The What - I want to build up towards 20NL and 50NL online, and be able to play live poker with proper BRM. I want to be able to sit down amongst regulars in those pools, and not feel out of depth. This makes the goal not focused solely on money, it also requires a considerable amount of structured study and improvement.

The Where - I play on a localised skin of iPoker. The pool is big enough that I can get action any time of day, but small enough for me to build big hand histories on regular players. I have 20k hands on the site, and so far have 5 regulars above the 1k-hand mark, and another 19 above the 500-hand mark. Over time, I will have a very detailed picture of many of the players regularly appearing in the pool. The only issue may become volume at higher stakes. One of my friends, a winning reg at 100NL, has had to switch to a more popular website in order to get the volume he wants in the time he has. Tournaments are a bit of an issue also, with a comparatively small selection, but I expect to be playing cash mostly. Suffice to say, I'm comfortable with my choice of site.

The When - This goal will start from 26/11/21, and run indefinitely. I don't have an issue with not having an end date for two reasons. Given that my main goal is to improve, I don't feel there should be the pressure of not improving fast enough. So long as I am improving a little bit every day, and bringing my A-Game to every session, I will be satisfied. Gauging my progress on $ won is also pointless, as the variance is a huge factor in this measurement.

The Why - I love poker, and I want to get better at it. I love the game from a computational aspect, thinking about hands, getting put in s**t spots, but I also love all the stories poker gives. All my best drinking stories come from my misspent teenage years in the cardroom - I'll think of some to put in with the graph posts. I have a few friends playing high stakes online and live, they've helped me out a lot this year - they started a few years before me, but serve as proof that I can climb the ladder too.

The How - This one requires a bullet point list.

1. Discipline - This is something I'm currently working to have in all aspects of my life, but it's especially important for poker. Making sure to not play when tired or otherwise unfit, ensuring that I stick to my session lengths and take the correct breaks. I read somewhere it takes 60-360 days to make a habit now, so I'm really going to have to grind out a structure.
2. Not Playing Live - This sucks because I have a lot of poker friends at my local cardroom, and I enjoy the atmosphere of playing live, but I don't have the bankroll for it. When I get to that point, I can make a glorious return.
3. Posting Here - Having this thread will keep me more accountable, and give me a spot to collect my thoughts. I'm hoping that one day I can look at it from the perspective of "look how far I've come".

This should be fun. I'm going to try and post every day I play a session, and give my general thoughts on spots that come up.

Thanks,
szander

Before We Begin - I wanted to just paint a picture of where I'm at before this all kicks off. This previous sample will no doubt be posted in graph updates, so I wanted to put some stats here so we have a bit of a narrative. Most of my sample has been 4NL and 10NL, with about 1k hands at 2NL when I was just finding my feet again with poker. I hadn't really cared to play over lockdown, too busy chasing other dreams like YouTube and cooking nice food. I only really started to care again when I was elected President of my University's poker society, and my involvement with the game became a weekly thing. It would be stupid not to at least give it another try, no?

This is the graph of my winnings at 4NL. As you can see, I had a shaky start, followed by a few days of owning everyone's soul and winning all the money, but now I've fallen on hard times. I posted about it in the RYE discord, and someone told me that downswing is just a bad day for me, so I guess it's more common than I would've thought. The sample is nowhere near big enough to figure out what my true winrate is, but I hope it's above breakeven.



I've got some school work to do today, but I will probably play a session and do some study later in the evening. I considered streaming the affair on my Twitch channel, but I worry about alienating the small subscriber base that I have on there. Maybe if I run deep in a tournament and there's a big sweat, I'll consider it.

Hi!

I would recommend not playing mtts if your sole focus is cash. They are fun but stick to one discipline.

GLGL

26/11/21
Managed to get a bit of school work done today, forced myself to do more than I normally would before I played a session. I've realised recently the long-term EV of getting a good grade in my degree, so am starting to work harder on that. Poker is very much the hobby it should be now.

I've spent a lot of my downtime watching Japanese chefs cook steak today, I find it really calming for some reason - although it does make me hungry if I haven't eaten for a while. I'm hoping to find somewhere like this near me where I can experience this first-hand.

Results - I played 739 hands today in 3 separate 50-minute sessions. I tend to take a 10-minute break every hour to keep myself sane, go see my housemates, and get any food/drink that I need for the upcoming hour. I'm not sure if 10 minutes is too long for a break, as it means I get removed from every table that I'm sitting at. 5 minutes would likely allow me to remain at my seat, but then I get a shorter break in-between.

I'm pleased to report 13.66evbb/100, but the green line has a little bit of catching up to do. I'll let you examine the graph for yourself.


I've always had redline issues. You can see from my earlier post that it goes down slowly. I read a lot of things from lots of different people, all winning players, but I don't know what to believe:

• "As long as the green line goes up, who cares?"
• "You need to have a positive red line also if you want to do well higher up stakes"
• "Negative red line could just be variance"

Any advice would greatly be appreciated. My redline has gone down at some stages, stagnated at others, and ideally, I'd like it to be going up. I know that check-raising flops is an important part of this process, and something that I don't do enough - I need to go back to my notes on this before I implement it into my game, however.

Hand 1 - €0.04 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

I feel like I had a lot of trouble playing against weaker players, limping frequently off short stacks, but I can't find a hand to display where I struggled - maybe I'm doing alright. Instead, I've gone for a hand where I feel like I made a bad call, and sucked out. Did some thinking. OOP as 3bettor, I'm not sure if x/c is really a line I can take here, especially given the SPR effective. KXhh is a really good bluff here, so maybe I should've just gone with it?

MP: 100 BB
CO: 44 BB
Hero (BTN): 167 BB
SB: 115.25 BB
BB: 48.5 BB
UTG: 80.5 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

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

fold, MP calls 1 BB, CO raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 9 BB, fold, BB calls 8 BB, fold, CO calls 6 BB

Flop: (28.5 BB, 3 players) 9 5 3
BB checks, CO bets 14.25 BB, Hero calls 14.25 BB, fold

Turn: (57 BB, 2 players) K
CO bets 20.75 BB, Hero calls 20.75 BB

River: (98.5 BB, 2 players) A



Summary - Feeling alright with the session I played today. Sucks to run under EV, but that is the game. I feel like I played well today, and managed my time effectively. Hopefully, I'll run better tomorrow. I'm going to get up earlier as well, so I'll get more school work done, and maybe get some more RYE study in.

27/11/21
Much of the same today. Wake up, get as much school work done as my attention span allows, then hit the tables. I managed to get 552 hands today, a smaller volume than yesterday, but this is because I tried streaming for the first time in 12 months. Somehow I'm still affiliated, my account has been subscribed for 17 months.

There's not much to report other than the statistics and another hand history. I spent almost all of my time at my desk as no one is home, and it's starting to get colder. Let's get into it.

Results - 3 more sessions today, of a shorter length, however. -12.45evbb/100 for the session, with an actual loss of -7.75evbb/100 over the period. It was quite swingy at the start, I punted off a buyin in a 3-street bluff at the micros (something you should never do), then got on the fun side AA vs KK for once shortly after.


Today's Session Graph


Total Graph at 4NL

Looking at the long-term graph, we really have gone stagnant. The winning all the money stage from 4.5k to 7.2k hands is over, and now we're really digging our heels in. Blue line hasn't gone up much at all for thousands of hands, and the red line has stopped plauteauing, and started descending pretty scarily. Any advice to help this would be much appreciated, but of course it could just be variance.

Hand 2 - €0.04 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Here is the 3-street bluff. It's not something I ever really do at 4NL, but I got myself into a pit when I picked up on the turn. Villain was tank calling so I felt like it was a hand I could fold out, and this is how we ended up. Not too proud of it given the result - interesting to know how angry I would make a solver.

BTN: 153 BB
Hero (SB): 104 BB
BB: 100 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

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

BTN raises to 2.5 BB, Hero raises to 12.5 BB, fold, BTN calls 10 BB

Flop: (26 BB, 2 players) 7 8 5
Hero bets 8.5 BB, BTN calls 8.5 BB

Turn: (43 BB, 2 players) 2
Hero bets 30 BB, BTN calls 30 BB

River: (103 BB, 2 players) 3
Hero bets 53 BB, BTN calls 53 BB



The grind continues tomorrow, school, streaming, poker, gym. I haven't fallen back on my own ways yet. Maybe in 58 days time, I'll have habits for life.

28/11/21
Didn't get up to much pokering today - snowed for the first time in months in my town, so I took the opportunity to make the most of it. As a result, I've taken the time I have before bed to take a bit of a dive into the redline. I compared the redline from both the overall 12.5k hand sample, and the most recent 5.5k hands where I've just been losing straight. First off, here is the graph of the aforementioned losing sample, and my friend's reaction to it.




Blue line is affected by variance, we can have good days and bad days. To counter the redline being sad, some work and research needs to be done. Here are some points I picked up on for improving the redline winrate:

• Steal the Blinds More Often (RFI more from BU/SB)
• Play More Hands IP (Able to raise/float)
• Float More IP (To take the pot on turn/river)
• Semi-Bluff more with draws
• Fire more Double Barrels (Population overfolds to these at micros)
• Triple Barrel Bluff More (I don't like this because Population overcalls these)
• Value Bet Thinner

Adjustments - I won't get much of an opportunity to play tomorrow, but I am going to make some more adjustments. I'm going to study the charts of BU vs (CO/MP/EP) Open, to see if I'm overfolding in these scenarios. I will also steal wider whenever the action folds to me - this is probably going to be the best start to improving my redline winrate. Moving on from there, I think the next biggest issue will be playing vs cbets. My stats for that scenario is terrible.

All Positions - 12.6k Hands

• Fold to F CBet - 60.96%
• Fold to T CBet - 25.53%
• Fold to R CBet - 35.29%

This is clearly quite nitty on the Flop, and by the Turn and River I'm holding strong enough draws and value hands that I'm not folding often to more cbets. Calling more on the flop, with the correct hands, will be the solution here. Another issue, as I mentioned before, is CO and BU open-raising. I need to open from here more.

All Positions - 12.6k Hands

• PFR from CO - 19%
• PFR from BU - 28%

Just to finish, I'll a big sample of stats for anyone's perusing. It's pretty bad, I realise now, but hopefully, over the week I can identify and implement the solutions. I will get better at this game.

30/11/21
Didn't have a lot of fun today, and it reflected in my results. I woke up hungover but hoped that feeling a bit better later in the evening would allow me to play a session. This was not the case. I found, with the help of some Discord people, discovered some pretty harrowing leaks - ones that I thought I had plugged a long time ago. In all honesty, I haven't taken the news well. Realising I'm actually much farther behind than I thought I was is great on paper - I know that plugging these will be great for my bottom line. I'm just disappointed in myself for not having these plugged earlier, whilst believing everything was under control.

I'm also a bit tired, I was drinking at a poker game with friends and had a bit more than I wanted or expected to. I haven't had a headache like that in a while. This is undoubtedly affecting my mood this evening, and having a bad session doesn't help. I'm taking the rest of the day off and coming back stronger tomorrow. My car is fixed now, so I can hit the gym for that sweet, sweet dopamine.

I've written a post-it note to put under my monitor. It has a few bullet points

• Check-raise is the goods
• Open wider CO/BU/SB
• cbet more flops
• float more

Here are the results. I'm not proud, but that's a good thing. I will do better. I've added the terrible hand at the bottom.


iPoker - €0.04 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 64.25 BB
UTG: 58.75 BB
MP: 40 BB
CO: 40.25 BB
Hero (BTN): 100 BB
SB: 54.5 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB, MP posts penalty blind 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has K T

UTG calls 1 BB, MP checks, CO calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 5.5 BB, fold, BB calls 4.5 BB, UTG calls 4.5 BB, fold, CO calls 4.5 BB

Flop: (23.5 BB, 4 players) J 8 K
BB checks, UTG bets 2.5 BB, CO calls 2.5 BB, Hero raises to 16 BB, BB raises to 38.25 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 22.25 BB

Turn: (105 BB, 2 players) 6
BB bets 20.5 BB, Hero calls 20.5 BB

River: (146 BB, 2 players) 5

1/12/21

Once again into the meat grinder. I feel a bit better today, despite having one of the worst days yet. Less tired, and less groggy - approached things with a clearer head today. There was one small problem

This was not adhered to very well. I wasn't exactly spunking things off, calling down second-pair expecting well-balanced check-raising ranges at 4NL, but I did get myself in some sticky spots today. Overall, whilst my thinking has been better, the results are not. My moves were calculated, but damn I'm bad at math. I've been given some good tables today, with a lot of recreational players and short stacks, but not much has seemed to align. I'm heading out soon, so I'm just attaching a hand or two, and the graph for the day.

In terms of my approach tomorrow, I accept that I'm going to have to stick some more money onto the site so I can keep playing 4NL. I have 6BI of rakeback I could cash back in, but I didn't want to touch that until I quit the site or went broke. It's looking like this might be the case. Blue line is somewhat variance-based, and I'm not making terrible calls. I hope that it picks up - you really don't know anything until 100k hands, so I have a lot of grinding it out to do before I can even have a true sense of what's going on. By 30/40k, I will at least know if I really suck ass. I need to study more, but I don't really know how to/where. I'm going to stick to hand reviews and analysing my stats for now, I don't really know what I want to do with my RYE courses at the minute. I also have The Grinder's Manual to finish working through. I will come back stronger. I need to make some oats tonight for breakfast tomorrow - I know if I come home too drunk I'll forget.

As promised, here are the stats:


Looking back through hands to post here, I've actually suffered 4BI worth of coolers today. That's made me feel a lot better. Here's one of them, couldn't find much else to put:

Hand 1 - €0.04 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 17.75 BB
Hero (UTG): 102.5 BB
MP: 127.25 BB
CO: 114.75 BB
BTN: 89.5 BB
SB: 105.75 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, SB calls 2 BB, fold

Flop: (8.5 BB, 3 players) 6 K A
SB bets 3 BB, Hero raises to 9 BB, fold, SB calls 6 BB

Turn: (26.5 BB, 2 players) T
SB bets 3 BB, Hero raises to 18 BB, SB calls 15 BB

River: (62.5 BB, 2 players) T
SB bets 31.25 BB, Hero raises to 73 BB, SB calls 41.75 BB



Tomorrow's Plan: Uni work, finish my module (about 4 hours work). Do some poker study (probably hand reviews or similar). Might try and go to the gym, I'm paying for the bloody thing after all.

My fingers are crossed that this is just a downswing. There's only a 29% chance of me running at my winrate with -2bb/100 - that's encouraging, even -2bb/100 should be pretty easily fixed. Safe to say it's in the balance currently if I'm winning at 5bb or more. This downswing is disheartening, but it's not the upswing that defines you, it's how you pick yourself out of the mud. I will keep on the grind, and I will see better days. With a 65% chance of a being in a 2Kbb downswing at 2bb/100, I'm sure I will. One day I'll be able to link people this thread as an example of what the first big downswing can feel like.

If anyone has a suggestion on what would make this more interesting, please let me know - I have a few stories I can tell but I'm not sure how to work them in. Maybe I do them on days I don't play.

2-5/12/21

I've taken most of the week off, mainly for the purposes of drinking and hanging out with friends, so my poker has somewhat lacked. I managed to fit in a few hundred hands over the period, but there wasn't much interesting to report - nothing statistically significant either. I can safely say that I have achieved sweet FA this week, in both uni and poker - but I can't be too mad. I won an entry to a live low-stakes tournament through the poker society I run (sounds a bit corrupt but I just got lucky), and have a spot where I really stuck myself in it.

Low-stakes Live Tournament
20 paid, 55 left. 5000/10000 10000 BB Ante

Folds round
CO limps (160k stack)
BU, SB folds
BB Hero with 7 7 raises to 35000
CO calls

Flop: T 6 3
BB bets 30000, CO jams 125k, BB folds



I remember saying "I've stuck myself in it here". I almost convinced myself to call based on how much he's probably bluffing, but for whatever reason I let it slip. I was very results-oriented (and pissed) that night. I ended up jamming QTo for 10bb into the same player's KK to send me on my way. Can't be mad for a freeroll, I enjoyed myself.

After that, ended up playing a 10p/10p homegame in my shed. I managed to get a full-sized poker table in there, with chairs left on the street to be thrown away. There's heating and LEDs, I'm very proud of it. There's two games I run it there, a small 200bb cap hold'em game (more social), and an uncapped ROE game (round of NLHE, round of DC). I've seen some terrible games get played. I made like £80 in that game by flopping a boat in 8 card omaha on 3Q357, and managed to get AA with every blocker under the sun to bluff the river for full pot.

I've been reading The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler today, and there are a few interesting concepts I want to try and slowly apply, and others that have given me a bit more insight, or a new way of thinking. It's inspired me to restructure the way I make posts in this forum now - and I'm going to be doing that for upcoming posts.

Just so it's here, this is the 2-5th graph. I might start hosting these on my own website, so they don't have a chance of disappearing in 6 years unless I want them to.

7/12/21
Not posting overall results today, they don't matter. What I'm interested in today is solving flops for BTN vs BB. I've, on the advice of a 100z player, have invested in a month of GTO Wizard, just to toy with it. Some people will say szander you play 4NL you don't need to solve poker and those people are wrong. I intend to learn what the solver does, calculate how/when to deviate, and to get better at cards. I'm going to post my results here from my study after a session as I figure it out - I'm a little worried GTOWizard will have a problem with it, but I don't see anything saying I can't. Without further ado, let's jump into a spot.

BU vs BB on 772r


BU vs BB on 964r


BU vs BB on 964r

These are just two spots, but I've really enjoyed fiddling with this stuff. Sure, my process probably isn't the sharpest yet (I don't think I'm simplifying enough in those two hands), but practice makes perfect. I've also really enjoyed using the Practice part, where I can see how well I play in the BU vs BB spot. I'm definitely doing this daily after I play sessions. I probably won't play much tomorrow as I'm making Christmas dinner, but we shall see what happens. This is fun.

8/12/21
I feel quite guilty today. Instead of studying all day for my test tomorrow, I've spent a whole day fiddling with poker and the new solver I bought. I feel similar to the days after Christmas, spending all day playing the new game I'd been bought, or playing my guitar.

On the topic of solvers, whilst I really enjoy using them, I have no real clue what I'm doing with them. I've decided that I'm going to follow in the footsteps of a 100z reg of mine, and study 3BP, to begin with. Wider ranges (SRP ranges, especially BU vs BB) are complex and chaotic. Studying 3BP will allow me to get familiar with the process in simpler situations, and it won't be detrimental to my game - any improvement is important. I have a few candidate spots I want to study first:

• SB vs BU (I play 3bet only from SB facing an open - might start with BU as my range is widest here)
• SB vs Anywhere Else (UTG is tightest, so maybe the least complex spots to analyse and a good starting point?)
• HJ vs UTG (I play 3bet only from this position also,

I feel like I'm doing alright with 3bets preflop, but this is more of an exercise in improving my solver skills. I will naturally learn a lot in the process too.

Not much to report in the way of my session today. The redline continues to be sad, and I'm still wrestling to get that blue line to trend up. I gave a complete gift today in a 4bet pot because I lost focus, here's the lowdown.

On the flipside, here is a confusing 5bet pot that I didn't expect to go the way it did:

To conclude, here is the graph from all time. It's insane how permanently downwards this redline is. I definitely think that I can turn it around over time, but I have to fight for smaller pots harder and have to get my check-raise flop strategy down.

11/12/21
Started using the practice function of GTOWizard, and this is how I want to learn from now on: Trial/Error, backed up by the ability to open up the solver and learn the adjustments. It's engaging enough so that I don't burn out or get bored, and also I can do it for any length of time that I want. I have had it set as OOP in a 3bet pot, SB vs BU, all day today - so I've been working on that today.


The UI of the practice, showing me the solutions and the overall strategy.

Here's everything I've learnt today

• Solvers go mental on JTx
• Boards like T54r T82r T73r, we bet big (BU misses with loads of KQ/KJ stuff, and SB has a massive overpair advantage)
• Boards like J52r, J42r, J74r, J43r, J62r we bet big lots
• T87 986 T86, BU gets nut chances from the straights, so we check more (AA becomes marginal on most runouts)
• If it's got a K and a pair on it, range bet
• 98, 87 and 86 cockblock SB (Hard to realise equity OOP and we don't want to bloat the pot)
• T77 and J77 we bet big lots

I'm getting a way better feel for how to play SB in this spot. I'm going to either continue OOP, or start working on IP tomorrow. I don't think I want to play cards too much until I've aced as much as I can.

12/12/21
One day up, one day down. I was trying to figure out why I feel kinda ass today, and I finally figured out why. Last night was a huge UFC card, and I'm not one to miss a Saturday night of two people beating each other up. Unfortunately, where I am, I don't get to sleep until 4/5am. Kind of obvious that I'd be getting nothing done today. Couple that with me having no food in the house to eat, and I'm set up for an unproductive one.

I played another couple hundred practice spots for SB vs BU 3BP, and I have a pretty good hang on it now. I think my next point of call is to make some notes on the spot, so I can refer back if necessary later. I took a quick look at BU strategy if SB checks, and don't have much idea - seems like the plan is mostly just a mix of checking and betting 1/3, with the proportion increasing as BU gains an advantage.

I'll have a proper look tomorrow - hopefully, I'll have a fresher head.

14/12/21
The word nit gets banded around quite frequently in my homegame. Look at that nit fold! as a player throws 54s away to a bet on KQJ, only to be shown an 8-high bluff. Everyone gets their fair share of insults. The whales have arrived! when the 5/10 crushers inevitably show up 30 minutes late to my shed, drinks in hand. We're all friends.

Everyone takes a bit of a beating for their occasional tight folds, and it's not actually the case I'm a nit, right...? Wrong. Advice from my stats has always been a little bit of You're overfolding to cbets and You're not check-raising enough, and I could always appreciate that I was doing some marginally tight things - but I was never convinced at how much I'm just chucking away the better hand. This would, in theory, correlate with my awful redline.

Fiddling with the practice module on GTOWizard*, I was just going through facing cbets in various SRP spots and my god, was I overfolding. I'm not going to go into all the specifics, too much to write and I need to sleep soon, but I know what I need to adjust and am never making that mistake again. This might be the big breakthrough I needed.

Since realising this, I've played 700 hands. I feel like I played a lot better today, but the redline doesn't really agree with me improving. I think it was mostly just blue line variance affirming my confidence - but we'll have to see tomorrow.


You'll get some hands tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I'm going to attempt to do some of these things:

• Meditate for 10 minutes
• Go to the gym
• Study maths for an hour

*I understand I mention GTOWizard so much, to the point that it might even look like an ad in disguise. They don't pay me for anything - honestly I think they should at this point. Might send in my CV.

15/12/21
Did I...

• Meditate before my playing session?
• Go to the gym?
• Study maths for an hour?

Lmao no. Discipline is very hard. With my country set to go into lockdown, it's difficult to find motivation for things at the minute. It's easier to wake up, eat breakfast, and sit in front of the computer playing cards for 8 hours straight. Which is more or less what I did.

I played a lot better today, but the cards weren't as rewarding as I'd have liked. I felt like I was cbetting more flops (55%), and folding less to cbets (52%), but with all 1k hand samples, variance does shift a few things. The important part, however, is that I feel like I'm playing better. This will continue hopefully. I'm hoping that this is still a downswing, and that a big upswing will follow. If that's the case, I'm going to be a much better player coming out of it.

Graphs as always:



See you tomorrow

16/12/21
I tried streaming poker today - I used to enjoy streaming Mario Kart and Poker last year, and was hoping it would be another fun thing to do. I'm hoping it was just being tired from a long night last night, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped. It was fun for a while, and then everyone disappeared and it hurt a little. I'm going to try again tomorrow morning, and hopefully, it will go better.

Looking at the bigger picture, I'm at a bit of a loss. I can tell I'm getting better, I feel more confident, but until that green line goes up, I don't think I'm going to have the confidence I had when I was on such a big upswing. I really want to be good at this game, and am taking the steps to do so - I am not getting rewarded for my efforts. I know there will come a time when I can dunk on 4NL and go back to shot taking, and I know that nothing lasts forever, I just wish it were closer. I think everything is getting to me a little bit.

Nevertheless, here are some highlights from today's session:


Tomorrow will be a better day. My girlfriend is buying a gym pass, so we can go to the gym together. I will also be less tired tomorrow, so I will play better poker and hopefully start turning this around. I'm going to look at check-raising hands and hopefully find some places to get more aggressive. I have the drive, I just need to install the discipline.

If you are a crusher and want to help out, PM me on discord szander#9706

Good stuff mate honestly, keep it up!!!!

With the SPR of a 3betpot it's important to take in consideration overpairs are considered top hands (same with some dry and some paired boards) and this dynamic makes SB wants to play a polarized strategy on a lot of low boards (on the worst low boards you want to check range/almost check range). You can protect your checking range by for example checking AA sometimes (You can also say f being balanced against pool) but imo this spot is very easy to play for solid ev that you gain here.

Yes exactly! Ofcourse the lack of suited connectors already sucks for sb but also big part of BTN's range has high equity where our strong hands don't just want to close eyes and triple it in the middle.

Classic example ofcourse but would always look at the range explorer (Don't know what it's called in GTO wizard) how Range x performs vs Range y in terms of strong hands but also in terms of equity and try to look for patterns so you understand the logic. Boards where we can rangebet are always extreme examples, but to start of understanding solver logic "extreme examples" are the easiest to dig out logic from imo.

Hand from somewhere last week: Haha I think I'm not suppose to do this with this hand in particular but thought it was funny to try it out once.



Would also advice you to do something similar on BTN vs BB srp and make a very simplified strategy from it. And de-simplify (all) the strategies in your rise in stakes step by step.

Good luck OP

Ps. I agree on this!

Funnily enough, if you have KK, without any flush card, you can probably get away with it lmao. Thanks so much for everything you've said, and the time you've put in to read. Working on your own with a solver is very confusing and my head hurts quite frequently nowadays, but I'm seeming to get somewhere. I've got probably 3 more weeks on my subscription, so I intend to, along with my maths work, put it to good use.

i’m 100% addicted to this thread. i’m a 25NL Zoom player and just getting into solver work myself. keep it up man!!

Nice on! Hoping more people come out of the woodwork in time and say hello! More than happy to shoot the **** among the daily posts.

what does your solver set up look like? do you rent a server? if you don’t mind me asking, what is the cost, how did you choose a server? what program do you use to access it?

I don't have the capital to invest in a server, improve my computer, or purchase PIO (or other solvers) at the minute. I use GTOWizard, an online program that has pre-solved spots for most spots at 6max, and HU. You basically plug in the numbers and get the solution back that they've already run, like a real solver. I pay $49/month for their starter pack, which is the solver, aggregated reports for 3 spots, their practice module (like analysis section on chess.com), and the ability for it to evaluate 50 hands per month. Premium users (129$/month) get all the aggregated reports, and mass hand evaluation (100k/month), which is probably worth it.

I'm new to solvers, so this makes my life a bit easier, whilst still giving me trustworthy results.

18/12/21
I'm taking the day off from playing poker today, not electing to stream either. Instead, I figured I'd go through every hand I marked whilst streaming yesterday, and maybe a few others, using the solver. I'm pretty physically drained from a night of drinking, so I figure it wouldn't be the most productive to play anyway. I've got an hour before I go to the gym and then watch UFC, so I'll do this and play some Counter-Strike until then. This will be a bit of live-blogging, so excuse the narrative.

It was a good session yesterday, I'm hoping that I can have a similarly positive one tomorrow.

Hi, szander!
Cool storytelling style.
I wish you to reach your goals as soon as possible.

I'm not sure the preflop Villain range and the solver range and will be similar, but a small bet on the turn with our hand really looks good if we are playing against a passive opponent.
River Donk pretty much looks good too. Some Ax in Villain range won't dare to bet on the 4-flush board, but he may call 1/2 the pot.

You can also share your hands on the strategy thread and our discord.

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