How do you think your going to overcome this issue? Do you sleep in a pitch black room? Do you get enough sleep? Do you avoid electronic screens at least 30 mins before bedtime? Probably ideally more.

Swann, couldn't agree with you more wrt GTO apps. I brought up this on my stable server a couple times but feel like an outsider as most people seem to like them (specially DTO). To me this way of studying GTO is pointless, you just get a very concrete answer (bet X amount with Y hand on Z board) and that's it, which is pretty anti-didactic imo.

Some people I respect have said that when you go deep into a PIO tree you're at risk of going down the rabbit hole too far and get caught up on all that minutiae of blockers, frequencies, hotness and whatnot which may not be the best from a practical POV, but I still think there's much more to be learned from PIO than from a GTO app that, at least in my experience, end up being extremely confusing as you only get one single output and no explanation nor chance to understand why that answer is what it is.

Don't know if you're familiar with SNG Trainer on ICMizer but that one at least lets you click a button and take the spot to the solver where you can play around with ranges and see your whole strategy and not only what you should do with X or Y hand. Until the day we can do the same (easily) with any GTO app I think I'll stay away from them as I end up more confused and frustrated after using them and feeling like I didn't really learn anything.

All that said, I'd also love to hear some pro-GTO trainers opinions as I might be missing out on something or using them wrong somehow, but all the explanations and arguments I heard so far are not doing it for me.

Generally i think i get enough sleep since i just wake up later if i go to bed later, usually get at 7-8.5 hours which isnt bad. I also turn my phone off and start reading roughly 30 mins before i try to sleep. I also experimented with programs like flux in the past but i didn't really like them.

I mainly use HRC, i havent actually used ICMizer but i heard the quizzes are pretty good.
I think the main benefit of GTO apps is just that their fun, and can be good to use as a warm up tool, which i think is fine.

20/08/20 Session
I realise i've been a bit quiet recently so heres a bink i got today

I know its small, but after making 3 other FTs (6th, 6th, 5th) today, ending on a win felt pretty good. Also been a bit of a rough week, taking a break then getting smacked once you return is never a great feeling

Also going to make a pledge to be more active in my server, planning to post 1-2 hands after every grind. https://discord.gg/T2jR6YB

30/08/20 Sunday session



Almost won 3 tourneys in 1 day not a bad way to end a pretty bad month though!

Meaning to do a longer post soon but just been busy grinding since i got back from my break, had a lot of time to make up.
I'm defo considering playing some WCOOP events though, will be my first time back in stars in like 3 months.

Hey, sounds like a really cool session, im glad for you.
Keep the grind up, i had also a break and im highly motivated for upcoming grind now.

Thanks mate, best of luck of the grind!

10/09/20 Session

This one was for 300e inc bounties

Could've definitely been 2 wins, so was a little gutted to get 2nd in both as i had big chip leads in both vs pretty weak villains, but just kept getting coolered and having the worst hand, so can't do too much!
Still solid results, been a really strong start to the month.

Also just wanted to say that i've been meaning to update for a while, but just been super busy, mainly just perma playing/studying poker mixed with a couple irl things so i just haven't got around to updating the blog. But overall i'm starting to do really good which is nice, and i'm feeling super motivated to grind.

Hey, not sure if you remember but I was in a skype group with you way back in 2018. Unfortunately lost my login info for that account so I couldn't check up on it. Glad to see you are still playing! Was wondering if you study by yourself or if you are in a discord group.

13/09/20 Sunday Session

A nice 1+2 for the day, plus a few other deep runs so up like £400 total which is really solid!

Future plans
Title is a bit vague but basically i think within the next few days i will finally try going selfrolled.
This month i'm already up like £1.5k (roughly what the size of my roll would be) which is nice. And given my current situation where i may not be able to find a property of my liking for a couple months given the current situation, i'm certainly in a position where i can take a risk like this. Although my current deal is really good, i just want to start spinning my own roll and climbing back up the stakes since, and if things go wrong i can safely go back to this deal.

I think i mentioned in the last post but lately i'm just feeling super motivated to play/study. I essentially wake up every day, do 1-2h warmup, grind 8h, then do 1-2h cooldown, then i go to bed. I've just got into this really good rhythm, and given that i'm starting to get some good results its just gives me that boost that i was lacking before, like a small taste of victory, it feels like i'm actually grinding for something now. And i honestly think if i just keep up this consistency that i can just keep the ball rolling and keep progressing and improving and keep having success.
Of course i could just be deluding myself since i am also running pretty pure, and that ofc won't last forever hence why i want to maintain my good study habits since i realise that.
For the first time in a long while i'm feeling really optimistic about my poker career, i definitely spent the last 9 months questioning myself and having quite a few negative thoughts, and once they start its really hard to stop. But once again i'm feeling really good about the future and excited to see where i can end up. Like i have always been confident in my abilities but i genuinely feel like i can become really really good, and i know i can put in the work to get there.

19/09/20 Session



1st, 1st and 2nd for a +£1.3k day is pretty sick.

Ran pretty pure but also felt like i was playing pretty solid.
Just excited for the grind tomorrow

Curious to see if its still possible to make it grinding small stakes MTT's - good luck on your journey man!

Thanks mate! Whilst i'm starting at small stakes the plan is to spin up the roll and make it to the top

22/09/20 Session

Basically swept up like all the bounties on FT, including a 3 way all in for the W, to mop up exactly 30.75% of the total prizepool, which feels pretty rare especially in PKOs.
I also finished 4th in the 25e deep impact on unibet for ~360e. So another really sick day overall!
This heater is actually pretty absurd.
This month so far i'm up about £4k ($5k) overall, playing about £12($15)ABI, and my biggest score is just under £900 ($1150).
I would show sharkscope but is kind of pointless since 1/2 my profits are from unibet which can't be tracked unfortunately.

"Finally the hard work is paying off"
So whilst in my case this phrase is somewhat true. It can't be understated how pure i've also been running this month. On FT's i've hit like 1 outers on the river, won huge flips and so on.

The main reason that i say this is because its a bit of a peeve of mine when someone binks a really big tourney, posts it on their social media and adds a caption something along the lines of 'Thanks @RaiseYourEdge for the course! Really glad to see my hard work paying off *muscle emoji x3* @bencb789'.
Edit: Before i state why it bothers me, I dont really care if people do it (although my following rant might prove otherwise ). If i see a post like it i generally just roll my eyes and smile to myself a bit, so it doesn't super trigger me or anything, more a slight annoyance. And i understand for some people it's part of the excitement of winning big tournaments, especially for recreational players and people newer to poker.
So here's few reasons why this annoys me a bit:

1. If you win a huge field tourney, or maybe a high stakes one as a low stakes grinder, whilst the studying will have most likely helped you out throughout the tourney, the main reason you won is because you ran insanely pure. And you need to run pure to win these tourneys. And if you think the main reason you won is the study that you put in, and you don't understand how big a part variance played, i think this is just pretty naive. And its the same when people go on big heaters and think they're a beast and can't lose. And they underestimate the power of variance, and usually it leads to complacency in studying and effort. I'm guilty of doing both these things too, i sent bencb a msg a few years ago after a huge bink (10k field).
2. You think that because you've studied, that you are somehow deserving of this sick variance. Poker owes you absolutely nothing, no matter how much you've studied. And thats the brutal thing about poker, there are **** players who have ran giga pure their entire careers, and there are very good players who have ran **** their whole career and play at a far lower level than the bad player who runs good. However that being said usually the players who invest lots of time into their game come out on top over time. And the way i try to approach variance is like i'm waiting for my time to come (where i run pure or get into super high EV spot) and till then i've got to become as good as possible to capitalise as much as i can on this opportunity when it does come, and to then to keep up the effort levels and not get complacent when my time comes.
3. Finally, i'll probably sound very entitled for this one but when people say they've worked hard on their game, i generally don't think they really have even if they think they have (now this applies mainly to [aspiring] pros). I think i've spoken on this before but I don't think 'working hard' on your game for a couple months is particularly impressive or deserving of rewards, most top regs worked hard on their game for YEARS before getting to where they are and continue to do so. And if you consider 45min-1h a day studying poker as 'working hard on your game', this is 5-7h a week, i would consider this the bare minimum amount of study you should be doing as a pro, and really i think this is a pretty poor amount. If you're aspiring to become a very good player i think 10h is a minimum (but still not great), then 15h/week i think is okay, but i think ultimately you should be pushing 20h/w+, and i know players who have gone on to be very good regs doing this, and i know i can do this when i organise my time properly. I usually find american's the most guilty of saying someone has 'worked so hard on their game' when by my metric i disagree.

I guess a good way to show how i see it is like this hand i played today:
So glad to see the hard study work finally paying off!!!


Anyways, hopefully after this stupid little rant i still keep being a sunrunner. I'll try to post some more strat stuff soon. And the only reason i'm posting this now is i'm currently trying to do a no fap challenge for a few days (i know i know) and i have to fill this void of boredom for when i usually do it. So maybe i'll post some more interesting stuff soon.
I certainly want to write about how creating rules is probably one of the most effective ways to learn the game, but that'll require a lot more time, that i cba to do now.
But hopefully this content is spicy enough for now

good luck in your challenge not to stroke your wee wee mate, its going to be really hard.

27/09/20 Sunday Session


So i came 1st and 2nd, and also came 3rd in a small field 20e for like 180e, so another sick day.
Honestly i'm such a sunrunner its disgusting. But i'll just make the most of it

Very happy for you, keep it up!

Thanks Alex mate! Now i just need to improve my Among Us skills

30/09/20 Session

Gutted to not bink this one since i was chip leading 3 handed. But still a sick ending to the month.
Think i'm up about £5.4k ($7k) for the month off a £12.5 ($16) ABI. So i won around 430buyins.
Also feels really nice to be spinning up a solo roll again, super excited to reclimb the stakes, and hopefully become one of the best regs (if not the best) on softer sites, before eventually transitioning back to tougher sites and playing some live too, as i really want to get onto hendon mob.

excellent results. wish u the best
how many poker rooms u playing at btw?

crushing mate

thanks mate! Going back to just 3, ipoker, unibet and skypoker. Was playing some GG/stars over the past month or so but deciding not to go back to them for now.

Thanks mate

PKOs
So the other day i watched this RIO video; which i'd highly recommended watching btw, this guy makes some of the best MTT content on RIO atm and is just an overall sicko, and also taught me most of what i know about PKOs during my time at bitb, so yeah s/o Alex. Anyways after watching this vid i realised i was a pretty big PKO nit and certainly not going after bounties anywhere near aggressive enough.
So i ran some ICM/PKO calculations revolving around early game play and was really shocked to see the results. For that reason i decided to write up a little document of my findings, to help me learn, but also to hopefully help other people notice how tight they are being in a lot of spots, because i am certainly not the only one making these mistakes after seeing how the pool plays.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11atEJJV9KMsutxktA8u1UU2aoi9VG_ka4fL2oqicR4U/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know any feedback or questions you have, enjoy!

Song
Been really into this tune for the last few days, so i thought i'd share.

Calculating PKOs using equilabs
Was running this spot:

Villain has minbounty. And i can figure the number of entrants (calcd as if latereg had closed) by getting the average stack at the bottom at multiplying by players remaining.
20344*58=1179952=118 entrants (10k startstack)
Then using this PKO model I estimated villain bounty as being worth 28% of startstack (2800 chips), which i add to the pot so my new pot odds are
7242/7242+8562+2800=0.3927=39% (can round to .1 too, probs a bit more accurate)
So then you can just input what you think villain is jamming into equilabs and see what hands have 39% vs that.
So i did that vs what a thought pop was jamming.
Then i decided to compare my results to HRC, making sure all my inputs were as accurate as possible.
Anyways when i input the same jamming range to both, here are the comparative results:

I didn't even plan on making this post but i was just gassed that my results were literally identical (obviously v lucky since my inputs will never be perfect). But its just cool to see that i'm doing things along the right lines.

So keep your eyes out for my pko course coming out soon Jokes aside i think there's a tonne of misinformation when it comes to pko's (which i guess is good? ). So if anyone has any Qs about doing pko calc feel free to msg me since when comparing to (and using) HRC my results are pretty accurate.
Generally just been studying a lot. Learning a tonne atm, and also just changing the way i approach the game, and its a lot more fun. In short i'm just trying to be less cautious and more aggro, but with reason as oppose to just spewing for the sake of trying to be aggro (psycho swann days), and just focusing on maximising my EV in every spot.

Why you think starting bounty is worth 28% there? I am wondering because there is consensus that starting bounty is worth 33%.

If you had to start over, would you still playing MTT's considering the insane variance it can bring?

I think i would, but certainly just grind up a roll and learn to play on smaller field sites. I remember when i first started playing i actually had some decent success on 888, where the fields were all small.

But then again i think best would be to start by learning cash games, then once i hit a certain point to transition to MTTs. I'd do this mainly because i think cash game players are far better, and they learn much better fundamentals, and then it would be far easier to transition into MTTs where there is much more money to be made as its far easier.


Anyways uhhh i know its been a while

30/10/20 Session

Using this bink that allows me to profit a tiny bit on the day as an excuse to post a small life update

October Review
Was a pretty poor month overall. Only up about £300 and certainly didn't grind as much as i'd have wanted to.

Doesn't show unibet results, and also it doesnt sync very well with ipoker so its a bit all over the place. But i probably played a bit under 400 games
I've been trying to push my stakes up quite aggressively, but i'm also happy to move down aggressively. And so far i have ran pretty far below EV, but thats just tournament poker.

Poker/Life update
This is basically just an extension of why i don't think last month went that well (outside of running below EV), and some things i want to change going into next month, plus some general issues.

I guess the first thing to bring up is i feel like i should take a week off at some point just to allow for a proper reset. The last time i took a proper break was the start of june, which to some people may not seem like long ago, for me i feel like when i invest so much time to poker i think its important to just take these short breaks every few months just to prevent like a burnout. Since if i dont i eventually just start taking lots of individual days off which has happened this month, but this doesn't really allow a proper hard disconnect from poker, therefore no overall reset. So although its possible that i take a weeks worth of days off spread throughout the month, it doesn't feel like i've taken that time off. And when this slight burnout comes in i feel like i lack the 100% motivation and also the creativity in game, it becomes a lot easier to autopilot.
But basically the problem comes in when i want to plan my week off, as i want to make sure its a productive week when i see friends.
To give a quick summary, i was in my hometown (bristol) since the start of coronavirus lockdown living at my mums, till she moved to spain at the start of september, since then i've been in cornwall (countryside a few hours away) living with my dad. So my plan was to take some time off and go back up to Bristol to see my friends who i haven't seen in a couple months, since i have **** all friends in cornwall so i'm getting pretty lonely. However now the UK has gone into full lockdown i can no longer do this, and with my birthday coming up at the end of november, i'm pretty gutted that i wont be able to spend this time with my friends. Also means i probably wont be able to go over to spain to see my mum for christmas, which also is a shame.
But all this means that i can't really take a break as i'd like for at least another month, which is probably a bit too long given my current motivation levels. But i dont want to take 1 month break in nov, then 2 week breaks in december.

Also when i am putting in lots of hours to poker. I feel like although i'm investing a lot of time, its rarely into something specific (like a certain topic), and a lot of it feels like 'light' studying, and i don't feel like i'm pushing myself enough within that timeframe. So i think what i'm going to do is set targets bring back some monthly goals to really push myself to do better, as i feel like i'm maybe going through the motions a little bit. And especially with watching videos, i feel like a lot can be learned through videos and throughout my career i've never watched enough videos for my liking.

And to add to the not being able to see my friends, i had the same feeling in Vietnam where i just end up feeling really lonely and missing my friends. And because of this i try to speak to them and play games with them at any opportunity. And this certainly intervenes with the amount of time i invest in poker, and probably my motivation too.

Finally i'm always pondering how to use this blog. As i think just updating results is a bit whatever, but then again i can't just pass on all the strats that i learn. So i need to find some kind of middle ground

Discord
https://discord.gg/as7d8vH
I know i've plugged it like 50 times, but i've actually started being far more active. Its quite strat/hh heavy, but i think thats good, and there are some good players in there, and i'm always looking to review hh's so feel free to hop in and add some hands.

07/11/20 Session


So gutted to come 4th and 5th, considering i was 1/4 and 2/7
Unfortunately i just ran terrible on 20fof, and played a bit meh on 10fof.
Nice to have a strong day though, but always feels bad when you fall a bit short.

Nice twin FTs! Grosvenor bonus tickets incoming!

I think they've got rid of this unfortunately ;(

11/11/20 Session


So nearly the double crown, but still a very solid day overall!
Actually felt like i played super well at rumble FT, even though i got hard donated chiplead.