Up to the 80k VPP mark.

vs Non-reg, 20 VPIP on deep table, suspected rec.

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em $0.10 Ante - 5 players - View hand 2806383
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $69.31
BB: $73.94
Hero (UTG): $175.10
CO: $94.87
BTN: $125.00

Pre Flop: ($1.25) Hero is UTG with K K
Hero raises to $1.50, CO calls $1.50, BTN calls $1.50, 2 folds

Flop: ($5.75) K 3 Q (3 players)
Hero bets $4.11, CO raises to $12.22, BTN folds, Hero raises to $40, CO raises to $67.78, Hero raises to $173.50 all in, CO calls $25.49 all in

Turn: ($192.29) Q (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($192.29) 7 (2 players - 2 are all in)



vs Reg, awkward river spot.

Poker Stars $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players - View hand 2806384
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP: $118.83
CO: $85.44
BTN: $169.64
SB: $112.02
Hero (BB): $100.00
UTG: $46.80
UTG+1: $105.48

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BB with 7 6
5 folds, SB raises to $2.54, Hero calls $1.54

Flop: ($5.08) T 2 9 (2 players)
SB bets $3, Hero raises to $9, SB calls $6

Turn: ($23.08) 7 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $14.54, SB raises to $54, Hero calls $39.46

River: ($131.08) 6 (2 players)
SB bets $35, Hero calls $34.46 all in




Check results next week at the end of the month and see if we are still alive to fight another month.

Actual have cramp in my folding finger after tonight, god bless full ring. And that isnt a joke about how many hands I folded, I actual do have an aching finger. Marked down a few hands to go over:

Maybe a better player folds here. Vs a big fish and a reg. When the fish raises the turn I reckoned he had the flush as well and the reg had a set. Whilst I felt there was a good chance I was getting out flushed, I also had outs to a straight flush plus the % that the fish has a weaker flush, so got it in.



Next, uft..



Marked this down as I am pretty sure this is river missed value, but didnt have the heart to raise the river. Was prob running badly at the time.



Right next, my little Russian buddy. Me and this guy were playing HU. Think a fish joined for a while and the table went 4 handed for a bit because the seat scripting brigade come charging in. Before this the russian dude took like 100bb off me I think with KK in a 4bet pot.

I remember thinking "please dont have AK on river" but why would he do this with AK?



So me and the russian dude slugged it out for another 40 mins or so. Felt I was crushing him. He left 5 mins after this hand. But I really feel bad for not finishing off the rest of his stack here.

He was very aggro pre with a 3bet of 31%. So when I hit the set and he checks to me, I didnt want him check folding on me. The previous two pots were a decent size and I XR him on the turn and he tanked folded both times.

So I was planning on keeping him alive on the flop then raising him AGAIN on the turn and he would be thinking that I am full of it by that point.

But when the T arrives I got scared he might have AK or at least a combo draw so wasent so keen on the raise now.



Ugh so annoyed with that hand. Played 90 hands against him and finished 300bb up so not all bad.

Dno how I'm not subbed to this. Great read.

Welcome, never too late to subscribe. Your name looks familiar, pretty sure I am subscribed to your own PG&C.

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Well Sunday is the first day in a long time that I never played any poker at all. Was a pretty traumatic day in fact. I cant say too much about it because of the seriousness of the situation and to respect other peoples privacy.

The cliff notes are a family member has been taken into hospital in bad circumstances. I reckon they will be in for a few weeks. I will probably be visiting daily and visiting hours are right around the time I would be looking to start sessions so I will lose a couple of hours each day. I aim to still keep playing and will start my daily sessions when I get back from visiting.

I was really trying to get this Supernova status unlocked as soon as possible to get it out the way but this will slow me down now. I have already put good volume in the last couple of months so I am ahead of schedule right now. This hopefully shouldn't blow things too far off course.

Also not feeling great with the recent life events so the next few weeks could prove to be a tougher mental and emotional challenge than usual.

I will update monthly results and VPPs as usual at the end of the month.

Hey man, I'm really sorry to hear about your family member. I hope things turn around/you're able to visit them as much as you want to. As for poker, don't push yourself too hard - you could probably do without the stress of having to play hands/grind vpps. Remember it's only poker and it's not your soul source of income and therefore you're allowed to put it on the back burner!

Gl

Thanks mate, solid advice. Your trip to Malta sounded fun.

Person in Hospital seems a lot better now, so will just take a couple more weeks recovery time I reckon. I will just visit whenever I can now, instead of trying to go everyday.

Been a rough week, haven't been sleeping very well. Seemed to wake up after 4 hours sleep every time I went to bed then spend the rest of the day completely tired. As a result Poker volume hasen't been great and prob been playing some C game crap this week. Yday I seemed to lose a stack everytime I got dealt QQ.

Managed to get a better sleep last night, so looking to just get my routine back to normal for the start of next month.

Next post will prob be the monthly results.

Right, monthly results:

Was gonna post this earlier but got caught up in the sandstorm of reading into the changes about the VIP club in 2016, HUDs getting banned etc. Think I read the value of Supernova will be decreased by 0 to 27% in 2016

Ok,

Monthly VPPs: 22k
Around 14k to go until Supernova.

Winrate was kinda meh again, around BE, pretty similar to last month but made a small profit:

+$649

and my spreadsheet tells me those 22k VPPs, plus stellar rewards adds up to around:

$1k in rakeback

So an alright month I suppose, but I am not kool with being BE and profits coming mainly from rakeback especially with the recent changes announced, so need to get down to business and patch some leaks.

I know what areas I am losing money compared to winning players but I am not 100% sure on how I fix them. I think I have some leaks in my ranges that better players are exploiting.

I was planning on adjusting some things this month so I might decide to check results more often this month to see how things are going.

Lets hope there is better news from Stars soon and the changes aren't as bad as many are fearing.

gl

Can you recap your findings re SN changes? Don't have to, I'm just too lazy to look elsewhere. <3

Hey official Stars updates here:

VIP changes for 2016
https://www.pokerstars.uk/vip/changes/

And a couple threads from NVG with more discussion if anyone isnt already subscribed on the topics:

Pokerstars VIP club changes plan removal of SNE
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...l-sne-1568712/

Bye Bye HUDs..
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...-huds-1568908/

Having a look at my results at the months end I seem to be excelling at the Deep stack games and kinda stuggling BE at the normal FR games. I think my general poker game is suited to Deep stack play as I can open wider because of the lure of taking down the antes as well as blinds.

I can fight for more pots by flatting 3bets or 4betting a bit wider due to the larger stacks and bigger SPR which means I can play a bit more postflop. Fish also have larger stacks sometimes if they sit down deep as well which means there is more "easy-money" to be won and from what Ive read Deep stack play requires a larger skill edge which further dis-advantages the fish.

I dont have a big enough sample yet to be conclusive that I play better on Deep tables but the 40k sample I have looks very good.

The only problem is you dont get many Deep games running.

Soooo yesterday I came to the conclusion that it is about time I gained some experience at 6max and when I looked at the lobby there was quite a few deep 6max games running. So yday I played my first ever hand on a 6max table.

Next I am thinking I may try my hand at HU as I feel I have got the better of most people I have played on a FR table which the majority have been regs.


Anyway here is a funny hand from my first ever session at 6max. I am at a 6max table and I have zero hands on everyone so I literally dont know who the regs and fish are. Then I notice the SB is now occupied by a reg that I am familiar with from the FR games.

As soon as I seen him I thought: "I know, he knows I dont usually play 6max" and I was thinking I bet this guy will try and give me a hard time as he knows I am out my comfort zone.

Just then I gets dealt AA, I 3bet the villain who opened the pot. And then no surprises that the dude I recognise from FR tables cold 4bets from the SB. I'll post the HH below for the rest of the story.



This guy then proceeds to celebrate in the chat box to rub it in, lol.

Oh well guess the 6max adventure begins here, lets goooooooo

Here is another episode from my new 6max adventures.

In the BB is a villain whom I only have 6 hands on. He has 60% agg freq and he is from the UK - I suspected he might be a fish but didnt have a lot to go on as we only have 6 hands!

Reg opens and I flat with AK to let this suspect looking UK player into the pot.

BB donks the flop and the Reg gets out the way. When the BB donks the flop for pot I am suspecting this is fishy play but fearing he may have hit a set.

Before my session I was watching one of BenaBadBeats coaching videos and there was bit where he was talking about interpreting bet sizes and what they mean. And how often a larger bet size can be the villain trying to increase his fold equity.

When the villain bets the Turn again for pot, this does feel a little unusual and as if he is trying to push me out the pot.

When he shoves the river I am now a little concerned he has boated up. But he jams over 2x the pot I had to think to myself why would he shove the river this big with a boat, surely he would want to entice me to call for value especially since I can have AK here. Again it did feel like he was trying to push me out the pot again, perhaps with a missed draw or even air if he is in fact a big fish.

November Monthly Goals:

• Get 15K VPPs
• Achieve Supernova status
• Cash in my 200k FPPs for 2x of the $1600 rewards
• Get some experience at 6max
• Research what other sites to play on in 2016
• Review my FR leaks and hand ranges
• Spend some time studying

Lets gooo

Month hasent started very well, been absolutely butchered at the tables recently. A lot of run bad, running into top of Fish ranges. Lost set over set a few times, brutal ones too like TT v JJ.

Dont think 6max has started very well either, due to being a bit uncomfortable playing short handed, not knowing anything about 95% of the players and feel have run bad there so far too.

Looked over some hands and there was a good few where I had the odds to call for flush draws, combo draws and they all seemed to miss. My redline has plummeted as a result but I am sure its just some negative variance.

I adjusted tiltbreaker so it would only kick me out if I had a disaster -10 BI session and sadly it arrived. But I am sure some regression to the mean will bring back results in the right direction. Lets have a positive wk end to get things back on track.

vs Reg, Turn raise is big here as if he were setting up stacks for the river and I really dont see what I am beating..



Doubt he raises that big with a set of 3s
Doubt he had KK due to flatting pre
Looks like TT or JQ to me
Doubt he raise AK on the turn or jams the river when checked to with that.

On to the next one..

great goals man, not late to say good luck with that!

Thanks for the support mate.

Update:

Up to 90k VPPs so 90% on the way to Supernova.

Played 2 or 3 hands really badly yday so will need to look at why that is happening. At least twice I knew I was beat on river, the villains hand was exactly as I thought yet I end up looking at my pot odds and thinking some bull**** along the lines of "well I only need to be right 25%" when in reality I will lose these calls 95% of the time.

Another fatal flaw is not analysing the board carefully enough when I have a set.

I feel a little more settled in to the 6max tables now and I think I will get better there with experience.

Played my first ever HU table with a game at 50NL. I was up 100bb after about 40 hands just from exploiting leaks.

My opponent asked in the chat if I was a Pro. I assured him this was my first ever HU match. He went on to cooler me 3 times on the river with Trips over Trips but villain held better kicker.

After that he left and cut his losses.

Since then every time I sit a HU table somebody joins then sits out (no doubt checking my screen name for my winrate somewhere) then leaves 30 secs later. So quite frustrating. I also noticed in the game I did play that money seemed to be disappearing quite fast, felt like the rake was very high.

Here is some good old fashion FR action:

vs 63 VPIP, I thought we were playing for stacks on the Turn here then when the money goes in he doesnt fancy his chances as much and he tanks and then..

I'm trying to learn hu too so if you wanna play I'm in! Fwiw I'd play play money too. No bum hunting here!!

Yeah if you wanna get some HU practise I am in on it. Not been on a play money table for a while, think the last time was on Party Poker back in the day.

In HEM I have 11k hands HU with a winrate of 24.9 EV bb/100

Doubt I am any HU genius but I have been able to beat what has been put in front of me so far. I would imagine that you are thinking 10 levels deeper than most of the opponents I have played so far even though you are not a HU specialist.

I dont even have a HU HUD or anything, I am guessing the top bosses will have something tailored to suit this game. I just use my bulky FR HUD with its array of stats.

But yeah I am game for it, pm me if you want and let me know when you wanna practise.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Took most of yesterday evening off as I went out to see Scottish comedian Kevin Bridges, was pretty good plenty of laughs the whole way through.




-------------------------------------------------------------------

The night before I had bit of a nightmare at the tables. So I looks up and I see this guy who I dont recognise, pretty sure he is a fish and I only have 13 hands on him. But in them 13 hands he has a 90 VPIP!

Me and the fish go HU to the flop in a SRP. I pick up trip Queens. Continue to barrel for value to the river. Fish raises!

At this point I know he can have me beat but I felt it was more likely he has trip Queens with a weaker kicker. I had trip Queens, King kicker and re-raised him again to get all the money in.

Looking back now I am not so sure my re-raise was good as villain probably just calls down most of his trip Queens with a weak kicker.

Here is the hand:




So I got stacked by the boat.

The very next hand, we have KQo again, squeeze and go 3 way to the flop with 1 Reg and the 90 VPIP fish.

I land top pair on the flop which is rainbow and proceed to value bet. The reg gets out the way on the flop and the 90 VPIP fish continues. The turn pairs the board.

At this point I was thinking the fish will think I am tilting and just rage betting away my stack after he stacked me the previous hand and I expect he may call down here with a ton of weaker Kings, Jacks or even stupid PP hands. I continue to heap the money in.

I am not sure if I am being too aggressive in these 2 hands and I should perhaps slow down a bit on paired boards, or when the board gets scary. Or am I just overthinking the hands cos I got stacked twice in a row? If this is just a slice of negative variance I am fine with that, but if anyone feels I am playing horribly here feel free to slate me for it.

Here is the hand:



--------------------------------------------------------------

Right after that whole mess I pick up a set of Tens on another table and we are up against a 50 VPIP fish this time. My mind was still replaying the two hands above and I wasent concentrating fully.

The board pairs on the Turn and I 100% do not notice the board has paired.

The river pairs the King. I think to myself, I reckon he has trip Kings here and I dont see him getting away from that hand if he does. I overbet the pot.

Villain calls, I see his K then I sit confused as the pot slides over to him and I then notice the Turn paired the board and the K boated him up and I have stacked myself again, disaster.

Pretty brutal But as you say, I think both spots (h1+h2) are overplayed, ie. it's gonna be really difficult getting called by worse on those runouts/with that action. I agree it's much harder to not pile the $$ in vs 90 vpip guys cus they obv has so much rag hands but I do think we should check turn or river in H2, leaning towards it being a river check.

When you are looking at the winrates of good regs for certain spots do you just pick a few of the best regs in your hem database and see how they are doing or are you getting the info from somewhere else? There's a few spots I'd like to check in my own game but it's sometimes difficult to find something to compare them to. For example, I'd like to compare my results when I'm on the button and facing a resteal with good winning regs but I'm not really sure if the sample sizes I have for other regs in my database is big enough to get a good idea of what I should be aiming for.

Also, where in Scotland are you?

Agreed, think I was being over aggressive in those spots. In them specific hands I should have realised that I didnt have enough hands to confirm this guy was a 90 VPIP whale. Whilst I am still pretty sure he would have been a big fish I shouldn't really have played him like he was a 90 VPIP whale. And even if he was 90 VPIP I maybe still need to tread a bit more carefully.

I quite often do some bench presses before I play. Noticed I have been getting really hot (temperature wise) while playing and also a bit overly aggressive sometimes.

Moving forward I think I will avoid the bench presses right before I play just in case it is getting me a little too pumped up when I sit down for a session.

I spent a ton of time at 25NL so I had good samples for most of the regs there. Yeah so basically I made an alias of the top players from that stake so I had something to compare my results to in certain situations.

What I have found since I have moved up to 50 & 100NL is that using the 25NL Winner Alias for comparing winrates @ 50 & 100 is no longer useful to me. Winrates seem to get a little smaller as you move up which would seem natural as the competition is tougher.

So you cant expect to say "the 25NL winners have a winrate of -40bb/100 in BB vs Button Steal spots so I am going to aim for that at 100NL too"

Because at 100NL the whole field is stronger and people adjust better. So in order to make accurate comparisons it needs to be same stake and same site. I know you play on Full Tilt so winrates might be slightly higher there than on Stars. And like you say sample size can be an issue, some guys have stupid high winrates in spots so they have obv been running good which can obscure things and then the more specific the scenario the less hands you will have on it and the less reliable the results are.

For what its worth, the winning 25NL Alias:

- Unopened Pot
- On the Button
- PFR
- And faced a 3bet

-119 bb/100

I am in Glasgow, stay in the city centre.

I'm at -144b in that spot. Had a feeling that I wasn't doing to well there.

vs Reg,

sigh.. AK? was expecting to see it..




Annoying 68/40 whale, he done me earlier in the session with a river raise which I called like a mug, but dude was playing like a maniac and betting with air a lot.

On the river I wanted to raise enough to get value from a 7 and also allow him some rope to hang himself if he wanted to get aggro again.




Ok just seen last nights results by accident when getting them hands above from HEM. Not supposed to check any results until the end of the month so I'll put the graph in a spoiler and you can come back at the end of the month and check to see if Friday the 13th was in fact un-lucky for some..

this check raise imo on turn with A8 is so super bad ... i guess other player is totally donk.. Can u explain your move on turn and what bluffs in your range u play like this ?

A8 hand, we are in the BB and facing a Btn steal.

-Flop comes and we pick up trip Aces.
-Hero checks to PFR, standard play.
-Btn checks back.

Turn comes 8h giving Hero the absolute nuts.

-My HUD says that the villain folds to a turn lead bet 82% after he checks back the flop.
-So certainly I could bet a lot of my air hands here to take down the pot. As I have a monster of a hand I am looking to get more than a quick fold from the villain here.

-Hero Checks
-Villain bets

-Now when the villain bets I am starting to think:

-The villain likely opens every A on the Btn and he may have checked the flop thinking he had a lock on the board with trip Aces and was slow playing to allow me to catch up.

-The villain may have any PP that he wasent comfortable betting on an AA flop, but after seeing Hero go X X he now value bets as he feels he has the best hand.

-If I call on the turn and then lead out on the river and bet for value, he will snap fold all his mediocre holdings fearing I in fact have the A.

-If I call the turn and attempt to XR on the river I am again going to look super strong and he will never call the XR plus it is very highly likely he checks behind on the river to get to showdown with anything mediocre.

-When the Hero XR the turn, I am hoping the villain has an Ace or a pocket pair that he doesnt want to fold. The Hero XR will now also look very bluffy as he will be thinking "why would this guy check raise an Ace on the turn and risk scarying me off the pot, he is probably bluffing. Why did he not just donk lead the turn with the ace?" He will feel as if I am just bluffing him out the pot.

-If the villain has an Ace he will have a hard time folding trip Aces. Especially in a BB vs Btn steal battle were ranges are wide and XR happen often on the flop and turn.

-If the villain has a PP he may flat the XR and hope to check behind on the river and catch me bluffing. He may also hope to boat up with his PP on the river and cooler me with what he suspects is probably the Hero holding trip As.

I have documented in this thread before that I worked a lot on my BB vs Btn steal game. As part of that I went through a long period of experimenting. One of the things I experimented with was XR on paired boards in this game and taking tally marks of how villains reacted. That included XR with ATC. I can have plenty of bluffs in my range here when I raise on a paired board.

-So when I XR here with the absolute nuts I think I can get value from any Ace and any PP when he doesnt believe me.

How would you have played the hand?