yo, thanks! We don't really need to protect our hand, we also have a reasonable amount of flush draws that don't wanna shove the flop too. By calling we allow MP1 to put more money into the pot. Upon more reflection, i think shoving this flop was an absolutely awful mistake

haha, very true

cheers boss!

---

As i’ve mentioned i’ve been working on and off with the mental game of poker, and it happens that i’ve been heavily reading and taking notes this month. Confidence is something that i struggle with in poker, even though i have confidence in my abilities as a whole, i find it gets knocked very easily - even a few big losing days in a row can put me into a spiral of uncertainty. Here’s a bit that i can really relate to:

Results shouldn’t control your confidence, you know that, but you still can’t stop from going through the highs and lows of winning and losing. While riding a heater, you try not to book wins, play too many hands, or take on tougher opponents, but they are too hard to resist. Winning feels great. As you win more, you also win more confidence. Until variance turns on you.

You are so caught up in riding the high, you don’t see losing coming. Suddenly, your results take a nosedive and destroy your confidence. ‘It’s variance, you’re playing fine. Just keep at it, eventually the cards will turn around’, your friends of coach might say to ease your mind. You want to believe them, and logically you know they’re right, but all the money you’re losing makes you feel terrible about your game.

Your confidence is completely tied to results, there’s no way to avoid riding the confidence rollercoaster. The best way to stop these emotional swings and develop ‘stable confidence’ is by learning a set of rarely talked about poker skills resolving the underlying flaws in your confidence.

Confidence is an unreliable measure of results and skill for two reasons:

Underlying flaws in your mental game create inaccurate feelings about the quality of your game
Players use short-terms results to form the foundation of their confidence. However, short-term results are unreliable for proving a player’s skill, therefore the basis of their confidence is also unreliable.

From reading this chapter several times i think that i’m starting to realise that i don’t need to be emotionless to results, it’s to just stop lending so much weight on short-term results. This is easier said than done though.

You can consider stable confidence as the middle ground between overconfidence and under-confidence. That doesn’t mean you feel neutral, robotic, or numb. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. You are full of emotion, but that emotion is no longer tired to short-term results, and is instead tied to elements of the game that you control. As a result you’re:

• Playing at a high level
• Able to make objective decisions
• Aware of your strengths and weaknesses
• Aware of your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses
• Clearheaded
• Trusting your instincts
• Not overly emotional, but motivated and energetic
• Challenged
• Interested
• Learning from each session
• Prepared to work on your game
  

The above bullet points are the things that i’m going to review on a daily basis as a means to build up my confidence and resilience to variance. I want to write a bit about under and over confidence too but don’t wanna tl;dr too much! I’ll make an aim to do that in the next few days.

Sorry for those of you who will find this boring as hell, but i think it’s about time i started getting some different, more thought through content in this thread. I think i’m going to start writing up bits from my psychotherapy books too as I find writing stuff down helps me find some clarity in what i’m reading/thinking.

I wondered why you were flatting 55 in second position, but seeing UTG was opening A6o UTG for 4bb kind of explained it!

haha yeah. he was verrrry juicy

---

Put in a high quality session today.



vs reg:



Outplayed hard here:



Reg taking weird as hell line:



- Playing at a high level
- Able to make objective decisions - Made a couple of 'emotional' decisions that i shouldn't have made
- Clearheaded
- Trusting your instincts
- Not overly emotional, but motivated and energetic - Took a couple awful beats but it didn't phase me
- Interested
- Learning from each session/Prepared to work on your game - Did a hand history review with a friend and critically analysed my play

I'll be following the above points as i feel these are the most relevant to me/the things i want to focus on. Using green for good, orange for average and red for poor.

Seeing clients, enquiring about another masters course and grind tomorrow.

gl

In the K3o hand, doesn't the reg have more NFDs with that line rather than K3o? Does a reg even flat K3o in that spot though?

haha, well no, a reg should never have K3o here. I'm not sure what they were thinking. Technically they should have more FD's here, but those make pretty awful river raises because the fish hates to fold.

---

Sooooo just had the worst session i've ever had. No point in complaining as it was just awful pot after awful pot. My wwsf was 40 and my w@sd was also 40...



such a sigh spot. I should fold river though:



The pain of bricking this one vs whale was pretty rough:



ugh:



god, i dunno here. Probably another fold:



- Playing at a high level Was actually playing well throughout imo
- Able to make objective decisions - yes, even though they resulted in losing most pots!
- Clearheaded For about 90% of the session
- Trusting your instincts - Was going to fold both the AK and KK but ended up calling
- Not overly emotional, but motivated and energetic - Didn't get tilted, spew off money or blow up
- Interested
- Learning from each session/Prepared to work on your game - Will not be playing 1k/2k for a while, that's for sure

All in all, not a lot i can say. Obviously horrendous to have such an awful day, especially cus it's new territory to me. However, I stuck to my goals of maintaining a non tilty, clearheaded game and i can't do much more than that.

I'll be dropping 1k/2k for a while to regain a bit of confidence. Month is down 6k or something, not the worst.

glgl

hello!

do u coach? pm if yes pls
and wish you the best

hey man, i'm afraid i don't. I have a list of people who have asked for coaching so in case i do, i'll add you to it.

---

After the awful session on Friday, i took the evening off and all of saturday too. I think it was a good idea to regroup myself before firing back at the games. Last night i went to a music night with charlotte and a few of our friends. It's called 'sofar sounds' and the general idea is that you buy a ticket for the area (west london, south london, stockholm etc) and the venue is released a few hours before the show. You then listen to 3 random bands/genres that have been chosen for the night Last night was a kinda James Blake type guy, a band called nadianair and some young funk band. It was really fun and i'll definitely be doing it again. The facebook page is here, it's in loads of countries and runs most nights of the week! I can strongly recommend.

https://www.facebook.com/sofarsounds/ - Find your country's page and go!

-

Grinded a bit today and was very happy to book a decent win.



vs reg:



A for effort:



1st hand fish



- Playing at a high level
- Able to make objective decisions
- Clearheaded
- Trusting your instincts
- Not overly emotional, but motivated and energetic
- Interested
- Learning from each session/Prepared to work on your game - Planned to review a few hands but ended up going and playing thrice instead :s

Got a few things on tomorrow but will put a grind in at some stage.

gl

well done great bounce back session. your mental stuff is nice to read keep it coming!

If it's any help with the tilt shenanigans, one of the best things I learned was to never allow yourself to complain, either to anybody else or in your head It does force you to think more logically and less emotionally.

thanks man, yeah was nice to book a win. glad you like the mental game stuff, definitely more to come!

that's a good idea, thank you. I actually wouldn't say i outwardly tilt, like shouting or hitting the table but i do internalise a lot of the tilt which forces me into playing too fast and in turn making mistakes. I'll try the outward tilt relief a bit and see how it goes!

---

Barely played today cus i had loads of stuff on and then ended up meeting with an old school friend for dinner so again no grinding!



last hand of my session vs rec who loved betting and never folding:



Gotta give this fellow credit for the huge amounts of involved:



Exploi sizing vs weak reg:



Thoughts appreciated for this hand vs reg. They're running 30/22/11, 49 wwsf, 52 w@sd, aggression by street 34/36/35:



Full day of seeing clients tomorrow so likely no volume at all.

gl!

i would fold. no idea tho

Vomit spot especially given positions

I would defer to looking at 3b by position - how often MP to UTG. If that's on the lower side it's probably a trivial fold (probably earlier than the river). If he's really wide pre then I guess close your eyes and decide. Spades bricked lol! I'm also not the biggest fan of flatting 3bs oop to these loose/agro type guys @ 100bb deep. These spots are too brutal

Pre is beyond standard

but it's utg vs mp though, I personally probably toss it pre if they 3b mp vs utg less than say 5%.

is AJ/AQ the same relative hand strength here assuming he is not always jamming AQ.
I would nit fold this too due to position and we have quite a few AK combos assuming we have a mix strategy too. But sometimes dude just have QJs/KQs

can't really make any assumptions pre w/o 3bet by position.. close between 4bet , calling and can see some merits in folding, i wouldn't tho

river seems like a pretty easy fold, still lose to all AK combos , ATs, and block some of his bluffs

this is pretty much always a call pre guys. call > 4b/f > fold outright.

as for river I prob fold

4betting Ajs seems like a fun hand choice

I think 4betting or calling is fine. Never ever fold. I expect your 4bet gets flatted much more often than jammed or folded to nowadays in this position especially, so much better to have a strong 4b range and the J negative blocker is pretty irrelevant im o.

Agree, a lot of regs will just play call/fold (obv calling a lot more) vs an UTG 4-bet these days. Much prefer 4betting some offsuit AQ/AJ combos and some suited wheel aces, but being value heavy overall is a decent adjustment. AJs plays too well vs any reasonable range to fold.

As played on river, it's pretty close but I'd fold. We're not really that close to the top of our range and villain doesn't have that many perceived bluffs. He has the range advantage and we should have a few hands that call/call/fold. Ace blocker v important for sure, but we get to river with a **** tonne of Ax.

Hey Bena. Enjoying the thread. Thanks for taking the time to update regularly. Really like the A2s hand. I think most people would just b/b/b and get less value.

Was hoping you might be able to answer a quick question wrt the JTo hand, and the fact you said it is a defend vs 3b against almost anyone in steal positions. Do you prioritise this hand type over the smaller suited types? I had a look at snowie online ranges and it seems to prefer these hands over the offsuit broadways. JTo isn't close according to them. Do you defend quite wide to include all of these hands or do you just prefer the offsuit broadway type hands and only defend some % of the smaller SCs/gappers?

Pio BTN open vs SB 3b https://www.pokersnowie.com/pftapp/i..._aftermy_raise
Click Dealer, SB, View advice.

Thanks!

yeah wasn't sure myself

haha the spades bricking was a big part of wanting to call of course. His 3b in these positions overall is 4% and vs hero 7% if that helps with making a decision. Somehow i don't think it will

Yeah as blakkman said, preflop is definitely a call as standard. Way too strong to fold. I definitely have AK some of the time as well as stronger hands like sets and 2p. We obviously block some of his bluffs which is really unideal.

cool thanks!

tyty

really good point here

totally agree with the 4b selections and also that AJs plays too well vs a reasonable range to fold.

Results: zzz fold

hey mate, glad you're getting something from this thread I'm not sure what spot you're talking about when you mention JTo. It sounds like something i may have said though however i don't agree with that anymore

It's much, much better to call suited connecting hands to a 3b than JTo. Please point my in the direction that i said that, perhaps in a cardrunners video, and i'll be happy to expand on what i've said. gl!

---

Took yesterday off as there was a lot going on. Played today and played really well but ran pretty garbage.



vs whale and reg. The reg who 3b tank called pre, really classy:



Not the worst runners i've ever seen



Got what i deserved eh tim:



yuck vs reg:



vs over aggro reg. Still happy with my line but happy for someone to prove that it's rubbish!



big from fish:



- Playing at a high level
- Able to make objective decisions
- Clearheaded
- Trusting your instincts - I did, but i ended up losing in a few of the spots so i'm not really sure what to grade this as. Will leave it green as i don't wanna be results oreinted
- Not overly emotional, but motivated and energetic
- Interested
- Learning from each session/Prepared to work on your game- Need to review some hands from today tomorrow morning

Won football 6:4 tonight vs a pretty competent team. We're almost definitely guaranteed final now. Still a few more games till then though.

Sucks to lose and being stuck a decent chunk still doesn't help, however i'm feeling motivated and happy i'm not short on confidence. In a decent head-space right now.

glgl

Teh reg prolly stacks and cant know that one of teh 2 donks he faces does a nanonoko for 100bb. And even if he slowrolled on purpose its prolly fine to take his time vs a cheatrunner scumbag for that much money on teh line

paha i am all of those things

---

Right back in the hole i'm afraid



Played so well and ran soooo bad today. There was a couple questionable hands but i've reviewed them and they're actually fine. I don't have any hands to post from today which is a little weird. Just a ton of medium sized pots where i've had to fold.

- Playing at a high level
- Able to make objective decisions
- Clearheaded
- Trusting your instincts
- Not overly emotional, but motivated and energetic - Got verbally angry a few times for sure
- Interested
- Learning from each session/Prepared to work on your game

Back at it tomorrow!

gl

What's the thought process behind JJ call down in last hand?

Hard to make pear. V reps only 77. I'm sure he's l00z and agresif

My guess