Hello guys, I am back to this community.

I had a lot of PGC threads, the first ones I just allowed to die, the middling I kept for a long time and really helped me, and the last ones I allowed to die or asked to close. These last few months I finally decided to go deeper into trying to become more self aware, awareness of my flaws, biases etc. And one of my conclusions was that having a PGC thread just seemed a way to self promote, to fuel my own ego, to try to hide my own insecurities (usually hide them of myself). But it doesn´t need to be this way, really.

Twoplustwo still seems to be the biggest, and most diverse, poker forum from what I know (RIO seems to be dying, unfortunately, and the others already died unless I´m missing any other open poker community), and so this is the place where I think I can get the most knowledge exchange. I just need to focus my effort in keeping myself open minded, unbiased and treat everything that comes with equanimity.

I´m going to be talking more about general strategies that I manage to implement in my game, general approach, trying to get rid of what doesn´t work, than specifics like HHs, but I might change my mind, or just be flexible and do both.

One of my biggest mindset issues, that some of you might remember (or maybe not), is how I dealt with criticism, specially the ones I perceived as disrespectful. For example, a few years ago some member decided to offer me, via PM, advice as I was struggling to move up to 10nl. Then, I made a video of me playing, posted here and this same guy started to throw insults, to say how bad I was, how everyone playing the micros here on 2p2 were just <word> (I don´t remember the exact word, but was very insulting as a matter of fact). Then I blocked him, but before I threw my own jabs, deliberately trying to go even further, down to the personal level. How immature I was, right?

This might be just human, but most humans are imperfect and wired in a way that is, at least in part, detrimental to their own successes, so being aware and trying to at least minimize the flaws and approach praise, criticism, and even insults in a more equanimous way looks like a better approach to poker and life.

And here we are. I will do my best effort in trying to bring good topics, especially about my own strategies and thinking, but also poker in general, and would like people to engage. You guys have my full permission to be as candid as possible in replying to my posts, to call me out if I cross the line and start to throw any out of line comments or step too far from reasonable/well balanced opinions etc. Full sincerity on any HH I decide to post looking for help will be fully appreciated, and as long as it comes with the why and suggestions on how to improve, you can call me bad/terrible...

Been playing 6-max more often nowadays. It´s a faster and more dynamic format for sure, compared with the slowness of Full Ring, but the reg tables still play on a very reasonable pace (4-tabling) as long as I´m in my best game. And incredibly enough, reducing from 4 to 3 tables whenever I feel overwhelmed makes me feel as relaxed as I usually am when playing FR. And feeling good while playing is making me appreciate the format, finally

It has higher variance (higher stddev compared to 9-max), and my main limit whenever I play shorthanded has been 10nl until I build a bit more my roll and confidence, but I believe most of my prior reservations were either just irrational thinking and/or lack of confidence. And if I want to move up to decent stakes, I have to play it. Period. Better late than never.

I will talk a bit more about what BRM I want to use from now on, but I still have to think carefully about it. Topic for future posts.

My graph up to today:



Cheers

Hey there, glad to see you back!

It's a bit unfortunate, but there will always be those individuals who are quick to express negativity, often without any valid reason.
Maybe it's a way for them to boost their own ego or they might simply be having a rough day.
Regardless of their motivations, the ability to not get caught up in these negative interactions is a valuable skill, both in the world of poker and in real life.

Remember, progress happens gradually as we take steps forward each day, regardless of the naysayers.
The decisions we make and the accountability we take for them are what truly matter.

Your graph is looking great!

Best of luck with your new thread!

Thank you @slyless, I´m happy to be back again.

About BRM, I was thinking about doing a big, complete post, but better to just divide them in smaller pieces, as I still don´t really have a definitive, clear and well reasoned argument for what is a good approach and what is a bad approach.

I was looking at my past 12 months data and saw that I got 3.38 evbb/100 at 25nl fr (107,534 hands), and 6.13 evbb/100 at 10nl fr (27,113 hands). I'll ignore the 10nl numbers and assume that 10nl 6-max is more related to 25nl full ring (or, in other words, 10nl 6-max is tougher than 10nl fr so it should be either comparable to 25nl or at least be an average of both limits).

Assuming the standard deviation people usually use for 6-max poker (100 bb/100), and that my 3.38 evbb/100 winrate is a good proxy of my true, infinite term ev, primedope gave me 4432 bbs as the minimum bankroll for less than 5% risk of ruin. I assume this minimum bankroll means that, worst case inside the confidence interval, I still have at least 0.01 dollars in my roll. I think I would like to have at least 4 BIs in this case, for if the busting occurs while playing, so I would put the mim BR at 4832 bbs, and rounding it a bit above, 50 BIs.

Now, even though I´m relatively fresh for 6-max as my main game, I´m comfortable enough with 10nl as my safe base limit (25nl if it was full ring). I have a little less than 70 BIs now as my roll, which is considerably above the 50 BIs safety limit. So, here is my still not that well reasoned plan:

- Don't go below 10nl.
- Move up to the next limit as soon as I have 30+10 BIs, and use those 10 BIs as a stop loss. It means 1000 USD to move up to 25nl, going back to 10nl if it drops below 750USD, and the same for all up limits.
- If shot taking fails 3 times, look for coaching.

That's it for now.

Strategically, I would like to play a few hands, let's say 10k, at 10nl, and track my stats, to see how my baseline is doing. Not that interested in $ results for now, but broad things, like if I would still have nitty vpip/pfr/3b numbers, my WTSD, W$SD and WWSF. For full ring, filtering 25nl, those numbers are 15/13/6, and 25/55/46. This WWSF, while still low in theory, sees better than a lot of the winning regs playing nl25, and my (wishful?) thinking is that it would translate into something closer to 50 as multiway pots happens a bit less often at shorthanded games. But yeah, I will play the same strategy I´m used and see where it leaves me after the 10k hands.

Cheers

Back to Full Ring Back to 25nl.

Well, the main reason for this is the usual one for all the other times I made the move and regretted it very soon: I don´t like the format. It is the speed ofcourse, and the 3-tabling solution (instead of 4) helps, but even at the same H/hr, you play more and subject yourself to more decisions/overwhelming situations just because of the significantly higher VPIP (16 to 25-26 makes a very noticeable difference). Also, obv I don´t play it as well as (I think) I play FR. Not saying I´m good, just that I play 9 handed well for my standards and my level of ability, compared to shorthanded.

One good thing is that, obviously, I can play higher, due to the lower STD dev and, consequently, lower BR requirements. So, as I said, I´m back to the 25nl streets. This came very well as, going back to the 3rd chest level, I got a 40% RB weekly challenge (hopefully they will keep coming) and 40% easily achievable rakeback is a very significant boost to any roll.

Cheers

GLGL!

tyty

Our nutted hands must have a stable $ won, related to equilibrium.

If, at our games, this $ is deviating too much on the lower side, over a large enough sample, either we are running really bad, or we should be bluffing way more as the pool is too nitty.

Conversely, if we are winning way more, then the pool might be very stationy and our bluffs must be losing a lot. Maybe expanding our value range (thin value) instead of trying to bluff them?

Opinions on this?

So, cleared the 2 weekly challenges, for the grand total of, $4

Anyway, 40% RB and it required only a little more than 1k hands to do it so I'll happily take it.

On a more cheerfully positive note, got $40 from yesterdays LB. SWEEEEEEEET!!!!

Plan for next week is to see what stars throws at me and, if it´s decent again, take it and do my best.

Wanna do the whole "grind # hands and see where it takes me stats wise" at full ring, as it seems a good way to both have a sample to find leaks by myself, and also a discipline enhancer to stop experimenting and follow what I know gives me a positive winrate (not too big, not too incredible, but in all likelyhood positive and not extremely low). Experimenting and deviating all the time is a great way to make myself uncoachable/unworkable, and it´s not even a good, "scientific" way for improving. Changes should be made with a clear, intelligent reason, and one at a time, and, due to variance, tested over a big sample. As FR is tighter than 6-max, I´m going for 20k hands to then do my check ups.

With this weeks winnings and RB, have about 50 BIs for 25nl, and at the 60 BIs mark (30 for 50nl), will begin taking 5 buy-ins shots there. From 50nl onwards, I won´t really play mornings/early afternoons anymore. If I feel the itch to play, then I'll grind lower. Table/game/time selection is mandatory at anything higher than 25nl IMHO, for obvious reasons.

Cheers

Not looking at results til I have the 20k hands, btw

More or less didn´t put the proper effort, for many reasons, mainly since I´m still travelling and poker is not a big, or medium focus. Relaxing, enjoying and, when at "home", focus on irl work. This will change as I'll be coming back to Brazil this tuesday, and will be fully settled by saturday.

Anyway, this past few days were enough for me to decide focal points I want to consider, which are:

1) Defend from the blinds vs opens, especially steals.
2) Defend vs Flop CBets OOP, and the x/c node in general.
3) Defend vs Flop x/r.

I tend to believe these are the main spots that slowly but frequently enough, leak my winrate (by leaking the redline). I´m not massively overfolding by any means in any of these, actually I got surprised by how close my frequencies were compared to GTO Wizards aggregated reports, but still, lots of poker leaks are subtle anyway and letting slightly but frequent +EV spots go add up to big winrate losses in the long run. Also, these are the spots most vulnerable to the infamous autopiloting.

Don´t have any expectations of solving these, or ever getting the exact frequencies, and this might not even be the correct incentive in real games, but if I have to achieve higher stakes, I need to take good care of them, the best way I can, now, not later. I have a decent idea of what I have to do, and as long as I don´t autopilot and keep good study routines, I´m sure all of it is trainable.

Btw, having themes each month where I attack important spots, few at a time to not overload myself, seems a good approach. I'll keep you guys informed in the end

Cheers

I like your study points. I would say those are the weakest part of my game as well.

@Mr Spyutastic Yeah, then I´d def recommend attacking them asap, as those spots are frequent ocurring ones




Just expanding a little bit on this, I'd say very big deviations should, in all likelihood, be a leak, but subtler ones might need a little bit more analysis. One way I just thought is analyzing winrates by node, alongside your frequencies. When considering all combos inside your continuing range in, let's say, facing x/r, we should have a few high EV obvious holdings, and a lot of low EV ones that, while still >0 and better than folding, are close. And also the 0 ev indifferent ones between calling or folding. So, for example, let's say we open BTN for 2.5x, get a call from the BB, and cbet the flop 1/3, facing a x/r. If we folded, assuming no rake for simplification, hem would show a loss of 4.32 bbs, which translates to -432 bb/100 (2.5 bb open, pot is 5.5 bb, flop cbet of 1.82 bb, we lost 2.5+1.82 = 4.32). We'll have high EV hands, but if we defend optimally, due to the concentration of closer spots, the winrate shouldn´t get toooooo far from the -432 bb/100. If we´re seeing actually an overall profit for the whole node where we face a checkraise and flat it, then odds are we are just huge nits

So frequencies, and looking for obvious winrate discrepancies, might be the way. Would you guys add, or correct, anything here in this reasoning?

Based on your graph, looks like things have really been starting to click for you over the last 500k hands, that's awesome. And getting through an almost 500k hand breakeven stretch is pretty sick, congrats on that as well. Think you have to have a real love for the game to endure that long of a stretch lol

gl sir

ty for the very nice words @whitemares

That be stretch was me trying to move up to 10nl, I would do it, lose, tilt, go back to 5nl, regrind, rinse and repeat. I love the game for sure, and maybe a little bit odd, but the love (along with the obsession) increased during that rough period.

It also came with a few mental game issues, that anyone curious might check in my old threads. Lots of things I can´t believe I said/thought, I was pretty terrible and, considering how I thought about the game, can definitely see why my EV at 10nl was so low

Tons of value in never giving up and obsessively working until you really succeed, big life lesson I learned.

Last, one very big regret I have was not looking for coaching around that time, would have saved me a lot of time and would have been waaaaay less frustrating.

Cheers

Still alive, really proud that my approach to studying took a very sharp turn to the right direction. Lots of good news happening poker-wise, but will open it up here probably in the beginning of next year, as they are not given facts yet nor did I fully make my mind.



Next graph past the 5k USD mark, hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.

Nice

how much rakeback did u make over that sample

Not that much, only these last few years stars improved its offer. Would optimistically guesstimate 10% back over the entire sample, and I paid $5,820.26, so no more than $582.03, probably a bit less.

Wow that is one solid graph. Great job!

tyty <3