Thanks for the words. I think my mentality is always less 'Im really good and so much better than these guys', but more 'Im pretty bad but these guys are even worse'

09/01/21 Winter series day 11
Had my biggest losing day since selfrolling, as to be expected eventually. Bombed off about £650 when my buyins for the day was about £700, so not the best.
After i played some games with a friend, then got into the lab for a couple hours before going to bed ready to fire off on sunday session.

10/01/21 Winter series day 12
Was lining up to be one of my worst ever sessions, but the back end of my grind steadied things out.

Managed to have this deep run which allowed me to be up a bit on the day, so i'm happy.
Always a bit gutting to finish F2T/F3T in these massive fields, but thats just variance, ran pure to get there in the first place.

Before that result though was certainly a very tough weekend, was getting pretty brutalised which can be mentally draining, so looking forward to taking tomorrow off, then full speed ahead into the final week of winter series!

Also as a side note, this is probably the first time in my poker career that i've actually had a decent amount of money (5 figs), and i think when this series wraps up, i'm going to take out like 1k and purchase all the things i couldn't/didn't want to buy in the past, like a laptop, pro version of pio (only have basic), then some new shoes/clothes, and maybe a couple other things. Generally i'm not very materialistic and all the money i'd much rather just re invest into my bankroll for now, but i think it would be nice to see the effect of the good results that i've had.
Just feel like my perception of money can be very weird, since when i see my bankroll on the screen its just numbers to it doesn't feel very real. Like in real life i would genuinely always go for the cheese thats 50p cheaper because that 50p feels like a lot when its in person. This mindset certainly helps with the swings. Like £100 feels like a **** tonne in person, even when buying things, but online every day i invest 5x that.

12/01/21 Winter series day 13

Just forget that this day happened Got battered and played pretty bad.

13/01/21 winter series day 14

Binkkkk

DOUBLE BINKKKK

Of course you have to sunrun to win 2 tournaments in a day. But i also felt like i played really well. Had a lot of spots where i made really interesting plays, which includes bluffs i wouldnt make in the past, but also getting thin value. As the night before i did a review with a friend and realised there were a lot of spots where i was missing value, whether that was just not going big enough, or missing a value bet, so today tried to focus on getting max value.

This month overall has obviously been really insane, technically up more this month than the whole of last year. Just got to make sure i don't start slacking too much. After this week when the series comes to a close i plan on taking a few days off the grind to get in the study lab. Got a few areas that i want to brush up on and improve, so will take a day for each topic.

Damn son. Absolutely crushing.

Congratulations man,you are crushing now.

Thanks guys! Certainly running super pure at the moment, could say its about time though

14/01/21 Winter series day 15
The day after a big bink you have to smash off all your buyins, so thats what i did

16/01/21 Winter series day 16

Binked this bad boy again. Probably the craziest HU i've ever played, 12-17bb average the whole time, over 20 all in showdowns, and small stack always won, was so glad to just close it out

Also got this £220 day 2 for tomorrow, 57 left with 56 paid which is kind of aids, but as long as i don't bubble i'm looking forward to this one.
Was actually chip leading/top 2 stack for quite a while but then i had this hand:

I think this is really fine, but obviously sucks when you get called super quick, feels like i'm being given no credit when i can have a bunch of value in my range. Expect villain to have a bunch of heart/spade draws that just snapfold river, plus some Ax, and expected some 6x to fold. Also expect 2x to raise flop or turn, and this feels like a really nice hand to bluff as it just unblocks all those folds. Might sim this one and try to get some take aways.

Free poker content
It's pretty sick how much free poker content there is from top players nowadays so feel like I should give a quick shout to my favourites. Mainly because i think a lot of kind of sucks, or its from pretty washed up players. But all the players in this list are crushing in 2021.

Cash games - Ginge Poker
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC71ETU0mVRc2AGDr8vc0bIg
500z reg, very good player, and i really like the way he approaches the game. Even watching the videos casually you pick up a lot of good tips and tricks.

MTTs - Pads on poker
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDJDjMLKJz15MZNKvwn-YMA
Always had a lot of respect for pads, it was a video of his that i accidentally stumbled upon back in 2017 on vimeo that made me think about the game in a different way, and after that i made it my goal to join bitb.
The FT review and other stuff is okay, but his in depth hand reviews i think are by far the best content he does, although it might not be appreciated by most people. Its really interested to see the concepts (reference to an earlier post ) that he utilised in his games as they always seem very different yet effective. Also his instagram stories when he does daily HH reviews are really fun to watch, just to see how OOL people are and how people play at the highest stakes.

MTTs - Instagram - Alex Theologis/Pwndidi
https://www.instagram.com/alextheologis/
Plugged Alex a few times in this blog, but thats because i think he's really good and his coaching i've always found very interesting. And he's come up over the last couple of years so he approaches the game in a modern, optimal way. He's recently started doing HH review videos on his instagram and i think they deserve more attention, its absolute golden content to get and it's for free. You can watch it quite casually whilst scrolling through IG feed but still learn at the same time, so would certainly recommend following.


The content that pads+alex are doing really reminds me of when i first started watching RYE content. It was just raw good content, especially when half of RYE youtube comments were complaining about bencb mic quality. Its just good indepth analysis from world class players, and getting a look into their mind and how they perceive the game. Nowadays i find RYE youtube vids are a bit more tailored to lower stakes + slightly more casual players, whilst with pads+alexs content even as a mid and high stakes player (inc an aspiring one!!) you can learn a lot from it.

17/01/21 Winter series day 17 (final day)

Finished 4th in the £225! Busted after back to back 2 outers vs the same guy, but overall a really solid result, so can hardly complain. Really crazy to have a run like this is one of my higher buy ins.

Also finished 2nd in the shuriken, which has been slightly outshone but still worth including. Considering i only played like 10 MTTs today, these are some pretty solid results overall!

Winter Series Summary

I mean its no secret i've ran absurdly pure this month, feels like a top 0.1% run. Might never run this good ever again, even if i have bigger scores. Overall can hardly complain since i've made 2x in this month period than i did the whole of last year technically, on sharkscope anyways
Updating the blog felt like more of a hassle than anything, so looking forward to not doing that anymore, think i'll just keep my updates less frequent but more detailed, i think its better than way.

Future plans
So when i had my $15k score, i said to myself that i would stick to the same daily schedule till the end of the series and just include more shottakes from series games. To be honest i am just really enjoying the schedule i am playing at the moment, and although i could probably fling myself into 2-3x the average ABI and still have positive ROI, i think it would be far better to ease myself into it. So i will likely just add a couple daily higher buyins and remove some of the bottom. Then over the course of a few months just shift my entire schedule to higher buyin games.

Also i'm going to take a few days now to do some much needed studying. There's a bunch of areas of my game that i said i wasn't happy with and want to improve, so throughout this week i will try to work on those areas, then start grinding again Saturday. It also just allows me to take things a little bit easier for a couple days after quite an intense series.

Some quality results man, great work! Haven't been playing as often lately myself but been sat with you at a few ipoker tables.

I agree with easing yourself into a higher ABI rather than pushing it faster - there's some really soft higher buyin stuff about on these sites but it's best to keep a similar ABI and keep getting in the volume. Nothing more frustrating after a big upswing than raising ABI only for it to go the other way. GL!

Thanks lad, i still have no idea who you are on ipoker, but i guess that benefits you more than me

Interesting hands
Gonna post some hands that i played over the past weekend that i thought were interesting, and just give some thoughts. Also some hands that i was really happy with how i played. I felt on Saturday i was actually playing pretty sick and making plays that i certainly wouldn't do in the past, but certainly some mistakes too.

H1
So flop is pretty interesting given the dynamics of it being 4 way. I have no multiway solver that i can play around with, so i just have to use my limited knowledge of multiway pots to try to reach some kind of conclusions. I get the feeling that typically people would raise vs BTN bet in my shoes with my hand. But from my knowledge i believe in my spot (between bettor and last to act) i want to proceed by doing a lot more calling, then the later positions would proceed by playing a much more raising oriented strategy. So this already brings up a potential issue with calling in my shoes, and that's that i don't think later positions will raise enough with hands like AT/KT for protection, also there's a lot of turns where Tx won't put in much more money, so there's EV in collecting as much value as possible vs a T now, as it seems to be a general issue in multiway pots vs population that they won't put in enough money for us to justify these slowplay lines.
However i do think there are some upsides to just flatting. Firstly if i raise, and BB/EP folds a hand like QT/JT, this feels really bad for me, as i have the capability of keeping in hands that are pretty much dead by flatting. Also if i raise and stack off on flop, 4 ways for over 100bbs, i don't think ATo stacks off, so i will mainly run into 55+TT, as well as combo draws (which might not always stack off), so then i'm either close to flipping, or drawing dead. So i'd be much happier stacking off 55 where i can cooler 44.
Turn is pretty good for me since button will want to continue putting money in for the sake of 'protection'/charging draws with AT/KT type hands, then facing this bet i think i just want to jam, it denies a lot of equity to BB who can no longer call any draws and i don't expect to have any better hands than me. Then BTN might sometimes have a better hand, but with so many draws out there my perceived range can certainly have some combo draws in it, making it a really tough spot with those AT/KT type hands i think.

H2

Another interesting multiway spot. But starts with a fish limping meaning that all 3 ranges are really wide (and not very strong).
Could lead flop since limper will play very honestly, but also wanted to x/r if fish went for 1bb stab or something.
Turn when a reg leads big it looks pretty strong, with his range Jx, flushes, potential 2p, then bluffs are mainly 1 spade hands and 5x. In this scenario with bottom 2 i think its close, in situations where there are a lot of bad runouts (whether thats flop or turn) i much prefer taking a more passive line with more marginal hands (like bottom 2) which isn't what a lot of people (especially weaker players imo) do. A lot of rivers won't be very good for me, any spade, 3/5/7/8/J, and if i was to raise/stack off flop, i once again feel like i'd mainly be running into better hands since Jx probably won't stack off and he can have better 2ps, flushes, and even straights in his range. Plus i don't mind his single spade hands making a pair and obtaining extra value this way.
Then river when he checks to me, it feels like his range is very Jx heavy, as i think everything better would continue to bet. And a 7 is far better for my perceived range than his. My initial thought was to jam, but i think this would be a bit too big, and unnecessary, but i do think i can make a reg fold out a J with a big sizing. Given how wide ranges are i might actually have enough showdown, but i see these blockers and thought that they block boats and i can rep really strong with an overbet (and somewhat credible). Although i likely lack boats in perceived range. It might be an unnecessary bluff, but it worked out.

Also you can see in multiway pots i tend to take quite passive lines, this might be costing me a lot of EV with my value hands, but i'm pretty unsure since i think people play multiway pretty bad, and they don't bluff enough but also put too much money in with middling hands by calling, and just over valuing certain hands, so its a bit of a weird one.

H3

HJ is weaker player, BB is reg, in a PKO.
Flop i think i like betting and trying to fold out KQ/KT to a multiway bet. Might be better to use a bigger sizing since this board we're not really betting for protection. Usually multiway though i opt for smaller bet sizes on flop.
Turn i think is fine.
River i think i should be firing off though, at the time i just thought heart blockers were bad, but I don't have a tonne of bluffs in my perceived range, but also i think BB can have a lot of Jxdd/Qxdd which will likely fold river, as well as some weaker Ax. BB showed up with A7o with Ah, that to me feels very close on the turn, if not a fold.

H4

On T high boards, i find that population as IP stabs way too much when checked to. So then the EV of x/r goes up a lot. And i thought that OOP could push a really nice overpair adv, but this might not be the case as much this deep where its even possible for a hand like QQ to flat the BTN. Still though given that i'm trying to push overpair advantage, i think my x/r size is far too small. When i x/r i was to put hands like 55-99, A4 in a really tough place, and i dont think this size does that, this deep i think i should be raising like 5x. I find that my game can be quite static in a lot of areas especially when it comes to sizings, and i've been really trying to push myself to experiment with bigger sizings (I think simplyfing your strategy to include only a couple bet sizings on each street is +EV overall, however i mean it more that i lose myself a lot of EV with value by not finding these bigger bet sizings and piling enough chips into the pot when i have good hands.
The reason i like this hand though is my turn sizing, even though i should probably go even bigger, in the past i certainly wouldn't have found the overbet here (this is what i mean when i say i cap myself by playing too static) and even though he tank-folded which means he could've had a T, i like the play.
Ran a sim 100bbs eff (200 too big, to see if my assumptions were true)

OOP i allowed for pot and block sizes, i think this is reasonable, as in game i imagine we'd want to use a pot sizing to push our overpair advantage.

When checked to i think population might actually stab quite close to this, i think there will be slight overstabbing still especially with all Tx and 55-99. Probably a lot more small stabbing too from pop.

OOP response vs small size, i allowed for 3.2x and 6x raise. Given that a lot of the hands show a split between the 2, that leads me to belive the optimal size is probably something in the middle, 4.5x, something in the region. Which still somewhat shows my point about wanting to use bigger sizes, and its the bigger sizings that starts to make 55-99 indifferent.
Then for turn strat it overbets (i plugged in 150%) when smaller raise sizing is used on flop, then just goes 2/3 with 6x flop x/r sizing. So i think my turn sizing in game is fine if i use optimal flop x/r sizing.

H5
Revealing my new WPN name keeping it on theme.
Flop i'm not totally sure how i'd construct my betting range on flop multiway, particularly for bluffs. I think i like betting these hands as i keep in and get value from worse flush draws. Like i'd always want to check weaker flush draws and bet stronger ones as as weaker flush draws can easily get coolered multi way and vice versa.
Vs the raise and on turn i don't think i have any other option.
River though i really really like leading in my shoes once the flush completes. I first spoke about this almost a year ago, and finally its something that i've started incorporating regularly into my game. It just feels far higher EV than trying to x/j. When i think about villains range i don't think he has many flushes, and i think he can easily have AJ/66/88, and i've seen these sets check back far too often for me to want to check to him. So when i check, i'm mainly going to get checked back to, but when i lead i don't think weaker players are capable of folding a set.

H6

Since there was no SB for this hand, i thought that the limper was BB, hence why i only minraised, so i actually thought entire hand was vs BB.
Either way i'm again really happy with how i played it, even though i still think i missed value.
Flop i really like big size on this board.
Turn is a spot where i've only more recently started incorporating more overbets into my game, and this seems like a perfect spot to do so when this wet board bricks. This deep though i should probably be looking to go closer to 150% instead of 110% (preset button on my betslider ).
Then river i'm glad i bet again, as i'm sure there was a time where i wouldn't have. But once again i think i can just go closer to pot as i'm confident i will almost always have the best hand.

H7

ITM. My initial thoughts in game were that this turn sizing is really bullshit, since a strong hand would always size up, and on river given that we unblock KT/KJ/JT bluffs that i'd expect to see, so i'd much prefer to hero this combo than AT. Also i think weaker players won't find enough pot jams on river ITM with hands like AK/AJ. So its quite easy to end up overbluffing in some of these spots, more so from later position though.
I decided still to run this spot, and typical range bet flop 30%, turn barrel 70% (only sizing i gave), then river in theory the jamming range is constructed very differently to how i'd thought it would be in game.

IP is supposed to triple off 22-66, then 87s as a bluff (plus others that i think are fine), whilst giving up all KT/KJ (most JT check back turn). And vs this jamming range all Ax is still calling. I nodelocked the range to cut out the 7x/pp bluffs and include more of those KJ/KT/JT type hands and removed the ATo and some freq of AJ and AK jams. Then all Ax is still calling vs a jam, but its very marginal with weaker Ax, but they still outperform ATo (for reasons i stated earlier). So when i nodelock to manipulate to what i want it to say, it comes out with what i want it to say

Those are all the hands, i'm still unsure about some of the spots, so feel free to give your opinions!

Critical take but potential advice
So i came across this video the other day, and i've been contemplating whether i want to give my take on it, as i realise that i might come off as a bit of a hypocrite given some of the things i've said here in the past.

Obviously this is a Feelsgoodman video, and i'm super happy for the guy, its always good to see people doing well.
However what i'm about to say i'm not going to send to him (reading back i alternate between 'you' and 'he', just deal with it ) since i'm sure he might not want to see it (which is very reasonable), also if i randomly DM him some criticisms it easily gets mistaken for 'hate'. But if he happens to come across this then there'll hopefully be some useful advice in here.
I was going to say that winning the BB44 is hardly the WSOP main and its maybe a bit overkill to cry, but who the fk am i to tell someone how they're allowed to feel. I don't think men should emotionally supress themselves so if you want to cry, let them tears flow.
Another reason i was hesitant to comment was its hard to pinpoint exactly why he's gets so emotional in the video. Is it because of the financial score? Is it because he won a bigger buyin tourney? Is it because of the massive support he's receiving on twitch? Is it because he's made a lot of progress over the past few months and its finally hitting him?
I know he says its because he took a big risk quitting his job to pursue poker, and it feels like its paying off and that's a huge relief. But without sounding like too much of a dick, financially i don't think this a significantly massive score as a professional, and whilst i understand its his biggest ever, i assume he plays a schedule which consists of stars/gg/party mainly thats pretty variance heavy, so if his living costs are $750 for the month, and he goes on 1.5-2k downswing the next month, which is very easily possible when you play $20 ABI on these sites, then you're already almost back to square 1. So at least from how i see it, financially i don't think you can really consider this result as 'paying off' quite yet, i think its still a bit too early on to say that.
But in my opinion most importantly, whilst you can and should obviously be happy with results/scores, i don't think you should place so much importance on an individual result(s), and you shouldn't use your results to seek validation. What i mean by this is when you say it was worth it and its paying off after this result, like was it not worth it the day before the result? If you ended up 9th would it not be worth it? You shouldn't allow the result to dictate whether the risk of quitting your job was worth it, and being results oriented can be really really unhealthy, and i got called out for thinking results oriented on this blog and the person who called me for it was completely correct in doing so. And i didn't truly realise this until i was in my biggest spot for over a year, that no matter how the session ended i was going to be okay and my life wouldn't change that drastically either way. I think you should go into every session prepared to lose every single buyin, and be okay with that, but on the flip side, know that no matter how much you win, your life will not be drastically altered and that things will be quite similar, this way you can enable yourself to play optimally but most importantly be happy no matter what the result is. If you're not prepared to lose every single buyin you have planned for that session, you shouldn't play, or you should play lower stakes until you are comfortable losing that amount, but also if there's a large amount of money up top that you'd consider 'life changing' i also think its sub optimal to play, since if you run good and get deep the thought of the life changing money will **** with your head, and likely you will play tighter and not your best. And also its important to not seek validation and confidence from your results because, especially considering the sites you play (stars/gg/party) you will inevitably go on downswings, and these downswings can last a long time, where you won't get any results, and if your emotions swing down and far as they swing up, going on a long and big downswing will really **** you up mentally, as it will make you feel like you're doing everything wrong. I would recommend seeking validation and confidence from your process of improving and how you play, and coaches/friends can be very good for this. Before i went on my recent upswing i still thought i was a top level reg at my stakes, and even when i was low i got my confidence through very respected players having confidence in me, its probably one of the main reasons that i didn't give up when i went on a brutal 8 month downswing (took almost a year to fully recover).
And that's it really, try not to be results oriented, and be happy with your decision to quit and take this risk no matter what.

Song
Been banging this a lot recently

Its so fkn catchy

Also been playing a tonne of rocket league recently, quite addicted ngl. I find when i really want to play a game instead of poker its better for me to just spam said game for a couple of days then i get a bit bored of it and go back to poker happy, instead of thinking about that other game. Just reliving the itch essentially.

Lol this is a long af post so cba to spellcheck, probably a few mistakes, but enjoy!

H1: I think most people would flat 44 (pretty sure solver would as well) with 2 players left to act. Well played hand.
H2: Usually don’t feel it is necessary to size up bluffs but this is a great runout and great hand to represent the flopped set, nh.
H6: Do you have corresponding bluffs for those bigger sizings? Seems a bit thin value. Okay if used exploitatively vs stations but that’s something I haven’t been confident to implement in my bread and butter game. Almost everyone is way overweight value for these sizings so I would fold turn every time against most players in my games.
H7: Wouldn’t expect many players to find a 3 barrel bluff here on this runout and for these sizings especially. I think broadway hands usually follow through bluffing a lot more when there is 1 broadway on flop and 1 on turn.

Thanks for the long post, always a good read!

Thanks mate, generally agree with comments. For H6 i don't really need bluffs, in the sense that i don't need to be balanced if i'm playing vs such weak opponenets. Its not something that i feel like i really need to think about until i'm playing much much higher stakes, i can just somewhat play my hand for what it is and expect not to be punished too much.

31/01/21 Sunday Session

Had this nice score in the titan, got kind of mauled HU which always feels bad. Villain basically just kept making top pair or better, and i couldn't find the fold button
I also came:
4th in the 25e ice giant pko on unibet for about 280e
3rd in sky £30 turbo pko for about £180
~40th in ipoker 2 day £110 for about £350
I had a couple F2T outside of that too, so not a bad day overall, although it felt a lot worse than it was

Sky Structures
Played the £220 yesterday, and wanted to show this hilarious structure
So it goes from BB100k/50k to 250k/125k. Then that is the final level.

Then it actually reached the final level

Hey man been following you from the start! Congrats on getting through the sick downswing, you deserve this run-good 100%!

Since you play midstakes, can you comment on when there's a big gap in skill level in terms of buy in?

For example, $1-5 vs $6-11 vs $12-25 on stars MTTs? Or is there like no difference until the $22 buy in levels?

i was in your skype group for a while before my Microsoft account got hacked, i had just started playing at the time lol good to see youre doing well GL

I guess the problem with me assessing difference in skill levels is i'm generally quite arrogant and think everyone kind of sucks I'd say the main difference as you move up the stakes is the ratio of regs:fish. Lets say my ranking system is fish worst, lowstakes reg bad, reg ok. 0-5 you get pretty much all fish, rarely a lowstakes reg. Then 5-11 you get a lot of lowstakes regs and fish, then 11-33 you get a good mix of all 3, 33-55 is when more regs start to come in and slowly less fish. Then 55+ is pretty reg heavy, but still a few fish. Its hard to say if theres any significant jump between levels, doesnt really feel the same as cash. But certainly $20+ at first you start coming up against semi-competent players can be tough.
But generally you should just always think you're the best player at the table, even if you're not.

Awesome, i might remember you, feel free to add my discord if you want to chat more. Swann97#9602

07/02/21 Session

Bink

3rd
Solid session overall, cant complain about the outcome too much.

Reflecting on past week + changes going forward
Honestly this past week was really bad from me. I only grinded 2 days, and barely studied. I would end up last second ditching most of my sessions to do something else, and afterwards when i went to bed i'd always feel really terrible about it. I dont think i'm burned out, and i think i'm still pretty motivated to improve, but i've just been really slacking.
There's a lot of things i want to do, and changes i want to make to get me on the right path again. Since a lot of it is about good routine and habits, so i'll make a short list of things i want to work on/do either next week or in the near future.

• Write list of goals for this year, and this month
• Schedule my entire week and write it up
• Spend less time in bed. I sleep approx 8h, i spend 1 extra hour in bed either side, so thats 10h/day. If i had 1 extra hour a day to study poker or do something productive (or even not productive) i think that could be really beneficial.
• Eat healthier dinners during week grind days. Its tough given my breaks are only 5 mins. I'm quite a fussy eater so this can be really tough for me. Not sure what to do.
• Start running again. Dropped it a couple months back after i felt like i wasn't making any progress. But there are certainly benefits to it.
• Start reading a new book (Any suggestions? Pref like 'self help' books, cringe word but you get the point)
• Meditate regularly.

I'm planning to move out with a friend somewhere (I wont specify where yet). But i feel like when i can make this move it will be really beneficial. New environment usually makes it easier for new habits to be formed. But also having some real life contact with friends will be good for my mental aswell (been living in isolated place for 5 months, only seen friends once).

Hopefully i can sort out this lull in dedication that i'm having. What i might do is set it up where i do 2 hours of studying every single day without question for a month. I think this will be a really good way to get the ball rolling.

09/02/21 Session

2nd

5th

7th
Also came 4th in the 20e takedown for like 200e or so.
Obviously kind of nuts making 4 FTs in 1 session, but as always felt like i could've finished better in all 4, besides maybe the takedown. But still happy with the session, had some pretty OOL hands and a lot of interesting spots.

Music
Been banging these 2 tunes recently.

21/02/21 Sunday Session

First time ever playing this tourney, and we binked it boysss! Happy with this one as i felt like i put on a bit of a clinic on FT.

Been grinding a lot less recently for reasons i'll get into. But still sunrunning.

Pads on Pads
https://www.runitonce.com/courses/pads-on-pads/
Snapbought this course as i think it will be the nuts. Started going over the course and so far i'm very happily.
I initially thought he'd be selling the course for 2k (without much info about it) given the effort he'd put into it and the kind of content. So the fact its currently on sale at $700 is absurd imo, defo a steal. Would recommend this investment.

As for my approach, I'm doing 1h or 3 videos a day (besides Sunday) with notes. And i've set up a system so if i miss a day, i can catch up the day after, and if it totals 5 missed days, i'll put $100 into a pot. And continue this until i finish the course (at least the more theoretical parts, so not live plays or guests) which should be done before scoop. Then whatever money is in this said pot, i'll either donate to charity or be very charitable and do a giveaway to a random person who follows this blog

Motivation + Grinding
I may have mentioned before but in the past i had to grind because i only had 1-3 months living expenses in my pocket for the most part, and with MTTs (esp big fields) how long i broke even for wasnt fully in my hands. So every day i got up and studied hard because i needed to eat. But now i could not grind for 2 months and financially i won't be that impacted (a flex i know ), but this means i have to start sourcing my motivation from somewhere else. But i think part of this will just be working on routines and habits and whatnot.

Also i haven't been grinding that much recently and partially its because i've been a bit overwhelmed with coachings/studying.
1h/day of pads course
~3x Cnc coachings per week
1-2x other groups sessions
2h around each session i play
And there's other studying that i like to do

So its quite a lot, and sometimes i end up studying to a time where i miss a good start to my session, which usually just means i don't end up grinding. I think using this month as a down month where i'm not going super hard is fine. As the plan is to 'power up' until scoop where i'll go super hard with grinding then likely take a break after, so not burning out before is obviously somewhat important. So i think for now i'll just grind 4 days a week and spend 1-2 days studying, and this combined with a decent weekly schedule should allow me to keep on top of all the studying i want to do as well as get good volume in.

28/02/21 Sunday Session

Nice to end the weekend of a nice bink to allow me to breakeven
Pretty crazy thinking how high my ABI was this weekend, was about £55/$75. Played a £530, and a bunch of 100s. So considering how terrible i ran it was good to bink the last tourney to breakeven.
Saying that though i felt like i played super well. A couple spots on Saturday where i felt like i missed value, but Sunday i felt like i played really good, but my mental was a bit off, i think playing considerably higher stakes compared to what im used to is going to mess with my mental a bit even if i don't think it is.

Anyways im very tired, so i will update properly another time

07/03/21 Sunday Session
More a weekend update

Had this small bink from yesterday.
Had nothing from todays session, so i'm down a little bit on the weekend.
Its kind of nuts to think how high stakes i'm playing now, like my buyins are about 1k per day on weekends. So around £42/$58 ABI, which is by far the highest i've ever played, but i feel very comfortable in the games.

Some fun OOL hands
So i learned that you can bet more than the size of the pot. I assume some of these are really bad, but they're fun



I could give more in depth analysis, but they're all probably just overkill. Just enjoying exploring the 'no limit' part of the game
And for what its worth, i certainly making plays like this for value too. So not every 3x pot jam is a bluff.
https://i.gyazo.com/2e349dcbf2e4d5520b358a8f67e9a354.mp4
Replayer is a bit ****, but i x/r flop and x/j turn. I think i like this line since on double f/d board i think he will stab turn a lot with Jx/combodraws which allows me to x/j nicely.

Also a big thing i noticed is that very good players seem to always fast play their strong value hands, then worry about the bluffs after.
This might seem a bit hyperbolic, but i just mean it from the point of view that when they have good hands they pile money in. Whereas you see a lot of lower stakes players saying things like 'but it looks so strong when i raise here' or 'but i dont have many bluffs here', and then end up not getting enough value with strong hands. But strong plays just play their value hands strongly, even if it doesn't look the most theoretically sound, then worry about bluffs later.

SCOOP 2021
https://www.pokerstarsblog.com/en/news/breaking-spring-championship-of-online-poker-2021-dates-released/69778/
So scoop is going to run throughout April, which has ****ed with my plans quite a bit, but it's probably for the best. Will probably take this month a bit easier, only playing 3-4 times a week and making sure to study lots, then in April i will likely play 5-6 times a week. Then in may or june i will likely take a break for a couple weeks.
Hoping i can set myself up to between May-August i can have a nice summer, which includes moving into a new home and being able to travel around and see friends/family again. Got a list of countries to visit and people i want to see, so it might be quite a sociable few months. My main worry is it forces me to take a lot of time off the grind, but i'm hoping if i set up a good system then its more work hard party hard.
I always wanted to do it so September-May (WCOOP-SCOOP) i'd work really hard on my game, then June-August i relax a little bit more and enjoy summer with friends, but so far I've never really been able to do that, also most of my heaters have happened between June-August Also if i become a proper pro in the future i'll be going to vegas during these months which will be cool but forces me to shift. Would be more Jan-May study hard, June-August live stops, Sept WCOOP, then rest Oct-Dec. But this is dreamworld, for now i just focus on getting good.

Really enjoy reading this PGC. I feel like I'm in a similar position, being from the UK, choosing to play on smaller sites to minimize variance, whilst also trying to study and improve (shoutout to Pads on Pads). I feel like we've crossed paths a few times on Sky as well.

Keep the updates coming!

Thank mate, i certainly recognise your name! Feel free to add my discord Swann97#9602 and we can chat there. GL on the tables!

10/03/21 Session



Triple dubbbb lets goo!

First day playing on the new ipoker schedule, bricked my 100s but ran super pure in all my late games, so i can hardly complain.

Really like this new ipoker schedule btw, a lot more good midstakes tourneys added 50-100, even a daily 200. I expect a few of these will start overlaying soon and eventually be removed (the 200 daily and later 20fof are my predictions), so i'll make the most of this new schedule and big guarantees whilst i can.

21/03/21 Sunday Session


Some pretty decent results on this Sunday.

I wanted to write more, but to be honest there were some riots in my homecity today so i spent the last few hours talking to friends about the events and whatnot. So more interesting posts will have to wait till another time

Whattup swannnn

Just read the full hog, really nice turnaround in results, it was looking a bit bleak at the start.

Sky discord represent, gl gl

Really nice to see your journey going this way, your updates always look wholesome.
You got some decent skills for poker and life in general, keep it up.

Yeah been a sick sunrunner these past few months
Thanks mate <3 hopefully the run continues.

Giveaway
In an earlier post i made a promise to keep my study consistent
So i let the pot build up to $100 before stopping it (i'll get into why later). So i'll be giving $100 away to 1 lucky winner who reads this blog.
Here's what i'm going to be doing. To win, you have to guess which football (soccer for Americans ) team i support. I haven't mentioned them in this blog, but there might be some clues, and i think there are clues scattered on the internet, but some fake trails too.
The rules are as such:

• Only 1 guess each
• If no one guesses the right answer, the winner will be whoever guesses the closest team (based off distance between stadiums)
• If more than 1 person guesses the right team, i will give away to the person who guesses first

https://forms.gle/pD2jidA4Mk8BZ21S7
You have a week (till 02/04/21) to respond, good luck!
I'll likely message you on 2p2, then send via paypal. Can send via stars or another way if needed.

Why i didn't continue
Clickbait header But the main reason I didn't continue building up the pot is because I don't think punishment based incentives are very good for me, in this situation do X or lose Y. I'm a lot more motivated when I set myself up so its do X and gain Y, as its a more positive reinforcement.
I think it was a mistake to set myself up to take this negative approach in the first place, as usually I'm just happy to take the punishment.

SCOOP 2021
So the schedule got released a couple days ago and i'm really excited for the series!
My plan is to play minimum 5 days a week, maybe 6-7 dependent on how many day 2s i have.
As for shot taking I plan to play 4 $530's (3 pkos) in which i'll likely sell some action to reduce variance. I also have quite a few 215's that i'm unsure about playing, so what i'll likely do is sell a little bit for these too. I'm undecided whether i'll sell here, if i do i'll make sure to draw up a proper schedule for the events i look to sell for.
Also if the series goes well i'll consider playing the $1k main event, and maybe even a $1k PKO, which i'd try to sell a hefty chunk of, but i likely won't play these events.
Also throughout the series i won't be grinding on unibet as i want to make sure i'm focusing on my higher buyins, i might also drop sky depending on how sessions go. I will keep ipoker though as that's my more consistent bread+butter site, to go alongside the more swingy SCOOP events, where i'm not expecting to have a profitable series (just sick variance).

Giveaway
https://forms.gle/pD2jidA4Mk8BZ21S7
Just a reminder for the giveaway i'm doing, still a few days to go to enter. Read up rules in my last post.
No ones got the exact answer yet, but some people are closer than others!

SCOOP Schedule
I've written up my entire SCOOP schedule for all the events I'm going to play, and what I'll be selling action for. Giving some friends the options to buy first, then based off how much i sell, i might look to sell some action on here for those interested.

Also I see that the GG series has been announced and will be running concurrently with SCOOP. For variance reasons I will solely be playing SCOOP events and none of the GG series. SCOOP just has a bit more novelty for me, and I've always wanted to win a SCOOP event, so I will put all my efforts towards that. Also seen the 888 series where there are some good events, however depositing on there is really nasty with fees/exchange rates so I am very undecided on whether i will deposit there or not.

Confidence
Probably not the best time to say this if I'm looking to sell action soon. But for the first time in a few months I've lost some confidence in my game. Last couple of sessions I've just felt really rusty and off, and feeling like i haven't been making very good decisions. I obviously understand that i still have a big edge in the fields I play, but this feeling is probably somewhat an accumulation of the last 2 months where I haven't been putting in as much effort as I'd like, for example this past month I was only playing 3 times per week, and no studying a crazy amount more to make up for it. This week I'm just banging out the studying to make sure that I feel really ready for when the series begins.

Poker Drama
Quite a lot of drama been going on in the poker community in the past couple of days.
In particular:

• BenCB vs Dom Nitsche/RYE vs DTO
• BBZ vs Ginge

I thought it best to write about it here as i have quite extensive opinions on all 4. And unlike a lot of people, i'm not invested into any of these people (or their poker programs/courses) so i feel like i can give some slightly different and somewhat unbias takes.
Bencb/RYE: I find calling him a snake oil salesman quite funny, as he comes off as someone who is very easy to troll especially on twitter, and doesn't really take jokes too well, which makes clowning on him even funnier. As for RYE, it helped me a shittonne back in 2017 when i was first learning to beat the game, the content (especially free) was really unmatched back then. As for his preflop ranges, they're obviously designed for simplicity for low/midstakes players to be able to use in game, they're not perfectly copied from solvers, which means they're obviously not perfect. But when i have friends trying to refer to them i don't take them particularly seriously. If those ranges are all you have, they're fine, if you have access to monker or something like this, then you should get that.
Dom/DTO: I've previously explain some of my concerns with DTO. Mainly just criticising it as a learning tool. Like i think you should mainly use solvers to check your workings, as oppose to using them to create your workings, so basically not just using PIO as a linecheck tool with your specific holding, which is kind of what DTO postflop is. So if you've already spent hundreds of hours using solvers its probably fine to test your knowledge, but i don't think its very wise to try to learn using DTO, as its hard understand why the solver is taking X line. This is why i'm more fond of an app like LucidGTO where you can actually see the sims after and try to understand what's going on, and how your range plays. As for Dom himself, i get that part of his marketing strategy is just going on twitter and shitting on other brands/people for clout and drama, which is fine. I can't think of a good work to describe him for this, but in the UK i'd just call him a bit of a neek. Besides that though, i don't really know much about him, he's probably an alright guy.
BBZ+Ginge, before i get into the 2 individually, i think the way the 2 approach the game is just very different, and it doesn't feel like a partnership that would work very well.
Ginge: I actually really enjoy his youtube content, and i recommended it before. As for his poker skill, from talking to people who know more than me about cash, it seems the consensus is that he's probably not winning in 500z pools (by no means an insult, these pools are extremely though) right now, although he has in the past. I think its very likely that he made a lot of money playing live games and don't doubt that. I guess the only criticisms arise when you sell an academy/course for 2.5k on the premise that you're a crusher at 500z (biggest winners in 500z usually win a 5bb/100), when you're probably not (anymore at least), with evidence being a 40k hand sample of 5-7bbs/100. The sample isn't that big and could very easily be a golden sample (i will tell a story later on of a true golden sample).
BBZ: His coaching business is absolute top tier and i have a lot of respect for it. I know a few friends who have been apart of BBZ and their coaching seminars, and they've all had nothing but good things to say. And from the little i've seen, its been very very good. Of course his initial response to ginge was a bit irrational, but he's a very professional guy and likely won't be doing stuff like that again.

Internet ego warriors and being 'good' at poker
I'm guilty of a lot of the things i am about to comment on. But a lot of this drama, and the poker scene in general, is just so crazily egotistical and everyone thinks everyone is bad. Like as soon as i hear people say they think Addamo is bad, i'm done. But the thing is there's a lot of people in poker who are obsessed with being considered 'good' at the game that they forget to max their EV in a sense. Its kind of like with limitless, you can call him bad all you want, but his net worth is probably 8 figures and most of it from poker in soft live games. Like you can be a 500z reg, considered good at the game and make 150k-200k a year, or you can make 500-1mil a year playing soft live games but no longer being considered as good at the game. Like the option seems easy, but it seems like a lot of people put their ego and pride first and stick with the 500z, and you're sat there with your dick in your hand, whilst some guy you consider worse than you is making 4-5x as much money. So i would consider him as being a much better poker pro. I have a new found respect for guys who just find games where they can maximise their EV, even if they not considered anywhere near a top tier player, or even a decent player at times.

Story of golden sample
So this is about a guy who my friend told me about, I'm not going to say who the player is, and I'd be surprised if anyone was able to guess, but he had a bit of community buzz at one point.
It was a couple of years ago and i hear about this guy who was beasting 500z, had something ridiculous like a 9bb/100 winrate over 100k hands. He was also beasting tournaments, he either b2b binked or came 1st and 2nd in 2 weeks in the 1k super tuesday, one of the toughest online fields at the time. He was essentially on route to becoming one of the best players in the world. And within a year he was struggling to beat 100z and apparently almost went broke, i even remember playing with him in a $7.50 bubble rush. And nowadays i think he just plays midstakes MTTs. And obviously the point is how can a guy who struggles at 100z be able to beat 500z for such an insane winrate, because sure he's not a bad player, but he certainly wasn't one of the best. But thats the thing, outside of a major shift in strategy that crippled him forever, it was just an absolute golden sample. Likely running very far above EV without even realising. Since then, i've never taken small samples too seriously, even if the results are very impressive. God bless golden sample.

I'm too lazy to proof read so hopefully there aren't too many spelling errors

03/04/21 Session


Back on form after a few losing sessions. Nice to get a confidence booster like this right before scoop starts.
Had some banger hands throughout the session, including a few howlers, but that always makes the game more fun.

Giveaway
Giveaway has now closed, and i can say that the football team i support is Real Zaragoza who currently play in the Segunda División (Spanish 2nd Division), currently hovering just above relegation, its been a tough few years for a team that used to be pretty decent (top half la liga). To be honest i'm probably the worst supporter going, but that's where my mum is from, so that's my team

Since no one got the answer, the closest one was Deportivo de La Coruña, who literally play on the other side of Spain, but since that was the only guess in Spain, that is the winner! Also for the guy who sent in that answer, i can't msg you on 2p2, so if you could msg me somehow so we can sort out details for sending the $100.

Also for those who guessed Bristol City, whilst its not a bad guess, i hate Bristol City, working once at their ground was one of the most miserable experiences of my life, and was probably one of the drivers for me wanting to play poker full time. I did a 12h bartending shift without a break or any food, and never even got paid for it. In terms of Bristol teams I much prefer Bristol Rovers, and have been to a couple of their games.

March Recap

Probably played about 250 games including unibet, where i was up a bit.
I made about £3.3k/$4.5k, which is fine considering how little volume i put in. Wanted to focus more on studying before grinding hard during scoop.
To be honest i'm a little bit unsatisfied with the effort i put in this month, and it definitely started showing towards to end of the month with my dip in confidence and feeling very unclear about some spots that i should know like the back of my hands (e.g preflop jam/call spots).

Going into April i was supposed to write up a list of goals that i had, but i haven't got round to thats yet.
So i guess i'll write a quick summary here:

• 500 MTTs
• Achieve diamond rakeback on ipoker
• Listen to hype song everyday (P Diddy - Bad Boy for Life) first thing as i wake up to get me into the zone
• Try to enjoy the series, and not worry too much about money won/lost

Also heavily contemplating doing a blog update after every session (like with winter series), as whilst it can be a bit of a hassle especially after long sessions, it forces some level of consistency. But maybe i'll do it so i post a hand of the day, which can either be a meme hand or a serious hand with analysis. I'll decide.