Haven't had a ton of motivation for poker recently (due to results- still having a hard time managing even small downswings mentally). As per my previous learned lesson, taking it at my own pace and slowly building momentum back up.

Some rambling inc~~~~~~~

One thing I've noticed recently that I primarily associate with poor poker results is being a bit bitter- seeing more of the bad qualities of things/people rather than the good, etc. I find it super interesting because almost everything/everyone has both good and bad qualities, and it really is up to us as individuals to "decide" how we want to perceive them. "Decide" here in quotes because well it's not entirely our choice, much of our worldviews are subconscious based on how life has treated us, especially in recent memory.

I'm not entirely sure how much of it is related to poker, I had some very bizarre drama earlier this year that resulted in the loss of a romantic partner as well as one of my closest friend groups (our mutual friends), but I think I feel it mostly when my poker results aren't great.

I feel like I didn't explain that great, so I will use a concrete example. Normally I really appreciate my roommate charging my phone and it doesn't bother me at all when he leaves a puddle of water by the shower, but during a "life slump" then I would take the kind gesture for granted and be more annoyed by the latter. Anyway, yeah right now I'm in a "life slump". I feel like I'm generally pretty good at just being aware of it and not letting it affect the way I treat others TOO much, but it still definitely has its effects. But yeah that's my life update now, I'm looking for a way out of the slump, and confident I will find it soon

Amusingly, I actually empathize more right now with people who ALWAYS see the bad in everything, whose 2+2 post histories are full of negativity (I've been lurking the Global Poker forums too much), my feelings towards them normally is "fk I hate those guys", but now I'm like "omg that's so sad! I wanna give them hugs"

So yeah I think since I'm playing online PLO now, which is relatively new to me (only a few months), I've been having a lot of confidence issues whenever I have downswings. Need to figure out how to overcome these, but HOPEFULLY as I get more experience in it it'll get better !?!?

Hello Aesah,

When things are not going well in life, and in poker, I think it would be natural to let it affect you, and your attitude towards others. But I also think you can choose not to. I am not saying that I have that specific mindset or life skill, at hand consistently, but that if you can find acceptance within yourself, for the good and the bad, I think it will help. I dislike referring to things, categorizing them as, good/bad, right/wrong, but you get the drift.

I also find the downswings for online plo pretty brutal. At my skill level, and blind level, swinging back and forth, over let's say 18 months, then realizing that the bankroll is down to 8 buy-ins, is a psychological downer. Acceptance of my own demise, my personal responsibility for sub optimal play, is the difficult reality. If I took a 20 buy-in downswing at $200-plo, I would be in a funk also.

I am wondering how you are getting the 'stats' on your plo opponents from 'Ignition'? I am guessing that the hand histories can be saved. Are you physically placing the hand histories into PT-4? The reason I ask is, I thought the tables were anonymous, with no hud's allowed? I do not have an account on 'Ignition', but I am considering whether or not to.

Thanks in advance, for replying, konoki_1.

I strongly agree with not thinking of things as good or bad. I sometimes confuse myself whether I'm just trying to rationalize my way out of a bad situation, but I really don't mind feeling depressed every once in awhile. I feel the experience is necessary, even. Another way of looking at it, if I had a genie make me choose right now and flip a switch to either be happy the rest of my life (whatever that means), or be happy 95% of the time and sad 5%, I'd be very inclined to take the latter.

~~~~

Ah ya ignore the VPIP/etc stats in the hand histories since the players are indeed anonymous, so it simply shows the population tendency for that position (which is why every single "player" has roughly the same stats).

Here's a song that always makes me smile

I was not wondering about the player stats; what I am curious about is, how did you get the hand histories, into the pt4 software; are you allowed to 'save' the hand histories off of 'Ignition', and then just input them into pt4?
What I am seeking is a method to break down the hands with a re-player.
Thanks, konoki_1;

You can download any hands played within 7 days of playing them. Then you convert them and import them to pt4.

you don't need to convert them, PT4 supports Ignition HHs (which you can just download from Ignition)

Didn't really like any of my 3 options on this turn, I think call is best though

Ignition - $1 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 92 BB (VPIP: 43.25, PFR: 16.17, 3Bet Preflop: 5.29, Hands: 13,134)
UTG: 214.18 BB (VPIP: 42.72, PFR: 17.82, 3Bet Preflop: 5.61, Hands: 13,969)
MP: 173.07 BB (VPIP: 46.33, PFR: 19.11, 3Bet Preflop: 6.84, Hands: 13,704)
CO: 38.15 BB (VPIP: 43.88, PFR: 17.75, 3Bet Preflop: 5.50, Hands: 12,714)
BTN: 122.05 BB (VPIP: 42.33, PFR: 17.20, 3Bet Preflop: 5.59, Hands: 12,668)
Hero (SB): 114.18 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 5 A 8 T

UTG calls 1 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 0.5 BB, BB checks

Flop: (3 BB, 3 players) 8 9 A
Hero bets 2.46 BB, BB raises to 10.38 BB, fold, Hero calls 7.92 BB

Turn: (23.76 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero checks, BB bets 23.76 BB, Hero raises to 95.04 BB, BB calls 56.86 BB and is all-in

River: (185 BB, 2 players) 6



Light 200bb stackoff

Ignition - $1 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 211.04 BB (VPIP: 43.34, PFR: 16.23, 3Bet Preflop: 5.37, Hands: 13,208)
CO: 30 BB (VPIP: 44.04, PFR: 17.78, 3Bet Preflop: 5.49, Hands: 12,818)
Hero (BTN): 243.76 BB
SB: 80.52 BB (VPIP: 39.66, PFR: 17.53, 3Bet Preflop: 5.81, Hands: 12,796)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB, CO posts penalty blind 0.5 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2 BB) Hero has T 7 Q K

CO calls 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 4.5 BB, fold, BB calls 3.5 BB, fold

Flop: (10.5 BB, 2 players) 7 2 7
BB checks, Hero bets 4.25 BB, BB raises to 23.25 BB, Hero calls 19 BB

Turn: (57 BB, 2 players) 9
BB bets 57 BB, Hero raises to 216.01 BB and is all-in, BB calls 126.29 BB and is all-in

River: (423.58 BB, 2 players) T

Also decided I want to reapply to some jobs in the gaming industry. Right now mainly interested in Blizzard, have enjoyed almost all their titles. Gonna brush up on my Hearthstone

Also Wizards! Trying out MTG Arena

I wish we could get zoom going for PLO on ignition. How did you get hud stats?

You can actually just pitch this one on the flop after you get raised.

Been filling my thoughts full of game design recently. Gonna focus on the card game genre to fully prepare- position I'm mainly looking at is for Blizzard Hearthstone, of course it's RIDICULOUSLY competitive so also doing some research to apply to backup options afterwards. Also good in general just to expand my knowledge of what card games are out there and get experience in them, see what works vs. what doesn't work in different games. Really feel impassioned/excited my life is moving towards something I've loved my entire life again

I do love League of Legends, I had spent thousands of hours playing the game even BEFORE I joined Riot, but Blizzard is something different. I've played a ton of hours in almost all their titles including Starcraft, Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Starcraft 2, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch.

No desire at all for poker for awhile :P

What kind of work would it be?

The position I'm devoting the vast majority of my time to prepare for is designing Hearthstone cards

I climbed from the starting rank to the highest tier (top 0.5%) in 30 hours of playing, which I'm pretty proud of, that's pretty much as fast as I could have hoped to have done it. During this time, I lost a few games due to disconnects but it didn't bother me at all, I was focused on learning and getting better. I believed that sure it might set me back in the short term, but all I had to do was get better every game and as long as that was the case I would eventually get there, didn't matter if I had to win a few "extra" games.

This was the attitude that I used to approach poker with when I was first starting out, but for some reason, no idea why I have been unable to apply that kind of mindset recently in poker

Dude you expressed this perfectly. I can relate to this so much. I know how I get irritated by the pettiest of things when I'm on a downswing, yet I'm cheerful and want to spoil my girlfriend whenever I'm upswinging.

And I think you're 100% right about the negative people. Most of them are simply unhappy because they've been losing (whether through bad play or through variance), and that's what causes them to have bitter attitudes.

I love both Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3. Put in probably over 1000 hours at each of those games. Blizzard games are so addictive.

Did you know that they're releasing Warcraft 3 Reforged soon?

I know basically nothing about hearthstone but that sounds impressive. Natural to get burnt out, I'm sure the passion for hearthstone will fade a bit over time as well. Hopefully you can keep finding new things you are passionate about to jump to when that happens. Gl with the hearthstone job application!

Yeah it sucks. I just want everyone to feel good

I actually already purchased Warcraft 3, it was actually one of the games I've been most successful at. I'm expecting soon™ to mean December 2019.

Ya, I'm sure I won't maintain the interest level I'm currently at, but I feel pretty good about being able to maintain a high level. I'm feeling pretty good about it the application right now. My preparation has been moving along several times faster than I was expecting it to- as of right now I expect to send in an application within a week, whereas a few days ago I would have guessed December. I'm mostly focusing on reviewing a lot of my interview prep when I applied to Riot, re-familiarizing myself with the Hearthstone/Warcraft universe and just the card game market in general.

Saw a motivational poster (much like myself) when I was out today that read "Proceed as if success is inevitable". This is how I've kind of been approaching my job application, focusing on only one of them. Unfortunately, the position was filled shortly after I submitted my application, making me feel kind of silly for proceeding as if success was inevitable. Regardless, was a good learning/practice run for future job apps. Focusing on two game design positions this time, another one at Blizzard for rewards in WoW, and also card design at Dire Wolf for Eternal. Also been playing a bit poker, not a lot but just trying to make sure I don't forget how to play just in case

I have some friends who work at Dire Wolf. They're good peeps. Do you do any grayboxing for level design?

They will probably put the phone in our arm one day and be some sort of chip we will be making phone calls with our brain

I haven't done level design

I don't think cell phones in 2023 will have the same processing power as a supercomputer in 2018. However I think it's perfectly reasonable that there can exist a cell phone application in 2023 that can make poker decisions for you really close to as good as Libratus can.

Speaking of online poker, I've been noticing volume on Global is declining (volume on the other site I play on, Ignition, is pretty invisible as always)

Been kind of out of the loop, any reason in particular that is the case?

friend told me some flops were coming out with only two cards visible, so that might be part of the reason. But removing paypal as payment option probably didnt help