26/02/20 Session

Came back the next day to win it

Considering i was shortstack for entire FT, it was quite sweet to finish 2nd.

Feels really good to finally get some good results in! I've mentioned it enough but i feel like variance has been pretty brutal to me so far this year, so its really nice to have days like this. Sometimes i don't know if i'm legitimately running bad or if im just being delusional and not as good as i think i am, but i'm overall pretty confident and i think my process is good, and i do feel like i'm doing a lot to improve and play better. Also i just need to remind myself more that it only takes running good in 1 tourney to save a day/week/month/year.

Tomorrow i already decided that i'm not grinding any MTTs on stars/party. Going to experiment playing only on the softer sites, but it will also include some higher buyin games, so i think its possible that my ABI will be nearly double what it usually is, but the fields are a lot smaller and softer, plus my table count will be lower so i can really focus on the games i am playing, so i'm excited to see how it goes.

2 fun hands
Probably the most outrageous hands i've played this year so far both on the same day. 1 i get bluffcaught by a worse hand, then i bluffcatch with the worst hand.

I wasn't too sure about bluffing river, our blockers are really sick though when we block KQ/98, seems like one of our best bluffs, however does kind of suck to block like K9 which should be one of villains snapfolds. Can also put some Tx in a really tough spot on river. But yeah pretty sick hero from villain

This one i actually think is quite interesting. So i think it starts ~28bbs deep, BUvsSB.
This x/r on flop i think is so bullshit, i initially wanted to jam over it but i realised that i just have showdown. Like when we construct villains range he should 3bj a lot of his PPs pre, so on this board i have an insane equity, especially since i have a lot more 4x compared to SB (i have A4s/K4s/Q4s/54s/j4s maybe). We should probably just size up cbet to 1/2 pot+, but in game i thought he'd overfold like KQ and stuff to 1/3 so i went 1/3.
Turn i was thinking i could just stab tiny since i still have a lot of overpairs in my range and he will probably just fold a lot, but i decided to check.
River is where things get a bit spicy. I think villain can definitely have Jx that he turned after x/r then just checked to pot control, but i felt like these might size a little bit bigger. I also thought he might size smaller with some PPs that didn't jam pre, so i didn't feel like this size repped much. I was worried that he could make this play with A9/A8, but he can have so many other bluffs that we beat, and his A highs should just be calling flop, but i guess i got rekt


Anyways i'm really looking forward to tomorrows session. I have a bunch of ICM spots that i want to run but i'll do that probably as a warm up tomorrow, alongside some chipev preflop spots and bounty calculations.

27/02/20 Session
So no stars/party was interesting.


Got these 2 4th places. Also finished 7th in a smaller tourney as well but i can't find the lobby. Had a few F2T as well, so not a bad session overall in terms of results.

I guess the main reason i did this kind of grind today was because i wanted to properly experiment and play the ipoker+microgaming schedules as i heard they are so soft, and with microgaming i didn't feel comfy playing high buyin stuff whilst playing so many tables. So i guess i'll give some slightly more indepth views on the 2 sites.
iPoker - betfair skin - Definitely prefer this site of the 2. From 4pm-7pm GMT it has 1 decent tourney per hour, then 7pm-8pm it has like 4 decent tourneys, but i usually can't play these as i wont prioritise them over stars/party tourneys. But it really dries up after 8pm. I actually don't mind the table software too much in terms of layout, its quite clean, only issue is theres a pretty annoying bug where if you try to move the table it sometimes glitches out and you completely lose the table, and you have to restart the entire client to fix it. Another weird thing is when you get auto sat out as soon as your timebank hits 1 second, should be 0 imo. 1 good thing though is it has a very in-your-face pop up when you time-out offering you to sit back in right away. Overall i like this site though, nice small soft fields, good for reducing variance.
Microgaming - Grosvenor skin - Unfortunately i still really dislike playing on this site. Although i understand its insanely soft i have a couple of gameplay related issues. Firstly the table layouts, 'classic' is most similar to normal ones, but whilst multi tabling i can barely see the table when i have 12 tables on 1 screen, and because the sound is very quiet i often miss my action and end up sitting out and missing 50% of hands. So i get forced to play on 'fun' table layout, which is actually quite clean but the aspect ratio is fked, similar to unibet its super wide and i can't adjust it to make it more narrow. Also it will say its $11 buy in, but you basically have to rebuy at the start, and then do an add on for best chance to win, so its really a $33 buyin, and the $22 mosh pit is actually a $66 buyin. But similar to ipoker the fields are small and insanely soft. If i could find a decent custom table skin to use on microgaming to actually make it playable then i think it would be worth playing.

Overall i really didn't enjoy this grind, having to play on 888/microgaming/ipoker/skypoker simultaneously when they all have not very good table software really adds up. None of the sites particularly stand out and grab your attention, which means when you have quite a lot of tables its very easy to miss your action, which results in losing entire timebank, then eventually auto sitting out and missing even more hands. This caused me to invest most of my focus in ensuring i don't miss any hands instead of being able to focus on the poker decisions. It just became very draining by the end of the session.

I think if players are willing to overcome the terrible software to play on these sites theres a lot of money to be made. I don't know if this is great for future EV though, in the sense that i would think a player who made $50k in a year on stars would be much better than someone who did that on microgaming or ipoker. But like anything its probably just about finding a good mix/balance.

i'm subscribed to this blog, looking forward to what's next for you.
Nice that things are going good again. glgl op kill it this 2020

I like your blog!

Gl crushing 2020!

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G960F met Tapatalk

Thanks lad <3
Hopefully i can make this a redemption year

01/03/20 SUNDAY SESSION
No real big scores, but cashed a lot of my bigger buyins and made a couple deeps runs, so i think i more or less broke even today. Which is always nice.

This was probably my deepest run. Lost a pretty big pot where i flatted AA pre. Was pretty ****ing sad after that hand and didn't properly mentally recover, i was left with 10bbs, and eventually i lost a flip. After sending the hand to a few friends I could've played it a bit differently but overall the result would've been the same.

Sunday variance
I'm defo a #nevermissasunday kind of player. I think its the best day by far, and i always get super excited before grinding on sundays. Usually have longer registration periods. But i'm actually on a pretty big sunday downswing

Starting end of december, downswinging about $13k On sunday the fields are always bigger, so variance increases, and definitely feel like i'm getting a bit stung by it. But i don't think i'll ever lose my enthusiasm for Sundays.

Blog neglect
I made this blog with the intention of having a mix of my poker sweats/scores, a tracking of my progress and my general thoughts usually poker related. Recently though its mainly just been sweats/scores which i don't think is fully the point. I also feel like i'm forcing myself to update the blog which makes me not want to do it. I've also just been quite busy sorting out all this new staking stuff, and studying with a lot of people, plus playing a lot, so updating the blog isn't exactly my top priority.
So i might update the blog a little less frequency (like 1-2 times a week, instead of after every session), but have it be more juicy.


Anyways tomorrow i will probably do a bunch of admin stuff. Including a reflection of the past month, and setting myself goals for the next month. So i'll probably update the blog with all that stuff.

Also been watching/listening to this youtuber a tonne recently https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClH...PEbkNJVx-ItQIQ HealthyGamerGG
I just find it super interesting, and you can tell he's the real deal. A proper qualified psychologist giving answers/advice to modern issues that elder people don't tend to really understand (videogame addiction, social media, porn, etc etc). Also just enjoy his conversations with streamers.
I think there's a lot of content here that can be that can be useful for other parts of life and even poker.

I've just come across this. I'm liking your write-ups so far!

I have to say I wish I got into the softer Euro sites like Unibet earlier, years ago even!

I regret having put in most of my past volume playing in large/huge fields on Stars.

Small typo from last post, sunday downswing started in september, not december

Thanks mate. I guess it depends on what you want. Maxing $EV short term then these soft euro sites are the way to go, like i think you can make like $50k+ a year from these sites as a non exceptional player. But i think if you want to get as good as you possibly can and have a higher ceiling/bigger future EV then grinding stars/party is probably best, but eventually you should look to expand to higher EV spots. Even so i think a mix is the best way to go.

February summary

One of the FTs i made doesn't show up for some reason so i think i made like $200 extra or so Either way results weren't anything special. Mainly because i went on this $1.5k (150-200BI) downswing right in the middle, but recovered it towards the end.

Was definitely a tough month mentally. Before joining the stable i'm with i had to think really hard about whether i wanted to continue on with poker full time like this. Obviously the 4-5 months have been pretty bad for me, and i'm still yet to really recover from that. And obviously when i'm investing like 60-70 hours a week and not really achieving any results, at a certain point i can't just keep blaming variance and i have to question myself, whether this is something i should continue doing, and whether this is something i want to continue doing. I'm 22 and i'm yet to go to university, and i want to go at some point, so i had to seriously consider this as an option as it could solidify my future as well as give me an opportunity to rebuild my roll, as i probably wouldn't completely quit playing. However i eventually decided to continue playing full time, since i'd much rather take the shot now whilst i'm younger and still really motivated to improve and become really good, and i worry that if i went to uni i'd never properly be able to get back into it like i am currently.
Anyways since i've joined a new stable, i'm doing it with the intention of giving it my absolute all, as i really feel like this is my last shot to succeed, so hopefully things can pan out, but i know a lot of that is in my hands.

Goals
Feb

March

I failed a lot of my Feb goals. I set a lot of goals knowing that i wouldn't achieve all of them, so i'm kind of okay with this, they are generally much more specific things that i failed. The one i'm most annoyed about is the exercise one.
The main changes i made for this month revolves around decreasing volume and increasing study, i think this should be a natural shift as you play higher stakes. I still want to be playing 5 days a week, but my registration periods been reduced by about 1-2 hours, plus i'm capping myself at 12 tables since ones i start playing 15-16 tables i can easily get overwhelmed leading to a lot of C-D game being played, and i think at 12 tables i can maintain A-B game, maybe C on a bad day.

Budgeting
I watched a video about saving money when 'poor' (im not poor pls belive me), and one of the things mentioned was budgeting. I've never really kept track of my expenses so would be interesting to see. I always felt like i knew my monthly expenditures roughly and i don't really spend that much money anyway. Here's my first attempt i guess, i didn't look into how to set up a budget sheet, i'm just kind of doing what i think is right. Any advice is appreciated.

Next step i need to make for saving money is learning how to cook properly, as that would help a lot long term and be a lot healthier.

I also created a small study document outlining a bunch of my leaks, as well as a bunch of content that i need/want to watch. Looking to go through and tick as much of that off as i can. Hopefully March can be a sick one!

Fellow mtter here, been following your thread for a while and enjoying your write ups.

For tracking expenses I use an (android) app called 'Money Manager' . Been using it for a couple months and is quite helpful. I just went with this one but there are many more on the play store you can check. I just feel that tracking expenses on the phone is easier as I have it with me all the time so I immediately add everything I buy and don't forget.

glgl

ramabranch +1
I started tracking my expenses like a year ago. I use Spendee.
Find some app you like and stick with it. It is really easier when it is on your phone.

Cheers guys, i'll make sure to check them out!

07/03/20 Session

Got this 3rd place i guess. Made a decent hero call 4 handed for chip lead.

This might be horrible in terms of ICM, but i assumed this spot could get very easily overbluffed.
Flop villain hadn't limped yet even given stack sizes, so i already though this would be a pretty polarised limping range.
Flop and turn i think is fine. On river i felt like villain almost over-polarised. He reps like AA/KK, then maybe some JT+J7, and maybe 98s. Since i think all stronger Jx raises pre, and maybe so does some of the 2p/straights i mentioned. Because of this i think its super easy for him to have loads of bluffs that just triple off, whilst severely lacking value to balance it out (plus i can chop with some Jx i guess).
Anyways i busted 6 hands later, lost b2b all ins, one where opponent made terrible call vs jam 25bbs eff BBvsSB, but a flips a flip

Generally been a pretty quiet past few days, no real FTs, just a bunch of deep runs leading to lots of breakeven sessions. Which given i've spent months just losing most sessions, breaking even is fine by me.

Unscheduled says off
Took an unscheduled day off on Thursday, because i was doing some in-stable HU competition, and i finished at 17:30, which is an hour later than i usually start grinding, so i just ended up not grinding on that day. However this means i've already used up my unscheduled day off for the month.
I actually feel really terrible when i take these random days off, as i usually end up not doing anything with them, i go to bed an i feel really miserable and depressed about it. Makes me feel like i'm not trying hard enough, and i know these days add up and could result to my failure. At the same time i feel like im teetering on the edge of burnout and so i think its okay to have these days sometimes, just to give myself some breathing space when i have such an intense schedule. Since i haven't taken much time off poker since after SCOOP last year where i took a couple weeks off. Its usually a week here or there that i take time off, but haven't done that for like 3 months. I feel like i need to make a decent amount of money before i take some time off, since man needs to live

Music
I'm a big fan of UK music, mainly like drill/grime/uk rap is mainly what i'm listening to at the moment. Here's a little song i've been liking


Anyways big Sunday session tomorrow, i'm really excited for it, wont be playing any partypoker so i can focus on some of the softer sites. Lets see how it goes!

08/03/20 SUNDAY SESSION
Got absolutely ruined, ran like pure garbage, managed to mincash €100 tourney on ipoker to recover some of my losses for the day.

Here's a hand where i snapcalled river (not the €100 tourney ).
Villain was extremely active pre, so expected a bunch of jamming SBvsBB. So when he limps he could maybe have a couple traps but will generally be a bunch of trash, could actually jam pre pretty wide and expect to print.
Flop and turn i think are standard especially since villains lacks Ax (and so do we). River i think this is another one of those spots where it easily can be overbluffed. First off villain really lacks value here, Ax/broadway hands all jam pre. So all he reps are some backdoored flushes and maybe J9/J6, which is very little. As for bluffs i think people will perceive me also not to have Ax so they just triple like crazy (?), and just bluff off all their Qx/Tx and other stuff.
I've also been working on my river call efficiency, since at the moment its really high as i overfold rivers as i think population underbluffs, but a line needs to be drawn, especially since i probably miss too many spots where villains line isnt credible, or its an overbluffed spot, or you just give villain enough rope and have to call sometimes.

After session i was sad AF, since bricking sundays is one of the worst feelings. But i looked into some stuff then did a cooldown with a friend and now i feel much better!

Revenue Streams
Definitely want to look to create more revenue streams for myself. The main one i was recommended to do, and have started looking into is to do with stocks and shares. Specifically opening a stocks and shares ISA account, which i really want to do. I told myself i wanted to have X amount of money before i started investing, but i realised you don't need much to start so why not give it a go.
Also after watching an interesting Jim Rohn speech about financial independence that a friend sent to me, i drew up a quick financial statement that outlines all my assets and liabilities to find out my technical net worth. I wont show the results but i don't have a tonne of assets but also no liabilities (besides monthly bills maybe ???).

I've always had it in mind to start coaching at some point, i think it can be a really nice way to earn some side income. In the past i always thought it was dumb how bad players could charge more for coaching than players better than them would charge, so i wanted to focus on getting really good at the game first. Now i think my poker knowledge is pretty good, and could probably coach for quite cheap, but i think i lack the networking of people, also i lack the results which i think is kind of important when advertising coaching. Even though people say its not all about results, we are insanely results oriented when it comes to judging how good a player is. However i still think i'm a while away from being at a level where i'd feel really comfortable coaching as i still have a lot to learn. But if i did coach i would probably structure it a little differently, where i probably wouldn't do hourly, but more like a package of HH review where i'd analyse it by myself for a few hours, then go into a skype/discord call and go over it with student for 1-2 hours, and charge flat $X fee.

Review/Changes for next week
Anyways the week was pretty quiet, so don't feel it too necessary to do a long review of it, just broke even for the most part. Will be making some changes to my schedule and sites i play on, there's so many potential MTTs i can play, but when i'm capped to 12 tables i often miss a lot of games, so i might take it in turns to play different sites on different days.
Also had this idea of having a day where i play like a morning/early afternoon schedule but on the smaller sites, so all the MTTs are like $200-$1k GTD, for buyins 11-22, with maybe a couple $2k-3k GTDs and just see how it goes. Like i can't imagine that you get any regs in these games, so i imagine they're like giga soft. Not sure if the hourly would be very good though as they're basically SNGs, but i definitely want to look into it.

14/03/20 Session

I actually binked a tourney, what a time to be alive!

Been a pretty quiet week overall though, just been getting slammed in most of my sessions so its nice to get a trophy on the board, especially before a big Sunday tomorrow!

COVID-19 + online poker
So with countries going into lockdown, lots of people getting time off work, and big events getting cancelled, including live poker ones, i'm hoping this is really good time for online poker since with so many people having nothing to do, online poker could hopefully see a big increase in traffic for however long this situation lasts. I might have to grind every day i can. But with economies crashing it might just be the degends who come online, i guess we'll find out.

Since i spend like 95%+ of my time in my bedroom and don't go out much, this whole virus outbreak seems really surreal to me, its almost like i'm watching a movie play out, as i haven't exactly seen it effect my everyday life yet. I find it quite funny just seeing everyone freak out, although i don't know enough about the virus to know if its justified or not. Seems like 50% of people say its super dangerous and the other 50% say the media is exaggerating it.
At least it gets people to stop talking about brexit for 10 minutes, which is nice.


Anyways i'm super pumped for a big sunday session tomorrow, hopefully it goes better than the past few months!

15/03/20 SUNDAY SESSION
Yeah its a couple days late fight me
Pretty whatever session, had a bunch of deep runs but nothing really materialised, this was my best run:

Prizepools were super juicy though as i presumed, and it seems its carried on through the next few days so really want to grind lots.

Review of the week

Pretty much got torched the entire week then scraped together a W towards the end.
Been starting to work on some new things with my stable. Increasing cbet %'s, increasing turn barrel % and more. They do quite a lot of indepth stat analysis when it comes to game selection and play, as well as HH reviews, and although i'm a pretty stubborn ****er when it comes to HH reviews i think the mixture is really good. Also now i'm playing quite a few more smaller field+softer tourneys so hopefully i will be able to start having some profitable months again. Feels like i invest too much time to just get slammed every month, can't just blame variance forever.

Anger, and dealing with it
I've always been an insanely competitive person, and whenever i lose and things don't go my way i get very angry (this is probably more a trigger, there's probably a deeper reason for it). So as a kid when i played tennis, i smashed apart multiple tennis rackets, during my video game days i broke controllers, and as a poker player, i broke a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. I haven't broken anything for a while (over a year) which i'm happy about, but i'm sure my desk will give way soon Although i don't think when i get angry it effects my play, because i just kind of let it out then move on. However i still think its super negative, since releasing my frustrations in this way is kind of unprofessional, but mainly because of the social impact it has, and the impact it has on those around me when i get angry, so if i'm living with people or grinding with people they don't want to hear some guy just raging all the time, its very unpleasant. But for these reasons i've tried to work on it and improve myself over the last year with limited success for an array or reasons, but i can't really blame anyone but myself.

Anyways the other day on Sunday i was woken up by a couple i live with (friends of mine), screaming at eachother upstairs, which isn't the best way to start the day. But it just made me feel so uncomfortable, and awkward, and even anxious, even though i wasn't even close to the argument. And i realised that this is potentially how i make people feel when i get angry, and i felt so bad, and felt so guilty that i'd evoke these kind of emotions in people because i was unable to contain my frustration. So i really do want to work on improving my response to frustration because i don't want to make people around me feel uncomfortable.

I guess i'll add on that these screaming matches are somewhat common, and unfortunately its not as easy as putting on some headphones and putting the volume on max, because when they start slamming doors my whole desk shakes and it makes me feel very uneasy. And on top of it just being annoying whilst i'm grinding, it also brings up these emotions that i said earlier like uncomfortable and anxious, which doesn't really allow me to think straight when i'm grinding and i lose focus, which is kind of -ev. It's just kind of toxic, and it sucks to not feel that comfortable within my own home, and even my own room, and i don't really want to be in this house that much. I don't even really like the new town i've moved to, but i'm still locked into a contract for at least 3 months. Plus with the whole covid-19 situation its just very +EV to grind so i shouldn't really be missing many days so i can't really take a break and go back to my hometown (bristol). Although i am going back to Bristol for a day or 2 this upcoming week, but i might take my entire PC set up and extend that to a week or so, i'm not too sure yet.
I know this last paragraph was a bit of a whine, and i should be more grateful for the position i am in, but that's honestly just how i feel, and i wanted to get it off my chest.

Song
To finish on a better note, heres another song i really like.

More viewed version isnt working properly atm for some reason

Anyways hopefully i can just focus on poker this next week and really take advantage of all the extra fish playing!

22/03/20 sunday session + Week review
Sunday session was really fun, had quite a few deep runs, but nothing properly materialised.
Busted the sunday mil anniversary after like 30 mins.

Villain is a fish and snapjammed, i told myself he could have enough Kx and worse hands that its a pretty fine call. I dont think i can find a fold, even in such a soft tourney.
I probably should've reentered given how soft it is.

I guess sunday has reflected my entire week, lots of deep runs but nothing materialising:

Best 2 scores

Sucked to get 2 outered for chip lead


Can see a lot of deep runs in some bigger fields, i feel its just a matter of time.

I'm actually really really enjoying online poker at the moment. Feels like a sunday everyday, i just have this excitement to want to play. I imagine this is what online poker was pre-black friday. Fun fact i was 13 years old when black friday happened.

Been focusing on some higher buyins too, and decreasing my table count to average out at 9, then peak at 12 for an hour or so, but usually that at the end of my registering period, so then i can just focus on what i've got from there.

I moved back to my hometown of Bristol for a bit, just don't really like it in Cheltenham that much. And with the current situation it seemed like a decent time to move. Now that travel is being banned unless necessary for at least 3 weeks, i might be here for a while which i'm okay with.

Its a great time to grind, and hopefully i can make the most of it, and hopefully things go well!

26/03/20 Session

Finally got a nice W! Had a 4th place in a small field ipoker tourney too and a couple deep runs.

Had this results yesterday too:

Starting to get some deep runs/FTs in slightly bigger events which is encouraging.

Notes/tagging
Always been a big advocate of tagging players based off playstyle as opposed to how much they've made. Really a big hater of the 'good reg' tag, doesn't really mean much imo.
My tags are:

So i usually start by tagging someone either reg or fish, then based off what i see i can then categorise them more specifically if needed.

The last 2 tags are pretty pointless but 1 is a meme, could get rid of the whale one though and change it to station or something. Also wasn't sure whether to have weak reg along side low stakes or tight reg, since i think most tight regs are bad.
Tight siderant: I feel like being tight and bad is such a terrible combo, since you never have a chance to do really well (weakreg or fish). Like at least if you're a massive blaster you have a chance to spin up a really big stack and run deep in a tourney, but when your tight you just pray for nuts and that you cooler someone or get paid off. Like i feel when i see tightfish graph is just goes down without any binks, whereas spazzyfish has a couple.

Poker during covid-19
I can't lie i'm actually really enjoying grinding at the moment. I'm starting to run a lot better, but also i've started playing 9 tables for most of the session, might go up to 12 for an hour or so but no more.
But every tourney just feels so high value considering the current situation and its just so fun to play lots of big tourneys. Like multiple 33-55 100k+ GTD tourneys every day, plus lots of high value softer tourneys on other sites.
Hopefully i can just keep this momentum up and make lots of money, and just power through SCOOP

28/03/20 Session

Was pretty gutted to finish 7th when theres so much up top, but its just how it goes.
I've actually had like 3 really deep runs in this tourney over the past 2 weeks, its super soft, and really fun.

Cooking cooldown
About 5 mins after i busted i cooked myself a meal which took almost an hour, which will also feed me tomorrow during a big sunday session.
Was also nice to just spend an hour away from my PC, away from poker, away from a screen, really helped clear my head. And by the time i finished cooking i was almost over the fact i got 7th, since i was a bit sad when i busted.

I kind of hope i spend more time outside and away from screen when i'm not playing poker, even in these times. Since even on my days off for past few months i just played games, since when i was in cheltenham i didn't really have friends to hang out with, so i just stayed in my room.

Anyways i'm excited for a big sunday session tomorrow, not sure what time i'll be starting but i want to start early, might be a little tough though. I'll see how i feel when i wake up.

Finally an update!
So i'll just start off by apologising for not updating in a while, theres no excuse i've just been pretty lazy, been meaning to update it for quite some time. I forget how many lurkers there are here, and i can't let the boys down by becoming inactive. I guess i'll just do a rundown of some things, update how i am, and talk about some recent issues i've been having.

Also i'm thinking about setting up a discord server where people can just come together and talk about strat and whatnot. Also get some people together to do cooldowns together, as i try to do them after every session, its a really good way of improving! Also people can nudge me when i become inactive again.

March recap

Managed to clutch it at the end of the month, but overall a pretty disappointing month. Went on a small heater at the end with a couple of big FTs, but slightly gutted to finish 7th in that h22 pko with 9k up top.

Started playing less tables, eliminating the lower buyins, which makes me feel like i'm playing better, but still got some way to go.

Also last week (April) i played morning schedule all week, was pretty nice grinding 9-5 and getting the evening to chill. Unfortunately the results weren't too good, but that happens.

Interesting spot

Mainly interested around the turn lead. Seems most people seem to disagree with leading turn with this combo, they would much rather x/c.
My thoughts: Leading turn seems pretty decent when we pick up f/d, can also protect/get value from some worse hands (55-JJ), also allows us to take betting lead as river will often get checked back if flush comes in, and i'd pref to lead turn+bet river than just donk river, plus we have decent chunk of 4x in range so it doesn't look too weird.
The main criticisms:

• UTG bet bigger on flop, so should have a stronger range, when we lead turn we are essentially turning our hand into a semi-bluff.
• Don't allow EP range to bluff it off.
• If we get called and river is a brick, it puts us in a tough spot.
• Would prefer to protect more vulnerable top pairs.

I think the first criticism is the most fair, although i try not to read into cbet sizes around 1/2 pot too much, especially during corona series. 2nd point i dont think 4 turn gets bluffed a tonne, as it does look like a good card for my range, as i have all the 4x, so i expect it to get checked back at quite high frequency. 3rd point, i would happily x/f river, Axd hands might just look for showdown, and tough for villain to find bluffs. 4th point is also pretty fair, but i more just want betting lead going into river more than anything, and i don't want to x/c then donk, or x/r as that can become a real disaster.
I think overall maybe we should just lead smaller to ensure calls from the PPs i mentioned.
River could also size up, but i thought when we block Qx we dont want to go as big.

I actually ran this spot in PIO, and not even PIO really leads much on turn, it does a fair bit when villain cbets larger sizing, but not really when cbet is smaller. Just prefers to go with a more polar range to lead, so stronger Qx/4x and bluffs. Although in PIO IP was barreling turns a lot more aggressively to what i think population is. I dont have the sim saved so this is just what i remember.

Burnout
To be honest i'm just feeling pretty burned out at the moment. I initially wanted to take some time off during April to reset before a big SCOOP grind, but obviously with all the corona stuff i've kind of felt like i should grind since the EV is just so much higher. Unfortunately so far things haven't really gone as well for me as i'd hoped.
When i invest like 50-70h a week over the course of 6 months with essentially no results, or lets say with nothing to show in terms of profits, it can be really demotivating, and its really tough to keep working hard when i don't feel like i'm gaining anything from it. And i can tell that its really starting to affect me, because the losses now feel really bad, a lot worse than in the past, and when it comes time to study i really struggle and tend to just avoid it somewhat which really scares me to be honest. But i just think overall i'm just super burned out, but its literally the worst time to take a break.
My goals in poker + Failure
So my goal in poker when i turned pro was to join bitb and reach the highest stakes online i could. And eventually move on to travel the world and play live/online mix. And to earn $100k+ a year, and use that money to invest/retire with.

So i've achieved some of those things, i joined bitb, when i joined i remember saying that if i ever got kicked i would quit poker. But given the circumstances to which i was kicked i decided to carry on. I technically travelled the world a bit, i lived in Vietnam for like 4 months, and went to a couple other countries last year (Hungary, Germany, France).
But in terms of the most important goals in terms of longevity, which is reaching the highest stakes i can (should be getting as good as i can) and making $100k/year, i'm extremely far away from reaching this goal, and with each day i grind i feel like i'm further and further away from achieving this goal.
In terms of the progress i've made over the last few month i'm extremely unhappy with how its gone, and i don't feel like i'm learning at the rate that i should, and i feel as if my poker career is stagnating. I can only blame variance and running bad so much, but all this is starting to affect the effort i'm putting in, which is the most worrying part.
I think the financial/level goal is the most important for me, i want to have a decent living. I want to make 100k/year by the time i'm 25 (3 years time), otherwise i would rather just quit poker and do something else with my life. And obviously when day-by-day i'm feeling like this is less and less likely, it puts me in a really toxic mindset, since working towards a goal that doesn't feel achievable is really pointless.
I told myself i'd keep grinding hard until after SCOOP, then have a real think about my future options and if i want to continue, but its made very difficult when my thoughts are so negative and defeatist all the time.
And if i am to continue i then either need to change my longer (or even shorter) term goals to something i think is more attainable, or i change my approach, as i think i know how to achieve my goals, but sometimes i doubt whether i am able to execute on what i need to do. I also feel like i've sacrificed a fair bit in terms of my health physically and mentally, and that's probably gone against me. So these are potential things i could change.
Low variance vs high variance schedules
I got into a bit of a disagreement with my backers about this topic, they are heavily encouraging me to move a lot of my schedule to softer+low variance sites like microgaming and ipoker. I actually quite like ipoker, but microgaming's software is pretty bad, and its mentally draining to multi-table on that site, so i avoid it a lot more.
Anyway the main issue i had with playing these sites is that i think its somewhat capped. And when you understand what my long term goals are, of becoming as good as possible and making X amount of money, i don't believe these sites are the most optimal way to achieve that. In terms of improvement they are so soft that you are already crushing every field, everyone just plays pretty bad and even the regs aren't great. And its tough to improve in an environment where you're not really getting pushed to improve, or punished for bad plays. Also in terms of earnings the top earners on micro+ipoker last year made $70k and $32k respectively

Now i compared that to 4 midstakes grinders on stars (3 who i know), to prove a point that potential for earning on start is far higher.

Hopefully they dont mind me using their graphs But even the top guy didn't make as much, but it was a lot more consistent, which was my point.
Obviously there are some very good benefits to lower variance schedules, like actually earning a consistent living, not going through massive swings that can ruin your mental, and leave you feeling super down. Its just a lot better for confidence too as you make consistent FTs, plus no huge downswings.
However if you're playing a soft low variance schedule, getting backed seems really pointless if you never go on a downswing bigger than $2k, since financially a backer is supposed to help you deal with swings. So unless the coaching is top tier, then giving away 50% of your profits seems a bit odd if you're very rarely going to be in makeup. I actually think its a pretty genius business model for the backers.


Anyways as you can tell, i've been in better situations in my career, but i'll just try to keep working hard and hopefully things start going better for me. But i guess i'll have to wait and see. I'm looking forward to Sunday session tomorrow!
Also wont pre-read this so hopefully there aren't too many spelling mistakes.
And let me know if there's interest in a discord server. I think saying no to a free opportunity to network is kind of stupid. Even if you're inactive it doesn't really matter, its essentially a positive freeroll, you can't lose anything.

Is interesting how this 100k/y is a number in the mind of many poker players (myself included, sometimes). Like that magic goal that you have to reach in order to "make it" in the poker world.

But why? Why not 80k? Or 120k? How different your life would be earning that much per year?

You say that if you dont get there within three years you rather do something else. Im not aware of your educational background or the work situation in your country but, would you be closer to that 100k/y goal starting something else in three years time? How much more would you enjoy that job than you enjoy poker now? Is that a normal yearly salary for the other career opportunities you have in mind? This are not rhetorical questions, as I said I have no idea about your education nor the work situation in your country, but just some food for thought.

I see your reluctance to play a lower variance schedule and I kinda understand you as I was there not long ago. But the way it looks to me is like if a guy says: "I want to run a marathon in three years but Ill only try to do it by training in the snow at 5am on the morning, and if I dont get there that way, I will quit running and do some other sport".

For example, that MGM reg whose graph you posted, is only 40k short of your yearly money earning goal. Mix in a couple more sites he plays at and he might be already be making that much per year as far as we know.

There can be great value on playing softer sites/schedules, besides the obvious monetary value of increasing your winrate/money won in the short term. Having more runs and FTs will keep you motivated to keep on studying and will help you approach each session with more positivism and focus. I remember those old days playing Big $5.50s and Hot $11 and how std it was to brick everything hours away from any significant cash, and how much a spot would haunt me when I busted close to big money.

Your life situation will improve too when you have more money to spend (duh!) and you're confidence will surely boost when you're winning month after month, and that will translate to the tables.

You're probably familiar with this guy as he was a BitB coach, good post on his blog on this subject.

Summarizing, my two cents on this is that you're setting a huge monetary goal, which is something most people dont advise doing in poker, which seems very random, and on top of that, you're forcing yourself to do it in harsh conditions ie playing the hardest site there is, with lowest roi's and on the most reg heavy schedule.

Imo, it would be best to set up smaller goals and reevaluate once you reach them. Ideally, this goals would not be monetary, but if they're, I think is best to say: "I want to win 30k this year, 50k next one, 75k on the next one and 100k when im 25yo" rather than "I want to be earning 100k in three years time".

Hope that my post gives you some stuff to think about, but keep in mind is just my opinion, not any kind of advice or criticism.

Good luck at the tables.

PS: I'd be in for the discord channel.

You definitely make a lot of good points. I've actually spoken to a couple people about taking lower variance routes, and what my goals really are within poker.
I think usually $100k is just a well rounded, large, but also realistic target. Of course this doesn't mean 80k is a failure, or 120k is overachieving, its just a general financial region.
It's probably unlikely that i'd make this much in a normal job, however the income is much more guaranteed, especially long term. I always feel like i never know how long poker will be around for (more-so online), so i want to try and make lots of money whilst its around, i also don't know how long i'd be able to invest so much time into poker for, as i definitely don't feel like i could do this forever, just doesn't feel sustainable long term.
Of course some of those graphs i posted were very bias, but that was kind of the point in terms of showing the ceiling.

Also i know Gil! He coaches at my current stable
As for the lower variance sites, im definitely starting to find a mix of like stars/888/ipoker the best, it balances low and high variance. Then just ditching party since its giga hard.
As for goals, about the 100k and travelling around, that more like a long term vision as oppose to a specific goal (if that makes sense?). I do actually set yearly and monthly goals, can see my yearly goals here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing
I usually set monthly goals but i hadn't for April for whatever reason, first time i've missed it in over a year. So i do try to set smaller goals which eventually lead to the bigger goals.

I should've addressed it earlier on but i must admit i sometimes lose sight of how fortunate i am to do this for a living, its pretty cool, and i don't think i'd enjoy many jobs more.
Also thanks for the words, i would say this is good advice and criticism, which i'm more than open to. I think criticism is really good if the intent is right and the execution is constructive & fair.

My PC broke
So yeah this week has been a ****ing nightmare, as i spent almost 3-4 days being unable to even play or properly study poker, which sucked. My PC broke and i'm having trouble figuring out the issue, discussed with some friends who know a lot more about PCs than me, we thought it was harddrive problems but after ordering a new one it didnt fix the issue. So for now i am borrowing a friends laptop which doesn't run amazingly but does the job, and next weekend a friend of mine should be available to take it off me and look at it and hopefully fix it.
If the worst comes to worst i just buy a new laptop before scoop and find a way to transfer all my PT4 files over from previous harddrive.

Sunday Session
Not really much to report, cashed the sunday mil and 55 turbo main which covered most of my buyins for the day, then a couple other deepish runs, but kept losing the big important flips. At least i broke even so i can't be too upset.

Also i'll look to set up the discord server within the next couple of days and dash out a little link. Should be good!

Also outside of poker i've been playing a tonne of fistful of frags, its a free to play steam game. Imagine it like a mix of TF2 and counterstrike, but with cowboys, its pretty epic


here's a tune i've been banging this week.

Discord Server

https://discord.gg/as7d8vH

Finally got around to it, still some changes to be made!

Will just be a place where i spam lots of HH's and hopefully review lots of HH's too. Will also be organising cooldown sessions from here for people to join. Will hopefully get a good mix of players!

Don't hesitate to hop in even if you dont expect to be too active.

Can also bug me when i dont post on my blog for a while

April Recap

So results wise i got pretty shitstomped. Tried out some morning grinds with little success, towards the end of the month i was grinding less and studying more, just trying to ready myself for scoop this month where hopefully i can do well.

May goals

So i'm getting back into the trend of setting monthly goals, they're definitely very good for tracking/making progress. Kept them pretty simple this month mainly because i want my focus to be on SCOOP. Then in June i aim to take a break, the length of this break will somewhat depend on results, the better i do the longer i imagine my break will be, but it won't be super long either way.

As you can see one of my goals is to post in this blog after every session throughout scoop/XL series. Even if its a short post just showing a deep run, or a HH, thats fine by me, just want to fire this up as a rail again!

Discord Server
So its a good start to the discord server, got a nice mix of players. I think one of my main concerns is like when discord/study groups get too big is it gets a lot of microstakes/plebby players, and whilst i don't have an issue with microstakes players since i was there once, i feel like there needs to be a balance otherwise the better players get a bit put off as they can't really utilise it to improve if its all microstakes players commenting on a mid-highstakes HH's (no offense ;D ). But the avg player who uses 2p2 is pretty solid so there's a really nice mix, and even the micro/lower stakes player will on average be pretty solid.

Anyways please feel free to join (even if you're pleb ): https://discord.gg/as7d8vH

30/04/20 Session
Actually a really fun start to SCOOP this year, making a bunch of deep runs yesterday.
6th:

5th:

Also had a deep run in a $55 PKO for like $220, so i was up a bit on the day.

ICM Spot
I've posted this one in a couple groups since i might have really trolled the hand.


I wasn't sure what to do preflop. I open jammed last hand, also AndyW88 was a big fish, UTG 3x/c 18bbs A3s and stuff like this.
Goes 4 way on flop.
Also turn is just ****ed. Villain is a decent brazilian reg. Like he can have 54s, K6s/K7s, 76s. But if he has some KJo and even KTo then this is like a mustcall, but it just seems very weird for him to raise turn into 2 players since BB was still in the hand, with those weaker hands, i imagine they can just call and assess river.

I guess i'll adress my thoughts on preflop a little further. So in HRC we can open jam this:

This is given that everyone behind is calling more or less TT+, AQ+.
However knowing Andy to our right is a bit of a rofler. I gave him a calling range of 88+, AJs+, AQo+, then SB i gave full frequency of 88 (as oppose to 45% freq), which i think is fair. Then this is how our jamming range looks.

Its now pretty marginal to jam KQs, only makes $1.37 in EV.

So with raising we can be put in the cage pretty easily by some of these bigger stacks given ICM, especially since blinds were competent and quite aggro regs. And also if we limp we can pretty happily call a raise and go from there, so i thought it'd be the best option. Given stack distributions on vanilla FT i think i mainly want to be limping preflop, even with my stronger hands, having raises feels a bit spewy as we can get caged pretty easily.

Anyways if you have any thoughts on that hand then let me know.

Looking forward to this series, hopefully its a fun one!

01/05/20 Sesison
Got really destroyed today unfortunately, not even a decently deep run to post. In my big $109 scoop of the day i ran into a huge cooler 10 hands in and lost 95% of my stack then busted not long after, opted not to rebuy too.

Like you can definitely argue to fold turn since he doesn't really have bluffs. But given he wont have much JT and still can have AA/KQ i don't think we can really fold.

My focus definitely dropped to the end of my session which i'm not too happy about. Once i had 2 tables left i started playing skribbl with some friends, since its a really fun. But obviously its pretty -EV for my poker.

Tomorrow i got a 109pko that i'm playing which i'm looking forward to. Hopefully i can get some decent results, would really like to make a day 2, i'm not too worried about which buyin its in, i just really like the idea of a day 2 sweat.

02/05/20 Session
SCOOP DAY 3
Got destroyed again unfortunately, I felt like in the 2 bigger scoop events that i played i actually played really well, unfortunately i just didnt run too good.

This is in 109PKO. I'm actually pretty proud of this river bluff, definitely not the kind of spot that i used to be able to find in the past. Both players seem like competent regs.
I flat pre because i cover villain(s). Then river i feel like CO/3bettor will just have QQ/JJ a lot and MP will have 77-99, of course they sometimes have TT and QJs but i think i get enough fold that its worth a stab. Also TT combos are reduced since MP might sometimes 3bet it and CO will sometimes flat it. I could definitely size up a little bit on the river but i don't need to go too big. I rep plenty of Ax/KT, some other stuff. Plus competent villains will realise that its quite hard for me to have bluffs since i literally have to turn 66/77 into a bluff which population doesn't do enough.

Just another fun hand that i think i played well. From 55 deepstack SCOOP.
I think i mix 3b/flat pre, i had already 3bet villain not long ago, also he was on the looser side, low F3B. Both villains are regs (SB weaker reg)
Flop i think i really like betting when checked to, my range is pretty condensed around Tx, and with Ad i can use this combo as a bluff when diamond comes in, so this is one of the best non-natural bluffs. I also fold out AQ/AK which seems like a W.
Turn i think i have to check.
River is really interesting because i shouldn't actually have that much Ax in my perceived range when i bet flop x turn. So AT barrels, Axdd might barrel but also i don't flat a tonne in HJ (a7s+ maybe), and AJ/AQ isn't expected to cbet and will often 3bet pre. Also i'm expected to always fire on an A when checked to, i will bluff a bunch of KQ/KJ/KT stuff. So i like that i went pretty big, could even go bigger. And you can see villain got really sticky.

Anyways hopefully if i keep playing well then the variance will be in my favour. I think when you're getting destroyed in a series and you see a bunch of people doing really well it can be really tough on your mental to feel like you're missing out. But for every grinder doing well there's like 10 getting demolished, and speaking to someone also getting wrecked makes you realise that you're not so alone in it which can help.

I am feeling pretty demoralised though after past 2 days, i was meant to start at 1:30pm tomorrow (registering till 10:30pm), but i might start at my usual 4:30pm, just to relax a little bit more in the morning. I don't think there's a tonne of extra value to start at 1:30 given that i will be registering till quite late.

Keep going man, I was feeling exactly that way too, the first 3 days had been a blood bath for me. No stacks even in anything let alone a SCOOP event. I was starting to question if I even really wanted to battle the big fields and blah blah, all those dumb thoughts that creep in when getting hammered, next thing I'm bagging up 5 million in the PKO-Low for tomorrow and feeling good again.

It will come if you keep grinding, we all "know" that we just can't always "feel" it when the beats are coming over and over. Sometimes I go and look up some grinders I respect, just as you suggested and see them dropping 3-4 figures a day to remind myself even guys I consider better than me by far deal with the variance of these series, so keep grinding.

Definitely nothing wrong with a few extra hours downtime here and there to like you said to stay fresh.

Best of luck tomorrow!

Thanks for the words mate, i definitely know that all it takes is 1 tourney, but its not promised to come at the same time Hope your day 2 went well!

03/05/20 Session
SCOOP DAY 4
Got ruined again Actually had a few decent runs but nothing really materialised, i have a feeling backers aren't going to let me play anymore 109's for the meantime, which really sucks.

Anyways i had a decent cooldown session with some boys from the discord server, aim to do a few more throughout the series so feel free to join some, talking a lot of strat too:
https://discord.gg/as7d8vH

There was this hand that i got kind of berated for:

The play in isolation is probably quite bad but i think its more to do with my mindset at this point. Like its probably my worst hand of the day. But i'd rather my worst play be me being too aggro than too nitty. But i really can't be folding rivered tptk when villain can have worse hands, its almost like i'm playing scared money.

Tomorrow i'm taking a proper day off, so hopefully won't be doing anything poker related and can just chill and recharge for the next week of scoop.