Monthly Review

August Goals:
1. Have two hour study sessions/two 1-hour sessions on Tuesday and Saturday. 25% HH Review and 75% Theory. HH review is almost a daily thing for me now so no need to incorporate too much time to it on study days unless I start playing terribly.
2. KEEP your 100% focus up!
3. Weekly updates to keep myself mindful of how I am performing, and readjust accordingly.
4. Quickly read through notes before each session 10-15 minutes
5. Have a profit month!

It's obvious that I didn't meet one of my August goals since I haven't posted all month. Pretty bad month overall due to my move to Thailand and getting settled in with schedule and such. I was running well in spin n gos, then went on a horrible downswing, now I'm just starting the upswing in spins again -- the variance in these games are a bitch. I've been grinding here and there, but the volume for this month is laughable. Although, I still make time to spend some minutes going over HH and reading some theory material. That said, I was able to surprisingly turn in a small profit for the month!

Goal Progress: $3450.72 / $10,000

Thailand has been pretty nice so far. I live about 25 minutes outside of the heart of Bangkok, but the traffic here is terrible and it makes the trip turn into about an hour drive which doesn't ever seem appealing after all day being in the lab. Usually just want to unwind and get some grind in.

The food is cheap, and great. I've only had to blow it up in the restroom twice this month -- I was expecting a lot more stomach aches, etc. On average, I spend about $1.30 USD on lunch at the university. Cab rides cost around $4 one-way, and if we want to eat out, it's usually around $6-7. Been to Khaosan Road, Grand Palace, Pattaya, Koh Larn, Future Park (mall), Chatuchak (JJ market), and some other random places. Still trying to hit up Ayyuthaya (ancient city), some floating markets, and need to go into Bangkok more to experience the dining there. But again, the traffic makes the drive unappealing, and if we want to go sight seeing, the heat/humidity here is unbearable during the daytime. Makes the adventure pretty much unpleasant -- so got to plan to go either during the early morning or early evening time, but even then it's hot.

I'm still splitting my playing time between Bovada and WPN. A little over half of my roll is on Bovada and I am contemplating what to do since they are doing the switch over to Ignition. Just not sure how the traffic is going to be there and I've been mixing in NL25, NL50, and NL100 when the games are sweet.

/rant Finished a session just now and was going really well, winding down the session at NL100 when I ran a flopped straight with QJhh on BTN 3b pot vs CO on a 89Tdd board, CO donked 1/4psb on a 6 turn and obv shove. River 8 for spiked quads. He just took a tilting line, and I got mad that it was a 250bb pot that made it an overall losing session. /endrant

Anyway, got to adjust my goals for September. Still got a full school schedule, commute to account for, and traveling/adventure times to factor in as well. I definitely want to put in more volume, and these past few days we've definitely seen an increase in that regard. But here goes:

September Goals:

1. 100% focused sessions, at least one session a day on playing days (at least 5 playing days a week).
2. Dedicate more time to theory studying - I feel this is what helps me the most in improving. Due to limited time, at least one study day per week.
3. Quick HH review of largest pots won/loss, or trouble-spots daily.
4. Meditation - I've been finding myself to have more tilted sessions this month, probably due to a lack of flow and decreased volume -- not really in the zone. Restart meditating everyday, even on non-playing days to keep a clear, balanced mind.
5. Post quick updates every weekend with one sentence summarizing the progress of each goal - this should help my tilt, too.

The first week of September is done and this is the most volume I have put in so far while in Thailand. I feel like I got a good routine now and finally ‘settled in.’ There’s something about the grind station you’re at, and you definitely need to have the right environment for you for optimal conditions to play. It took me a while to find that here, and it sucks because I’ll be out of here in 3 weeks already. Heading to Vietnam and Korea after for 2 weeks, where I doubt I will get much grindtime (if any) in, and then back to California until the end of the year.

I’ve been mixing in spins and cash games together. Looking at my results I am currently in a $650+ downswing in spins, while I previously had a $1k+ upswing. Been finding that I haven’t been putting 100% focus in those games, and with the variance already being super swingy there, I feel that I should start just playing all cash games, or all spins, depending on the session – no more mixing both games together. My mindset isn’t at the right place at the moment to do that, hopefully my results will start turning around in that area. Also, been trying to make the full transition to 50nl... Kinda hard when you're losing all of your flips have been at the stakes you're attempting to shot take at, instead of the stakes you're used to. Maybe it's a test


Here are some trouble/fun hands that I’ve had in the past week, hope someone reading enjoys and can comment on my thought process/analysis:

@50nl, all these villains are pretty much unknown. Took this guys raise as some kind of combo draw.. I didn't totally rule out 22/66 yet since I'm moving up and he was unknown, but it was def still a possibility. The 6 turn kind of made me call it off -- he def doesn't have 66, so his only set combo is 22 and in-game I was thinking he was overplaying a weaker Tx or combo draw.



Vs same villain, same position, same hand for him, and move. I said his hand out loud before I called too, lol. Can a guy get a little bit up run-good when trying to move up?!



Perfect river card for V



Week 1 of Sept results
Bovada: +$217.57
WPN 25nl: +$110.14 @ 4568 hands
WPN 50nl: -$118.03 @ 316 hands (running $190 below EV!)
WPN overall: -$7.89
Overall: +$209.68

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Thanks for stopping in!

Goal Progress: $3491.74 / $10,000

It's my understanding that WPN 50nl is a tough game. GL

Hey man, thanks for stopping in. From my experience so far, the fish to reg ratio is about the same; however, there were noticeably less than a handful of regs who were intentionally putting me in some tough spots... if that makes any sense. It was fun, but I feel like I can hang.

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Yesterday I experienced my first real, real tilt session in a while. I was grinding a BE session for 80% of it, then impatience tilt set in and my red/blue line took a steep decline and had 5 BI lost during the last 20% of the session. It really killed my net profit for the month, but we are still somewhat up for the month.

Really surprised me that tilt got me that hard since it hasn't really affected me in a while, but I think it is a combination of having a steep downswing in spins, and just the BE session in general when I feel like I was playing fairly well with no profit to show for it up until the tipping point.

Speaking of spins, I have been doing a lot of research on the downswing since it has been taking a toll on my mindset. I found a nice program here (SwongSim) on 2+2 that calculates the variance in these things, and it turns out the 60-70 BI downswing I am experiencing, it turns out that 50-70% of the population that has my chipEV (73cEV/tourney) will experience this. The sim also calculates my expected ROI to be 7.64%, which is pretty good along with my cEV according to my resource who specializes in this. I'm expected to be winning about 38% of the spins I've been playing, and over the past month (250 games or so) I have only been winning 33% of them. Small sample, I know; but poker isn't a full-time thing for me so it heavily weighs on my mind. The good part about this downswing is that it made me study a lot more; study specific V, preflop hand selection, postflop mistakes, and then I am going to dive in further and analyze what stats would be most beneficial in these games to update my HUD.

Aside from the tilt session yesterday, I've observed that meditation has helped me immensely the past week. When I get in as a 75/25 favorite and lose, I haven't been lashing out and spouting curse words. Instead, right when the cards are shown I tell myself "I got it in good, we're dominating him and if we lose, it is not your fault -- just let it be and move on." Cheesy, corny, whatever you want to call it; it helps.

Need to reestablish my 100% focus sessions, I think it'll help with the tilt if I have that goal to always go back to if I am on the verge of losing it.

Thanks for reading!

A couple of interesting hands:

Spoke to my study group about this hand, they say I should be calling vs population. Vs a 4x against my pot river bet though, in-game I told myself this is almost always a b/f, given that V raised it so big I decided to lay it down. I guess fish do, do crazy things here -- a fold would def be more applicable vs regs. This V was unknown.



Teeheehee...



Results of the past week, and overall progress:

Sept Week 2
WPN Cash: +$41.60 @ 6556 hands (25nl/50nl)
WPN Jackpots: -$210
Bovada:+$134.87 @ ~1.5k hands (50nl/100nl)
Week 2 Summary: -$33.53

Overall: $3458.21 / $10,000

Back from my vacation and hiatus -- going to keep this short and sweet.

Thailand, Vietnam, and Korea were all fun. I would recommend Thailand or Vietnam just for the affordability of everything there. Thailand if you're looking to party and find girls.

Came back mid-Oct. Played for two weeks upwards of 35k hands on regular tables with okay-ish results. Ran bad, ran hot, than ran really bad in one day (mental leak, prob).

Starting my rotation next week, so I don't have the full day to grind anymore; I will be happy if I end the month with 30k hands.

Via the graph ran really bad yesterday, so just spending today studying to see where I went wrong and improve my overall game from the last 35k hands (database/HH review, theory, and mental game).


$1576.61 + $540 + $1549.03 + $40

Overall progress: $3705.64 / $10,000

Gzgz!
What is 25NL on ACR compared to stars?

Still a solid graph!

Thanks bro!

I have some friends who play 25nl stars. I think Stars has more fish from some of the HH I've seen, but think the regs there are a little tougher. ACR is mostly reg heavy -- don't think it gets enough credit because it's an American site, it's assumed much softer.

After a relatively solid showing coming back in October, November was really brutal for me -- my worst month yet.

Felt like I kept on running into villain's top range. That said, it did lead to bad call downs and frustration in most of my sessions. A lot of spots that were obv folds turned into to spews where I was playing range vs range, but at said stakes it shouldn't matter too much. I played a handful of A-game sessions, some B-game sessions, but the majority of them were C-games.

During my C-games, my redline noticeably dropped a lot. And during my A-games, it stayed relatively neutral while my blue line was increasing, and for my B-games somewhere in between. I know I have it in me, my thought process is in line with some 50nl/100nl zoom regs on Stars that I study with, so let's stop hindering ourselves and stay consistently solid, eh?

I did focus a lot on volume this past month, so that might have been a factor as well.

Two things I want to focus on this month:
1) Fold river more
2) Think about how much equity my hand has vs their ranges on every decision

Embarrassing graph, but it must be done. Got to stay humble and motivate to improve mental game:



Progress:
Overall progress: 3610.44 / $10,000