Hi!

My last PG&C thread charted my progress from 10NL onward. I reached 25nl, but lost my game a bit toward the end, tilted off ~30% of my roll before cashing out and buying stuffs with it.

At the start of August I started back up at 10NL. Things went very well for the first 20k hands, and I thought "great, I'm still a winner in these games". I crushed 10NL for about 8bb/100 and felt great. I moved up to playing a mix of 16NL and 25NL, and that's when bad things happened. I started getting it in good and losing, over and over.

"That's alright," I thought, "I'm doing everything right. I'll just keep getting it in good and ride out this bad patch of variance."

Another 70k hands later, I'm 20BI under EV total, I'm -$50 since I started, and my heart is about to break. I'm been as strong as possible, keeping my tilt in check since I know that I'm playing pretty well, I just can't fade any outs. At first it was kinda funny, but now I'm really saddened by it. I feel like I'm wasting my time with Poker now. As much as I want to just play on and on to get through this bad run, it's getting beyond a joke now... at some point I have to start winning a few of these spots. If I weren't overrolled for my limits, I'd be busto by now.

The one good thing I can take from this is that it's really helping me develop my mental game. I'm being crushed by variance, but I'm kinda OK with it. The only thing that's bothering me is the fact that I've spent a lot of time playing, but have nothing to show for it.

Big sigh. So, I'm going to chart the progress of my mental game development and turn these results around while doing so.

Here's my graph since I started up again with Poker at the end of August:



I've had bad runs in AI pots before, had plenty of ~10BI swings before, but they always ended. This one just... will... not.... end.

The biggest problem at the moment (since around hand 60k or so maybe) is that my mental endurance has flagged a little and I'm starting to think I must be doing some things wrong and made adjustments to my game... I should be wary of doing this and need to constantly remind myself that I'm playing winning poker. But it's so very difficult to keep playing my A-game through this.

Cliffs: I run bad. My goal is to get back on my A-game, not tilt off my roll, grind it up to 1k and not lose my mind.

Gogogo?

GL

If you're interested, here's a link to my first PG&C thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...-10nl-1160673/

First session of the challenge is down. I played pretty good, made one marginally spewy play double barrelling AK in a 3b pot on a low board against a guy that I'd played a few 3b pots with already, who was likely starting to think I was FOS. In hindsight, I should have x/f the flop because of the developing dynamic, but oh well.

Session graph:



Some hands:

Thoughts on this one much appreciated. Villain's stats seem solid, 19/17 w/9% 3b, and 2.6 aggro.



I find these spots tough. I don't like betting the flop because I can get x/r and have to hate life/fold, which can be exploited. I decided x/c 2 streets to induce bluffs would be ok. If I bet flop, the hand becomes really hard to play because I'm OOP and it's tough to get value from anything worse, and I have to choose between barrelling or x/f.

Different hand, same villain:







This one, he reps nothing and his range is capped, mine isn't. Although I 3b around 5.5%, this guy is decent enough to fold mid pairs up to JJ in this spot vs me. I'm a little worried he may call off with a flush draw, but since I'm ahead of FDs anyway, I think it's profitable to ship here. Thoughts?

And finally, how could I extract more value in this spot?








Gogogo?

GL sir, will be following! Hands are fine apart from last one, don't check behind turn if u want to extract maximum value. Also raising river much bigger to 6+

TY for feedback. I have a habit of going for 4.20

I was tempted to bet turn in H3 with the KQ, but I wanted to check behind to keep his "value" range really wide and keep his bluffs in to bet river. I have the board so crippled and hold so many blockers to good hands that I figured I'd get folds 95% of the time if I bet turn.

Hand 1 is fine? I still feel like I butchered it.

tyty!

Quick session, seemed to run into tops of ranges after value betting.

Didn't put this hand in his range at all, note made o_O




QQ vs 3bet from an unknown.... what is standard line at these stakes? I so rarely see anybody going AIPF with AK anymore these days.
4b/call? 4b/fold? I think I chose the worst option here, butchered this hand, but beating nothing by river:








Big hand was vs. fish and I think I read his hand well and ended up playing pretty much perfectly. I was a little worried about T9 or 8T, but vs a fish that's going broke with JT, 67, QJ, this is a fistpump snap call:






Session graph:



Gogogo?

Another session, a loser this time.

I played ok, but I wasn't aggressive enough and ran pretty bad. I need to ramp up the aggro a little, I think I fire two shells too often and should try to stick to a plan of "none, one or three" to stop my redline dwindling. Giving up on the river seems to be a major leak of mine.

Session graph:



A few hands:




^^ Flop and turn are obvious here, but river? x/f or is x/c ok? In hindsight, I prefer x/f... I'm not beating anything, and my hand is just a bluff catcher.

Gogogo?

The curse continues.

I play a 40 minute session. I'm running OK, but more importantly, I'm on my A game. I'm being selectively aggressive, winning my share of small pots, hand reading well, making well-targeted value bets. I feel like I'm making solid decisions in most spots.

I'm up over a BI without playing any big hands. I get dealt AA, 3b the UTG raiser, and then the BB 4bets. We have 132BB effective. I fist pump so damn hard I nearly dislocate my shoulder. I know he has KK 95% of the time, so I 5b ship, somehow he doesn't turn over the other two aces. Obviously a K hits the flop.

I insta-sit out at all tables, because my session is over. I'm playing so well that this result is insta-tilt. Another solid decision.

Then disaster of disaster, I flop a flush draw on the only table still running. I tilt bet/3b/call off, knowing I'm gonna see a set most of the time. He turns over a smaller FD. I fist pump so hard I nearly dislocate my other shoulder. We RIT, he hits a pair on the first runout, we end up chopping. A pop-up appears on my screen telling me I have just made Gold Star, and I just want to punch a Unicorn a little bit.

I insta-quit the session and start writing this post. Now approaching $200 below EV.

I am very happy with the session, all in all. I played well. I wish my results would start to reflect this.


Here are the hands:



Session graph:

Just ran some filters in HEM for giggles; AIPF w/AA and KK over 90k hands, 62 occurances, I have won $96.82, or 850bb.

Can anybody give me some numbers for comparisons?

Threadsavers? Debatable. Most likely people are gonna think this is a threadkiller.



At least I'm trying!

You play normal tables? How many tables? What BRM you use?
Im currently playing zoom NL10...

Yeah, normal tables, 6-8 depending on table quality. 40BI BRM, would be busto by now if I used 20

I'm self-banned from Zoom because it causes me to monkeytilt.

Today's first session down, booked a 1BI win over 1k hands. Sucked out on somebody AA vs JJ AIPF (he flatted the open raise, I squeeze, he 4bshoved, I shrug called off - note made) for a change.

Only notable hand was when being soulread by a 54/42 fish:







No other spots that were awkward, just lost a flip with JJ vs a spazzy 3betting fish with KQ for ~55bb. Pretty straightfoward session of value betting and playing ABC.

Played my A-game for about 1 hour, then the next 15 mins were a bit autopiloty and I was browsing the interwebs while I was playing, BAD BAD. I realised I'd gone into auto and decided to end the session.

Session graph:



Gogogo?

Session 2 down. Pretty much break even.

Stationed a couple of times by weak top pair hands after firing 3 shells vs guys I gave too much credit to, other than that my reads were pretty good, aggro levels good, played well, ran good.

Biggest hand:







A tricky spot, villain is 22/15/5.73b over 300 hands with 12% BTN 3ball. The flat seems super strong. Are we going broke here? Or pitching it?


Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 2311406
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $10.36
Hero (BB): $10.00
UTG: $19.79
CO: $3.31
BTN: $11.80 76/24 fish

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is BB with A K
1 fold, CO raises to $3.31 all in, BTN calls $3.31, 1 fold, Hero ?????


Session graph:



More chubby savers:



I think I'm doing this wrong.

So, what about the mental game part, you don't write a lot about improvimg it except sometimes tellling u played or didmt play your A-game. Would like to see more of that.

Well, the mental game part of the thread is all about playing my best game after/during the worst patch of variance ever.

Like I said in the OP, if you look at my first 90k hands graph, I was playing my best game for the first 60k hands or so, but as the suckouts mounted up, I lost my confidence and started playing badly - playing scared money, being too nitty, basically not playing as well as I know I can. So this thread is really to chart my progress in that respect - getting back to the mental state where I play my best and STAYING THERE, even when/if I have another brutal downer (or this one continues).

It's also a motivational tool and a public arena that I will continue to post my results in - so I can't hide from my mistakes.

Does that make sense?

Btw, I forgot to mention: roll is at $365

Challenge target is $1k

Quick morning session. Deffo played A-Game, was very patient, reads were strong, barely made a mistake.

Mental game development: I think short sessions are best for me. I only tend to play long sessions when I'm losing/breaking even. I can recall many occasions where I've played 3,4,5,6 hour sessions with bad results, but it's very rare that I continue playing long hours when I'm winning/playing well.

I should try to stick to sessions that are ~1 hour long, then take a break do something, walk around, grab a snack, then start over, a fresh new session.

I'll try to grab a couple more short sessions later today.

Session graph:



No real hands of note; in fact, the biggest pot I lost was $0.70

Well, how about a cbet pop quiz instead of hands:

2 hands, 2 boards. Cbet or no?










What did I do? Answers below:


Grind music was: AC/DC: Powerage. How to embed Youtube?



... Gogogo?

Session 2 for the day done. Grinded to Thin Lizzy: Jailbreak. I may start measuring my sessions by albums...

Another good session, a bit card dead towards the end. I think I need to cbet a little more. Average since challenge started is low, 50%. Small sample, etc, usually my cbet% is ~65. I get a bit gunshy on paired boards because I hate being x/r on them with A high & small pairs.

Played well, no tilt or mindset problems. I was saved from spewing a stack when villain frontshoved in this hand, because I was prepared to go broke and was about to spam the rest of my stack in had he checked, since my range is so strong in this spot and I figured I could get folds a decent amount of the time:







Got it all back a few hands later when I coolered the same guy w/99 vs A8 on 9K885.

Only other notable hand was vs this 23/15/2.2 Russian. I dunoo wtf he's repping or thinking here:







Session graph:

Another quick session, good play, good run, good result. Prob done for today now, gonna chill with my wife and watch some movies.

Session graph:


One notable mistake: I pitched AK in this hand because 3bettor had 2.1 3b range over 400 hands and I didn't fancy playing AKo OOP vs such a crushy range. I watched the rest of the hand play out and dude flipped AQo o_O



Challenge going well so far. Will update full graph and stats at 10k hands.

BR: $392

x

wtfrudoinbro??

Post-work sesssion. I play most days for about an hour after work as my wife commutes and therefore gets home later than me. I have a limbo hour between getting home and picking her up from the station, so that's generally the time for the first session of the day.

Session graph:


I played ok, but not great. Mentally ok, I didn't tilt and continued playing as I was after losing a big pot, but I don't really think I can say that I was playing my A-game at any point. B game, I'd say.

I kinda feel like I butchered this hand. I think I had OK equity against his range, but the guy was pretty fishy so I took his flopraise to be pretty strong, but my hand was too strong to fold, so I figured best thing to do would be to get it in on a safe turn and hope he makes a mistake if he's drawing.

In all honesty, I have no idea the best way to play this kinda spot. This is where I leak the most, I think - usually by folding.

Villain is 37/23 over 114 hands and seems pretty aggro - I gave him my "aggrofish" tag.








Gogogo?

2nd session of the day before bedtime. Cat on lap, so it was never gonna be a losing session.



Lots of fishies at this time of night, so pretty easy session, no tilt, pretty solid play, biggest losing pot was AK vs AA for 50bb vs megafish, so just a shrug and play on. Noticed a reg was re-isoing me a lot when I was isoing the fish so had to 4b light once to give him a slap. 2nd time I4b him was with AK and the fish shoved.

Only other noteworthy hand was this one:

Villain was 17/11 over 430 hands, no notes, 2.5 aggro, 63%cbet.

I dunno wtf to do in this hand, I am truly lost. I SHOULD have 3b pre, which would have fixed the problem, but I got into this sticky situation. I hate spots like these because I know how much I love to 3barrel this kind of board, so I got a bit sticky and stationy. Meh.

I've just been looking over my graph for August/Sept before I started the challenge, and I've notated it in a very professional manner for reference.

This is to remind me what happens if I start playing suboptimally. And also to remind myself that no matter how bad I run, I can always run worse. Variance is a beeyotch, and I can't just ride it out by playing hand after hand. I have to play WELL. Every hand.

Look mum, I can run good! I knew I could!



1:10 session, 6-8 tables, A-game. Feels like I haven't tilted or played badly in ages. I am v. happy with my game at the moment. I kinda feel like I owe it to this thread, it's really helping me keep my spew and ego in check.

Favourite hand was when I went all Negreanu and talked a guy into calling. I just flatted pre because guy was ridic. tight over 30 hands and I didn't fancy getting JJ in vs even his CO range.






Biggest hand vs 45/29 spazzer:








Gonna chill for a bit, find out where my cats have gone and play another session later.

Can I get a gogogo?