What a battle in fighting in the On-Line poker arena. I admire your devotion and looked through there. I watched some professionals who have 100k downswings in the past 8 months in just one 'location' they play. Others that that won 20k in MTTs and punted it off.

Watched this one kid I have been a fan for over a year went from 200 NLz games to winning 600k in an MTT! Another pro who relies on his poker winnings to live is down about 7k for the year so far and is a bit concerned if that continues!

I hear the rake on GG makes it very difficult in the limits you're playing to earn anything unless you're unreal and it wouldn't be advisable to grind cash there. Though take that with a grain of salt.

I have found certain poker populations run a certain way. On one site they are running 15/13 VPIP PFR and on another 27/18. You never know what you're biting into and you have to adapt to the tendencies. I think it's hard to win now without being a Cyborg. Unless you're playing live or on the right site.

(this is a subjective view with my own opinion, luck is heavily involved in poker, especially if you're taking MTT shots or looking for a big break early...these days there are less shots like that and the grinder game to me seems locked down by the 'younger crowd' who can endure the breakneck study sessions to become virtual Machines as much as the human brain can be one)

P.S. 2 plus 2 has a place but I'd try RunitOnce or BBZ or something like that(being a nit at your stakes isn't bad I hear protect you from the Rake since it's near unbeatable anyways at that rake) When one of these HUNGRY young pros makes a questionable decision I don't think they sit there on it. They run it through PIO Solver/Ruse/GTOw and or through a dozen professional buddies(support team) till they understand what went on, what they could of done, didn't do...will do next!

Thanks mate.
Variance is rough and I am still baffled every time I have a somewhat larger stretch of a downswing.
But it's considered normal and somewhen I will get used to it hopefully. ^^

The rake makes it very difficult, that's true.
I think the PVI factor is even worse because if you would get the promised 50%+ and then with leaderboard plays, flipout and bbj you would end up somewhere 60%+ in rakeback and then it would actually be ok.
Now most of my winning still go directly to the provider and I am aware of it.
I try to improve as fast as possible and move up in stakes quickly but still with rational thoughts behind it.
The higher limits have lower percentage rake and there are also less people playing so playing on other sites becomes possible again as well since you will have traffic problems anyway.

So while it looks a bit dark at the moment I think I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. ^^

Week 11 (16th - 23th):


This week again the downswing continued.
We are now 3 weeks into a larger downswing and this sucks of course but it's part of the journey and unavoidable.


NL100 results:





No break here just keep downswinging.
Also not really anything noteworthy.

NL200 results:







NL50 RC results:







We now are in the green for this stake overall which was the goal and end point of this stake.
So from now on we only play NL100 RC.


NL100 RC results:





Not really the warm welcome I was hoping for in this new stake. ^^
Just cooler after cooler. But things will turn around, I am quiet comfortable about it.
The difference to NL50 RC is visible but not that drastic that it would be unbeatable.


This week we ran on EV, just EV being down 2k for GG because of bad setups.
I also played some NL100 regular on a different site and am down 500$ there as well.
So for the week we are stuck 2.5k in EV and true value.


Feelings: This downswing sucks and for sure is the worst downswing just looking at the discrepancy between expected and true results.
Considering raw money I had bigger ones.
Even though I did educated myself about the intensity and length of downswings I still am baffled every time it happens because it feels so endless and like you are the worst player ever.

Best I can do is focus on my plays and play as good as possible every single session.
And that's what I will do.

There now still is one week to go for this month and we will try to make it the best week possible.
We won't reach our monthly money goals.
They were 6k in the green and our EV is about -6k. So basically impossible to catch up in this short period of time.

Let's see and hope for the best.

Greetings

Tryagain

Watch a few downswings by pros lately. Some juicers for others. One guy went down 10 BIs and up 10 BIs today in 200 NLz, watched it in 1 hour. Another turned around a 4k downswing in 6 days, helped to 2nd place an MTT.

The one pro who took a huge swing up and down said, "don't worry about the swings just play..."

I hope you succeed ... poker is tough in 2023

Good luck with the project!

Thanks you two, I will try my hardest.

I'm going to put around 100k hands at NL100 rush and might also do 100k hands at NL200 rush. I show you graph after I'm done. NL100 rush my skill level now compared to when I tried it in March (3bb/100) I think I can hold my own much better now so I be interested to see. NL200 rush graph I don't expect much since the pool is small so I probably will aim for 1-2 bb/100 win rate there...

Anyways good luck on your project.

I grind higher stakes now and PLO so I don't have much time for rush but I still like putting in hands when I am free.

Also the rake is beatable I have beaten it on NL50 and NL100, havent done over 100k hands on NL200 yet but will analyze after I do...

Poker is tough, no question about that. Credit to you for admitting this to yourself. I would pay loads of attention to game selection. Keep studying, keep playing and focussing on your game, remember a huge part is the mental part and nobody plays as well when they are losing compared to when they are winning.

Good luck.

Subbed. Gl, be interesting to follow this.

We all get heaters, the key is what you said here, "nobody plays as well when they are losing compared to when they are winning"

If you reduce your punting, tilts and bad plays to 75%-85% you probably are a winning player without GTO and without Exploit Poker, Just ABC. Nobody is perfect and if they say they are they're full of poo.

Week 12 (24th - 31st Aug):

The final week of this month did its best to fit into the rest of it.
In this case it's the fourth bad week in a row which completes a month in the red.


NL100:





Things start to normalize here.
We try to keep this newly built momentum to start through in September.



NL200:





Sample size too small. I did not really go my way and I am also a bit concerned about the red line dropping this hard.
For the next sessions again, aggression will be key.


NL100 RC:





Thought I get the hang of it and then kept losing the next 5k hands.
Still a long way to go here.


It's rough when things don't go your way and keep going not your way.
But it's ok.
We grabbed some new motivation for September and go for a great next month.

Monthly overview:





Monetary results:

Overall I lost 2.83k on GG while EV is actually -4.15k. (90% of the monthly volume)
I lost another 2.75k on other plattforms and EV is actually -2.94k. (10% of the monthly volume and similar stakes)

We got 3450$ as rakeback (+ Leaderboard + Flipout).

So in total we are down about 2.13k and in EV about -3.64k.


Timetable for the last 3 months:
Green is +50$ and above, yellow means between -50$ and 50$ and orange therefore means -50$ and below




This month we had 16 losing days and only 10 winning days.
On top we had many days where we lost about 1k but there was not a single day where I did win 1k this month.


We want to have it the other way around next month!

Working with a new coach that is an expert in online high stakes cash games we found some leaks in my games and also lack of experience in certain scenarios.
It also turns out that I started to become a station in big pots which now gets closer attention.
I'm optimistic that I can improve a lot during the next weeks and hopefully the results will confirm this.


Recap goals for August 2023:
- play 30k hands NL200 (Aug. first two weeks will be NL100 and NL200 50:50) Not achieved, mainly because since NL100 went so badly I did focus more on this than NL200.
- Get green over all dates on GG for NL100 and also in EV. Currently about 2000$ in the red and EV is about 1200$ in the red. Well, we are farther away now, so not achieved at all. (takeover for September)
- Finish the course I started during the last week of July. About 20h material left --> About 25-30h in study time. Achieved
- Session rating above 7 in average Achieved and really proud about this. Playing solid during hard times is always difficult.
- Deep review of interesting hands for 10h (takeover from July) Achieved, together with the studying material.
- Overall net winning target is about 6k$ for August. (If online alone then great, but also ok if I carry over live results) Obviously not achieved. Takeover for September.


Goals for September 2023:
- play 50k hands regular tables, mainly NL100 (maybe 2:1).
- Play 25k hands NL100RC.
- Get NL100 green for all dates. (Currently -3500 true value and -3200 in EV, so a tough one)
- Session rating above 7 in average.
- GTOW drills for frequent spots for at least 10 hours. BTN vs BB, SB vs BB, Two tone boards, straight boards, A high boards and K high boards.
- Review all hands with GTOW from the previous day with an impact above 5bb that shows an EV error >1EV. (takes about 15-30 minutes per day)
- Overall net winning target is again 6k for this month.

Week 13 (1st - 7th Sep):


We did not start very well into September. NL100 and NL100 RC kept plummeting.
Still mostly variance although we did find some leaks in my game where I can save some money as well as exploit a bit more specific preflop.

Overview:






NL100 results:




It's really hard to win a pot atm. Red and mostly blue line tanks hard.

If both lines are below the zero line it's a good indicator of bad variance.


Taking a look at the overall graph for NL100 since first of June (when I started posting results here)


We could say that since hand nr. 130k we are in a downsing, so roughly 45k hands so far.

We assume a winrate of about 2bb/100 (this is after rake but before rakeback, so basically what the graph shows).
Using primedop we get the following table.



We lost 3000BB during 45k hands. So the severity is marked with 40% while the length is marked with about 55% likelihood to happen.
So as bad as it looks it's completely standard from a statistical point of view.

Therefor so far nothing to worry about. Just keep improving and play you A game the most often you can.


NL100 RC results:



The blue line looks much better in this graph which indicates that I am running better than in NL100. Still the results are pretty bad.
So it really seems that the games are a lot tougher than the regular NL100 tables. (not really unexpected)
We found some stuff to improve and are implementing them.
I also work on my precision to really take into account vs who I actually play preflop, who sits in the BB for a possible loose steal etc.
Taking the little things more into account should accumulate and lead to much better results.
I think I was a losing player in this game until the recent days. (not as losing as the graph shows but losing nonetheless)
So we keep studying and improving until we can turn this graph around.


Not enough hands to study NL200 in any meaningful way.

I think this week I will have a bit more time to play and bring in the volume.
Currently I have so much stuff I could study on that will help improving that I also want to study more than usual.

Let's see.^^

Greetings
Tryagain

Subbed, your mind is so strong and I see a lot of confidence in there. GL

tryagain_

Might I suggest for you something. Galfond said that searching for insight from people is invaluable to being a successful poker player. I would come over to the Twitch Community. JW, LandonTice, Xervean, Sp1ros and a few others all play cash games. Sp1ros I believe is doing a 100 NL challenge right now. Few others I know like Scrimitzu do a little lower than you but Xervean regularly does 200 NL/sometimes 500 NL and is a 6BBs per 100 Winner. Brandon Sligh is also a cash game grinder and does 200 NL and as high as 500 NL on stream.

Some of these people are invaluable to watch and there are more midstakes cash game players there. Some high stakes but most of that is MTTs. I have found so many leaks, basics, issues with my game talking with some of these grinders/pros/recs(not too many recs but you can find them or learning players) that I could never pay for it.

I didn't even know that risking more than 1% of your Bankroll is spelling disaster at any given BI in Cash. That may sound nitty but that's from Upswing as well as people I see that have never gone broke in Cash.

Join a community, post your HH and learn directly on the spot. Discord and this type of place offers live action/interactions often which 2 + 2 doesn't really do quite as well in my opinion. When I post a graph/message/issue there I get an on the spot answer I can interact with several people. Sure lots of chatpros but some of them are not. A vast majority of the better players moved to such Mediums ages ago. Not to say 2 + 2 doesn't have people but I feel this is a slower less up to date medium.

Of course some are selling stuff on there but you don't have to buy! No pressure and lots of PEOPLE LIVE!

P.S. If you dig around Youtube there are so many people that have posted their insights too in exactly the games you're attempting to crush you spend a year on there and never get through them all. Some Crushed, Some Faded, some are still crushing and all levels. Some do in deep analysis and some do not. Some are Exploit/Some GTO/Some Mix and some just ABC. . . Wonderful material

Thanks mate, appreciate your input.
Maybe I take a closer look at these channels at some point.
Currently I have my feedback loop with coaches, GTOW and learning material (payed for) that I am currently working on.
So far I still have more material to cover than I currently can handle, so it will keep me busy for some time first.

Great, hope you love it. Poker is about love for the game.

Week 14 (8th - 15th Sep):

This week mirrored the first week of September.
Fascinating that NL100 still is plummeting hard.
Volume is a bit low, lots of stuff going on this week and also focused more onto studying as well.
This upcoming week should be better in terms of volume.
Since NL100 runs so bad atm we keep this as main volume.

Overview:







NL100:






I did read "The mental game of poker Vol.1" again during the last two weeks which helps me staying sane during this phase.
It's different reading about extended downswings and actually experiencing one.
So I can take this as a great learning experience where I have to grow mentally.

Still analysing my hands with GTOW. The amount of errors as well as the serverity dropped over the last two weeks which is a great sign for my gameplay.

So lets grind some more and hope that the following week will be green again.

Greetings
Tryagain

Week 15 (16th - 23th Sep):


Broken record here. ^^
This week mirror the 6 before, no real change yet.
I decreased the amount of tables at once time from 8-12 to 4-6 regular speed tables.
Reason being that maybe the performance drop is significant and especially more significant than I thought.
This change of mind largely comes from various feedback from more experienced players than I am.
So far the results don't really show any change.

I decided to stop playing fast tables. Results are bad and this very consistently.
While I don't think I am losing vs pool I am also not sure if I am even good enough to cover the rake if getting my fair share of good/bad run.
So then it's a bit pointless and I again focus fully on playing regular speed tables.

We also focus even more on game selection. This in combination with less tables should increase my winrate and therefore also flatten out bad run a bit more.
Next to it I now also play on various sites depending on good games that are running.
So GG will likely drop in volume even more at times.

I did a lot of mental study this week which helped a lot to stay focused and calm during this considerably long downswing. (7 weeks now)
Still going through all hands with GTOW that show mistakes greater than -1EV loss. I widened the importing filter to VPIP instead of 5bb impact.
This way it catches some more stuff that previously was overlooked.
Progress is still visible, doing less mistakes overall and less severe mistakes as well.

So everything points towards a positive future, now only results have to catch up.^^



Overview:






NL100:






We most likely will miss the monetary goal hard. That's ok. It's only there for a reason of pursuit.
Also most likely we will miss the volume goal. One reason is that this month I did study more compared to previous months and therefore had less time to grind.
Now additionally I play less tables and game select more which leads to lower volume as well. That's ok. If we can significantly increase quality this is worth while.
For next month I will think about different goals that are more important than just volume and money.


Let's see and hope for a great last week of September.

Greetings
Tryagain

Fast Tables are so much more entertaining than snail tables but everyone I talk to says only play Reg Tables if Profit is your primary concern. So you're 100% right here.

You're playing way too many tables. . . Your BBs per 100 go down the more you play! That's a known fact cause you can't see little things here or there. Better to profit some on 2-4 tables. You're also very right here.

The fact you're running your hands through GTOW I think is questionably. I see a lot of people run hands through it and are not profitable in lower stakes. How many of your opponents are really utilizing that tool to any extent or understand how to implement it, in the context of lower stakes poker?

I tried some 200 NL on-line, lordy what a crapfest(I sort of stepped out of it when I ran hot/cold and realized they play worse than 5 NL). I watched some 200 NL Fast run by a professional Red Line Warrior. He managed about 1-3 BBs per 100 on 4 Tables but the guy was trained by professionals and well trained on his own. It took him over a month to finally bring his EV and Green Line up to winning.

You are on a major downswing. You're investing a lot into your poker. You're very serious!

I would consider a coach. I think 'the right one' could be instrumental and affordable and show immediate results as you know what your doing already to a point.

Week 16 (24th - 30th Sep):


The last week of September turned out to be a continuation of the previous weeks.
No changes yet.
I did implement some stuff which is why I again played some fast tables.
It seemed to work out at the start but changed back to usual rather quickly.
Further discussions below.


Results for the week:






Overview for the month:





A month to forget.

Overview since start of the thread (June 1st 2023).






Maybe you can spot where the button switched. ^^


We are now 100k hands and about 80 buy ins deep into the downswing.
Pretty disgusting.
I face some mental challenges as well during this time.
I do get coached from mental coaches and technical coaches, so I should be fine.
This way I have a guideline and people to talk with.


This month I did focus a bit more on studying. The main reason is that I've got new material to study and also found a lot of stuff to improve.
I am not done yet and probably need another month or two to fully go through it all and apply it as well.


Timetable for the month (previous months are visible as well for comparison).



Monetary results:

My C won is -7483$ with an all-in adj. of -6685$.
I did get back 3552$ in form of rakeback, leaderboard, flipout and BBJ.
So net results:
-3931$ and all in adjusted -3133$.

Seems big but for the actual graph I created it's ok.




Goals:

Goals for September 2023:
- play 50k hands regular tables, mainly NL100 (maybe 2:1). ( I did not achieve this. Partly because I took more time to study and partly because I decreased the amount of tables I play at a time)
- Play 25k hands NL100RC. (Did achieve this.)
- Get NL100 green for all dates. (Currently -3500 true value and -3200 in EV, so a tough one) (Yeah well, that did not work out at all. ^^)
- Session rating above 7 in average. (Achieved this. Still no major tilting going on. I had one rough session where I felt really angry and stopped playing. That's it.)
- GTOW drills for frequent spots for at least 10 hours. BTN vs BB, SB vs BB, Two tone boards, straight boards, A high boards and K high boards. (I did not fully achieve this. Maybe about 5h instead of 10h. I will try to study more with GTOW during Oct.)
- Review all hands with GTOW from the previous day with an impact above 5bb that shows an EV error >1EV. (takes about 15-30 minutes per day) (I did do this. The trend is really positive. According to GTOW I make less and less mistakes in EV overall. There are new upcoming ones due to exploits but that's ok.)
- Overall net winning target is again 6k for this month. (Well, maybe next month))



Now for the new month I don't want to have volume goals anymore.
Winrate is the new focus and volume comes second.

Goals for October 2023:
- Focus above 7 in average during a session. (1-10, new stat I track in Excel)
- Technical application above 7 in average during a session. (Previously called session rating)
- Study 8h technical stuff per week (GTOW drills, study material, range construction, preflop charts, Pio study etc.)
- Study 2h mental stuff per week (How can I increase my focus, How can I perform better, How to deal with variance, How to deal with my emotions, Study videos as well)
- Stick to better table selection for regular tables.
- Keep your daily morning routine (stretching and meditation 20-30min in total)
- Keep working out twice per week. (Currently a bit a hustle because of my knee injury. So I will list it as a goal since it will be a challenge for me when I can't do the sport I usually do)
- Take two days off this month
- Check monetary results only at the end of the week. (The focus has to be playing your A game consistently. Checking results is only a threat to that.)
- Net winning target for this month is 5k$.

looking forward to week 17

80 buyins is not a downswing. I would take a long break from playing more than 1-2 tables at a time to really combined with a ton of studying to really work on your game. This isn’t just run bad. This is indicative of extreme leaks in your game. Perhaps posting some hands to get feedback would help.

Best of luck.

I did not play that much on GG the last two weeks and will do a monthly recap at the end of the month.
Additionally I take more time off atm.
Next to it I probably will not play that much for the next 4 weeks (compared to before) because of happy personal circumstances.

But happy that you are checking my blog.

Thanks mate, appreciate your advice.
I am currently taking off some more time than previously.
Also playing less tables than I used to, better table select, study a ton, drill spots and check HH with my coach and work on my mental leaks with a mental coach.

This blog will not contain any HH's. There are already enough other blogs that contain HH's.
The purpose of this blog is not to discuss strategy or HH's but to give an impressions how things can go if you decide to turn pro. Just to give some insights, nothing more or less.

It's your right to believe that 80 buy ins cannot come from just running bad. I have no interest in convincing you otherwise.