You playing bros on an emulator I assume? Just in Diamond union or in a more private one?

Absolutely, yes!!
I was tempted to parody your PLO strategy too but I don't want to give away too many of your secrets!

Glad to see you are doing well.

To 10K PLO!

Oh wow sick results man, another month to $50k! I will definitely hit you up on discord to talk some PLO5 if we both have some time, I’m honestly not that great at any PLO variant so I would def love to pick your brain a bit

I don’t think anyone here is questioning the poker skill of the Howard brothers, they’re obviously both quite solid. That plays no part whatsoever in my criticisms of them or their business

I mostly take issue with the fact that their business practices seem not all that far removed from being predatory, even if what they’re doing is “standard” from a business/marketing perspective. And ofc OP also takes specific issue with the rigidity of their program, and the fact that they seem to actively discourage critical thinking

Been meaning to watch one of those just to see what he's putting out there, will be able to comment more if/when that happens. Imo it doesn't take mass data to know when and where to under/overbluff. The rigidness is in the culture and the way they want to form your conception of how to play the game. Zero tolerance for doubting the system, bc "the data says it will win" kinda thing.

Yeah diamond and some privates, emulator or phone/ipad if I don't feel like sitting upright anymore lol. My favorite are the VPIP minimum tables where everyone's in the streets but the streets are full of stray dogs, shantytowns and police officers. Pure chaos = ++++EV

Lol I appreciate that, but I'd love to hear it privately sometime if you feel like it. Your insights, comedic as they were, actually gave me some clarity and good ideas moving forward.

To 10k and beyonddddd!!

Yeah man any time, I'm gonna get a month of PLOMastermind sometime after this tourney series on Bros from March 24-April 2nd, and just grind the vids and the PLO5Trainer to lock in the nec ideas. Should really only take one month of focus and some poking around the trainer, which I found MUCH more useful than Vision for exploring the game at the level where the principles lurk.

Yea this is fair, but personally there's a very short list of players who I feel "get it" when it comes to poker and then a whole long list of ppl who sorta do or mostly don't, but the # of ppl on those latter lists who actively claim to get it while in reality they don't is also quite short. That's the Detox guys, "we get it and if you don't like how we approach the game then there's something wrong with you. It sorta pains me to say, but there's someone who both "gets it" and also actively claims to get it. His name is Charlie Carrell and he makes Youtube videos where he says the f word a lot, but if you can get past that and a few other things then it's worth studying the principles he demonstrates in his play. Forgot if I mentioned this itt or not, but his videos and maybe even his NL course is where I'll be rehabbing my NL cash brain to detox from detox.

Im just not understanding what is so terrible about their strategy, you do learn game theory dont you? and they tell you where people are deviating based on data, isnt it all it is?

MDA comes in handy to exploit population tendencies, but there should be room to deviate from that strategy if villain deviates from population tendencies as well. It’s stupid, and obviously not an optimal approach to follow guidelines in any instance. If there is no room for discussion about these instances there is no room for growth; easy as that.

Im guessing there is more leeway once players reach a certain level? like I'd be surprised if the Howard brothers shut down this Matt guy (their best player I think) if he said he deviated from pop tendencies in a specific spot for whatever reason

Shouldn't it be Booby's case? Sorry to sound all fanboyish again and do all his marketing for him but didn't he make like a million on the infamous Gordylamb account playing hunl if memory serves? Ok, it was a long time ago, it was HU, the games have changed, etc. but my point is that he was hardly a beginner, yet he got fired for questioning their guidelines (good on him!)

If you read the thread from the beginning, you'll see OP was quite unhappy with Detox and being fired was exactly what he wanted to begin with.

Agree with Xenoblade it seemes way more likely that once you reach a certain level (1knl+ maybe?) they should give you more freedom to think by yourself. Not that I agree with anyone who thinks SSNL players should obey their bosses without thinking (I DON´T PAY YOU TO THINK, I PAY YOU TO DO WHATEVER I ORDER YOU TO DO, DO YOU UNDERSTAND????? ). Anyways, it´s still their CFP and they can do whatever they want, it´s up to the prospective students to research everything including PGC threads and then decide if this is really what they want of poker and life.

Perfectly put. Every one of my attempts to chat in Discord were on these threshold spots where it seems like the strategy works against us, and every time I was shut down by the group or a coach. If the stunting was a result of basic incompetency and misunderstanding that'd be one thing, but what I experienced was just "gtfo w/ those heretical ideas." Glad I was fired before Nick decided that I was a candidate for the frog poison or a spirit quest in the woods on a diet of urine.

They claim to give you that freedom pretty much throughout D2+ but if you bring any of your ideas to the Discord then expect crickets. There is a palpable fear in the community of speaking in ways that devalue the strategy, I sensed it on every mindset call/cult meeting. If you started drifting in the direction of doubting the strategy, Nick would spotlight you in front of the whole group and then dig into how your childhood traumas were causing those thoughts. "If you have doubts about the strategy, there's something wrong with you mentally" is sorta the message. I am ALL for group therapy I have seen it work wonders for people in my life and I'm even looking into finding a group to join myself bc I believe in it so much and would like to sort out a few things, but the mindset calls were an abomination, just a power trip for our sacred leader, human representative of the data lords here on earth and speaker for your truth...speaker for YOUR truth.

As you can see I've been treading water for the past 5 days, and about 4 days ago was when I first started to feel what I now know to be slight burnout from MTTs. I was just playing too many of them while not giving myself enough time to sit with any of the creative ideas I'd gathered during sessions. My desire to keep the upticks going won out over listening to the inner voice telling me to slow down and spend some time with GTOW or start the plo5 project or continue with the piosolver research I'm doing for a friend. During this time I experienced some of the worst beats on the bubble I've seen in quite a while, back to back to back ad inf., as well as losing 5 $1k+ pots at 1/2plo on Bros in crazy fashion.

I strongly believe that these types of stretches only occur when you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, i.e I felt like I wanted to study or try something different but I kept trudging forward hoping for the winds to change, staying way too money-minded with not enough focus on "what would be FUN today?" When I'm in a place like that, every small or large mistake I make is cause for immense self loathing, which is the nut worst mental state when you're still locked into a couple tournaments and need to give your best to try and finish strong.

You can see the grey shaded box on the right side of the spreadsheet marks my first cash out since starting. In the past I've used a system where each week I cash out 20% of my profits (if there are any). This gave a consistent sense of accomplishment while still allowing for quite strong and steady bankroll growth. I may start doing that in the future, but for now this cashout is meant to mark an inner/outer reset for me. Going forward I'm going to allow myself to take more days off from grinding and spend more time in the lab, immersing in the strategy and fun of the game. Nothing charges up the luckbox like coming out hot w/ a bunch of creative ideas in the spirit of fun. The poker gods love that sht

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=4525
He'll be back next month, maybe.

hahaha thx mark

Took the week off since Sunday and man did it help my mindset. I wasn't overly hard on myself for mistakes and I consistently listened to my intuition, finding creative lines throughout the day. Probably have Charlie Carrell's course to thank for a lot of that, but I'll wait to say more about it till I finish all the vids. Feels great to come back and book a win, AND almost win multiple tourneys (finished w/ a 1st, 2nd, and FT bubble). LFG

Appreciate the shout. Best of luck Although it appears you'll be playing high stakes in no time based on the previous life you had.

Thought I was winning 50k tonight but I guess the poker gods have other plans for me. WAS SO CLOSE! But I'm finding a lot of inner confidence/peace/joy from simply trusting their judgement rather than whining about the variance or self-loathing about the mistakes I made (especially that). This tourney series has been amazing for my growth as a player on many levels, but I'm too tired to go into detail now gonna LFG to bed byeeeezzzzzzz.

Yesterday was lame as far as results, and I was overstimulated bc I drank the bottom of the coffee where it's super strong so the anger made an appearance, but studying today I'm realizing just how valuable the experience was. The most exciting (stressful cuz the coffee) part of my day was the standard money bubbles bc I was super short in four tourneys and I felt REALLY uncertain in every spot unless I had KK/AA or a read that players behind were way too tight or if I somehow covered most of them. I snuck into the money in one and was then UTG w/ Q2o and something like 1.6bb. I shoved thinking "gotta do it, let's hope to get iso'd," but check this out..



A3o/A2o FOLDING with 2bb!! I assumed we were wayyy more desperate in this spot and would've been shoving K8o-K2o/Q8o-Q2o(obv)/J8o-J7o etc. So yesterday was a crucial experience for me on my path to mastery and I now feel very grateful for it.



I was shoving KTo here too. The funniest part about these discoveries is that I generally consider myself MUCH tighter than most when it comes to shoving or calling (esp calling) when it risks my tournament life. But it seems I need to start channeling more of my old pal/frenemy Matt Marafioti (RIP bud) and tighten up. He had a knack for going deep in tons of tourneys but rarely winning, w/ lots of 3rd-5ths. But I would say the lack of top results wasn't bc he was too nitty in these spots, but bc he never adjusted this strat or found other ways to lean on players which is something I def don't struggle with

Gonna get grinding now, gla!

Awesome thread bro, best current thread on 2+2, very motivating. I remember your appearances from 2M2M.

You are the first poker player I've seen point out the anger with coffee. My anger is also amplified when I partake in coffee. It makes me feel good for like 20 - 30 minutes, but my stress increases dramatically and the session feels like life or death. Once I drink one cup I always want more as well. I tried to bring it up with fellow players, but usually get brushed off like I'm crazy. Maybe it's just a chemical imbalance in our brains because of past drug use

Will enjoy following your future success. Thank you for the good reads.

dude??

Wow ty for such kind words ! I hope to keep bringing the good reads, and even just spent 2hrs writing an update post only to have 2p2 reload and log me out so I lost it all . Absolutely heartbreaking but lesson learned.

As for the coffee thing, I've heard from another player that they also experience this - so there's at least three of us out in the wild. It's possible that we're just not being as careful w/ quantity as we should and too much adrenaline is being dumped into the system at one time, causing an imbalance that our bodies can't equilibrate w/out some other form of reset like sleep or working out. There's an amazing Huberman pod on "Using Play to Rewire & Improve Your Brain" where he discusses how being in a playful state results in consistently better performance, and the neurochemicals of play are endorphins. Anyone who's played high on pain killers knows what I mean - my ROI in that state was around 2000% lifetime (not exaggerating, +$900k across ~20 sessions w/ around $45k in buyins). Too much adrenaline (going past our body's unique coffee/adrenaline dump threshold) reduces or cancels out the endorphins behind "play mode" and puts us into fight or flight mode, where it's only natural that our hand analysis will suffer bc we'll see ghosts and be fearful of our opponents' top of range, or we'll get angry/go fight-mode every time we lose a pot "especially to THAT GUY fk that guy" kinda thing. And then we self-talk from the same energy and it sucks.

Here's the link lmk what you think if you check it out.

https://youtu.be/BwyZIWeBpRw

Dude!!! How you been/what you been up to??