Hello!

Life Background
I'm currently finishing off my degree in engineering (graduating June this year). Gonna start a job in finance after the summer and planning to play full-time in London this summer!

Poker Background
The journey began with a $20 deposit on stars and played nl2 a few years ago. I started taking the game more seriously this year and played up to nl50 on Party (graphs attached below). Also mixed in some live 1/2 in London

Motivation
I never plan or desire to become a pro poker player. Kind of taking this summer grind as a challenge and have some fun before I start work. I'm making this thread now so I have a plan to follow straight after my exams!

Thoughts on Poker/Live Poker
I only played my first live cash session almost 3 years after my first hand on pokerstars simply due to the stakes being much higher (1/2 min). Of course 1/2 games are soft but it actually took me a while to get used to it (mainly 30h/hour instead of 800h/hour, counting pot sizes, making assumptions on villain etc). As a micro/low stakes player playing live is much more profitable imo but it's not the best way to improve your game.

Thoughts on Live Poker in London
I only have 200 hours total playing 1/2 and only played 2/5 twice. Around 80% of my around are at hippo/emps. Emps seems to be more reggy to me (I mostly play on weekends) due to cashrace/56 promotion? If any London reg can shed any light on cashraces I would really appreciate
The bigger games at hippo/emps (1/2 deep, 2/5 etc) are a bit hit and miss imo, they always attract the best regs in the room and are only worth it if some big whales are donating.
From what i heard, Aspers 1/2 is quite reggy due to the 1/1 games... Not really sure about the Vic ...

Structure of the blog
I will try and post daily/every other day with results and possibly some interesting hands once I start the grind

Results/Graphs:
I lost most of my hands after changing laptop so don't have that many hands in my database.

Live 1/2: About 200 hours @ £15/hr (lol sample size, but i think i'm at least a winner )

nl10 (party):


nl25 (party):


nl50 (party):


glgl at the tables! Will update this regularly once the grind starts!

gl with your goals, subbed and following! (From london too)

Cheers Ben! Long time lurker of your thread

First update!!

Won't be playing much until the summer, but decided to fit in a short session over the weekend as a break

I'm not really sure what kind of structure works best here. I don't really want do the -100 (3 hours) type because I think it makes me more result-oriented and distracts me from focusing on making good decisions, but I'll post results from time to time. I'll start this one off with (1) Strat-related Observations/thoughts (2) Random thoughts for discussion (3) Interesting hands (4) (optional) results

(1) Strat-related Observations/thoughts
- From an online background I am not very experienced in multiway pots, but luckily i think most 1/2 'live regs' have no clue either They seem to c-bet way too often even on unfavourable boards, and sizings are often too large especially on dry boards.

- Sizings
Again from online background I am used to smaller and static open sizes. Against live recs the general idea is to open bigger (for value) as they call too much in general. What I'm really not sure is whether to have an open size based on the strength of my hand in live poker. Using this strat online at nl50+ is too 'exploitable' (e.g. open bigger with strong and smaller with weak against stations). At the moment I only change my sizings based on the table but not on my hand, though I have started taking more attention on people's opening sizings as I suspect a lot of players even regs are guilty of this.

(2) Random thoughts for discussion

- Live players stereotypes
I used to be the online kid who make stupid 'theoretical' calls because 'my sample size is too small' on villain to make the explo fold... While this is somewhat true online, in live poker you get a lot more information other than your 50 hand sample... Here are some stereotypes of live poker players ...

- strong reg - playing 1/2 waiting for the bigger game to run.. some of them don't like explo-folding tho even when they know it's a -ev call... I'm definitely guilty of this when I play like 10/25p home games....

- old school 1/2 reg - been playing 1/2 for 2-3 years + full time. on the passive side and rarely goes out of line. Good at understanding fishes' mentality and finding the explo folds .

- Young reg - just started out playing poker trying to climb up the stakes... Abilities vary..

- Weekend warrior - has a full-time job and plays mostly on weekends, but they are trying to win money rather than just having a good time. May do a few questionable things but overall on the solid side.

- Experienced rec - been playing poker for years, probably break-even/slightly losing at 1/2... vpips a bit too much preflop in general but they are not the worst post flop

- Stationy rec/whale - no description required

- young internet kid playing live for 1st time - looks a bit nervous and normally buys in for 100-200 in a 1/2 game after making a few hundo from nl10. Texts his friends about how bad the live players are after every hand. Won't be surprised to see one in a Pokerstars hoodie.

any other stereptypes welcome!

(3) Interesting hands

Will avoid the coolers as I'm sure there are enough 'interesting' hands with whales getting lucky ITT.

Hand 1
Hero's hand: AT (BU)

Preflop (400 effective with weekend warrior, 250 with rec)
Weekend warrior (on loose side) opens £ 12, aggro whale/rec who just lost big pot flats, I can squeeze here for sure but decided to flat to keep the rec in. Everyone else folds

Flop ( £39) A 9 4
Weekend warrior bets out £30 quickly, rec folds I call.
Not loving this spot... I think villain gives up a lot when missed on this flop and chooses a smaller sizing with lower Ax than AT

Turn (£99) 7
Villain quickly checks, i check behind
I expect him to barrel through with Q or J flush draws a lot on the turn or at least think about it. Smells like a medium strength hand doing 'pot control' to me

River (£99) Q
Villain bets out £40 Hero??

Of course we are very high up in our range but it's an underbluffed line. Also heavily discounting worst ax based on flop sizing, thoughts?

Hand 2
Hero's hand: 8 9 (MP)

Preflop
Hero opens to 10, 4 callers including both blinds

Flop (£50) k36
Checks through. Good board for me and cbet small is also ok, 5-way i don't mind giving up more often and only cbet with better bluffs at frequency(e.g. 75ss, 78ss etc)

Turn: (£50) J
checks through again

River: 8
Checks to BU ( aggro reg) who bets out £15 and folds to Hero ???

Against certain regs this is a snap fold, reg is printing though if everyone folds anything <Jx but i expect most players to call 8x here?

That's a lot of words Will finish off with some chip porn !

GL with the summer grind mate!

What area of finance will you be looking to go into post summer?

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H1 - Thoughts on a small turn sizing (~£30-35)? Think we get value from some worst AX where river will go check check a lot, and likely lose less now vs AJ-AK type hand. Also wouldn't be surprised to see some weekend warriors play TT-KK with a heart like this, so charge some equity from those hands too. With your turn reads, we can also happily fold to a check raise I think.

H2 - Smells like JX to me! Multiway I wouldn't worry about not defending enough here, as all of you have JX in your ranges to defend for you collectively. I would be reluctant to call even with like even as strong as J9. I think it is important to distinguish which spots even an aggro reg choose to bluff - I would think very few people bluff 5 way here live giving everyone 4:1 on a call.

Glgl, I'm not currently in London but will be soon and also likely working in finance/recent grad so in pretty similar spots.

GL with your thread. I think the Vic 1/2 plays slightly worse than Hippo 1/2 imo but you do get players sat down who are waiting for 1/3, 2/5, PLO sitting quite a bit.

Ref hands:

H1, as played call, think we are at the top of our range as you say but do not see any point in raising. I'm inclined to be turn so we can check back river unimproved however, possibly £40-50 as WW's (like myself) don't like to fold.

H2, Just fold, I think we see Jx quite a bit and if they are a little tricky they could check weak Kx twice.

Cheers for the responses! Will be working as a quant trader, which is quite a common route for people with maths/engineering/science background going into finance.

Hands: Will follow the format (1) Thoughts at the time (2) Thoughts after/sims (3) Result

H1

(1) Thoughts at the time
I labelled him as a weaker player once he cbets pot on the flop. The two in position callers have more flushes than him and his AK,AQ are dead against flushes but do not require much protection against weaker ax, so imo he shouldn't pick this sizing.

On the turn it's interesting that you guys are suggesting a turn bet. That definitely crossed my mind. I didnt think he would bet pot on flop with weak ax or tt-kk with heart since it would be a disaster for him (literally fold out everything he beats) so i think his range is very AJ-AK and some random hands that decides to give up, in which case i think checking is better. Plan was to bet river for value on blank if he checks again.

As played on the river i think his range is aj-ak and some random bluffs with no showdown. I thought there is a very small chance he has like a9 and decides to block bet river. AT falls into my calling range

(2) Thoughts after/sims

Decided to run a few sims to learn a bit about this spot! I know some people here think running sims for live poker is useless. Personally I disagree as simming isn't just about the 'equilibrium'. I can node-lock/adjust ranges and see how the 'optimal' strategy changes. Also I find it useful to see what the 'equilibrium' is roughly like to get an idea on how to deviate from it. I won't be posting ranges here but will share some observations from the sims.

I assumed WW opens a8o+, not sure if that's sensible?

First sim: fixed oop flop bet size to pot (assume sandwiched player always folds, so in practice oop range should be even tighter)

Flop: oop should only cbet 10% with a strong range using pot, as expected. ATs is actually a very marginal defend on the flop (solver folds it a small % of the time). I expect WW's range to be much wider than the solver so flop is a clear call for me.

Turn: AT is a pure check as OOP checks his aj-ak a lot and I'm drawing dead against flushes. Also solver has almost no QQ-KK with in oop's range.

Surprising fact: solver checks back even a4ss (two pair) on the turn assuming i didn't 3b pre. The reason seems to be that it sucks to get x-raised and it's hard to get 2 streets against ax. I expect 90% of live 1/2 players (myself included) to always bet two pairs here. Can exploit pool by valuebetting river light once turn is checked?

River: Call, top of range (solver always has enough bluffs)

Second sim: changed oop flop cbet size to 1/2 pot

Main difference is that IP has to defend weak ax suited on the flop now. Turn still a check with ATdd and river clear call.

(3) Result
Hero sigh-called, villain shows AJo

Hand 2

(1) Thoughts at the time

With another player behind I think it's ok to let this go.... Certainly calling jx though

(2) Thoughts after/sims

Villain's range is clearly Jx for value and some random bluffs that can't win in showdown. I think with villain's sizing, if everyone only calls Jx+ he's printing given some strong Jx will lead out themselves...Also I think everyone's defending range should be slightly different (first to act tightest, last to act widest) given u may get calls/raises behind u.... Not exactly surely how wide everyone is meant to defend here though...

(3) Result
Hero folded, fold, no showdown


Very interesting to see suggestions to bet turn in the first hand. I think it can be a good play with the right assumptions (villain has heart draw a lot, calling worse ax in range etc, not checking enough strong hands etc..). The most important assumption is probably low turn CR freq, which is probably true.

However, from what I've experienced so far, live players tend to overvalue betting for 'protection from draws'? I think turn bet IP should be much more polarised than turn bet OOP in general because u can guarantee a free river card by checking back? So OOP can do more small block bet types on turn while IP should generally pick bigger sizing with a more polarised range? What do you guys think about this statement?

The turn check-raise line is underused as a bluff imo, so maybe it's a good counter-strategy against live population given they bet turn IP too much once checked to? Also, oop can exploit ip by value-betting big+wide on the river given ip does not check back enough good stuff on the turn?

Haven't played at the Vic for ages so can't comment on the Vic 1/2 games. They have fewer 1/2 tables to choose from so probably gonna stick with LSQ for now, tho may give the Vic a visit some time soon

In, glgl

One day im gonna come back to london and buy in with 10k at the 1/2

Just recognising spots to exploit is very profitable in live - eg, blocking bets normally scream I want to set my own cheaper price to see the next card rather than the price you would have set for me (I am on a draw) or it means I am scared of the last card (I had top pair that could now be counterfeited).

Eg,($2/$4) I raise MP to $20 with JJ, EP calls. Flop K83r
x/$30 - checkraise to $90/call
Turn is an Ace
EP downbets to $40. I raise to $120/snapfold

I raise to $20 OTB with AsAc. 3 Callers
896ss
1 60, 1 caller
T 4s
Caller donks $50, I raise to $150, he snapfolds

Overall, the live 1/2 population sees Turn checkraises as the nuts but it is player specific - some just wont fold a pair so you can use it as a bluff on scary Turns against weak non-stations eg on a 9/6/3 board when a Q or K hits the Turn (assuming they bet the 9 on the Flop) or take a station to valuetown with 2pr+.

Generally speaking, the live pop do not know what to do with C/R so will play poorly against them.

They also use them really badly - min raise often means a draw or on a player dependent basis, the nuts.

Often you will see them just blast the nuts as well by making a 4x checkraise allowing you to make an exploitative fold.

The population doesn't bluff anywhere near enough and when it does, it is often super obvious such as calling a raise and then lead/lead/lead on 2 flush boards.

Often, their bluff is shockingly small too - go on the large size with your bluffs imo.

In multiway pots when leading and IP, (IMO - I could get flamed for this) it is often better to bet small on the Flop and much larger on the Turn eg, $10/$50 when the board is wet and you get a safe Turn card. The reason is that so many people chase and pots can get very bloated when you have a one pair hand against a large field that will sometimes call for any amount on the Flop. Once one calls, there is a good chance they will all call.

GL with your goals.

Cheers everyone for the input!

I am now done with university and my grind started today!

Nothing too interesting in today's session apart from facing 4-bet all-ins after 3-betting JJ, roughly 100bb deep.

In both cases I needed around 40% equity to call. Obviously call/fold is dependent on position, read on villain etc, but I feel 90% of the population is 4-bet shoving QQ+ AK+, and sometimes not even AK. I really need villain to be shoving TT or AQs sometimes for the call to be profitable. Of course GTO says JJ is a snap call (assuming my 3-bet % from a particular position is 8%, i would be way way overfolding to muck JJ), but is explo-folding JJ profitable against a random villain 100bb+ deep in live 1/2?

In glgl! Have you had any experience trying to play in the clubs/smaller spots rather then the big casinos? I didn't rate Empire that highly when I played there for a bit and for 1/2 I think Vic games are pretty good or the Hippo, would only go to aspers if I wanted to play 1/1 or if some tourney series is on.

Very few villains and spots / dynamics in which I would call off with JJ versus a 4bet pre 100bb deep in the £1-£2 games in London regardless of your own frequencies.

Thanks for the post! No I have only played in the big casinos in London so can't provide any info on the private games. Personally I think Empire/Hippo are similar (a lot of players mix between the two places anyway) although they do have their pros/cons (e.g. 56s promotion, cash race, auto-shufflers etc). Haven't played the 1/2 at Vic before so can't comment, only been there for the tourneys. Aspers is only good for 1/1 personally though i have never actually tried 1/2 there.

Cheers for the insight. Folding Jacks against a 4-bet shove seems to have a small downside (only a slight profitable call at most, don't think anyone overbluffs with 4-bets a lot) and a huge upside (some tight players don't even 4-bet shove ak with very few chips behind) in a 1/2 game.

Did a short session today with one interesting spot. I realised that the player pool in LSQ is kinda small so I don't feel comfortable sharing too much of my game here, but I'll post interesting hands once in a while.

A spot I would like to discuss is facing extremely small bets/raises on the river, which isn't uncommon amongst recreational players. Theoretically I think a lot of value is missed already from these players when they do it with good hands (saw one guy bets every street as if it's limit holdem yesterday with the nuts ), so it's not like I have to go for the max-exploit to beat these players. However, there are many spots where I feel they are 'never bluffing' e.g. pot 100, i bet 30 villain check-raises to 60 on whatever board, I need to be good around 14% of the time. I think most players just call anyways even though they know this call isn't probably profitable, with the idea that 'if someone sees me fold here they will start exploiting me by bluffing with small sizes'. Personally I find it hard to evaluate 'small probabilities' accurately. It's easy to feel 'oh i only need 14% it can't be that bad to call' when in fact villain is probably bluffing about 5% of the time. What do people think about this?

Time for an update!!

I have logged about 150 hours of live 1/2 at hippo/emps since the last update. Coming from an online background, I certainly feel way more comfortable playing live poker now and have a better understanding of live regs/fish tendencies. As I mentioned before, the player pool is so small that I don't feel comfortable sharing too many hand histories/insight, but I will share a few thoughts/observations below, and my results so far

General:
- At this point I pretty much regconise all the regs playing at LSQ, and like 80% of them are Romanians

- Empire games are slightly tougher than Hippo in general. It seems to attract more regs than recs, although some whales do prefer the more relaxed atmosphere at emps. 2/5+ has been running consistently almost daily at emps, and the 1/2 games can get unnecessarily tough when the good regs are waiting for the bigger game to open.

- Table selection is crucial for having a good win rate at live poker. When I first transitioned from online to live I used to think every table is a good table...

- It's easy to 'beat' the fish but paying extra attention to how they play individually will pay dividends e.g. if you see a player checking back a 'must bluff' hand on the river, you can safely overfold to his future river bets!

Poker Strategy:
- live 1/2 regs are solid but probably play a bit too straight forward in general. Usually their style of play is designed for exploiting passive fish and they don't really adjust enough against regs e.g. opening to 5x on the button when both of the blinds are regs, defending big blind too wide against a reg open thinking he has 'post flop edge' when he actually does not.

- I used to think at higher stakes the regs are infinitely better but the recs are the same. This is actually not true because the high stakes rec can actually learn from the good players and most of them aren't any worse than the 1/2 live pros. Also most of the high stakes recs are successful businessmen who understand they are the 'spot' but they are there to have fun, while like 50% of the 1/2 rec pool still thinks open limping any suited cards in any position is a good strategy!

- Recs like to bet smaller as the pot gets bigger, whether they are value-betting or bluffing. While this makes sense in general from an SPR perspective, most of them go a bit too far, sometimes to the point I thought I was playing limit holdem Also, they are way more likely to call you down when u bet 10 quid into 15 instead of 100 into 150. I have learnt to bluff less when the pot is small


Personal Goals:
- Grind out another about 150 hours in the next month or so. I think setting volume goals is much better than monetary goals as it helps me focus on my play not how good/bad I run.

- Potentially take shots at 2/5 if I run good in the next few weeks

Results (with graph):
I have been running very well. Obviously 150 hours is not even enough to justify I am a winner at the games, but here is the graph (@30/hr over 150 hours)



Give me a shout if any LSQ regs are on here

It sucks if you dont post live hhs cos you get a load of fun ones.
And not sure what you're worried about....I doubt more than 3 lsq regs will even see your thread, maybe one will work out who you are and you really think these guys are gonna use any info from a hh against you?

Gl with the live grind

haha you got me here, honestly I am just too lazy to write HHs and found an excuse

I'll try to do one HH a day if people actually enjoy them?

HH1

Two whales who are friends with each other were vpiping 90% and splashing around very hard! They just badbeated a reg and both had 500+ stacks at this point.

Preflop
1/2/5
Whale 1 opens utg to 15, I 3-bet in CO with KK to 85 and announced I have a good hand (and of course warned by dealer), whale 2 cold calls in sb and whale 1 calls. Both announced they have **** cards and asked dealer for help. 3-way to flop

Flop (£262)
A87

Not the flop we're looking for. Checks through

Turn (£262)
Q

Checks through again. I can bet here for value/protection potentially and check back river, but my hand doesn't require that much protection and I was happy to bluff catch some rivers potentially.

River (£262)
4

Good river for us. Whale 1 now leads 125 and whale 2 tanks for 30 seconds and calls. At the time I thought whale 2 had Qx very often. I don't beat whale 1's value but he was bluffing a lot, and i expect him to lead good Ax on the turn. I tanked about a minute a sigh-called.

Whale 1 shows 76o for the bluff, whale 2 said you might be good here and showed A9o. Normally I would just muck but when whales are involved I gotta show Kings to make them happy

HH2

Preflop:
Chinese whale limps in early position, i iso to 10 with AT, one caller, he then jams all-in to 100 (he has done it with 79s before), I call and the other caller folds.

Of course I'm just moaning ATo<A4o

I might actually cbet this a lot, especially live. As we block KK it gives us the perfect hand to barrel worse Ax off and the amount of times you see Whales pat themselves on the back for making a big fold because "He must have AK" are quite frequent.

hmmm those whales were certainly not folding any ace the way they had been playing and I think it's better to barrel hands that have better equity against ax in general, and kk does not require much protection