Have you read the mental game of poker? I struggle with checking results myself and it has so much affect on how I play. Poker is just one big mind****.

I realised a while ago that the effort I was putting into not checking my results was harder than just actually checking my results. Not being able to handle a 10BI downswing can be a very different issue to checking your results influencing play. When I check my results I don't think it affects my play very much (if anything losing makes me want to study more) and if it does I can stop playing for a bit. When I go on a 10BI downswing it does affect my play and realistically you know when you are losing money.

Hey guys, thanks for the comments.

@Claret~N~Blue Yeah, I did. But it might be the time to read it again I guess

@MMSS 10 BI downswings are really tough to handle imo, esp since at 9-max they shouldn´t happen very often (and thankfully, they don´t at my own db since last year), so the logical conclusion is that my play is getting affected by it, consciously or unconsciously. So 100% agree with wanting to study more at those difficult times.

Cheers

Found this on some old nvg thread, the proof that poker is dead and we all should look for another hobby I guess. Interesting that smth like this didn´t get much attention from this community. Still good content for the GTO fanboys/girls though.

I've seen some people play with RNGs and it honestly doesn't look much different than this in my opinion

How much is your BR right now? I think 100 buy in is not necessary on these low stakes (I also play on nl16). The shot taking can cause fear from the new limit but that is just a mental block nothing else.
Downswing will happen no matter what. Just an advice... If you feel you play your "A" game but everything against you just play 1 limit lower to get your confidence back. It works and also a lot of pro do this.

Nice threat. I pretty much agree on Grumble. 100 BI seems a lot for the micro's. Especially when you are proven to move down when the **** hits the fan. I understand your thinking, but on the other hand: it keeps you away from moving up. And I think that should be the goal when playing microstakes on a serious approach. Good luck man and we might clash some other time.

I completely understand your mindset for wanting 100 BIs to move back up to nl10. And I think it stems from not having confidence that you're a winner yet at nl10 and above. And so when you experience a downswing, you're not sure whether it's because you're getting unlucky, or because you're not really a winner (or much of a winner) at that stakes. And because there's that slight bit of doubt, the more you start losing, the more you become more scared and play worse. And you start worrying if you have enough BIs to withstand the worst downswing that can happen. Am I close lol?

If the money in your BR is not important to you, I do agree it's probably better to be aggressive. Keep enough BIs for each of the stakes below you, so that you'll have enough BIs combined to not worry about going broke. And just keep aggressively shot-taking, and aggressively moving down when needed. Eventually, you'll either get good samples at the next couple stakes above, or you'll run well and climb the stakes (more) quickly.

But then again, if time doesn't matter to you, and you feel better waiting for 100 BIs, then nothing wrong with that. Confidence is also such a key thing in this strange game.

Hey guys, thank you very much for all the advice. I was trying MTTSNGs for a change of pace and to get some relaxation and I feel I´m ready to move back to cash. Just waiting for my HHs from stars (lost my db yesterday, no recent backup) and will be ready to go.

Btw, was browsing nvg the last few days and there is a thread about stars support. Ppl usually mad by the lack of quality. Just anecdotal evidence from me obv, but still, overall winner on the lower micros, had my fair share of fishes money and lifetime net withdrawer. They always get to me really quick with anything incl life HHs (which is a lot). Only difference from what I´ve seen is that I always try to be very polite to them, always say thank you, and esp always avoid confrontation, since in my experience, threatening behavior when dealing with customer service (or most ppl in this world) is the surest way to elicit a cold, indifferent response (or even worse ). Not saying this will always work, but that doing the opposite makes your chances of success be pretty much 0.

Same, never had any problems with Stars' support. They've always been very friendly and helpful to me.

Ye there's really no "right" thing to do. As PP says if BR isn't important for your life or the profit itself then I would suggest a more aggro BR management approach. I myself am playing NL25 with 62bis and will drop back if I go lower than 50. So, vai que e' teu caralhoooooooo. glgl e' noiz

Love this show, and yet missed this one



@guedez Probably, also need a little bit of my confidence back before resuming 10nl. Games are usually really bad this time of the year, thought with quarantine things would be different, but no, just the usual northern hemisphere summer with low online traffic haha

Cheers

Hey 2p2 friends, so I´m not really updating this thread as much as I did before. While I´m still playing most days, this reflects my volume: pretty low

Obv I don´t believe in mass volume, I should let the volume thing for when I´m beating decent stakes at very good winrates. Anything worse, and it´s better to focus on improving. Pretty obvious right?

Anyway, playing is part of the improving thing, and if I´m really a serious rec, I need to play more. And it involves going a little bit further from my comfort zone.

Goal for next 8 days (til saturday, including today) is to play at least 2430 minutes (40.5 hours), tracked by hem2. Achieving it with the following rules (up to 4 sessions a day, no session smaller than 90 minutes or longer than 100 minutes. I like to set timer for 90 and use the remaining 10 minutes as a buffer for the sit out next bb).

Already played first session now, which will count. Gonna post a pic of the sessions tab of hem2 in the end.

If I fail (both the volume goal or the time limits per session or the limit of 4 sessions per day (so I can´t cheat playing 5+ sess the same day), gonna pay 5 USD to the next 3 persons to post here that have a stars.com account to receive. It´s just one freeroll btw. So if you have the stars account and want to join, just post that you´re in.

Also really good way to make sure I take care of mental game while playing (using my usual tricks ofc), as I don´t have the luxury of quiting mid sess. If I´m out of internet, power or any of those things out of my control, I should post here immediately after getting back saying which session it was and this (and only this) should be forgiven. Still need to achieve the volume and this sess gonna count for the # of sessions/day anyway. Tough rules I guess

Next update when this is over, as I won´t have much time to come here lol

Cheers

GL during this period. You grinding 10NL now? Ima pretty low volume player too (like 10-20k max each month) but have a full time job (45-60hrs per week) so I’m happy with just playing when I feel like it / can, and don’t force myself to hit volume goals etc

5nl My new excuse (which is true as a matter of fact) is that I´m trying the preflop changes I talked 1000000 times here, and it´s better to do it at 5nl than 10nl. Good news btw: they do work. Small sample tho, so let´s wait a little bit longer.

Not much work or other irl stuff this week. If I really manage those hours, then on the next weeks I´d set smth more sane, but still on the higher side.

Cheers

Hey man, I still lurk this thread and wish you well. I guess the offer of a $5 freeroll was enough to get me out of the shadows.

Have you considered trying to join a CFP? You seem to have a real dedication to the game bro and it's admirable, but maybe just need a bit of guidance to get through the micro levels. I know a lot of people hate the idea of CFP/staking but I think it can pay for itself in very short time.

Hello @ShellyAshes, yes, I did consider

Biggest challenge is that they (at least the programs who seem legit, like bitb cash etc) usually need us to be playing (and beating) way higher stakes, so I still need to get out of this limbo (5nl-10nl-25nl) by myself.

Even though my wr is probably marginal atm, from what I´ve seen exclusively playing 10nl for almost 2 months, I can beat the limit now and think, given time and practice, I can up the wr to smth more acceptable. Just like I did with 5nl. Hopefully I can finally get higher this year and then would have smth more solid to offer to the cfp programs.

Thank you very much, hope you´re doing well

Cheers

Good luck. You still playing cash tables?

I finally made a +EV move and switched my settings from $ visible to BB stacks.

Hopefully I'm not the only one who took a bit too long to swap.

Thank you @SelimSuuuup. Yes, I do use bb stacks since the end of 2019 (I was talking itt about buying starshelper so I could use it to mix stakes and someone here told me stars had that option for free, so definitely +EV move to switch ). Even if I wasn´t mixing, still too much EV to pass (it frees my mind from monetary orientated fears).

Nice to see you´re doing well higher, keep crushing sir!

Freeroll list full

@Claret~N~Blue
@ShellysAshes
@SelimSuuuup

If any of you guys don´t have a stars acc, pls let me know (@SelimSuuuup doesn´t need to tell me obv bc we played together). Otherwise, GL!*

*Still hope I win and you guys lose lol

Well, I think the freeroll wasn´t really that hard in the first place Well on pace to reach (most likely surpass) the target this saturday night. Though as you guys will see below, almost lost on the last session of July, 4th when one player left and I was forced to play another orbit. Had to quit after playing the cutoff since the ev lost would still be smaller than having to pay 15 USD lol





Cheers

Began a (not so) new habit today: cold showers after waking up. There are many benefits (some 100% true, others might be true or bro-science only) and very few problems for healthy persons. I used to take hot (close to burning) showers, and I´m almost sure they aren´t healthy (began doing it this year out of laziness, and coincidentally, I´m experiencing more colds this year just to give one example. Also less motivation than what I´m used under normal conditions. There are others factors obv, like a little bit more stress due to the pandemic, but still, objectively, the only really new habit was the hot water).

I took frequent cold showers before, usually during summer in very hot days. Never did it in winter though, so might be an interesting thing to do in order to test my willpower

Gonna do it everyday for one month then post an update on this subject with results I observed (fully aware there might be a placebo effect going on if I get positive results, but still, placebo is not necessarily a negative thing).

In the poker front, I´m also reading Janda´s book (the first one I believe, Applications), and I think it might give me a slightly more advanced introduction on fundamentals (compared to the grinders manual which was my last poker book).

It´s outdated obv, but fundamentals are smth that won´t change thaaaat much, otherwise they´re not fundamentals in the first place. And knowing the why´s behind the decisions, like being able to explain in words my actions, always played a big role in every activity I did/do.

Month so far (since July, 1st, hence more hands than the freeroll). Just to show one thing: If this was 10nl, even with the same BR in BI´s terms, and even a slightly small swing in buy-ins would make me run to the hills, pulling my hair, screaming in panic and having to regrind lower stakes (or sometimes even 10c 360 MTTSNGs lol). Yet, since it´s 5nl, I don´t really care one bit.

Confidence makes wonders

Lack of conficence makes very bad and weird things also

Do all of your graphs look like that? Teasing you of course haha. I never did finish reading Janda's Applications book (or get too far into it), but from what I remember, it did seem like a good book. And maybe I'll go back and finish it later at some point.