Yeah I've recently dabbled at 100nl and I don't find it much different to 50, would echo your comments really. Race you to 200? :P

Yeah, there seem to be a lot of guys who used to break even at 200/100 and are now doing it at 100/50. Makin' dat rakeback money I guess.

When people breakeven for a long time I guess they assume the natural response is to move down; whereas obviously they should be trying to improve. I'm kinda rolled for 200nl, so could really try anytime if games are super-good, but doubt I will just yet. I feel like I'm improving rapidly at the moment and quite excited about it. Too drunk to play now unfortunately Do you play on Stars? If so PM me screenname

Pretty ridiculous day, played OK but couldn't really get anything going and got coolered quite a few times. Still, happy to book a small win in the end and keep the momentum going, and very happy that I didn't feel tilted in the slightest. That's the most important thing. Will post a few hands momentarily. Going to hit it it hard tomorrow night when the tables should be much better than tonight. The first half is 50nl and the second half is 100nl.



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Over small sample villain is playing 29/19 and has 3 bet quite a few times. When he flats the 4 bet and donks a huge bet it just doesn't seem a credible way to play any value hand. I call to keep his bluffs in. The turn is pretty irrelevant considering I doubt he ever plays a Q like this - although it means he's unlikely to have anything he can call a shove with. The only way to get paid I think is to bet very small and hope he spazzes out. Which works out rather well really.



Villain has only played a couple of hands, one of which he shipped KQs over my 4 bet. Fair to say he's splashy. When I bet the river I expected him to bluff here a ton, so it's a trivially easy call. It's not the worse bluff, because my hand looks exactly like the bare A diamonds (because I check back this flop most often with A high). However, for this reason I'd consider calling here with A high, especially since we block the nut flush and have a blocker to JJ. He reps very little, except for perhaps 1010 that he played kinda weird.



Villain plays 17/15 and 3 bets 8 %. I raise the flop for three reasons. Firstly, even though he has a ton of air I don't expect him to barrel this board much. Secondly, I'm very interested at the moment in seeing how people react to raises on these sorts of board and what sort of range they're shoving. Thirdly, it's the sort of board where I rep so little that I do expect him to do weird stuff.

He snap shoves, which is obviously awful, but there we go.

love the thread...keep it up

Lol wooooooooow. PM sent btw.

Thank you sir; have no fear, I will be continuing.

Bizarrely I've got quite a few PMs these days; for the people who sent me one please be patient as I will get through them at some point. Going to play a session now. Good luck everybody

Poor day yesterday, played really well at times, a bunch of coolers, and spewed off a few buyins making absurd call downs. Will post some hands later as I think quite a few interesting spots came up. Played about half 50nl and half 100nl. I'm playing much better at 100nl right now and having better results. The problem is that when I play 50nl I get into an 'experimentation' mindset, which sort of gives me license to do weird/stupid stuff. I'm playing hyper aggro at 50nl, 3 betting 15% or so and bluff raising an absolute ton; it's actually working pretty well - if I can keep the aggressive up but NOT call down too light then my results will really improve.

Learning a lot, need to really concentrate and put this knowledge to use in a disciplined way.



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Just played a much better session where I controlled the aggression a lot better. Playing 50nl just because games aren't exactly at their best at this time of day. Will dig out some hands in a minute.



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Weird hand: PFR is a reg, don't have many hands on him, button is playing 35/22 and pretty aggro. I've made one note on him: he called two streets IP against me, and when I checked on the flush card he bet one quarter pot and showed a flush. This turned out to be an important note

Pre is marginal but OK I think to try to play pots with the fish. Turn is really weird because the regs' range is pretty narrow here: maybe 98s, maybe nut flush draw. Don't think I can do anything but call. River is pretty interesting; my default would be to fold, but notes FTW.



Been playing HU with villain for a while and he's losing pretty badly. Plays 20/18 overall, but he's pretty bad, can't really see he's anything but a losing player. Calls down absurdly light and spazzes out every now and then. There's not too much to say up to the river- pretty standard. Even though there's very little he can call with I think betting the river is good, because it give him a chance to bluff and this villain might randomly call with K high or something. Think I could actually bet a little smaller. Obviously it's a snap call given reads when he check raises, because he reps nothing - it's a bad spot to check raise for value as he should expect me to check back hands like that one that I have, which is a lot of my range.



This one's pretty standard I think: don't have many hands on villain but he's currently 23/18, stats look pretty standard. Great barrel cards and it's a good spot to empty the clip. If we had history and he thought I was aggressive it becomes a little tougher because he's likely to call the flop with A high a lot.

This is sort of a lame spot: villain is 21/20, 3 betting 7% or so. Small sample so positional stats kind of useless. 4 betting is pretty standard as a default against this player type. On this kind of board post-flop is always going to be a weird spot; I don't really expect him to have anything much, but it's going to be hard to get the money in good. I go for the old 'oh look I've given up- oh no I haven't' line but I can see arguments for other lines. I'm never in terrible shape so it can't be too bad.



Made a big mistake on the river here. Villain is 27/23, 3 betting at least 8% or so like basically everyone at 100nl. Pre is marginal, but I'm not planning on folding every time I miss... 4 betting could be better with this hand, it's close I think. A10s would be call, A6s a 4 bet or fold, so... meh, it's close. Flop is something I've been experimenting with a lot, with a lot of success against certain villains. On the turn I just check back because I don't think he folds much (any?) of his range, planning to rep spades or give up. If I was bluffing spades obviously I would bet big, but as it is I go for a thin value bet - it's hopelessly thin and a big mistake. Need to check back on this board.

Greetings & Salutations,

I know not whether I will play later, but while I have a moment I will summarise the month of November. Monetary results, followed by the graph, concluding with some thoughts on the month as a whole. The numbers might seem slightly inflated because of the milestone bonus, but I think this is an easier way of counting it rather than the alternative (working out how much I earned towards it every month).

Winnings at the tables: $3464.92
VPPs: 28,899 = 101,146 FPPs = $1600 (approx, assuming I buy $4000 bonus)
200,000 VPPs bonus = $2600

Total monthly winnings: $7664.92

Hours played: 118. Hourly rate = $64.9



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Positives

I played less hands this month, but spent a lot more time studying and thinking about my game, so I'm not disappointed with that. The main difference in my results from last month was certainly that I ran closer to EV, but I nonetheless feel I made some good progress, particularly in the following areas:

- I played 13k hands at 100nl, winning about $1280. I'm happy that I'm +EV in these games and will be playing them whenever the games look OK.
- My HU play is improving all the time. I made just under $900 this month in 7300 hands, which is more then 10ptbb, although obviously a very small sample, and I did run slightly over EV in these hands. I'd like to put in some more work on this part of my game and continue to improve.
- I studied more this month and made some valuable additions to my game. I I feel like I have a better understanding of the right situations to be aggressive and put pressure on my opponents. Before I've been too worried about raising in spots where I don't rep a whole lot, and haven't thought enough about when my villain's range is very weak and it will be very difficult for him to combat aggression.
- Overall I'm reasonably happy with a decent monthly profit, though I have aspirations towards bigger and better things. I didn't tilt much, and felt in control most of the time, though there is still work to be done in this area.

Reflections

- Overall I feel like there's still too much 'grinding' and not enough improving. In particular, I'm going to cut down (again) on how many tables I'm playing. If you asked top high stakes players what the single biggest leak of most small stakes players is, I'm sure most would say playing too many tables and not focusing on improving. I'm a caricature of this.

I can't resist a good table if I see it, and I need to pay a lot more attention to managing the number of tables I'm playing. At the levels I'm currently playing most regs are very poor, let alone the fish, and I need to be paying more careful attention to all the ways to exploit them. Cutting a few tables would have the short-term effect of boosting my winrate, so it's unlikely my hourly would suffer, and the significant long-term effect of dramatically improving my overall game.

I feel like I started to think about poker in some new ways this month, and have opened up some important lines of thought that I must think through. It is now imperative that I fully realise the potential of my game, rather than oppressing it under the burden of too many tables and too many automated decisions. December will inevitably be a busy month, but I will endeavour to study the game and improve exponentially. I don't plan to play poker forever, and there's no point wasting time being a mediocre 'grinder.' Go hard or go home.

The very best of luck to everyone for the coming month.

good work!

sick work!

^^ Thanks. Just checked the distribution of hands I 3 bet this month; might want to clean up my 3 betting range a bit



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