Hi Guys,

I am a mid-stakes HUSNG grinder. I occasionally play NLHU cash and PLO 6m/HU cash as well, along with some live cash and MTTs. Since this is my first thread on PG&C forum, I thought I'd tell a bit more than this about myself, but it's gonna be a tl; dr story and I'll reserve it for later.

To give you an idea of how clueless I was though, I'm quoting my 1st posting on 2+2 below:

Result oriented much, huh? I really like the "I was dealt pocket aces but was not too happy, bad jinx" part. And for the sake of comparison, below are my recent ss and PT4 graph:






So yeah, as you can see, I started off as a complete donk and managed to improve a bit, finally making some profit these days. I have consistently working on my game from many aspects, and although I'm pretty sure it still needs a lot more work, I am very much enjoying the process. I have always loved this game and the challenges it poses to me, and eager to improve and create more edge so that I can make the best decision as often as possible at the tables.

I am a graduate student now, and will have earned a PhD in 2014 if things go well. And after some hesitation and deliberation, I decided to become a full-time poker player after my graduation, rather than jumping into the field that is relevant to my major. However, at the same time, I don't think this is something I would enjoy doing for the rest of my life, nor do I expect poker to be as profitable for that much longer. For this reason, I came to set the following goal:

- Make $2M in the next 5 years.

Right now I can expect to make about 10K every month (and ~120K every year), so 2M in 5 years is quite a bit of stretch. I should be able to play a lot more once I graduate and go full-time, plus I will be moving up stakes too, both of which would hopefully increase my hourly and overall profit.. but still, this is a very ambitious goal. However, this is one thing I am good at: aiming high and pushing myself toward it. So here it goes.

I'm going for 2m profit in 5 years, but will settle for 1.5m as well. Most likely, I might have to break this into yearly (and monthly) goals, so I expect this thread to be lasting quite long. For now HUSNG's are my bread and butter, but I am planning on gradually transitioning into other games such as NLHU cash, PLO (6m/HU) and live cash/MTT, and we will see how that goes. At any rate, my goal is to make 2m from playing poker of any form, including rakeback. I know this is gonna be a bumpy, lengthy road with some crazy amount of swing, but hopefully I can enjoy the sojourn and see myself getting there.

I have a small poker blog (http://www.triplemerge.com) and will cross-post a part of my postings ITT on my blog as well, so interested readers are welcome to visit there and subscribe to it. I would think my blog postings tend to be a bit more lengthy, if not tl; dr, but I will try to keep this thread interesting as well, by posting some hands, graphs, stories, etc. And if you have any question, comments or anything, please feel free to post ITT and I will try my best to respond to them.

Alright, I'm sailing out -- wish me a luck, guys!

- mela

So you are up $1.2M since you started? I think you got what it takes to reach your goal

bet of luck man, will sure be following!

That's chips buddy but agreed with statement :-)

GL mate! Nice read. All the best with your goals. You don't mention your SN - will you be sharing that or is it private for now?

Weeeeee, I'm looking forward to this, I've always enjoyed your posts in the HUSNG forum. Gl with you goals.

Looking forward to it, best of luck & auto 5*

Haha no, I wish I were. Those are in chips, not in dollars. Thanks though!

Thanks man, I'll try to keep it worth following!

Yeah indeed, too bad 1.2M chips != $1.2M. But thanks, I'll try my best.

Thanks man. Yeah, for a number of reasons I decided not to share my SN yet. This might change in the future though.

I think I recognise you from the HUSNG forum as well, and glad to hear you liked my postings. Thanks a lot!

Thanks man, stay tuned =)

Hi Guys,

Right now I am at my gf's place and taking a short break from poker - I have achieved my April goal last weekend and decided to take a few days off. I thought it's about time, plus I just finished reading TMGP2 and that's what the author suggested as well.

Anyway, I will get back to grinding tomorrow. And in the meantime, I have set the May goal, which goes as following:

- play 2k to 2.5k HUSNG's (1k hypers and 1-1.5k non hypers, minimum of 500 games at 200+)
- play 10k+ PLO hands and take shots at 200+
- 10-13k profit
- stick to a grinding schedule/routine, and balance it well with my school stuff. I have not been very good at this, so I might have to figure out the best time for grinding through some trial and error during the first week
- take a few days off. take two days off before my presentation on 8th, and the whole time when my gf is around.

This is the first short-term goal I set ITT, so I'm really excited about it. I'll keep you updated on the process!

- mela

GL !! YEAH ~

Good luck Mela!

Will be an interesting thread.

Looks like an interesting thread in the making, will be following. glgl

get rid of gf and allow more time to crush imo.

yeah def one of the best posters in husng sub forum and great poker mind in general.

i'm sure u'll do great and reach 2M if only games will stay juicy enough to acomplish that

gl!

Thanks man, you guys inspire me a lot. Good luck to you too!

Thanks Chris And hit me up for those vids, I'll look into them.

Gl to you too man, thanks for following.

Sick advice, haha

My gf means a lot to me so I don't think I can do that though. I'll keep "more time to crush" part in mind though.

Thanks for your encouraging words man, yeah I hope games don't dry up during my challenge.

Day 1

So today I came back home and grinded 150 games..

Oh well, that was the plan, and I wish I could say that. But I somehow got stuck at school until late, and after coming back home I spent a few hours playing some friendly PLO and NL HU matches with my friend. As a result, I ended up playing only 25 games or so, and dumped a lot of BI's in those HU matches too.

I know 2+2 loves graphs, but posting daily graphs doesn't seem a very good idea, so I'll skip that for now. A few interesting (yet standard) hands instead:

1) $100 turbo

t25/t50 Blinds - 2 players

Hero (BTN/SB): t2110 42.20 BBs
BB: t1890 37.80 BBs

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is BTN/SB with J 8
Hero raises to t100, BB raises to t250, Hero calls t150

Flop: (t500) 5 Q 9 (2 players)
BB bets t225, Hero calls t225

Turn: (t950) Q (2 players)
BB bets t300, Hero raises to t1635 all in, BB folds

2) $60 hyper

t10/t20 Blinds - 2 players

Hero (BB): t550 27.50 BBs
BTN/SB: t450 22.50 BBs

Pre Flop: (t30) Hero is BB with 7 K
BTN/SB raises to t40, Hero calls t20

Flop: (t80) 2 8 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

Turn: (t80) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t36, Hero calls t36

River: (t152) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t104, Hero calls t104



3) Home game, $10 NLHU
$0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 2 players

Hero (BB): $10.25
BTN/SB: $76.77

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is BB with 7 Q
BTN/SB raises to $0.20, Hero raises to $0.80, BTN/SB raises to $2.10, Hero raises to $10.25 all in, BTN/SB says "geez", BTN/SB says "im really not sure whether this was a cool idea", Hero says "hmm, curious", BTN/SB says "i dont know enough about deepstack maybe this is slowroll ", BTN/SB says "but im calling", BTN/SB calls $8.15

Flop: ($20.50) K 8 7 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: ($20.50) 5 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($20.50) 8 (2 players - 1 is all in)
Hero says "haha"


BTN took like 20 sec before calling my shove btw, and it wasn't even meant to be a slowroll. :P

Anyway, this is my Day 1 update. I made ~$300 today, which is kinda meh but I was a huge volume fish and can't complain much. I'll try to put in some more volume from tomorrow, and post some graphs in a few days.

Just for the record:
+300 in May, 12.7k more to go (and 1999.7k more to go until 2018, geez)
25/2500 games

- mela

Ahh just saw this. GL man! Seriously sick long term goal, I'm jealous of your dedication. No doubt you can do it though , I'll be following for sure.

btw your post made me look and see if I was as much of a fish...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...48&postcount=1

lol

can u give few words of explanation to the 1st hand? do u need special read that someone is 3betting quite a bit and barreling post or u can shove over barrel in such spot even readless? aren't u a bit sceptical about his range being too strong for ur move to work out if he barrels such a bad barrel card? maybe the case is this is not a hyper and spr makes it harder for people to hero call us here with A high

Thanks man! We haven't talked in a while, so hit me up on Skype some time.

As for the hand - lol indeed, although I still think mine is worse. Sorry you lost that hand

He was 3betting quite a bit (but not terribly so) and was barreling happy in many spots, including 3b pots. On the other hand, my flatting range on this flop mostly contains a ton of draws and 9x, I think I'd raise most Qx and won't float with no equity very much because he will simply barrel too often on most turn cards.

Now the thing is, all straight draws but JT are gutters. So if I raise FD on the flop very often, my turn initial range is gonna be 9x and weak draws for the most part. However, we're still a bit too deep for me to jam a lot of FD on the flop, so I'll have a decent amount of them in my turn initial range. For that reason, I thought he's gonna bet bigger than t300 with Qx, KK+ and TT-JJ, sometimes even A9 type of hands because I have less Qx combo now. I mean, I don't hate his sizing with that range and it might have some inducing effects as well, but I just thought he would have bet bigger. Sorry I can't explain it very well, it was more of in-game and match flow thing.

That said, his range seemed to contain a lot of draws himself that he wants to set the price himself and (very likely) shoving most rivers. I thought he could be doing this with AJ type of hands as well, because some people just don't like to c/f A high when the turn pairs the board, but at the same time they don't wanna put in too many chips. So if I had a draw as strong as KJ I wouldn't have minded a call, with the intention of calling it off on brick rivers, but J8 was a bit too weak (I can't beat most draws at SD) so I decided to go with my reads and take a shot here.

Two things that occurred to me immediately after the hand:

- Small raise on the flop might have been a better option (I considered this in game but wasn't too confident)
- I could make this play because most people's range isn't well balanced; in this case, his weak bet sizing seemed to indicate more of weakness than strength. Against very good regulars, though, I can totally see myself taking another route, for example folding on turn.

And as for your questions:

- Well it's hard to tell, but I don't think I'll make the same play very often when I'm readless.
- I don't think his range is all that strong on the turn, for the reasons mentioned above.
- Q on the turn isn't really a bad barrel card, but yeah you're right, I think people hero call with A high in this spot way less often than in hypers.

I hope it made sense, and thanks for your posting

Speaking of a LOL hand, here's one from my game today ($100 turbo):

BB: t2000 100 BBs
Hero (BTN/SB): t2000 100 BBs

Pre Flop: (t30) Hero is BTN/SB with A A
Hero raises to t40, BB calls t20

Flop: (t80) 5 8 9 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t60, BB raises to t1960 all in, Hero lol'd

good point about his sizing, ty for comprehensive reply

First of all glglgl!
Id like to continue a bit on 1st hand, cause for the reasons you stated villain's range indeed seems weak, but can you rep enough valuehands that take this line? And if not, is this an important consideration?

Sure thing, hope it helped.

Thanks Malah. I'm still thinking we have way too similar SN's.

You brought up a good point, and tbh I don't think I can rep enough value hands if he's a good hand reader. Some slowplayed Qx, strong 9x and that's pretty much it, and I can also be jamming some draws just like I did in game. However, for him to be betting small/calling with hands like KJ he would need to be very confident of his read, and I didn't think that's a very likely scenario. I think there is some psychology behind it too, i.e. when they bet small with draw and get jammed over, they are frustrated that the plan didn't work out and just fold, instead of analysing my range in depth.

Of course I could be wrong here and sometimes I'll run into Qx or PP's that he won't fold, but that's what I thought in game.

Seems like very good point, and i have the feeling it points to some leak of mine as well.
Thanks for your reply.

@Malah: Sure thing, I hope it helped.

Day 3 (Don't ask me why Day 2 is missing, I'm too lazy to update this daily)

Unlike the Day 1, I could put in some volume in the last 2 days. I started both days with a huge downer morning session, which wasn't quite fun. But it's probably a good thing it happened this early, because it was bound to happen at some point anyway and I had to learn how to deal with it.. so why not learn it earlier, right?

Luckily enough, I could turn things around after putting in some volume. As a matter of fact, I have been working on my mental game since last week, and that really, really helped me turn things around. Basically I am focusing on fixing my C-game, and trying my best not to play those C-games when I'm on a downer saved me a LOT of money. Much credit goes to TMGP/TMGP2, and if you haven't read them yet, I highly recommend these books. They are surely very rewarding, and you will enjoy the process.

A few hands:

1) $100 turbo

t25/t50 Blinds - 2 players

Hero (BB): t1725 34.50 BBs
BTN/SB: t2275 45.50 BBs

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is BB with J Q
BTN/SB raises to t100, Hero calls t50

Flop: (t200) 5 K 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t100, Hero raises to t225, BTN/SB calls t125

Turn: (t650) K (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

River: (t650) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t400, Hero calls t400



2) $100 turbo, 0.1% outered

t25/t50 Blinds - 2 players

Hero (BTN/SB): t2145 42.90 BBs
BB: t1855 37.10 BBs

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is BTN/SB with K 9
Hero raises to t100, BB calls t50

Flop: (t200) 4 9 9 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t100, BB raises to t300, Hero calls t200

Turn: (t800) 4 (2 players)
BB bets t400, Hero calls t400

River: (t1600) 4 (2 players)
BB bets t1055 all in, Hero calls t1055

Final Pot: t3710
Hero mucks K 9
BB shows 5 4 (FOUR_OF_A_KIND FOUR)
BB wins t3710

It happens, I guess. This is not my first time either



3) $1/1 PLO HU

Hero (BTN/SB): $245.40
BB: $101.40

BB posts a big blind ($1)

Pre Flop: ($2.00) Hero is BTN/SB with Q T K 8
Hero raises to $3, BB raises to $9, Hero calls $6

Flop: ($18.00) 9 6 7 (2 players)
BB bets $14, Hero raises to $35, BB raises to $92.40 all in, Hero calls $57.40

Turn: ($202.80) 2 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($202.80) T (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $202.80
Hero shows Q T K 8 (STRAIGHT TEN)
BB shows J 8 J 9 (STRAIGHT JACK)
BB wins $201.80
(Rake: $1.00)

Eh, whatever. I don't really hate his play, guess it's kind of standard.

Things to do:

- Study the regs' game that I rematch very often
- Try not to lose focus when 6+ tabling

And here is the graph so far:



For the record:
~+600 in May
254/2500 games

Thanks for reading this, guys. I hope you all have a great weekend!

- mela