Yes, I like bet/fold better than check/call. Eq + FEq is always better than only Eq

A8s is facing a 62.7% pot turn raise and therefore needs 27.8% equity to call (though a bit more depending on rake). A8s has about 28.8% equity against a villain who never bluffs (I gave them a somewhat logical worst case range of JJ, TT, QJs, QTs, K9s and 98s). So I think call is fine and probably slightly better than fold, but it's very close.

Maybe A8s is a better hand to C/R bluff than bet if it's in a tough spot vs a B/R? Or maybe you should just overbet jam the turn since you have the nut advantage (QQ, AK) and V has lots of decent hands

I think the advice about studying GTO solutions is good. Specifically, I would use a GTO trainer to grind spots and then look at the solutions of surprising hands that you encounter. I think my river intuition has improved the most (compared to any other street) from my limited use of a online GTO trainer. But IMO it's good to grind many spots (i.e get a subscription), if possible.

Hours: 320.5
Profit: £1203.37

Hit the 1200 bones milestone but I'm +50 hours over at the same point on my previous challenge :O So I'm overdue a monster heater now (pretty sure that's how maths works) and not too far away from NL50 (moving up at £1295), let's goooo!

Also paid for a month of RIO to watch some training vids this month, games are still pretty soft after Christmas so will probably keep playing while studying.


Yeah I need to start using GTO wizard daily really, thanks for the advice!

Good news: Online poker is alive a well at NL20

Bad news: I cannot pull off a win at a table of dead-money players to save my life atm

I'm off to watch a RIO video, too tilted!

Hours: 328.5
Profit: £1282.49

6 bucks fiddy away from moving up to NL50 after a few nice sessions this week, hopefully going to reach that milestone in tonight's session.

Bring it on poker gods, do your worst!

Absolute battle...which I lost unfortunately so I'm still piddling about at NL20 for the time being. Feel like I pulled off a small £12 loss where I should have lost a lot more.

What are your thoughts on this call down vs a solid reg? I was very close to folding flop because of the insanely large CB:



...and this fold vs another solid reg?:



...I should probably have table selected better in hindsight The regs were to my right though.

I'm not a super expert, but I'll throw in my two cents. In the first hand, I don't see many hands you beat on the river except for AT. However, you lose to sets, overpairs, and trips of fives. The opponent is betting a lot, indicating a willingness to put the entire stack on the river.

I would consider raising on the flop to protect the vulnerable hand and gain insight into my position. If faced with high aggression afterward, I might contemplate folding.

I think his EP 3B stat was something like 6-8%, so yeah doubt there's many triple barrels with AK/AQ. I feel even regs would be cautious with ATo oop and mb check back some rivers.

I'm not a fan of 'raise to see where you are' on such a dry flop vs big CB as Im never doing this with a set, feels exploitable. Leaning towards just a fold river as maybe 1% of the pool has the cojones to blast off 3 brls with air oop.

NL50 reached, woohoo!!

Hours: 331
Profit: £1290.84



Hand of the match, this leveling-spewoff vs a solid reg:

Shot take at NL50, did not go well...



Stayed tilt-less and managed to claw back around $80 by the end of the session

Still pretty chuffed to be back at NL50 so not too bummed. Plan is to drop down if I go below £516 so still got quite a few NL50 bullets.

The session was mostly pure cold-decks but this hand I knew I butchered at the time:



Checked wizard and was really surprised that the BB has no 3Bets with 22-TT, and very few JJ even, vs EP raises!!

The ways of GTO are mysterious

Hours: 335.5
Profit: £1,322.76

Managed to pull off a few well-timed winning NL50 sessions, absolutely spewed one hand levelling myself:

VILLAIN was sat to my left on 3 tables 3 betting me relentlessly from all positions, showed up with Q5s in a SBvBTN battle. 3B stat was 16% but was 19-20% from blinds.

After about 30mins of this what are you guys doing with AJ SBvBB? What's the game plan, cos you gotta put up a stand at some point right?

Against this opponent, I would prefer a 4-bet-shoving strategy.
Something like this for SB vs BB 3bet 20%:



Your 4bet with AJ is okay, but it's a fold vs 5bet.

Took a hammering last night at NL50, wish me luck for tonight's session!

Thanks slyless, so 4B and calling 5B-jams with JJ+ AQs+?

Hours: 339
Profit: £1110.76

This kinda BS just wont end...

Yes

Hours: 340
Profit: £1116.05

Been a bit ill this week and not wanting the stress of playing such as large chunk of my BR so just played a bit of micro PLO this week for fun. Also decided to drop my stakes back to NL20 as of next week.

What's the standard BR management tactic for dropping back down stakes?

My usual approach is to drop when I reach 30bi of the previous stake, the pros of this are more hands at higher stakes can build the bankroll quicker and still low ROR if you can commit to always dropping stakes, the cons, you can quite easily dump half your bankroll if you go on a 10+ bi downswing which is quite stressful.

Would be interested to know if there's a standard approach.

It isn't easy to find a standard approach to BRM.

Some people like a conservative approach, others an aggressive one.

When you are confident in your game and looking to move up the limits as quickly as possible, an aggressive BRM such as a 20BI top limit and a 2BI stop loss can be effective.
It is easy for us to psychologically take a step back because we are confident that we will easily recover the 2 lost buy-ins and will soon make a new shot.

When we reach the target limit, we switch to a conservative BRM to withstand long-term downswings without having to go down to a lower limit.


In any case, no matter what BRM you define for yourself, the main thing in it is:

1. Every responsible player should have one.
2. Every responsible player must strictly follow it.

Hours: 342
Profit: £1076.05

First day back and just got cold-decked and outdrawn for 2 hours straight at NL20. Plenty of fish at the table but I couldn't have rigged the deck better myself to wreck me for 2 buy-ins.

Managed to enjoy 1 hand at least though against a tough reg:

[B]Hours: 346[B]
Profit: £1036.05

Insanely bad session dumping over 6 buy-ins, starting to get very cold-feet considering I'm losing over a 25k hand sample against pretty soft competition at NL20. Big dump at NL50 recently but weird to go from crushing these stakes to such a bad stretch:



I feel the need to tilt off some buy-ins to break up the mundaneness of grinding cash games to no end, so going to chuck £100 on Unibet and play some $10 spin and gos.

Wish me luck!

Played 8, min-prized every game and bust out of all but one in absurd fashion, standard.

Well atleast I didn't dick it on slots so that's an improvement!

Played the rest of the 100 bucks to go out like a champ and I can honestly say I've never lost 10 buy-ins so quickly getting it in a favourite each time

Gonna call it a day on this challenge, sucks to not reach my goal but breaking-even so long at NL20 is not a great sign of things to come.

Final result:

Hours: 351
Profit: £953.66

Final giraffe:



Sayonara!

Everything will be fine!