I have to say, this recent post is a much better mindset than prior posts. I was getting a little worried, seeing your dedication to poker and, not taking this the wrong way, almost reluctantness to slow down a bit with poker.

^Thanks! I appreciate your concern and have thought about responding to your recent posts in your thread. I appreciate your honesty and perspective. I'm not quite where you are at w/poker tho. But w/you sharing where you are at I think it opens my mind up more to that perspective on life and poker and makes it more likely I will one day see poker and life similarly.

2914

BR is almost to the 30BI's I want to move up to 100NL. Gonna keep pushing to play well at 50NL and see what happens.

Spent so much time w/new GF the past 2 weeks. Between GF, daughter, work, other friends--not much time to play. (Oh, exercise too. Been wanting to be more dedicated to that, but getting enough to feel ok. New GF likes to run and exercise so that helps and is pretty cool.) But after everything else when I have some downtime poker is what I like to spend it on right now. I've never really won in a significant fashion and never had a solid +ev game. My game's really been borderline breakeven or maybe slightly winning in the almost 7 years that I've been playing. In the past not-even-six-months I think it's become solid winning. I still feel like I need to put in enough volume to prove that tho. So gonna keep at it. There's no way I'd put it before this new GF. Not now anyway and I don't foresee that ever changing.

2960

Less than a BI away from the 3K mark. Pretty excited to be so close to moving up.

==Poker is still my go to outlet. When I need some cave time poker is my favorite thing to focus on.

2985

Played 30 min today. Been spending nearly every spare moment with new GF. I'm eager to get back into playing more. It's been awesome with new GF. But I want to balance life out, lol.

3011

Made it to 3K this morning. Played not even 30 min. Still pretty hard to come up w/the time to play. But will be playing more 100NL now that BR is above 3K. I still plan on mixing in some 50NL if I can't find good 100NL tables. I think I'll move back down to 50NL if BR drops below 2500.

3032

Played 4 100NL tables this morning for about 30 min. Felt good to be playing 100NL and felt comfortable there. I think my game is strong enough. I don't think I played that well this morning tho. Was distracted by having flu symptoms.

3014

Played ~1.25h this morning. Talked w/GF on the phone for ~2.5h last n. Pretty hard to get many hands in when it's like that. I'm not super good at running on 5-6h of sleep, which is something I consider going back to in order to have more time. I'm really a 9h kind a guy. Especially when I'm running--sleep feels so good to recover from hard runs. So the theme of trying to pack everything in and not having enough time for everything continues.

3307

Took the day off of work--some mild flu symptoms. Played maybe 1.5h all 100NL I think. Had some good tables going and running well so far.

3311

Broke up with GF on Saturday. I think she cheated on me with her ex BF. Thus, appears I'm moving on. I was so into her too. Still have feelings for her. But I think she's addicted to her old BF. She's also a compulsive liar. I think my experience playing poker might have helped me to put pieces of info together and to detect lies in order to come to the conclusion that she cheated on me a week ago. Or maybe it was just really obvious. I'll probably be spending more time on poker in the upcoming weeks. Been getting pretty into working out and running too tho. Some work buddies convinced me to sign up for a gym membership where they work out. I started working out with them. Also, I decided to sign up for a 10 mi race that takes place mid May. My goal is to run it at 6:30 min/mi pace or better.

3100

Seems like I was due for some run bad. 2 BI's is nothin really.

3038

Played another hour or so. Some run bad and sloppy play. Started off the sesh listening to music. But I wasn't verbalizing my thought process much because I was getting too into the music. This is something I think I posted about before. I want to avoid playing music or eating food or anything else distracting while I play. I want to focus on following the action and making the best possible decisions I can at each decision point. I'm currently not super concerned about the 5 min break every hour, but I will keep an eye on that. I still need to verbalize my thoughts tho. I want my thinking about poker decisions to be as conscious and deliberate as I can. Verbalizing my thoughts puts my poker thinking at the forefront.

3204

Played 1h this morning. Some good tables and game seemed on.

3221

Was rockin it this morning when this hand happened:

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD Poker Tracking Software

NL Holdem $1(BB)
BB ($46.28) [VPIP: 12.5% | PFR: 12.5% | AGG: 100% | 3-Bet: 0% | Hands: 8]
UTG ($90.65) [VPIP: 67.3% | PFR: 18.2% | AGG: 19.1% | 3-Bet: 0% | Hands: 56]
HERO ($164.63) [VPIP: 27.4% | PFR: 20.9% | AGG: 35.9% | 3-Bet: 7.7% | Hands: 119192]
CO ($89) [VPIP: 7.7% | PFR: 0% | AGG: 14.3% | 3-Bet: 0% | Hands: 26]
BTN ($147.74) [VPIP: 29.4% | PFR: 21.6% | AGG: 30.4% | 3-Bet: 5.6% | Hands: 51]
SB ($89.18) [VPIP: 24% | PFR: 12% | AGG: 41.7% | 3-Bet: 0% | Hands: 25]

Dealt to Hero: 9 9

UTG Calls $1, HERO Raises To $6, CO Folds, BTN Calls $6, SB Folds, BB Folds, UTG Folds

Hero SPR on Flop: [9.78 effective]
Flop ($14.5): 4 4 2
HERO Bets $8 (Rem. Stack: 150.63), BTN Calls $8 (Rem. Stack: 133.74)

Turn ($30.5): 4 4 2 4
HERO Bets $15 (Rem. Stack: 135.63), BTN Calls $15 (Rem. Stack: 118.74)

River ($60.5): 4 4 2 4 Q
HERO Bets $20 (Rem. Stack: 115.63), BTN Raises To $118.74 (allin), HERO Calls $98.74 (Rem. Stack: 16.89)


Otr I was targeting 88-55. When we get raised I don't think this Villain (no maniac tendencies shown) is bluffing or raising worse. I think they call some of the time w/88-55 and maybe AK(often 3betting AK pre tho) for a bluff catch. I think AQ usually folds to the 2nd barrel ott (and often 3bets pre). Anyway, it's just not going to be some random bluff from a straightforward player for ~100bb's all of a sudden. I'm irritated w/myself for not folding here. Gonna continue to let this hand irritate me. Also, I have another hand to look at that I played right after this one. I may have tilt-spewed ~30bb's or so. My game is so much better than it was a year ago. But I want to keep pushing, keep being hard on myself. I want tilt-spew to be virtually non-existent. And these big river decisions for stacks I want to post and look over thoroughly.

3340

Played another 30 min.

Having been gone from over for a little over 2 months, a Male difference between the study methods is attitude. In poker, almost every study method I know of requires looking over mistakes, IE what not to do. And it's so negative as well. Take Snowie, for example. The only thing that accumulates is when you make a mistake.

Most people only review their play to see what mistakes they've made. They beat themselves up and are hard on themselves.

In the last couple of months away from poker, I have experienced this kind of study method 0 times. Sure, when I'm looking over code I wrote and something isn't quite working right, I look for mistakes. But I don't beat muself up over it. There is more positivity, like "Yes! I did this the right way!" Pat myself on the back. I tell you what, it improves my mood when studying, and I can study for longer.

I did that at the poker table too. My mood was much better when I patted myself on the back. And I felt better. Try applying some positive feedbacks in your study routine or during your play time when you get something right.

As for the hand, I think you're right in assessing that this is not a bluff. Lets think about our line. We iso raise an abnormally large amount (sizing tell?), get a cold call from BTN, and triple barrel a 4424Q missed flop flush draw runout. Our range is very polarized. Maybe JJ+, and some Ax bluffs - AhKh, AhJh, AhTh, Ah5h, etc. It's really a poor spot to raise any hand that should be in his range, unless its completely nutted. And his natural call down bluffs make poor raises because he blocks our bluffs - we should only consider folding bluffs and maybe JJ.

Now, can we put him on QQ? 4xs? AA? Of all of his possible hands, QQ is the most likely. Given the UTG limp, your EP larger than usual iso raise, those may be factors to make BTN uncomfortable 3betting QQ preflop. Given that, it makes AA even more attractive to 3bet preflop. 4xs suffers a bit from, there is just 54s and A4s, and some percentage of those are 3bet preflop and/or raised on the flop.

I think check calling river is best. Bluffs aren't bluff raising. I also have a hard time believing that we get called by worse more than we get called by better. When he jams, the range is so narrow and nutted, but it's such a poor spot for a bluff I think we can sigh fold.

Good luck!

^Thanks! Interesting perspective on mistakes and negativity.

3498

Played ~30min this morning. Played well and ran well.

3409

I woke up today feeling good, feeling better than I have in recent weeks. The GF I broke up w/ a week and a half ago I'm getting over. I'm starting to appreciate the time that this frees up. I'll probably get back into setting weekly goals starting next week. The main thing that would derail progress in poker and exercise and whatever else would be getting into yet another relationship. I'm going to be more selective in the future tho. I was really into most recent ex, but she only had 1.5 yrs clean and her life is a mess. Really the number one thing for any serious relationship to work is she's got to be a positive influence on my daughter. It's written in my DNA to put raising my daughter before any woman. So any future woman is going to need to understand and be ok w/that.

3539

Played over 2h today.

3626

Played 30 min this morning.

3724

3639

Tables were not so good this morning. Ran poorly as well.

3570

Been playing poorly. I need to get back to verbalizing my thoughts and to quit being so arrogant. Sometimes I fall into a mode of "I've arrived" as tho my game is so good that I no longer need to apply any effort. Sure it's nice to be playing at the 100NL level. I've run really well tho. I need to admit that. This sesh I just played my game was awful.

3825

Was on my way to work yesterday when I realized I had forgotten my driver's license, which I need to clock in. I called and told my supervisor and he said it'd be an unexcused absence. So I turned around and drove home. Took a nap; went to the gym I recently bought a membership at and ran 5 mi on the treadmill (been below zero temp lately otherwise I'd prob run outside and gotta say from the perspective of a single guy there were a lot of attractive women there); came home and played some more. I tried 2 tables of 200NL since I couldn't find enough good 100NL tables. I know it's risky BR management, but the 200NL tables I found were really good and it's something I will continue to do only sparingly until BR is >6K.

3625

Maybe had one mistake hand this morning for 70ish bb's.