I am a 23-year-old unsuccessful poker player from Poland and I’m tired of being like this.

Backstory:



To be honest I don’t really have any inner desire to share anything I think/experience with others but in my honest opinion the 2+2 community is great and it could probably be +EV to be their active (maybe even recognizable in the future) member. The other reason I decided to start this thread is to put here my honest thoughts about the strategy, what I don’t understand, what I know I need to fix/understand but don’t necessarily know how to do so etc. Probably won’t post personal stuff, except maybe some short but significant notices, as 1) I’m very aware that everything we put to the Internet stays there and could be dangerous in a way we never imagined and 2) I don’t think anyone cares, at least I don’t care about personal stuff when I read other people’s PGCs/blogs unless it’s ultra interesting.

So anyway, did I mention that I feel very untalented at poker? And that I wasted the last 5 years and I’ll never get them back? A good thing is though, I was always pretty sure that I’m not going to give up, there’s still some money in poker left to pick up and I think I can still improve and become decent or maybe even very good. OFC 5 years of failing cause some doubts in my head but now my thoughts are like “it’s not a perfect situation and probably will never be but I still can try to squeeze as much as possible out of poker so let’s try”.

Now a quick thought about things that slow my progress down but are not directly poker related: inability to focus on poker when something’s on my mind even if it doesn’t need any urgent intervention (I always admired athletes who can focus on their work in the day of competition despite having other **** on their mind, always wanted to be like that but honestly at the moment I’m not) and a mix of procrastination/laziness.

But I think the latter results from not knowing exactly what to do in order to improve. A randomly watched video or few randomly picked analyzed hands are usually a step forward but not too significant. I think that if I had a clear roadmap to crushing highstakes in my mind I would be able to just lock down and grind these steps to the end goal but it’s not that simple. I don’t really want to join a stable where coaches could probably point out to me what to do in order to improve but I’d rather pick games/volume goals on my own. I would also be happier from my eventual success as an independent player rather than a horse.

At the moment I think I need to improve at thinking about ranges in real time, I’m very curious how top players think about them, like how they’re able to quickly determine the best flop decision on wide ranges in reference to a balanced strategy, but I think it just comes somewhat naturally/automatically from hours spent on in depth reviews and in solvers.

Also, I don’t think I should be focused on trying to become ultra balanced/unexploitable at least until I start playing maybe tougher 109s or something like that because population tendencies at low- and midstakes contain a ton of exploitable areas so I need to focus on them and I’m sure I only discovered a fraction of them so far.

One thing that I don’t understand, but doesn’t really matter at my stakes, is this multiple bet sizing thing. I don’t really get why solvers indicate betting the same hand with different sizings some portion of the time. As I said, doesn’t matter right now, maybe I’ll ask in poker theory forums later unless someone wants to explain it to me here.

I'm open to all kinds of advice/poker related discussion.

Merry Christmas guys, mine will not be so happy since I wanted to finally spend a winter in a warm place (the ability to do that always seemed to me as one of the biggest benefits of being a poker pro as I hate winter and bad weather affects me very much even when I don’t plan to leave home for the next few days), my bankroll is now definitely enough to afford it but some problems with organization caused a delay and I’m still waiting very impatiently (don’t even want to mention for how many years) for my first warm winter to come. But I think I can handle it because I feel that at the moment it’s very possible that these could be my last cold and cloudy weeks/months for a long time. Maybe I’ll catch a cheap flight in January.

No goals for 2018, nothing changes but a digit, though nothing is wrong with setting yearly goals if someone likes to do that.

TLDR

You are trying to accomplish different things VS different players, board textures, stack sizes, etc. Without even getting into solvers, just think about why you're doing certain things and what you're trying to accomplish with every move you make and you will begin down the right path. When you have 1 sizing you become much easier to play against, as good players will pick your strategy apart after enough hands with you.

For example, wouldn't it be nice to be able to bet as small as possible to get a bluff through? How is that ever going to work if you never have the nuts in your hand with that small sizing?

To go the opposite way, say you choose to pot the river with the nuts, if you don't have bluffs or middling hands in your range with that sizing how often do you think you're getting called? Probably not much at all, especially the better your competition gets.

Hey, my advice would be to play a super nitty 7/4 style and learn your all in ranges by heart, meaning the times you have a stack of 10bb or less and have to shove. I made 86k so far and thats how I did it.
Theres no need to think about ranges or balancing or anything like that. Just be a nit.

Buy a program like sngwizzard to learn those ranges. To start you can dl a pushbot chart.

Then once you learned the ranges of all ins, it's really just a question of putting in volume.

Also to start I recommend you to only play turbo mtts and turbo mtt sngs, there youll have lots of final tables and get used to short stack poker, the easiest variant of poker.

Then you can start looking into icm, but thats basically just not shoving atc anymore once the money spots are there.
And when you have semi strong hands but not a short stack, you want to minraise/call the short stacks that shove over your raises.

I made 3.5k on average/month when I played full time even tho I was backed and had to give away half of my winnings.

And in the rare case you do all the above and become pro, my last advice would be to work out your body, I sat so much in my chair, that at one point I became so weak that I past out while sitting and grinding...

anyway, merry xmas and glgl

Well, I meant that I don't understand why solvers suggest betting the same hand combination in the same exact spot with different bet sizes with a certain frequency as, for example, shown here (borrowed from Raise your edge YT video):


Honestly I don't think that 7/4 would be the best strategy on low- and midstakes nowadays. I have some experience with HRC analysis so my short stack/ICM play is not that bad. I also think people overestimate this "balanced lifestyle" thing, IMO a minimum amount of sports like 1-2x/week is definitely enough to avoid having health problems in the long run.

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Played a small session tonight, results were not interesting, tomorrow is first day of Winter Series so let's go for it.

CLiffs: If you only bet certain hands 1 ways you can never have other groups of hands in your range, AKA you play pretty face up. If you bet an exact hand 5 different ways it makes it a lot harder for someone to figure out what you're doing, as your range isn't capped by your sizing.

take a deep breath

Yeah I kinda get it, thanks for contributing. Wasn't sure why it's better than betting whole range with same sizing tho.

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Ran deep in bounty builder 33, but I felt like I played awfully, started final table as a CL and like 2 hands later made a probably very bad x/r-bet-bet bluff based on a wobbly assumption that villain's range is capped + icm pressure + field tendencies from lower stakes, finished 7th for 2k total, lost KK<JJ in the end but totally deserved it. Need to get into a proper study/grind rhytm so I'll feel the game better.

I'll just post the hand here cuz I promised to be honest about everything poker related.



I don't think I've shown any big bluffs or light check/raises before. Definitely I'm an idiot for shoving river but I think betting flop so small here is usually weak, with a strong hand I'd definitely want to bet bigger vs big blind call cuz I have many draws here, anyways I think flop is completely fine, not sure about turn, probably should have sized it up in case he peeled with a Kx (hate my life if he has KJ tho). I think I looked like a set, random 2 pair or a low flushdraw. He faces a big ICM pressure too so idk, this turn sizing is definitely awful but I think I could sometimes size it like that with a flushdraw...
Can't even properly analyze that hand, just assumed that betting 35% on this flop vs bb is definitely a sign of weakness and gone bananas. Not even sure who from two of us has more flushdraws here. Shove turn probably so he can't call with a flushdraw (except AKdd probably).
Tbh I'm feeling like I just made a biggest spazz in poker history. Nevermind, I'll try to study and grind as much as possible within the next 6 months and if I don't see any progress then idk I'll quit poker or hang myself or something but imo it's just experience from grinding solvers/analyzes and solutions in hard/strange spots should start coming to mind somewhat automatically, yesterday I watched 25k SCOOP hr hand review on rio cuz it was made available for everyone and started wondering how the **** top regs can imagine almost exact gto ranges etc in real time, I think it's one of these options (or a combination of them): 1) they have more RAM in their brains than normal people 2) it just seems hard but comes somewhat automatically from grinding solvers as I mentioned.

Goodnight

Didn't play on Wednesday & Thursday due to sleep problems

Played ~9h tonight, finished 2nd in a small 11$ tourney on party for 483$ and 31st? I belive in the Contender (made a bad call with AJo preflop, thought it would have a little more equity lol), nothing too interesting on stars.
Wondering if I should buy bencb789's course. Gotta start working on bvb & HU play, don't understand wide range dynamics well enough.

Also did a 3bet with pocket aces in Hot 11 while playing 13 or 14 tables with 1 zoom included and got sitted out to a rejam ffs. I don't think I should exceed 12 tables, 8-10 is optimal for me atm imo. But my volume is already awful, like 20-25 tourneys per session, probably need to make some changes in my schedule.

some people (me included) will never fold aa unless a scary board

flush draw didnt come and str8 either, i wouldn't fold aa

and i know what youre thinking right now: yes , youre right if youhit a set on my aa , good for you you can have my stack.

but firstly i have to have aa and you have to have a set, and if it happens i blame it on RNG

GG

Played for almost 12h tonight, finished 34th in hotter 22 and ~~80th in bb16.5 so nothing special, getting into eat-sleep-grind pattern. Happy New Year.

Hey guys, no updates for a long time because for the most part of January I had very big problems with sleep so unfortunately had a long break. Bought Tournament Masterclass on January 1 and started studying and now I'm feeling like I'm on a good way to improve, just need to keep putting hours into it.

On Sunday I started grinding again, busted 20th in Bigger 11 and tonight I busted 20th in a $55 powerfest after making a somewhat crazy bluff vs uncapped range (I think I was not really capped too as I could have 55, 77 and some 2p combos while not having too many bluffs but my blockers were pretty bad as I block AA and AQ which I want him to fold):



Feel pretty bad after this hand but I guess it's just my fate to learn via very expensive mistakes.

After all I think this was a very good call from him. I should never or very rarely overcall KQo from SB in this spot + in his eyes I'll check/raise sets most of the time so it leaves me with 1 KQs combo, the rest are combodraws like AJ-AT and JT ss/hh. KJ/KTss type of hands I think I would just check/call on the turn. He doesn't have Jh or Js so I'm impressed by this call.

Came 2nd in Powerfest 20-L, not taking a deal was a very clear mistake but as I probably mentioned earlier my fate is to learn on my own mistakes.



Daily I'm grinding and learning but need to increase volume on both; then I'll feel everything is on a good way to the goal.

Bad sleep on Saturday -> bad game on Sunday -> taking a day off after grinding 8 days in a row. Was planning to grind 15 in a row but tonight I'll focus on studying. Need to dramatically improve my understanding of BVB game. Besides that I think I'm on a good way to make the eat-sleep-grind routine natural for me.

The other problem is that I think I don't think in terms of ranges in real time often enough. I think decreasing table amount and consciously focusing on taking focus (lol) on that is the way to improve. Probably the progress will be slow but it should come over time.

Tonight I final tabled Big 7.5 and made another ICM mistake, I think that ingame I'm thinking that I'm ultra weak postflop in 3bet pots so I will never realize my equity properly and thus I make stupid jams/folds instead of calling and playing postflop. It's ****ing killing me, in almost every deep run I have I screw something up. My assumptions were that villain just doubled or tripled up and became CL so he could start putting some pressure on me + I had decent blockers + ICM was not too significant at this moment and boom, busto. But ****ing nobody would make it so small at these stakes. FFS maybe this game is too hard for me srsly

https://www.weaktight.com/h/5a710d95d39043e1768b46d2

Hey guys,

haven't posted for a pretty long time cuz to be honest I haven't made any significant progress with getting rid of my laziness, I came back to spending basically zero time on studying. This can't continue. I'm facing a big opportunity and will never forgive myself if I waste it. I think the absolute minimum is 10h of study p/week (assuming that I'll grind 5-6 days per week), not sure if I'll be able to study for more than 15h per week but will see. I think it's all about changing habits.

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At least I'm running very good this year, here's a few scores:






And yesterday I binked my biggest score ever:



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SCOOP starts in less than 2 months, so here's my primary goal for now:
Just before SCOOP starts, I want to be able to honestly admit to myself that during the past few weeks I've done a very solid work off the tables and learned a lot.

Won another tournament but still don't put enough effort in studying, damn!!!

Hello again, after banition and stuff


Not too many interesting things happened since my last posts, chopped one Sunday tourney in April for ~$7k then started slowly losing again.

So, the final result is that I probably spent a little more time studying than usually, haven't really learned "a lot" but I think getting better at poker is a pretty slow process and it just happens through repetition.

SCOOP starts today, I think it will be extremely important (probably even more than putting in additional 10 or 20 hours of study during past few weeks) for me to stay focused during sessions.

Goals for the next two weeks:
-don't chat or browse internet when having a serious table count (I think it shouldn't really affect my game when I have less than 5 tables but with 5+ it probably starts being -EV)
-put a big effort to stay focused, take my time to connect the dots when facing a decision that's not snap
-remember that GTO is usually bull**** on low- and midstakes
-review hands from the day before on daily basis

I have one problem which I'm not sure how to solve, my winrates from SB when 20-35bb deep are very bad (~-30bb/100, worse than from BB). I think I have solid rejamming ranges but don't feel so confident about my SB vs BB game in limped or raised pots. Could be a sample size issue tho.


GL everyone (wonder if anybody's reading it) on SCOOP!

Subbed and best of luck during scoop

Thanks man!

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Very painful start to the SCOOP. 4 days, 4 losing days. Today I think was my biggest losing day ever at -1300~1400. But that's variance. Regarding the goals I'm doing ok with not browsing internet but don't browse enough hands daily. Gotta change some habits and start doing more reviews before session instead of wasting time on the internet.
11-12 (maybe 13?) days left so let's focus and crush!

Sup guys, no time long see!
To briefly summarize last months, it's been a ̶g̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ lazy summer. Lost like 3k on SCOOP and pretty much stopped grinding, prob averaging like 2 sessions a week for the last few months. I love summer so despite I wasn't doing anything interesting I was just in mood to do nothing lol.

Currently pokerwise I'm doing awful, haven't had a single winning day in September(!), making it to the money on stars feels like having a special day, at moments I even perceive the money spent on a buy in as a money indeed spent without any expectation of return and not invested... but despite that right now I think I have more motivation than before. I think now I'll be reviewing more hands on my own than ever on daily/weekly basis which was something I could never force myself to do. Another thing that makes me feel better about the situation is the feeling that I was spending more serious amounts of time on studying at the beginning of the year when I had great results and now I'm getting back to studying so hopefully this will result in some scores. Also a funny thing is that I haven't won a tournament on ps.eu since Christmas 2016 while winning maybe like 7 or more on party over last maybe 13 months

Subjectively I think my mindset is pretty strong when I face downswings, don't care that much cuz I believe that I accepted that such situations will happen when I decided to start grinding MTTs. Volenti non fit iniuria.

Lifetime graphs:
Stars:


Party:

lol yeahhhh... so the fact that I didn't break anything during today's session confirms that totally:

1. (direct bubble)
https://www.boomplayer.com/28758069_26E2509AFC

2. (with bounty ofc)


3.
https://www.boomplayer.com/28758540_FB9F91CFD7

4.
https://www.boomplayer.com/5273484_4F75D5D483

5.
https://www.boomplayer.com/28759744_831F667CD6

not to mention KK<A5s, many 65/35s and prob even more flips



won't play tomorrow, gonna fire prob a bit smaller session on Sunday

GLGL, good to see you back at it.

tyty

I think I lost a little yesterday so still no winning session in September.




sick, it's starting to feel like it's never gonna turn the other way

But I won a flip on the bubble for my tournament life in double deuce and even won 77 vs KK (or other pair, not sure) in another tourney. That's something, right?