I'll get the ball rolling...

#prayforop

In all seriousness I really want this to work out for you, you saved up the roll, put in the grind, have the potential etc just vamooo really

Couldn't agree more with anything you've said!

About ***** time! :') Here's to hoping we can put a +VE day in the books today.

As I'm sitting here at the casino doing nothing, as I have been for nearly two hours now, I'm beginning to realise how -EV playing mornings is. People can rego the list at 9am and I got here at 10 and registered and was no. 14. You also have the day regs who are nitty, not drunk, and not going to be super high ev to play against.


Makes me feel much better about the place I went to visit this morning just a 15 min walk away from the casino. Decent furnished room, own bathroom, and a good location. $280 a week for rent, bills, and high speed internet. Only one room mate who seems chilled. We've agreed to give it a crack and I'll probably be moving in in around two-three days time.

The benefit of moving into this place is that I can wake up late, go to the gym, and then walk to the casino for a late afternoon start, allowing me to play til 3am without worrying about how I'm going to get home. It'll also mean I can play 6 days a week with one of those days likely being a half day or a shorter session. Currently, since I'm driving from home, it's easiest for me to play 5*8 hour sessions. Like yesterday I felt like playing but couldn't simply stroll across the bridge and sit at the table like I'll soon be able to do. This should mean getting in 40 hours will be extremely easy and I imagine I'll be getting up closer to 50 hours a week from here on out - because the games will be so much better at night, I won't want to up and leave.

This is pretty exciting times for me. I've never lived out of home before so it'll be interesting for sure but I'm super keen to get settled in so I don't have to waste EV of skipping nights to play these ****ty mornings.

Yeah great ****ing decision

definitely think it was a good decision. yes your cost of living went up a decent chunk but if you can have a higher winrate, potentially put in more hours, and better standard of living that will definitely be worth it and seems likely to actually be the higher $ev situation. 6 months vs 8.5 months being able to go without making money isn't going to change your situation very much. either way you are going to need to succeed within the first 6mo or so or start looking for other work. glgl

Do you use CREV or Pio to review your hands? I get youre playing super exploitatively but i still think you need to understand GTO regardless of who youre playing against, it will help you a lot against regs
It seems like you are doing everything right away from the actual poker, so maybe some extra study will help

Bang on mate, bang on.

I'm super stoked with the decision. Will be moving in on Sunday!

Daily Update - Thu 3 Aug 2017

Hours Played: 9
Profit: -$564
Variance: 4

Notes: Had a super runny nose the night before this session which continued into the morning. I didn't feel sick at all, just my left nostril wouldn't stop leaking snot. Well this has developed into a full blown sickness unfortunately -
I should probably have left the casino earlier but to be honest, I was just having so much fun. I actually really enjoyed interacting with the players last night. A couple of guys were drinking a lot and we were all laughing and taking the piss out of each other - I generally can't stand the table talk when it's about poker but since we were discussing unrelated stuff, it was a lot of fun. There was 3 tables running at about 10pm and ours was by far the noisiest and you could just feel the regs at the other tables were jealous of how much fun we were having! The session itself was an okay one but more or less same sort of story as all week. If a pot goes mutliway, say 5 or 4 handed, then I should be able to win at least 20-25% of the time respectfully. I think the issue this week has been that I'm losing almost all of those multiway pots. Maybe winning around 10% causing me to bleed chips all session long - constantly reaching into my wallet to top up. I did win a bigish hand for a 1k pot, KK vs QQ, super standard, I triple barreled, he called. A cooler, basically. Frankly, all week there's been no spots where I've been able to see my edge "manifest" - winning money feels like trying to draw blood from a rock atm...

There was also a hand vs a half stack old asian lady, flop was 852cc and I had KQcc, she had 99 and we GII as a 51-54% favourite vs this hand but we brick.

Full Results: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AkK4doh8PHLEgk6pBpFJrgcokPKM

Weekly Recap - Fri 28 Jul - Thu 3 Aug

Hours Played: 41.3
Profit: -$4,054
Graph:



Notes: Cool to have gotten my 40 hours in as planned, so that's a positive for the week. Also have a pretty good casino food setup - almonds and sandwiches will last me all day now, cheers metabolism! Unfortunately, I've been really really sick today. High fever and sinuses are all over the place, I feel absolutely terrible and have been in bed all day. Which sucks because I wanted to play in the penthouse game tonight which should be the most profitable game in Brisbane. I was planning on staying til the game closed and then taking a bus home, but now I'm just going to be resting in bed.

The other positive from this week is the decision I made to move out of home and closer to the city, just a 15 minute walk from the casino. This will allow me to play more hours and during the best periods with the worst players. As Tyman said, it'll increase my weekly expenses largely but will be overall +EV to be able to play more often and in better games.

Results wise, well what a start! Dream start to anyone's pro career. :') Five from five losing sessions! Certainly it feels pretty bad to have had a start like this but I've done really well not letting it get to me, affect my play, or reduce my overall happiness - which is at an all time high! It's important to remind myself that I will succeed if I immerse myself in the best games and play my best poker each time I do, even when the results are so disastrous. I imagine looking back on a fruitful poker career attributing this hellish week 1 as a beneficial experience for me. All I can do is play my best poker, play in the best games, and play my volume - and if I go busto, then I go busto. But that's not something I'm particularly worried about - if I loose a good chunk more money, I'll probably be able to claim welfare payments each week which will give me some more duration, but that's not something I'm yet ready to even think about.

In terms of mistakes, I think this was really the only mistake I made all week that sticks out.

UTG is young Chinese guy, don't know much about him.
$500 effective.
UTG opens $20, folds to hero in CO who makes it $60 w/ KK, folds to UTG who calls.

Flop ($127): JJ9

Villain checks, hero bets $60, villain raises to $125, hero calls.

Turn ($377): JJ9 8

Villain checks, kind of doing this "micro nod" of his head repeatedly, which I believe looks quite weak. There's about $230ish behind effectively. I feel like it'd be pretty hard to get called by worse if I jam here? Also the flop COULD have been two toned and not rainbow, I'm not sure.

I check back. - MISTAKE, we need to jam here because of SPR and maybe we can get called by like TT or something... There are also some bad rivers...

River ($377): JJ9 8 7

Villain jams for like $230.

Results:




Basically, this is a mistake because villain doesn't check turn with any Jx and he probably doesn't have any Tx that raise the flop either. At the time I found it really difficult to find any hands I beat on the river. Didn't expect to see any air like this. But when you think about how his value range never takes this line, I think it should be an easy call OTR, especially for that price. This happened on day 1 I believe, still fairly rusty regarding the live pokers and I think I was just didn't want to start out my career with a stupid call for a $1k pot that I would kick myself for if I saw AJ or TT.

Forthcoming Week

So hopefully I feel a little better tomorrow and will be able to play the late night session. I have a bunch of errands I need to do in the morning if I'm feeling up to it. I really can't afford to miss a late night grind again after being sick all of today. But just in the last 10 minutes I'm starting to feel a little better, so hopefully I'll be well enough to play tomorrow. Sunday, we move into our new place. Will post some pics when I get there. So we'll want to settle in, sus out the new place, and then get back to work. Although I've missed tonight, I think I should still be able to get 40 hours in.

In terms of goals,

[ ] Settle into new place
[ ] Play 40+ hours
[ ] Play a late night schedule
[ ] Continue playing good poker

================================================

Another thing I've been thinking about is going out. And how I manage a balance of a work life and a social life. This is what I came up with:

- Can only go out/party on a Fri/Sat IF the winnings for the previous seven says are >$500.
- Leave bank card at home, take $150 cash only. Previously when I've gone out partying, I'll very easily spend $500 a night on drinks and whatnot, but I simply cannot afford to do that anymore. $150 should be enough to have a decent night out and the benefit as well is that I won't need to spend $70+ on an Uber ride home anymore. It's a 22 minute walk to the bars in the city and a 40 minute walk to the "valley" which is where all the clubs are. AKA only a 10 minute uber drive so that should save me a fair amount.

If the winnings for the week prior to me planning an outing are negative, I'll simply not go out because Fri/Sat nights are obv the highest EV. This will be a good way to curb the frequency with which I go out too. Obviously, I expect most weeks to be winning, but this doesn't mean I'm going to go out every weekend where I profit the week prior - hopefully I'll go out no more than once a month or once every few weeks. Or if I do, maybe do a Thursday night session instead of Fri/Sat.

Anyhow, I'm going to go back to bed and get some more rest so I can hopefully be more productive tomorrow!

Talk soon.

No I don't use CREV or Pio and I really don't think it'd be beneficial for me anyway. I "understand GTO" far more than is necessary for a live poker environment. Live poker isn't about knowing what to do with every part of your range vs a reg in a HU pot. Just about every pot is multiway, has extremely obscure bet sizing, random spazz, and the "regs" aren't going to be playing close to optimal anyway.

It would be pretty results oriented of you to say that, over a 40 hour sample. But you are right, I probably should be doing a little more hand review stuff on here - although I disagree that I should be using CREV or Pio - just not the right tools for the job imo. Over the past week, I don't think there's been too many interesting hands or spots to review... I've noted down a few more on my phone but none seem that interesting.

Here is one for you though...

Limp, limp, BTN (who apparently was a pro for 5 years in Italy) isolates to $25, one caller (EP).

Flop $55: AK3

Check, check.

Turn $55: AK3 K

EP leads $35, BTN raises to $115. I think BTN should have heaps of Kx in his flop xb range so I like the raise. EP calls.

River $285: AK3 K 8

EP checks, BTN jams $265... Kind of an obscure run out to jam on... BTN shouldn't really have any clubs but I guess he could be value jamming Kx so it's whatever... EP calls.

Results:

Congrats on moving out amigo. Huge +ve imo.

In regards to your KK vs AQ hand on the JJ987 board.

Ive had quite a few hands like this in the past that I posted in the strat forum and I got flamed for shoving in a situation where I would probably only get called by a hand that beats me. People dont understand that its a better play if it prevents me from ever folding the best hand in a large pot.

A good player will fold the best hand lots of times but you have to avoid doing it in big pots at all costs. Folding the best hand in a large pot is a much much bigger mistake than making a play that allows villain to easily fold the worst hand. If youre going to check to allow him to bluff then that's fine, but if youre going to check and then be put in a situation where you fold the best hand, you should've bet yourself.

Sorry about the run bad to start your career. You're handling it much better than I would be. When I started playing full time, I won my first 14 sessions. A feat I havent repeated again. Clearly there was a lot of run good in there so I was very lucky.

Check/never folding is usually the bread and butter way to play your overpairs on double paired broadway in live poker fwiw. Somewhat for lol range/balance reasons or whatever but more importantly bc of the 23 vs. 57 hand.

I think this is a horrible idea to be fair. This is essentially creating monetary goals in a field where solid volume should be the metric. Not only that, but there is more to life than making money and by punishing yourself like this, it will only lead to unhappiness.

It is too bad your first week was bad results wise, but keep plugging away!

You can have a good night out with just $50. Or maybe I'm just a nit.

I don't know how the party dependent on winnings strat can be highest ev in this spot but that's just me

You won't need anything like PIO to crush live games, but IMO you definitely hinder your WR by not grinding a bit of it.

Knowing how your range reacts to certain boards/bets might not be as important when defending vs aggression, esp in live games where the bet sizes are peculiar to say the least, but when you flip it and are now the player w/ initiative, there is no doubt that you will be making a lot of sizing errors/just general suboptimal stuff because you haven't got that extra knowledge. Like I said it's not needed to beat it, but it definitely will add a few BB/100 at a bare minimum.

Hmm, I think you would have to grind PIO to really understand the benefits it has - imo it's shortsighted to just say it's the wrong tool when you do not know what it truly offers.

Just my two cents. Gl to you.

It's true he could benefit from it long term, however no chance it makes sense for him to use it right now even if he wanted to. He's got a small bankroll and needs to be getting in the hours on the felt. He would have to spend significant time actually learning how to use it properly, followed by then spending time using it. Not to mention spending money on it to get a license for it in the first place. Down the line he could look into it but his time is definitely better spent right now mostly just putting in hours in good games and trying to plug any significant leaks in a more time and cost efficient way.

Good points. Although it's worth mentioning that live pro's can run scripts whilst they're playing in the casino for hours, so once you're down with how it works, you can pretty much eliminate the pio labour hours, so to speak.

Ah, didn't know you had a thread. Subbed and good luck bud

Cheers bruh!

Yeah 100% man. Like on the turn I feel like if I shove I can't get called by anything I beat. But really it should be more about protecting my equity.

I can't fathom winning 14 sessions in a row hah, that's pretty sick.

Yeahhh, I don't really like applying canned strategies to different board types. Have you noticed paired Broadway flops tend to incur more spazz than usual or something?

And **** knows what's going on in that last hand lmao. I think that one and my KK hand are quite different but maybe you're right and people do spooky **** on these boards?

I don't think it's so bad... I imagine more than 50% of weeks will be +ve by more than $500 so it's not as though I'd end up going months on end without going out. You're right though that the only relevant metric is volume, but volume is comprised if I'm going out every Friday or Saturday or even every other weekend. I also don't really look at not going out as punishment, my priority ATM is 100% poker and getting my BR/LR to a point where I can move to Melbourne. Going out and partying is counter productive to that goal. However ofc life balance is important. Maybe I should just say something like "only go out once every 3 weeks"? Idk. Will stick with the system I posted earlier for a while and see if it's any good.

Life nit confirmed. For me expenses for going out are generally: tickets to a gig ($20-40), pre drinks ($25), drugs ($50-75), drinks out ($50-200), uber home ($10, used to be $70). Obviously that's more than $150, so I'll prob be cutting out the drinks out or drugs or pres, idk. I think $150 is a nice number.

Yeah, maybe it's not that good EV. But if it helps me curb the frequency with which I do go out and party, that has to be +EV imo.

I still think that the sizing stuff won't be terribly useful when applied to the live environment. I say that because A) average stack size in my game is probably close to 50bbs, which means we need to be careful regarding our sizes when shorties are in the pot, B) just about every pot is extremely bloated. So often you'll open to $20 utg and get 5 callers. Now the pot is 24bb on first street, we have a couple villains in the hand with not much more than a pot sized bet, basically I don't think sizing is too important here because we're either continuing or checking. I can figure out based on board texture and relevant stack sizes an appropriate cbet size. Money is going in on the turn just about always if your hand was strong enough to cbet flop in a 6 way pot.

Can you do much with Pio in terms of multiway pots? Because that's all live poker is, one great big multiway pot.

Don't get me wrong, I think Pio is the absolute nuts. But I feel like it's only really useful for the online players looking to play perfectly in HU pots?

Once again, bang on mate. Bang on.

I'm leaving my PC at home because I don't really have anywhere for it at the new place. So I'll only have a laptop with me, wouldn't be able to run Pio anyway!

Cheers Ben!

Ah, if you're dealing with very low spr's in MW spots then PIO would not help you whatsoever

Yeah pretty much. In terms of study/off-table work for live poker, I think all you can really do is,

A) Review hands
B) Look at developing live reads

If anyone has any other suggestions for studying with reference to the live game, please let me know!

Hi Meale,

Been lurking your thread for awhile. Congrats on the new place! Keep grinding and things will turn around.

Specifically for live poker, the mental game is vastly underrated. It's very easy when you're in a downswing to play less than optimal when you're seeing very few hands and trying to force good things to happen. It's tough when you've been card dead for example for four hours to not limp / raise / call with hands you normally wouldn't just because you haven't played a hand. Keep playing your game. Try to be aware when you don't feel like you're playing 100 percent and stop. Mental game is one of the biggest leaks I've seen around which kills WRs. I haven't seen it from you ITT, just want you to be aware it's easy to fall into during a downswing. I've absolutely done it myself.

Have you played online much? I'm not too familiar with your background but putting in a ton of hands in the low stakes online helped my live game a ton.

tbh i think live reads are overrated. i think it's far more important to pick up on tendencies and patterns and play accordingly. sure sometimes reads help but not as much as people think imo.

best thing you can do is to go over your hands, talk to other regs, check out the live forum here and just see what others say about specific hands i dont recommend actually following what they say because some of them are ******ed but i think it's important to see how others think about certain spots and make your own deductions

also yeah obviously as someone said above don't tilt, but saying it won't really make u not do it

holy **** ahahahah
nothing about that makes sense
like, if youre going to iso because youve correctly assumed EP limping range is way too weak, shouldnt the plan be to cbet on an A high board, especially one as dry as AK3 2t? Not to mention he has 3 backdoors

Really dislike the turn raise as i Kinda disagree that a king should be checking back on the flop though, there are lots of reasons for a K to bet
1. Dont give information about your range away
2. This isnt a board youre going to (or shouldnt) get raised on very often by a better hand, except 33
3. Opponent isnt going to be bluffing hardly at all when you check back as people never check back air (i thought) here so youre best chance at getting value is a float/bluff raise on the flop
4. deny equity (not a good reason on its own but still a consideration)

as for the rest of the hand, i dont know wtf that was

Hey mate! Yeah you're absolutely right. Live is all about mental game. If you can master that, live is easy. That's my goal, to master the mental game. I feel like I did exceptionally well last week and played fairly good quality poker despite the results.

I played about a million hands online up to 50NL, spent a lot of time studying ranges, received coaching etc. My understanding of theory and boards and ranges and bet sizes etc I feel is far better than necessary to destroy these live games. But the fact is, a lot of that stuff goes out the window - though it's super valuable to know and might prove useful when I start playing 5/T.

Agree that live reads are overrated. A lot of the **** posted in the live forum is very bad advice from very bad players imo. I'll definitely keep reviewing my hands ITT though and will ofc take advice from the better players on here.

Good news is folks, we've managed to kick the week off with a win! Session update to come later today. It's 4am now, I'm going to bus home shortly and then sleep, wake up, and move into my new place!