tyty, subbed to your thread. Best of luck to you too.

Hello guys,

Well, things not running as great as I would like, so, a quick reminder to myself: I won´t be successful in beating 10nl or anything higher if I keep having monster tilt full rage blow ups against recs, and spewing 2 stacks out of fury and frustration. Yes, I have two options: not triggering that behavior ever again, or else keep grinding the nanos forever. And I know it´s not difficult, as I have a good enough solution that works (for me) and I just need to stick to it: 1) Avoid looking at the table where I made any big decisions for at least 30 seconds (covering or just minimizing). Instead, use the replayer later. 2) Avoid looking at $ results at least while I´m playing.

But it was my fault also. I was seated just to the right of that rec, so he had position on me for 8 out of 9 hands. And not having position on a full 80/65/20 rec while he has absolute direct position on me, is sooooooooo frustrating. I should have left the table and tried to rejoin in a better seat. Won´t post the hands as it accomplishes nothing, I reviewed them after resting for one hour and it was indeed just spew.

Anyway, after the rest and review, decided to play 5nl (I must be really weird for even think about playing again the same night). And this hand happened (the AKs is a rec playing 52/42/0 and the 22 is a standard reg).

PokerStars, Hold'em No Limit - $0.02/$0.05 - 8 players
Replay this hand on Upswing Poker

UTG: $6.40 (128 bb)
UTG+1 (Hero): $5.00 (100 bb)
MP: $5.85 (117 bb)
MP+1: $9.74 (195 bb)
CO: $5.26 (105 bb)
BU: $7.70 (154 bb)
SB: $10.24 (205 bb)
BB: $5.11 (102 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.07) Hero is UTG+1 with J♣ J♦
UTG raises to $0.15, Hero calls $0.15, 1 fold, MP+1 calls $0.15, CO calls $0.15, BTN calls $0.15, SB calls $0.13, 1 fold

Flop: ($0.95) J♠ 2♣ K♦ (6 players)
SB checks, UTG bets $0.65, Hero raises to $1.80, MP+1 raises to $9.59 (all-in), 3 players fold, UTG calls $5.60 (all-in), Hero calls $3.05 (all-in)

Turn: ($18.30) 8♠ (3 players, 3 all-in)

River: ($18.30) T♣ (3 players, 3 all-in)

Total pot: $18.30 (Rake: $0.76)

Showdown:
MP+1 shows 2♠ 2♥ (three of a kind, Twos)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 18%, Flop: 5%, Turn: 2%, River: 0%)

UTG+1 (Hero) shows J♣ J♦ (three of a kind, Jacks)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 44%, Flop: 89%, Turn: 79%, River: 100%)

UTG shows K♠ A♠ (a pair of Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 38%, Flop: 7%, Turn: 19%, River: 0%)

MP+1 wins $2.68
UTG+1 (Hero) wins $14.86



And the day was almost entirely saved

Won´t post graphs until end of the month, but played 3924 hands these 2 days and lost 9.46 (and lost 30 in AIEV).

Cheers!

5nl graph atm. Not posting to brag obv, winrate still pathetic, but to make myself a little happier after today and for motivational purposes

That's a very low variance graph for 2bb/100

Good job.

It would look better without that 30bi downswing in the middle

Thanks!

A 30BI downswing in 40k hands? Makes me feel a bit better about my not-so-bad rough stretch lol . Must feel good though coming out of that! Although it seems you had another 20BI downswing in only 10k hands shortly after? I can only imagine how rough that might be after you just worked your way out of that other one.. Just keep it going!

One good thing about downswings is that they either force you to give up or to work really hard on your game. Use them as an opportunity to improve and get rid of your leaks, and you´ll be fine.

Will play one last session, hoping to still catch some north and south american fishes that came back from work right now and are ready to start drinking their beers, play and enjoy themselves

That last session yesterday was really fun, I must admit. At one point in the day, I was losing about 3 BIs, but ended up close to breakeven. Even though recs sometimes give me a tough time, since they are so unpredictable and their ranges are absurdly wide, it´s fun to play against them.

I would appreciate if ppl chatted more, I play only 6 tables and there is a lot of down time there. I´m sure (a good number of) recs also like it and would do the same if tables weren´t infested by nit 24 tabling regs. So even when I´m pissed off by losing a big pot, I´m still trying my best to be cool and polite to them so they know the game is not only a human bot fest, there are normal ppl there too lol.

Will post a graph later, I´m not in my pc right now, but still down a little bit.

Cheers!

So, disaster finally hits me. Another big, juicy rec just triggered my old bad habits by doing what big recs usually do, causing a shutdown in my high brain functions for the second time, and ending in pure, unbelievable spew. Could be worse ofc, at least I had the sense to leave the tables, and not breaking anything in my room. Here are my results since the beginning of this month:



I won´t stop updating this thread as I did many times before with the older ones. I won´t stop playing and lose the few important items that I added to my unconscious competence during the last few months with so much effort. But updating results (even though I said I would try not to look into them in the first place) is creating this urge where I´m constantly thinking about my graph, my ev line and all this bs. So I´ll do another attempt, and will refrain from looking into $ results until Apr, 30. Also, I will not chicken out and move down to the safe port of 5nl. I have to learn how to beat these people, as it´s from a skill point almost the same game (a little less recs, a few good regs moving the skill of the reg population a few cms higher, but the average masstabler reg is still the same, not even close as the difference from 2nl to 5nl was when I moved up). Finally, I´ll keep working on my game as hard as ever, but will not overwork myself as this is still only a hobby, a sport, like running or playing football with my friends etc.

Updates will be very boring until the end of this month, only amount of hands played and some interesting stuff that I might think about. IRL, had some good news today that I might share later if they really work out as expected. Crossing fingers!

Finally, I´ll be playing tomorrow, even though it´s sunday. Yes, it´s true. I will fight the recs that I love to hate .

Cheers!

Have not read the whole thread but based on the last few posts you have massive mental game issues (which you recognise and are open about).

A few tips...

Winning poker is not about beating regs. It is about finding fish and stacking them...all successful pros know this but for obvious reasons many keep their mouth shut about it.

What this means is that non technical skills like table/game selection, seat positioning are far more important in money terms, than some technical stuff (like marginally changing your ranges for example).

On a practical note, unless you have a proven strong mental game chat is likely to distract/tilt you (and you may not recognise it). My advice, turn all chat off and leave it off forever. I turned it of years back...and find it helps my peace of mind and focus while I'm playing, which is massively important.

If you have not done so already, have a read of both Jared Tendlers books on the Mental Game of Poker - they are the recognised primary mental game readers.

GL

PS

I'm a rec, don't hate me

Time for another update.

So, the sunday curse continues with full force. But in the things that really matters, the day went quite okayish actually. Had a few remaining accumulated tilt when I woke up, but it dissipated, even after taking beat after beat with my AA and KK pf, and not having any real value hand by the river for the most part. So, choices were having my big pairs broken when aipf, or being card dead postflop lol.

As I said, I took the beating really well, didn´t tilt or made any recognisable spew, everything went well. In one word, chill. On the negative side, my personal coach snowie took the day off so no training session before/between sessions. I don´t like when this happens, but he is a good friend and I´ll let him rest a little bit.

Ended up seeing results . What can I do. I´ll keep trying, but will post here every time I show weakness and go look at the graph. I want to show results both during good and bad times. So, my beautiful sunday graph:



One last thing. There is this love/hate thing between the green line and the orange/aiev line. Obv, the orange line doesn´t matter if you go broke because your green line went down all the way to the floor. But, if you want to measure your real performance, over a reasonable sample, the line that matters is the orange and the evbb/100 stat.

While I´d rather having both lines up in a healthy way than losing money, I´m way more frustrated when the aiev is not going well than when the green is not doing well. Being a br nit and knowing I´m not going broke anytime in the next few weeks also helps.





You´re 100% right. I should always make sure to have fish on the tables, exploit them the best I can (struglling with this part a little bit so will hit hard on the lab next few days) and work on my mental game. I´ve read both books, but will do it again, as it´s really important.

You gave good advice, so I´ll make sure to put you on my "good recs" list, don´t worry .







Cheers

10nl is really driving me nuts. Seriously guys, every time I spot a big rec and go play a hand against them, I end up losing. Then I go and check my HUD and those guys have absurd W$SD stats like 80%, 90%, 100%, with WTSD greater than 60% for a player that VPIP 40% or more (short sample, usually 50-200 hands max obv but whatever, it´s not helping my state of mind atm to see bs like that happening while I´m playing). I´m losing a lot (and I mean a lot) of bis to these guys, while doing well vs regs since they play the same and have the same quirks as the 5nl ones. Unbelievable lol.

If I keep playing 10nl I´m risking having a psychotic attack and throwing my entire pc out of the window of my apartment. Not worth losing my sanity, so I have 2 options: go back to 5nl, even though I still have way more than 100 bis for that limit, or stop playing for a while (and risk losing the knowledge I got and having to do all the studying again from 0). I´m gonna take 1 or 2 days without playing and think about my options, hopefully with a clearer state of mind. Today it´s impossible. Telling a chinese random rec that I hope there is a nuclear war and a bomb comes exactly in his house is not the nicest thing to type in the chat while playing, right?

Time for my well deserved rest, enough of having my *ss kicked lol.

Cheers

LMAO about the nuclear bomb hahahaha

Enviado de meu XT1033 usando o Tapatalk

I also had a bit of a chuckle over the nuclear bomb bit lol. But yeah, enjoy a couple days off and then come back with a clearer head. And then learn to beat those guys at nl10 on sundays.

I don´t think even Phil Hellmuth would say/wish anything like that after a misplayed hand vs rec

Anyway, thanks. When I come back, I´ll be grinding 5nl again, trying to rebuild to where my BR was before the monster tilt hitted me.

You have skill to play nl25, i would not choose full ring, but thats me, your real issues are not quality, you use snowie, and other stuff, and do you see big improvement in results, no you said you played 1 million hands of micro, why is that. Its because those skills are not important where you are at the moment, you could probably be decent player at live 500, but cant beat nanos, think about it please, ask yourself why is it. And come up with answer, i will give you a hint, its not more snowie , or solver work.

1) Weak mental game. It´s not that I can´t handle beats from time to time, I can actually. But, when they come in sequence, it starts to accumulate until the point where it triggers massive tilt/spew, and it´s the end. I need to reag TMGoP again asap.

2) FPS.

3) Even though I still believe fish playing ultra high vpip like 50% or greater are idiots, a lot of them seem to have improved a little bit and can think about which range we are playing vs them, so I think the old advice of playing tight premium ranges vs them is a little bit outdated. Maybe I´m way behind the curve here.

4) More mental game stuff.

5) I´m trying to make general/simplified strategies vs them based on stats and general common sense, when the right way to handle fish might be to use a case by case approach, by paying extreme attention to their showdowns, bluffing frequencies and sizings. Maybe I should be 1-tabling when I spot a huge whale for example.

6) A little more mental game stuff.

I´m reading the old verneer´s Moving Up Through uNL in 2010. Even though it´s very old, maybe there are some eternal wisdoms there that I can catch and apply to 10nl nowadays.

Thanks a lot!

You spend to much energy on things that are not important and do not increas your wrate, but you feel better, because it gives you a boost, emotional boost, you dont need to read Verneer, or anybody, just play man, play, play, play, play, and then play more.

Think about bad beats as moments where poker has challanged you to show your skill. I pray for 20bi downswing, so i can show my mentality, i can show my quality, i can show why i can play this game, that's opportunity. To be able to that you dont think in terms of money.

And my advice is not to stop playing when you feel sad, emotional, mad, but close your eyes, breath deeply and think why you play poker, if its for fun does it really matter, no it does not, you can just move on, if its to win, than its opportunity to show skill, that is it, all it is ,a calm realization of our resons for playing, and what we need to do. Once you get in a habit of doing it, you will understand spewing is out of question because just set us back, and we show lack of quality. Try it. And just play.

There is a simple reason why GTO, balancing is not worth your attention, for now, players on micros , pools are large, player are bad, you dont need gto, you don't need to be balanced, you just need to never spew, hunt fish, and keep calm, one STEP AT THE TIME, THERE WILL COME A TIME WHERE GTO WILL COME IN TO PLAY, smaller pools, same regs you compete with, etc,etc, not now. It just drains energy, and you feel emotional sad when you dont understand something youdont need, and that makes you feel even worse. Thats why philosopher guy is comedy , he could have played 300k hands or more and be already on nl25 , but he choose to implement RFI for 2 months for nl2 mind you. Im lost for words about his insanity, i really am.I wish him to crush in the end but how much time he spends doing nothing, he will not. TO CRUSH FRISTLY YOU NEED TO PLAY.

Thanks again Donkwithout$, even though I disagree with a few things, for the most part I think you´re right. I should remind myself why I´m playing this f...... game. The main reason is: because I like and because it represents a challenging (right now) task. Challenges are always good. I like to play correspondence chess at lss, without engines, even though I know 99,9% of the remaining plyers are using them and it´s legal there (actually it´s a gray area, but they don´t explicitly forbid engines), simply because it´s also a nice challenge, and I also love to play chess, having the time to deeply analyze positions the best I can.

Playing is important. I don´t see any problem in taking 1 or 2 days off to cool down (I played a short session before leaving home btw lol, and did well thankfully), but leaving for weeks/months everytime the game treats me poorly is what holds me back at the nanos forever. About spending time off the table, I think it´s important, and I think I should use this runbad/playbad phase to improve my understanding coming back stronger for the next upswing (coupled with playing obv, not quitting the games entirely in order to study).

I agree that applying/worrying to much about GTO is a leak and waste of time and energy, but I still think we need a knowledge of its principles before learning how to deviate from them. It´s a default strategy. Snowie has quite a few bluffcatches in a lot of spots that I know uNL players doesn´t bluff enough, and I know (and actually fold them) in real games, and also know what stats to look into before taking a decision. Yet, knowing and understanding why the bot does what he does can´t be a bad thing. Also, worrying about maximizing the ev of my entire range is a leak at 10nl imo since most regs are masstabling nits playing for a living 12+ hours daily and mixing all nano limits, but maximizing the ev of my actual holding is still important.

Yet, I totally agree that there is a right approach for studying this game, and a wrong approach, and I made it somewhat clear in PokerPhilosopher thread what I think about his ideas. Anyway, I hope he does well (or better, that he finally comes to his senses).

Thanks again. Cheers!

Hey, low blow! I know you didn't think my strategy idea was any good, but what is it about my approach to studying that you don't agree with? I'm not afraid to make mistakes in trying different ideas. And as far as my latest 2-street approach.. Is it not better to perfect a simpler strategy, than to make big mistakes in using a more complex strategy incorrectly? Keep in mind, this is only until I move up a lot higher and need to go back and work on my normal, 3 street strategy. If I've lost my mind, then so be it lol. I'll come back to my senses if this (combined with some kind of aggro BRM approach to get out of micros) doesn't work.

It was not a personal attack btw, if it sounded like that, I´m sorry. I´m really trying to be helpful as we are more or less on the same boat .You´re too focused on implementing a "solid" preflop and a "simplified" postflop strategy when the right approach (imho) is to develop your postflop game asap, and postflop is the most important and interesting part of the game, no matter if we´re talking about 2nl, 10nl or 50nl.

You´re also focused and spending energy on radically different ideas, when in the last few years poker theory developed a lot and most of the things you need to know like solid preflop ranges, bet sizings and such are easily available (as far as I remember, there is a free and somewhat good one on upswing poker).

When I said coming to your senses, it´s more about the big chance that you´re going to hit a wall at higher stakes bc you´re not developing a solid postflop game now for a cheaper price, so I hope you change your mind on this one now, rather than later . And that you could be putting more volume on 10 nl (that you beat) and use the added money + rb to join a training site, instead of spending so much time on things that are more or less easily obtainable (like a preflop strategy).

Anyway, good luck. Seriously, I hope we all climb the stakes successfully, hopefully in a quicker way.

I think you misunderstand what I mean by "simplified" postflop strategy. I don't mean that I'm not developing a solid postflop strategy, because I am. I am developing a solid cbetting strategy using larger sizes that get all-in on the turn. Sure, it means I can only open preflop 1% less hands, because I have slightly less bluffs as a result of my choice of bet sizes postflop. But that difference seems pretty negligible. But my overall postflop strategy is still solid. The difference in EV from playing the borderline hands differently shouldn't be that great. But making it "simpler" has the added benefit of being easier to work out my strategy in more detail, cause it eliminates the most complex street. And that means less of the big mistakes made while playing. And poker is all about making less mistakes than your opponents.

I'm not posting this to convince you to change your strategy/approach or anything. I'm just trying to explain my thoughts more clearly (although I don't know if I have lol). You are right in that all my efforts so far have just been on preflop. But I am currently working on postflop right now. And of course postflop is more interesting, as it is more complex than preflop.

And no matter how you go about working on your strategy, you're going to have to simplify things in some way, because poker is so complex. I'm choosing to simplify things by using larger bet sizes. You might be simplifying things by estimating/approximating/guessing betting ranges (for example). There's always stuff to simplify in order to create a strategy that's feasible to use while playing.

But yes, hopefully we all climb the stakes successfully and quickly!

So, finally I decided to take the big step that I was postponing for so many years. I´m going to 6-max (I played it for a while on and off, so not a total beginner). Why, some ppl might ask? A few logical reasons, a few illogical reasons:

1) I always saw 6-max and zoom specifically as the future, since FR is slowly dying. There isn´t even FR zoom anymore above 2nl.
2) Most of the material from training sites are targeted to 6-max (zoom and sometimes normal).
3) Better players which means better coaches, and I definitely will need one soon before I bust my hard earned roll and have to reload lol.
4) You can´t even find FR anymore at many smaller sites.
5) At zoom I don´t have to sit and stare the same ******** rec for hours.
6) Ppl will respect my raises.

Last one was a joke btw. #5 I´m still not sure if serious or joking.

Anyway, I won´t start playing 10nl for obvious reasons: start at the level that destroyed me is suicide. I need to learn the game playing lower. So, let´s see what happens before I try moving up again. 5nlz is the level I wanna try. If it´s tougher than I thought, no problem, I´ll try 2nlz then.

Will post graphs of my epic defeat at 10nl fr probably next week as soon as I can digest what happened these last few days.

Cheers!

My big April´s downswing. About 30 usd of the losses are from plo10z that I played yesterday.



Since some pgcs that I follow, including PokerPhilosopher´s, are planning a move up/move down system like a bankroll challenge, I will be doing my own while I get more familiar with zoom and 6-max in general. So, I will drop down to 2nl for a while, but hopefully it will be quick. I will borrow Kiranov´s BR challenge guidelines, since they are aggressive, but not thaaaaaat aggressive as to have any chance of actual ruin. Since the highest limit that I think I could be able to win with my current poker knowledge would be 25nl (if I always play my A game, never tilt and keep improving without any setback), I will stop there if/when I reach the limit, and will make it my new home. Cross the fingers ladies and gentleman.

My actual BR is way higher btw, but I will treat it as if it is only 100 usd right now. Will use the HEM profits as my guidance then. Here are the rules:

100$ start @NL2
150$ -> LVL UP NL5
-------------------------------------
125$ -> LVL DOWN NL2
300$ -> LVL UP NL10
-------------------------------------
250$ -> LVL DOWN NL5
480$ -> LVL UP NL16
-------------------------------------
400$ -> LVL DOWN NL10
750$ -> LVL UP NL25 - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Think the first part of the challenge until NL10 will be challenging but doable. The later ones I can´t say, but hopefully with what I said before + catching some momentum, I will succeed. Also, it will help myself to lose some of my nitty habits, and be a more normal and self confident player.

Database getting slower (more than 1M hands right now), so will make a backup and then purge all hands and start again. There seems to be an option where HEM keeps the stats I have, so it shouldn´t be a big concern. Also a good way to free my mind from past bad habits.

Rungood everyone!

Actually, if I will be using the profit from hem, it doesn´t make sense to use that 100 usd fictitious BR lol. Also changing the values since I´ll be playing 16NL and they were a little bit weird the way I put before. Challenge should be read like this:

0$ start @NL2
50$ -> LVL UP NL5
-------------------------------------
25$ -> LVL DOWN NL2
200$ -> LVL UP NL10
-------------------------------------
150$ -> LVL DOWN NL5
500$ -> LVL UP NL16
-------------------------------------
420$ -> LVL DOWN NL10
1000$ -> LVL UP NL25 - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

All values are profit before rb, as per hem2 graph.