Hey!

So as the title says, I'm aiming to grind for 20 days to get this bonus at Ongame.
I play 6max micros, mostly 20-30NL. Maybe putting some small volume in at 50 when theres lack of action otherwise and juicy games at 50.

About the quitting part, I've been grinding for small side income for over 3 years.
I think poker is taking way too much of my time compared to what I'm getting from it. I think its best for me to drop it completely for a period at least and focus fully on finding a job, real life etc.
Even though I've never been a high volume grinder, poker is taking huge amount of hours every day. Trying to learn the game, reading forums and all things around it.

So this would be the final strech before quitting. I'm not caring too much how I do, win/loss. I just want to put in quality volume. I mean of course I wanna do well, but not gonna sweat about the result over few hands.
From what I've calculated, I need around 1500-2000 hands or 35$ rake a day.
Might not sound like a high volume, but its more than what I'm used to playing. I'm 5-6 tabling mostly.
So thats one of the key reasons I made the thread, its to keep me motivated to play enough.
I just got Jared Tendlers new book yesterday, which is about mental stamina things, like playing high volume well and stuff. So this is also good timing to be reading that. I'll probably comment on the book here when I get to reading it.

I'll be posting hands here and whatever comes to mind!

First session of the month behind and it was eventful.

There was one guy who was probably the biggest whale I've seen the whole year. Had a good seat on him as well, one from the left.
Other than that I played one pot horribly, total spew 200bb deep. Very tilting when you mess up huge and lose the pot. Had a good mindset though, so it didnt effect me much.

Few hands vs. the whale:

He was playing almost every hand, overbetting ALOT and merging his ranges completely and hyper agro post. Pre he didnt raise much about 10% 2x and 80% limps.








Didnt know how bad he was yet at this point. Would definitely shove AQ here.
With my later infos would also ofcourse ship this hand as well.








I could raise the flop, but think calling is a little bit better vs. him.







Trying to play alot of pots vs. him.








Could be too strong to just flat flop to min, but think its close again. Would suck alot to get 3bet for example and ofc shutting down his air too much and random hands that hes just gonna bet 3 streets with. He never really bet min like many times in a row. If he had then I would definitely raise AT.

Played two sessions yesterday and raked 30$, so close enough to what I'm aiming for. Trying to do the same today. First session is done, probably gonna play two sessions of NL30.
Games have been awesome yesterday and today, I guess its because a lot of not so great players have gotten their RB and are able to play again for a while.

Had some interesting hands this time:







This is what I mean with awesome games.







The same guy. I have him playing 60/40, ridiculously agro and constantly getting it in super light. Looking to shove most rivers, but hearts I wouldnt.
Would be very annoying if he shoved river, which I thought is gonna happen often. Hes just so likely to bet completely merged. I think I would still fold.
With a set I would go for check call or like A6s, but not sure. Maybe just valueshove those and check call hands a little bit weaker like this. If he indeed is betting soo merged on the river, like alot of Ax and pocket pairs etc.
Maybe I should do some work on a spot like this, to see around what is reasonable with different assumptions.







Ok/good winning reg, playing 24/21. Interesting to see him barrel off here. Pretty sure most regs have close to non excisting bluffrange here on the river.








23/17 reg. 4bet is 4/8. I was torn between 5bet shove and calling. If he had sized bigger, then this is probably a spot where I would have gotten AQs in pre.
At the flop, I think I want to be sometimes calling a small c-bet with AQ and sometimes folding it, probably calling more often than folding.
Seemed kinda weird to me, that he didnt bet any street with JTs. Guess its fine though.







Same guy. Not sure about the turn check here. When I check, I'm just not gonna fold river, especially to half pot.
At first I thought his bluff with 77 is really silly, but it just doesnt beat anything, so its what ever I guess. All about the frequencies, not so much the hand.
Probably a good spot to exploit certain players anyway. I probably dont end up calling enough here either, to make him not able to bluff with any2. Even though I try to play more theoreticly sound these days, which probably almost noone tries to do at these stakes. Maybe for a good reason, but thats a totally whole new topic.








Both opponents are fishes that I didnt have many hands on at all.
JJ is probably the threshold hand that I want to get in here.







A weaker reg and we had quite agro dynamics at this point.
This is just a hand that I want to bluff here. Theres so few bluffhands I can have on the river, that I felt its absolutely mandatory to bluff this.

Kinda ridiculous session, lost -6,5bi. Played around 2k hands.
Should have quited like 1h before I did. Broke even for the last hour, but was playing my c-game at best.































































Some winning hands I thought were cool:

Annoying that you can't see villains hand when he mucks.

Out of curiosity, would you mind checking HEM to see how much you're paying rake in bb/100 at Ongame?

Yup, one of the specialties at ongame. But you can find it out from the ingame HH tool. I try to look at it every time, but sometimes theres too much action or you just forget.

NL30 8bb/100
NL20 10bb/100

I play fairly "normal" 24/20 or so. Also filtered all HU out of those numbers.
Dont have enough hands from NL50, its probably something like 0,5-1bb/100 less than in NL30.

Time to update again!

I think I've played pretty poorly this last week or so. My play really suffers when I force myself to grind when I dont really want to.
Whats been positive lately is that I've ran pretty well in my latest sessions.
Also that I've put some time to improve my game outside of the tables. Looking at my ranges and figuring out different gameplans etc. I think I've gotten decent enough, where I can efficiently work on my game this way.
Started by looking at my early position play vs. 3bets from different positions. Then also looking at some different wide range LP spots and flops, how I hit them, and how wide I should try to defend them. If I need to change my preflop ranges as well etc.
Kinda noticed how its not enough that you defend well preflop for example, if you then have a leak where you fold too much on most flops, while people are gonna c-bet wide mostly. Same ofc goes for turns and rivers.
I've basicly tried to remove alot of leveling and focusing on stats and reads to more theoreticly sound gameplay. Perfect case is when I know the spot pretty well in theory and then also adjust my ranges according to reads/stats of the opponent, but usually nothing too drastic.
The changes I've made to my game seem to be working atleast decently.
I've got so much to improve on my theory knowlidge too, but even if I'm sometimes messing up big, it still doesnt seem to work out too badly overall.

Also a bit ahead of shedule on the grind, which is nice.
I'm kinda planning to return to the game at some point or play really small volume even after I'm finished with Ongame. Maybe quitting poker was a bit too radical wording to the topic, but I'm definitely going on a hiatus playwise for a while.
Still planning to follow the poker scene a bit and I so have to order Matthew Jandas new book, since that looks super interesting to me.

Ten more days, gogogogo me!

First losing session in a while. Month has been really swingy, also because I've varied stakes alot. Its not a big deal, I just wanna make sure, if I run really bad at NL50 for example, that I quit before like even 5bi DS.
I think my play was ok. Ran bad in small pots, w$sd being 41% for 1,6k hands.







Ongame legend MUMMY!







Regular. I think hes really capped here and I have a really wide range that I can shove for value.
I think his range is mostly 65 (probably offsuits too, near 50% btn open), 75s, 55 and hopefully few bluffs. Im guessing he shouldnt really raise those hands, because they wont be strong enough on many runouts, hearts, bd flushes and straight cards all seem bad for him. I'm gonna have plenty of nut combos to CR with bluffs while he can just puke.
Hands I would bluff here are smth like this and now after more thinking 56s could be a hand I want to just put in my bluff cr range. Probably opponent dependant if it can be called and then busted highcard club hands.
I was first thinking 88 and then 99 (if I call them on the turn) would be good, but I probably just end up blocking bunch of his turn bluffs and hes almost never gonna show up with 98 anyway.







This I felt was fairly standard. I'm probably folding 88 on the turn and should raise with all of my 99 combos as bluff on this river. I should have most / all sets after a flop like this. I would even call 44 pre since BB happened to be a big fish. Its not something I realized ingame though. I would normally have 66 and TT anyway.
Sizing is kinda huge though, probably should just make it around 3/4 pot?







Regular again. I would go 3 streets pretty much no matter what here. Knowing my self I probably turn up with too little bluffs on the river frequently. While I usually just go bet bet bet with QQ+. I should start occasionally bluffing this turn with random hands and giving up with most of them on the river. And then 3 barrel mostly my bd flush hands. Probably slightly less optimal than random hands, since I wouldnt block his bd club flouts, but soo much easier to get around optimal ratios this way..








Regular. I'm assuming this is good occasionally. I should probably pay alot of attention to my reads on opponent, dynamics and use that as a big factor in when I bluff here.
About his play, seems fine to check QJ on the turn. If I was in his shoes with Qx, I would aim to play a mixed strategy vs. regs. Dunno about ratios though!
If you dont you open a door to be exploited hard.

Smallish losing day today as well. I'm still incredibly tilted, even when I only lost few buyins.

Played NL50 again on my 2nd session of the day.
Kinda sucks to loose alot of flips and such when its a notch higher, sweating the allin runouts more than normal.
I was playing the last hours very tilted and pretty badly. At the end I had so little focus and messed up some spots, that I finally decided that its a must to quit.
I even flamed few regs on chat, which I very very rarely do. Obviously a fishy thing to do and if I'm doing that, I'm always playing poorly as well.







34/24, incredible agro monkey post. Pots 3 streets TPWK and such. Lots of donking and raising and then never giving up the aggression.







40/28 fish, didnt seem completely terrible. Steal from btn 59% over 29 trials.
Could raise a straight in the future in a similar spot, after seeing him 3/4 pot river with top2.
I'm pretty certain he shouldnt vbet a hand weaker than a straight. Bunch of straights in my range and his.







Such a tilt play vs. the same villain! Dynamic was such that I thought hes likely to have many bluffs. He was chatting and whining about running bad and I had just 3bet him like 2-3 times in a small amount and he folded to all.
Dont like showing vs. this villain since he might 4bet call really merged.
Fold >> call >>>> shove or smth.
Flop play I'm not so sure. I dont really know a spot like this well. I assume this cant be terrible. Kinda same thing as preflop.
Fistpumping super hard after he tank folded. Had to even show the hand to tilt him and also to show the rest of the table the spewy precall.







Regular with good looking stats. Such a horrible spew. Even fish dont usually pull out plays this bad tbh.

Then just some useless beats and crying hands:







Both regs, obv a fold to the shove, but guess he tiltcalled me.
Bestest runout after seeing flop...







3betting the 40/28 fish and cold4bettor is a reg. Very standard, but again sweating the runout hard and loosing on the river.







Reg who I view being bad. Plays weirds stacks. I think plays 35bb most often.







Reasonably playing reg again. Weird precall, but not nessecarily bad.







22/13, postflop biggest station of all time. Had some other just as ridiculous calls from him too.
Noted to never ever bluff this guy.







3betting vs. a reg. Coldcaller was unknown fish at this point.
I like the way I played the hand. I would have been fine with calling the river.
But I'm kinda unsure of what to think of this whole hand.

The play is already over! I'm glad!

The goal was to have quality sessions. I cant say I did that. In fact I played quite a bit worse than last month.
Oh the pressure of playing little over 4h a day. I know, I'm so weak when it comes to the grind.
Well today I played like 3k hands and raked 100$ and was playing well untill my last session of the three.

I guess I dont have much to say about this challenge. I need to work on my mental stamina, tilt and such when/if I come back to poker.

I'll finish the thread off with couple of hh's from today.
Adios and maybe I'll be back later with new goals & challenges. For now its poker out of my mind!!







22/18 regular. I had been 3betting him a ton so far. Could easily 5bet shove as well, but I kinda think flatting has many merits in this case.
Postflop I think is really standard. 55, hmm ok..







24/18 regular. Seems he really didnt want to fold turn with that hand, lol.
I would classify his turn play as spew.
I guess he has good blockers, I wouldnt overbet any flush and now cant have the nutflush and with the 4 I only have 1 combo of 44, not 3. Still I think he shouldnt shove anything. He could go, call, call on many runouts, I dont think that would be bad with his hand.







18/15, tight regular over 400 hands. On the flop, I just tried to think how I can get the max value from this player. When he shoves I think QQ is probably the most likely hand or like AsQs AsKs maybe and then 22 ofc. I'm definitely discounting 22 when he flats 3x SB v MP and has very low call open stats (7% overall and 5% from both blinds).







Very agro and in my opinion spewy 24/19 regular.
Hes been raising my c-bets a ton, especially on dry flops and I've just folded, since I havent had the cards to play back.
Bets turn after a long tank.
River seems hard to get called, but obviously shoving and he did call with AsJs. Dont really like his play at all. Too weak to bet turn I think. Also I would never raise that hand on the flop here, I would think its somewhat bad. Good enough to probably call on the flop vs. me. Also AJ is probably close to his nut 2 overs, since he 3bets a ridiculous amount from the blinds, but maybe not when he still calls AJs instead of 3betting.







A weaker regular again, 27/22 6% 3bet over 500 hands. BTN is a reg as well.
Dunno whats up with his sizing.
Didnt really see a reason to bet turn. River, lol call, top of the range.
He manages to show up with T9s, for value?? I'm confused.







24/19 regular.
I didnt have big sample, but I had thought hes 4betting maybe too wide as bluff. Not because of stats, but also observation, stats also backed this with small sample. Also I had checked his PTR and hes a good winner over large sample.
Again, I think flatting 4bets in a spot like this should probably be optimal. Provided that I play well postflop. I'm not sure, but this is a new thing that I've started to do in my game, to try it out at least. Few months ago I would have always jammed, which is ofc atleast reasonable, no doubt. Most of the time when I can flat these 4bets in spots like this, its also so that shoving would be +ev. Hoping flatting is more +ev!
Postflop is not very interesting. I dont see anything else being good.







Tightish regular, but good winner over half a million sample. Calls BB wide in this spot.
Cant see my self folding a hand this strong again. But I guess in this spot I have a jack a huge amount of the time with some bluffs. Anyway it was kinda hard to give villain credit for going for CR with a value hand, or just with a balanced range.
Hand like AJ, if I bet it on the flop, is probably an easy fold then, since I block some of his overcard flouts. Since I dont want to be always calling with a Jx hand here, atleast from theory point.






50/27 aggro fish. Somewhat close on the river I would think. With a king I would always snap.