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Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression

02-28-2023 , 11:47 AM
Running bad when moving up is an eternal constant
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
02-28-2023 , 05:16 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zamadhi
Running bad when moving up is an eternal constant
Yeah playing $2/$5 and above has gone as bad as possible so far. Trying not to complain or victimize myself about it but obviously not the best at it so far. It's difficult because deep down I *do* feel entitled to run better or have better results at this point. I've had a grueling year and I feel like I've "paid my dues" for sometime and it's hard to convince myself that that's not how it works and nobody and nothing owes me ****.

It's also tough because I really struggle to fight the urge to tell others or convince others about my misfortune. This is a loser move, but because online I have a graph that shows me exactly what's going on, I don't really care as much, but with live when you feel like you're having a sub 1% run and nothing to validate it, it can be tough on you psychologically even independent of the money itself.

Another petty element to it, but I see friends and peers do so, so much better than me and they refuse to study and just expect great results and get them, sometimes in what I feel to be just the most unbelievable ways, and it's tough not to be comparative when my own game is constantly being judged by others.

I suppose I'll figure it out somehow though
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
06-30-2023 , 10:35 PM
Haven’t posted an updated in a while, been busy and exhausted. But have been playing a lot.

Went to Oklahoma to play before going to WSOP to secure a win. Change of plans had me going by myself which made it more expensive. Hotel issues + traffic ticket in the border made a cheap weekend outing cost me like $750. Made like $2400 or something so still came out ahead.

Made a little bit of money at WSOP but not much. Decided to play tournaments which in hindsight was a bad idea for bankroll. Ran quite horrendously unfortunately. First 15 bullets I lost 100% of my all-ins and never got 5bb above starting stack. Just went so many tourneys in a row without evening winning a single hand or ever winning a 10bb pot until the last few days. In the $600 WSOP, AcKx vs AxKc (dominated our mutual suite) for 60bb in one of my biggest spots ever (which isn’t saying much I guess),got it in pre then he hit the flush.

Other tournament got it in w trips and someone only had backdoor flush draw. Induced a bluff when I 3! Fish pre and bet super small on flop I crushed. Was like 96% favorite and lost there. Lot of painful hands like that. Never caught a break really. Was a mistake to play anyway given the size of my roll and what I’m most studied in but I never really get the opportunities to play tourneys, am not totally unstudied in them but they were so much softer than I ever expected possible that it was just too easy to justify.

Did make my first WSOP cash my last night there. Played a $400 daily and sold some action, cashed for $703. I’ll take it.

Cash I didn’t run too hot either. Games were nittier than anything I’d ever seen anywhere in the country for the most part. Regs and pros filled even $2/$5 100 capped tables. Wait lists were often incredible and several hours long. WSOP cash games specifically were very possibly the worst games I ever played.

However, something about the atmosphere I still found quite captivating and inspiring. Not sure if the cash games are always that bad and if there’s much of a future or competitively profitable cash scene there, and how WSOP season compares to others, but despite that, but something about being there drew me to come back, either for longer at least, or to likely even live there quite soon.

Overall, despite the run and some of the frustrating games, over my 15 days out there (4 of them working remote there) I did eek out a very small profit.

YTD I’m up about $10.5K in cash now, and ~$6K-$6.5K overall given tournament losses. Bankroll is in slightly better spot as well.

As of this week I also started working with a mental game coach in conjunction with my two other coaches I see weekly/bi-weekly. Things are starting to look up and my attitude is improving.

Thing the plan is to spend one more year at my current residence, save up and build as much as possible, and then move out to Vegas next summer for the foreseeable future.

Things can change and we’ll see how it goes, but that’s where I’m at now.

Thanks for reasoning, happy to answer any questions if something stumbles across this again.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-03-2023 , 05:16 PM
Another tough weekend behind me. Lost 4 sessions in a row, $1K-2.5K each session. Over $5.5K in just a few days which was more than half my remaining. Avg buy-in between $600-$1K, usually the former. Happy with how I played I’ve just lost every 100bb+ all-in since my Vegas trip. Definitely hit over 10 consecutive, haven’t been counting but could be way more than that.

Just been going on a gnarly run of these for months and months and months. Lost two pots this weekend for $3.2K+. One of them got it in on the turn 3-ways and was 80% favorite. **** happens but man it’s just every week some **** like this happens.

Working with mental coach now, trying to improve habits and create better ones slowly, started meditating daily again for just a week minutes each day, working out more, and being more intentional but still, definitely don’t feel like I’m in a great place to right now.

Tired of writing down HH where I just get absolutely ****ed. So it goes I guess.

Head down and keep moving forward, and just pray that if I make enough good decisions this game doesn’t take everything from me.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-05-2023 , 10:56 PM
If you're still studying content from Ed Miller or Jonathan Little, I would recommend trying something else. Those guys will turn you into a shitreg who can beat live 2/5, but you will get crushed by any decent midstakes reg. Go for Upswing, RIO, Zenith, etc instead
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-07-2023 , 02:50 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by hydra564
If you're still studying content from Ed Miller or Jonathan Little, I would recommend trying something else. Those guys will turn you into a shitreg who can beat live 2/5, but you will get crushed by any decent midstakes reg. Go for Upswing, RIO, Zenith, etc instead
I’ve taken multiple upswing cash courses, do sim work and drills multiple times a week, and have multiple coaches. Also study Blake Eastman’s Beyond Tells stuff to build a better system for identifying and integrating tells and behavioral stuff into my strategy.

Ed Miller was before I knew there were training sites and courses/solvers. He is right about stuff like bad frequencies and capped ranges in broken aggression lines. Don’t think it’s that bad to use him as a basis if you have no other info to operate on, but to your point, I am well beyond that sort of stuff with my studying journey.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-24-2023 , 07:39 PM
Have just been running unthinkably bad lately. At one of my local casinos I am on a double digit losing session run, which right before my last few wins was preceded by a 9 session losing run. Have won maybe ~4-5 hands in my last 4 live sessions, including taking it down preflop. Am still constantly going on these insane streaks where I lose every all-in for weeks on end, or double digits over a few sessions. Don't think I have won an all-in of any size in 3-4 weeks for live, and am likely not going to play very much there for some time. Even online I've lost my last couple of sessions and lost 5+ buy-ins my last session.

Hard to have hope in this game. Seems like no matter what you do, you can just kind of lose forever. No matter how low the stakes, or how bad the other players are. People around me telling me to either quit or change my game plan, but I am confident in my knowledge, strategy, and where my edge lies and think changing it would only be tilt.

My roll for live is down to $2900, and for online it's less than $300 left at $10nl. Additionally, my cashflow from work is very green, but my "roll" is pretty much my entire liquid net worth outside of a month of living expenses. Other than that I've got a couple hundred bucks lying around here and there, have about $10K paid off on a $30K car loan, and that's it.

Some other issues I have been having have been involving slowing down. I struggle to meal prep or eat well consistently. I workout every week, but definitely not as much as I would like to. I was briefly meditating every day but have stopped again. And overall I am simply working too much. I have started socializing more which has been nice and made me realize how deprived I have been in that realm. I am trying to keep doing that and slowly improve everything else.

I had a call with a pro and a coach with his own site last week. He was reviewing my coaching application and we scheduled a call. Was supposed to last an hour but went near a full two, although I had a feeling within 5-10min he wasn't going to work with me and that was true, but it was actually extremely productive.

Told me I am clearly advanced and winning enough such that I do not really have to study anymore, and that because I am not yet a pro, I do not even *have* to play very often either, and shouldn't at all unless I want to.

He also told me to avoid any new coaching for profit's as people would likely try to prey upon me and my bad experience thus far, but accepting such offers would likely sell myself short of $50K+ in the coming couple of years. But despite that, I need to learn to stop "sacrificing" in poker. No more 100 hour work weeks. No more sacrificing fitness or health, or social time or anything else for poker, because if I can't stop making sacrifices now, even when I become a pro I never will be able to and that is neither a good nor sustainable path.

Another note he gave me was to envision what success looks like to me, in poker and in general. Find what that looks like and figure out how to implement some of that into my life now. I always envisioned that one day a few years down the line, instead of working 100 hour weeks or even 60 hour weeks, I work 20-30 hour weeks, and eventually, even less than that. And instead my time would be filled with meaningful hobbies like climbing, working out, reading and writing, and social time with those I love. Looks like to implement the above I need to start doing more of these things, even if it is hard and slow to change at first. I don't know if I can get myself to stop studying though, I love learning and improving to much, but we'll see where we go from here.

A final note from our talk, he told me to use Pareto to maximize my time in poker, to play and study less and only when I want to, and just make sure the time I spend is *quality* time spent. Talked about going forward, work on proving that I am winning to myself or in general in the *easiest* way possible. And that a few months down the line making $500/mo to $2K a month would be super attainable, and going from $5/hour to $10, $20, and then $40/hr is not as far away as it seems, even with implementing the above advice and playing less and not studying anymore. Said at $20K roll + enough life expenses saved up for I could then switch to part time work and play as primary income, to finally play full time some period after that.

He ended it on saying we should keep in touch and that if he could buy stock in me he would invest a lot. That I could do anything that I want in life and that playing part time and eventually earning $2K a month doing that is closer than I think, but should not be rushed. That, plus all the other advice he gave me was super helpful and likely spot on from as far as I can see it, and this serves as a very big positive in a very negative time for me. Afterall, who has given you 2hrs of their time recently when they knew they weren't going to work with you in the first few minutes? A great gesture at a time when I really needed it.

Thanks for reading, will update again soon,

JJsOff
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-27-2023 , 07:07 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JJsOff


Hand I played at $50nl last night. Running about ~$900 below EV YTD over <10K hands, but I might just throw some hands on here every now and then when I am bored.
holy **** this is bad whats the point of posting this shitty hand because you won lol? its just a shitty check check flop then sh itty small bet on turn thats not getting anyone to fold and then turn what is the nuts here and just randomly shove and get called by a even bigger donk than you lol. There is zero skill represented in this post. wouldve been nice to see what you wouldve done if you had missed and had to actually use your brain lol but you probably wouldve gimped it too with some terrible bluff or check lol get good.

Last edited by j11333; 07-27-2023 at 07:33 PM.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-30-2023 , 04:02 PM
Ignore miserable anonymous trolls like the one above.

Your story is captivating to me. I can tell you are advanced in poker strategy. You are unironically probably top ten 1/3 players in the country lol.

To me it's fairly obvious the only thing you lack is money. You need to figure out a way to get 50 buyins of your desired stake plus some life expenses. You will not get anywhere without that. You can keep grinding micros, paying rake, giving all your winnings to coaches but will take forever to break into making real money. You should be playing 2/5 or higher right now whenever you want. Also, never ever CFP. What you need is money and all CFP does is keep you down. Leverage doesn't work in poker. At some point you need to have all your own action which gives you the chance of actually going somewhere.

Your tilt issues also are probably purely due to not being rolled for the games. If you had 50 buyins you wouldn't be sweating every all in and posting about how bad you run to strangers. Poker secret: absolutely no one cares how bad you run. I'm sure you're running bad but your BRM is amplifying it to the extreme. The antidote to running bad is getting in adequate volume and being rolled enough that you don't just think about how you're the unluckiest person ever all the time. What do comfortably rolled pros do on a 15 BI downswing? Shrug. Especially online. The point of online poker is generally to improve and put in volume, not to make real money unless you are a gto grinder living in some second world country. So getting tilted about running below ev online simply doesn't matter whatsoever.

Its gotten to your head so much that you're saying ridiculous things to persist the narrative of how bad you run. It is impossible to run as bad as you claim. I'd gladly bet my entire life savings you did not lose 10 60-40s in a row, for example.

Bankroll management right now is the only part of poker worth spending any time on if I were you. Figure out a way to get a real bankroll and you'll be amazed how things fall into place.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-30-2023 , 06:24 PM
Ignore miserable anonymous trolls like the one above.

Your story is captivating to me. I can tell you are advanced in poker strategy. You are unironically probably top ten 1/3 players in the country lol.

To me it's fairly obvious the only thing you lack is money. You need to figure out a way to get 50 buyins of your desired stake plus some life expenses. You will not get anywhere without that. You can keep grinding micros, paying rake, giving all your winnings to coaches but will take forever to break into making real money. You should be playing 2/5 or higher right now whenever you want. Also, never ever CFP. What you need is money and all CFP does is keep you down. Leverage doesn't work in poker. At some point you need to have all your own action which gives you the chance of actually going somewhere.

Your tilt issues also are probably purely due to not being rolled for the games. If you had 50 buyins you wouldn't be sweating every all in and posting about how bad you run to strangers. Poker secret: absolutely no one cares how bad you run. I'm sure you're running bad but your BRM is amplifying it to the extreme. The antidote to running bad is getting in adequate volume and being rolled enough that you don't just think about how you're the unluckiest person ever all the time. What do comfortably rolled pros do on a 15 BI downswing? Shrug. Especially online. The point of online poker is generally to improve and put in volume, not to make real money unless you are a gto grinder living in some second world country. So getting tilted about running below ev online simply doesn't matter whatsoever.

Its gotten to your head so much that you're saying ridiculous things to persist the narrative of how bad you run. It is impossible to run as bad as you claim. I'd gladly bet my entire life savings you did not lose 10 60-40s in a row, for example.

Bankroll management right now is the only part of poker worth spending any time on if I were you. Figure out a way to get a real bankroll and you'll be amazed how things fall into place.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-31-2023 , 10:36 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by j11333
holy **** this is bad whats the point of posting this shitty hand because you won lol? its just a shitty check check flop then sh itty small bet on turn thats not getting anyone to fold and then turn what is the nuts here and just randomly shove and get called by a even bigger donk than you lol. There is zero skill represented in this post. wouldve been nice to see what you wouldve done if you had missed and had to actually use your brain lol but you probably wouldve gimped it too with some terrible bluff or check lol get good.


Does it make sense now ass to what I was thinking about during the hand or would you like me to explain it again for you?

https://app.gtowizard.com/solutions?...n_actions=R5-C

I've linked the solution to the final example for you just in case you want to take a look for yourself. You're clearly a very big man and super talented poker play by the way you contributed here. I would wish you goodluck but you clearly don't need it. Just let me know if you're accepting students at this time, although I probably cannot afford it anyway.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-31-2023 , 10:53 PM
That 56 was a nice hand, the haters reeks of jealousy
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-31-2023 , 10:58 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by mapletreeway
Ignore miserable anonymous trolls like the one above.

Your story is captivating to me. I can tell you are advanced in poker strategy. You are unironically probably top ten 1/3 players in the country lol.

To me it's fairly obvious the only thing you lack is money. You need to figure out a way to get 50 buyins of your desired stake plus some life expenses. You will not get anywhere without that. You can keep grinding micros, paying rake, giving all your winnings to coaches but will take forever to break into making real money. You should be playing 2/5 or higher right now whenever you want. Also, never ever CFP. What you need is money and all CFP does is keep you down. Leverage doesn't work in poker. At some point you need to have all your own action which gives you the chance of actually going somewhere.

Your tilt issues also are probably purely due to not being rolled for the games. If you had 50 buyins you wouldn't be sweating every all in and posting about how bad you run to strangers. Poker secret: absolutely no one cares how bad you run. I'm sure you're running bad but your BRM is amplifying it to the extreme. The antidote to running bad is getting in adequate volume and being rolled enough that you don't just think about how you're the unluckiest person ever all the time. What do comfortably rolled pros do on a 15 BI downswing? Shrug. Especially online. The point of online poker is generally to improve and put in volume, not to make real money unless you are a gto grinder living in some second world country. So getting tilted about running below ev online simply doesn't matter whatsoever.

Its gotten to your head so much that you're saying ridiculous things to persist the narrative of how bad you run. It is impossible to run as bad as you claim. I'd gladly bet my entire life savings you did not lose 10 60-40s in a row, for example.

Bankroll management right now is the only part of poker worth spending any time on if I were you. Figure out a way to get a real bankroll and you'll be amazed how things fall into place.
I appreciate your response, sentiment and advice. Genuinely. So thank you for that. I agree that it's not productive to talk about run bad and no one cares. I won't argue that. The BR thing is true as well, I remember 5 months ago or so I lost $4K of $500 buy-ins (until the last one sadly) at $1/$3 in less than 90 minutes. I honestly didnt care. I was rolled to lose that much and just lost every hand of the session. Believe it or not I was not tilted, didn't lose sleep, or stress it, it was whatever. The lack of BR is what tilts me, and the feeling that my efforts dont impact my results tilts me as well.

I agree with your diagnosis. I need money. That's about it. I started a CFP last year with one retired pro who sought me out. He ended the stable and I am the only one in makeup, which is about $1,100. He doesn't coach me much at all anymore and it's a slow process to make that back online at $10nl, and it can feel like a hopelessly long cycle.

I've always treated online as something not about the money but a way to learn and hone my poker skills. I always thought that, always that is, until a couple weeks ago when I had a call with that coach. His income plan for me was based on me preforming online and I honestly think I am or am at bare minimum, becoming skilled and composed enough to actually make money online, despite how horrible the games and sites and future prospects look to be. I guess we'll just see on that end.

As for the money, I don't have a great plan. I have a car payment, warranty, expensive insurance, rent, utilities, food, the whole array of bills, and as I turn 26 in a few months healthcare premiums will come up as well, and the coaching and software ain't as expensive as I used to pay for it, but as you said, it still ain't cheap. So I don't really know what to do, but I am trying things out and working on it.

And this is probably a pointless reply, but your conviction in your last statement baited me too much. I will take that bet 1000x over. If you haven't experienced that yourself, then you've had it pretty good.

When I first started playing and studying poker, I did Spin n Go's. Had a higher than avg winrate at every stake, but losing 20 flips in a row was not unheard of in the slightest, nor was going 50+ BI below EV. Happened to me many a times, and it took me a long time to learn that's what poker is.

But if you cannot wrap your head around someone losing 10 all-ins in a row w 60% equity, your stat knowledge is painfully below the line. There have been tens if not hundreds of billions of hands that were all-ins in poker. Over that stretch, if there weren't a few hundred or even a few thousand where one person lost 80% of all of them over some small (small w respect to in grand scheme of # of iterations) number of them, like several hundred or more, then that would be even more unlikely. The odds of losing 10 pure flips in a row is (1/2)^10 which ~=0.0009765625. That is super unlikely, but once we scale out, it would be super unlikely for that not to happen. The more we scale out, the less extreme any of these scenarios are actually realized to be, and poker players, despite reputation for being mathematically and rationally oriented, greatly underestimate the likelihood of these sorts of events. The word "impossible" is used embarrassingly liberally in these circles. It isn't even close to impossible.

So whether you believe the figures of my rants above, or not, I don't really care anymore. But if that is a serious offer I would take you up on your life savings 1000x over because its something that has happened to me more times than I can count, as well as an inordinate number of other people, and in my case, this is not not just over weeks or months, but an event that has occurred even in several individual sessions. I'd guess because of which it puts me at far beneath a 1/1000 run this year, but as you said, no one cares, and if I weren't broke, I wouldn't care either.

So lets keep it productive, but not go overboard with absolutes, for they should be reserved for true rarities, and this isn't it.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-31-2023 , 10:59 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Llorton
That 56 was a nice hand, the haters reeks of jealousy
Thank you, I appreciate your kind words.

Goodluck in your games and endeavors!
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-31-2023 , 11:14 PM
Also for the record, if I just want to get it out there and move on. I do believe I am having one of the worst runs anyone has ever experienced. If I a being honest and not "rational" I don't think 1/1000 comes even close to it. I think its closer to 1/1000000 or worse, far more than I believe 1/1000, but it feels weird to say, but it's the honest thing to say. But I do not write this for you or for anyone else. I do this mostly to document my story, however it will come to end, and I do this to hold myself accountable. As for the above, there is no way to know this, and if true or not, it doesn't matter. The thought itself even, as I will be the first to admit, is entirely useless, but despite that, I am not an efficiency robot, and I cannot help but think it, and so I will be honest about it.

I don't really feel like I'm a victim anymore, at least not in the way I did, and have been trying my best to see this as an opportunity, and to weigh what really matters in all of this, as that has obviously come into question recently.

Perhaps I can use this as an opportunity to challenge myself to never talk about this part again, given my awareness of its lack of utility. That or at least a sharp and dramatic cutback. But even so, I am working on this, and this whole thing isn't really new to me. I hired a mental coach for a reason. I applied for that coach several months ago and even before that had been thinking about it some time.

During my last session with him, he admitted to me that after our first session together, he didn't think I would actually implement any of the changes that we had talked about. It wasn't perfect, but I did. And he is clearly confident enough in me now to tell me this because of that. Additionally, when I first started working my the backer J last December, he told me he thought I would be far too stubborn to learn what he could teach me and that I would never change my methods as well. Now he tells me he doesn't know if he has anything left to teach me and that there isn't a live cash lineup in the country he doesn't have me a winner in.

Anecdotes aside, I know I have more work to do on this. A lot even. But by God I will make something out of this situation and myself.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
07-31-2023 , 11:24 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JJsOff


Does it make sense now ass to what I was thinking about during the hand or would you like me to explain it again for you?

https://app.gtowizard.com/solutions?...n_actions=R5-C

I've linked the solution to the final example for you just in case you want to take a look for yourself. You're clearly a very big man and super talented poker play by the way you contributed here. I would wish you goodluck but you clearly don't need it. Just let me know if you're accepting students at this time, although I probably cannot afford it anyway.
I wrote a whole response to the troll, with 3 hand examples and four GTOw screenshots and like 8 paragraphs of the theory of the play, and similar plays. It looks like it got cut or didn't post. Oh well, doesn't matter. But the spots that I referenced were SB 3! BTN call on JT5s where SB cbet jams 3.5x pot large chunk of its range, and then the other one was Sb vs BB SRP Hero in SB w 65s (no flush interaction) Board and Action: range bet J32s 33p c T: J32s-4ss (double flush draw no interaction) 50% call R: J32s-4ss-Qx we 10x pot jam or whatever SPR is.

But I talked about maximizing EQR and equity when called when OOP in 3! pots vs SRP wide range pots, and how different parts of range bet different sizes with different intents, and why. I thought it was fun but its gone now. If you want to look at the spots yourself you can. If you would like me to expand on my thoughts in those spots and relate them to the hand above I will do that upon future request as well, just lmk
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
08-07-2023 , 03:48 PM




Update on my last 15K hands since I went down to $10nl on ignition. Not super happy w the bb/100 but could be worse. Feel like I've been running bad with my spots. Like disproportionate KK into AA pre sort of stuff, least thats what its felt like and what hand reports seem to suggest. Had a lot of long stretches where I never seemed to get much going as well. "Luck Bell Curve" doesn't suprise me but dont think its super useful to pay too much attention to it.

As for GTOW score of uploads, that includes all time. Don't know what it is for recent hands but most of them look pretty good. When it is off, good % are intentional deviations or calling "3-bets" when I raise 2bb pre and get raised to 3bb pre, getting 1bb to call. Often GTOW cannot differentiate the size and tells me that I should've folded. As for the drills, new concepts and spots stay in the 60-70% range, lot of the better versed stuff in the 80-90%+. Probably little extra disparity as I go for rarest indifferent action, so don't check when I know there will be lots of it very often.

Anyway, not really much else to say here. $/hr for last month was like $1.60/hr. Not super encouraging when last flurry of posts was talking about getting to $50-$100/hr 'sooner than I will realize it', especially when staking profit is down like $1,900 all time now and makeup is still $1K. Feels like I will never get out of this or gain any momentum.

Besides that, played some while traveling to St Louis this weekend. Did not play MSPT and was not there for poker. Did play a few very short sessions though. Played well although made one bad fold vs old man who jammed into me on river. Knew he wanted a call (and he did want one), but got into my own head and under weighed his clear propensity to value own himself. Folded for $400 more to win $1200 w top two on a board where he had sets and 2/3 of the straight draws that would call my xr on flop got there. He had worse 2p in range but I blocked good chunk of what I'd imagine to see there. Anyway, saw that I am not unaffected by my spot and that my nerves are higher the more breaks I take from live. Also noticed I expect perfection from myself likely even more so than before and am not very forgiving or forgetful of any mistakes that I make. Overall, made $300 over the weekend from poker, although results would've been much different had a found the call in the forementioned hand. The win feels nice but doesn't do much for me since the costs of travel and the trip overall offset that by about 2x. Still appreciate anything I can get, though.

Anyway, next week I may be going to OKC to play at RiverWind with a friend. He has a spare bdrm, will likely stay and work there during day, play out there in evening, and do that for about a week. Since games are soft and $300 cap, despite my financial spot, it doesn't seem that bad to try to make it work. Good for confidence and building a roll, and nice to get some reps in in a lower risk and refreshing environment. Will likely have about 10 BI for a roll but could get a temp stake deal if it goes south somehow. Last time I was there I made $80/hr over 35 hours, and had some of the worst sessions of my life, if that gives any insight into the games/environment.

Besides that, not much to report. Will update soon, thanks for reading.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
08-07-2023 , 09:38 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JJsOff

Anyway, not really much else to say here. $/hr for last month was like $1.60/hr. Not super encouraging when last flurry of posts was talking about getting to $50-$100/hr 'sooner than I will realize it', especially when staking profit is down like $1,900 all time now and makeup is still $1K. Feels like I will never get out of this or gain any momentum.
I'm probably misreading this, but if your long term goal is to be playing full time, why are you playing 10nl backed instead of ownrolling live games? Seems like that's the fastest/easiest path to your desired goal
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
08-08-2023 , 02:57 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by EvolvedSavage
I'm probably misreading this, but if your long term goal is to be playing full time, why are you playing 10nl backed instead of ownrolling live games? Seems like that's the fastest/easiest path to your desired goal
Ran so bad I lost most of my roll. Also, early in the year was mildly risky with buy-ins, which left me less wiggle room given possibility of bad fortune.

Additionally, mental game became really bad in consequence of the above, and despite not making money online, it has been my largest facilitator of growth and improvement, so seemed more productive than playing with short roll with bad mental and scared money, as I’ll have to get out of makeup eventually anyway and it’s a good use of time in the interim for me to further hone and improve my game.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
08-08-2023 , 02:59 PM
One more thought, albeit harder slower and less likely, being able to play online for a living as well as live is a dual goal of mine. Can’t really do that if I never play on there.

As for $10nl, backer doesn’t want to add another deposit and I personally don’t want to either, at least until I see some shots go in and become more confident
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
08-09-2023 , 05:05 PM
Think mental game is already getting better.

Played last night again, had some of biggest whales in local area all at my table punting off. Couldn't really get anything going against them. Think I went almost two hours without even winning a single pot. Lost 4 consecutive in all-ins as well. Had 77 in 3! pot OOP on J76, lost it all vs JJ in brutal set over set spot. Next hand whale limps 54o in CO, I raise in the blind, he backraise jams and I call. He spikes two pair to outdue my one pair. Lost another one vs him when he did the same thing w Q5. He lost all his all-ins to all the nits though so the money left the economy after I lost those lol. But yeah not going to recite the bad fortune play by play further than that. Just had a bad night but was moderately unaffected by it. Noticed the propensity I have to still complain or track that stuff, but whatever, my greater indifference to the evenings is a sign we're heading back in a positive direction.

Two other things I noticed:
1) I still struggle to leave or go to bed at a reasonable hour when I play live poker. I have been managing to leave by 11pm though which is actually an improvement as well.
2) I am starting a semi-significant streak of not winning consecutive sessions. I remember in 2022, I went from late June/early July through the end of the calendar year without winning back to back sessions. Think it amounted to 35-40 sessions range, although I still won $ over the sample. At the moment though, my last back to back wins were sometime in June, think my tracker has me at 17 in a row now, and I am definitely not positive over that sample by any means. Even when looking at all time records, I don't believe I've even won half my lifetime sessions anywhere (would have to double check that). Ultimately I think it would be best if I drowned out that stuff as noise, but I can't help but be somewhat fascinated and observant of it. There's a lot of different ways we can experience varying forms of "variance" in poker and I think it would be super interesting to ever sift through large data sets of regular live players and see what all there is to find. My guess is that the average player and community at large is very bad at understanding this stuff, and how extreme different experiences in the game can be in a high number of varying respects.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
08-10-2023 , 06:52 PM

Turn raise gets SPR to .4 on river (solvers like doing this to SPR range of .3-.6 to force indifference and does so when it can optimize eqr and equity when called). Checked flop to keep overs in hoping to cooler a hand that turns top pair or misc equity. River, because we are indifferent at this SPR we call pretty much any and all rivers that we raise for value on the turn, even if we know this line is very underbluffed. Change SPR and change story. Folded hand with same line w AA against similar board where flush gets in on river but SPR was closer to 1. Difference between folding at will and never folding.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
08-11-2023 , 11:19 AM


Another HH, similar to above

Raise to get SPR between 0.3-.6 range, pick a size that forces indifference and maximizes equity when called
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
08-16-2023 , 12:25 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JJsOff


Another HH, similar to above

Raise to get SPR between 0.3-.6 range, pick a size that forces indifference and maximizes equity when called
Funny Eenough I actually talked to my coach on this one, and despite SPR of .3 and infinite pot odds, despite unblocking missed flush draws, and despite player being spewy af in other HH's, coach tells me that Ax is too bad of a river and I should be folding here. Something to think about...
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote
08-16-2023 , 02:53 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JJsOff


Does it make sense now ass to what I was thinking about during the hand or would you like me to explain it again for you?

https://app.gtowizard.com/solutions?...n_actions=R5-C

I've linked the solution to the final example for you just in case you want to take a look for yourself. You're clearly a very big man and super talented poker play by the way you contributed here. I would wish you goodluck but you clearly don't need it. Just let me know if you're accepting students at this time, although I probably cannot afford it anyway.
other guy is whatever, but your stacks are almost 200 effective. should rerun your sim with 200BB starting because shoving here on the river with 85BB into 35BB is quite a bit different than shoving 185BB into 35BB. gto wizard is weighting towards a bet of 22BB 64% of the time. the calling ranges really do get decimated once you're playing for 200-300BB stacks. you go from AA/KK/A9 mostly calling at 100BBs to starting to mostly fold and only getting value from sets/lower straights at 200BBs.

Last edited by mkflsam; 08-16-2023 at 02:59 PM.
Losing/Breakeven Player to Become a Thriving Pro: My Goals, History, and Progression Quote

      
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