Yeah you're right I was thinking the wrong thing. I would want to run it once because I want my opponents to not be more inclined to push with draws. Because I'm a nit.

Day “3”
Hours Played: 6.5
Result: -$365 *not including rb*


Summary: I did alright at 40NL, 60NL, and 100NL with roughly an even spread of pots lost/won but today can really be chalked down to an unsuccessful shottake. I don’t play much 200NL HU or shorthanded anymore and was a little out of my element. I’m just going to post two hands from that.

HH 1:
200NL HU
$101 eff
No reads

I make it $4 with J10dd. I adopt a 2x strategy HU usually with 80% of hands. V calls.

Flop ($8): 4d-8d-9c. V checks. I bet $4. V x/r $12. I call(?)

Turn ($32): 4d-8d-9c-6h. V $21.33. I cal(?)

River ($74.66): 4d-8d-9c-6h-10h. V AI $63.67. I call(?) Thoughts?



HH2:
200NL 3-handed
Hero (BTN): $174.29
V (BB): Covers- Seems solid.

I open $6 with 7c7s. SB folds. V makes it $24. I call(?)

Flop ($49): Jd-Jh-Qd. V c-bets $14.50. I call(?)


Turn ($78): Jd-Jh-Qd-4c. V continues $35. I call(?)

River ($148): Jd-Jh-Qd-4c-4d. V AI $100.79. I call(?) Thoughts?



Didn’t want to poast this last night as I know I’ll get crushed for this but I want to be as transparent along this ride as possible. Oh well. Today’s a new day.

If I’m ever going to be as good as Jungle, Ike, Galfond and those guys 10-15 years from now-- I’m going to have to make everyday count. Here’s to that.

Constructive criticism and advice always welcome. but plz be nice. Thank you.

Yeah youre going to be in these spots a lot 6-handed and HU/shorthanded on pbros. I would recommend pio/other solver work now, especially if you really want to increase the chance you make it.

I mean you could just crush the fish at 5/5 for a good living but youd be basically forever stagnant and not be growing as a player

I dont wanna sound like im all knowing cuz i dont lol but i think some of these spots you arent sure of in these hands should be second nature to someone who wants to make it as a pro.

E.g. folding 77 otf there is not a thing in theory even without a diamond and exploitatively prolly a torch. Yes you did call but that should be automatic imo

Gl and study hard! Id say the two best things you can do is watch good midstakes regs playing zoom and pio work, by far. The advice you get from 2+2 wont help you too much in becoming a pro/upping your game. Def not the standard route to be taking after uni but respect to you bro

Honestly, I started winning a lot more online when I realised that most villains are so weighted to value later in hands that folding river in almost all marginal situations is the right play

You’re not playing Stephen Chidwick and these guys are not balanced.

I understand that you want to be able to play against good villains and not be exploitable but for now, just concentrate on playing winning poker to build your bankroll and your confidence and so don’t bluff catch unless you have masses of evidence or the hand makes no sense at all

Got it. Yeah, although I think I’m a little more aware than a lot of recreational players theoretically- it pales in comparison to a pro or someone who’s done a lot of solver work.

Thanks for the advice. I’ll likely start doing solver work in a couple months or so when I can simultaneously grind full time hours in addition to serious study. Right now I still have school going on. And that’s been a solid 25-30hr+ weekly commitment

Thanks feely. I agree with you. If you look at results both V’s were getting OOL with their ranges as I suspected but you’re saying you think they shut down on blank rivers in both hands?

I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the flop play in hand 1 and how you’re playing 55s-10s in H2.

flop play in hand 1 was correct, river has to be a fold though, gutshots got there, random backdoors with a 7 got there, very hard for villain to find a bluff in his range besides flush draws, having Jd here makes for a pretty bad bluff catcher

77 prob fold river although its a bit tempting to call, pretty low in your range there though, don’t need to defend it

ty sir, will keep that in mind. River call hand 1 seems bad in hindsight yeah. I'm just a station who always thinks these guys are playing back at me, especially at 100 and 200NL.

are you only calling QJs+ and flushes in this spot? I don't think I have any 4x here given that the river was the 4d.

running totals of cumulative hrs and maniez won as well please

more like maniez lost amirite

Good idea Sqwid- you got it. Will do every week or so.

The spin off from Season 2 of 6bm is going well so far. You're avoiding many of the mistakes he made. That said, stop playing stakes and formats you aren't comfortable with. The road to being a poker failure is lined with shot takers.

RTP - Warnimg - constructive critism incoming. I also have not read the last week of posts in the thread. So my read may be off, most reads are from LLNCLC chat thread.

Early on you tied your confidence for success in poker to smarts, desire, work ethic - as demonstrated by child prodigy success in chess.

And that chess success admittedly came not just from raw talent but from tireless hours of study, sacrifice and singular dedication to the goal to be the best.

You also iirc seemed to embrace the gto analytical side knowing what to do situationally, and constructing the distributions and playing optimally for the longterm term results.

I know you are also in final stages of school, move planning etc. And you may just point to that and say in a couple of months it'll change (I say habits are hard to change - start sooner).

Your posts though seem to indicate you are just trying to put in hours hoping the results will follow. And doing so with a randomness despite game selection, of stakes, muti tableness etc

If you are questioning your edge, you need to take steps to insure it especially If your goal is to be an elite echiever as you were in chess and not just a grinder for a few years. Do you have study routines. Sims etc. Already in place?

What will you do to be the best and not just another hopeful?

Agreed. I’m not exactly sure what to do about my tendencies to shot take frequently though. See below as to why.

Every thread could use your wisdom, Venice. ty

Well said. This seems spot on.

The main reason for my initial confidence when I made this decision is that in chess the climb is significantly more difficult, due to there being no luck (luck is why this game can be so profitable I think). Also the path it’s defined and straightforward as it’s based on a rating system. You start at 0 and you need to get to 2,200. Just be in the top 1% am boom you’re there. I mostly knew what I needed to do reach every step along the way to master as well due to good mentors and friends who had similar goals, it was just a question about doing it.

Also, I look up to guys like Dan Smith, Dan Harrington, Mike McDonald, Allen Cunningham, and a lot of other people who the public is unaware of- who came from a chess background and have done pretty well for themselves as a degen.

In poker, you can always start at the lowest steak and work your way up but if you have the roll for it, and could/do make a lot of money working a great job etc. it’s incredibly difficult to have the discipline to do so and settle for/appreciate a modest winrate. And that’s what I’m struggling with mostly.

I think the way to go is to (re) start from the bottom and just work my way to the top but in the meantime I’ll be sacrificing tens of thousands financially where as a child my opportunity cost was playing video games, hanging out with friends etc.

So I don’t really have a good answer for you, unfortunately. I’ll have to think about it.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, this was insightful.

Also, have officially decided to stay with my mom in SoCal to start my career. Could use the love and support anyways.

Almostttt there! Less than 30 days till I do this for 50-60 hours+ a week.

I still really don't understand, you aren't that good of a chess player.

Also you literally answer your own thread with this.

Yeah you are being incredibly stupid passing up on huge life gains (according to your amazing career choices) to play poker for pennies on the dollar even if you are doing well.

I don’t really understand what you don’t understand. I’m not sure what that means. In the U.S. you can’t become higher than a National Master and/or Senior Master, through USCF. It is literally the top. Like .1% of tournaments in the U.S. are FIDE. So becoming a Grandmaster isn’t really a thing for U.S. citizens in your teens.

Disregarding exceptions, in most countries, you have the opportunity to pursue International Master and/or Grandmaster as all your games are played under the system. In the U.S. it doesn’t really make sense to pursue those titles, for obvious reasons.

So you have to look at it under USA#1 standards. I was always in the top 1% of competitive players of my age (these are people who play tournaments) and became a master in my early teens. I’m not sure what you consider as good or not. I don’t really play FIDE tournaments and those aren’t widely available apart from 15-20 a year etc. sporadically unless you travel overseas so it’s not a fair comparison.

In other words, you can’t compare FIDE vs USCF.

If I wanted to become a Grandmaster, and was living in a different country, I would of by now- but it’s not reasonable growing up in the U.S. In the National U.S. Collegiate championships a couple years ago, one GM was US born. 1.

So very few chess players age accomplish more than master in the U.S. very, very, very few. If U.S.A. born FIDE title holder is your metric for good, that’s pretty unreasonable. I’m just measuring myself vs USA #1 and my peers. Not the whole wide world as it’s literally not a thing. They use a different system.

With regards to poker, this was never a financial decision, so while it may be stupid it’s fine. I just want to be the best eventually. I’d imagine most who get to the highest levels make solid money. Hope that helps.

This literally explains it perfectly to me, I'm UK so most of my understanding of chess is EU and US seems to have it's own weird little systems. Thank you.

I have friends form uni that were FMs (one below IM if I've said the wrong one) who I admittedly at the time didn't realise how impressive that was as I knew nothing about chess. They were hardly geniuses though just dedicated a lot of time to it. One of whom played poker to very mediocre results pre BF.

The bit about GM is untrue though as an assumption. Things do not scale like that at all. You know that though and not worth getting into, I genuinely appreciate the explanation.

It really isn't and I can't stress how big of a mistake it is you are making especially when you can do the job and poker in that order just not the other way around.

HUD’s are against TOS? I read on the pokerbros thread that is was fine, I guess it is not anymore? Subbed btw, gl on the grind.

Happy to hear that made sense. I’m mostly saying in the OP I was pretty high up there in comparison to my peers until I became master, and then effectively quit trying to get better as a player for the reasons I just shared with you.

You’re right things don’t scale like that in general, but a lot of people overseas who become FMs in high school ended up becoming GMs if they aspired to. It’s different if you get there as an adult. Just not really an option in the U.S. to go above NM unless you travel like crazy. And I mean a lot.

With the chess background, I don’t mean to come across as arrogant. I just think it’s good context and may help separate me from the masses of other people with the same goals. It’s not important to me that anyone appreciates, recognizes this etc. It’s been a large part of my life until now as well. Like half as much as sleeping.....

Wrt poker, I think me saying I’m going to play 5/5 etc. was misleading. Albeit this is my plan to start. I’m really bad rn, even if I can beat that game because it’s live. I just want to master this game and become really good at it one day and think I have the skillset and work ethic to do so. Even if some will disagree, I think the chess background will give me a solid edge over other pros in a number of different ways.

Playing live just seems to be essential since I can not only improve as a grinder and adjust to the lifestyle optimally overtime as I spent more and more time in casinos, but make good money as well. Working a job first to grow the roll is Probably way more +EV and significantly easier but it would detract from my goals of becoming really good at poker because all that time spent working is time not spent improving my game, even if just through going through the grind. Also, I can still continue coaching chess for extra money in some capacity etc. in the beginning stages of this journey despite the scheduling etc. being extremely inconvenient at times. Hope that makes a little more sense.

I’m a little nervous about saying I want to be as good as Linus or something on here because I’m going to be grinding micro stakes for a while when playing online etc. and that’s fairly stupid and naive, but if I ever did want to be that good working a normie job would make that impossible. Its like a professional athlete working a job in the offseason instead of training etc.

Also, this doesn’t have to be permanent despite my hopes that it will be. Ok LOL enough of that. I’m committed to this even if I am terrible at poker and have good alternatives.

Thanks man

This is from RobFarha who owns a large club with thousands of members on PokerBros:

It seems as if they‘ve always been against TOS but most grinders don’t care of course. I’m a man a principle

I lurk the LVL chat and going to lurk this too. About 10 years into a finance career so happy to offer a perspective from 'the other side'.

Welcome!

Update and reflection incoming

Day 4-6
Hours Played: 14
Result: -$475 *not including rb*

Summary: Once again, I did alright at 20 NL, 40NL, 60NL, and am learning every day from my play with roughly an even spread of pots lost/won but had poor results at 100NL+ and only cashed one or two of 20+ tournaments or so. I suppose I can track tournaments separately albeit the app does that in its own way.

I don’t think it makes sense to poast too many HHs at one time and think 3-5 is a good limit. This means that not all HHs will be from the same day(s) in the future but still recent and pulled directly from game data or screenshots/pics.


HH 1:
60NL 5-handed
Hero (BTN): $60
Sidepocket (CO): $64
frankeyb0nez (UTG): $91
Don’t remember reads

UTG open limps. CO overlimps. I overlimp A5dd. SB calls. BB check.

Flop ($3): Jd-10c-3d. SB and BB check. UTG pots $3. CO calls. I call(?)

Turn ($12): Jd-10c-3d-5c. UTG pots $12. CO calls. I call(?)

River ($48): Jd-10c-3d-5c-Qc. checks around.



HH2:
60NL 5-handed
Hero (CO): $60
V (UTG): Covers. Don’t remember reads.

UTG opens $1.20. I 3bet to $3.60 with KJhh. Folds around to UTG who calls.

Flop ($8.10): Ac-Kd-9d. V leads $1.20. I call.

Turn ($10.50): Ac-Kd-9d-Qs. V checks. I bet $5.25. V calls.

River ($21.00): Ac-Kd-9d-Qs-8s. V checks. I bet $8.40. V calls.



HH3:
60NL 5-handed
Hero (SB): $100.35
V (CO): $134.05 Some meta here since but don’t remember it.

MP open limps. CO overlimps. BTN makes it $3. I 3bet to $9.30 with AdA. CO and BTN both call.

Flop ($30): Ks-4s-7h. I c-bet $17. CO calls. BTN folds.

Turn ($64): 7h-4s-Ks-6c. I bet $29. V calls.

River ($122): 7h-4s-Ks-6c-Qd. I AI $44.75.



HH4 :
40NL 6-max
Hero (SB): $48
V (MP): $40- spot iirc

UTG opens to $1. V cold calls. I make it $3.80 in the SB with KdKc. I want to keep MP in the hand here with AA-KK despite my equity dropping vs their ranges multi-way.

Flop ($12.40): Jh-4c-3s. I c-bet $6. UTG folds. MP min raises to $12. I call.

Turn ($36.40): Jh-4c-3s-2d. I check. MP $2.80. I raise to $7.60. MP AI for $24.65. I call.

The fine denizens of the greatest thread in the history of tpt over in llsnl chat have been through this with him in detail and OP is not for changing.

He accepts that this is probably -ev in certain ways, but he’s gonna give it a red hot shot and he now has our backing and support. He’s young and he has a great foundation to fall back on so a year or two chasing his dreams won’t be a terminal impediment if it proves not to be what he’s hoping it’ll be

GL man. subbed :-)