omg i just discovered HM sync on HEM2. This thing is amazing.

My first full 16nl session, 6 tables, dropped about 2 stacks. I think I played OK, but a little tighter and less aggro since I'm taking a shot and finding my feet at the new limit. Have been feeling like I crush 10nl lately, but found myself a little timid at 16nl at first. I didn't want to overadjust, so played it a little safe.

Ran pretty awful, all things considered.
A few hands; as far as I can tell these are all pretty standard and I'm just getting unlucky/tops of V's ranges etc.











This hand, should I raise earlier? Board is so dry I think I'm likely to get too many folds.. is that the right line of thinking?

That's a 5BI shot at 16nl finished then. Sigh. Bit of runbad, lots of folding to 3bets, and it's back to 10nl. Ho hum!

Challenge to date:

Back to 10nl, a very noticable difference in my play - I played much, much better than during my shot. I guess I'm still a little bit "scared money" when i move up.

I remember exactly the same thing from when I moved from 5nl to 10nl - I guess it passes as soon as I get away from it being a "shot" and onto it being my regular game, because playing 10nl now feels like a walk in the park; I have no problem barreling or making moves when I feel like I should, and everything feels intuitive and like 2nd nature.

In addition, I have no problems with dropping a couple of stacks, because I know I'm playing well, whereas at 16nl I felt kinda tilted after dropping a couple of BI and had to stop playing.

I guess the mental block is something to do with the fact that I already know I can beat/crush 10nl, whereas I currently don't know that I can beat 16nl at all.

Anyway, the session: played well, ran like utter crap. Lost every flip, pretty much, ended up dropping 3 stacks but just felt "meh" about it.

I guess I've kinda cracked the 10nl mental game, heh. One step at a time. Once I grind the BR back up to $800 I'll take another 16nl shot, hopefully make it a success and be able to flip a mental switch onto that being my regular "walk in the park" stake.

Session graph:



Some hands:

Myself and Villain here were next to one another and had developed something of a LAG dynamic between us. We;d played a lot of BvB pots and were both running around 30/25ish. It sucked to be X/R off this hand, but nothing I can do when stacks are this deep and he just decides to shove, right?

But what is his range here? Just sets? I can't think of any hands what would just want to shove turn and end the hand like 95% of the time.






Vs 59/17 fish that I'd been sparring with a fair bit. Standard?








Look at this moron:








Vs 47/24 fishcake. Is this fine? Am I supposed to find a fold?







I honestly thought I had the best hand. This was the worst best river card I could have asked for. Sucks to semi-brick a draw this huge though. Worst thing was that the guy tanked for ages before calling.








And that's my session. I'd really appreciate some feedback on any of these hands. Onward and upward. BR stands at $678 now

Entire challenge to date, including PS results and Party Poker results, total 58k hands in just over 1 month:



Thank you, HM sync! Damn you, 16nl!

Keep going man, I'm sure you'll pass NL16 and higher eventually! GL

Thanks Panda.

Unfortunately the downswing continued last night, dropped another few BI at 10nl, mostly coolers imo but would like some opinions; will post hands later tonight, was too late to go over the session once I'd finished so I didn't get to post any hands.

Maybe a couple spots where I think I should be making big folds since I'm not in stellar shape vs a range, some spots are a little too close for me to judge on the fly.

All in all I feel I'm playing OK still, confidence a little shaken by the DS but I think I'm basically sticking to the plan and keeping tilt in check, results are just cruddy atm, but those big folds are a little harder to make when you're stuck.

Gogogo?

OK, 3 losing hands from yesterday's session; are these ok? I think only QQ is questionablke, and in hindsight, prob a fold vs his range.
Hand #1
Poker Stars $10.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 2337304
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $11.53 - VPIP: 35, PFR: 14, 3B: 0, AF: 1.4, Hands: 106
SB: $10.00 - VPIP: 16, PFR: 16, 3B: 5, AF: 4.5, Hands: 128
Hero (BB): $11.89
UTG: $8.49 - VPIP: 25, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 8
MP: $10.00 - VPIP: 16, PFR: 15, 3B: 7, AF: 3.7, Hands: 99
CO: $12.43 - VPIP: 35, PFR: 5, 3B: 3, AF: 1.4, Hands: 94

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is BB with K A
2 folds, CO calls $0.10, 1 fold, SB raises to $0.40, Hero raises to $1.20, CO calls $1.10, 1 fold

Flop: ($2.80) 2 T 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.50, CO calls $1.50

Turn: ($5.80) T (2 players)
Hero bets $3.10, CO calls $3.10

River: ($12.00) A (2 players)
Hero bets $6.09, CO calls $6.09

Final Pot: $24.18


Hand #2
Poker Stars $10.00 No Limit Hold'em - 3 players - View hand 2337305
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

[b]Hero (BTN): $10.10
SB: $5.10 - VPIP: 16, PFR: 13, 3B: 4, AF: 2.2, Hands: 438
BB: $13.73 - VPIP: 26, PFR: 17, 3B: 4, AF: 0.8, Hands: 127

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is BTN with Q Q
Hero raises to $0.30, 1 fold, BB calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.65) 5 7 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.50, BB raises to $1.70, Hero raises to $4.40, BB raises to $13.43, Hero calls $5.40 all in

Turn: ($20.25) 2 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($20.25) 6 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $20.25


Hand #3
Poker Stars $10.00 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 2337306
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BB: $6.98 - VPIP: 35, PFR: 14, 3B: 0, AF: 1.4, Hands: 106
[b]Hero (UTG): $13.57
CO: $10.77 - VPIP: 9, PFR: 6, 3B: 0, AF: 13.0, Hands: 224
BTN: $13.30 - VPIP: 19, PFR: 17, 3B: 8, AF: 5.3, Hands: 238
SB: $10.00 - VPIP: 35, PFR: 5, 3B: 3, AF: 1.4, Hands: 94

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is UTG with A K
Hero raises to $0.30, 2 folds, SB raises to $0.90, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.60

Flop: ($1.90) 7 4 T (2 players)
SB bets $0.90, Hero raises to $3.70, SB raises to $9.10, Hero calls $5.40

Turn: ($20.10) 8 (2 players)

River: ($20.10) 9 (2 players)

Final Pot: $20.10


View all 3 hands

[


gl mate

I don't understand but TY!

A hand:

I think my mistake here is preflop, I should have 3bet but CO villain was unknown playing 10/10 over 20 hands and I was't keen on 3b/getting it in vs this guy with no reads. When he bombs turn and river his range is essentially AK, AT and QJ, but I can't really give him any bluffs. Against that range I guess a calldown is OK but I'm not in love with it due to betsizes. Note made, but maybe river was a fold since I'm not sure if he ever bluffs or valuebets something like Jx or specifically AJdiamonds here.

Another mistake I think:







Villain is 60/4 over 120 hands, I should be able to fold here. The 4% crushes me. Duh? I'm 75% sure I should fold here now.

Deeepz, more cat porn:

Awesome
Gotta love this cat!
As for the qq hand: you get odds to setmine against this strong 4betting range in position

Swingy lately, but still playing OK. Didn't really have any tilt-induced stackoffs during the big downswing,, except one QQ vs set which I know I could and probably should have got away from. Other than that, just running bad in all in pots and in general during shots at 16nl and 25nl, but things are looking up again and I'm sticking to 10nl for now.

Will post some hands after today's session.

Challenge graph to date:

Aaaaand an epic heater brings it all back. Been playing well and running great, most spots I've been in haven't been tough and I seem to be timing bluffs well. Let's hope I can continue playing my A Game



Saver:

Shot at 25nl on Party, it was lolsoft but I ran pretty bad and dropped 2BI.

A few hands, pretty standard imo; are these fine?

All hands are 25nl, I dunno why the HH tool thinks they're 10/13

Not been playing too much so far this month until the weekend, a few K hands here and there, unti I got an email from Betfair saying that since I hadn't used my account for so long, they were shipping me a $1k bonus to unlock and insta-giving me level 10 VIP (which is equiv. to 30%RB).

I fired up my account, discovered I had $100 sitting on it, so I shipped over another $100 and started grinding. Running bad, but playing well, should be able to boost my roll a bit by creaming off some of this bonus. iirc the offer lasts until ~Jan next year, so if I knuckle down I should be able to unclock a fair bit.

Challenge graph so far including Party, Stars and Betfair (includes some recent 25/16 shots that failed once again):

Long time no update!

Have been really busy with work lately, so poker has fallen by the wayside a little. I still play a couple of times a week, but don't have the time to grind as much as I used to. Still, even without much volume, I'm keeping the rust off by playing every now and then, but it appears to have taken me 3 months to play ~20k hands, whereas last year I was playing 20k+ a month. I guess I'm taking a much more relaxed attitude to poker for the time being.

Results are still decent, so I'm gonna try to keep in the swing of it and try to play most days. I'll try to post weekly updates.

BR is about $1700 over 2 sites (Stars and Party), and I'm mostly playing 25nl (sometimes 16nl on Stars).

Challenge graph to date:

I've been running badly and have lost a bunch of money in the last few weeks; challenge graph to date:





But here's a thought: things are going really well.
I'm getting it in good over and over, losing a ton, and running about 8 BI under EV this month. Can't win flips, all my KKs lose to AA, but... I'm fine with it. I honestly haven't tilted in the slightest during this run, I've just done a whole lot of shrugging. A LOT of shrugging; nearly dislocated my shoulder. But that's as bad a reaction as I can muster.

That said, I've won about $90 since last update, plus bonuses, but have encountered a rather hideous run of hands. It sucks to win less that $100 in over a month of play, but overall... I'm really happy with my play, my EV bb/100 this month is 8bb/100, I haven't made many terrible mistakes, and I have confidence that so long as I can keep this mindset, it'll turn around soon enough and I'll be so, so happy not to have donked off 3-4 extra BI through tilting due to bad results.

I can only believe that I've made good progress as a player, and have done pretty well to somewhat plug one of my worst leaks: tiltspew.

Mental game improvement ftw!

Quick update:
not much changes: still running hideously! But the flipside is:
not much changes: I feel like it's not affecting my game very much at all, and I'm still happy to put in volume and not dreading returning to the tables.
I feel like I've definitely turned a corner regarding being less results oriented. I have managed to not focus on the dollar amounts at all, Ive just dropped a bunchof buyins after getting in my money as a favourite over and over. What more can I hope to achieve, right?

I've also run KK into AA for two and a half stacks this month. Overall, happy with my play.

Month so far:


And challenge to date:


I can honestly remember a time not so long ago where I would've monkey tilted after having these results just after moving up. Instead, I'm just happy to be playing close to my A game despite being raped by the deck.

Gogogo?

Subbed for pics of fat girls.

notsureifserious.jpg

Well it's damn sure not the cats I subbed for.


What's the most BI you've lost in a single day? How do you recoup from that loss and get back on your A game.

I've had more than a few of 10-15 BI swings in a single day; best thing to do is to review hands, evaluate whether mistakes were made and MOVE ON.

Atm the thing keeping me going during this bad run is the thought of the long run, being able to recall times when I've run far worse for far longer, and to reinforce that I am making correct decisions by reviewing my sessions and making sure I'm getting the money in good more often than not. Being honest with yourself is critical, and, as I'm fond of saying, even when you're playing your best, moving down is an important skill to have. Looking at my results, my graph in BB looks pretty standard, and this downswing only shows up as a 30k breakeven stretch. The reality is that between stakes, I've dropped a bunch of actual money and despite being a little mentally stronger these days, my confidence is shaking and I'm starting to doubt whether I'm able to beat 25nl at the moment.

That said, I'm dropping out of the 25nl pool after 25k hands because my BR is taking a beating and I'd like to rebuild the roll and my confidence a little by playing 16nl for the rest of the month.

I'll post some hands and graphs later.