Thank you for your feedback guys, I got decent number of various opinions about the hand and it made me think about of ton of things. It was 150e buyin and villain with abi 80 and first wrong impression was that I was shorter ( speaking of ingame thinking ) - in 25bb range so I wrongly guessed he would 3b shove those smaller pairs. Second mistake was auto 30% cbetting this board which I really dislike as it is very hard to play this spot with range cbetting vs competent opponent. Third was closing my eyes and calling 3 streets. I'm still uncertain that I like 3b shoving the flop as it is very contrary to my understanding of poker ( I really dont wanna fold out numerous number of bluffs that he can x/r vs 30% sizing ) but again very poorly played hand overall.

Yesterday I discussed it with few rising mtt guys that work a ton on their game and it made me realize that I'm in some numb 8 months+ period where I haven't did a thing to improve my game beside spots vs recs and very weak regs where I think I do really good. All of this is connected with my struggles with motivation and goals - I dont know what I am trying to achieve in poker, but very good thing about this hand is that it triggered me to go out and try to figure my short/long term goals.

Grinding low/midish stakes is fine and proftable and basicly pretty easy money if you put in the hours, but on the other hand playing in such spot comps made me lose some of the hunger ( some??? yiah ) for improvement and moving forward. My guess is that this is also why I'm pretty feeling miserable and depressed in last few quartals but it seems that I've reached the breaking point so I'm glad about that.

Anyway, tyvm for feedback and gla on the grind

Sup? Long time no see...

April graph:



After WMX series finished I was still playing solid amount of hours with pretty aweful running in AIs but in one of the last sessions I binkdd 50e Prime Time for 4.4k and managed to finish pretty bad month it in the green. I was CL from beggining to the end of the ft, played some bizzare 60 58 16 stats or smt on FT and that was really good for my selfconfidence. After 25k+ March I was little bit anxious about how would I handle April since I'm known for getting into winners tilt after great months but this time I was ready, I wasn't going berserk with buyins and it all worked out good. Obv last Sunday I was firing like a maniac and dropped 1.2k or so while running aweful but it's all good. I had couple of session in which I played bad but overall I'm very glad how things worked out and how I was handling myself. Pokerwise. Lifewise I'm still filthy pig who orders food, smoke weed and cigs and dont do anything good for his body.

Then again I think I was just bursted out from too much MTTs in March/mid April when I said that I've lost my hunger for progressing and I think that I'll most likely keep my head to MTTs and pbb buy PIO and just start working on my game more. I guess I don't want to stay on abi 25 my whole life and will pbb sacrifice some shortterm EV (again) for going up stakes but not so sure about it yet. Will probably make some monetary goals and try to build solid liferoll for myself on these stakes before trying to jump up (something that I wasnt able to do my whole pokerlife ) and add some structure to my life in terms of eating sleeping and excersizing.

I still haven't sorted out my life (nor poker) goals but I've talked to some ppl about it and sorting them out is my n1 priority right now. I've booked a flight to Morocco in the middle of the month with some poker friends (mostly cashgame players) and I'll use that short vacation to relax, sort out my options and gather my thoughts. They are going to surf, I believe i'm gonna try surfing for 4 minutes then get back on dry land and smoke hashish.

I was looking my YTD so will share it here, hopefully I can keep up like this altough I see many areas in which I can progress :

And yeah, any MTT abi20+ willing to work on his game can hmu via pm to exchange skypes and put in motion some reviews or smt like that

Watching Lebron tonight was something special

pm sent

subb´d. cool thread

Hello there, long time no see. No, I'm not dead or busto (yet). I really needed to take some time off poker and altough I traveled a lot with friends that are all poker players, but we didn't do a lot of poker talk, thanks G. Right now I feel fully recharched and can't wait for grind to start (altough it probably wont start for the next 10 days). I'm not much of a photographer but I snapped some and will share them. Also I'm not much of a storyteller but I really enjoyed last 15 days much so I want to have some digital trace of it.

DISCLAIMER : TLDR, poor grammar and some pics ITT

So there was Winamax live series in Marrakech and group from Serbia went there to play. I was just out of the best online month ever and I wanted to keep grinding online in May (aweful couple of sessions ) but have already booked a flight to Agadir for 16th of May where part of that Marrakech group went after tournaments was finished. We arrived in Agadir and first things first, 16th of May was the first day of Ramadan. Not my intention to insult Muslims by any means, but for tourist that came there to have some good times it was pretty sad that 95% of shops/clubs/bars were closed during daytime. Had a Sahara trip planned out for 19th-21st and was pretty anxious about it as we were very dissapointed by the situation we found in Agadir. Going out at night into packed clubs with solid music and w/o serving alchohol didn't help either. Altough hashish was great

We did went to something called Crocopark. About 300 endangered crocodiles 2 meters away :







Another part of the park was about cactuses,water plants, iguanas, turtles etc. I wont be posting toooo many pictures but will do so if requested







After comming back I spilled water on my laptop which was brought exclusively for watching NBA and that was it.

Anyway, Sahara. It's around 500kms ride from Agadir to Merzouga (town on the edge of Sahara and close to Algerian border) and guide(/driver) picked us up in the morning. Around 2 hours into the road our tyre punctured, so there we were in the middle of nothing on some straight 20km road with no traffic and a guide that doesn't know how to use a jack but also doesnt want to let us change the f tyre . Anyway, then the rain started and wind got harder. We kind of wanted to get in the car but we were blocking 1/3 of the road and we saw like 5 cars/big trucks over their roofs by the road in first 3 hours of the driving so all of us felt pretty unsafe at the time Anyway, some guys stopped and helped and we were ready to drive for 3 more hours



We start going and A/C stops so 2 hours late + wet + black car + sun - A/C = not so good of a start. After couple of hours we stop for a lunch in probably worst restoraunt in Morocco, but it was only one working in like 150km radius during Ramadan daylight. Had aweful lunch and went further. We were stoping here and there taking pics of some amazing landscapes and places where slave scenes from Gladiator and many other movies were filmed (Ourzazate town).







So we arrive at the hotel around 19pm and check into pretty bad-looking-but-clean rooms which can be locked only from the outside ( ?!?!?!?? ). It was still kind of daggly outside but we went by the pool ( wow this place has pool?? ) to smoke one(or more?) and wait for the dinner. Ive promised that i'll spin 50euros into 1k with couple of bets on euroleague final four and nba in next 24h and the dinner comes. We were expecting 1)aweful food 2)no alchohol and got 1)great food 2)solid wine. There was also an Berber guy playing guitar and harmonica in the same time, while dropping some amazing African sounds. We stayed there 3 hours after the dinner listening and chatting to the guy and it was really an amazing evening, possibly one of the chillest evenings of my life. Also Real Madrid won the semis and 50euros were 115 before I went to sleep.

I woke up a little bit earlier and went out and had coffee and breakfast by the pool. The look was amazing :



After that we had around 8 hours drive to the Sahara. Gotta say that I wasn't that excited about riding camels for couple of hours after 10 hours in the car but spending an night in tents in middle of Sahara did sound tempting. Anyway, we arrive in town of Merzouga which looks similar to Dust 2 somewhat late and we gotta go on the camels asap. You can bring only backpack so we take most of the clothes out and put as many bottles of wine as possible in and went toward camels.

Dust 2 :



We went up on the camels and while it was pretty funny in the beggining after about 20 minutes into the desert (it's veeeery windy) very strong rain started. That was also funny for about 3 minutes, when we realised that we will be on the camels for next 1-2 hours. So I'm holding tight, it's very rainy and windy and I can't hear my friend which is 2 meters behind me. We're on like 20 meter high top of the dunes, camels are staggering and moving very unstable and it was pretty scary at that time for all of us. After 30 minutes I was 100% wet (no ****) and cold AF and had some pretty deep thoughs . At that moment nothing was important except being dry and warmed up. I was obv aware that possibility of somebody dying there was <1% but it was still very scary expirence.

It made me realise how most of the things that we urge and strive for are irrelevant when compared to some basic stuff like shelter and food and not being cold. It made me also realise how ungrateful I am (most of us are) for having warm home and possiblity to eat what I want and when I want and go almost wherever I want whenever I want. How ungrateful I am for living very comfortable and how I should . I know it sounds silly but that was great epiphany moment.

Anyway, in the camp there were around 20 people of different nationatilies but only Serbs had wine and hash They served pretty good dinner ( best Tagine that I've ate in Morroco and it's their national meal ) , and after dinner there was a parteeeeeeyyyyyy. 3 local (?) guys playing some ancient instruments while 20 people from different parts of the world were dancing to it. Amazing night. Then we went back to tents for sleep, took 4 dirty blankets each and woke up 3 hours later to hop back on camels with same 98% wet clothes.

the camp:



few pics from that morning:








We came back, took a shower in dust2 hotel? and hit the road again. I've put my 115 euros on Zalgiris and Real Madrid parley and won 350 before arriving in Agadir. Then put that to GSW-HOU G3 handicap 1 and under parley and spinned it up where I told I would. We were in Budapest for couple of days after that (I've never been there before), also had amazing time there, but it was mostly OOL behaviour so I don't want to go further as this post was certanly long enough and that Sahara epihany moment was anyway most imporatant part of this journey.

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

After chatting with several very successful poker players Ive realised that now I just gotta grind it out basicly (epiphany !!!! ) . I'm very motivated for grind right now but I'm again going to Drina river in 2 days to have a chill week with guys from my stable, and after that I'm gonna hit the tables very hard. Will write more about poker tommorow or in next couple of days.

Be grateful !!!

Nice post and pics although it sounds like a hellish experience!

It was kind of hellish but it was also very unique - pbb once in a lifetime experience so it was awesome actually

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So I just came back from another vacation. 10 of us went here for a week :



It was week full off barbecues, grilled fish, gulash/paprikash, wine , rakia , weed, sauna and degening on prop bets / live sngs.

I've lost 100eu on a prop bet in which friend swimmed trough the Drina river which is very fast and temperature is 10-13 degrees celsius. I later went in the river and I was in it for literally 15 seconds in that freeezing water and friend swimmed trough it for 2 minutes or so without dying so those 100 euros were very well earned. I wouldn't do what he did for 500 so it's all good.

I also made around 500eu on NBA on two games. God bless the myth of LBJ and Vegas lines. I moved the lines on both G3 and G4 and as usual GSW delivered when it mattered. 25 days ago I had 5000rsd (around 40eu) on my bet account and Ive withdrawn around 130.000 ( 1100eu ) only betting on singles on NBA mostly (started it in mid conference finals). I think I won 11 bets and lost 1

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

Poker

Anyway, I'm now fully and completly recharged and ready to put in grinding hours.



After weeks of discussing all types of sheit about poker with various poker players of different formats I got conclusion that I should grind it out and own an decent roll at the end of the year. There will be no shot taking, just making $$$$$$$$$

I'll reduce my buyins a little bit ( like not regging couple of bad 50e comps ) and increase lenght of my sessions and number of tables, possibly add some off peak pokerstars comps instead like BB55 or late 109s. Goal is to play 200 tournaments per week in 4 sessions ( or maybe even 3 if I get there ). I have winrate around 6$ per timbey lifetime with -20k on 100s+ so I guess I can make 8-9$ EV per tournament and with 60% profit cut that I have that should be 3-4k per month.

From October to the end of the April I had some big sleeping / depression issues mostly caused by ugly downswing and unhealthy life habbits. After first 10 days without poker in mid May my sleeping got better so I'm gonna be taking more shorter vacations / days without poker moving forward.

June goals:

- 500 MTTs
- 4 days completly without PC / Poker
- Eating clean ----> a)no candies / sodas / pizzas b)less bread c)more fruit and veggies d)preparing food for grind every day
- No weed before/during grind
- Read 1 book
- Update the thread at least once a week

GL erryone, lets do it

Gl gl

Holla. Again I kind of forgot to update altough not much was going on. Month is in the green for now, altough I didn't put much hours on grind but I've started to catch it up. Had my 27th (or w/e) bday on 12th and got fooked up 3 days in a row , then grinded a little bit, then some friends arrived here for music festival which is holding up here. First time in my life I managed to go only 1/3 days and don't go Saturday as I wanted to be prepared for Sundays grind. Didn't bink a thing but I have some 20bbish stacks in some day 2s for today so we'll see what will happen.

Yesterday was my longest session this year and I've played pretty good imo, altough Im still overestamating players to be something that they are not. In my opinion, biggest leak of low/midstakes pop is NOT folding enough. I mean, when FD bricks / somebody can have couple of bluffs in the spot they simply do not fold, so I'm still unsure about how to play spots vs them. Example, 10 to ITM :



I'm just uncertain about EVER bluffing random ppl that seem reggish in these kind of spots. I guess his range is pretty much capped on 77-TT / J9/JT / Ahighs but I think he should choose some better combos than 9s9x to call down here, like AQ might be better calldown than 9s9x . In hindsight my ATss seemed like a good combo to go for 3 streets , I guess with 22 33 JT JQ JK AJss JJ it's reasonable to fleek in couple of bluffs but I'm not sure about the river thing simply because ppl arent folding enough. Should I just check it back? My combo is whatever otr because I block his autofold fds but also block JT which is pbb only J that he can have so I guess blocker effects are pretty neutral + I simply wont have many bluffs here so I've decided to go for it.

Anyway,

seems like a pretty poor bluffcombo when the fd bricks tbh

would just use some wheel aces, maybe some kq/qt combos instead unblocking snapfolds

Yeah but most of the wheel aces i'm 3betting/folding preflop and there are like 2x2 combos of KQ QT that i'll stab OTF.

Imo OTT I like bluffs with more equity vs calling range simply because he won't fold a lot OTT.

Again, I don't disagree with your thoughts, just wanna get this better

Was really groggy whole day, have slept bad and was thinking about skipping a session and going out, but then the rain started so I started the session and binkend an 10e donkament, pbb only tournament on WMX in which I was unprofitable for 2.5 years playing there.

I was twice on 3bb but I've played really good last couple of days with no big mistakes and fortunately rungood came. Pretty easy FT overall, and one timbey crossed off my bucket list. SM and WSOP ME are next (flex)(flex)(flex)

Pretty bad overall:



I knew I wouldn't make 500 but I had too many days off due to being hangovered. Birthday. World Cup ( I had to get fked up every time after watching Serbian team play ). Festival in my home town, meeting some new very interesting girlz etc. I had luck that it was rainy last 10 days so I managed to get some volume...

Eating clean - uber fail. Did it for 4 days. Then I got wasted first time and that was it. Pizza Candies Soda Bread

I have read one book : '' Stolen Continents: The "New World" Through Indian Eyes Since 1492 '' . Amazing book about discovering/conquering America. Amazing and very disturbing, we humans were/are imbecils. I really recommend reading it, as being from Europe my knowledge about things that happened in Mexico/S.America region back then was almost nonexistant. Lets just say that WW2 genocide is pretty weak when compared to events that went on there.

-----------

I won't be making any July goals as I realised that autumn/winter are grinding months and during the summer I should just play as much as I can due to really nice events happening everywhere. I'm not prepared to make that big sacrifices to my social life because I think it would have negative impact on my mental well-being. I'll go on seaside kind of grindhouse operation in August and hope for the best ( best being to actually grind and not go out constantly ). If I manage to get 600 mtts I would be more than happy. I'll also try to post more frequently.

Haha good thing we didn't go through group stage then. Have you tried switching alcohol with mushrooms, seems like a gto move. Also, where is the grindhouse?

Mushrooms wouldn't help with Kokeza and our FA, altough I've tryed them several times I didn't try heroin only from ''common'' narcotics and this is not a brag. I really don't like how alchohol works and it's probably the single most bad narcotic for human body/mind and this is something that I say from really big expirience (again, not a brag). But then again it's socially acceptable and I really like first 3-4 beers/shots. After that it gets nastyyyyyyy.

It's not standard grindhouse, just a friend having a place in Tivat, Montenegro. Plan is to grind whole August then go on Sea Dance fest and call it a month.

in gl

Just found this thread gl man will be following. That ATss hand- im assuming he checked OTF but on the turn I would probably check behind, doubt you're folding out many hands plus u have a hand with sdv.

welcome bruh ty

Yeah, it was little bit too ambitious, much better to bluff with T9ss or KJdd etc. I was just thinking that I don't have too many bluffs in bet bet shove line in which I have like 18 value combos so it seemed okayish. got called down with 9x9s which was pretty bad from the villain imo. Also i prefer more of exploatative style of play so sometimes i get OOL when Im in tougher fields, mostly because of not playing them too much. welcome to the thread

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

Pretty slow month pokerwise. If it weren't for worst weather-wise summer in Serbia ever ( too much rain ) I wouldn't get any volume, altough volume that I got can't be called volume at all pbb

I almost booked ticket for Exit Festival from tommorow to Sunday but today I realised that that would be complete waste of time (and money). I'm just not into eating all kind of drugs for 4 days straight anymore. Been there done that, it seem pretty boring right now. Some may call me pusseeey, I like to think that I'm mature, w/e. Will be watching WC today then hopefully grind Friday to Sunday.

2 random picked hands so this can seem like a poker update:

1)brazilianz




2) no bluffs here

Hey there...

Solid July. Didn't made that 600 MTTz but when I did play I made some FTssss :



I think I won only 2 tournaments (on wmx, money time for 1.8kE and MS50 for 2.7k), runned pretty bad in every other HU.

Yesterday had a big Sunday, fired up Stars after while and got 2nd in Bigger 27 for 3.3k$. Played really good FT in my mind and was left HU with weaker guy and was steadily grinding him, but :



After that he had straight where I had trips and thats all she wrote.

I was top100 in miniSM and SM but then flips stopped working out for me
I didn't played stars this year much because whole life I run like POS ( or have played like POS ) on that platform, and on the other side I'm fine with playing soft fields without much variance and getting that 5k+ months pretty easily, but gotta say that stars on sundays seems very juicy. 2 bluffs from SM:

https://www.boomplayer.com/28341836_E0ADB4946C

https://www.boomplayer.com/28343923_E50F670191

I probably won't be playing until next Sunday, I'm flying to Montenegro to friends crib on Thursday. Plan is to grind.


Bfizz/ethics

Had an interesting hand vs Bfizz of TurboKings on the same Bigger 27 around 100 left and in that hand I did something I never did before. It was 4b pot ( he 4b utg vs my co 3bet, we were 60bb effective ) and action went Bet/Call -Check/Check - bfizz Shove on 246hhJdQd .
I had AxAh in my hand and was going to fold the river pretty fast but after 10s I figuered I could jump on his stream and try to snipe it out, and I did saw he had JJ and I've folded after 60s tanking. He asked '' it seems like you were sniping '' and I said ''Yeah''. Obv he was understandably super tilted. (I don't care much about ''You had aces you wouldn't fold'' or smt like that because it's irrelevant, I know how I play and in this spot as played as it was I'm folding AhAx for multiple reasons ((((( unless I can see that I have him beat ))))))
Now this is something I never did before, didn't even occure to me to do something like this ever, but I had 14 tables running and was like '' lets see if he made this info available, if he did - IDGAF ''

Aftermath I wasn't feeling good about this situation and I was thinking a lot about it. When I play live and I see someones cards flash / someone isn't holding them right I inform the person about that. But if I'm facing river decision and he holds the cards so I can see them I sure as hell will materialize on that information. I'm not proud of what I did, but if the guy is streaming he should be aware that these things can happen and he MUST put bigger delay.

Anyway, would like to hear opinions about this.

Cheers, GLA.

Sup?

I've been in Montengero for 16 days. First at my boy pekson's, then couple of fellow grinders came and we took an airbnb in which we were mostly grinding, smoking weed and getting fat. I dropped around 200BIs there while grinding my regular schedule. That was result of me not playing my best (I guess I played my best for <15% of time), being tilted by pokerstars discs 3 days in a row and really aweful IP address of Montenegro ISP Mtel (I think nobody of 4 of us made any money there).

That being said, I came back to my sweet home and grinded an epic session today:




Longest session this year for sure and I think all time high hands played. Played good, runned good and lost reaaaaally big headsup in wmx 50 turbo psko bowl - I pussied out of an most obvious bluff ever (60bb deep 3b pre, barrel turn/river with oesd and gave up K river with spr1 ) and that was all she wrote.



Finished 9th in WMX Xtrem for 900 with 10k up top, field left was okay but I was simply totally carddead and finally caught ATo from cutoff with 15 bigs and got called by big blind nit AK. Couple interesting hands from todays session, and I'll start with spew of the month :

1. I already cashed a ton and was playing for 12 hours. Lack of focus in 2 seconds span and I screwed up veeery bad on an very soft FT. I saw guy 3betting at semift a lot vs me and another guy (we were opening really lot and folding to his 3bets),he had like 30 btn 3b on decentish sample and I totally discarded any other common sense reasoning ( that nobody will 3bet me much OOL when stacks are distributed like they are and where I can jam pretty wide vs them. Even if they 3bet me wide I guess A6s can't be reasonable to 4b jam here ). My eyes still hurt when I look at this hand :





2. no clue what's going on here :




3. vs very spewy guy:



4. tyvm




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


I was in Montenegro with 3 CG players and I finally started playing lil bit of cashgames myself. Couldn't bear watching them grinding during daytime ( I grinded mtts afternoon+) and I deposited 500 on party to play some FF mostly. Started with NL25, then one night there wasn't any traffic so I flicked in NL50 and I think I can stay here since I didn't had many troubles battling (with mostly aweful regs from what I can see) nor felt that somebody can stomp me. There aren't many recs in the pool but there is decent RB so it seems good to me.

I got zillion awesome advices from my mates and couple of times I felt like I never played poker before while talking hands with em. I saw that I have some fundamental leaks and I'm very grateful for new-found place to improve my overall game. I got some range construction advices, took multiple looks at their ranges and strategies (all of them are winning NL200+ players), asked many questions and even after 14.5 hours of 14-20 tabling MTTz I feel pretty much pumped up when I talk about this. I was playing with my MTT approach to the game which is probably little bit wider / exploatative since I play mostly in soft fields :



Obv this is no decent sample, but it's enough for basis to work on. I gotta get my preflop game rock solid and then spew a lot less. Spewing stack or two ( mostly by being insanely stuborn calling station and a lot of times being owned by bluffs stronger than my actual hand ). This usually happens when I play somewhat longer sessions - I lose little bit of focus - then get that most fishy pot-entitlment feeling and start clicking call button like it's my last second on earth. I guess I outright spilled more than 500$ and wasnt running great in AIs - but still made some profits. That seems encouraging.

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


I guess I just got bored by playing same MTTs with same drunk Frenchmen and same nit-spewy Lithuanians every single day (not racism). Got bored of having to play only in afternoon/night and 6 hours+ in a row for 3 years straight. Got bored of being mediocre - I'm making much more money with visually much less efforts than my nonpoker friends. People that I hang out with most just admire what I'm doing so they aren't pushing me to further improvemet since I already live what they consider a good life. 90%+ people in your country are completly fine with mediocricy and not trying to even think about leaving their comfort zones, and therefore I found myself absored by my mediocre enviroment - but this is very long and tense subject, I guess I could write walls of texts about this but this update already got much longer than usual.


Also, after playing 3 years backed I'll try to get on my own very soon. I'm 27 and I'm positive that I can take (not)calculated risks and chances and get back on my feet pretty easy if I fail. I'm still looking at different BRM considarations / approaches and trying to figure out my goals and what I want to accomplish overall, but I'll try my best to push myself much harder in every area of life that needs improvement.

this was session actually :

vaaamooooooo

that NL100 hit n run tho )))))))

2nd Sunday in a row we got in the solid green, possibly first time ever:



Had funny HU vs decent opp but he was playing too brazilian :

https://www.boomplayer.com/28558120_6EB17BEB46


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


Overall playing/running possibly never better but still not having luck in highest end of my buyins. Having a lot of ITMs and deepruns everywhere, not sure if I should even take a break before the series. I'm really loving the grind. Started doing a lil bit solver work and did a bunch of reviewing / icm spots in last 10 days while playing almost every day.