hahaha every play is fine if nodelocked

Thanks, appreciate it. AJ is a deviation for me just because of blockers and the number of other hands I want to double here, but agree it can't be terrible.

Do you think youll lose some ev with ratholing?

I rathole to 100bb fastfold games...maybe you are giving up some EV by doing it but it reduces your variance a ton and there is a much higher comfort level in playing at 100bb (at least for me).

Maybe I am giving up EV but I don't want to smash something when I lose my fourth 200bb pot compared to when I've lost my fourth 500+bb pot of the day. The tilt level is just so much infinitely higher and it's much harder to say "w/e standard" when you lose a big stack.

Shiffty, niet2maar3, svansa, Bonk30

Imo a lot of his pio work will go to waste vs regs who don't put the pio work and have a lot of experience playing deep. Ofc playing deep adds EV vs fish, but also variance is increased(and tilt) and it reduces your consistency as a player.

I think it's a better approach to be as consistent as possible and play 100bb deep as well as you can and move up in stakes. Then playing deep only after you're an endboss of a stake you think you will never move up from (unless it is to play some very good games higher from time to time).

Im also ratholing buy lately ive been thinking is it really worth trading some ev for less variance. I think for ppl with weak mental game like me its not worth gaining some ev playing deep vs fish and then going on monkeytilt after losing a big pot.
You are familiar with 200z, how common is ratholing there?

From what I remember a lot of regs played deep. Op will be able to confirm it better because I played there like 6 months ago.

Not sure honestly - HEM has a weird bug in showing w/rs by stacksize and my w/r is still wayyyy higher with 100bb-150bb.

Logically, playing deeper allows fish to make bigger mistakes, should support a higher w/r. In practice just doesn't appear to be the case for me personally.

Yeah lmao this post summarises my viewpoint almost perfectly.

Theoretical EV is all well and good but when I don't play poker for 3 days because Ammadnav flats a 4b with 73s (not real spot but definitely could happen) and makes a straight vs me for 600bb it's quite expensive

bonk30 is correct


Yeah lots of people at 200z actively try to play deep, some people even run it once shallow and try to build stacks.

Honestly for a lot of the spewy random aggresion guys it's quite a good strategy I think.


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Heading to Glencoe - Skye and then Torridon for 6 days, going to summit as many munroes as possible and try to avoid the internet.

Poker this month is around +3k but down 1.5k on Stars. When I come back will make a sacrifice to dnegs and turn the month around.

This hand sums up the month. FR reg just deciding to take the 'hopefully he has a boat line':

Late sub, glgl man

117

.........50

0

Strong

Not so strong

appalling if true.



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Yo so month is up, going to write a short update split into a few sections.

Most importantly, first, life:

Took five days to drive north from Edinburgh this month with a couple of mates. I had high expectations, and they were exceeded. The weather was even reasonable for 4/5 days.

We spent a couple of days in Skye, and the rest in Torridon. Scenery in the latter was honestly reminiscent of New Zealand, will definitely be back before summer is out.

Bagged 5 Munros (Scottish mountains over 3000ft, 270ish in total) and failed on one due to snow on the top. Some of the mountains in Scotland are actually no joke it turns out, the Cuillins in Skye was some of the most exposed stuff I've been on without rope.

Some pictures:












Outside of that trip just getting settled in Edinburgh, found a football game and climbing a bit, and looking forward to the summer here.

Pokerwise the month was a swingy one:





+ 3.3k USD on untrack for a total of 7.3k$, which I really can't be disappointed with given I basically only played 200.

Honestly again and again I have to remind myself of how sick variance is in this game and how terrible the brain is at dealing with it. 3 days ago I was having a very meh month, not feeling great about poker in general. Then I started coolering everyone and now I feel pretty good about my month.
Obviously this is fish logic and next month I'm going to take a leaf out of some of 464s book and try really really hard to not look at results next month.

bitB cash is also going well, it keeps me improving a lot myself, uploaded 25 videos this month to the website and feel like we made big progress in the group sessions, and a few of the students popped off which is also nice. It's definitely not all sunshine and rainbows, but when I zoom out on balance, life isn't too bad as a poker pro in 2019.

Gl all and here's to a great May.

I'm not sure how you guys can not look at results and still don't know roughly how much you're up or down? it feels like I always know approximately how much I'm up or down as I play

Skye is one of my absolute fav places in the world. Genuinely nowhere better on a really nice day IMO! The tartan for my wedding kilt was actually called "Cuillins of Skye"

Did you guys do the Inaccessible Pinnacle (Sgurr Dearg) by any chance? That thing really is no joke.

Also, nice month at the tables.

3 days in and it is a struggle. Not sure how the other guys do it, but I'm finding it very hard to not devote mental resources to keeping track of how many stacks I've won/ lost.

Yeah it's amazing! I want to head back in the summer, but heard bad stories about the midges.

We did not do the Pinnacle, skirted around it because we didn't have ropes. Definitely want to tick it off at some point though, but expect it will be a scary trip!

---------------------------------

For anyone interested, one of my friends pulled together some footage from our Scotland trip, including drone here

That's a sick video, Torridon and surrounding area legitimately my favourite place.

As you know I did the Inn Pin last year... it was much easier than expected

yeah sooo pure. Hardest munro completed, boss.

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Quick update, month is going okay I think but no results yet so will wait and see I guess

Because I have no graphs here is a picture from a hike I went on last weekend on the coastal path in Northumbria:



And also the big news, I'll be streaming some poker with psek1 on the RunItOnce charity stream tomorrow at midday London time!

We don't play one bajillion nl like some of the other streamers, but happy to answer any questions about being a small stakes grinder, bitb, poker generally. Also have some RIO memberships to give away I think, so tune in and support the cause!

Thanks for everyone who tuned in, was actually really fun and maybe inspired me to twitch more in future.

For anyone who missed it, it's in the RIO VOD section now

Big few days of grinding now before a break next weekend - I leave you with the spiciest and probably the worst hand I have played this year:

PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - $1/$2 - 5 players
Replay this hand on Upswing Poker

UTG: $222.70 (111 bb)
CO: $252.78 (126 bb)
BU: $202.69 (101 bb)
SB (Hero): $354.72 (177 bb)
BB: $208.05 (104 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($3) Hero is SB with A♥ A♦
1 fold, CO raises to $4.40, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets to $23, 1 fold, CO calls $18.60

Flop: ($48) T♣ T♦ 6♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $22.80, CO calls $22.80

Turn: ($93.60) Q♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $60, Hero calls $60

River: ($213.60) K♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $172.90, CO folds

Total pot: $213.60 (Rake: $2.75)
SB (Hero) wins $210.85

Promise a poker update at end of month, things seem to be going well.

Just got back from two days wild camping around Glencoe with a couple of friends, traversed Aonach Eagach which has been on the list for a while, really great fun.

Some photos:












Watching Game of Thrones tomorrow morning then back on the grind, may even play a SCOOP at some point

Amazing pics! But wtf is that name eaogach eanobach

Thanks mate - yeah a lot of Scottish words are basically Dothraki or something, extremely strange names.

Those pics are absolutely stunning. You've inspired me to get my friends together and do a similar trip this summer. Is there anywhere in England/Wales you'd recommend as we'd all be coming from London?

Haha I mean you make it sound like people up here actually talk like this. Most people just call this region the Devil’s Staircase.

Incredible pics. Seems like so far you’re doing a pretty good job of appreciating why people find it so hard to leave Scotland.