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Nothing and Everything Nothing and Everything

08-20-2024 , 02:55 AM
What you should expect from this thread
1) Results
2) Posts from other threads that I find interesting
3) Minor strategy content
4) Videos poker related
5) Videos non poker related
6) Songs


The purpose of the thread is to keep it light and fun, while I document the remaining of my decling poker carreer. I am talking about declining because I feel lost what I want to do with my future in poker. I still find the game fascinating and I have the same hunger for work as the same day I got introduced to the game

Spoiler:
If any of my posts come out aggressive, I am sorry in advance, after so many years I understand the problem is me and I still have unresolved anger issues which I am working on. There are times i come out more aggressive when this is not my intention


At the moment I am in limbo regarding what I should do next. I spend the majority of my time watching youtube videos of final tables, watching a friend of mine streaming high stakes mtts and building an mtt hud. I do play a couple of hours spins while studying them 30 minutes every day

I will start by posting my poker story since I met poker for first time and how it changed my life until now

What is poker worth?

Spoiler:
Nothing


Spoiler:
Everything
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08-20-2024 , 03:04 AM
Part 1 : The meeting


Spoiler:
I got in university when I was 19 years old. I was very active person playing football in a team, doing kickboxing in a small school and working at my father’s insurance office which I disliked since it offered me a monotone sendetary life with no excitement. I wanted to move out from the house so much that I tried to hit a specific low score in my exams in order my university to be more than 100km away, forcing my parents to accept I will not be a part of their household anymore.

Unfortunately, my exams went better than expected and since they were more difficult than the previous year, the average base drop down quite a lot and I qualified for a university which is 45-60 min drive even by bus. My parents were adamant in the beginning. I must go there 4 times a week by bus while keep working in their office for a shitty low salary while working more hours than their employees. When I learnt the news, I started crying because I understood it will be a lot more difficult to move out of this fcked up house. After a 6-month trial of going to university 4 times by bus, my parents understood this lifestyle can’t continue. We rent a cheap one-bedroom apartment and they told me they will send me 300€ every month to take care my needs

I was looking for a job and I contacted my father’s friend there if he can help me. He told me there is an opening in a farm to clean the **** from the pigs but the payment is good (for Greek standards). They would give me 50€ per day and of course I was excited since I wanted money to be independent. Unfortunately, my father contacted him and told him that he must not give me the job.

My conditioning was peak, I was playing football, hitting the gym every day and running every day. I asked my father’s friend if I can train with the local team, in which he was involved in the media department. Their team was good at that time, competing in the national second division while every year were fighting for the promotion in national first division. I started training with them. I was going for a run every day 0700, shower, rest, then hitting the gym at 0900, rest or attend some classes in uni, train with the team at 1500. They were in the post summer preparation phase but still training very hard since they were no official games planned yet. We were hitting the gym at 1500, at 1600 running and then doing drills/games after. In total I was training 5-7 hours every day depending what the schedule looked like

I was feeling exhausted, I probably overtrained myself since I continued to do intense individual training by myself. After two months, I looked around and here was the situation. You have the experienced starting line up all of them 28 years old+ some of them played in big Greek teams like Olympiakos. They had on the bench even players who used to play in minor national first division teams. Then they had 3-4 players at 15-16 year old age who were very good in my opinion. Looking above and bellow and seen myself standing at 20 years old, I understood I have no chance to get a profession out of football anymore. It was too late. I informed my father’s friend; I would quit without explaining my reasons

He told me, the team likes what they see from me and I should continue training with them. Even to this day, I believe it was honey for the ears and he did not want to hurt my feelings but I always tried to see things objectively. I wanted to play for a big team like Real Madrid. If the level I am is this and the level I am playing against was quite high from my perspective, imagine what is going on bigger Greek clubs. Don’t even mention about monster clubs like Real Madrid. The probability of myself playing on any big club in Greece or abroad is virtually zero. Of course, I didn’t explain anything more and I stuck with my decision. Never played with a team since then, only with friends for fun. Even now I am looking back and I am 100% sure the probability was zero

We were chilling with my friends and one day they suggested to play poker. I have never heard the word poker before and my only experience with card games was magic the gathering and a little bit of yugioh. I didn’t want play since the buy in was at 10€ and when your allowance is 300€ paying the gym 50€ / month, the money were tight. I agreed in the end since I didn’t want to be that person who will not participate in a tournament. They explained me the rules and we start playing an 18 man mtt with unlimited reentries for an hour winner takes all. I finished second with a big prize of nothing and I was furious but I didn’t show anything. The mtt finished early in the morning and the first thing I did was, download any info I can find on internet. I found many books in piratebay and I started reading the day after. I was hooked

It goes without saying I didn’t understand anything. I was reading doyle brunson’s book and I understood there is strategy in this game but I couldn’t comprehend anything else. We had a guy who was very smart, I visited him and I told him I thought there is a lot of strategy in this game, I found books and I need to help me understand what they are saying. In my mind, that was my chance of independence and never have to work in an office again. The guy, pretty much, laughed at me and he said poker is about luck, he can take a look at the books but I cant be serious. After reading the books, he understood there is some strategy but he was strong on poker is about luck and he doesn’t want to waste more time on this
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08-20-2024 , 03:44 AM
Part 2: The beginning


Spoiler:
I knew I was alone. I couldn’t let this opportunity slip from me. More research, I found pokerstrategy. I read every article they had and I started my journey in full tilt with free 50€ from them. Apparently, I missed the bankroll management article and quickly bust my account. We were still playing with my friends cash games and I was absolutely crushing them. We were playing 0.2 cents games and I was managing to make 150-300€ per month which was a huge boost if we take into consideration my monthly allowance. All by following pokerstrategy’s articles. All these money where going back to online while losing everything in full tilt playing cash games. I didn’t understand this. How is possible I crush the live game so hard playing near every day while I am losing online

The I found sngs. I played full ring normal speed sngs and I was losing less. I was excited. Slowly turning around my results but nothing impressive. Of course I was reading a lot, I found 2+2 and following advice in the forums by legends like Abarone. This was the time when Dwan was obliterating everyone in heads up matches and I wanted to play against him. In the back of my head this is what I wanted from poker. To become a heads up legend. Every time I had a little bit of profit I was playing heads up constantly losing. Somehow shortstack poker was clicking more in my head while deepstack was all over the place since I was crushed by everyone. In my chill time I was watching Dwan’s battles and I was trying to imitate his style but in reality I had no clue what I was doing

Then bang. Black Friday happens

I couldn’t believe it. My parents didn’t know I was trying to be a poker pro, they thought I am going to uni every day. I guess I had to suck it up and do something I hate. It is what it is. I went to uni every day, hating every second there. I couldn’t focus since I found the classes boring. There was no interaction with the teachers. Nothing more boring than listening to someone for 5 hours talking about something you have no interest. Then my luck changed

Pokerstars was up and running. I created many accounts to take advantage of the first deposit bonus while grinding sngs. Of course I didn’t know it was against their tos. I kept busting bankroll after bankroll and I couldn’t understand it. In full tilt I was a small winner what is happening here?
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08-20-2024 , 03:49 AM
Part 3: The mistakes


Spoiler:
I was playing sngs in pokerstars but my mind was stuck in heads up. Keep watching heads up videos and dreaming one day I will sit against Dwan, Blom, Ivey and Antonius. I found pokerstrategy’s staking forum. I provided my results from full tilt and people decide to stake me

I kept playing sngs and my results were good but I was studying a ton. Watching pokerstrategy’s videos, talking to people, reading every blog for advice. The game didn’t come to me naturally. My staking bankroll was healthy for the stakes I was playing and I decided to take another shot in heads up. That was my first mistake, instead of doing the profit split, I decided to take a shot of 2-3 buy ins in heads up. If it goes wrong then I will grind the money back

Started playing nl50 or nl100 the shot went amazing. I was stunned. Within a week I was up multiple buy ins. I was thinking yeah baby I am the next Dwan, you will see what I am going to do. I kept playing heads up and start taking shots at 500nl with the plan if it goes wrong and lose the original invested amount, I will go back to sngs and grind for the stakers. Nl500 was going amazing, been up 4-5 buy ins, I started playing nl1k having no clue about variance.

I lost it all. Not only the original 1-2 buy ins but all the money from the stakers. I didn’t mind that much(at the time, now I understand I was very wrong) because I was thinking ok I lost everything playing poker. Until I lose the money I was running over everyone. It must be a bad run. The pokerstrategy stakers asked for an update, I told them I lost everything playing heads up and I will not pay back anything since I lost everything playing poker. Mistake 2

Hell broke loose in the forum but I was sure I was right. I took a small loan of 200€ from my mother to play sngs again, building my roll and rejecting any payment plan to the stakers. Acbarone learnt about the story and reached out to me explaining me why I was wrong and how I would feel if I was in their position. Then I knew. I was wrong. I contacted the forum in pokerstrategy and I told them I will pay back everything and I will add an additional fee for my behaviour. I think it was in the range of 10-30% more to every single person I scammed

I bought some hours of coaching for Acbarone and slowly paid back everything and more as promised. I continue to play normal or turbo full ring games in pokerstars, doing an ok living for Greek standards. This was the point where hyper format became more and more popular

My parents eventually learnt, I wasn’t going to uni anymore and I was focusing on playing poker. My father was furious started calling me names and as expected they stopped paying for anything. I had to take care rent, electricity and my food alone. On top of that I was paying back the pokerstrategy community and never missed a single payment

This was the point when I found my first long lasting relationship. I explained to her I am broke, all day I was playing poker and I am studying for poker. I was living by eating rice or spaghetti every day with one sausage because this is how much money I had. I didn’t tell her that but I explained to her that I am in no position to go out, have fun and if she wants to spend time with me it will be near the beach talking and not partying. She was a barwoman and she told me this is fine by her. She is just happy to spend time with me. Her parents were divorced and all the money she had were going to her mother to take care rent, bills and food so she was basically broke too. I still remember finding 2€ in the street and we were celebrating. We looked at each other and laugh because we knew. We could buy a cup of coffee and share with each other
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08-20-2024 , 03:51 AM
Part 4: The coaching


Spoiler:
I kept grinding 7$-15$ normal and turbo full ring sngs but I was looking at threads where I saw some insane graphs from hyper grinders. I contacted Aaron and I asked him if he would be interested to coach me and stake me for 9 man hypers. We reached an agreement
I don’t remember if it was a rough start or everything went smooth but I remember to this day I was very happy working with Aaron. Picking up the thought process of someone I looked up. Yes I have to give away a chunk of my profit but I couldn’t care less. I was in nirvana, I am working with Aaron
I was running poorly in the format but I couldn’t be more pleased with my decision to be a poker pro

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/c...%2FMITGOXG.png
I found the graph in a publicly documented thread since I don’t keep old databases anymore
I worked with Aaron for many months and I wanted to challenge myself more. Inspired by a 6 man hyper legend Mecastyles, I decided to do a 9 man hyper challenge and grind 20 000 sngs in a month. Details can be found here
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...18/?highlight=
I ran a few buy ins above ev if I remember correctly during the bet and finished it a few days earlier than a month. I was super happy. I worked hard for a month and I made so much money. With the profit, rakeback as supernova, leaderboards, promo and the bet I made around 20k. Can you imagine 20k playing 7-15$ sngs. Omg
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08-20-2024 , 03:54 AM
Part 5: The legislation


Spoiler:
Then bang again. Legislation hit Greece with some absurd rules, making it impossible to stay in my home. I broke up with my girlfriend and I knew. I had to leave the country. I have to miss my girlfriend, my friends, my dog, everyone

A 6 max hyper group found me and talk me into teaching me the format. The contract was good and it was for a period of time and they will help me relocate to Liverpool. My thought process was simple. I get a contract for a certain period even if it doesn’t work out and I get in mu I can leave in the end and they will help with relocation but in a place that I don’t like from what I read. No poker community, knowing one person with people talking English but without really talking English. To this day I have such a hard time understanding Liverpoolians

In the end I thought we regret more about opportunities we miss than the ones we take. In the beginning my time in Liverpool was miserable. I was paying 1400 pounds for a single bedroom condo which was nice but extremely expensive. I am outgoing but the only person I knew wanted to become a body builder so no fun nights out. I spend my free time in the surrounding parks, picking up women. At least that part isn’t difficult when you are in UK

I remember visiting a tesco and asking the stuff where they have this and that. The women were responding something like ‘’right there love’’ and my mind was like ‘’love?’’ they must like me and I was asking them out for a date. I thought it was so easy. Then talking to my friend in Liverpool, he informed this is standard in their dialect and they don’t mean anything more. I laughed so hard but most of them they were coming in a date so nothing really changed

I was working hard on my game but the game wasn’t clicking. Very different than 9 max, a lot of postflop even if people cant see that. The boss of the 6 man hyper group suggested a monthly trip to curacao. I was pumped. An advice for everyone that either feels lonely or wants to succeed in poker. Live in a pokerhouse
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08-20-2024 , 03:57 AM
Part 6: Curacao


Spoiler:
Curacao trip was perfect. One of the best experience in my life. Living with many like minded people who are trying to succeed in poker while some already successful. I am pleased I met all of them. Much love for Alex who was a life coach. He was a 35 year old man from Norway, calm behavior, working in a big corporate, making a ton of money and still trying to succeed in poker. Imagine the motivation to study for 15$-30$ 6max when your actual income is 6 figures. You must really love the game. I was very close with him mostly because he was teaching me so many things about life and I remember things he told me when I was 25 and I realize how true they are now I am 35
Much love for Jesse who spent countless hours talking strategy to me, explaining how successful people are breaking down the game, what I should look for in my database and many other things. We aren’t in touch anymore but I hope he is well whatever he does
Tony was also another great dude, his approach for life is something outstanding. It seemed like the older guys had figured out life while the younger like myself, dan, andy, bor, we were a bit all over the place. Not in a bad way but it is what it is
After coming back from curacao to Liverpool I was extra motivated. I charted the whole game in push fold situations. I remember I had papers with charts even on my ceiling. While having the bubble charted in an excel sheet (not automated). I was focused studying postflop in t20 and t30 and heads up
I remember taking the values from snowie and trying to understand through various math formulas how to understand the true postflop ev of each situation and with the combination of hrc to create my own unique strategy exploiting possible postflop individual tedencies. Jesse was immense help with the math part since I had to manually do this for every hand, every position, every situation
The results picked up quickly and in the end I was playing the highest buy in available but I still felt lonely in Liverpool. Going out from Greece where I had friends with who I played football weekly, going out daily, meeting women, having my brother who love to death to a city knowing one person and picking up women in parks or super market wasn’t my cup of tea but now I know what I wanted, a pokerhouse
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08-20-2024 , 04:00 AM
Part 7: Malta


Spoiler:
I was in a travel skype group chat and I decided to post, I am looking for a house with poker players, cleanliness is a must and I need an office with many walls around because I have many charts. Someone contact me he has a room available in his apartment in a very good location. I snap accepted, packed my stuff and left for Malta
The house was impressive and the dude was even more impressive. One of the most friendly guys I ever met in my life, Puuk. From him I met Luuk, Carlo and Yorick. Even though they were dutch they took me in like I was family which was weird in a good way. Even my own parents didn’t treat me like I am family and I felt I am where I belong. I have countless good memories from them and I will be forever grateful. Every single guy is top top guy and they couldn’t make my transition from Liverpool to Paceville more smooth
I kept studying hard, I was actually obsessed with study especially heads up and postflop and I couldn’t believe how much ev you can produce from postflop in t20-t30 and heads up. The majority of players where losing prerakeback but I am convinced I was having positive roi due to this three categories. I was also tricking players into coming in spots where I was more strong in my strategies. If I have to break down the game
6handed-5handed: Insanely strong producing a lot of ev, having limping strategy out of the blinds, small 3bets, iso etc
4handed not good: counter this by playing slow and see just a few hands
Bubble: ok but I know a couple of players much much stronger than myself
Heads up: Insane strong. My heads up game was so strong than even though we were playing 11bb- my winrate was higher than the heads up regs

To this day I believe 4 handed is the most difficult spot to solve in 6 max hypers. I countered this by playing extremely slow. Eventually the regs protested and pokerstars did the blinds to go up per number of hands and not per time. I will never forget how many charts I have, more than half the time I was grinding with my door open and Puuk was walking around looking my walls and call me crazy. Fun times

All things come to an end. Puuk start dating a woman regularly and I knew he would need to have his privacy. I decided to not bring him in a difficult situation to ask me leaving and I told him by myself that I am going to leave soon. I posted again in the travel skype group. I need a pokerhouse…..in Thailand
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-20-2024 , 04:05 AM
Part 8: Thailand


Spoiler:
A guy named Hids contact me, he had two poker houses close to each other with a room available in Chiang Mai. I didn’t think twice and I booked my flight. There I met another group of amazing people. We were going out often, we had table tennis, we played bowling while having drinks, then going out for drinks

I met Adam who was like a little brother to me and we create many fun stories. Rammy who was more like a big brother and his super kind girlfriend. Phillip who I see him like a brother aswell, very fun, kind guy and I have never saw a person care less about the future than him. It was the second best experience in my life. Grinding was good, life was good, everything was good. I spend around 2-3 years in Chiang Mai leaving only during Christmas because there is nothing better than Christmas in Europe, cold, snow, rain, friends and everything around is beautiful

I have many funny stories from there but I will write one. My friends were watching football in a bar. I like watching football with sound, bar was playing music so I decided to leave saying ‘’whatever I am going for a massage’’ I do massage and a girl tells me she has a couple of friends I can go with them partying. We are going from bar to bar then to clubs. Then they told me to go back at their apartment. Of course I agree, hi fiving myself. We go there and they start smoking yaba. They offer me, I am like yeah sure. The taste was **** and I didnt feel high but the girls are enjoying themselves. What happen after I will let to your imagination. Early morning I decide to leave. I have no idea where I am and I am just walking in the middle of nowhere. After an hour walking, I find some police officers and I ask them if they can drive me home. They laughed hard, I laughed too and they called me a taxi. The taxi driver drove me home and when I asked to pay him, he inform me the police officers paid him already

Many other good stories which show the kindness of people. Yes there are bad police stories or bad stories involving thai people, fortunately I have only positive experiences with them

All good things come to an end. Pokerstars decided it is in their best interest to remove vip benefits. Hypers died, in my last 6 months I was sitting 8 hours every day taking 5-20 hypers and I decide it is time to switch format
My graph from the last years of grinding without sne rakeback which I was

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/c...%2FG11PfOj.png

I don’t have graphs from earlier in my 6 max but every single limit was under ev. My decision was to learn mtts and I have to go back in Europe since the peak hours of mtts meaning I have to play from Europe or somewhere in America. Never been in America but from what I know the south part speak Spanish and Portuguese while Canada isn’t an ideal place since I don’t know any Canadians. I moved back to Malta trying to learn mtts
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08-20-2024 , 04:11 AM
Part 9: Mtts


Spoiler:
The first three months in mtts I spent my time studying the format. I will explain how I break down a format in another post. Most of my days where a 10-12hr grind in aggregation reports, piosolver visualization, chart creation from preflop sims and a ton of notes in postflop parts. I also examined a database of datamined hands to see how people are playing and what I can do different in order to exploit them. That was a huge task for a single person since I was working alone. They were days where I felt I was doing an ok progress, others was just boring chart creation. Volume very low but ev bb /100 good enough to see I understand parts of the game. My abi was high from the beginning but I felt I didn’t really enjoy the grind. It was a mixture of long sessions which I wasn’t used to and very poor run again in pokerstars https://imgur.com/dIcMDvr

My shortstack game was very good but I was bleeding money in deepstack where I never studied before and it was something completely new. Looking back, my study grinding time could be a lot more effective when building a strategy from the ground up. I did things unnecessary complicated. I do thing the best way to succeed in poker is to use 1 size in each street except river but this is something that I really had to learn much later. Of course my method of breaking down a format is a lot more different than back then. In the beginning of mtts it was close to insanity. I don’t want to bother with many details but now I understand a work of 10 hours can be done at 5-7 hours

That was the point I broke up with another girlfriend because I wanted to focus on my game. I wasn’t pleased with the results if we take into consideration the time spent and I couldn’t have any distractions like a relationship. In the beginning my girlfriend was supportive but I told her I will need many months of this routine to reach where I want to be. She was saying everything will be ok but what people don’t understand is this: When I am saying I will do everything I can, it means I will do everything in my power no matter the cost

From my perspective since I have a backer I have this crossroad
1) I am staying loyal to my backer and keep my promise that I will do my best from the beginning to reward him for the generous deal he accepted
2) Staying loyal to my girlfriend and spend time with her like a good boyfriend to keep her happy

In the second month, the whining grow bigger, ‘’you don’t spend time with me’’, ‘’I want you to meet my friends’’, ‘’I want to party with you’’ Well my decision came easy and I told her to pack her things and leave my house. Even though the way I said it was wrong and how it happened was sudden, it was the right choice

I had an amazing backer, giving me a generous deal and I have to do everything to make him money. Months grew darker since I was studying a ton but ev bb was barely reaching 7ev bb/100 which was frustrating even though the abi was only 350$

I did two live trips Prague and Barcelona. I enjoyed playing live mtts, shootout to the pokerstars dealers, easily the best there are. Both trips were not successful but I lost less than 5k since I kept the abi lowish for live standards. When I came back from each trip, I felt my brain was fresh and reset for grinding and studying. While talking to a friend I decided to move back in Thailand and Patong
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08-20-2024 , 04:16 AM
Part 10: Patong


Spoiler:
This was the time I felt fresh and reborn. Grinding ev stuck at 7 but life was good again. Beautiful girls, beautiful women, training muay thai, hitting the gym, studying felt less dark. Overall positive lifestyle. Only thing missing was a group of people working together. The biggest mistake I made in my life is thinking I can do this alone. Every time i shined in a format I was working with other people. I don’t know what sht I had in my head and I thought I can make this alone especially when we are talking about such a chaotic format. I want to clarify that I didn’t swap action, didn’t sell action for mtts and I took all the variance. When I busted a 5k event, I lost 5k. yes I am staked but I have to grind the full amount back which I didn’t understand what a big task it until it was very late

I did a live trip in Monaco, my third one and I won. I won big. My game for the past 5 months was better than ever, I was fresh with a healthy lifestyle of constant training muay thai in Thailand and going out regularly and I was running hot. I won a lot of money in that trip getting in very big amounts in +$ in mtts

Then it hit me. I put a lot of work in 9 max, I get half of what I deserve. I put even more work in 6 max I get a percentage of what I deserve. I put a lot of work in mtts and I cant show any meaningful results in online grinding, it happens in pokerstars but when I travel in three trips I have good results and I feel I am playing good. There are two constants here
1) Me. I didn’t change anything, study a lot, grind and don’t spew
2) Pokerstars
If the problem doesn’t come from me then is coming from pokerstars. I decided to quit the platform all together and focused on playing in ggpoker. The schedule was good enough to make a good living and I don’t have to deal with this anger regarding pokerstars

I travel to vegas for the series. I made a small profit overall in the trip and meeting some amazing people. Shoot out to the Rezaei’s brothers who made me feel like the third brother. I feel as much as bad I ran in pokerstars.com so much I luckboxed these amazing people in life. I had such a fun time in Vegas and they are the main reason behind it. How I met Armin is kinda funny. We were living in a villa and I wake up, seen someone I never saw before. He asks me where is everyone, I am asking him who are you. He tells me Daniel’s brother and I am like oh ok. His next question is the most suprising ‘’do you want bubble tea?’’ I am like wtf is a bubble tea, oh you need to try one he answered with excitement. It was like we were playing in a movie, I mean who asks within 3 mins of convo if I like bubble tea. Both of them amazing guys, very happy I met them and I have many good memories from both. Unfortunately I understand it doesn’t make much sense to travel to vegas. Even with a small profit I
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-20-2024 , 04:28 AM
Part 11: GGpoker journey


Spoiler:
Going back to patong I decided to play only in ggpoker, I think I had enough with pokerstars. I started very strong but the next couple of months when covid hits my ev bb drops from 7+ to 5.5ish. I understand I cant continue this journey alone and I contacted the person who I am sure can help and asked for coaching, Matthias

I think Matthias is extremely good in understanding concepts and explaining things (propably the best at this department). I work super hard alone, Matthias provided all the resources I need and every time I hit a wall he is there. I don’t think anyone in this world invest so many resources and time for his students as Matthias. I have to give respect to his patience too, I am playing to win every mtt and I am angry at every bust. In my mind I am playing against the platform and not against people. It kind of amuses when people trash talk me and I enjoy this and I know I won them when they slowroll me since I am sure I won the mental aspect of the fight right there. I have laughed so much when I saw slowrolls. I don’t even understand how people are getting annoyed with this. I read a line somewhere ‘’people who are slowrolling are psychopaths’’ my response was why? I don’t understand it

My ev bb picksed up a lot. It was that time of the year when series were running. Among other things, I fired 15 unique entries in the 10k in gg. Not in the same day, different days, most of them where days 1. I busted all. I was devastated. How is possible to not make day 2 in any of them. Ev bb good, nothing major mistake, variance? Doesn’t matter I lost. I try to pick up myself but the burden feels huge. I busted 15 10ks making the makeup 150 000$ bigger than what it is. How my backer feels? Does he trust me? Does he think I don’t work anymore? Nothing of this is true. I contact him on discord and I inform him he doesn’t have to worry I will pay back everything. I tell him I will play up to 2ks from now on until I pay back everything. I don’t remember if he said exactly that but from the meaning of the conversation he let me know that he thinks this is a mistake and I should continue grinding higher buy ins since I am profitable
The next two years are like hell, by far the most difficult in my life. Make up was big already and on top of that we add 150k like this. I tell my current girlfriend what is the situation and I tell her I will not take any days off until I pay back the full amount. Not going outside, no dinners, no muay thai, no gym. I don’t touch the turbo/hyper formats and I focus on normal mtts up to 2k. Ev bb is very high but I am in downswing and the make up grows, running way under ev

Every single day of these two years felt like a mountain. Studying to the max, keeping low number of tables to maximize my edge and playing normal mtts only and in ggpoker 90% of my volume. Make up big? Study and grind in the days that are meaningful not on some garbage Wednesdays. Ev bb is growing bigger but the ****** green line went to cut the grass. More study then grind. After taking 4 days off in two years (2x my birthday, 2x my girlfriend’s birthday), brick by brick, small win by small win, I paid back everything. Yet how I lost a big mtt finishing third for less than 90k instead of first broke me. A lot of crying and I feel like a loser and not happy that I paid back everything, my mind can only focus that I lost the first place. After this and some back and forth discussions with my backer I discontinue my mtt journey

Last 1.5 year 350$ abi https://imgur.com/lkLcdMn https://imgur.com/9i4lQKS

Looking back I hope my backer is pleased with my performance since I made more than 200k for him if I remember correctly, even though the deal was extremely favorable for me. I also want to thank him in public because there was never an issue of trust or financial between us and I couldn’t be more grateful that it was him and not someone else in his place
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-20-2024 , 04:37 AM
Part 12: Plo and the ban


Spoiler:
In the following months I am donking around 6 max plo. I am getting sick of myself losing my life and I find a study group and join them. There are a couple of very hard working people and I am studying hard again hitting 10-12 hours a day but plo doesn’t click for me. I cant break it down, I lose more time on how I should study than actually doing it. Lost days trying to find a way to chart the preflop part. While the group is hard working, it doesn’t work for me and I decided to leave

I don’t want to make the same mistakes again so I contacted the only coach I could find, Cory Mikesell from runitonce. I pay 7500$ for 10 hours but the coaching is disappointing. He assured me he has a clear plan to teach and make me understand the game but I remained the same confused on how the game works. Some of his explanations are straight up wrong and I feel this is the worst investment I did in my life and it is for a lot of money for someone who doesn’t make any

I started playing again in pokerstars since is the platform which offers hu plo but my results suck

https://i.imgur.com/D49i4wE.png

This is my fault too since I shouldn’t trust my future in pokerstars. Time and time again I ran poorly and the history repeats itself running 74 buy ins under ev with more than 600 hrs of game play in a completely different format. Even after countless hours of studying plo doesn’t really click for me, coach is kind but not helpful (maybe because I was a beginner) and I quit plo. Of course before I quit I send a hateful email to pokerstars, writing many nasty things, ending my email I will never play in their platform again and I withdrew the rest of my balance. You can work all you want with a therapist, when you encounter the same **** again and again nothing can save you

At that time a friend came back to Thailand who is playing spins at 25$ stake. He told me I can join an ev pool to see if I like the spins and take out the variance part. I watched him playing several times and I found spins to be monotonous and quite boring. I also read new and old threads and I feel the conclusion is the same for 90% of the people. Spins are boring with a very low ceiling of profit.

Having dropped plo, I was like ok I will just play to pass my time and I joined steel phoenix. After 1-2 weeks absence I deposited again in pokerstars and I started playing spins. I printed some preflop charts and rarely took a look at the postflop part since I didn’t really care about the game. I did observe what sizes people are using but more than half of the time I couldn’t play seriously 25$s and I was all over the place. A good example is this hand that even if it is a big multiplier I didn’t even bother look my charts

https://imgur.com/NOL1XOY This is 100x prizepool and I snap rfied and call all in against regular

https://imgur.com/mbLIzsB This is against a regular where I raise called all in 4th July because whatever 25s

I was losing at cev at -4 (breakeven point is 31.5) yet I receive an email at 5th July to explain why I am playing spins etc you know the email. I replied with very broad answers since I didn’t really care about the email and then they asked me for a live video of me playing 4 hours. Of course I declined since I don’t find any reason to do it (didn’t know its in their tos to ask for it) I found a gto wizard subscription since it is extremely weird to ask me this question and I saw my postflop accuracy was very low both 3h and HU postflop 57% and 65% accuracy. I mean surely if I was trying to cheat these numbers should be close to 90% and not this, so again I told them I don’t see any need to do a live video for them since it is a breach of my privacy. If I was winning decent amount in cev or my gto accuracy was high I would understand the request, now it doesn’t make any sense. Details and my hand histories can be found here
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/3...71/?highlight=

After talking with a friend I decided to do a live video. I have done it. Run my numbers again in gto wiz to see how is my accuracy. I saw my accuracy was near identical while my ev loss during the live video was much much better which shows exactly what expected when I played seriously (live video) I performed quite good (still not gto though)

After waiting many days they told me my account is flagged as security risk. I can withdraw my money and I cant play there anymore. They didn’t want to tell me what I did, I don’t know what I did wrong and I never thought I did something against their tos. Even if they found some mismatches during my live video I guarantee if you look two random separate days before my live video you will find many mismatches since not only I was doing different things in different days, playing more like lets try this and lets do that, I am bored lets call here and there (I have hands where I called J high and even 9 high). The matter would be very easy to solve. Reading their tos I saw they can randomly call you and I have to answer. If they suspect I was cheating why they didn’t call me. I can show them my surroundings at the same time and I always have discord and phone available or they can do a video call through their platform. You can find more info and my hand histories in the post above

To be fair I didn’t handle the situation the best way possible but didn’t even cross my mind I could be banned especially when I was 1 tabling 25$ stake to pass the time WHILE LOSING IN CEV

To avoid any future injustice I bought a second mobile phone and I record myself playing from behind which I intend to do every time I am grinding no matter the platform. The ban didn’t bother me that much since I find it relieving not able to play in the platform which scammed me year after year. What pains me is their decision to bar me from their live events which I think are the best. Heaps and shoulders above the vegas summer series. Aria events are quite close. Anyway

ALL MY POKER SESSIONS ARE RECORDED WITH SCREEN RECORDER AND THE SURROUNDINGS WITH CAMERA PHONE AND UPLOADED IN YOUTUBE

I still hold a small hope if I constantly send them videos of me playing they will change their mind. I do think they made a mistake for the reasons I explained above and in the post at pokerstars thread
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-20-2024 , 04:45 AM
Growing old, made me realize how unimportant i am. This thread it is not about bragging since I feel I failed with the life was given to me but I still feel the fire and hunger for the game. At 35 years old starting from zero, I want to see what I can achieve

My initial thoughts are to study mtts for a couple of months and grind a very low abi in the range of 50-100$ while playing a couple of hours spins when i feel i need a break from mtt study. These days i am working from the ground up in my mtt hud, watching youtube final tables and the live stream of a good regular which i recommend to follow since he is playing high abi https://www.twitch.tv/danielpetersenpoker
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-20-2024 , 12:09 PM
Best of luck Belthazorrrr. Quite a journey you have been on. Hope you get to where you want to be.
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-20-2024 , 12:26 PM
Quote:
Cory Mikesell from runitonce. I pay 7500$ for 10 hours but the coaching is disappointing. He assured me he has a clear plan to teach and make me understand the game but I remained the same confused on how the game works. Some of his explanations are straight up wrong
Ehhh??????
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-21-2024 , 07:40 AM
Nice reading mate interesting background.
I think you are wrong about failing in which ever part you think you failed in life.
You are 35 . Plenty of things to live and mistakes to be avoided (or make new ones) .

Anyways good luck i will be following
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-21-2024 , 08:13 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Namaste90
Best of luck Belthazorrrr. Quite a journey you have been on. Hope you get to where you want to be.
I enjoy your thread, keep up the good work!!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Grammen1985
Nice reading mate interesting background.
I think you are wrong about failing in which ever part you think you failed in life.
You are 35 . Plenty of things to live and mistakes to be avoided (or make new ones) .

Anyways good luck i will be following
Even though i am ultra competitive and i still put many hours to develop my strategy, i dont think it is possible to reach or surpass the previous success. It could be that i am still down from failing at plo and every bad beat feels ten times bigger. I definitely have many things in my life which are positive but they are all non poker related. Also it is extremely hard to take serious any limit bellow 100$ and i find myself constantly slipping and doing plays i wouldnt do in 100$+, just because i know i can recover the ev back quickly. Last but not least, people at these limits have so massive leaks it feels demotivating

That been said it is naive, if i grind mtts again, to load high abi because people will murder me since i didnt play a single hand in the format for over a year and i will need at least 3-4 months to have something like 70%-80% of the old skill back. It is what it is, i accept it

Sick playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/54...bf819b9cc4e0fd

I recommend this series, definitely worth watching two great cultures collide, involving many great men

Nothing and Everything Quote
08-22-2024 , 02:41 AM
When i was breaking down my mtt study the process for flops was the following. We have 3 big categories unpaired non straight boards, straight and paired. I used these boards



Then i had the following process

step 1: Run the sims with 4 flop sizes for both players to capture the gto evs of the boards
step 2: Run each board with 1 size (1bb, 25%, 33%, 50%, 66%, 75%, 100%, 125%) against the perfect counter size (each position seperately) and compare evs to original gto sims
step 3: Run each board with 1 size range betting (1bb, 25%, 33%, most used size from step 2, range check) against the perfect counter strategy
step 4: Rerun step 3 but now lock the counter strategy against the gto from step 2
step 5: Exploitation. The thresholds i used were 3%, 6%, 9% and i wanted to know what is happening in the following siuations

Villain Overfolding

fold raise

+3% gto original
+3% -3%
+3% +3%
+3% -6%
+3% +6%

+6% gto original
+6% -3%
+6% +3%
+6% -6%
+6% +6%

+9% gto original
+9% -3%
+9% +3%
+9% -6%
+9% +6%

Villain fold is gto

fold raise



gto original -3%
gto original +3%
gto original -6%
gto original +6%

Villain overcalling

fold raise

-3% gto original
-3% -3%
-3% +3%
-3% -6%
-3% +6%

-6% gto original
-6% -3%
-6% +3%
-6% -6%
-6% +6%

-9% gto original
-9% -3%
-9% +3%
-9% -6%
-9% +6%

Step 5 allows me to understand how my strategy is changing against different strategies

step 6: Repeat the process against villains who are playing wider or tighter on the same spots against my constant rfi using the following thresholds for vpip comparing to gto (bb +-7%, sb +-7%, btn +-7%, co +-5%, hj+-5%) assuming villain is under 3betting 3%-5% or over 3betting 3%-5% depending the situation (example on bb villain generally lose more 3bets so i use the 5% threshold)

The positions i am working for postflop heads up spots where

bvb
bb vs btn, bb vs co, bb vs hj, bb vs utg1
sb vs btn, sb vs co, sb vs hj, sb vs utg1
btn vs co, btn vs mp
co vs hj, co vs utg1
hj vs utg1
mp vs utg1

I am following similar process when i am defending what happens if villain betting the flop more or less often than gto for 3% 6% 9% thresholds and folding/calling to raise gto 3% 6%

Last edited by belthazorrrrr; 08-22-2024 at 02:55 AM.
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-24-2024 , 08:09 PM
Could someone explain me the situation with ipoker. I am looking the results from the pools and it seems people barely making any money with 40% or 50% rkb



Do these people have better rkb deals and keep grinding? I get 35% + leaderboards. I am playing around 2 hrs a day and i get 3*11$ tickets most of the time. Last but not least the results include a couple of players i am 99% sure they are using rta like h... 1... and they are pushing the results up. If we take out some of these accounts who have very strong volume the average results are dropping even further

I dont understand what incentive people have to keep grinding. I understand people want to avoid mtts because the grind is a bit hectic but surely they can make more money in cash games

End

Mtt update. I am close to have a deal in mtts and i will grind them again.....with different approach since i dont want to put myself in the same position of the past. The majority of my day is watching my friend streaming high abi (600$+) https://www.twitch.tv/danielpetersenpoker then i look at 1-2 fts. When i want to steam off i grind a couple of hours spins in ipoker while studying them less than 30 mins a day

Basically i looked preflop play, some flop play and around 10 turn cards to understand what i should do. Obviously i cant motivate myself to do more regarding spins because

a) I think the format is ultra boring
b) Buy in is extremely low

Even while grinding i cant play them seriously and i do stupid things from time to time knowing i can gather the ev back. Example

iPoker - 10/20 NL (3 max) - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 25 BB (VPIP: 44.90, PFR: 37.78, 3Bet Preflop: 30.77, Hands: 53)
BB: 25 BB (VPIP: 55.20, PFR: 37.44, 3Bet Preflop: 26.19, Hands: 267)
Hero (BTN): 25 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 3 3

Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, BB raises to 25 BB, Hero calls 23 BB

Flop: (50.5 BB, 2 players) A 6 9

Turn: (50.5 BB, 2 players) 2

River: (50.5 BB, 2 players) K

Hero mucks 3 3 (One Pair, Threes)

BB shows 7 7 (One Pair, Sevens)

BB wins 50.5 BB

Results incoming

Last edited by belthazorrrrr; 08-24-2024 at 08:16 PM.
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-25-2024 , 07:16 AM
About 70-80hrs the past 30-40 days of grinding spins confirmed unbeatable pre rakeback





Some hands even though i dont find anything interesting. Imagine playing 16000 hands in a format with nothing of interest to show, how ****** boring


Bluffcatching went wrong



Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 6 A

fold, Hero calls 0.5 BB, BB checks

Flop: (2 BB, 2 players) 8 7 4
Hero checks, BB checks

Turn: (2 BB, 2 players) K
Hero checks, BB bets 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

River: (6 BB, 2 players) 2
Hero checks, BB bets 6 BB, Hero calls 6 BB

Hero mucks 6 A (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 70%, Flop 7%, Turn 3%)
BB shows 6 5 (Straight, Eight High)
(Pre 30%, Flop 93%, Turn 97%)
BB wins 18 BB

Bluffcatching went good



Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

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

fold, Hero calls 0.5 BB, BB checks

Flop: (2 BB, 2 players) 4 T K
Hero checks, BB checks

Turn: (2 BB, 2 players) 2
Hero checks, BB bets 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

River: (6 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero checks, BB bets 6 BB, Hero calls 6 BB

Hero shows T Q (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 69%, Flop 94%, Turn 80%)
BB shows 3 8 (High Card, King)
(Pre 31%, Flop 6%, Turn 20%)
Hero wins 18 BB

Bluffcatching went great


3 players post ante of 0.17 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2 BB) Hero has 6 Q

Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop: (5 BB, 2 players) 6 4 K
BB checks, Hero bets 1 BB, BB calls 1 BB

Turn: (7 BB, 2 players) T
BB checks, Hero checks

River: (7 BB, 2 players) 2
BB bets 20.37 BB, Hero calls 11.3 BB

Hero shows 6 Q (One Pair, Sixes)
(Pre 39%, Flop 79%, Turn 93%)
BB shows Q 7 (High Card, King)
(Pre 61%, Flop 21%, Turn 7%)
Hero wins 29.6 BB

Max pressure



2 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.75 BB) Hero has J Q

SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero checks

Flop: (2.25 BB, 2 players) 2 5 T
Hero checks, SB bets 1 BB, Hero raises to 2 BB, SB calls 1 BB

Turn: (6.25 BB, 2 players) 8
Hero bets 23.47 BB, fold

Hero mucks J Q (High Card, Queen)

Hero wins 6.25 BB

Within two weeks i expect to start grinding mtts again so i will completely drop the format, until then you can see me on ipoker's table donking around trying to break some rta accounts

Spoiler:
not really


Spoiler:
Obviously i record all my sessions, my room and my screen





I am reading two books at the moment

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. I am half way reading and i enjoy it very much
Meditations by the one and only Marcus Aurelius

A wise man said ''we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with'' This phrase couldnt be more true

Not a chess fan even though i used to play a lot when i was a kid. Found both videos entertaining





Premier league is finally back, i will give some predictions after the fifth fixture just for fun. Real Madrid is playing again. Cant wait what Ancelotti will do with basically two wingers but i have total faith in the person who could play kaka pirlo seedorf and sometimes rui costa in the same starting lineup. Mallorca's result isnt really worrying since they are always a pain in the ass. I think the biggest problem Ancelotti faces is the midfield. Not sure if rumors is true but Kevin de Bruyne offered himself to Real Madrid who is a mandatory signing since Madrid lost the grand maestro. Xabi Alonso keeps proving he is carrying the Real Madrid gene all the way to Germany winning another game at 90'+. Great person, great player and i hope he will become a great manager

With this real madrid team i would either play 4-4-2 diamond keeping rodrygo on the bench but this is a system i kinda hate, or 3-5-2 which is my favourite system, keeping again rodrygo on the bench. Lets see what Don Carlo will do

Last edited by belthazorrrrr; 08-25-2024 at 07:27 AM.
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-25-2024 , 08:42 PM
ipoker rb is 30-35% flat + 10%+ rakechase + twister leaderboards (weekly), high volume grinders make between 50-75% rb.
Rake is very high on ipoker and format is faster than normal spins on other sites because of ante.
Nothing and Everything Quote
08-25-2024 , 11:02 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyJam
ipoker rb is 30-35% flat + 10%+ rakechase + twister leaderboards (weekly), high volume grinders make between 50-75% rb.
Rake is very high on ipoker and format is faster than normal spins on other sites because of ante.
Yeah also it is 2 min blind levels instead of 3 which is on pokerstars, so definitely the edge is thinner in the current structure. Also the software is a bit laggy, might be because i use active presenter to record my screen and i have only a 16gb ram laptop. I wasnt aware that high volume grinders can reach above 60%, thanks for the info
Nothing and Everything Quote
09-18-2024 , 08:45 PM
I played 1.5 small sessions a week ago finishing 2nd in some turbo bounty in ggpoker. I just wanted to see where i stand and if my feeling is decent enough to grind regularly. Grind felt ok, love the timezone but the buy ins are very low, it is remaining to see how motivated i will be to put enough off table effort or to remain 100% focus while playing these stakes. My staking deal started yesterday, it will be a lot more helpful to play with someone's else money since i will take everything a lot more serious. Unfortunately, i love Thailand too much to consider moving into a better timezone. I had an interesting hand. Would be a snap call under normal considerations/higher buy ins. Hand is from a pko mtt, 5left



Obviously this is a snap call under normal considerations. Here lies an issue though. VillainCO is super tight. When we were 14left i raise first in the button (20bb) and he flatted bb (12bb) with AJo!!! His vpip until he busted the FT never crossed 22. I assume these people are more inclined to shove even KK in the hand above. BB was semi active and his response should be close to gto. Button on the hand above is kinda fishy, which makes my assumption of co willing to 3bet shove KK more accurate. The best way to analyze this spot from my point of view is the following

1) gto
2) minor adjustment taking into consideration villain (add 25% of strong value, 50% of what else we expect villain would shove this includes hands like AQo AKs etc)
3) strong adjustment taking into consideration villain (add 50% of everything that makes sense a tight profile will 3bet shove including top range trimming bottom range, not AA)
4) super strong adjustment where villain basically has no s3b or flat range and he decides to play push fold with his full range while removing some of the bottom 3bet shoves (like suited BW)

1) gto solution which is completely off for a tight profile



bottom calling range in this spot is QQ+

2) first adjustment



bottom calling range in this spot is QQ+ but losing half of the ev comparing to gto

3) second adjustment



qq is mixing now but remains a high frequency call

4) this is more like a toy game to understand what will happen in gto land if villain(not the specific profile) decides to have only a 3b shove / fold range



against this QQ is mixing but remains a high frequency call

As we can clearly see we dont play poker to fold QQ even if we are facing tighter profiles

the suprising thing about the results
co strategy if is playing push fold avg 17.981
co gto strategy 18.006

the actuall ev loss comparing to pot is 0.62% which is not terrible(assuming a low stake reg). So it is an ok alternative for inexperienced players who dont want to play these s3b strategies. The main issue with people who are implement this push fold strategies? They still decide to do something else with the very top end of their range (AA,KK) which is either flatting or s3b, as a result the actual strategy is losing significantly more than 0.62%

1.5session results



https://www.twitch.tv/danielpetersenpoker this guy is having more than 500$ abi, streaming every day during series except Friday. Definitely recommend watching

Completely dropping spins now, need to focus on mtts. 60cev+ was very low for my standard and i dont want to make a living in a boring format which has a very low ceiling. Grind volume will be limited the next few weeks, i have never grinded in more than 2 platforms and i need to setup everything starting with Acr and setting up jurojin. Target is to have everything ready within 2 weeks, grinding in 6-7 different platforms while keep a high off table work ethic

Goals for the next 2 weeks

1) 6 grinding sessions and setup jurojin or stack n tile
2) 2 hours of postflop theory + adjustments work every day, gto wizard's ai is the stone cold nuts, i had a lot of fun playing with it
3) 30-60 mins creating my hud in h2n
4) 1 hr preflop theory + adjustments
5) 1 hr video, most likely fts even though i have never considered this studying, can get good ideas on what i want to do

Weather in South Thailand is absolutely insane at the moment and i ****ing loving it. A lot of rain and fog, it is like we live in a movie



Nothing and Everything Quote
09-19-2024 , 03:50 AM
Omfg i am dying, i open twittter propably once a month but never fails to dissapoint me

Nothing and Everything Quote

      
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