ah yeh, but your post felt like the kind of post you would make if OP outed himself in the previous page, and i was the only one that didn't knew

anyway, OP not many regs 2.7x unfortunately for you

28/06

Well today was (another) pretty good reminder or how painful the world of MTTs can be. At one point I was 1/x, 1/x and 4/x deep in the money of the Big $55, Big $215 and Hot $215. Aside from the Battle Royale, they were 3 of my biggest buy-ins of the day. Then I lost QQ<A6 in a 5b all in, where a reg decided to punt it off, for like 80% of my Hot $215 stack and couldn't win a pot from there. Got showered in like 13-20th in all three.

Played a very short session of cash afterwards and lost 150bb quite quickly. Got stacked twice, one was top set vs 2nd set in a 3-bet pot and the other I had top 2 on AQ9Ttt in a three way 3-bet pot. Probably misplayed the second hand, and I really wasn't feeling it, so I'm just calling it a night.

Off to lick my wounds and try and muster up the strength to play again tomorrow.

Good night all.

06/05

Hey,

Hope you're all well. I've been pretty busy with poker and a little bit of real life work over the last few days. So haven't found the time to update this or do any writing. I've been trying to play 1kNL whenever a full ring game kicks off, as they tend to be pretty amazing value on Stars. Also been battling in the 1k 6-max games with other regs from time to time. It's a lot of fun and I have a lot of respect for a number of the guys who start games. I'm less incentivised to post any HHs from those games, as the player pools are really small and most people are really good. I'll still post the odd one from zoom games and the full ring games that run, but not at the volume I have been to this point.

The 2/5z games seem about as bad as they've been in a while right now. The pool isn't running for big chunks of the day, and then it kicks off with 4/5 good regs 4-tabling for an hour or two. I've spread my roll around onto a few different sites in the meantime. To see if I can get into some of these apparently action packed Euro games.

Ciao.

Edit: Just realised that I titled my last update 28/06 instead of 28/04. This tilts me to no end.

10/05

I've had a stupid frustrating couple of days at the table since last update. The zoom games are still really bad/not running, so I've played a whole lot of 400-1knl instead. Got in some amazing games and played soooo well, but just been getting very unlucky in terms of runouts and setups. EVbb has been 11/100h, and honestly should probably have been even higher. But as usual I'm way below that in actual results. Bored whining about it now. But I've only had a single month where I've ran over EV since Feb '15.

Some semi interesting hands to keep things ticking over:

1) Reg



2) 'reg'



3) rec



Lost both runs in this one 😔

4) reg - not sure about this one



GL to all the MTT bros out there during SCOOPs. I hope you win all the money.

LFG heat

77 is such pain. I like the AQ line a lot too. The pain will pass man, hoping it passed for me soon too!

Thanks Brosef. People been telling me the pain will pass for a while now, hope you're right!

WRT AQ, I think chk/j overall is good on this river. But villains sizing is probably pretty polar vs gen. pop, so think chk/call maybe does better?

11/05

Found some well deserved heeeeat today and booked a decent win. Ran good in a couple of 1knl tables, not so good in 400nl and reasonable at 600nl. If I could find that balance every day id be a happy man. Also FTd the Hot $162 again, ran QQ into AK for a big pot that would have seen me go 2/7 with $9k up, but it wasn't to be. Sad not to convert, but I late registered and was down to the 3-6bb mark a few times. Guess I can't complain.

Hands:

1) v good reg



2) oh so cold vs rec



3) good reg - turn is real interesting as I don't have an overbet range there. Think all 3 options are worth considering with my hand on turn.



4) reg




I have a thing I want to write about personality types and poker, but I want to give it some though first. I don't think mine is particularly great for poker really, and that's def something I've struggled with. Will likely churn something out over the next wee while.

Fingers crossed I can keep this heat up. If there's any justice in this world I'll never have a losing day again.

Personality types in poker

Lately I've been thinking a lot about this topic; what is the ideal personality type to be a successful poker player? What traits do the biggest winners share? Am I even suited to poker, and if so how high is my ceiling?

I don't know if anyone here has ever played games from the Fallout series, but at the beginning of the game your character answers a series of short, multiple choice questions to determine their personality type and what the ideal career path for them will be. From that point, their entire education / lifestyle is tailored to making them the best possible 'insert career choice' possible. Obviously an extreme example, but if that really were the case I wonder how many of us would get 'poker player' as an outcome?

Im nowhere close to an expert in any of this stuff, but I think it's an interesting topic of discussion. Some personality traits that I think are important:

Competitive - Given how theory driven the game has become in recent years, you'd think this would be less important than ever. But naturally competitive people definitely still trend upwards in the poker eco-system. The urge to battle for every pot (large ones and small ones) can be a big edge and the difference between a winning and losing player. Particularly applicable in HU.

Emotionally detached - Doesn't sound great, but this is a big benefit in poker. Some people are really good at compartmentalising. They can be cold and calculated at the poker table and still lead full lives, be in touch with their emotions and connect properly with people around them. Most can't. Emotional reactions to hands, runouts and even opponents is probably the single biggest contributing factor to tilt. Big shortfall for me, as I'm quite an emotive person.

Open mindedness - The ability to try and understand why people do things and how their strategy might benefit from them is hugely important in poker. For a long time I had a habit of writing off a lot of lines as bad/stupid because I didn't fully understand them. We all know people who seemingly just refuse to learn/adapt/evolve past a certain point in their life (usually when they leave formal education. Same goes for the guys playing live in poker rooms across the world, still making the same mistakes they were making 10 years ago.

Introverted - You tend to find some pretty out there / extroverted people in live poker. Particularly tournaments in my experience. I don't know if this is an effect of the relative simplicity/high variance of the format. But the vast majority of online grinders that I've met are at least introverted leaning. You kind of have to be to put the hours in away from human interaction playing/studying.

Good innovator OR emulator - Both work well. For obvious reasons, innovators will be ahead of the curve more often and will trend towards the better players in each game type. Emulators can and will still reach high stakes (particularly NLH) because the learning curve has plateaued and most of the information is now readily available to those who put the hours in.

Studious - Fairly self explanatory

Obsessive?

Delusional

Low maintenance

being open minded to a lot of different plays certainly helped me in the past year or so to be emotionally detached to whatever the runout is

16/05

Results have been decent over the past few days. But the trend for the past 6 weeks or so has been book a couple of big wins in a row, then slooooowly lose it all back over a week. Rinse and repeat. Really hoping to push on from this point and start making some money again!

I played zoom for the first time in a little while yesterday. The pool is usually amazing on a Sunday, so I guess that's probably in part why I've booked a good day. Found some nice spots vs recreational players with big hands, which is always fun. I haven't fired any high scoops yet. Probably will at some point, but for right now I really don't feel like gamboooling up $5-10k in silly high variance spots. Guess I could sell pieces, but for the time being I'm happy just grinding cash. Bought some pieces of other MTT heroes, so one of them might do something I guess.

Some hands:

1) reg - turn spot is pretty interesting vs this sizing. Raise/call?



2) meh reg



3) rec



4) rec ****ing about - some chance I lost value somewhere here



5) reg



6) rec



7) reg



Thanks follow reading. Lurkers please post something, I'm awfully bored of talking to myself.

I'll oblige..

Your hh's are always pretty top notch.

Lmk if you sell something, def think you should be firing off some scoops, haven't you had some solid mtt results in the past?

glgl

Yea, I'd probably want to buy a piece of whatever you're selling too.

do you like btn turn call in last hand?

i'd probably buy shares too if any are left.

Thanks bro. Had some reasonable results yeah, SCOOPs always been pretty brutal to me though!

Will let you guys know if I decide to play and sell anything, appreciate the interest though!

BTNs spot is interesting. It seems close in a vacuum, can't think of many regs that I'd feel good about calling there with QQ in reality.


Pretty interesting hand here vs tough reg.

What do you think of his river play?
Seems like there are a whole lot other better candidates to do it with to me,that particular river seems like a bad card to do it on aswell since he cant be valuejamming Q6/Q7s now

It's definitely an exploitative jam. On this runout I feel like there's a lot of good bluff candidates/perceived bluffs in my range, butI'd guess villain doesn't expect me to triple this runout as a bluff often enough to make calling good, so blocking 89/8T/68 is less important if that's true and blocking QQ/AQ more important. Its a relatively clean runout, so I can go 3 with most of my good Qx and better. Can't really say whether villains assumptions are correct, but my river bet/call is also fairly exploitative.

solid blockers for 82o tho

Obviously this also.

25/05

Heyyy,

Sorry for the lack of updates people. I've been real busy with a lot of real life stuff this week, so haven't had a whole lot of time for poker/blogging, or anything fun.

Got back to battling in the streets today, and my game felt pretty sharp. I played my ranges pretty well and didn't make any huge (IMO) mistakes. I got a buddy to do a HH review for me through the week, so I'm trying to implement some stuff he gave me with regards to facing 3bets EP v BTN and BTN v SB/BB.

I was also able to book my first ever winning SCOOP!! Despite not firing a single event. Most of the %s that I had booked panned out as small winners, and then Firaldo goes and ships the $2k mix-max for 2+2 to top it off.

I'm going to try and put in some big volume this week, as I'm off on holiday next Monday. Aimee and I have a Double Superior room booked at this beaut:

http://www.lopesan.com/en/hotel-lope...tml#ad-image-2

So I'm really looking forward to just chilling in the sun on that big balcony, and catching up with some reading/writing.

Some hands:

1) Rec



2) Solid all round play here from a reg...



3) Fun new reg playing 35/28/16 - hopefully he won a SCOOP and sticks around



4) Same guy



5) Reg - Thoughts on this one?



6) Absolute classic vs a reg



Hope you're all doing good. Thanks for reading!

timstone, is that you?

Awesome thread, in

Good read!

How do you feel about "Stubborn" or "Opinionated" (both meant in the same context)?

Reason:
Applying a correct strategy that does not work due to poor luck a couple of times in a row may deter someone from reapplying it as they are second guessing their previous approach, when a stubborn and/or opinionated person continues to reapply the correct approach.

I suppose there could be some cruel irony in this though, ha

Hey, thanks for the sub

Yeah I do think that single mindedness, or stubbornness, can be an asset in poker. Mostly due to how important positive re-enforcement is to most people (and poker players). I think most people are likely to draw conclusions that they're winning after a 20k winning stretch of hands, but happy to chalk it up to variance if they lose for 20k hands, for example. While in reality, both samples are relatively meaningless.

_______________________________

Had a really swingy few days since my last update. Down a nominal amount at cash overall, but with many 300-500bb swings on the way. Found some MTT final table sweats ($215 PSKO, Big $162, $109T) along the way, but wasn't able to convert.

Hands:

1) Probably rec




2) Bleh



3) Reg



4) Reg



5) Weird one vs reg



Tonight, I'm going out for a nice Indian meal with friends, and then back to mine for some drinks. The Champions League final is on at 7:45, followed by a pretty tasty card of boxing, so that'll be the entertainment. I plan on being good and hungover tomorrow, so it's unlikely that I'll get much more poker in this weekend. Then on Monday morning I'm off to Gran Canaria for a week with Aimee. It's probably been over 18 months since I went an entire week without playing any poker, so I'm pretty excited for that. Also a tiny bit nervous that I'll come back and just feel totally out of touch with the games, but hopefully not!

#2 - I cannot get my head around your tiny raise OTT with QQ, care to elaborate? It seems like such a terrible bluff spot to balance with... don't take that the wrong way, though, I'm just a micro's player

#3 - What do you think about that reg 4betting AQs otb when deep?

#4 - I love the line with AKdd on double flush board

Enjoy your week off