Now we have 100 replies, let's celebrate by bringing back in some fun hands. These are a pain in the arse to format, but I've got a bit of time spare.

Bluffcatching the wrong hand

Failed Trap

Scared Money is Dead Money

Ok, that was way easier than I remembered it being. We'll do some more of those down the line. Hopefully, we have some more interesting spots as time goes on. I played none of these hands perfectly, and couldn't predict what I was supposed to do accurately in review either, lots to improve.

Terrible redline today, but it's a minuscule sample. Pleased with how the overall session went, feeling a lot more confident in the online streets, and definitely feeling like one of the better players in my pool at the minute. Putting a lot of time and effort into improving.

Outside of cards, started putting some more volume into my degree and health/wellbeing today. I've got a list of "streaks" on my whiteboard, that I'm currently trying to build up. Hopefully by July I'll be/feel a lot better. These things take months and months to have big effects, but I'm hopeful some beginner's luck improvements will help keep me focused and motivated.

Got a lot to do tomorrow degree-wise, so I should probably sleep at a reasonable hour tonight,

Feeling pretty sick at the minute. Got a rough throat and feeling a bit warm, hopefully this fades before Thursday. I'm visiting a friend for a couple days, hoping to play some 5/10 in the next city over. Drinking lots of water, took some robitussin to hopefully have me sorted for then.

So far I've managed to do 12-3-30 3 days in a row. I'm concerned that my legs are going to give out at some point, i upped the speed to 3.5kph today and there was significantly more burn. If I'm going to do this for a month like I intend to (minimum), I need to consider a rest day every week or something, or a couple days where I focus on upper body resistance training instead (chest/arms/shoulders/back). Dieting is going well, not feeling too hungry, working around 1800-2000kcal a day, down from what I imagine was 2500-3000 in a more sedentary lifestyle. Feeling like in a few weeks I'll start noticing results if I keep at it.

Got a lot of degree work done today. Found a youtube channel that covers abstract algebra, which is exactly what I need - his content is digestible but as I'm ill, I can only manage 2/3 hours in now sitting focusing on the content. I feel like I'm actually learning something for once.

Did a lot of poker study today, focusing on raises I'm missing as BU vs SB in 3 bet pots. Played alright, but lots of room for improvement. I also did a bit of diving into 10% leading as CO in CO vs BU 3 bet pots. Seems primarily when the board gets super good for us that we get to do that. No one in my pool is doing it though, so going to see some insane edge if I can get it right. That said, redline is still super awful, and not playing well. Sometimes I'm a bit disheartened at how much I suck, sometimes I'm stoic about the fact that I'm improving every day. Poker is a bit of a marathon rather than a sprint, and I've got absolutely ages in front of me. -74.48BB for me today

Illness still kicking my ass - mostly just a throat and fever thing for me, but I am still capable of studying and working normally.

Had a sick upswing on the app game today. 1/2, primarily 3/4-handed with some good players and I was in a flow state - playing well, running insanely well. Finished +1024, pretty happy. I had the whole account spread across that and a couple 0.5/1 tables, I'm allowed to play on credit but I really couldn't be bothered to go to the bank tomorrow - solved that problem.

Visiting my friend tomorrow, going to try get some 5/10 action whilst I'm down there - kill 2 bird with one stone. We'll see how it goes.

Trip over - just come out of a 12 hour session. Feel pretty underwhelmed, normally it’s a lot better than it was for stakes and action. trip report tomorrow.

Finished -650 on that trip. Managed to get in 14 hours of 2/5 over the two nights, but no 5/10 materialised so I was unable to play that high. Didn't get back to my mate's flat until super late so am rather tired at the minute. I think there's a cardroom on the drive back to my place, so I'm going to hit that up and see if it's any good. Hopefully I can play a couple hours then, get more volume in before I ultimately go home.

I walked about 10km yesterday so legs feeling a little raw, so I'm skipping gym today. Will get back to exercising and structured diet tomorrow - it's impossible to eat on the road.

There was some drunk guy on my right in last night's 2/5, I'm talking incredibly drunk. The cardroom was uncharacteristically quiet all week, lots of "regs" who think they're good (and have no fun at any point), making everyone else pretty miserable. But this guy, he was loud, abrasive and tanked. He went through all four stages of "Drunk at the Table", eventually slowing the game down and getting kicked. Seems like he had a fun time, hope he got home safe.

The lack of sleep has carried over to today and absolutely ruined me. Didn't get much playing in at all, mostly just been playing video games all day.

I realise that I've not really painted a grander picture. I will have been playing live poker for one year in three days. I started at the smallest stakes, but am now working up to a more sizeable bankroll. So, here are the last eleven months

Total Result: +12784.30
Hours Played: 1004 (0.5/1: 412, 1/2: 422, 1/3: 59, 2/5: 72, 5/5: 5, 5/10: 4)

April 2022: -253.75
May 2022: -20.50
Jun 2022: +1012.50
Jul 2022: +181.75
Aug 2022: +978.50
Sep 2022: +1664.55
Oct 2022: +775.25
Nov 2022: +5662.75
Dec 2022: +844
Jan 2023: -1401.50
Feb 2023: -894.25
Mar 2023: +3490

I'll post April results on the day, so we have a complete picture. Looking at it like this, the run I went on in 2022 was actually pretty insane. Safe to safe I've made a consistent winrate, but now the goal is maximising it. A lot of that volume (almost half) was at 0.5/1, which will skew the numbers somewhat, hopefully, it increases as I put more hours into the bigger games. I'm hoping to make 50k by the end of the year, given I have the opportunity to put in a super strong June-August period. There are no set goals other than to put in quality hours in good games. The results come eventually.

Online is a pain in the ass to track, but that's been going as well. Maybe I'll be able to get a rough figure but not now, too tired. My plan tomorrow is to finish the group theory work, and then put in some online sessions that I would've done today.

Played a local 1/2 game today. Had the straddle on a lot of the time, and I ran the purest in 4bet pots. +1010 today. Now that I've built a bit of a financial buffer up, the plan in my head is to stop playing live again, and focus on improving. I have no immediate rush for money now, so I can ease off the gas and focus on self-improvement. Then, I can come back to the same games and absolutely clean up.

Here's a few pots from today
Somehow Find A Fold

Relevant Blocker

What Calls?

Super swingy day on the app today. Found myself getting a bit too aggressive with the 3bets and 4bets which are great in theory, but in practice don't generate any EV (because people just aren't being aggressive enough). I've had to cut a session early just to reset. I always convince myself that the game I'm in won't be around tomorrow, but these guys love the game and it's action every night. It's this kind of FOMO that has been convincing me to ruin my sleep schedule for only a couple hundred in EV nightly. Every time I think about leaving, look around the table, and suddenly I decide I can't leave now, look at this lineup. It's going nowhere, in truth.

I think I might have an addiction to poker. This is good in some respects, and bad in others. Good, in that I love the game and have huge motivation to get better, put in volume and make money. It's bad in the sense that I have a lot of responsibilities outside of poker, that I sometimes neglect in favour of the game. It's going nowhere, I'm 22 and have the whole world ahead of me. This is a level of self-control I haven't gotten to yet.

Bought PLO Mastermind access today. PLO is looking like a hobby for me. We play a lot of 4card, and I've never really been interested. Now I'm playing higher, it's showing up a bit more in bomb pots etc, and I figure I could always do with a bit more edge. I haven't got time to grind it, but when I'm bored, a little bit of learning can't hurt. There's also some insane PLO action on the private app, that it would be criminal not to become a part of. Hopefully we'll get some wild PLO HHs in the blog soon.

Just made a correct fold, flopped a straight, and for some reason I'm tilted. This doesn't happen ever. Clearly bedtime.

Feel the same way hah. Late at night, someone is there with a huge stack, i'm like.. i can't just let him leave! Hard to quit sometimes, eh.

Yeah, I'm slowly getting better at having the self-discipline to quit games when I need to, it's all a part of understanding and trusting the longer process.

To the detriment of my poker ability, but to the benefit of my life EV, my focus is my exams in 5 weeks. Today, I have 34 days left until my first exam. I think I'll be fine, but I'm studying 5-6 hours a day, leaving me mentally exhausted at the end of the day. I struggled to focus when playing yesterday, and couldn't get my study done. I'm hoping this was a sleep/dietary thing - I didn't sleep enough the night before, nor eat enough satiating food. Maybe I'll feel better today for it. I have 7.5 hours of algebra to do today - unlikely.

So what does the process look like for the next couple months?

Apr/May: Exam study is the focus. Most hours into gym, diet and degree study. Couple late night hours into studying/playing poker - trying not to ruin the sleep schedule.

June: More overall free time. Most hours going into studying poker, with playing used as a supplementary tool to the studying, and some live poker to continue earning.

July: The big one. Playing most days, not a lot of time for study. Purely out there to make money and use the knowledge I've gained.

August: Similar to June. Enjoying the fruits of my labour, studying a lot of poker to improve at the game. Take a trip or two.

September-May: Back to studying the degree primarily. Final year is the most important, and the game is really going to have to wait.

This summer I have a huge opportunity to make seriously big strides in my game, and set myself up for further success after I graduate. Ideally, my focus will primarily be playing online cash during the final year of my degree, so I can come out a serious crusher at the end of it, but that remains to be seen. There's a long road ahead, and I can become very good in the next 18 months.

Most of my effort, as it will be the next two months, went into studying for the degree today. I want to try and get up earlier, so I have more daytime hours where I'm capable of focusing on that.

On the poker side of things, got my first hour of PS grind in a long while. I felt like, despite being a bit tired, I played well - although I was running considerably hot. I didn't do my usual routine due to time constraints but generated a lot of hands that I can take a look at tomorrow when back on the usual routine. I'm going to take a longer look at preflop tomorrow, there are a lot of little details that I can't brainsolve for and just need to suck up and learn. All this learning is difficult, feel like I haven't done proper learning/revision since high school, so relearning how to actually study has been a tough task. +70.86BB today.

Private game is including 1 week no rathole tables. The action is going to be completely insane. +61.44BB today, and I don't want to jinx it, but redline is looking seriously good the past two days.

Had some friends staying at my new place this weekend, so a lot of drinking and zero poker. Honestly, having not drank in ages, the alcohol has ruined me, physically and financially. Think we'll be leaving it alone for another while - focus on what's important.

Bought and started watching PLO Mastermind tonight - just as a curiosity. There seems to be some really good mentality content in here so I'll watch this and try to take actual notice of the concepts.


Online graph is finally starting to turn around - look at that redline over the last 2k hands. Keep it like that and we're home free

Update
I don't really do this anymore. All discord links have been closed, and study group no longer exists. Was a fun journey, thanks for following it.