morning... Idk if it's because the scales are different at this gym to the previous one, but I haven't been under 100kg for ages - last I weighed I was about 104kg. I feel as though I've definitely lost some fat over the past few weeks. Losing that little bit of a gut I'd developed while bulking up. I can attribute this to my half-assed fasting routine. Basically, I get up and go to the gym before eating to force myself into a ketogenic state, get home, shower, and then eat one big meal. I find I can survive most of the rest of the day fairly easily off just one coffee, some almonds, and a mass gainer shake (e.g. at the casino, if I'm at a home game, I'll have another proper meal). So my caloric intake is way down, which is awesome, and I'm still hitting okay numbers in the gym. Health wise, I'm extremely happy atm.

Mental Review

I'll be honest, it's not been an extremely easy first three weeks. I've been slapped in the face by quads tonight, lose set under set for a big pot a few nights ago, lost AA to QQ in a $2500 pot during week 1, I've been card dead for an entire week (week 1), and I've made a few bad folds. It's been very difficult getting any momentum together.

I know I can win in the games I'm playing at but there is a small niggling doubt that I can do it at the intended winrate (7bb/hr)... But tbf, I'd settle for a 5bb/hr WR if I'm honest. At least in the first year or so. Anyway, since I've been losing the past few weeks and don't have much more than $10k to my name rn, I've been having "what if" thoughts and kind of considering back-up options if things don't improve. These thoughts are more or less innocuous at this stage, don't inspire much anxiety, but possibly distract me more than anything.

I want to put those thoughts to rest by knowing exactly how long I can keep this up for and at what point there's any merit to calling it quits. I don't quite know how much cash is in my safe atm but let's assume $1.5k. + $10k in the bank. Each week I exist on this earth, regardless of results, that $11.5k drops by $500 minimum. That's 23 weeks or 6 months longevity assuming I A) don't spend more than $500 a week and B) don't lose any money in poker. Of course, this doesn't allow for me to compartmentalise my bankroll and my liferoll. Which is an issue. I want to leave myself enough cash to buy myself enough time to find work or another direction in case I lose a lot more money. Two months should suffice, or $4k. So that's my number. If I drop to 4k to my name, game's up - we surrender and can be happy knowing we gave it a decent crack. Right now, that gives us between 3-4 months (15 weeks) to get out of the hole and earning some money from this thing. If we manage to dust off the remaining effective $7.5k before then, then obv it's gg. This is all pretty doom and gloom - I'm sure we'll have some heat over the next 3-4 months, but at the end of the day, we can't control the variance we're given over that period and can only do our part by playing our best poker every session to give ourselves as much longevity as possible.

It feels better to now know explicitly how long I have in months and in dollars. 3-4 months is a long time. That's 500 hours of poker. My only mission now is to play the best poker I can, try not spend more than $500 a week, and simply enjoy the ride!

Full Results & Graph: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkK4doh8PHLEgk6pBpFJrgcokPKM

Hey bud, just posted some mental stuff in the weekly review. One of my mental issues of late has been this very mild niggling anxiety associated with being on a very small bankroll of late - how long will it last? Will I go busto? I was able to rid myself of these toxic thoughts by giving myself fiscal targets. If I drop to x, then y. If not x, don't worry about it. Really helps stay focused on the task at hand and in the present moment rather than worrying about looming financial potentialities.

Re what I did to get my mental game to where it is now? I don't think there's much substitute for playing a million hands at zoom. You go through horrendous stretches and see incredible bouts of variance. You grow cold to it and learn to remain indifferent. If someone gets in KK vs AA and loses a big pot and is genuinely bothered by it, then they're not a poker player. You should be perfectly indifferent to that spot whether you have KK or AA, monk like almost. I don't get tilted or punt off stacks or care if I lose a cooler. What bothers me is mistakes and my focus then becomes on rectifying it so it can't happen again. That's all you can do.

In terms of the grind, mate if I'm honest, I absolutely love it. These past three weeks I've almost felt like I've been on vacation. It is absolutely blissful not having a boss to answer to, not having to be up at any certain time, being able to sleep in for that extra hour because you simply feel like it... I'm still smashing my volume targets but it's never as though I need to drag myself to the casino against my own will or anything. It's part of my routine now and I'm really enjoying life atm. I want to be able to do this for as long as possible. I don't imagine I'll ever work as an employee again - even if things go bad poker wise, the worst case scenario IMO is that I go back to uni and work part time. But I have other options available to me that hopefully mean I won't have to do that.

But yeah, I haven't yet felt the "ehhghgh 40 hour weeks surrounded by degens in a filthy card room" resentment you oftentimes hear from seasoned pros. Maybe I'm still in the honeymoon period. We'll see.

As for live vs online, obv online is still the ultimate. The issue I have atm is games stopping early. Casino shuts tables at 3:20am most nights and it really makes getting the volume in quite difficult some weeks. Wait lists **** you. Commute, etc. To be able to wake up, sit at your PC and grind in your undies would be the ultimate. So much so that the notion of grinding cheeseburger stakes in Thailand legitimately doesn't sound so bad to me at all.

You shouldnt focus too much on winning at Xbb/hr in live, there's too much variance and not enough sample that these things don't matter.
Showing off giraffes of sick winrates is just an ego stroke, i've seen guys who probs cant even beat 10nl online have sick sick winrates live and on the reverse side guys who can easily beat 100nl+ have massive break even/losing stretches live over many hundreds of hours.
The way i see it is as long you think you're still +EV in the games keep grinding it through and it will turn.

Yeah fwiw I try not to put much weight into the whole bb/hr debate - I think most of 2+2 is deluded as to what is sustainable.

But yeah, here's to hoping things turn around soonish!

Disagree....your w/r clearly matters. Esp as a pro, as that's how you feed yourself.

That being said I agree with what I believe is your point. I think you mean to say that certain samples don't matter (100 hours, 500 hours etc). It is as you say, you have to keep getting into +EV situations.

Meale,

Keep putting in the hours man. It's the most important thing you can do as it is one of the few things you can control. Think will turn around. Keep working on your game, playing well, not tilting. Good things will come.

great pgc...following intently. I think your hh pick up quite a lot of "noise" in that in highly exploitative scenarios, your pretty much never gone get any sort of agreement on the best EV lines. I'm reluctant to comment on hh, because I don't have the live experience, but one thing I think you might wish to consider is holding back some of the outcomes, some of the hands. Take out some of the outcome bias.

Only one problem. On any day, in any country, online poker is at the mercy of the sitting government (I guess you would get that, more than most). Online gambling is actually illegal in Thailand, whose to say they won't switch it off one day (or segregate it)?

Ultimately I think if you can build a big enough roll, live is still the best for full time pro.

jmo

Yeah I think not putting results of hands for like 24 hours is good idea, so much cognitive bias when you see the hand (even action villain took after yours etc)

I noticed in your goals there is nothing about tells, and personally i think they can have a significant impact on your winrate. They are definitely real, just look at the **** guys like Davidi Kitai and Charlie Carrel pull (watch this hand, Davidi later said in an interview he made this call 100% because of a read, had nothing to do with poker, and this is against a solid pro)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k--V2vghKqg

The difficult thing is actually being good at reading tells, and there is not a lot of good info available. If you ask on the tell forum most people will tell you to read some ancient irrelevant **** like Mike caros book.

I am in the process of learning how to interpret tells. My way is basically when im not involved in a hand, i will just watch someone the whole time and make a mental note of every little movement (how they bet and check, micro expressions near the mouth), and then in future hands look for DIFFERENCES IN MOVEMENTS, and then try to figure out what that difference means, if anything. Ive also heard necks are very good for tells but i cant really pick up on this, i find myself just staring blankly at peoples necks and getting nothing. If you can get someone to talk to you during a hand you are only helping yourself.
Some notes
Tells of strength are much easier to spot than tells of weakness
The better you are at poker, the more reliable your tells have to be to consider using them

I think its definitely worth looking into and i dont even play live

I absolutely will mate. Cheers for the kind words.

Yeah I've been thinking about withholding results as well - will give it a go for a bit. And ofc, online poker is as precarious as always, but there will always be enough SEA countries to hop between in case it does get nerfed in TL.

Yeah will be doing this from here on out - will be a pain in the ass to update old hands but I might just never post the results unless someone asks for it.

Yeah I remember watching that hand thinking it was the greatest poker play of all time. Though I think the top comment is right, it's probably a losing play but it's impossible to know.

Live tells are something I'm slowly trying to develop. Over the past couple of sessions, I've found myself noticing small things that lead to the expected result, even if it was unlikely. Like the head nod. My focus is to pull the trigger a bit more when I notice these tells and not be afraid to exploit it.

I think I'll look to focus a lot more on other players at the table for this week - like you do. See if it makes a difference and see if I can't develop some reads further.

About to leave for a Penthouse grind. GL me.

Also, fkn Tinder bird who I was supposed to meet on Sunday messaged me saying she's met someone else and is deleting Tinder!?? What a fish. So that frees up my Sunday night to play and instead I'll go to the model party tomorrow night!

Dont sweat that tinder chicken. Go to that party and F a perfect 10 model from it...........and oh yeah F her again in the morning too! GL on your grind

Yeah I'm not too fussed, kinda good coz It frees up my SAT night And I have two 21sts I want to go to!

First hand...

Old man opens $25 7handed W $200 start stack, hero calls in BB W KQo (absolute nut bottom of my range), might even be a fold tbh.

Flop K35r hero xc 25 turn 6o hero X v bet 75 W like 75 behind hero sticks it in for $75 more.

Hero opens AJhh EP, two callers Co n BB

Flop K73hcc
Flop checks round (I don't hate a cbet though three handed here but id opened and cbet previous two hands)
Turn 5h, checks to co who bets 40 call, hero calls
River As checks to co who bets 85 one fold, hero calls

omc hand, fold pre, once you've called yer stuck with it. I'd only call turn though...river might well get x/d thru (not folding at this stage though just to be clear.)

AJhh, I would vcbet depending on reads, but your x is explained so all good. Seems fine, esp if they are poor regs trying to get a read

PS

As you are on a downswing you lose omc to AK and AJ to some syphilitic two pair

Loose spewy player opens EP $25, 500 EF, hero 3! AcKs in co to 70

SB calls EP calls

Flop 210: A52ss

Check, EP leads 100 hero calls sb folds

Turn 5sss, EP checks hero jams $392

Ty can you elaborate the last part?

What my poor joke or the AJhh hand?

AJhh

Don't raise the turn when you could be behind just because you have decided all the money is going in anyway, you are denying the chance for villain to x/d or bet small on river with a better hand (however unlikely). Apologies if I have misread the HH...these live posts are not always as clear as the online hh converters.

Fatboy humour - i'll try harder

nhwp.

I'll omit the humour this time

3 limps hero raises to $30 in BB W KdKc

J62dd hero CB $30 call

Turn 7d hero bet $60 v calls and has like 75-100 behind

River 3c, hero jams v calls with 54hh lol.... Running pretty pure for the last couple hours so that one stiiiiiings

Daily Update - Fri 18 Aug 2017

Hours Played: 8.8
Profit: $750

Notes: New week off to a good start results-wise. But man, what a ****ing terrible session that was... I was down about 1k after a couple hours... fairly standard spots. But man there was this mark at this table running soooooo pure it was insane. I managed to get all his chips later in the night when it's 4 handed. But **** me, some of the allins. I had AJ vs his T9o all in pre for $300 and lost... AJ all in pre vs his A6o for $251 and lost... I tried again with QQ and managed to hold vs his KJo but jesus christ, I run bad in allin spots. I have a lot of hands to post so I'm going to rush through them as best I can. Soooooooooo many super tough spots tonight - wtf live poker is supposed to be easy...

Hand 1:

4 handed...
Hero opens AKo to $20, guy to my left who is fairly aggressive, has been isoing like every time he plays a hand and 3betting a bit makes it $60, folds to spazz in BB who goes AI for $107, we ship it for like $625 effective...

Hand 2:

Mark opens to $10, hero makes it $50 w red QQ, mark calls. This spot has been playing every hand and is fairly drunk... About $1.2k effective.
Flop K73ss
Check, check
Turn 7c
Check, hero bets $55, v raises $150 hero calls
River 3h
V bets $200, hero calls

Hand 3:

Very next hand vs same guy...
Same spot opens $10, hero 3b to $50 KQo, spot calls.
Flop Q23dd
Hero bets $55 v calls
Turn 4d
Hero xc $75
River 3c
Check, v bets $225, hero ???

Hand 4:

Hero raises spots $10 open to $45, spot calls.
Flop 859cc
Hero cbets $55, call
Turn Ko
Hero cbets $125, call
River 3o
Hero triples for $200

Hand 5:

Vs same spot, earlier in night...
Spazz opens $30, hero 3b red AQo to $85, call.
Flop AcKc7d
Hero cbets $90, call
Turn Tc
Check check
River 7c
V leads $200, hero ???

Hand 6:

Hero opens to $20 w 88, call, spot 3!s to $60, call, call
Flop 678cc
Spot leads $200, hero ships about $700 effective, fold, spot calls w 83o... "put hero on clubs"
So that was nice...

Anyway, I feel as though I played most of these spots fairly well. Super annoying to get coolered in that AK hand $700 deep - I seem to lose all of these spots. No idea how I finished +VE for the night after that one... was so demoralising. I was about to leave tbh but then I realised there was a huge idiot on the table and that leaving would be a mistake. Stuck it out, he kept drinking, I played my A game, and I won the money back and some. Quite pleased.

That game broke shortly after I cleaned up old mate and we played 3 handed for about 50 minutes. I was offered a seat on the NLH/PLO rotation game, 2/5NLH/1/2PLO - the game plays stupidly big though and I was happy to book the win so I just left. Some action players in that game so it'd have been super +EV but when I'm on such a small roll, I wanna avoid playing PLO like the plague.

Went to the casino on my way home for just over an hour, won $185, decided I was too tired to stick around, went home.

Tomorrow will be a fun day. Our day off. I plan on sleeping in, going to the gym, deadlifts, then heading to the city to find a shirt to wear for tonight. Drinks with the boys at our favourite bar (which used to be a $100 uber away is now only a 20 minute walk!) before I head to a different 21st in an apartment somewhere with a bunch of models. That'll be super fun and then probably smash the clubs after that. Think I'll budget for $150 for drinks for the night and see how that lasts me. I could just get super smashed to pieces and spend more on alcohol but if I'm going to be putting the moves on these model girlies, I should probably stick to a modest $150 alcohol budget. Hopefully cop some free bevs at this apartment.

So ya shoot us some feedback on those hands fellas if you can... if anyone's desperate for results, let me know and I'll post em. Talk soon.

Full Results & Graph: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkK4doh8PHLEgk6pBpFJrgcokPKM

Pre looks good
Turn Pot = 410. Bet smaller like 175 and jam any river in case he has some spazz hand like JJ or QQ he can't fold or whatever.



Flop I would cbet people give you a lot of credit on these kind of boards. The BB puts pressure on the BTN's PPs and the BB is going to be wide anyway. I think this is almost a better spot to cbet than if it were HU OOP because of those combined facts. HU I would probably xc OOP. You don't need to go big. Vs

As played on the turn I would call. River not sure what the pot size here is but I'd never fold here.

gl on the penthouse grind!!

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