**** it im done playing zoom, same rules apply if anyone sees me at 6max zoom200 on stars. Rules won't apply for 100zoom since I sometimes play that for warm up and hu200zoom (or lower) which I play quite a bit (only way for me to get hu action).

8 August the 30 day period is over (so no more bounty) but then I will come up with something new, probably similar. like I said it's pretty sad but if it's working it's working I know myself and that I'm not a true degen (maybe a bit considering playstyle haha) - which btw I obviously try to honestly question myself after tiltmoving up stakes - but it just seems like a great short term solution untill I get better in handling my emotions

Hey there, gonna follow this. Seems like your poker is quite good but you sound super harsh on yourself. Hope you manage to make some improvements. GL !
Also, not playing zoom sounds like a really good decision )

cheers mate


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This week (or basically since last update) with 1750 rakeback = +$2750. Today lost 6bi ($1200) with very unfortunate run and a bit spew

Edit: more like +$1500 rakeback, so +2500 for the week

I haven't played on stars in a few years but I could definitely block certain stakes and game types somewhere in the settings - responsible gaming or something like that.
I wasn't a fan of zoom either but it was so easy to play so I messaged support and got them to block that too. Idk worth having a look I guess.

Good luck man have been enjoying the thread

Your standard deviation should be lower. If you put 80 you need even smaller roll

I cant find it in client. Like mailing support is an option I considered aswell. But I'm really afraid for misunderstandings. I've heard stories in which the support thought the mailer was some out of controll degen (hmm sounds familliar) and they blocked all services. That would be an absolute disaster. Same for zoom: if I mail them about zoom, they might also take away hu zoom (in which I play x% of my volume). For now what I do works. But yeah it's obviously a short term solution...

Cheers mate

Can you elaborate? Sorry im a fish when it comes to these stats.

And question for anyone reading this: is there a way I can see this stat in hm3? Like what's the exact stat called in hm3 that I can fill in variance calculator?

Streetpoker in 2023

Yesterday had a little hangover, played really **** (like almost everyday recently). Anyway, nice 10.5bi restuck in the end - ran up a 1500bb stack in 200huzoom pool. Almost all is 4tabling headsup-zoom, my motivation is too low for 6max and I punt too hard there atm (punting is w/e but I play too undisciplined there, call down too much nits and freestyle preflop) but I will try to get myself together and try to be 1% of a professional somehow.....












Some hands vs recs, they weren't feeling the fold button yesterday

As someone playing HU more often, do you think games are still alive? If someone is starting playing cash is it better to go 6 max or HU is fine?

To me it seems like untill NL200 the games are fine and alive, action is fine. Most regs are not amazing and there are enough recreationals. But from what I hear from someone who specializes in heads up, there is quite a significant jump from 200 to 500 and from that point on the action becomes less and less and to me it seems the games seem more and more dead. So for example some top 10 hu regs literally hold the 500 lobby on stars sometimes and imo that says a lot about the state of hu (because if there was action higher they would obviously play higher).

This is (partly) also the reason I don't fully transition from 6max to heads up. And also that hu reg advises me to stick to 6max and that's what I'm planning to do. If let's say NL1k was like NL200 in terms of action (so obviously regs would be better, but like quantity of action and liquidity), I would have considered specializing in hu. Now I just enjoy the game, and I like to think my ev is decent in those pools. Especially if I avoid certain villains :P but 6max will be the main focus

I just read this blog from the beginning. Trying something similar and this is very motivating, recognized myself in almost all tilt issues you were talking about and really hope that I'll learn something from your experience. Great job with this blog, keep it up Mr Jari Litmanen

cheers mate appreciate the nice words and wish you gl aswell!

Ever since a month ago, my game is complete off. I'm playing constant c-game, and for context; my c-game is complete spew and bad. Also I'm sleeping really bad. I used to complain a lot in here about sleeping problems, fatigue or feeling foggy in my head. Now since a while I'm trying to not complain about it anymore, but just accept it and deal with it the best I can. But the problems are still there (they come in phases) - Right now feeling this "brain fog" and sleeping problems are the main issue. Also this restless feeling in my head that I talk about a lot, it's almost constantly there atm. It's so terrible for poker because with this storm in my head I get so rusty and impulsive. I snap decide all my decisions and I feel like I'm in a rush constantly. I've had this feeling my whole life, but it comes in phases.

I was wondering what was different from my last 2 months in Mexico. I take that time period as an example, because this was the 2nd time in this journey I managed to be a professional for 2 months straight and actually think about my decisions on the table and play focused poker - I still made mistakes and punted in emotion - but the acceptance was there (which in my case is part of being a professional). Right now I'm so incredibly inconsistent with performance, but also with tilting. I had another -20bi ($3.7k) tilt session last week that I felt so embarrassed about, I couldn't write about it in here. I still stick by some habits (running, meditating, taking breaks go for walks, studying, next month gym again), I go out everyday to do something with my roommate and I'm trying to build a social circle here in Vienna. I"m feeling good and I appreciate the position that I'm in. when I started: Something like Mexico or here in Vienna rooming with a poker player, was my initial goal when I was clicking nl2 2.5 years ago. And so I was wondering what's wrong, why is it so hard to just sit down and feel relax and do my job?

And so I came to the conclusion I'm just under a lot of stress, and rather than being kind to myself, I try to suppress it by ignoring it and pretending it's not there. I just moved to a new city to live with someone I only new from online. And even though I consider myself a social guy, in my day to day life I like to be a bit of a loner and be in my own world. And so this was a pretty big step for me. It was all a bit of a gamble if it would work out, if we would get along etc. But also we didn't have a plan in terms of housing after this month. All in all this was pretty stressful but at the time I didn't realize it. The first week I was pretty grumpy to my roommate, and I kept a lot to myself. And yeah this stress also didn't exactly result in good performance on the tables. But after the first night out drinking I realized we get along really well and that he is a really chill guy (and I already considered him my friend before we met because he was my main mate in poker). And since this was a bit of a gamble this was a big stress reliever for me. And today we got the green light on an apartment here, which again was a big stress reliever because we both just want to settle here and not live from month to month type thing.

Now long story short what I learned from this is to not be so hard on myself all the time. Not ignore obvious signs. It"s fine to be stressed out sometime and to take some time off to process the changes in my life. Now there is still a lot of **** to be done for the new apartment which is also a bit stressful, but hopefully I deal with this better and take some more time off if necessarily.

I'm reading back what I just typed, it seems like I rambled a bit without an actual punchline haha idk the 2 months of good performance I had nothing to lose and I genuinely didn't care. I was free and there was rest in calmness in my head. Now ofc stress is inevitable, but I want to start dealing with it better. And create some acceptance within myself and so create a bit of calmness and rest in my head...

Btw besides playing **** all the time the month is going well resultswise. A lot of rakeback $ which is normally not my style. And I'm not trying to reflect 24/7, but pretty crazy how I created something out of nothing. I"m now at the point where I can say all I need is a laptop and some internet connection and I'm good. And even if I keep stagnating forever, I see this already as an achievement. Because ofc you don't have to be genius to make like good NL200 money, but in those 2.5years I faced infinite obstacles and challenges but also grew as a person to get myself in this position

Yea you seem quite hard on yourself, at the same time I think that has made you reach these goals. think its important to have a solid steady life with good habits and it seems like you have been changing lifestyles and environments a lot so its good you have more time now to get used to your life there GL you got this

For lack of sleep, small tip, yoga nidra : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_noquwycq78
It's proven to give a reset so you have less brain fog

great post, you are more self aware than 99.999% of people I know, and being honest with yourself is the biggest battle in moving up in poker

Thanks mate. I read your message a couple days ago and I'm procrastinating the "yoga nidra" a bit haha I will aim to try it out somewhere this weekend and I will let you my experience.

Cheers man! And yes I agree

I also often have problems with sleep, here are some thingS that help me, maybe it can help you too

-no phone in the bed and keep it out of arms reach.
-room should be as dark as possible
-take a long walk or run before bad. Its much easier to fell a sleep if you are physically tired and it helps with anxiety
-take a hot shower before bed

GL

cheers man appreciated!

Done for the month. I had one last $700 rb chest to clear (before Sunday) but I desperately wanted to have the weekend off. And because of that the sess I just played I just pushed so hard (while focus was gone) and literally lost like $700 in the last couple % of completing it haha typical rake race thing for me. But hey, at-least I can give it a rest and consume a couple drinks this weekend






Such an ugly graph with all these weird ups and downs lol I spewed way too much but this week I managed to regain focus and played well for the most part. I ran crazy hot in the daily leaderboards thing, like 1st on nl200 for $800, 1st on NL100 for $600 (ish, not sure how much exact) & 2nd in NL100 for $450. And also a bunch of smaller cashes so in total estimated around $2200 or something.

Also recieved a bunch of rakeback, I have no idea exactly how many but I estimate it somewhere around 4 x $700 week challenges and 8 x $250 black chest = $4800.

So yeah total (estimated) profit for the month is like:

4127 (table profit) + $2200 (leaderboard heater) + $4800 (confirmed rakeback grinder) = $11.1k

So yeah somehow overall good month. Last 9 days (or whatever) after the last tilt-session I went on an absolute heater. Next month I want to get 1 step closer to becoming somewhat of a professional. I have some nice ideas in mind, for studying but also playing/habits before playing. I think it's good to focus on making small steps in performance improvement and punting less, and my plan is from now on to every month focus on 1 or 2 things I can implement/improve. Because yeah just stopping with punting and tilting straight away is just unrealistic and by doing it more process oriented I don't get so demotivated and stop with certain habits when I **** up and play terrible/puntilt etc.


edit: I also tried to play some plo (not my game) and lost a bit which is untracked, but also recieved some rb on other site I didn't include so hopefully evens eachother out....

crushing 200zHU, do you think ur HU style bleeds into ur 6m play, and therefore maybe becoming too punty vs tighter ranges?

Solid stuff mate. Glad you're pushing through.
Also, PLO you say?

Your analysis is correct that I played too punty in tighter ranges when I'm so busy in my head with 0 focus (which last month was more than half of the time). And therefor, for example; calling 4bets tights positions with an ev-error hand will result in big ev loss postflop in lets say the 100z pool on stars which is full of nits. With already my impulsive character + the 0 focus state playing 6max zoom for me is just punting in all honesty, because it just goes way too fast. Besides obviously some negative variance mainly in 200z, this is the reason my results were pretty poor in 6max last month.

But I don"t think it has to do with playing more hu, because for example the last week I played well again in the 6max games because I had some rest in my head. There are some downsides by playing both, sometimes (especially after mainly playing hu that day) I get a little confused in a 6max node. And so best to focus on 1 thing and unfortunately I have to drop hu soon....



Cheers mate hahaha I tried it when I was tilted and done with 6max but it's not my thing, and I'm not gonna play it again. huplo seems like a good game tho, but I can't just play that unstudied and donate so I'm not gonna try that again anytime soon

How come you didnt enjoy plo? If you enjoy playing hu so much and the format might fit your overall personality better why you dont try to become better and play higher or if you think the games are dead higher why you dont just grind hu nl200 and actually have fun?

hu is extremely dead higher, it doesn't make sense to specialize in it really