Are you not worried that by having a rigid plan like that you are passing up some decent +EV spots? I mean vs this villain I dont think its even close to been marginal.

Whats your plan for that, I mean are you doing that because you find yourself spewing in some spots you find yourself in so playing that way is +EV for yourself? If its something you are just trying and it coincides with your best month it must show there is some merit to it.

I guess there has to be a happy medium somewhere. My thoughts on things like this is that you see a lot of players posting winning graphs in the micros who play that rigid style and it works very well for them. They cant move up though, they get crushed because the next level up theres more players who know how to counter a straight forward style and wont pay them off.

The thing is they will make decent money playing the levels they do but have little hope of ever moving up unless they break free of that set style. Thats great for them though if they have no intention of playing pro or anything and are just happy to have a nice little side earner.

You then have players like Tobe who wants to move up as fast as possible and a lot of people resented it for it, maybe he wont make as much as some of the people grinding millions of hands at NL25 but he is going to give it a shot to better himself and wants to try and eek out every little bit of Ev he can from every spot sometimes taking it too far.

Not sure where players like myself fall in to it really. Maybe somewhere in between. Im sure without tilt and spew I could still beat NL100 maybe NL200 but it is there so it is what it is and thats an area that is work in progress. I often think if I could sit there and play a robotic style I would probably make a decent amount of money just not getting myself in to any marginal spots where I tend to spew.

Theres just something about this game that is like a drug to me because I dont want to just sit there playing like that, I want to try and learn as much as I can about the game in what little time I have to do that and in some perverse way I want to get myself in to marginal spots even though I know it could lead to tilt and spew because I know repeating those spots over and over I will eventually over time learn how to play those spots well.

So long and short of it is that part of me thinks I should play a straightforward game and be happy making a little on the side but the other half of me still wants to learn and move up as high as I can which does mean tackling the tilt problem head on which is what I have been doing. There is no magic pill though but the progress is obvious to see and I have been very critical of some of my own play off the tables but it still leaves me with this month where my results have been decent, although I know I can do far better, and is probably the month where I have enjoyed poker the most for maybe over 2 years even with the little slip yesterday and today.

Thats far tl:dr

I always assume ranges are wider than they are when trying to think what villain can call with because so often their preflop stats are really misleading and they show up with hands that you just dont think are feasible.

It's just having a gameplan and deciding what you're going to do with different parts of your range. It's also playing range vs range, which i still struggle with bcos i still jsut look at my hand sometimes and think what the logical decision is to make based off that rather than thinking about my entire range.

Thats my interpretation tho, im certain that i dont fully understand what they're saying and have a long way to go with it.

---

there was a really good post by a ssnl'er which i could have sworn was in one of my threads but i cant find it now which basically changed my perspective on poker completely.

It wasnt the one by citizenwind by any chance was it. I really didnt rate him that much as a player when I played against him but thought that post that he made was quality and people could learn a lot from it.

AJ: WP

KK: Well, such an annoying hand. I would have bet more OTT. I don't think villain leads often enough with worse OTR but I couldn't fold either.

A5: Preflop seems fine although I might have raised a bit smaller (9-10bb). OTF I check too and I seriously consider folding when villain bets.

No, it was by 'mr_blonde', the gist of it was basically that its very short sighted to think about how you're exploiting others and not about how you can reduce how much you're getting exploited yourself -- was more on the topic of balance and the importance of it at lower stakes though. Was kinda gameplan/range constructing orientated which provoked a change in my approach.

^^^link?

it was here on 2p2 in some thread but i cant remember where exactly

This one?

Another good session with Elliot tonight which threw up some new stuff and what will hopefully be some light bulb moments in to my out look on some of the stupid stuff Ive been doing.

Improvement over the last few months has been good and I still feel theres a ton of room for improvement and hopefully that is now switching to my poker game needing the most work rather than my mental game. If I am honest I was probably wanting some magic cure but thats never happening but the improvement both in that side of my game and my view of poker has probably been staggering.

If I go back before the last 3 or so months I was wanting to quit the game every other week or so when I had a bad run and wasnt enjoying poker at all and really couldnt care less if I played another hand or not. From that to this month where in about 50K hands Ive had a 10, a 9, and an 8 buy in downswings and managed to come out the other side still wanting to improve and still enjoying poker. Thats probably very standard for anyone playing any number of hands but for me that, probably half of that if Im honest, would have me wanting to quit.

Bring on June.

nah it was really short, like literally 3-4 lines, altho i think if you went through msot of his posts, theres a lot to be learned, especially the HH explanations he did in his thread.

cheers anyway Mart

Results are in for last month. Quite happy but I know theres still a ton of stuff to work on. Posted my NL25 Zoom and Rush graphs seperate as well. Rush plays so much differently to Zoom, people simply cant fold when they are obviously beat which means cutting down the bluffs but value betting more when making a hand.



Rush Nl25



Zoom NL25



Lots of stuff to work on this month the first been recognizing that when someone is 4betting for the most part it is for value and even players who look like they should be bluffing simply arnt most of the time and have just had a run of hands.

Made some good folds this month but thats about it. Still trying to clear as much of the bonus on FT as I can before moving back to Stars. I just like the feel of the games and software on there for some reason.

Anyway all the best to everyone in June. Lets crush.

WP for May, Sir.

I like your style, crush June...

Been a really slow start to the month. We have been crazy busy at work not giving me much time to play and starting off dropping about 7 or 8 buyins on FT and not playing much since that. Most of my time has been spent updating to HEM2. I thought it would be an easy transition but it has taken up much of my free time just trying to get it set up as I want it.

Ive also made changes to my HUD in that I have a lot of my stats that dont show up until I hit a certain sample size because Im reading too much in to small samples which is leading me to make a few loose plays.

Ive also purchased the Notecaddy Edge package which is very comprehensive and Ive just about finished setting up that along with the pop ups that are included which just give me a massive amount of stuff available at the click of a button and if I can spend some time getting to know how to use everything it will probably give me a bit of an unfair advantage at the tables.

Trying to balance everything is proving quite difficult with family life, work, and poker as at the moment work pays the bills but dosnt give me much time for family or poker but I know with some spare time I now have all the things at my disposal to give poker a real shot and think I could make some big strides. For the moment though Poker is 3rd in line behind family and work so just got to make the most of the time I have available and do everything I can to try and improve.

nice too see you back on track MartL! GL!

Thanks although this month isnt going well at all. Still trying to dig myself out of the hole from the begining of the month but getting crushed at the moment.

I played my biggest amount of hands in a day for a while at 7.7K but managed to drop just over 5 buy ins with tilt breaker kicking in an ungodley amount of times during the day. Pretty much anything that can go wrong has gone wrong. I have run KK in to AA 6 times today with me running AA in to KK once. In that hand the villain flatted pre and flopped a set and I barrelled off.

I dread to think how much I have lost with AK today, I either hit a low flop where I just cant cbet or I hit and the villain flops a set. If im honest today has probably been my worse day in poker for maybe a couple of years where I just see unlikely hands or watch as I get coolered or sucked out on.

Its getting quite hard to work out what is going wrong, at times people cant seem to fold and all my bluffs get snapped, I cant seem to get people to fold to my cbets when I have air and dont seem to be able to hit a draw. I am getting value from my big hands a lot of the time because people cant fold but its 6max and you dont flop a big hand a lot of the time so I really am starting to question where the profit comes from.

All that said apart from the confusion in my game Ive taken today in my stride tilt wise and other than the odd expleitive muttered to the monitor theres not been much to report really. I had a guy shove a K533 board on the turn when Im holding AK and he had TT only for the inevitable to happen and I just shrugged it off really as though it was an every day occurence. The only thing I worry about that is that if I just expect the bad beats to happen it could affect my play. Obviously something I need to keep an eye on.

The moral of the story is never cash out from Stars unless you can accept the run bad that follows.

Got up this morning and took a look at a couple of videos and felt refreshed and optimistic for playing again. Boot up 4 tables and within 17 hands Ive run AA in to QQ all in pre for a Queen to flop and then the following.............

I also think im out leveling myself a lot of the time. I mean at the moment in 3bet pots im running awfully but to compound things regs are playing their hands face up, like Ive been stacked with AK a few times recently where I hit the flop and the villain raises the flop. Im thinking if he had a set he would just let me keep betting rather than raising just incase I fold QQ/JJ but even the regs are just raising the dry boards with their sets which is perfect against me because I pay them off.

Got stacked a couple times more in 3bet pots today and I guess I just have to suck it up and think it will turn itself around.

I stuck to my plan of changing things up a bit after watching the videos and so far so good. Maybe just run good or the fact that Im now just playing 4 tables of 6max and I seem to have so much more time than when 8 tabling so I notice things more and think about things more.

I realized that playing 20/17 I have tightened up my range considerably and although I do whinge and moan I probably dont play bad in small pots post flop so it makes sense to widen my range again and I noticed from the videos that I watched that I fold a lot of hands that I really could be opening. Ive also started fighting for pots more be that 3betting hands that I dont think I can profitably call with or 4betting against players who will fold to a lot of 4bets.

The notecaddy edge package is bearing some fruit as well and some of the badges and popups are a godsend and are helping make more educated `gueses`. The other change was quite a big one as well because my min opens from the button get 3bet a hell of a lot which means I have to tighten my range a bit so Im experimenting with going back to opening 3x which so far seems to gain more respect and also has the added bonus that I build a bigger pot when I get called and without been big headed I hope I have more of an edge post flop over a lot of the players to make up for my lack of card advantage.

For the day anyway that lead me to having a good WR from the BTN and widening my range from something like 20/17 with a 4% 3bet to playing 27/24 with an 8% 3bet. My redline was also heading at 45 degrees downwards and leveled off quite a bit but that could go either way really because I dont blow people off hands like some others will when I have a read on someone and think I can get a bit of extra value by betting small which works against the redline but its all about the green line anyway.

Done for the day anyway and heres the results. Ship me more run good Stars please.

Still not managed to get back even for the month, variance is whipping my butt. 3 and 4bet pots are killing any WR I threaten to have. I played a 2K session yesterday which basically summed up my month. At one point I was about 7 buyins down getting back to a buyin down before finishing 3 buy ins down. I flopped a set in a 3bet pot to lose when the board ended up four to flush, the same thing happened and I lost when it ended up four to a straight. I rivered a flush in a 4bet pot on an AA3 board only to see the villain had called the 4bet with 33, I turned 2 pair in a 3bet pot to see the villain had flopped a set with 33 and then finally the biggest one I lost was against a really loose 3bettor who 3bet from the blinds and I called and flopped a monster OESFD only to see he flopped the nut flush with K4s.

Those 5 hands pretty much sum up how my month has been and im considering stopping 3betting lol. On the flip side though the biggest pot I won was nearly 200bb against a reg who I really have no idea what he was thinking.



Im not sure about the raise on the turn but I was probably thinking I would see an action killer on the river. I had to double take his hand.

Ive really no idea how I havnt smashed anything over the last few weeks but I havnt and I feel a lot better about poker because of it. Still happy giving 6max a go although Im half tempted to move back to FR as well but will keep seeing how it goes as long term obviously 6max is the way to go but short term if I am only playing up NL50 then maybe FR has more profit for me.

Haha what a call.




Snapped it as well, great read.

PTR`d the guy to find out he is winning at 7bb/100 and im like How is that possible. If I make a hero call like this im beat 11/10 yet he calls pre with A8s calls a dry flop and then a turn check/raise with A8 high where even a lot of my bluffs beat him.

I really dont get this game at times, it seems any time I am bluffing I get snap called yet no one seems to be bluffing against me, so even though I must have this weird bluffy image(otherwise people wouldnt snap my bluffs), I cant call down with TP because nobody seems to be bluffing against me.

Kinda hard to accept that I can go from beating NL100 to not really been able to beat NL25 because Ive got too much fancy crap going on with my game. Far too many bad habbits that I have picked up that I just cant get rid of and to cap it all I really dont have the time to do much about it. I could rip my game apart and point out loads of stuff that is wrong with it but when you only have an hour or so here and there to do something about it then its pretty hard especially when in that hour all I want to do is play poker.

Thought you could not PTR on Stars players nowadays .

when you see somebody like that winning for 7bb/100 and snaps you off with A high it is a clear indicator for two things:

* the games are so good he can "afford" to make hero calls even if he is going to beat 99% of the times;

* your image is just that: capable of spazzing with atc.

also i think you get the same FE if you raise 2.5x or 3x ott while being able to fold if he repops it and save yourself a decent amount of $ when he does that .

That's a silly bluff and deserved to be snapped. Name one hand youd play for value this way.

If I'm villain I'm mostly worried my kicker wont play.