KT hand is really bad. I dunno if your downswing has you seeing MUBs but failing to raise either turn or river is a massive blunder. All the other hands seem rather standard.

I will take a second look at the KT hand. His sizing was just very polarized and I blocked both flush draws on the turn, but I think it's a raise. River it feels like his sizing is saying 2pair+ and on a raggedy board that leaves too many set combos.

I started to say "wtf?" at KT hand but understand the turn call because of the sizing although I would still raise turn but river I think I would also xc when IP hits pot.

The first hand I thought was really bad. You were extremely lucky to be drawing to 10 outs instead of 1 when all the money went in. Bottom set on a mono flop in a 4 way pot when the action goes pot, call, alarm bells are going off in my head and stacking off on flop is the last thing I'm trying to do.

99 hand I'm probably jamming flop but call is also fine and when he sizes down turn I like the way you played it. Unlucky. Rest of hands standard.

I went through a similar stretch in December losing 30bi overall. One thing I wish I had done sooner is move down to lick my wounds, gain confidence playing weaker comp which leads to a higher chance of victory and if you keep running bad then at least the $ value we lose is less than our normal stake. I nearly lost my mind going through it but it was actually the medicine I needed. Forced me to take a long hard look in the mirror and make significant changes in the way I approach the game. Hope things turn around for you soon.

Yeah I've definitely heard of players having these runs before, and while I wasn't naive to think I was immune somehow they hit a lot different when you're in the drivers seat. Moving down is definitely happening. At the start of this I was sitting on a 10K roll fat and happy grinding out 200NL with shots at 500NL when the games were soft. Now I've got a 4K roll looking light for 100NL. I will definitely be playing 100NL for like a week just to see how things go.

The 22 hand was interesting. The MP pot sized bet was not scary given that particular player (lol look what he showed up with). The CO call wasn't ideal but he's going to have a lot of overpairs with a spade or possibly worse given the board and the primary villain. I felt like I was in a great spot to gii with MP which I really wanted to do and put the CO in a tough spot with a lot of his range. When he re-shoved I knew I was drawing but unless I was oversetted I had the equity needed to call this given that one of them was likely dead money.

99 hand jamming flop definitely crossed my mind but it just looked way too strong. If he has a smaller set the money goes in anyways unless the board runs out 68 or something. I didn't want him to hero fold an overpair. I knew that I didn't want to see the turn/river that I did, and when he shoved the river I wasn't thrilled because most bluffs and other big pairs are probably shutting down.

Fair points.

Just remember to table select aggressively and play on good tables. This will help your winrate overall and something I have prioritized lately instead of being lazy about it in the past.

25/hand is already pretty swingy. 100/hand I don't think I could stomach. I had a $7k downswing at 25/hand which just sucked.
Eventually got back to -6k and earned 4k back in rewards so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But man, I'm glad I wasn't betting more when I was having a run that bad. And I still finished inside of 2 SD. This wasn't exactly a "bottom 3%" for run bad. So be careful with that 100/hand stuff.


If I'm making over 100/hour in EV/Bonus Clear then I feel okay with it. But it definitely is a long weekend grind on these. I definitely understand wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible.
That calculator link is one I use a lot for perspective. Definitely helps for understanding the grind ahead.

Avoid that double-up nonsense. It is a waste of time and doing whatever martingale or reverse-martingale won't get you there. Hands per hour AND somehow not losing your mind is the name of the game

Yeah I wasn't sure what it would feel like in real time. I sort of knew it was a waste going in but wanted to at least experience it. After the first big downswing with it I was out. So much truth about not losing your mind. I definitely did best when I set up a nice podcast playlist and just plowed through it for a few hours at a time. Doing a few minutes here and there while trying to juggle household chores was tilting. I totally believe the downswings at $25/hand as well. I lost $1000 while taking a crap at $50/hand once and that was a weird feeling. Overall I can't complain. These promotions have been very lucrative for me, and I think are worth it even if they do require me to fade some 2+ SD runbad.

I've been looking into my doomswitching the last 6000 hands just to put in perspective. You're supposed to run KK into AA every 9000ish hands. I'm at 4 in the last 6000. Not egregious, but definitely a decent chunk of my problem. I am counting 12/21 as the start of this swing in my database. I'm down 6 buyins with KK, and another 2 with AK over that time. While I'm far from a perfect player, I like to at least think I can sustain a longer term winrate with premium hands.

I've been going through a lot of the above hands in the solver. I am pleasantly surprised that they are not all as terrible as I though. I should have been stacked on that KT hand but honestly alarm bells went off when he chose to pot that turn and river. It just seemed like a spot where the K was so good for his perceived range that he didn't need to blast to get me to fold, and was trying to go for max protect/value.

This hand is another story. I botched it at almost every spot. The preflop charts I have say call is OK 25% of the time preflop, so I'll live with that. Flop is supposed to be a x/f unless we have the BDFD. It's weird to imagine folding any pair on the flop but I'm in such terrible shape against his UTG range that it's one of the times where we do. Raising the river was terrible given all his boat combos, there's just no thin value to be had. The solver didn't even raise A9 here.

PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 117.09 BB
BTN: 23.73 BB
SB: 68.3 BB
Hero (BB): 101.5 BB
UTG: 121.65 BB
MP: 73.12 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has T 9

UTG raises to 2.25 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.25 BB

Flop: (5 BB, 2 players) J 9 A
Hero checks, UTG bets 2.38 BB, Hero calls 2.38 BB

Turn: (9.75 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero checks, UTG bets 6.95 BB, Hero calls 6.95 BB

River: (23.64 BB, 2 players) 9
Hero checks, UTG bets 16.85 BB, Hero raises to 42 BB, UTG calls 25.16 BB

Hero shows T 9 (Three of a Kind, Nines)
(Pre 26%, Flop 5%, Turn 14%)
UTG shows J 9 (Full House, Nines full of Jacks)
(Pre 74%, Flop 95%, Turn 86%)
UTG wins 106.14 BB

So I spent several hours going through a lot of these hands in the solver. I think it was a good exercise from an educational standpoint, because even though the hands likely play out similar, I saw some things in the various sizings and ranges it chooses that tell me I am misapplying some concepts. Overall I think my OOP play needs a lot of work. Many of these hands were coolers that I could do little to avoid, but did show me some concepts that I'll be deep diving further. On to it:

PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 45.55 BB
CO: 148.57 BB
BTN: 102.97 BB
Hero (SB): 104.5 BB
BB: 138.38 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K K

fold, CO raises to 2.2 BB, fold, Hero raises to 10 BB, fold, CO calls 7.8 BB

Flop: (21 BB, 2 players) J 2 8
Hero bets 7.5 BB, CO raises to 17.99 BB, Hero calls 10.49 BB

Turn: (56.97 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero checks, CO bets 16.64 BB, Hero calls 16.64 BB

River: (90.25 BB, 2 players) 5
Hero checks, CO bets 103.94 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 59.88 BB and is all-in

CO shows 2 2 (Three of a Kind, Twos)
(Pre 19%, Flop 87%, Turn 95%)
Hero shows K K (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 81%, Flop 13%, Turn 5%)
CO wins 208.5 BB

Our sizing is supposed to be mixed here with this combo going bigger, but range ⅓ is OK. Hard to evaluate afterwards because CO is not supposed to have a raising range here at all. When I try to shoehorn one in, KK becomes a flop get it in. No matter which branch of the game tree I go down in my solve, they all end up with KK all in one way or another.


PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP: 288.95 BB
CO: 127.83 BB
BTN: 262.85 BB
SB: 113.27 BB
Hero (BB): 101.72 BB
UTG: 148.38 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K K

UTG raises to 2.2 BB, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 1.7 BB, Hero raises to 12.5 BB, UTG calls 10.3 BB, fold

Flop: (27.2 BB, 2 players) 2 7 T
Hero bets 8.53 BB, UTG raises to 29.97 BB, Hero calls 21.45 BB

Turn: (87.14 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero checks, UTG checks

River: (87.14 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero bets 28.26 BB, UTG raises to 105.91 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 30.99 BB and is all-in

UTG shows Q A (Flush, Ace High)
(Pre 32%, Flop 43%, Turn 100%)
Hero shows K K (Flush, King High)
(Pre 68%, Flop 57%, Turn 0%)
UTG wins 204.13 BB

Flop is another mixed sizing spot but it prefers larger. Another one that’s tricky to evaluate because UTG is not supposed to have a raising range on this flop, but again when I force it to raise, it just jams KK on the flop, which I probably should have done.


PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 100 BB
Hero (MP): 101.3 BB
CO: 221.2 BB
BTN: 134.64 BB
SB: 100 BB
BB: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A K

fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, BTN raises to 8.5 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 21 BB, BTN calls 12.5 BB

Flop: (43.5 BB, 2 players) T 2 5
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: (43.5 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero checks, BTN bets 21 BB, Hero calls 21 BB

River: (85.5 BB, 2 players) A
Hero checks, BTN bets 92.64 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 59.3 BB and is all-in

BTN shows K Q (Flush, Ace High)
(Pre 29%, Flop 18%, Turn 27%)
Hero shows A K (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 71%, Flop 82%, Turn 73%)
BTN wins 202.6 BB

This one is not as bad as I thought. All my decisions are valid parts of the game tree. The solver does a lot of mixing on the flop, but this hand is primarily a check. It likes villains check back. Turn it likes both of our plays, although it mixes call/fold with this combo of AK. Same with river, folding or calling are both on the table, but mostly calling.

PartyGaming - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP: 138.65 BB
CO: 195.05 BB
BTN: 137.79 BB
SB: 200.94 BB
Hero (BB): 121.46 BB
UTG: 113.93 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K J

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5.5 BB, 2 players) 3 J 8
Hero checks, BTN bets 1.73 BB, Hero calls 1.73 BB

Turn: (8.96 BB, 2 players) K
Hero checks, BTN bets 8.47 BB, Hero raises to 25.4 BB, BTN raises to 133.56 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 91.83 BB and is all-in

River: (243.41 BB, 2 players) 6

Hero shows K J (Two Pair, Kings and Jacks)
(Pre 46%, Flop 5%, Turn 9%)
BTN shows 8 8 (Three of a Kind, Eights)
(Pre 54%, Flop 95%, Turn 91%)
BTN wins 16.34 BB
BTN wins 241.91 BB

I hate solving single raised pots, especially BTN vs BB when ranges are at their widest, and stacks are deeper. But it needs to be done. Looks like I played it pretty standard. Money goes in on the turn. Leading with this combo on the flop is also an option.

PartyGaming - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 100 BB
BB: 203.98 BB
UTG: 104 BB
MP: 124.78 BB
Hero (CO): 101.5 BB
BTN: 155.39 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has T T

fold, MP raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 9 BB, fold, fold, fold, MP calls 6 BB

Flop: (19.5 BB, 2 players) 8 6 A
MP checks, Hero bets 6.08 BB, MP calls 6.08 BB

Turn: (31.65 BB, 2 players) T
MP checks, Hero bets 26 BB, MP raises to 74 BB, Hero raises to 86.43 BB and is all-in, MP calls 12.43 BB

River: (204.5 BB, 2 players) 8

MP shows A A (Full House, Aces full of Eights)
(Pre 81%, Flop 98%, Turn 98%)
Hero shows T T (Full House, Tens full of Eights)
(Pre 19%, Flop 2%, Turn 2%)
MP wins 203 BB

He’s not really supposed to have AA in an OOP flatting range but I just gave 50% of combos for QQ+. Solver is mixing TT at about 50/50 like I expected on the flop, opting for a small size with most of my range. It could possibly be a range bet with a smaller than ⅓ sizing. Turn it likes my size again. V isn’t supposed to raise AA but it’s a snap call with tens either way. Not a particularly interesting hand.


PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 139.42 BB
MP: 107.03 BB
CO: 114.79 BB
BTN: 163.51 BB
Hero (SB): 144.94 BB
BB: 106.68 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 6 6

fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, BB calls 2 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) 8 4 T
Hero bets 3 BB, BB calls 3 BB

Turn: (12 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero bets 8 BB, BB calls 8 BB

River: (28 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero bets 25 BB, BB raises to 50 BB, Hero calls 25 BB

BB shows 7 9 (Straight, Ten High)
(Pre 46%, Flop 46%, Turn 77%)
Hero mucks 6 6 (Three of a Kind, Sixes)
(Pre 54%, Flop 54%, Turn 23%)
BB wins 126.5 BB

Here’s another hand where we both deviated a ways from the solver. I’m not supposed to bet flop, and stacks go in on the turn. Assuming he has all J9/79/75 as played, I think I can actually fold to this river raise, even though it seems gross. I definitely need to work on my OOP play, specifically when to slow down as the PFR while also maintaining enough strong hands that I can’t just be steamrolled. I understand that when you are the PFR and the board gives the IP caller an advantage (or at least neutralish in this case) that there’s only so much you can do though. I think this is another example of a hand that while I was destined to lose a lot or even more if I played optimally on, it shows I have work to do in these spots.

PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 251.23 BB
UTG: 100 BB
CO: 121.2 BB
BTN: 90.9 BB
Hero (SB): 112.86 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K Q

fold, CO raises to 3 BB, fold, Hero raises to 12 BB, fold, CO calls 9 BB

Flop: (25 BB, 2 players) 4 A 8
Hero bets 7.84 BB, CO calls 7.84 BB

Turn: (40.68 BB, 2 players) K
Hero checks, CO checks

River: (40.68 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero checks, CO bets 39.18 BB, Hero calls 39.18 BB

CO shows 4 4 (Three of a Kind, Fours)
(Pre 50%, Flop 96%, Turn 100%)
Hero mucks K Q (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 50%, Flop 4%, Turn 0%)
CO wins 117.54 BB

I’m a bit surprised by this one. The solver mostly agrees with my line (although it’s split on call/fold river). It likes the flop c-bet and the turn check. It hates his checkback with 44 even though I’m supposed to fold KQs if he bets big. River is ⅓ call ⅔ fold. I think in practice these larger bets are biased towards value, but this villain was bad and overly aggressive, so I think I can defend this hand a bit.


PartyGaming - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 122.77 BB
UTG: 101.5 BB
MP: 100 BB
CO: 290.93 BB
BTN: 246.74 BB
Hero (SB): 113.55 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J A

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.5 BB, Hero raises to 10 BB, fold, BTN calls 7.5 BB

Flop: (21 BB, 2 players) 4 3 A
Hero bets 6.55 BB, BTN calls 6.55 BB

Turn: (34.09 BB, 2 players) 8
Hero bets 16.3 BB, BTN calls 16.3 BB

River: (66.68 BB, 2 players) K
Hero bets 21.5 BB, BTN raises to 102.64 BB, fold

BTN wins 189.32 BB

The solver mostly likes my line and choice of sizings here, and agrees with my thinking that we can continue to value bet our AJ with the ace of diamonds combos on the river while checking the rest. It also finds the fold to the river shove.

PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 109.98 BB
Hero (UTG): 112.38 BB
MP: 168.28 BB
CO: 95.5 BB
BTN: 80.22 BB
SB: 112.58 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 6 6

Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 2.5 BB, fold, BB calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (8 BB, 3 players) 6 A Q
BB checks, Hero bets 3.5 BB, BTN calls 3.5 BB, fold

Turn: (15 BB, 2 players) T
Hero bets 10 BB, BTN calls 10 BB

River: (35 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero bets 96.38 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 64.22 BB and is all-in

Hero shows 6 6 (Full House, Sixes full of Queens)
(Pre 50%, Flop 96%, Turn 91%)
BTN shows Q T (Full House, Queens full of Tens)
(Pre 50%, Flop 4%, Turn 9%)
BTN wins 161.94 BB

This hand was actually really interesting. (despite 3-ways I ran it HU vs. BTN) It wants me to bet small all 3 streets. Given the option to bet larger on the turn it will do it sometimes, but if that bet gets called, the river becomes a check/call. If we go small on the turn we call his river raise. I’ve heard the concept of going with small bets against overly polarized ranges. It felt weird that river lead would be small here. I’m going through these sort of quick as a sanity/line check, but I think this is a hand that I will earmark for future study. It’s likely my play vs. IP callers needs some work, and I am curious how different board textures affect us. I think there’s a lot of concepts at play here that I don’t understand and maybe the solver can help me unlock them.


PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 63.96 BB
UTG: 56.7 BB
MP: 45.31 BB
CO: 104.55 BB
BTN: 81.5 BB
Hero (SB): 131.61 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A K

fold, MP calls 1 BB, fold, BTN raises to 4.5 BB, Hero raises to 18 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 13.5 BB

Flop: (38 BB, 2 players) 7 T 3
Hero bets 18 BB, BTN calls 18 BB

Turn: (74 BB, 2 players) J
Hero bets 95.61 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 45.5 BB and is all-in

River: (165 BB, 2 players) 9

Hero shows A K (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 71%, Flop 87%, Turn 34%)
BTN shows J K (One Pair, Jacks)
(Pre 29%, Flop 13%, Turn 66%)
BTN wins 162 BB

Another slight surprise. Solver mixes my play and just straight check/calling it off. It doesn’t hate his flop call as much as I thought. It’s much more aggressive with overpairs and overcards with a single heart than it is with the NFD. This is another area where I will deep dive later for more concept study, as it seems like an important one that isn’t inherently intuitive. .

PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 105.38 BB
Hero (BB): 108.23 BB
UTG: 114.26 BB
MP: 48.23 BB
CO: 130.85 BB
BTN: 27.5 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 2 2

fold, MP calls 1 BB, CO raises to 4 BB, BTN calls 4 BB, fold, Hero calls 3 BB, MP calls 3 BB

Flop: (16.5 BB, 4 players) 2 4 6
Hero checks, MP bets 15.68 BB, CO calls 15.68 BB, fold, Hero raises to 44 BB, MP calls 28.33 BB, CO raises to 126.85 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 60.23 BB and is all-in, MP calls 0.23 BB and is all-in

Turn: (269.18 BB, 3 players) J

River: (269.18 BB, 3 players) 5

Hero shows 2 2 (Three of a Kind, Twos)

Main Pot [149.19 BB]: (Pre 28%, Flop 36%, Turn 21%)
Side Pot#1 [119.99 BB]: (Pre 48%, Flop 34%, Turn 20%)

CO shows K J (Flush, King High)

Main Pot [149.19 BB]: (Pre 43%, Flop 64%, Turn 79%)
Side Pot#1 [119.99 BB]: (Pre 52%, Flop 66%, Turn 80%)

MP shows 9 8 (Flush, Nine High)

Main Pot [149.19 BB]: (Pre 29%, Flop 0.0%, Turn 0%)

CO wins 267.68 BB

According equilab this one isn’t too bad. At least at the point I go to raise I have over 50% equity over the ranges I estimated for them (how tf am I supposed to put 98o in there tho honestly). Once I get raised it’s clearly much worse but I think he can have single spade overpairs along with made flushes, maybe even the naked A sometimes. Normally I wouldn’t be quite as eager to GII with the CO but the presence of the whale probably widens his range a lot.


PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 104.88 BB
Hero (CO): 108.18 BB
BTN: 115.14 BB
SB: 289.31 BB
BB: 15 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 9 9

fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, SB raises to 11 BB, fold, Hero calls 8.5 BB

Flop: (23 BB, 2 players) 7 9 5
SB checks, Hero bets 7.21 BB, SB raises to 25 BB, Hero calls 17.79 BB

Turn: (73 BB, 2 players) A
SB bets 18 BB, Hero calls 18 BB

River: (109 BB, 2 players) Q
SB bets 235.31 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 54.18 BB and is all-in

SB shows Q Q (Three of a Kind, Queens)
(Pre 81%, Flop 9%, Turn 5%)
Hero shows 9 9 (Three of a Kind, Nines)
(Pre 19%, Flop 91%, Turn 95%)
SB wins 215.85 BB

The solver likes all of our plays here, other than it wants a larger flop raise with a plan to shove turn. This is another cool hand that I will study further to understand the concepts that make shoving QQ good on this turn. It looks like we have very little Ax as played but lots of weaker 1 pair hands and it’s incentivized to deny us equity to draw.

I think this video, from blackrain79, is the best I've seen on how to deal with downswings. Watch it all the way to the end, because the second half is where he really gets into turning downswings into an opportunity to differentiate yourself.

The fact is that every poker player must go through these from time to time. You cannot control what cards come. What you can control is how you respond. Doing these postings and carefully looking over your big pots is a good thing. You must face adversity to be great.

Good luck... this will make you stronger!

Thanks. I've seen and read a few things on downswings during this run. The one thing they are all consistent on is move down in stakes. I sort of wish I had done that sooner although this downswing happened very very fast, basically over the course of about 6k hands, which for some pros is like 1 or 2 days. For me it was about 8 sessions, with a lot of it happening towards the end in 2 really bad sessions where most of the hands I posted happened. I've spent the last couple days doing this hand review and studying some other stuff, and am hoping to get back to the grind today.

My plan is to play exclusively 100NL until I win about 10 buyins before hopping back into 200NL. Hopefully that doesn't take too long. I checked my database, and had started shot taking 200NL around April of last year. Now back then I was playing on a very short roll because I didn't care too much about stake hopping or getting busted back down, I was just trying to explore and feel out the games. Now I'm more interested in staying at these stakes, so I'll be a bit more conservative to try and keep the swings in check and really refine my game. Right now I'm sitting on about 4.3K, so 43 buyins. If I get to 5K, I'll start shot taking 200NL again. I think 25 buyins for a stake is a decent roll to start shot taking at, so that's my plan.

Regarding the use of solvers.

I would use them not to see how a specific combo is played in a specific spot but to look at the general structure of how a given spot is played.

For example after you 3-bet a late raiser from BB is the solver betting closer to 100% than 50%, and is it's average bet size closer to 25% or 75%?

If the and is yes and 25%, then maybe make it a range betting spot for 1/3rd pot. If the answer is 50% and 75%, then make it a spot where you split your range and bet say 2/3rds pot with a polarized range.

Idk maybe you're doing something like that already.


In your KK on the J82 two-tone flop I would have guess the closest fit is splitting and betting say 50% pot with some hands and checking with others. The reason I say that is though you have the stronger preflop range J82 two-tone helps him more as he has a higher concentration of suited connector type hands and probably Jx hands, and also is about even with you for sets.

I assume you're still a favorite but range betting makes it easy for him to float and pick up pots on the turn or raise draws and get too many immediate folds. Imo. (But really I'm just guessing here.)

Thanks. Yeah that's sort of how I use the solver. Usually what I do in a spot is give it a few bet size options to start with and see which one it favors, then I'll see how much the EV changes if I take away the option it doesn't use as much. At least that's what I do when I normally review hands. Usually it takes me about 20 or 30 minutes to deep dive a hand that way. For this exercise I was just quickly going through all my big losses that involved postflop decisions where I wasn't trying to take an exploitative line and see if I screwed the pooch somehow. However there were the few hands I mentioned where the solver was taking some lines and sizes I wasn't expecting, and I may circle back to those later to see what I can learn.

Alright, we have now booked 5 straight sessions exclusively at 100nl. The last 3 have been good. Maybe a reason for some optimism?



Looking at my stats I think I was checking too many turns and rivers. Mostly I'm just missing a lot of thin value I think, where I'm just too content to take a showdown. I do think sometimes when trying to work on my game, there's a constant swing of over correcting and then under correcting, trying to land on an equilibrium when it comes to aggression. Where I'm at right now clearly isn't working though, so something needs to change. I've got some ideas.

1. Keep working on finding more flop check raises when defending from the BB. If it's a good board for me and I have a small piece, err on the side of over aggression, and confirm with the solver later.
2. After a flop c-bet gets called, don't just continue the turn with cards that improve my hand in some way. Also try to continue on cards good for my range.
3. Look to continue value betting my turn range on the river as long as the river card doesn't have a huge impact on equities, even if the bet seems thin.

I feel like if you're making the right value bets on the river, you should get called by better at least sometimes, and anecdotally it feels like it's not happening.

I'll try to work on the above corrections and then do some deep dives into the database for results later. So far so good though.

Overall it's been a good week. Despite my over 3K in poker losses the first week of the year, I'm back in the black in overall gambling winnings this year thanks to some good runs promo chasing and one more new site signup bonus cleared. I keep chasing every bit of EV I can find out there. They are starting to slow down a bit, but I'll take what I can get. Even if I only make 20% of what I did last year, that's still some good frivolous spending cash.

And finally as requested, a hand where I punted on a bluff. In hindsight it's probably a mistake as the cold-call 3-bet range is very AQ heavy, and it's a big ask to get that folded out. He tanked for a while though. I probably need to make this a triple barrel if I'm going to go for it, or overbet the river. Outside of this one my bluffs have been getting through at a good rate lately, so that's been helping.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 302.2 BB
UTG: 102.5 BB
MP: 81.69 BB
CO: 263.79 BB
BTN: 145.99 BB
Hero (SB): 218.55 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has T J

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 12 BB, BB calls 11 BB, fold

Flop: (27 BB, 2 players) Q 9 5
Hero bets 16.93 BB, BB calls 16.93 BB

Turn: (60.86 BB, 2 players) 7
Hero checks, BB checks

River: (60.86 BB, 2 players) 2
Hero bets 45 BB, BB calls 45 BB

Hero shows T J (High Card, Queen)
(Pre 39%, Flop 34%, Turn 18%)
BB shows A Q (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 61%, Flop 66%, Turn 82%)
BB wins 147.86 BB

Might just wanna range check the flop on this one. BB is supposed to have a range advantage when he cold calls preflop. It's usually a fish doing it though so you can have some exploitative c-bets if you think they're doing it wide.

Your hand would be a poor triple barrel on this runout because you don't really block any of his calling range on the river, and you block stuff which folds, like JJ, TT. For the same reason this isn't a great bluff for the b/x/b line since you block stuff like KJ, KT, JJ, TT which fold, and still not much that calls.

Barreling turn probably would have been ok. You can't really continue this hand if you check and face a normal bet size and you have decent equity against continues. I'd use it in my smaller turn sizing though because it does worse the more you narrow villain's range.

Even if IMO this hand isn't a great bluff, it's better for most people to err on the side of aggression when thinking about bluffing. Sucks that he called but we don't ever expect AQ to fold here. You're targetting weaker hands.

Yeah, it was not a great bluff. I sometimes struggle because when guys play outside the box by cold calling 3-bets it can be tricky to range them, and was just attacking his passivity. It doesn't always work, and it didn't here, but I know what you mean about being better to err on the side of aggression. It's definitely something I'm working on as will be outlined in the rest of this post.

So mostly good news. I'm working out of the downswing, still playing 100NL exclusively. It's going quite well. I'm over a third of the way out after 2 weeks.



I've made some tweaks to my game that I think are helping as well. I think I've been trying too hard to sort of follow solver approved lines, and have been making too many mistakes in the process. One Upswing module really hit me and reinforced some concepts that while I knew them, I hadn't really been applying at the table. I made the decision to apply more of those, and use the solver maybe to fine tune my game in some unique spots. But overall it seems to be paying dividends. My 100NL results my first 29k hands were 3.44BB/100 (0.16 all-in adjusted). My last 8K I'm at 14.72 & 13.54 respectively. Sample size is small, I know, but I have some other evidence my tweaks may be working.

I know that we're not supposed to really care that much about red line/blue line stuff. But when I was breaking even and in the downswing, I couldn't help but think my redline was a flag towards some of my leaks. I've heard various numbers for how negative a redline can be. I've heard anywhere from -8 to -10bb/100 is a sign of some problems. Well overall mine was at -16bb/100, (-12bb/100 at 100NL specifically).

Here is my 100NL graph prior to 1/10 of this year.



And now here are my last 8K hands after the tweaks:



A much more palatable -3.5bb/100. Blue line still going strong. Yes I know small sample sizes and all, but it's what I've got to work with. I'm going to stick with it and keep grinding out of the hole at 100NL for at least a bit longer.

As for what 2022 holds for my poker future, I've been trying to decide that. Last year I basically went on a bankroll challenge speed run, shot taking anytime my roll hit 10 buyins for the next stake. It was nuts from a BRM standpoint, but so worth it for the experience. Maybe I'll post my graph in $ later, but it's pretty wild. Crazy swings and a runup, followed by a 7K downswing. I think I've decided I don't want to be quite that aggressive again. But I do want some aggression.

I haven't finalized the plan yet, but here's sort of what I'm thinking.

-Only count at table winnings towards the roll, rakeback and other incentives don't count.
-Add 1 table of the next stake up when you reach 25 buyins for that stake. Add in one more new table of the higher stake each 5 buyins.
-Every month remove 1/4 of that months profit from the roll into savings.

We'll see how this goes. I sort of "reset" my bankroll to 4K after the downswing. After the wins I'm at over 5K now, so time to start thinking about adding some 200NL again. I think I like the plan.

This week didn't go quite as well, ending up down 4 buyins on the week across `100 & 200NL. Still though, something about it felt different. I'm still fairly confident my game is moving in the right direction, it just needs its fair share of fine tuning. I feel like I need to focus more on playing out of position. I'm betting too much out of position in some thin spots, and doing too much check/calling and not enough folding and raising. I know I've said that before, but looking at some of my biggest losing hands of the week they are all ones where I made very questionable calls OOP. Like this one:

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 139.18 BB
BTN: 100 BB
SB: 103.3 BB
Hero (BB): 108.39 BB
UTG: 349.14 BB
MP: 216.63 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A Q

fold, MP raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 10 BB, MP calls 8 BB

Flop: (20.5 BB, 2 players) 4 J T
Hero checks, MP bets 9.74 BB, Hero calls 9.74 BB

Turn: (39.98 BB, 2 players) A
Hero checks, MP bets 18.99 BB, Hero calls 18.99 BB

River: (77.96 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero checks, MP bets 37.48 BB, Hero calls 37.48 BB

MP shows A 4 (Two Pair, Aces and Fours)
(Pre 32%, Flop 81%, Turn 75%)
Hero mucks A Q (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 68%, Flop 19%, Turn 25%)
MP wins 149.92 BB

I really hate how I played it here. Solver likes lead, and if we don't, it folds everything w/o a diamond. If I lock it into a call, it folds the turn. We are just getting owned OOP vs. a HJ open/call range. The villain was playing pretty loose but his RFI ranges were reasonable. I think the 3-bet is good, but after that, we're just in trouble on this flop.

Here's a hand where the old me might have had a tendency to overfold flop or turn, fearing too many overpairs. This might still be questionable, but I'm definitely making it a point to get a bit stickier in bluffcatch spots:

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 160.62 BB
Hero (CO): 107.72 BB
BTN: 37 BB
SB: 72.15 BB
BB: 93.97 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J J

fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, SB raises to 8.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 6 BB

Flop: (18 BB, 2 players) 9 8 3
SB bets 17.1 BB, Hero calls 17.1 BB

Turn: (52.2 BB, 2 players) Q
SB bets 46.55 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 46.55 BB

River: (145.3 BB, 2 players) 8

SB shows A 9 (Two Pair, Nines and Eights)
(Pre 28%, Flop 20%, Turn 11%)
Hero shows J J (Two Pair, Jacks and Eights)
(Pre 72%, Flop 80%, Turn 89%)
Hero wins 142.3 BB

But even OOP occasionally player specific adjustments will be made. This was a fun one vs. a 60/40/14 maniac.

PokerStars - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 100.72 BB
CO: 98.23 BB
BTN: 109.35 BB
Hero (SB): 100 BB
BB: 328.97 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A J

fold, CO raises to 3 BB, fold, Hero raises to 12 BB, fold, CO raises to 21 BB, Hero calls 9 BB

Flop: (43 BB, 2 players) J 3 Q
Hero checks, CO bets 20.75 BB, Hero calls 20.75 BB

Turn: (84.5 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero checks, CO checks

River: (84.5 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero checks, CO bets 56.48 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 56.48 BB

CO shows 8 8 (Two Pair, Eights and Threes)
(Pre 56%, Flop 10%, Turn 5%)
Hero shows A J (Two Pair, Jacks and Threes)
(Pre 44%, Flop 90%, Turn 95%)
Hero wins 195.96 BB

Instead of playing cash games last night I elected to play the $200 main event of the pokerstars winter series. It was a wild ride, and I ended up finishing about 45th out of 550ish for $600. Not bad. It was definitely a wild up & down tournament, as they often are. It was by far my most successful tournament in a very very long time. I got unlucky in some spots, but also very lucky when I needed to. I found myself in a familiar spot, with a micro stack near the bubble. I got a lucky double up, picked up some blinds, made the money, and then a miracle triple up where I opened KQs, got a Q9x flop 3-ways, jammed a little over pot on the flop, and got called by K9 with a FD and JT with a FD. They all bricked out and ship it. I had a healthy stack with a shot at a deep run. Alas I lost about half my stack when my Ax got outkicked, then jammed in a fairly thin spot with a 15BB stack that the charts seemed OK with (KJs in the CO vs a HJ open), but he had AQ and it was not meant to be.

So far I've played 4 tournaments in a year, and am 2 for 4 ITM. Not bad at all. See you in the main event of the next series.

Finally, I had yet another wildly successful month sports betting and chasing casino promos. This side hustle continues to subsidize all the frivolous activity that I had hoped poker could, and then some. At this point getting good at poker would just be the gravy on top. Although I still know at some point these promotions are likely to mostly dry up and I will be stuck with just the few decent boosted odds every now and then. I am not sure what to expect from an overall long term gambling income stream. My realistic goal was in the 8 to 10K per year range, and so far I'm blowing that out of the water.

That would be about 4bb/100 at 100NL at my volume. I feel like that's doable for me. I'm nearly there already, and I do feel like my recent studying in the upswing lab is starting to pay off. It's been slow and steady progress.

I’m back at it this week. Overall I think I had a pretty decent week albeit fairly low volume. I only put in 3 sessions. I usually target 4 sessions of about 3 hours for 11 hours per week. I only got in 8 hours last week. Despite starting the week on a 4BI downswing, I climbed back to end up a buyin, so not bad.

I continue to slowly work my way through the upswing Lab. It’s getting massive and even trying to spend 30-60 minutes a day on study it’s going to take me a long time. I’m glad I bought a full year’s subscription. They’ve reorganized things a bit and I’m trying to go through it somewhat in order rather than skipping around. Although I’m excited since I’m coming up on the overbetting module. I know it’s a powerful play that fellow Stars reg browni likes to use to a ton of success. I just know that if I do it in the wrong spots it can be a big mistake.

But one of my weaknesses is definitely bet sizing. I’ve been improving my flop sizing a bit, or at least I’ve been trying to, and I feel like there’s some success. I’ve toned down the range 1/3 bet a bit. I'm either sizing up on very favorable boards for me, or working in a more polarized betting strategy with some protected checks on villain friendly boards. It seems to be working. Next up is turn & river sizing. I feel like I have a decent handle on small vs. big spots, but not on pot vs. 2x pot. Hopefully that’s my next big frontier.

Finally the last area I’m focusing on is postflop calling. I’m a bit of a folder. A lot of this is old school conditioning from decades old online games and live games where bluffing was much less frequent. I think I’ve done a decent job working in a lot more of the bluffs into my game that modern poker theory demands, now I just need to work on my defense. Especially with unpaired AK type hands. I know that often good calling ranges in tough spots are non-linear and card removal based, which is another element of the game that while I understand, I probably don’t implement correctly in a lot of cases. I’m hoping the solver will help me a bit there, I just need to spend more time on it. I’m also going to make it a point to single out and study hands where this effect comes in to play.

I didn’t do a great job of keeping track of it this week, but here’s a hand where I think I did OK. Villains line is mostly full of **** in this spot but he could have some rivered Ax that takes this line. I’m about to run it to the solver, but BTN vs BB spots are always a grind. It was quite an odd combo to x/r by him.

PartyGaming - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 107.72 BB
BB: 101.5 BB
UTG: 194.54 BB
CO: 243.68 BB
Hero (BTN): 190.16 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K Q

fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, BB calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5.5 BB, 2 players) 3 Q 7
BB checks, Hero bets 1.71 BB, BB raises to 7.45 BB, Hero calls 5.74 BB

Turn: (20.4 BB, 2 players) J
BB checks, Hero checks

River: (20.4 BB, 2 players) A
BB bets 12.84 BB, Hero calls 12.84 BB

BB shows K 8 (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 29%, Flop 4%, Turn 0%)
Hero shows K Q (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 71%, Flop 96%, Turn 100%)
Hero wins 43.52 BB


And finally on the fun side I continue to crush my sports bets and casino promos. I'm on a quite gaudy pace this year and I may have to come up with some additional fun stuff to do with my extra cash flow because wow I never thought this would happen. 1K/month doing that would have been fine by me, but holy **** am I really getting a lot more out of it than that. I've got our disney world trip this spring paid for and then some. My wife turns 40 in December, and I'm thinking Aruba if the COVID situation agrees. Or maybe St. Marten. I'm open for some ideas for cool Caribbean destinations for 4-6 days or so.

Hey man, my understanding is you play in the PokerStars Michigan pool?

If so I'm curious as to how soft it is or isn't?

How do you think it compares to global player pools?

I just got news that my province in Canada might be restricting us from the global pool so I'm curious what your experiences are with that pool.

I don't have a huge basis for comparison unfortunately. I've heard about **** going down in Canada regarding online poker. I don't know exactly what's going on, but getting booted off global pools sucks.

The last time I played in a global pool was Full Tilt in 2011. I was beating up to 50NL pretty handily back then. This time around I've played up to 500NL, but some of it was just me being sort of reckless with my bankroll. My only take is that the player pools are maybe less homogenous than they might be on a larger site. I've never been a full time pro but I have studied the game on and off for the better part of the last 20 years. I feel confident I'm beating up to 100NL on the site. 200NL has given me some real problems (the 35buyin downswing in this thread). 500NL I dabbled in when there were whales at the table.

As for my obligatory weekly blog update, I played 0 hands of poker the last week. DraftKings gave us one of their highest EV promos yet. Play 2 million in blackjack for 50k in free sports bets. Expected loss on 2 mil: about 8k. Expected winnings from 50K in sports bets: 30k. So 22K in EV. However that's over 20 hours of blackjack at $100/hand. So I skipped poker last week and spent my evenings grinding that, finishing on Saturday morning. I dropped 25K at blackjack. The back 1/4 of it was absolutely brutal, with the dealer just smashing 21s repeatedly. But the good news is I had some other promos working, and with crown earnings, that will shave almost 4K off the losses. So I may still end up making close to 10K when it's all said and done. I'll know a lot more of how it went next week after all the free bets clear. I'm not hedging them all, so there's some risk involved, but I'm off to a decent start so far, and should end up well in the black when the week is over.

Now it's back to my regular Monday night poker study.

It feels good to get some run good in. I had my first +5BI session in a while. I feel like I've learned some things about range construction, specifically on the turn, that I have been doing wrong. I love it when I'm studying and have one of those moments where I realize I just learned something that's going to change how I play in some common spots.

As for my actual hands played, I love when I stack villains in such a way that they just insta-quit the next hand. It happened a couple times.

I got the night started out with some runner runner quads. I'm fairly certain it's the first time I've had this happen. It would have been super sick if I was dead to it. Villain is obviously a massive donk calling off half his short stack pre with T8s. Normally 55 is not a 3-bet here but the CO player is on the weak side and over-folds to 3-bets. Postflop went a bit differently than I expected, but I have no complaints.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 104.42 BB
SB: 17.74 BB
BB: 131.01 BB
CO: 116.98 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 5 5

CO raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 9 BB, SB calls 8.5 BB, fold, fold

Flop: (22 BB, 2 players) 8 8 K
SB checks, Hero bets 31.35 BB, SB calls 8.74 BB and is all-in

Turn: (39.48 BB, 2 players) 5

River: (39.48 BB, 2 players) 5

SB shows T 8 (Full House, Eights full of Fives)
(Pre 51%, Flop 89%, Turn 16%)
Hero shows 5 5 (Four of a Kind, Fives)
(Pre 49%, Flop 11%, Turn 84%)
Hero wins 37.98 BB

Next up, a nice combo draw that comes home for me. Villain got tilted and bailed. Looking back I don't love it. I just grabbed a standard bet size on the turn and not paying attention to the SPR I was leaving behind. This is definitely a leak I need to work on. When I'm value betting my brain immediately goes to chunking and choosing sizes to get stacks in. When I'm bluffing, I tend to lean on standard sizes. I think I should have sized up flop and jammed turn. Or gone small on turn. Either way, I think taking an aggressive line is fine. There's maybe a case for having this as a turn check/call if stacks were deeper, but I think at this depth bet flop shove turn is the play.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (SB): 100.5 BB
BB: 95.78 BB
UTG: 100.53 BB
MP: 105.81 BB
CO: 138.62 BB
BTN: 87.5 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A J

UTG raises to 2.5 BB, MP calls 2.5 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 12.5 BB, fold, fold, MP calls 10 BB

Flop: (28.5 BB, 2 players) 5 5 K
Hero bets 8.94 BB, MP calls 8.94 BB

Turn: (46.38 BB, 2 players) Q
Hero bets 29.37 BB, MP raises to 84.37 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 49.69 BB and is all-in

River: (204.5 BB, 2 players) 4

Hero shows A J (Flush, Ace High)
(Pre 58%, Flop 42%, Turn 32%)
MP shows Q K (Two Pair, Kings and Queens)
(Pre 42%, Flop 58%, Turn 68%)
Hero wins 201.5 BB

This hand was annoying. It seems like such a full of **** line. I have been trying to open up my button/SB ranges more against some of the tighter players. Maybe betting the flop was ambitious but **** this guy and his SB flats. My hand felt too good not to value bet on the river but not strong enough to call, even though it may be near top of my actual range at this point.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 276.85 BB
SB: 94 BB
BB: 103.8 BB
UTG: 102.5 BB
MP: 155.95 BB
CO: 108.63 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 5 9

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, SB calls 2 BB, fold

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) Q K 7
SB checks, Hero bets 3.8 BB, SB calls 3.8 BB

Turn: (13.6 BB, 2 players) 9
SB checks, Hero checks

River: (13.6 BB, 2 players) 5
SB checks, Hero bets 8.61 BB, SB raises to 40 BB, fold

SB wins 29.28 BB


Well that's it for this week. I hope to get in some more volume.

It's been mostly a decent week. It still feels like slow progress. Since my big downswing I'm up about 15 buyins or so. I've made peace that my current skill level has me playing mostly 100NL. I'm winning there, and I'm pretty happy with my winrate, but I want to do better. I have definitely made some improvements to my game (I think), and financially I'm able to keep playing 200/500 if I wanted, but am looking for more feedback that I'm a winning player before moving back up. A couple more buyins should do the trick I think.

As for last week, there were some fun hands mixed in.

This one is one of my wilder folds. Villain is a 15/4/3 uber nit. This may still be too tight, but I still think the line he took means AA/KK is a healthy chunk of his range.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 88.84 BB
Hero (BTN): 117.63 BB
SB: 103.57 BB
BB: 179.82 BB
UTG: 249.86 BB
MP: 171.82 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q Q

fold, fold, CO calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4 BB, SB raises to 16 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 12 BB

Flop: (34 BB, 2 players) 9 2 8
SB bets 25 BB, fold

SB wins 32.3 BB

This one was tough. I've gotten a bit more sticky with top pair type hands. However there's still some holdover from my live games where this would be a snap fold turn don't even think twice. I'm trying to get away from calling turn with hands that have few outs to improve only to fold river. Raise turn jam river just seems stronger than TP2K here. Villain is a decent reg so maybe he's the type I should fold vs. here. I'm not sure. My hand looks face up as AK/KQ and his line looks like it's trying to maximize value against me. I'm not sure how I combat this. Bet flop? Check turn? It's on the list to run through the solver to see how it handles this.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 101.86 BB
Hero (BB): 126.76 BB
UTG: 361.71 BB
MP: 255.22 BB
CO: 116.29 BB
BTN: 175.99 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q K

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.6 BB, SB calls 2.1 BB, Hero raises to 13 BB, BTN calls 10.4 BB, fold

Flop: (28.6 BB, 2 players) 5 4 8
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: (28.6 BB, 2 players) K
Hero bets 8.97 BB, BTN raises to 28 BB, Hero calls 19.03 BB

River: (84.6 BB, 2 players) 9
Hero checks, BTN bets 134.99 BB and is all-in, fold

BTN wins 81.6 BB

Next up are two tough hands played BvB vs a decent reg, who maybe leans a bit on the weaker side.

Hand 1 now that I look at it looks kind of bad. I'm not sure what I was thinking. Probably could have bet the flop here, and I probably need to call the river as played. But on draw heavy boards when they all get there and V keeps firing, it looks bad. This guy probably underbluffs but not to the level AJ is a pure bluffcatcher.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 260.44 BB
BTN: 116.03 BB
Hero (SB): 109.92 BB
BB: 139.6 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A J

fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, BB calls 2 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) 5 J K
Hero checks, BB bets 4.16 BB, Hero calls 4.16 BB

Turn: (14.32 BB, 2 players) A
Hero checks, BB bets 9.93 BB, Hero calls 9.93 BB

River: (34.18 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero checks, BB bets 23.86 BB, fold

BB wins 32.68 BB


Hand 2 same villain, same damn line. This one I called. Again looking at it I'm not sure I love it. Flop x/c I think is OK here. Same with turn. By the river, I beat pretty much nothing and the 9 is a bluff card I want him to have.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 198.55 BB
Hero (SB): 165.51 BB
BB: 156.34 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A 9

fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, BB calls 2 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) 7 8 8
Hero checks, BB bets 4.16 BB, Hero calls 4.16 BB

Turn: (14.32 BB, 2 players) T
Hero checks, BB bets 7.48 BB, Hero calls 7.48 BB

River: (29.28 BB, 2 players) A
Hero checks, BB bets 20.31 BB, Hero calls 20.31 BB

BB shows 8 T (Full House, Eights full of Tens)
(Pre 39%, Flop 98%, Turn 100%)
Hero mucks A 9 (Two Pair, Aces and Eights)
(Pre 61%, Flop 2%, Turn 0%)
BB wins 68.4 BB

All of these hands (except the QQ fold) are getting the solver treatment to see if I can figure out how to better navigate some of these spots.

Bump since it's been a while.

I finally pulled the trigger on a coach. I figured I had enough of a sample to work with, and I have hit a bit of a wall with self study, time to get a fresh set of eyes on my game. I went with fellow 2+2er Aner0. I was familiar with his posting from the forums. While he can sometimes be a bit harsh, his advice is always solid. I didn't want any sugar coating, I wanted help finding and fixing my leaks, and he's been top notch there. His rates are very budget friendly as well.

He quickly found some areas where I'm making some mistakes. Some of it is strategy issues, some if it is psychological. For the psychological stuff, that's where the big value is. We found some common spots where I was just brushing them off and missing value. I've probably been too focused on trying to take optimal lines vs. good players that I've been missing the big fat value vs. bad players. Along with that, there were definitely very profitable bluff and thin value spots I was regularly passing up on just for mental reasons. It's helped me renew my focus on getting max value in every spot.

Here's an example of a hand I would have been far too happy to check down before but I squeezed another 3.9BB out of it.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 195.83 BB
BTN: 99.9 BB
SB: 69.03 BB
BB: 130.3 BB
UTG: 96.58 BB
Hero (MP): 129.82 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K J

fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, BTN calls 2.5 BB, SB calls 2 BB, fold

Flop: (8.5 BB, 3 players) Q 7 3
SB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn: (8.5 BB, 3 players) J
SB checks, Hero bets 3.5 BB, BTN calls 3.5 BB, fold

River: (15.5 BB, 2 players) 8
Hero bets 3.9 BB, BTN calls 3.9 BB

Hero shows K J (One Pair, Jacks)
(Pre 73%, Flop 82%, Turn 93%)
BTN mucks J 9 (One Pair, Jacks)
(Pre 27%, Flop 18%, Turn 7%)
Hero wins 22.14 BB

looking at this again, I think river should be closer to 1/2 pot. It's going to to take some time to work some of this stuff fully into my game, but I can see how the few BB's I pick up here and there will add up. In the world of 4BB/100 winrates, 1 or 2 more is massive.

As for the extra-curricular gambling, that's hit a bit of a wall. I'm basically breakeven since the superbowl. I'm actually down about 3K from my peak, mostly just running like complete garbage on a lot of promos. But it's all good, I'm still up over 30K on the year, which is still fantastic and well above my forecast. If I start running closer to EV I'll be in good shape. I've actually been nailing sports bets at a pretty high clip, but then lose it back and then some on casino promos. To the poster earlier who said they hit a 7k downswing playing $25/hand at blackjack, I totally believe you. I feel like I've been close to that a couple times now. But the overall EV is so good that even when I run really bad, it's still OK. Let's hope that corner turns soon.

Well here we go again. More downswing times. Here's my graph since 1/19, which was when I started playing again after taking a week or so off after the last downswing.



I guess I take some comfort in the fact that I spent most of that time in the positive, even if it is a constant fight. I am fairly certain I'm at least a small winner in these games just fighting a bastard run of variance. One rough thing about downswings is it's hard to tell what's run bad and what is bad play. I take some solace in the fact that I'm losing with AA and KK in the month of March. For all my leaks, I'm pretty sure those hands are pretty big long term winners, yet I've had them around 70 times each and I'm in the red on both. I keep running KK into AA more than my fair share, and the two times I've been on the flipside the kings won. That accounts for a fair chunk of the downswing.

I've found some punts in there too that I'm working on. One of my issues is that I fold a bit too much. However in my effort to fight that I end up stationing off in bad spots. Playing live 1/2 I could just fold at all signs of aggression and for the most part it was right. Online I have to be a bit stickier. But I need to pick the right spots. I still have a gut instinct that tells me when to fold that's tuned to older online games and more passive live games. Sometimes I get hung up on "this is a good hand I shouldn't fold" logic that ends up getting me in trouble in bad spots. And that instinct is also telling me to fold all marginal bluff catchers all the time except against the most FOS players. The coaching sessions I've had are helping with this. It's just one of those old bad habits I need to unlearn.

Here's an example of a hand I probably would have folded before, but thanks to me knowing a bit more about how bad players betsize, I was able to make a calldown.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 171.7 BB
BTN: 106 BB
SB: 122.86 BB
BB: 140.96 BB
UTG: 50.86 BB
Hero (MP): 106.64 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q Q

fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5.5 BB, 2 players) 6 4 9
BB bets 8 BB, Hero calls 8 BB

Turn: (21.5 BB, 2 players) K
BB bets 10 BB, Hero calls 10 BB

River: (41.5 BB, 2 players) 7
BB bets 20 BB, Hero calls 20 BB

BB shows A 6 (One Pair, Sixes)
(Pre 28%, Flop 20%, Turn 11%)
Hero shows Q Q (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 72%, Flop 80%, Turn 89%)
Hero wins 78.5 BB

But here's an example where I got hung up on "AK good don't fold." I will explain that the donk bettor in this hand is a massive whale known to do this with air, and in a HU spot I would always take this to the felt. I sort of leveled myself into thinking that the original raiser may have also been making this read based call. This was a stack I didn't have to lose.

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 106.92 BB
SB: 242.16 BB
BB: 163.07 BB
UTG: 95.45 BB
MP: 176.55 BB
CO: 37.96 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A K

UTG calls 1 BB, MP raises to 4 BB, fold, Hero raises to 12 BB, fold, fold, UTG calls 11 BB, MP calls 8 BB

Flop: (37.5 BB, 3 players) J K T
UTG bets 35.62 BB, MP calls 35.62 BB, Hero calls 35.62 BB

Turn: (144.36 BB, 3 players) J
UTG checks, MP bets 30 BB, Hero calls 30 BB, fold

River: (204.36 BB, 2 players) 8
MP bets 42 BB, Hero calls 29.3 BB and is all-in

MP shows J T (Full House, Jacks full of Tens)
(Pre 41%, Flop 62%, Turn 95%)
Hero shows A K (Two Pair, Kings and Jacks)
(Pre 59%, Flop 38%, Turn 5%)
MP wins 259.96 BB


Good news is I had a pretty good weak off table with other gambling, and am up quite a bit. The NCAA tourney was kind to me, as were some other casino bonuses. I've got one more coaching session left and will have to decide if I want to keep going. I'm leaning yes if I feel like he has more to teach me and the info would pay off well. I'm enjoying the 1-on-1 interaction. It feels like a much much more efficient use of time than watching videos or grinding the solvers. Here's hoping for some rungood soon.

Mixed results lately. On one hand, I'm still struggling to win money but I do believe that a decent chunk of it is runbad. I know I seem to fixate on this specific cooler a bit, but I have run KK into AA 4 times recently, and have also lost with AA the last 3 times I ran it into KK. Some of that shows up in All-in EV, but not all of it. But I am fairly certain I'm on the wrong side of stack going in coolers way more than my fair share of the time.

The good news is I do think outside of that the coaching stuff is paying off. In the sessions where no coolers really happened, I've been winning quite well. I'm seeing the game a little bit differently now. I've learned quite a bit more about spotting opponents frequency leaks, and am translating that into plays on the table. If my coach is right about a lot of this stuff, which so far it seems like it, I've been sort of making some bad adjustments based on my own assumptions about player profiles which I'm now learning were likely wrong. I'm going to use this last week as sort of a new inflection point when analyzing my play. I'm hoping to see an uptick in my winrate going forward. If so, the coaching will have been very well worth it.

Here's an example of a hand that I probably would have folded against this particular villain in the past, but now that I'm looking at some different stuff, I had the info I needed to confidently make this calldown.

Calling with Ace high is is one of those things where I know I'm supposed to do it sometimes, but never really knew how and when. I've certainly done it before, more based on my opponents range and some gut feeling type ****. There was no gut feeling involved in this call:

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (CO): 128.06 BB
BTN: 146.16 BB
SB: 217.62 BB
BB: 100 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 142.32 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A K

fold, MP raises to 2.5 BB, Hero raises to 8 BB, fold, fold, fold, MP calls 5.5 BB

Flop: (17.5 BB, 2 players) 2 7 8
MP checks, Hero checks

Turn: (17.5 BB, 2 players) 4
MP bets 6.31 BB, Hero calls 6.31 BB

River: (30.12 BB, 2 players) 4
MP bets 14.3 BB, Hero calls 14.3 BB

MP shows 5 A (One Pair, Fours)
(Pre 32%, Flop 17%, Turn 18%)
Hero shows A K (One Pair, Fours)
(Pre 68%, Flop 83%, Turn 82%)
Hero wins 55.78 BB