And now:
"The russian friend saga and/or the story of the biggest micro winner"

Episode 1. The meeting.

It all started when I was taging players. My usual morning. And like i said more than 50K usd in profit on stakes lower than 25NL. Never saw that! After hundreds of guys. Not rare to see a couple millions hands couple thousands in profit. Natural, a guy that as a side hustle/hobby. (A stuck at micros kid just like me!) But I never seen that high. And the guy was playing 5NL! So i sat and sent a message to the guy.
"Your a micro legend! (Enter here screen-name)"
Always start by a compliment guys. Poker player sure love there egos
"Wanna get good?"
"Sure"

Sent him my skype. And we started chatting. He is a nice guy. Played big was never a study type and slowly the game passed him. It gave me a window to the psychologie of a stuck at micros type-of-dude.
And these are the things i realised.

1. The victim level.
We all have it. Im running bad. KK into aces again!? The russian was only posting normal spots. Where, guessed what? He lost. At first I was motivating the guy up. "You know your a winner" "stay focus" the usual. Until one point i was fed up. Started to go harder on him. He posted a hand. All i was responding was: WP. It was starting to drag me down. But he helped me. So i wanted to help him too.

2. I know, u don't.
At first that was his mindset. Why should I study? I play against fish. Im better than them. When i was posting a hand he was saying something like. Turn raise 100% lot of value. He had that closed mindset not able to see the game beyound the frame he created himself. ALWAYS BE OPEN MINDED. BETTER BE ASKING QUESTION. THAN PRETENDING YOU KNOW. Doubt can be so hard to handle, i suppose. He needed to feel certain. To feel in control. To feel he is good.

3. Opening his eyes.
Now he his slowly improving on those aspects. But the first thing that needs to change if you dont wanna get stuck in the rake pit: Mental game. Handling the swings, staying mentaly sharp (study), admiting you dont know (curiosity). Staying hungry!

He sent me some videos of him playing i wont share is identity. Just to stay respectfull. He helps me out. I will take a look at that video and comment the things he does. Fun exercice to understand player tendencys. IN THE NEXT EPISODE OF...
"The russian friend saga and/or the story of the biggest micro winner"

English isnt my first language and tried a more fun approach. Tell me what u guys think of the idea of this series?
GL at the tables!

Very nice and humble blog. Wishing you all the best. Great story as well about the micro king.

@BobbyPeru
Ty! I was a bit afraid of posting something different. More episodes in the making and more hands to be played. I was thinking of doing an other type of post. Posting my absolute worst play so far to highlight the things I need to study. To find a recurrent pattern.

DAY 8. PLayed some 16 NL. Got whacked, Took a break, Came back.





I might play a little longer not a lot of volume today, But more study looked at a play and explain video that gave me ideas of new strats that are Ez to incorporate. I think learning by copying is still very good for me. It makes me improve faster. I also took some time to look at the footage the russian friend sent me. there is a lot of footage like 2 hours. I will take a look at the first one while taking notes on the hands I would have played different than, I will take the time to come with an overall read of what aspects of is technical game needs improvement. I will share it. Mb come up with generalization of how the player pool approach the game. based on how he does/my reads from the hands played so far. Exciting stuff.

GL at the tables.

DAY 9: I saw My roll flash before my eyes.





I played some zoom to get a bit more volume. And passed close to a disaster there. So I have been saying it for a while. To go play lower for a little bit. I think now is the right time.
On the stop smoking front. Not there yet. Far from it.

GL!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjVmeKWOsEU

And now:
"The russian friend saga and/or the story of the biggest micro winner"

EPISODE 2: The footage.

So I took a deeper dive into the technical game of the micro King. As we say in the last episode, A mental game problem is most of the time the root, of all evil. Lol. Anyway... I have spotted some tendencys that I think sums up a lot of the things player from MICRO GAMES ON PS, struggle with. Had to scream to get you attention.


1. Preflop range construction,
not a big suprise. I wont go into more details about it, nowadays everyone knows about charts and the overall approach you should have preflop. How to 3Bet effectively, where to NOT have a calling range, etc. But the Russian crusher had some leak there. Where?

1.1 Folding a ton to 3Bet. the classic, Okay looking at the 3bet freq of your opponent and seing on hud its 5, not the snap pump CALL HJvsBUT with AQs, but I mean!

1.2 Not squeezing with the proper type of hands. Wont give an exemple of that one.

2. Range understanding.
The guy is pretty much stuck in the mindset of what am I holding in that spot and not what could I be holding in that spot. I think when you start to study higher quality coaching stuff/solver what ever, your mind shift into a new perspective. you start to care way less about the hand you have and more about how to construct on different texture. It's something difficult to give exemple for, because no hand could describe it, you slowly understand it, by the sizing he chooses, the board he chooses to bet on. He has a good feel for the frequency to use, based on experience, but poor planing.

3. SNAP.
He snaps. Guy bets: snap Call. Turn trips: snap bet 2/3.
I think this is link to the mental aspect. when you snap a lot its sign that you are afraid. What? that sounds conter-intuitive? Well your afraid of being wrong. Of taking the proper time and Being wrong. snaping = lets get it over with. My english isn't so good to explain it well. But I think there is a lack of confidence that comes with it. ENJOY THE THINKING. Thats what we do, thats what we love, talking to our-self.

I gave the guy some time stamps on the video he sent me, with the different ideas I had while watching. But these were the overall things that I remember. Standard stuff really

DAY: ?
Took some days off after couple of bad session on PokerStars.



So I went to try my luck on GG instead and I did well. I played massive volume multi-tabling like a mad man. And I had way more fun than just playing 4 table of reg tables. Even tho I probably have a better edge playing stars and having stats and all. Not sur because the player pool is softer on GG, I think there is no doubt there. Anyway, managed to get high in the leaderboard stuff. So I think I will keep on playing there for a little bit. See If I can get good days chasing that.

I will still be playing stars on the side, to Keep playing for practice and improving. I still have a decent roll there. And I want to give that line a better look for the month.

We will see.

Cool Blog, wish you all the best moving up the Stakes.

Results look good, how are the other things going? (No smoking/Sports)

Thank you!
Yay Not too bad results so far. I hope The massive volume on GG will be a more lucrative play. About, the health stuff... the gym are still closed here so I can't do much. I take walks but still smoking a ton. I saw a friend today who played basketball in college with me and said we will know this week if the gyms open.

Which poker training site do you use?

I use the Upswing poker lab. But I went thru a lot of the content out there. I don't use it enough I think, Mb I should do 1 hour a day. But its very mentally draining for me, so I have stretch when I play, and dont study much, and moments when I play less and study more.

Upswing is the site I’ve been looking at. Would you suggest there is definite value for money there?

Thanks

There is value for the money, on any site of the market. The majors one. The value comes more from the work your ready to put in over the product. But I would recommend the lab.

The battle is real out there, been playing for the leaderboard on GG, that **** is nuts. I thought I was doing pretty good getting in the top 3 the first day trying it out. Well there was not much regs playing that day. Those guys are insane, If there even human. The volume they put in is Jaw dropping. I played more than 25K hands over what is now the start of DAY4 . I will import my graph (mb my pokercraft one because I'm a bit lazy to download all of that.) Well If someone is interested to take a look at that database and give me advice on what to work on. I would study it for a while and do an other intense week after.

It would be super nice of you to help me out on that one

Well about the GG games now, Eveyday there is a Reg loosing is mind, and probably is whole roll. Playing a lot of table all day. You feel the psychologie of the players thru the day. When he gets more aggressive because his been running well. Who plays more gunshy. The guy takes a break and comeback, now he 3Bets is BB more aggressive. Interesting. Well I guess I'm just picking some random exemple and it has nothing to do with how I should approach the game. And normally I dont change to much what I do. People make mistake against my aggresive 3Bet strat. At first they fold, some fight back. But the one that loose their mind is the one that call. I think my experience in those spots helps me navigate. After 3hours of being in a 3Bet pot OOP, against the guy who showed the 65 on Ah board. And blasted the stupid looking emoji like a ******. You start to loose your mind. We all been there.

GLGL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qtJcSA_22s

I will upload it with PT4 soon. But this is 4 days of fighting the leaderboard. And obv this is not taking rake into account. This is still insane playing 5NL. I took a lot of bi out of the game in only 4 days.

After 5 days of hardcore grinding. On GG 5NL and some more focus 10NL. not all the hands are in there, and I made a bit with the rakeback program. Started on there with 100usd. Now up to 421.

solid stuff

DAY 6 on GG.



The Russian friend has join the party. After I've shared with him the success I was having in the GG games, he decided to jump in the leaderboard grind. Guess what? the guy is not winning and he his complaining about running bad. I played a little against him. Exploit fold was my main play against him, did some bluffing. nothing too much out of line. But I remember I saw him CC a raise CO, and I said to him in the video (as a note) that he should probably 3Bet or fold from there. So I squeezzzz from SB and he folds. I feel like he lost the will to improve even if I try to help him out.

I'm thinking of starting to spend more time doing solver work and less training site. I'm new to it ready to invest. what are your opinions on it. Best value out there? I was thinking of gto+? maybe find some material out there to help me getting started with the software?
Also if someone is interested in doing some database review I think I need my eyes to be open to new stuff.

Still playing the 5NL streets. And doing good there. Can still play a bunch of volume before I will take a first REAL shot at 10NL trying to get to a decent rank in the leaderboard. Probably during the weekend. I extracted a lot from the games there. And I'm sure the regs feel it a little. I'm sure some and barely winning and its hurting their confidence. So sure, I could probably be a winning player higher, but will play safe as I am still learning a lot. I need to get back studying more. I took some time off. and lost my daily routine. But I'm in poker 24/7 pretty much, so I'm always studying a way or an other. And also good news the gym will open this week. So team sports will be possible again. I will start updating on that also.

GLGL

Okay folks, the grind is starting to get to me. I will go less intense for a couple of days. because I start to feel burn out.

Less intense in the act of playing but more intense in reviewing and trying to find new strat to take full advantage of my opponents.



My russian friend is now a regular on GG, and started playing in my games. It's fun to have some rivalry, but as you saw based on my first session on GG. It take 2 more regs to screw the entire pool. So not so good for my bottom line.

What kind of burn out are you talking about? Are you lacking motivation to play or are you having fear of turning a winning session into a losing session if you keep playing? Just curious about.

Also what part of the world are you from?

cheers

GTO+ is great. There’s some decent intro videos on YouTube for it.

Just not feeling into doing the deep thinking. Falling easily on auto-pilot. I dont think about the winning too much while I play. I'm from Canada.

Thank you, Mr Darcy I will take a look at it. Mb we could do a study session together when I will know the software better.

Sounds good