So, I'm doing a spew review of my online session where I lost 6.5k. Turns out the session was less than 700 hands.

Here's a hand:

Preflop: Button opens, SB fish folds, I 3bet QTs in the BB, he calls (there is merit to flatting pre of course, we have no history, in these games I tend to prefer a 3bet here).

Flop: QJ7ss I have no backdoor flushdraw. I elect to x/c. (cbet has merit and might be better, I feel like KQ is a bet and AJ is a x/c so QT is kind of in the middle for me)

Turn: 5o brings no backdoor draws, I x/c again (he is betting roughly 2/3)

River 3o I check he shoves I decide to call. I'm near top of range for taking a x/c down line and there are a lot of draws that could have missed.

I need 28% on the river to call. Here's a range I gave him:



This has him shoving all the AQ/77/55/QJ/KQs combos, half the KQ (since some people don't value shove it on the river there with no history) and half the JJ (since some 4bet pre), and then all the combos of KTs/T9s and 5 combos of missed flush draws as bluffs. He probably doesn't always triple barrel with all the KTs/T9s, but he also might 4bet AQ or not stab flop with 55 or check back a KQ on some street somewhere, and I'm not including any random spaz hands that just start firing or only a handful of whiffed flush draws, so I guess it's a reasonable range. This gives me 30% equity. Fold might be slightly better with no history though, as this bluffing range assumes a fairly aggressive opponent, and there is a fair chance the guy is much more conservative than this, so I think upon review I like a call vs an aggro-ish looking reg and vs a nitty/passive looking type it's an easy fold and vs an unknown reg it's probably just flip a coin.

I lost a stack in a spot I squeezed KTo pre against a fish where it might have been too thin of a squeeze (thought maybe not), and the board came K73,7,7 and he stacked me with J7s. I played it a little funky post trying to induce since he was seemed possibly spazzy, so I'm not really sure how to quantify the amount of EV I spewed in this hand. I'm just going to call it -$100.

I had another hand where I squeezed AQo, cbet the flop oop, checked the turn, and stabbed a bit over half pot at a river card that completed a draw. I think it's OK, since a lot of regs interpret bet/check/bet as non-bluffy and I could have been going for a turn x/r or just elected not to barrel a draw on the turn. He snapped having rivered a kind of random set with a pocket pair that peeled flop. I think the spot is OK, since he is going to have a fair amount of marginal pairs and fold them somewhat often in this spot, although possibly the bluff isn't great (it was $350 bet so maybe -$100 of spew EV at the most).

Another hand UTG opens BTN flats (unknown possibly kind of loose over 15-20 hands) I call 87s in the big blind. Flop A64r I have a bdoor flushdraw UTG cbets BTN calls I elect to x/r bluff (which I think is OK here), UTG folds and BTN calls very quickly. I felt like his timing made it a bit less likely he had a set, but who knows. Turn is a Q and I think I might be better off just giving up here, but I fired 2/3 and he called quick again, and the way river stacks are set up I only have a 30% pot bet left on the river so I just give up and he checks behind with A5. I knew river stacks were going to be weird with my sizing on the turn, but I felt a normal/large bet there would be my best chance of folding him off an Ax hand, which is what I thought most of his range was. He did turn out to be fairly loose, so I think trying to make him fold top pair is a bit reckless and of my $370 turn bet probably something like another -$100 or -$150 spew EV (he's going to fold sometimes and I have a draw to the nuts and always stack him if I bink and so it's not too terrible).

One last questionable hand I had Ad8d the CO minraises a fish flats on the button I call in the big blind. Flop AsTd6s he cbets fish calls I call. Turn 8h he bets again kind of large the fish calls I call. River Qh I check the reg bets 40% pot the fish folds and I call. I think the reg is basically never ever bluffing here, but the thing is I feel like he's going to value bet AK on the river almost always. I gave him this range:



Giving him basically all the value combos that make sense that beat me, and just AK as worse value bets (maybe he bets AJ even with that river sizing) and I have 30% and I need 23% to call so that one doesn't look spewy to me.

I did another half pot river bluff for $140 in a medium pot that I think is somewhat reasonable but a little loose, I'll call that -$50 spew EV.

I made a somewhat light river bluffcatch that is reasonable but perhaps too loose for $150, so we'll call that -$50 spew EV.

Outside of these hands, everything looks very solid and standard to me. I would have thought I spewed way more than like 500 bucks of spew EV given the amount of money lost. Just one of those sessions where you happen to lose every pot you play and don't win any medium or large pots at all.

I figured I'd share some review thoughts with you guys as long as I was looking at the hands.

edit: I have to be out the door soon and started rushing a bit to finish the post so don't kill me if I made some obvious blunder somewhere in my analysis lol.

thanks for providing this detailed recap. I would enjoy seeing more of these, if you think they're worth the time and effort.

Another tough month results wise in the books, but pretty good effort output and I'm looking forward to raising the bar in August.

One thing I want to do is limit my live play a bit. Even though I've been having good results at live and poor results online, I need to increase my online hours and effort level and away from the tables study/review in order to help get myself back on track. The live games tend to be best on Monday/Tuesday/Thursday, so I think I will limit myself to playing on those nights. I want to get a bit more diligent with my self HH reviews, so I'm resolving to post some hands that I review here in the thread once a week in August (probably Friday afternoons). If I go a week without posting any hands or self review results, please help me out and yell at me to get it done guys!

I want to get a minimum of 90 hours of play in (hopefully 100 though), and really and I think that is doable even with coaching and stable management and self reviews etc as long as I knuckle down and try hard every day. I think I'm going away for a long weekend for a Phish festival (http://phish.com/magnaball/), and that will have me out of commission for 4 or 5 days in total, so I need to make sure I'm working hard before then to get out in front of the hourly pace.

Hey man, good luck this month. I thought the spew review was pretty solid.

Subbed! <3

was watching your "micro king" years back! cool to see you are still crushing!

Thanks dude, good to hear from you.

Awesome! I'm still rocking the undertitle. Happening to run slightly hotter than skraper over a small sample at microstakes is perhaps my greatest poker accomplishment

I had a "cheat day" so to speak on Wednesday. I was partying and pigged out and let loose with a bunch of behaviors I have cut out of my life. I had the mindset beforehand that I'd allow myself the day, and use it as an opportunity to practice moderation. I was curious to see the next morning if I'd want to keep going with the past behaviors or get back to healthy living right away. Either way I resolved to immediately get back on track, but I was pleased to feel when I woke up next day that I didn't really have any strong urges to avoid my healthy routine, and moreso was eager to get back to feeling good and healthy. Makes me feel more confident that I'm making long lasting healthy lifestyle changes.

Here's a hand:

5/10. I open TT in MP, folds to unknown SB opponent who 3bets normal and I call.

Flop: QJTss. He cbets 1/2 pot and I call. There is some merit to raising, but I think raising this board looks very strong and I might end up isolating myself against the nuts too often. Perhaps I should just raise anyways. AQ is often going to fold to a raise here, I don't think it's unreasonable for AA to fold, his continuing hands are going to be things like KK-JJ/straights/QJs/flush draws. I can get a call from KQ/KJs/KTs/J9s type hands if he 3bets those here, but not all of those may be 3bet and he might x/c flop so I'm not sure how wide or polarized his flop betting range is. I think calling and letting him continue to fire for value with hands that might fold to a raise and also allow him to keep firing with his bluffs is better. If I had QQ I'd prefer raising flop.

Turn: 5s completing the flush. He fires 1/2 again and I call. I don't have a flush draw and don't really see much sense in raising on this turn.

River: 4o he shoves for 600 into 800. I usually don't consider folding when my hand is at top of my range and also under repped. I don't think it's too likely to see many bluffs on this runout. I lose to AK,QQ,JJ,flushes,98s. It's not unreasonable for him to value jam AA/KK here (those hands might check a street somewhere on this board but maybe not). He might 3bet QJs, he might possibly overplay AQ.

I need 30% equity to call. In this stove I gave him all the QQ/JJ/AK, I took out one combo each of AA/KK, I gave him 2 combos of AQ, 1 combo of QJs, 2 combos of 98s (1 being a flush), 5 flush combos, and then 1 combo of 72o to represent random bluffs/spaz.



Against this range I have 32.5% equity, so it looks like a call. Even though he has so many AK combos and can still have all the QQ/JJ, even a reduced number of AA/KK and the occassional AQ/QJs is enough to make it a call. If I give him 0 combos of QJs and only 1 combos of AQ and still have the 5 combos each of AA/KK I have 29.27%.

In game I felt like "ugh he just always has AK here and I'm just paying him off needlessly" and then when I called and he turned over AK I had that instant negative validation, and despite thinking it through reasonably well at the tables I still had that feeling of foolishness since he had the obvious value hand I put him on.

Here's one other spot I wanted to look at. UTG opens to 30, folds to my SB I 3bet to 100, he 4bets to 220. In this particular spot, I find in these games they tend to 4b very tightly here. If I give him a range that of KK+ and discounted QQ/AK, I have 37% equity. That means I would need 32% folds to profitably jam.

0 = (x)(330) + (1-x)(.63*-900 + .37*1110)
0 = 330x + (1-x)(-567 + 410)
0 = 330x + (1-x)(-157)
0 = 330x + 157x - 157
157 = 487x
x = 32%

If I give him a range of all QQ+/AK, I have 42% and only need 14% folds to make it profitable. I think based on this that even though I've seen most of the regs play very tightly with their 4b in this spot, that jamming AKs is still just going to be standard unless I have some sort of read that the guy is pretty tight. Against an opponent that definitely looks pretty tight/conservative, though, I think I'm going to see very few 4b bluffs and they will often just flat call AK there preflop so I could realistically consider a 3b/fold line preflop in these games.

Solid breakdown, and of course this is a spot that happens every few sessions or so, and can be a bit of a tough one at quick glance. I think you did a good job to think through his range very thoroughly, as you always do.

I am curious though, when we step away from the hand/spot vs an unknown (assuming anonymous site), if we don't have one single note about possible spazzing or overvaluing, should we in general be erring on the side of wider range or a more narrow range?

Let me elaborate my question a bit. When we call his aggressive line 3 times (preflop to the 3b, on the wet flop, and when the draw completes the turn), what is his true shove range now on the river? Is it still as wide as you have it? I don't know for sure, but in a completely readless spot, when you need 30% to call, and the very best (widest) range we can give him only has us at 32.5%, should we now take into consideration the story being told a bit deeper? Even removing the few combos to narrow it some, you landed at just shy of the 30% you need, and then when we can factor in the "in game feel of the situation", it seems like making a basically break even/slightly losing call might actually be wrong here?

This of course, may be categorized as that "hero fold" spot, which we don't like to do after knowing so much information about the general player pool, but I have found myself in these exact spots often in many different places (live, multiple online sites) so I felt like I wanted to make this post to drum up a little more discussion in case it is warranted.

Obviously in poker, one of the challenges we face is incomplete and imperfect information. Being able to decipher correctly based on that challenge is what we strive for on a daily basis. I am curious how much we can/should allow the deeper aspects of this river spot (the story being told, what our range looks like very specifically, in game feel/intuition, experience drawn from the plethora of experience we have in this exact spot with the near same incomplete/imperfect information from the unknown villain).

Also remembering that our overall strategy on this site is to play exploitative for optimal results, I would love to hear some more thoughts on this spot.

We didn't have 32.5% against the best/widest range, that was against a conservative range that had a lot of value hands discounted and didn't contain hardly any spaz. The 29.7% was more like a worst case scenario.

In regards to the point you are making though, I don't think there is anything wrong with "going with your gut" and deviating from the standard in a close spot. However, I think it's very important to by hyper self aware about true vs biased instinct, because any time we are off our mental game even a little bit our instinct becomes biased (ie we want to protect a win, we want to force a big pot to try to get even, etc). So we have to be very clear whether our gut says FOLD! because we are already stuck and trying to shield ourselves from getting beat up even more, or perhaps because we are up and quitting soon and don't want to lose a big pot at the end, or if we are unbiased by those types of things and our instinct to want to fold is coming from a more clear subconscious processing of past experiences giving us some instant insight.

Also, sometimes with river calls our intuition can suffer from confirmation bias. Let's say we are getting 3:1 on a river call and it seems like the guy just has the flush. When we call and he turns over the obvious value hand we were expecting to see, it can feel like "ugh I KNEW IT!" and we feel like we messed up by not trusting out intuition, and kind of forget that when we call we are fully expecting to lose 7 out of 10 times and still be correct in calling.

With that said, if you feel like you are playing well and in the zone and not affected by variance or other mental obstacles, and for some reason you feel like it's a good spot to deviate from the norm, I think it's often good to go ahead and pull the trigger.

Tough spot, and good analysis,I actually had a similar spot a few weeks ago. I think flop call is best, I don't really think I would consider raising. I think river is just a whatever spot and most likely just a call knowing you will lose a lot.

Enjoy!!

Got it!

I guess we can safely just put it in an outlying category then. I feel like there are times when making what might appear to be a hero fold or hero call, what we are really doing is taking an assigned range and adding or subtracting from the spazz or value end of it, along with utilizing other contributing factors (such as any note on villain and our own image) and most importantly whatever intuition and instinct we have garnered while in that particular game at that moment.

To make the proper EV decision based on the math of the situation is always going to be correct, however sometimes we forget that the math is derived from the assigned range. If we have any sort of bias, we can easily skew the range to fit our needs. On the other hand, if we are seeing things clearly at the table, and can make some pretty solid assumptions about our villain, then we are going to be able to come up with a much more narrow range and then act according to the EV from that.

I really like your 'warning' about deviating too often or too much in one particular spot since we can very easily land on a decision for all the wrong reasons, thus making it a very large mistake on our end.

Enjoy your break from playing with the fish to listen to some Phish!

Been running well this month. I played a session this morning where I ran well and also played very well. I pulled the trigger on a couple high variance but +EV thin edges that I think when in the midst of a downswing I wouldn't have. It's nice to run hot, but I need to keep striving to be able to play my A-game regardless of recent short term results.

One thing about a downswing is that it makes us try to "control" variance. When we are winning consistently, it's a lot easier to accept the losses as they come and stay focused on maximizing whatever is in front of us and do our best with whatever comes our way. In the midst of a downswing, we tend to end up passing on some thin edges, such as a thin vbet or a close double barrel, and also we try to "control" variance by doing things like checking back a clear vbet spot on the turn with the intention of calling river, because subconsciously we don't want to be faced with a x/r or a river donk in a big pot, so we kind of take this suboptimal line thinking we are pot controlling and instead we are just costing ourselves money. This kind of shy play builds up, and sooner or later we end up forcing the action in a poor spot trying to manufacture a big pot, and the whole cycle results in a lot of frustration. We end up missing clear value and spazzing in poor spots, and our efforts to "control" variance inevitably make the situation worse. It's a difficult cycle once it gets rolling, and it's tough when we KNOW we aren't playing our best in the midst of a downswing to stay positive and upbeat about things. Every new session in a downswing is a chance to improve our ability to handle the downswing and play our best in the face of adversity, though, and as long as we keep trying to use the situation as a growth opportunity and not beat ourselves over mistakes but instead learn from them, in the long run we get better at it.

A very interesting blog, I will be following. Keep it up and good luck!

Thanks!

Some updates for you guys:

- Well, I'm finally out of makeup. After having a humbling downswing in June and July, I finished August back in the black. I came into the month -3500, and finished +7000, so August was another 10k+ month for me.

- I played 97.25 hours, which is right in line with what my goal was, so I feel good about my work effort.

- I was up about 15k on the month with 3 days left in the month, and hit a few losing sessions at the very end to lose back a bunch of my profits. That was very difficult for me mentally. I had a tough time accepting the variance and continuing to do my best, and my play was clouded for a while by wanting to finish the month with a certain result instead of focusing on doing my best with whatever situations present themselves and accepting whatever variance my be. I got stuck in the mindset of wanting to get back to a certain cashier total, and that influenced my play in a negative way.

- Specifically, I ran a few moderately spewy bluffs, but there is one hand that stands out in particular. I was playing high stakes and had a deep stack, and I flopped a full house. The long and the short of it was the river was a clear bet/fold, as the way the hand played out I was very confident he'd never x/r bluff there and the only way he could really value x/r is if he rivered a bigger full house. I expected him to mostly fold, call sometimes when he's coolered, and only x/r the very unlikely situation that he rivered a bigger boat. So, before betting the river, I decided it was a bet/fold, and went ahead and bet. He x/r'd, and somehow I talked myself into clicking call since he repped basically only one hand. He had exactly what I knew he had, and I went against my plan to bet/fold the river and talked myself into a call specifically because I was overly aware of my cashier total and my current month's profit and the month's high point and the looming end of set and I let all that cloud my decision making process and I ended up making a bad decision hoping to miraculously win a huge pot and "erase" the recent downswing. I had an intense emotional reaction to the hand, and stood up angrily from my chair and kind of slapped the wall. That's extremely out of character for me, and on the surface I thought I was angry at "getting coolered", but in reality I was angry with myself because I knew exactly the mistake I had made and exactly why it occurred.

- The good news is I was able to regroup and get into a much healthier state and mindset, and played very good poker for my last session of the month. That's something I pride myself on - getting back up off the mat when I've failed and coming back with a redoubled effort instead of wallowing and avoiding. As with all adversity, there is something to be learned there and a chance for growth, and this downswing and end of month issue will both give me a better base of experience to draw on in the future to do better the next time I'm faced with similar situations.

- On the fitness front, I'm continuing to do well. I'm down to 206, which is 59 pounds down from my start weight. My jogging route is up to 3.0 miles. Everything is going well and I feel great and I'm continuing to surge ahead. It's fun to have to get new clothes, and it's nice to be able to wear clothes that fit me well and look good on me instead of trying to get clothes that feel loose/baggy enough to not cling to my fat. I'm not really seeing much in the way of strength gains at the gym, but I also understand that when I'm eating less than 1500 calories per day my body isn't going to be able to add much muscle mass. Job one is to lose the remaining fat, and I can worry about increasing muscle mass once I'm leaned down.

- I'm getting braces (on my teeth) on September 14th. I'm 35 years old, so it's a bit weird to be getting braces at this stage in life. I'm not exactly looking forward to the process, but I'm very much looking forward to the end result. I've never had a smile that I felt fully confident in and comfortable with, and it feels good to be finally facing the issue head on and taking action to address it once and for all.

- I can't wait for football season. I love the NFL, and I'm also geeked up for fantasy. I'm ready to defend my title in my league with friends from last year, and I'm also looking forward to dabbling in the DFS market this football season. There is so much money flying around in these DFS tournaments that they really put online poker tournaments to shame. Draft Kings has a $10 million dollar guaranteed prize pool tournament week 1 that costs $20 to enter. That is insane.

Thanks for reading folks. Ba de ya, let's all crush it in September, ba de ya, never was a cloudy day.

to your fitness goals.

go bears, go bills! bills gonna shock the league this year. tyrod!

Thanks. Bills look to have a real chance at contending for a playoff spot this year. The defense is a lock to be good, and that offense has been looking improved and that's without McCoy/Watkins/Woods/Harvin even on the field. I don't know that winning the AFC outright is in play, but challenging for a wild card is very realistic in my mind. Chicago has a real tough read ahead of them this season, but you never know, best of luck to you guys.

Hey Dan, I like reading your mental game thought processes. How much do you think writing it down helps? Like I have all sorts of mental game problems (Like making just one mistake can completely de-motivate me from grinding etc it's almost a form of OCD). I don't have time to do a PG&C thread but was considering just typing a daily diary of all the negative thoughts in my head so I can look back and insert logic as it were.

Great work on the weight loss as well buddy.

Writing it down helps a lot. It forces you to collect your thoughts in a more organized fashion, which helps to understand them more fully and provides more time to reflect on them.

PGC threads really don't take a ton of time, and you aren't obligated to update it routinely or make it reader friendly - it's for YOUR benefit after all. I find that putting something out the for the world to see makes it more "real" (even if 99.99% of the world never sees it lol).

If you really don't want to do a PGC I think a journal is a great idea though - that process of taking a few minutes and writing down your thoughts is very helpful, and then after the fact you can look at those thoughts and come up with some strong statements of logic to directly address those negative thoughts, and the next time you get into that thought process you'll have some statements of logic that you've thought through fully and believe in ready.

Good luck with you fitness goals Dan. Im in the same boat, but from the other end of the spectrum. I was super skinny in my mid 20s, started working out and gained 25 pounds of muscle. My problem is I never stick to it. Ill workout for a few months, then Ill plateau, and the fire that I had when I was making gains dies out, consistency is key. Im back at it now, so hopefully Ill stick to it this time.

A few things to write about:

- I've been dealing with a little bit of procrastination with my poker play recently, specifically online. I'm off to a good start this month, and have been running well. I think that subconsciously I want to avoid losing back profits, and that fear of the negative emotions associated with losing and fear of failure are causing me to exhibit a bit of avoidance. I need to address that, and be OK with losing back money as long as I do my best, and realize that "messing up a good start" is a fallacy - all I can control is how well I play moving forward and I need to keep focusing on quality hours and not short term results. My hours played this month are pretty good so far, but I want to nip these feelings in the bud.

- I misplayed a hand at the end of a session of live the other night. I was getting ready to wrap up session, and was in my final orbit or two. I was stuck early in the night, and ended up coming back to have a nice profit. A hand came up near the end of session where I ended folding, and my thought processes were definitely biased by the fact that I had already mentally booked the win. It was a spot where if I was playing my best I would have made the thin call in the big pot and accepted whatever the result was, but I avoided the variance and just folded and booked my win. I have done similar things in the past, where my play falls off one way or another near the end of session. I need to remember to TAKE THE PROCESS SERIOUSLY ALL THE WAY TO THE VERY END, as you never know when that big spot will come up that requires all of your mental and technical game abilities to be on point.

- I got braces on my teeth today, and I'll be wearing these things for the next 2.5 years. They don't really hurt at all yet, although they say there will be discomfort. The main thing is I feel a bit self conscious about them. I need to shift my mindset from one of embarrassment to instead feeling proud that I am addressing the issue and owning the situation.

- Entered a couple DFS NFL tournies this week. I'm definitely dead money to the sharks, but my hope is these huge fields have enough fish to make myself slightly -EV at worst. I don't really know much DFS specific strategy, but I'm interested to get my feet wet (I'm fairly experienced with fantasy football in general, though). Also - Go Bills!

DFS is a lottery. The minor differences in team composition combined with the sheer amount of entries makes it effectively a super lotto plus or something. Def fun tho