tyty. yeah also all of the stimuli is a bit dumbed down i find during the week which could be considered a good/bad thing depending how you look at it

Just got 11th in hot 27, had a pretty big chip lead and then spewed (at least i think it was spew), then got sucked out a few times, then opened bluffs and got 3 bet by some aggro monkey, then opened AA KK and everyone snap folds etc etc

I guess I wanted to make a small post because I'm tilted and want to feel better about it. Yeah, running insanely bad, but feel like im a bit over ambitious in some spots when deep and its costing me a lot. Running bad sucks but it's not playing my best/giving my best effort that bothers me the most.

-A garbage man deals with smelly garbage
-A doctor deals with having to bear the bad news to people (and heaps of schooling)
-A Walmart employee has to stock shelves and deal with rude customers
-A Walmart wizard has to deal with negative variance and swings

-It's part of the game, it's part of the job. This is the profession that I've chosen and being a professional means dealing with all of the brutal **** in this game with the same amount of dignity had in my most successful moments.

Anyways let's talk about the hand that frustrates me the most:

https://www.boomplayer.com/22464857_38737CD0E6
Villain is like 13/9 brazillian weak reg, this is only over a 100 hand sample though so probably close to irrelevant.
Preflop: I like my decision here to limp/call. Good to include some Ax in limp/calling range and also villains will barrel A high flops an absurd amount in general. This seems superior to all of the other options, but I could be wrong. Maybe there is more merit to limp raising or open raising.
Flop: fine
Turn: seems fine. I won't be betting this turn with any part of my range very often in general. Calling is good to keep in worse hands etc
River: Complete disaster imo. First of all I block a lot of Ax which would probably bet flop to begin with. I think having the Ac is a pretty irrelevant blocker here. He is never folding any flush. This was near FT bubble and I guess I just had it in my head that his sizing was pretty weak and he was just betting for thin value. Felt like I can rep tonnes of strong hands here like flushes/straights/boats

I at least felt a little bit better that he used all of his time bank, leading me to believe he will be bet/folding sometimes here. Given his sizing imo he's never bluffing, but felt I could make him lay down w/e he had that uses this sizing.

Anyways, I've been feeling pretty off this week idk why. Gonna take til monday or tuesday off and go to Montreal and visit some friends etc... need to regather my focus before I buckle down and put in some serious work. Sometimes taking a little breather from poker has helped me gain some perspective etc.

Sorry for the rant haha, I won't be grinding this weekend so one of you maf'ks better ship the TCOOP main for me!!!


Here's a good track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As_cvwAMYi4

**** happens man. If there is a place to vent when your tilted, your PG&C thread is EASILY the best place to do so.

This made me smile after reading it. Any job is going to have downsides regardless, even if you're a professional athlete (imagine the amount of stress, having to deal with the media, traveling etc.), it's just how we deal and adapt with it that makes us successful, you'll def be fine.

Regarding the A2o hand, it's definitely a disaster on pretty much every street. Against a Brazilian running 13/9, limp/calling A2o here pre is terrible imo. Our hand flops ****ty and even if an ace does his the flop, a nitty player is going to have a high % of Ax in their preflop iso-raising range so we can easily own ourselves when an ace flops. Limp raising >>>>> limp calling all day here if you want to make a move.

As weak as it sounds, turn is a fold in my opinion. We just beat so, so little and our opponent has a made hand that beats us close to 100% of the time when he checks the flop and then bets out the turn. Our only real equity at this point is chop outs.

River is just a x/f imo, this river card is absolutely terrible for villain, when he fires at it, I'm sensing danger and strength. Leading this river would have been a much better play than x/jamming. Doubt villain bets anything worse than full houses otr and your only value hands here are like Q9 when you x/jam as I assume you raise the rest preflop.

Enjoy the time off poker and come back stronger once you get back, you'll be OI this within the next 24hrs, guaranteed.

Turn should never be a fold for that size. Pre debatable, river rather spewy

mikey boy that river shove <3

gotta run it sometimes i guess, just find weak nit brazilians will have it alot and they wont fold trips to that action :P. enjoy the weekend off from the grind talk soon <3

Thanks for the responses boys. Didnt bring comp with me for this little vacay and too tilting on phone. Ill get back to yall on monday, have a good weekend!

It's 3:32 A.M
I drove for 8 hours today and returned home around 9 P.M, eyes barely open.
I was supposed to take the whole weekend off.
Couldn't help it but flick in a couple nightly tourneys after regaining some motivation.
FT bubbled the big 27
That leaves me here, 3/8 on FT of BB 44 and writing this post:

What's up brothers? As I mentioned before I've taken the last few days off (until tonight) to visit some friends in Sherbrooke, QC (my old University town). It was an ok weekend and I'm really feeling a spark of motivation that I was lacking in the last few weeks. (2x9 hour drives gives me a lot of reflection/thought time.) Was interesting to reflect back on my years there and some of the successes/failures/demons/life lessons/people etc etc.

Progress Report:

Health:

Workouts Completed this week: (6/6)
Times leaving diet guidelines: 0
20 Minute Meditation Session: 3/7
Books Read: 0/1
Body Weight +/-: -7 lbs. (since beginning of year)

Wealth:

Training Videos Watched: 1/1
Hours in the lab: 1/2
Sessions played: 3/4
Hours put into researching new avenues of revenue generation: 1
Weekly Proft: 0a931ae8d7b9ccd5f22fd4996a9e925b
-539, although i just cashed for about 1500 in BB 44...so prob about +1k on the week
Yearly Profit: https://gyazo.com/8ceba226db3822196a9688f734bf6dc4
so probably -200 or so on the year.


Live Poker Profit This Year: +795

Overall: I'm very happy with my fitness/nutrition results this week. That was my primary focus this week and absolutely mandatory to put in a solid performance. This week gonna try to keep that rolling+sling a tonne of volume online. Have really been slacking this year in terms of volume and I'm feeling very fresh for the first time this year. In terms of weekly book I really dropped the ball here. Was super busy on vacation and with other stuff...will fix that this week.

Story of leaving comfort zone: Not too cool of a story at all haha. Basically, just went out of my way to start conversations with random people a couple times that I normally would not have...and then extend those conversations outside of small talk. Actually went relatively well and even on a convo to convo basis I could feel my skills/confidence coming back to me. Next week should be an interesting one though. A friend and I heard of an exercise that involves walking around a crowded street mindlessly clapping. I guess the idea is to get you indifferent to what people think about you, like when you feel like a complete idiot and realize people don't really give a ****. Probably gonna be harder to do than it sounds, but I look forward to telling y'all my experiences next Sunday!

Hands: I'll just post a few from my short session tonight...

https://www.boomplayer.com/22511847_3D10D98061
villain played like 60% of hands and was on my table for almost 200 hands. at one point i think he had 250k stack @ bb 900...i had been pretty tight and he was getting way out of line with opens, and wasnt playing back much. normally i wouldnt 3 bet this loose but given reads i think its ok, dont think he has a reason to jam on me light. my question is what should my flop play be? Bet big, bet small, check? I can think of merits for all options. Hate using a big sizing and getting jammed on and not sure if his flop range is inelastic or elastic?

https://www.boomplayer.com/22511743_94A2E14521
villain is loose russian. i find these spots super tricky especially when he sizes this way on flop. idk if we can fold k7o vs super loose guy pre, but vs flop sizing its like puke cuz wont showdown very much against a worse hand imo, but we also have TP 2TK on flop feels gross to c/f.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22511527_1811FF9FA0
weird spot. i guess when i defend c/s is only viable option really. just doesnt feel great haha

https://www.boomplayer.com/22512074_15A9BE3365
got em ma

https://www.boomplayer.com/22511301_70913FF52A
thoughts?

https://www.boomplayer.com/22512055_B51BF31CFE
had some reads+he would prob go for bounty if he had value imo

Random rant of the week: Actually gonna take a cop out here as I'm super tired and focusing on this FT. Gonna post something from the book I read last week.

The Scorpion and the Frog

A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the
scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The
frog asks, "How do I know you won't sting me?" The scorpion
says, "Because if I do, I will die too."

The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream,
the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of
paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown,
but has just enough time to gasp "Why?"

Replies the scorpion: "Its my nature..."

I'll leave you guys to interpret it how you want...

It's 4:55 A.M
I grinded for 9 hours tonight and I can't keep my eyes open
I was supposed to take the whole weekend off.
I just took 3rd in the BB 44 for ~1300$
That leaves me here, wrapping up this post...loving the process maybe even more than the prize.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." -Barack Obama

Thanks for reading, Mike.

FT bubble for heaps. wp sir, whine over.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22524742_C8EE0D2238

on a side note please understand that my flop re raise is only to entice the biggest of droolers almost certainly would be flatting raise vs most

Came back fighting today and put in a very well focused session with a few deep runs. FT bubbled the Big 55 unfortunately with this hand:
https://www.boomplayer.com/22537852_7D4EA41FAF
I don't see what I can do differently here really. Last orbit I opened exact same stack depths and positions etc with 109s and same villain flatted. I'll have a few r/f here so I think inducing is prob most +EV. Pretty sick runout, I think checking is best on flop? Thoughts of his bet on the flop? seems pretty weak to me idk.

Here's a few other hands:
https://www.boomplayer.com/22534334_E0A203932D
was gonna call down on a lot of river cards vs this villain. although i think blocking a lot of his bluffs with Q kinda sucks. idk if good or not.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22533754_DCA6800E80
vs villain who will prob defend close to 95%. something ive been working on is playing against the BB with diff raise sizings. my open pre is prob bad. trying to be relentless with barrels though against weak defense ranges.

https://www.boomplayer.com/22532642_1E27BCF400
booty horny

https://www.boomplayer.com/22532233_1B67A73B7A
thoughts?

Anyways, let me know what y'all think for those hands if you got any opinions

As my drunken self promised to me I need to go out on Tuesdays. It's Tuesday and I don't really feel like it...but gotta push my limits.

Cheers

subbed glgl

QQ - I'm open shoving my entire range here. We have just 12bb so making a std open off this stack just looks hella nutted. Though, it is just my personal preference to almost never make a standard raise off 12bb in MP. Flop is just gross, I think we are stuck x/f. Turn is an easy shove as villain will only bet rivers with hands that beat us. Without looking at results I'm gonna say villain had AA or KK here

EDIT: (puke)

Q5s - Preflop and flop are fine, turn is a fold imo. I'm tempted to shove this river to blow villain off of Ax knowing we have very few bluffs when shoving.

65o - If villain is defending that high of a % I'm folding pre. Flop sizing should be smaller (like 1/3rd pot) since he's gonna fold if he doesn't have a King, Queen, or something like JT. Turn shove looks good.

86s - Nh

KTs - I'm going for a x/r on this flop and don't like your flop sizing, would go 1/2 pot. Turn is yuck, but I think we have to jam with so much equity + you probably do this will all 2pr's, sets, overpairs.

QQ- Yeah I guess jamming might be better here. QQ is certainly the bottom of my inducing range here as I won't have many raise folds (although i do balance my opens here). last orbit i opened in same spot off same stack size and same villain flatted me (he was very loose and going after me for some reason it seemed, so i think AA is pretty unlikely, although vs most regs i would say they are weighted towards AA KK for sure, and i dont think they balance that much.)

Q5-yeah i agree. i just find people are over bluffing these boards (specifically on this turn they will barrel heaps). i can find a better bluff catcher though imo that doesnt block his bluffs+I will prob have almost all the Ax in my range (which he prob doesnt expect)

65o- agree, im a spew monkey and my line is pretty bad here haha

KT- im actually gonna run some calcs on this hand and run it by a few others. im really not sure the best way to play this OOP. i think u might be right about x/r.

tyvm for ur thoughts sir i appreciate dat

Here's a couple good videos I stumbled upon while my session was winding down:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc_WhhecuGI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH0_8HqyH7g

Thought maybe at least someone will find something helpful

Hi guys,

Just want to make a quick update as I'm feeling a little bit down about things atm. Moreover, letting myself down and failing at some of the goals that were the most important to me at the beginning of the year. Mainly nutrition and fitness. I'm definitely taking Friday-Sunday off of poker to refocus myself, and possibly longer. There is times when I feel like I'm obsessed with the game and it gives me such an easy outlet to lock myself into long sessions. Moreover, it's easy to forget about the stuff at my deepest importance when I can swamp my mind with multi-tabling where I don't have the capacity to think of anything other than poker. I guess it's kind of a blessing and a curse...

Alright, I got that off my chest. Waking up early tomorrow and making a good quality breakfast and a high intensity workout. No more excuses, no more BS!

PS: Falcons or Pats this weekend?

To answer my above question: The Patriots. Instinctively I felt the Pats were the best team in this game and the experience Mr. Brady has in deep runs/his track record should have been very telling. Unfortunately, I took Atlanta. It was only for a small amount of $ but that was more tilting losing that bet than any poker hand has ever done to me lol. FWIW Atlanta looked dominant the whole first half, and throwing on 3rd and 2 there when they had huge lead seemed absolutely nonsensical. Although, I'm no football expert.

Anyways, what's up my brothers? Time to make a little post after the first month of the year/the first week of the second have come to their conclusion. Here's the facts and results thus far:

Health:

Workouts Completed this week: (3/6)
Times leaving diet guidelines: 3
20 Minute Meditation Session: 5/7
Books Read: 0/1
Body Weight +/-: -6 lbs. (since beginning of year)

Wealth:

Training Videos Watched: 1/1
Hours in the lab: 0/2
Sessions played: 2/4
Hours put into researching new avenues of revenue generation: 1
Weekly Proft: +1228 https://gyazo.com/3afdf65b364f2721839702920117048f
Yearly Profit: -1647 https://gyazo.com/abfedfed72ce8b4dc628f952f5e451a8
Live Poker Profit This Year: +2095

Overall: I know I have so much more in the tank. I'm somewhat happy with a few of the progressions that I've made thus far. I can do better. I will do better.

Story of leaving comfort zone: On Tuesday night I went out with my friend as usual to a local bar. I really didn't want to go out in the slightest but forced myself to. Was very difficult to feel in the mood to enjoy myself/be social. Basically never reached that point and we were pretty disappointed with ourselves as a whole afterwards. It was 3:30 A.M. and we were parked in a random lot, elaborating on our positives/negatives of the night. We wanted to do something so that we could feel better about the night. I know this is going to sound completely maniacal but: we got out of the car and started yelling and screaming as loud as we could. It was really weird/spontaneous but it was quite exhilarating to just go all out. I couldn't even do it at first.

Anyways, was feeling quite depressed all week and really wanted to boost my state. Saturday a bunch of friends came over and we went for dinner/went bowling/went out to the bars after and had an amazing time. For some reason I was just in a euphoric state that evening and I chatted with a lot of random people and felt completely free of outcome. Was more outside of my own head than usual and I see that as some really good progression. I know it will sound pretty stupid to a lot of people/easy to do but we all have our own difficulties and triumphs

I am meeting with my mentor this Thursday and I have a lot of work/reading to prepare before I meet with him. Therefore, going to use this week as a personal development week/time away from poker. Probably going to ban myself until Sunday so that I don't have any temptations.

Hands: Feeling pretty burnt out and don't really feel like talking about poker atm

Random Rant of the Week: I guess I was inspired to write about this when I was watching Tai Lopez (say what you want about "here in my garage" jokes etc). He was saying about how he saw in the news that the 10 richest people in the world have more money than the combined bottom 50% of the world (3.5B ish). He talked about how "The Hustle Mentality" is flawed. Hustle alone didn't separate 10 people from 3.5B, there was so many other factors. If hustle was all that mattered, there wouldn't be people working 3 jobs struggling to put food on the table. There would be a complete correlation between hard work and results. It is important to work hard at times...but working smart is the key. Allotting your time/effort to the appropriate tasks at the right times/to the right people at the right times.

So that brings me to a topic that I thought the most about this week: This system is broken, and it's almost destined to be broken, why only a few can succeed. (These are just my thoughts by the way, could be completely wrong).

Due to societal pressures and teachings we are raised to act/behave/be a certain way. When we grow up we're told that we need to work our asses off in school so that we can eventually go to University/College and get a job. From there: we go to University, meet a soul mate, marry them, buy a home, have kids, raise the kids, and teach the kids to live that same story. Why? Because that's what we're told is a success. If we breach that bubble of socially acceptable we're judged, ridiculed, and labeled by others. When we breach that bubble, we also put ourselves into a land of the unknown, a path less traveled. As humans, we HATE discomfort and uncertainty, but that path of uncertainty, is where our growth and peak is found. Check out this TED Talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBvHI1awWaI

I guess it's important to understand: 1) what we want out of life 2) how to get it 3) putting the plan into action. I think it's very easy to get stuck at number one, and be convinced by external forces to want unnecessary things. Number 2 is also a common sticking point. So easy to be deluded about the path to reach our goals. For example if you asked a lot of people they would say the path to success is what I wrote about above: go to Uni, get a job, etc. Then you will have 2 weeks vacation a year and enough money to support your family. Yeah, you will have to hustle at your job and you might hate it, but that's what a good person does, right? Number 3 is the toughest part, for obvious reasons, I won't elaborate.

So why can't we all crush it in life? Well I could list things off for hours but I'll start with a few reasons:
-We can't all crush it. The way the world is mapped out atm, we need people working low end jobs for low wages. Thus, the rich get richer off the backs of low end workers.
-Humans are a degenerative species by nature. We like what feels good NOW. By nature we usually neglect our future states for temporary comfort. For example eating greasy/sugary food feels good in the moment, but leads to our future unhappiness.
-Much like in poker, to achieve wealth, it must be taken from someone else. Big companies often exploit our degenerate tendencies. We're exposed to millions of advertisements and beliefs that trigger our inner degen.
-CocaCola ads teach kids from a young age that this product will help them feel good and happy. They buy into this subconscious belief and buy the product. They drink the product and become addicted to an extent, become diabetic, have hormone problems, get diagnosed with ADHD, big name pharmaceutical companies sell them drugs to put a bandaid over their problems. Profit ensues.
-We would need global co-operation, which will never happen, because this would mean some people would have to give up a lot of their possessions.

Anyways, everyday I'm trying my best to march to the beat of my own drum, and make the best decisions that I can. It's so difficult and so often I'm finding my discipline sucks and I give in to that inner degen instinct all too often. Have been improving a lot but the 180 degree turnaround has been more difficult than originally expected.

Thanks for the love so far guys. If you are still awake after that ramble I'm surprised I'm enjoying updating this thread once a week and it's helping me hold myself accountable. I'd be ecstatic even if it just helped out one or two more guys as a bonus! I want to look back at this one day and laugh/reminisce on this journey...


"There are no shortcuts to building a team each season. You build the foundation brick by brick." -Bill Belichick

wasn't supposed to be playing the pokerz this week but couldnt help but flick in a few nightlys 2nd in 82 turbo and now 5 handed in 109 monday 6 max should be a fun ft lets get'em!

As I sit around forever waiting to make a deal I'll post a couple hands:

https://www.boomplayer.com/22627905_3E3D63BF4E
dat turn tho

https://www.boomplayer.com/22627430_62BBE424DC
villain was a barreling psycho and i was mildly tilted

https://www.boomplayer.com/22627410_A797AADD0B
what should my sizing be with top set here? so annoying he cant just have a smaller set


https://www.boomplayer.com/22626913_832E669507
this is horrible right?


Would love to hear thoughts!

AJs - Definitely checking the flop. Turn I'm going like 120k. River easy shove, nh

JTs - Probably 3bet this pre. Flop is fine, turn shove is a bit of a disaster, I prefer folding here as even a barrelling monkey probably doesn't do this with air.

99 - I go 1/2 pot but that is just my standard, if you usually go this sizing with overpairs/draws on this texture then it's fine. Not what we were hoping he had

A9s - Can possibly shove pre vs most opponents. River call is pretty loose, I'm sighfolding and if he's good enough to do this as a bluff, wp him.

Congrats on the $109 6-max and $82 turbo score(s)!

Tyvm sir! Feels nice to get the year into the green

Enjoy your non poker related updates a lot! Very honest and relatable. Keep it up with the self reflection/improvement, because I think it's the way to live a fulfilling life. You need to face your fears and problems to truly feel happy, wise people from books say (don't claim to be so wise myself ) Good luck on and off the tables!

Hand 1: Not a good flop to cbet into 2 people with. Don't have any BDFD's which makes it worse. As played seems good. Like turn/river sizing.

Hand 2: turn shove seems a bit like a punt. as played I'd just prefer the ol' xf on turn. I think if we're gonna take an aggressive line it should be raising the flop. 3betting or flatting pre is fine with me. Depends on reads/gameflow and stuff.

Hand 3: I feel like a 40-50% cbet does the same effective thing. We won't have much trouble getting stacks in triple barreling, so we don't need to size up bigger to achieve that. I think if we have like 55 or 77 that sizing is more ideal, since he has more top pairs in his ranges to continue. But when he have 99 here we're relying on him to be a hero with 7x or 5x a lot.

Hand 4: Yeah I'm not calling a shove. It doesn't make sense, but you'd have to figure if he was trying to bluff at any point, he wouldn't probably wait to the river to shove you. q22 is a pretty solid board to barrel and expect folds. It's definitely one of those spots you sit there stunned and go "k what the **** is this supposed to be" and then sigh fold.

Thanks for the kind words sir. I 100% agree, it's just a lot harder to do than it sounds I read something along the lines of the things that are to our greatest importance/benefit to us we will usually be the most resistant to do those things. I've definitely found that true for myself. Glad to hear you are enjoying!

2: yeah I agree lol. was pretty fed up having that aggro monkey to my left for 3 hours so just randomly decided to run it.

3: yeah i agree that a smaller sizing might be best here. there is not a lot of times I will want to use a small sizing on this board. I think i will have a mix of checking and betting on the larger side. That being said i think betting
larger we might lose some value against a lot of hands that can't call or jam profitably...mostly because we block most of the top pair combos as you said.

4: imo this was a bad line by him and i suck for paying him off. in game i had a lot of tables up and should have thought about this more. hes literally repping the most nut range and likely never bluffing like this. in game i figured he could have been trying to force me off a chop, which it really isnt even a huge deal if i fold for the chop anyways...not to mention this was ft vs a bad nit reg hahah

Feeling a little bored/empty so I'll make a quick post before bed to feel productive

Didn't grind that much this week as I focused on some non-poker related stuff. Mainly, preparing some stuff to talk about with my mentor whom I meet with about once per month. The meeting was Thursday and I was supposed to have read a 500 page book before the meeting Around Wednesday @ noon I started my treacherous quest...to my surprise, I finished the book. Turns out the kid can still cram out mass workloads even though he's not in uni anymore

Overall, it was a pretty productive week and it feels nice to put energy into something that isn't poker related. Starting to feel pretty optimistic for whenever the time comes that I leave this game behind.

On another note, I highly recommend mentors. It's not something that I've really ever put much focus into having in life. However, if you choose your mentor(s) correctly, they will:
-have succeeded in something you want to succeed in
-made mistakes that they can prevent you from duplicating
-provide feedback and guidance to expedite your path to success
-help you hold yourself accountable

That's just a few things but guaranteed there are a lot more benefits. So far, I have my life/wealth mentor, just need to get a mentor for poker and fitness/nutrition.

I think it would be a good thing for me to give back a little bit and it would be cool to help someone else out. So, gonna put out the offer that first guy to hit me up I will try to help mentor them once a month with poker lifestyle related stuff (or whatever else). I'm definitely no wise monk/model citizen but I could definitely listen and provide some solid help! So yeah, first guy that wants gets it

Here's a few hands:

https://www.boomplayer.com/22684372_3C9DB48F29
ft bubble urghh, took an exploitative route, possibly bad, but his line cant be much better

https://www.boomplayer.com/22684347_FCAF75C5BB
sometimes ya gotta put the cape on, sometimes it fits...sometimes it doesnt

https://www.boomplayer.com/22683760_73AA5FFFE6
exploit fold vs a recreational player. prob bad right? idk i just usually never get shown
a bluff in these spots and always get shown the D

https://www.boomplayer.com/22683590_848E04B52A
oops

Thanks for readin boys. Will make standard Sunday post after my sesh on Sunday. Day off + hockey tomorrow night. GLGL this weekend lets get em!!!

1st?

yup! will pm shortly