Thanks for checking in. I decided starting a journal would be helpful to keep me accountable, focused and an outlet when I still want to think about poker but don't want to be locked in playing or studying.

I plan to update to report back on daily sessions, trends I'm seeing in my own game or my populations and HHs.

A little about myself: I started playing online regularly a couple of years before Black Friday as a college hobby. I primarily grinded SNGs and was a slightly winning playing that put in enough volume to scratch out a couple grand in profits over 2 years. I stopped playing entirely after Black Friday outside of a couple $1/2 sessions in Las Vegas.

In Dec 2019, I got the itch to play again and deposited a few hundred dollars on a regulated site. Obviously the game has changed a ton and I had to learn a lot to catch up. Had never heard the terms GTO, blockers and barely had a sense of playing/reading ranges. I've read Play Optimal Poker, had a membership with PokerCoaching.com, listen to a ton of podcasts, and purchased ICMizer and SNG coach. Lately, I've been looking hard at buying Flopzilla and GTO+, any thoughts?

Anyway, it's been about a year since I deposited and started my poker journey 2.0. I've profited about ~$4.3k online year to-date and have won about $600 over <10 live $1/2 sessions. I grinded my way up from $5 SNGs and 5NL and currently play 50NL, 100NL and mix in $25 SNGs and similar BI MTTs. My main game is 50 or 100NL 6 max though.

I've had a real breakthrough lately by fixing some issues I had with responding to 3Bs. In short I was calling too much and not 4betting nearly enough. I had been playing way too scared of 3B/4B pots and always assumed villains had premium holdings. Now that I'm 3B/4B wider, I have a way better sense of how wide villains can be in these spots.

I know low stakes MTTs are among some of the most +EV games one can play, but I really don't seem to capitalize on this. I think I frequently make mistakes playing overly aggressive hoping for folds population will rarely make and being impatient.

Here's a hand from a $10 R&A MTT that cost me significantly:

225/450/55 level, 45 players remaining, 10 spots ITM. I'm chipleader w 30k, main villain in the hand has 16k.

UTG+1 limps, HERO (UTG+2) raises to 1,010 w QJ, folds around to BB who calls, UTG+1 calls.

Flop A77 Pot is 3,695, BB checks, UTG+1 checks, HERO???


I c-bet 1,847 hoping to take it down, BB folded, UTG+1 raised to $5,044 and I shrug jammed got called by Q7 and he holds.

I don't hate the cbet, but maybe size down to 1/3? I don't think I can fold to the 3B but I have basically no fold equity with the jam. Looking back at this I'm guessing it should be call and fold to bet on turn. Or am I missing something?


Anyway, thanks for the read, hope I've got an interesting (and profitable) log eventually.

A little about myself: I started playing online regularly a couple of years before Black Friday as a college hobby. I primarily grinded SNGs and was a slightly winning playing that put in enough volume to scratch out a couple grand in profits over 2 years. I stopped playing entirely after Black Friday outside of a couple $1/2 sessions in Las Vegas.

In Dec 2019, I got the itch to play again and deposited a few hundred dollars on a regulated site. Obviously the game has changed a ton and I had to learn a lot to catch up. Had never heard the terms GTO, blockers and barely had a sense of playing/reading ranges. I've read Play Optimal Poker, had a membership with PokerCoaching.com, listen to a ton of podcasts, and purchased ICMizer and SNG coach. Lately, I've been looking hard at buying Flopzilla and GTO+, any thoughts?[/QUOTE]

Also wanted to add that I've had a few mental game coaching sessions to work on tilt and entitlement. I also relied on my PT3 HUD during my Stars pre-Black Friday days but my site, WSOP, doesn't allow HUDs. I've heard whispers about hand catchers or something to at least collect HHs. Does anyone know about this?

I've been playing about an hour today and I'm definitely still on a heater. I don't know if winter/quarantine 2.0 has more recs out or players might be tilting harder but this has been great for me. I'm up just under 300bb.

While I know I'm on a heater, I'm confident my improved play is making a big difference in how I've been able to capitalize and in creating opportunity. My takeaway, if you're going to be anything more than a mediocre reg at 100NL, you've got to get comfortable in 3B/4B pots without premiums.

Here's a fun hand:

100NL 6max

HERO (UTG) opens QT to $2.20, folds to SB who 3bs to $7.66, HERO calls

Flop: J82 (15.72); SB bets 7.71, HERO calls

Turn: J82 4 (29.98) ; SB bets 22.48, HERO calls

River: J82 4 J ; (73.70) SB checks, HERO bets 38.35, SB raises AI to 63.95, HERO calls.

SB shows, AJ, HERO scoops $201.60.

Obviously I'm not pumped that SB comes over the top on the river, but I'm never folding. Maybe I should have just shoved myself, but at the time I figured leaving V $25 might be worth it to make sure he can't get away from trips or even a A8 kind of hand.

Funny back and forth today at 100NL this morning. Reacting to regular 3Bs and 4Bs was easily the biggest issue I had to overcome moving from 50NL to 100NL. It took me a while but I feel like I've got the hang of my ranges and have lost a lot of the fear I had when I first started taking shots.

Still get into leveling wars with regs that can be easy to make mistakes, but I haven't been making too many.

3 hands (100NL) with the same villain that's been going after me for some reason:

Eff Stack: $111 CO raises to $2.87, BTN (HERO) 3B to $8.88 with A7, CO 4B to $23.32; HERO calls. Normally this is a fold all day, but against this opponent I think a call is fine. Is a 5B AI a reasonable play given Villain's range is a lot wider than it should be?

Flop: K74 ($45.47)

CO bets $24.07, HERO calls. Hard to imagine I'm ahead here, probably a fold, if the bet is more like $30-35 I'm pretty sure I find the fold button, but Villain is making this bet with 100% of his range imo. So I call with the plan to give up unimproved; honestly I think I'm making a crying call on the turn if the backdoor flush draw comes in given I've already taken the high variance line anyway and Villain has been unreasonably aggro.

Turn: K74 A ($93.28)

CO jams the $64.03 left behind, HERO covers and calls. CO shows KJ; river K. Sigh.

1 orbit later, same villain:

Eff Stack: $100 CO raises to $2.87, BTN (HERO) 3B to $8.88 with AT, CO 4B to $28.14; HERO 5B AI to $100, CO calls with KQ and HERO's A high holds for $198.50.

So I got most of it back one orbit later. Just like with the previous hand, I'm folding to 4B most of the time, but in my player pool, the 3B/4B leveling will eat you up if you don't adjust.

20 hands later, same villain:

Eff stack: $80.15 UTG opens to $3.50, HJ (HERO) 3B to $12 with TT; UTG 4B to $31.12 with $49.03 behind, HERO jams, UTG calls QJ. TT holds and HERO scoops $158.80.

Leak I need to fix:

-When I'm on a downswing, my play gets more weak-tight but unreasonably sticky with premium pre-flop hands. Since I'm playing less hands, I defend and spaz out when I get a good hand despite action and a board telling me my hand is no good.

Not an especially complicated hand, but I did want to post as I think I've lost a lot of value being too afraid of value owning myself. I also think while I'm getting better at polarizing when appropriate, I don't size my value bets accordingly hoping the 2/3s type size bet gets more calls.

HERO (BB) QQ; eff stack $100

Action folds to SB who raises to $3, HERO 3B to $12 (went 4x hoping to look like I'm trying to buy it), SB calls.

Flop ($22.67) 975

SB checks, HERO bets $14, SB calls

I'll have to run this in a sim, I think maybe it's more often a check but I defaulted to a value bet.

Turn ($49.12) T

SB checks, HERO checks. Another situation I want to study, feels like checking entire range is okay here. At the moment, I was thinking pot control.

River ($49.12) 7

SB bets $14.74, HERO jams ~$74 effective...SB tanks and calls w J9


I really thought about flatting (and in hindsight taking the bait with the blocker bet) but I thought any hand that beats me at this point is going to feel pretty nutted and would likely want to extract more value. Looking back at the hand history, I'm not really sure I should expect many calls from worse but I don't know. In the moment I was hoping to be called by JJ, maybe AT, did not expect to see J9 but maybe I should consider possibilities like that more often as I've probably made crying calls like that given the pot odds.

Good luck on your journey!

Your talks about 3b/4b ranges in the higher stakes is very relatable.

Now that you are at 50/100 NL, what was your 3b/4b range like in the lower stakes? How did you learn to make those range changes when moving up?

Thanks for checking in!

Before moving up, I held my own at 50NL (mostly full ring) with a IP 3B range like AJs+, TT, AQo+ then probably even tighter OOP. No balance to the range and very easy to play against for the thinking player. While I was taking my lumps at 100NL my response to the more frequent 3B/4Bs was like "3B me light will you? I'll show you by...flat calling a lot and hoping I hit the board..."

The biggest and easiest part to fixing this leak was just watching some videos on 3betting and responding to 3bets in and out of position. Jonathan Little has some good stuff for free on Youtube and I also watched some of the premium videos on his site. Realizing what my 3B ranges should look like was a gamechanger for me. Before fixing, what in hindsight was an obvious and huge leak, I was playing like any 3B pot was a battle of premium hands which lead to costly mistakes on every street.

Bankroll update

On 12/15/20 I had $5159.68 in my online roll, I've since deposited $150 for a match bonus and am currently at 6,852.59 as of 1/15/20.

It was a bit of a roller coaster, my first post was in the midst of a week+ long heater and shortly before a downswing that cut my profits about in half. Have since righted the ship and and climbing back up.

Quick and BRUTAL session to end my night. Played well for the most part but got my teeth kicked in short handed.

4 handed, CO opens, HERO (BTN) with KK raises to $9, SB calls, BB 4B to $40, CO folds, I jam $120 effective, SB folds, BB calls w 66 and makes a straight.

Same villain as before in CO opens, folds to me in SB and I 3B to $12 w AdQd, he 4B to $40 again, I rip it in again and he snaps me off w JJ and holds.

Finally I made a mistake due to tilt by 3B A6o in SB, BTN opener calls me. Villain flops top set and I try to bluff my way out of poor preflop play.

I feel pretty good with my play during this session. The table dynamics were definitely pretty loosey goosey, but I don't think I made many mistake that led to the poor result. I certainly added to my losses with some loose, tilty play and I need to fix that. Seemingly small mistakes preflop can very easily lead to costly mistakes on further streets.

Now I need to take my medicine of variance, learn my lesson (don't chase losses by playing more hands pre...duh) and stick to my game. I feel like losing sessions like this in the past have led to me adjusting my style by being risk averse...yet playing a bit desperate to recoup my losses and getting overly sticky. Bad combo.

Hand I didn't play well, definitely some tilt. Mainly wondering about my turn bet.

$100 Eff, 5 handed

I open Qc9c from UTG, BB (just sucked out on me AA<QQ and that definitely influenced my 3B call unfortunately), raises to $14, I flat.

Flop QdJc3d, BB bets $9 into $27 and I call.

Turn QdJc3d, 2c bringing in a flush draw, BB checks, I bet $29 into $43. BB jams with about $50 and I sigh call and don't get there against his KK. If I have to bet there, that size seems bad. Checking back turn seems like the obvious play but at the time was really trying to push my equity.

Popped into my local room for some live 200NL. Kinda surprised they are back to 9 handed. $5/30 minute timed drop but it looked like they were still taking some rack. Pretty tough, but man I forgot how soft most live players were.

Bought in for $300, cashed out for $471. Didn't really get paid on any of my big hands but had one nice hand.

On the BTN I open Ks2s for $7, BB calls. Flop KhJhX BB donks for $10, I flat. Turn is another blank BB checks, I bet $20 (flop donk screams draw) into ~$30, BB calls. Turn is an offsuit 3 and BB leads for $75 into ~$70. More $ than I would like to get in with top pair no kicker, but this river lead seems so fishy to me, I basically snapped him off. As soon as I announce the call, he insta-mucks. Villain's line was so transparently a draw.