Hi everyone.

This is going to be my journal following my way back to playing nosebleeds. I've been playing mid/high-stakes for a few years. I can't remember when but I started playing $25/50 1 year ago or so. I've been doing fairly well untill recently. Around october or so I started going on a massive downswing, I started running reeaaaally bad at $25/50 and above. I haven't rly played much at $50/100 or above, but when I did I got absolutely destroyed. During the period of october to beginning of december I ran approx $150k below aiev. I started to be more game select harder and add more sites to get more and better games to chose from.

Fast forward to today, I've since december mainly played $/€5/10-10/20, with maybe a few thousand hands of 25/50 or so and a a fair ammount of 2/4-3/6 and 500 zoom to get in some more hands. I even played a fair ammount of $25/50 zoom which today seems a bit far away. Those games are very tough. Yesterday I had a $30k losing day, which was a wake up call for me. I'm going to move down in stakes from now on (2/4-5/10). I will play less 3handed / HU and focus more on bumhunting untill my confidence is back where it should be. I'm not sure when I plan to move back up to 10/20, could take a week or it could take a lifetime.

Another adjustment is that I'm going to start study harder off table. I'm not really a math guy so it's going to be a challenge. The idea of this journal / blog / whatever is to motivate myself (and others). I've been moving up and down so many times, so there's nothing new really. I'm confident I can do it but for the first time in my life I'm going to write about it as well. At the end of the year I want to look back at this journal and be proud of what I've accomplished.

I play a variety of sites and my screen names will remain anonymous in this thread, please respect that.

I'm new to writing, so please be nice.

I'll start off with the action with a ytd graph;



Next graph isn't going to be in BBs.

Sweet, will be following, GL

good luck will be following

Thanks boys!

Meh, wrote a post but it dissappeared somehow.. I'm truly a fish in these forums, maybe it's a heads up for me to stay away. I'll try to re-write this long post.

Just to make clear, when I'm saying someone does something bad I'm not really looking to berate anyone. I think some of the guys writing on 2+2 are a bit deluded and too rude vs opponents. I do respect guys that made a living playing 500z or above. So please fellas dont take it personally, I'm sure most of you are smart guys and you have good reasoning for your plays. Once I mentioned this I feel comfortable positing hands where some of you make absurd mistakes lol.

h1) Not that interesting hand vs russian reg (Well he's not rly russian but in my book russia = belarus = ukrainian because they seem to usually have a similair approach to the game.. Villain is one of these countries)

It's funny cuz russians almost seems to find call in the weirdest spots possibly. It would be interesting to see how that works out for them in pracctice. He tanked for a bit and folded. My play seems std to me so whatever.

PokerStars - $5 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): $651.51
SB: $1,480.83
BB: $507.50
UTG: $680.00
CO: $1,143.92

SB posts SB $2.50, BB posts BB $5.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $7.50) Hero has 5 7

fold, fold, Hero raises to $13.00, fold, BB raises to $50.00, Hero calls $37.00

Flop: ($102.50, 2 players) 3 T 4
BB bets $51.74, Hero calls $51.74

Turn: ($205.98, 2 players) A
BB checks, Hero bets $103.52, BB calls $103.52

River: ($413.02, 2 players) K
BB checks, Hero bets $446.25 and is all-in, fold

Hero wins $410.02



h2) vs teamrussia again, I got no clue why people do these stupid min 5bets, please enlighten me! Not very interesting situation in general.

PokerStars - $5 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $844.69
SB: $694.86
BB: $500.00
UTG: $1,559.83
Hero (CO): $507.50

SB posts SB $2.50, BB posts BB $5.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $7.50) Hero has K A

fold, Hero raises to $10.50, fold, SB raises to $45.00, fold, Hero raises to $115.00, SB raises to $195.00, Hero raises to $507.50 and is all-in, SB calls $312.50


h3) Everything is pretty std imo, his river size seems pretty bad. Unless he makes some weird assumptions that I wont jam/raise pretty aggro for value (and bluffs obv) his sizing should be pretty bad.. But once again I'm not a math guy so dont take my word for granted. But this seems like a pretty basic spot where it's obvious he should be polarised and bet big / check.. First time he elect to use this sizing I would assume he's more heavily weighted towards thin value that benefits from this sizing, so jamming seems like a cool play. Let me know what you think. If you have some kind of history it's obviously a different story.

PokerStars - $5 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $1,152.40
SB: $500.00
Hero (BB): $555.70
UTG: $215.82
MP: $1,193.17
CO: $393.40

SB posts SB $2.50, Hero posts BB $5.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $7.50) Hero has K 9

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to $15.00, Hero calls $10.00

Flop: ($30.00, 2 players) 7 5 9
SB bets $18.88, Hero calls $18.88

Turn: ($67.76, 2 players) A
SB bets $46.07, Hero calls $46.07

River: ($159.90, 2 players) 6
SB bets $51.78, Hero raises to $475.75 and is all-in, fold

Hero wins $260.46

h4) Preflop is probably a 3bet, fish in the big blind though and I wanted to give him the opportunity to chime in. Flop seems okay-ish block some strong bet/calls and I'll always have equity vs certain parts of his bet/calling range. When I turn eq I will ofc barrel, river seems like a easy jam given the fact that he rarely has Tx as played (So i can also jam my sets as played which i should have fairly often) I also have Tx here pretty often and it's hard for me to be bluffing. So just rip it lol, obv just pressing buttons and I've no clue what the f gto is in these spots.

PokerStars - $5 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $500.00
Hero (SB): $716.76
BB: $280.75
UTG: $479.63
MP: $507.50
CO: $579.70

Hero posts SB $2.50, BB posts BB $5.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $7.50) Hero has A J

fold, MP raises to $15.00, fold, fold, Hero calls $12.50, fold

Flop: ($35.00, 2 players) K 9 6
Hero checks, MP bets $18.29, Hero raises to $65.00, MP calls $46.71

Turn: ($165.00, 2 players) 8
Hero bets $95.00, MP calls $95.00

River: ($355.00, 2 players) 7
Hero bets $541.76 and is all-in, fold,



h5) vs reg, I struggle to understand his jam (lol blockers?!). I think it's fair to assume he is expecting me to be overfolding here (Or that my range cant handle pressure well on this runout maybe). He's repping a narrow range so he should be doing a better job counting his combos I think. This hand shouldn't be in his range unless his range is constructed in a fairly weeird way.

PokerStars - $5 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): $500.00
SB: $491.68
BB: $527.37
UTG: $2,128.54
MP: $1,289.37
CO: $773.06

SB posts SB $2.50, BB posts BB $5.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $7.50) Hero has A 8

fold, fold, CO raises to $11.05, Hero calls $11.05, fold, fold

Flop: ($29.60, 2 players) T 7 A
CO checks, Hero bets $21.93, CO raises to $75.92, Hero calls $53.99

Turn: ($181.44, 2 players) A
CO bets $112.96, Hero calls $112.96

River: ($407.36, 2 players) Q
CO bets $573.13 and is all-in, Hero calls $300.07 and is all-in

CO shows 9 7 (Two Pair, Aces and Sevens)
(Pre 41%, Flop 18%, Turn 0%)
Hero shows A 8 (Three of a Kind, Aces)
(Pre 59%, Flop 82%, Turn 100%)
Hero wins $1,004.50




I do talk hands with friends every now and then, but it could be fun to join some group or whatever on skype if you guys talk hands regularly (Just to get some fresh thoughts and share some opinions) . Not trying to be fancy but obv you have to be on a decent level for me to want to talk hands with you (like midstakes or above, just making it clear that I'm not going to join some group with a bunch of <nl100 regs spamming bad beats)

I'll try to post graphs once a week or so. Since starting this thread i've been doing pretty bad playing mainly $2/4-5/10 reg tables (and 500z obv) but also the rare $10/20-25/50.. No matter how much I want to reduce variance or how low my confidence is I'm simply not going to pass on a good spot at these stakes. Also it's always fun to mess around at these stakes because you can get in very interesting spots vs baron and all these bosses which I respect a lot.

I have only played two sessions since starting this thread, going pretty meh so far.. But I've been focusing on irl things. I'm very interested in personal development (which I might blog about later on the road). I do think however my edge is slightly bigger at midstakes than I initially thought. So I'm hoping produce some pretty sick graphs / winrates if I keep playing these stakes.

Feel free to berate me or share your thoughts about the hands above.

Best of luck! I'm so confused on h5, is he thinking you're capable of folding an a T or maybe even an A? I mean is he thinking, "I know my opponent knows I'm representing a narrow range. He knows I'm betting a monster or air. Since it's so narrow, and the way I played it, I'm not bluffing enough for him to call down because I know he knows."

I'm only a 1/3 - 2/5 live player, so please excuse the ignorance.

I dont play cash games but i will follow the blog. I really hope you will be in highstakes again. You said you are going to study off the table really hard. Do you imply you never studied off tables or you didnt put much effort into it?

h5

Bluffs blocking 7x seem to be a good option for x/r and barreling as villain. You 3b TT 100% in BTN vs CO I'm assuming so the best hands in your range is probably just ATs and 77. He also may think you 3b most of your AX pre in these positions which is generally true. I don't think it is as bad as it looks under the assumption you're not calling 100% of your AX otr. With regards to needing to be conscious of his combos I defo agree but if we're going to have bluffs on this runout I like blocking the 7 and no spades.

I play 200nl on american site if you wanted to talk strat or not jus pm me.

Nice start to the PGC, enjoyed the hands! GL, subbed

I dont think I'm expected to bet/call Tx at all vs a regular here. At least not very often. Also I'm not sure there is much leveling going on because villain mainly plays 500z (I think at least) and I haven't really played much 500z recently so he shouldnt expect to have some crazy reads.

Thanks for checking in, no that's not the case. I've studied a lot in the past, but for the last few months I haven't rly been studying much at all. I also do think I'm sort off in the lower spectrum when it comes in to put in hours into piosolver. I mainly studied in other ways which I think is more efficient. I plan to create some regular study habits for the upcoming two weeks or so at least where I'm going to get my hands dirty, instead of the rare check a spot in pio or discuss hands with friends or so.

He represents a narrow range and basically he doesn't have many value bets (I would assume? I dont expect to see him show up with AK/AQ a ton). I dont think you can build your range solely around blockers but I get your idea and it might make sense in some (many?) scenarios.

Thanks, gl with your grind and pgc as well!

Yeah I definitely agree he is repping a very narrow range. His value range would be AT, 77, TT, AA, and maybe a small fraction of AQ. Each of the these value combos is not going to have a full 100% weight, but if we were to say they had 100% weight and discounted your A blocker then he would have a value range of

AT: 6
77: 3
TT: 3
AA: 1
AQ: We'll just say 1 for now

This would be 14 combos. These would x/c at some freq and bet out at some freq + we have A blocker

That being said reasonable range then for value (otr) would be like

AT: 1-2 combo
77: 1-2 combo
TT: 1-2 combo
AQ: 1-2 combo

Something like 4-8 combos.

To make you indifferent to calling with AX type hands he'd want to have 30% bluffs or about 2-4 combos. This is lol-gto land, but he can easily think you're overfolding to this line (I'd tend to agree without any info jus based on experience).

Your range probably has heavily discounted TT/AXs+ and I'm not sure what strategy you're employing with a hand like AQ (which, depending on this, should make villain weary of barreling). But the truth is your best hands are the occasional ATs, 77, and some AJ/AXs. If villain were to assume you'd overfold flop/turn/riv I'd tend to agree, but its all based on some assumptions. If he thinks you NEVER fold AX otr it's almost certainly a bad bluff by him. His goal should be to fold out XXss and a decent amount of AX (because who bluffs like this?)

Can run a PIO sim of it tonight when i get off work, but wouldn't be surprised to see the OOP player play a hand like 87s/97s/76s this way as a bluff.

I ran the spot in PIO giving the OOP CO opener a range of about 29% RFI and the IP player on the BTN a cold call of about 10% with a lot of mixing/partial frequencies.

The set up I gave for PIO was the same for IP/OOP players:

flop: 33, 66
turn: 75, 210
river: 75, 210, all in

with the option to raise 54% in all spots (this is around 3x)

I solved down to 0.5% exploitability

the the OOP pfr checks flop around 80% of the time here.
When checked to, the IP player fires a bet around 40% of the time highly preferring the 2/3 psb sizing.
The OOP pfr then raises a small freq of AA, AK, AT, AQ, a decent frequency of TT/77 (about half-60%) and balances this mostly with a lot of low frequency 7xs hands:

87s ~33%
76s ~10%
97s ~33%
T7s (I guess this would be value/protection, but possibly turns into a bluff - 40%) edit: it is turned into a bluff ott/otr at a very low frequency -- possibly would go to 0 if I solved it out, but EVs were close
J7s (~15%)
Q7s (very low)
86ss (fd + sd)
J8ss (fd + sd)
QJss (low freq, fd + sd)


This is a total raise freq of ~7% (17.9 combos in my sim)
IP player defends a pretty legit range here at around 60%

Turn Ac

OOP player basically shuts down - c-betting again with only 26% of the time (4.2 combos), a mix of 77/TT/AT for value and again 97/87/86s/76s at some freq to balance. I think it makes sense to shut down a lot on basically any face card or spade as these are very good for IP range.

River Qc kind of plays itself, following through with mostly TT/77 and some 7x to balance. (lol 2.7 combos in my sim)

Should be noted that vs. the river shove the IP player folds all weak AX and even some AJ otr as well as some 77 (reverse blocker effect)

additional edit: should also note that IP player overfolds a bit on turn/river only defending about 1/2 his range on both.

-----------------------

That being said I'd say in conclusion the play itself is not bad at all and depends a lot on frequencies and how villain viewed you at the time.

Cool to see someone willing to u put in some work and share some numbers. I think people x/r a bit less for value here in general than you assumed (just from experience).. Otherwise results are somehow reasonable, my reasoning for calling is as I said and also as you mentioned that's very easy to be unbalanced here.

I was pretty tired today and didnt really have much energy to play a big/longer session. Messed around with some mtts and some 500z which went pretty well (500z that is obv, mtts never goes well lol)... Winning for 6.6 aievbb/100 at 500z for the year which is pretty cool. These games might be slightly softer than I initially thought for a while. Obv lots of fun to play zoom because you can play so many hands. I obv ran pretty well though.

Feeling pretty positive about poker for now. But we'll see how that goes. Hopefully I can find some momentum and get back into the zone.

Still haven't had any pms regarding talking hands or strat which is pretty dissapointing. I will start spamming down some friends on skype and force them to talk hands with me instead hehe.

h2) vs this tiny 5b sizing I think there might be more merit in flatting range
h3) stupid sizing when he has 0 8 in his range. not sure you want to jam though. not sure our 8s want to jam. probably 200$ is better
h4) "obv just pressing buttons and I've no clue what the f gto is in these spots." loool pure gold I can relate so much to this, and I think thats what all poker players are doing . I like your jam, yes we block hearts but we also block JTss, and will be very hard for him to defend his range properly. We can also jam sets/two pairs here and we have very few bluffs.
h5) I would guess he expects your botton flatting range to be pretty weak on the button and he blocks your greatest combo (77), however I dont think we will stab often on this board therefore his x/r is pretty ****. He should mosly x/f imo ! However, why do you decide to flat button here (fish in the blinds?)

Gl will be following.

Pretty surrealistic, logged onto stars around peak and noticed a $10/20 table with open seat on the fish left.. Felt like I was dreaming because it's just so strange. But realised like 5 hands in I wasnt dreaming, meh .. Pretty tilting since I've been trying to play mainly $3/6-5/10 and 500z. So many buy ins to make back everytime these things happens.

PokerStars - $20 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $1,970.00
Hero (SB): $2,000.00
BB: $2,000.00
UTG: $2,480.83
MP: $2,000.00
CO: $2,297.05

Hero posts SB $10.00, BB posts BB $20.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $30.00) Hero has K A

fold, fold, fold, BTN calls $20.00, Hero raises to $120.00, fold, BTN calls $100.00

Flop: ($260.00, 2 players) 7 A 9
Hero bets $185.46, BTN calls $185.46

Turn: ($630.92, 2 players) K
Hero bets $489.78, BTN calls $489.78

River: ($1,610.48, 2 players) 9
Hero bets $1,204.76 and is all-in, BTN calls $1,174.76 and is all-in

Hero shows K A (Two Pair, Aces and Kings)
(Pre 76%, Flop 92%, Turn 95%)
BTN shows K 9 (Full House, Nines full of Kings)
(Pre 24%, Flop 8%, Turn 5%)
BTN wins $3,957.00


It's kinda fun to see everyone batteling at $10/20 and $25/50 with this all-star thing. Time to get into the lab, step it up and take a part of it. I noticed both limitless and SinKarma run some kind of videoblog. Would recommend to watch both of them if you havent seen them. I think SinKarma solely speaks spanish though so might be hard for some to understand. So inspiring to see guys like LLinus just batteling like crazy lol. Looks like a lot of fun.

I decided I'm not going to post a graph untill I got some kind of good news. Just getting crushed everyday, I've been doing pretty well playing zoom though. I might even start playing some 200z, it's so soft lol. I think some of these better regulars might even be capable of winning for 7-8bb/100 which is pretty absurd given how many volume you get in. I only played a small sample this year myself, but so far 16bb/100 in aiev .. Obv running extremely well.

What is the all star thing? link to limitless?

I have no idea what it is, i read about it in NVG Hs thread, limitless has a facebook site called like "Limitless poker player" or something. Search and you shall find..

I als recently thought a lot how some people only run it once at stars. It feels like the people who does it never loses lol, I might have to switch strategy.

in

Had some coaching today with a friend of mine who used to coach me in the past. He's great with maths etc and way more systemathic than me. Since I had a period where I played pretty big (up to nosebleeds on stars) and I was playing 5k zoom, starting tables on other sites daily up to $10/20 / €10/20 I got a bit overconfident I think and stopped learning as much. I slipped in to some old patterns without realising. It's nice to have someone criticizing you.

I feel like my recent downswing was a bit justified and I'm very confident I can turn this around pretty fast. When I've won 20 buyins or so I think I will start table selectin worse again and play more of these tougher games. But we will see, I plan to keep grinding some theory / coaching etc for the upcoming weeks before scoop at least. Studying during scoop seems like a straight up bad idea since games will be great.

GLGL

You got PIO? Would recommend buying it if you haven't already.

update op?

Do you think you could you teach me?