Intro:

Hello regs, enthusiasts, old-hands, lurkers, trolls, wizards, bad-regs, elite regs, and to all the hundreds of beautiful women reading: welcome to my 2019 PGC thread. My name is Mike and I currently live in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. I've been a long time grinder online and more recently live. I've also been known to dabble quite a bit in table banter and have ran lots of sims in regards to "chat game" on the tables. Shoutout to you if you've been on the receiving end of that! (It's all in good fun don't worry).

On a more serious note I've had a thread on 2p2 for each of the past ~5 years. Guys who have been reading since day 1 know quite a lot about me. They've seen me go from busto to robusto in poker a few times, buy a place, finish my degree, lose a couple pounds, share some successes/failures with women, win a couple WCOOPs and a Sunday Mill, a heap of long-ass rants that I have no idea how anybody finishes ever, and have likely seen me from near rock bottom all the way to my nut high.

I've never been shy to share some of the struggles with poker or life that I've dealt with. I like to have a balance of poker, life, comedy, strategy, travel, and out of line activities in my blogs. Be aware that sometimes things will get a little bit personal in here and maybe you will cringe from time to time reading. It's a little bit weird as I'm a lot more known in poker than I was 5 years ago and a lot of guys out there probably know heaps about me. I'm quite vulnerable in here but don't mind as it's all stuff most of us deal with and it helps me a lot to document it.

If you want to read more about my journey I'd love to have you read along! This year I'm going to follow a format for every entry that separates different categories. The categories will be: Health, Poker/Wealth, Life and Relationships, Random Rant, Hands of the Week, Quote of the Week, and Miscellaneous. Without further delay, let's get it started! Enjoy

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Health

I'm starting somewhere around ~258 lbs. I'll get a more exact number when I hit the gym tomorrow. I lost approx. 25 lbs. in the last 2 months and would be really happy if I could end 2019 in the ~215 lb. range. I'll begin the same diet that I was on to close out 2018. If you want to read more about the diet itself: https://medium.com/@erinfrey/everyth...t-a67062761d92.

I'm going to make a bet with some friends to hold myself accountable for the next 3 months. I'll be hitting the gym a minimum of 3x/week but will aim for 4x.

I think mental health is very tied in with physical health and lifestyle. I will try to do the sensory deprivation tank stuff at least once per month and will try to at least meditate a few times per week. We'll talk about all this stuff more in depth some other time.

Health Metrics:
Starting Weight:
Current Weight:
Waist size:
Additional Notes:

Poker/Wealth:

After buying my place about 26 months ago I've been bombarded with miscellaneous bills for everything. Have somehow stayed afloat whilst doing a bunch of travel and living very comfortably. That being said my liquid cash flow hasn't really been great since buying my place. This year I would love to profit >100k USD from poker and rebuild my liquid BR to a more comfortable amount. To start the year bankroll management will be fairly strict and will involve selling decent sized pieces to most tournaments. Hopefully the start of the year goes well and I can start diversifying into live stops etc.

Poker Metrics:
Online Poker Profit:
Live Poker Profit:
Additional Notes:

Life and Relationships

This category is going to talk about everything really. Everything from happiness to dating to mindset to friends to family etc. I'll talk more next time.

Random Rant of the Week

I'll try to write a small sample here of what these will be like. This post is already too long haha.

One thing that I realized about myself in the last few years was that I've been so conditioned to think about what is and isn't standard. Societal conditioning led me to believe I had to fit into a certain mold that would be deemed "successful". You know? Go get a degree, get a good job, have a nice wife and kids, buy a house in the suburbs and live happily ever after.

I tried so hard to fit this mold but ideally found myself feeling depressed trying to get myself through Uni. I was 8 hours away in a French speaking place away from my family and friends. Not to mention I hated the school and really had a tough time being happy there. Instead of quitting in first year I stuck it out for 5 years and graduated. A lot of depression and mindset sticking points happened during those years. On the bright side, I got pretty ****ing good at poker.

To keep this quick and concise: I just want to say that no matter where you are in life it is never permanent if you don't want it to be. Your happiness, health, and well-being should always be a priority and if you are unhappy with your situation for too long...leave it.

The only thing stopping you is the barriers that you have been conditioned by in your own mind. If you don't like your job, quit. If you are miserable in your relationship(s): leave them. If you don't like where you live, move. If you don't like your career path, change it. I've spent way too much time in my life doing things I had no business doing and with people that caused me nothing but stress and anxiety. Not saying to drop everything tomorrow but just saying to be aware of your happiness level in the things you do the most of. If you're unhappy for too long work to find changes.

Hands of the Week:

https://www.boomplayer.com/29672662_838C360FE7
This hand was on FT bubble vs weaker reg who was really feeling himself/opening super loose/really loose post flop. Not overly in love with calling flop because this is a board texture that is going to get barreled a tonne on so many turns and our holding is pretty mediocre/has bad blockers on many turns and with ICM implications we'll get put in so many gross spots. In most cases and vs. most villains in this spot I think we can just x/f a lot especially when blocking lots of bluffs. Presumably he will follow through on so many rivers with a range that either has us dead or has a lot of equity vs our hand. Decided villain is opening super loose/way over bluffing/not betting for thin value enough so as an exploit called turn. River is so gross and a really good card for his range/bad for mine. My blockers aren't overly great to call but just thought this guy can have way more bluffs than it appears because of how loose he was opening on FT bubble. (At first glance doesn't seem like he has many bluffs at all but when you factor in a 60% opening range and the fact he probably doesn't jam 1 pair or some 2 pair hands on river it becomes much better). Was sort of a feel-based call and it worked out in my favour. Thanks to him for actually having a bluff here unlike all these other nits.

https://www.boomplayer.com/29672414_76AB9DB909
River jam felt right here but in a 22$ bowl some dolt will just have a tough time folding. Based on timing tells and ranges I thought villain has very few Ax here and mostly just weaker pairs. Was tilting to showdown vs. this hand. I'm like never bluffing when I jam river but idk it's a pretty bad card to bluff I guess. Unblocking flush draws I guess is relevant when he actually just calls twice with diamond draw...presumably good regs aren't doing this though.

https://www.boomplayer.com/29671787_6EB7C596CC
bluff speaks for itself. Average villain probably just assumes all my bluffs get there and over folds. I don't think paired J on river improves my hand that much and we still don't have much sd value. Think this was a good trigger pull.

Quote of the Week

"Big goals are great, but when you get there it probably won't be as sweet as what you'd hoped. Build your goals around the process; be in love with the day-to-day work. This mindset keeps you present, hungry and full of gratitude." -Jason Koon

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Wow, already killing ~3 trees with all the paper used to write my into post. Gonna be a long year guys but I'm looking forward to every second of it. This blog is called "The Long Walk to Freedom" for a reason. Much love and let's make 2019 the best yet!!!

-Mike

gl 2019!

Subbed.

Subbed. GLGL

Subbed, gl for 2019. In for more of the same from last year's PGC.

Did you manage to keep to your new diet for the entire time? If so, any charity in particular you'd like the donations to go to?

ty u as well sir!

gl this year my dude let's get it

ty glgl this year

yee it will be somewhat similar but plan on changing a few things this year. gonna try to make it a bit more reader friendly and a bit more to the point. maybe at some point this year if i get a bit of an audience i ll start streaming on twitch for some fun etc.


i did stick with it and followed the plan 100%. mentioned before people who bet me just keep the $ and buy yourself something nice for xmas. never intended to collect $ from people but just didnt want people negative freerolling me. gl this year

glgl man ! Here's to a strong 2019

Gonna post a few hands here from the session today. I'll give my thoughts and would appreciate if anyone has anything else to add or comment on:

https://www.boomplayer.com/29681901_7F26E128DC
Questionable open. Went a little wider due to unknown in BB and some tighter players on BTN. Might be too loose in a prog. especially. C bet is fine? Sizing is also questionable, should probably go more polar here. Weird at this stack depth as going bigger c bet tightens his calling range/leaves less room for barreling. I think folding basically anything on flop is a pretty big win for my hand. Turn is mandatory barrel I think and sizing is reasonable. River feels disgusting as it feels like a mandatory bluff spot after betting flop and turn. Villains range should be relatively weak by the river (imo), like most players raise their 2 pairs/sets which leaves him like Tx heavy, maybe some backdoor 2 pairs that had a flush draw etc. Decided to pull the trigger as it feels like I'm slightly less likely to be bluffing with 75$ on my head-i can have lots of strong hands...ie AK/KQ/over pairs/sets etc. I guess part of the problem is how many perceived bluffs I will have and might get some yolo calls for the bounty...meh, don't feel great about it.

https://www.boomplayer.com/29681848_87CF1317D2
plan was xr flop ofc which sort of backfired. rest of it seems fine? perhaps check/calling river is best as lots of draws miss that he could bluff/should be tough to get called by worse. his bluff catcher is pretty lol but w/e guess he was feeling it.

https://www.boomplayer.com/29681681_BB8E76E07D
Presumed fish snap calls pre flop and flop. Idk if we just have a give up on flop, he prob calls way too many hands he shouldn't like under pairs etc.

https://www.boomplayer.com/29681670_AC01E36C01
vs HakiD93. Very loose opener. Think any sizing is reasonable on turn really like block or polar? When he jams I basically think he's always FOS and never has a strong hand. This hand should have just been him c bet flop, jam turn and I don't get tilted about it He should be c betting close to range on this flop and QJss seems like greaat candidate? maybe im wrong.

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Had a really close run in the 22 Winter Series prog turbo, lost a devastating flip to bust for chip lead with like 30 left but meh. Rough day overall but doing everything in the process correctly. I'm optimistic for what's coming. GN and GL

Another long day and a bunch of deep runs in the books. Slight loss for the day but happy with how things have been progressing. A few months ago I was the guy at the bottom of the following pic, now I feel like the guy at the top: https://gyazo.com/8376267b1b066a81b57a1af2654de4bf

Going to include some pics of my grind setup and my place in the next few days so people can get a glimpse of what I'm working with and where a lot of my poker earnings have been sinkholed into.

The year is still young and diet has been relatively ok thus far. I went to McDonald's one night because I was tilted after my session and mucked a cheeseburger and some nuggets. Also got a donut from Tim Horton's today with my coffee. Needless to say this stuff is only acceptable in moderation and I hate to say but I'll need a new program that keeps me accountable.

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Read a bunch last few days about some guys who really find it difficult to be happy in the realm of gambling for a living or being a professional gambler. This is a topic that hits close to home with me because in the past I've always attached my wins or losses with my mindset. In times I can be completely honest with myself I think I got into gambling because it more or less helped me feel some excitement and emotion. Perhaps it served as a distraction/does serve as a distraction from other things I haven't enjoyed facing. A lot of the time I just feel like I'm doing this to numb myself and detach from reality. Not to mention it's very tough to feel happy if you're locked inside and sitting for long periods of time and falling victim to the stress that this living can bring. I sort of believe happiness is our default state and when we ignore it a wave of unease arrives.

When I feel unhappy with this living I tell myself "no **** you are!" You sit at a computer all day, eating junk, not exercising, not socializing, being tilted by variance. That isn't stuff that makes a human happy and it's certainly not stuff that makes me happy. Not to be too negative but I think just the nature of the living isn't always extremely fulfilling either: you basically try to make money for yourself by exploiting other people.

Don't get me wrong I love every last bit of competition and love the game of poker itself. Sometimes when you feel unhappy you need to look at the obvious contributing factors: sometimes we're too close with ourselves to admit them.

On the bright side of things my overall happiness has increased a bunch since my peak degenerate days. Here's a few things that have helped the most:

-Gym before every session or go for a walk/run errands at the very least. Very difficult to feel good about yourself when you roll out of bed and load a session. Doing something positive for yourself at the start of the day brings positive vibes to everything else throughout the day by osmosis.

-Developed a very close network of friends and a few really close poker friends in KW in the last ~2 years. A couple of those guys I chill with or chat on the phone regularly. It's good to have close friends that can give relevant advice to the career as they understand it.

-Doing other stuff outside of poker. For example this hockey league I play in once a week forces me to take at least 1 day off of poker per week. Can't stress how important it is to have other stuff going on outside of poker. If poker is all you have in life and it is going poorly it's the nut worst feeling.

-Work on mindset and understand that I do not need to be a poker player until I'm 70. The vision is to use poker to build enough liquidity until I can diversify into other streams. Eventually I'll be able to have a living that isn't so predatory and 0 sum. Not to mention there is a lot of good that comes out of poker: social outlet, competitive outlet, entertainment, friendship, etc. Some of my closest IRL friends I've met through poker and some guys I've never met online feel like close friends because of all the hours we've spent conversing.

-The last thing is: don't take it all too seriously. Just focus on enjoying the process. I'm thankful I've been able to play a game for a living!

INNN

Hand of the Week: Great call when you factor in blockers, and player tendencies.

Disclaimer: I have done ZERO work on progressive tourneys since they pretty much aren't a thing in the US.

Hand 1: Agree with you that barring this being pushed into an open range because it's a progressive that it's just too loose. Fold pre. I like the sizing on the flop, obv easy barrel on the turn although personally I think we want to go a little bit bigger here but half pot is fine obv, and I think your jam is totally fine although I could see a case for shutting down.

Hand 2: Looks good imo. I think I prefer just value betting river like you did. Think we have other hands we'd rather ch/call with.

Hand 3: Like it

Hand 4: Agree with you he has an easy cbet imo.

Hey man, thanks for the great 2018 thread and best of luck this year!

Me and my housemate moved from Estonia to Canada a few weeks ago to grind MTTs in this absolute nuts of a timezone. Currently based in Ottawa, so if you end up here for some reason, hmu, would love to buy you a beer!

ty ma man same to you1


Cheers m8 and welcome to Canada hope you guys like it here. What's your sns on stars? Pretty unlikely I'll be in Ottawa in the near future but never know. Same goes for you guys if ever in the Toronto or Kitchener/waterloo area

Appreciate the thoughts man. Hand 1 I guess I go a little bit smaller on the turn to make the river sizing a bit more of a commitment+to keep his turn calling rnage a little bit wider. Tried to set up for approx. pot sized bet on the river. Agree with everything else tho tyvm

Another day another Stars series in the books. Probably lost enough money during the Winter Series to buy like a 2008 Toyota Corolla or something, probably won enough "theoretical dollars" to buy a "theoretical 2018 Toyota Corolla or something." The money isn't what matters in the short run and feeling a million times better about poker right now and my mindset as a whole. Spent so much time in the lab and thinking about poker lately and like 99% sure I'm on the right track now. Found a few things in population tendencies that are extremely unbalanced and have really tried hard to focus on exploiting them. Could be wrong but feels I'm on the brink of a big upswing.

Health

Been disciplined with going to the gym but nutrition tapered off the last ~2 weeks since ending my bet. Kicking off the same nutrition plan as before and the first step is getting fresh groceries first thing tomorrow morning. Will get concrete/objective measurements ASAP keep forgetting. Tbh I actually just need to go buy a scale tomorrow so I can take frequent measurements.

Poker/Wealth

Uhmm yeah not a lot to say here. Not gonna bother with updating short run results as they're somewhat irrelevant. Probably slightly losing for the year thus far.

Life and Relationships

Been on a few dates recently and really enjoying that to take my mind off poker and everything else. Being around feminine energy is very soothing in itself. One paradox that I've come across with dating is that I genuinely really enjoy and like my time spent with some of these girls and would like to keep casual meetups and romantic stuff going...but there always seems to be some agenda girls want to follow after a while: "when can we become exclusive?" "can we be boyfriend and girlfriend" "can we escalate things?" Honestly, I don't have 70% of my own life figured out and I just want to experience dating various girls for a while. You know? Learn more about what I like and don't like, gain experience, and work on myself first. I guess that's just the attitude that I need to have and have to be honest about it. What you guys think?

Random Rant of the Week

Gonna keep this short for now and think I've told it before in another PGC but here it goes anyways:

2 years ago today I was driving to Quebec to go visit a girl I probably shouldn't have been visiting, in a place I shouldn't have been visiting, and driving a speed that I shouldn't have been driving (given the road conditions).

I don't know if anyone has noticed in Quebec but it seems like they never plow the roads completely? Like they just leave a few inches of snow and ice on there and don't salt it (so it seems). The middle of the road develops a snow patch in the middle because all the cars drive in the tracks of those in front of them. Anyways, it was a cold January night and snow was starting to come down like aces on the flop vs. my kings.

I had a lot of small world problems at the time that were festering in my mind over the course of the ~8 hour drive. In the latter half of the trip I started to get a heavy foot because I couldn't wait to see this girl and I was sick of driving. A bad combination: bad mood, bad driving conditions, and raging testosterone.

So there i was blowing by cars listening to the lyrics of "Talladega" by Eric Church. "Like a storm, time rolls on,
You can't hit pause as we just did.
Most days in life don't stand out,
But life's about those days that will, like,
Rocking rando, getting rowdy,
Shooting roman candles at the man in the moon,

I dropped my wallet in between the seat and reached down to grab it when a slight jerk of the wheel while I was doing ~100 km/h drifted my car into that middle patch of snow. I lost control of my car and now all of the hours grinding "Forza" as a kid came to life. The only difference from the video games was that my heart was pacing like a bat out of hell and the consequences of crashing were slightly higher than those of the video game.

I just remember my car heading for a massive ditch and these big pine trees but I didn't want to hit the breaks or hammer the wheel too hard because that would spin me out completely so I sort of half-hit the breaks and steered to the left (as gently as possible when trying not to panic). So then my car started sliding to the left probably at about 60 km/h at this point and I was heading right for a guard rail and started to apply full brakes. Literally was able to stop my car a hair away from that guard rail.

The second hardest I've ever felt my heart beat was running a massive bluff for my whole stack vs. the chipleading fish of a WCOOP tourney with 180k up top on FT. That was about 1/3 as hard as my heart was beating after this wipeout.

So I was just sitting in my car which was sitting in this small snow bank on the side of the road right in front of a guard rail with my heart beating out of my chest. I started noticing the music that I was singing along to right before this disaster and time started to unfreeze. I reversed my car and got back onto the highway and drove the rest of the way to my destination. This was a relatively busy highway and it was a blessing that there were no other cars right behind me that could have clipped me when I was spinning out. The fact that me and my car got out of this one without a scratch was nothing short of a miracle.

All of a sudden all those stupid little problems festering in my mind became like blessings. I was so ****ing happy to still be alive and to be ok and realized how serious that could have been. A lot of people don't make it out of those type of things and here I was without a scratch. I was so happy that I got to deal with all those stupid little problems and that I was able to get to my destination safely...

and yes...the sex was good.

It shouldn't take life threatening accidents for us to not take things for granted. Life is a very fragile thing and it's important to treat it as such. The ace coming on the flop when you have Kings is a mere blessing. Being able to be angry about that or running bad in poker is a pretty massive blessing because it's the commonplace of a game. All these stupid problems are so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Hands of the Week:

https://www.boomplayer.com/29727673_5FD38815F3
Villain was unknown and this was about 14 hours into a lonnnng grueling session. Pre flop and flop I think are standard. In villain's shoes this is a spot that seems to be very typical for weak villains to not protect their calling range enough. They seem to just bet/get it in with all strong hands and draws which leaves their checking range very weak. To be fair on this board texture I think the 3 bettor should be doing a lot of checking.

Turn I think check/call and bet are both viable. Blocking JTdd is nice/doubt he 3 bets much QT+always c bets it so blocking that isn't that relevant. Probably just have the best hand most of the time so betting for protection/value seems good. River is fairly close to the nut worst and actually think my hand almost becomes more of a bluff candidate to an extent. Only thing I see myself beating here is like AQ/AT/club draws. Idk how i feel about it but decided to turn it into a bluff and got snapped by KQ. Pretty fkn LOL but w/e nice to know your entire value range gets snapped by a hand that's like never winning and shouldn't have been calling turn anyways. Snap fish label and move on, will not bluff him in the future

https://www.boomplayer.com/29724959_A2F34C5D62
Really liked this hand and got a tank fold out of villain. Up until river I think everyone plays the same? Blocking A6/flushes/boats seems like a perfect bluff candidate.

https://www.boomplayer.com/29724708_0FF7058543
eek, IDK? jaming or raise/gii highest EV? call? Fold pre?

https://www.boomplayer.com/29720317_0C78B9D68F
a lot of people said this should always be a jam pre? Idk I think flatting is fine occasionally. Didn't know much about the opener but knowing he oppens 68ss I prefer jam. Flop we have to jam?

https://www.boomplayer.com/29708760_2260DA03A9
Pretty near bubble, opened for some exploit reasons. Post flop is pretty hood haha but great run out to bluff (or so I thought). He basically snapped river which makes me feel hopeless about my bluff. I mean, it's super tough for any reaasonable opening range to find bluffs here imo.

Quote of the Week

Not a quote this week but this video has me laughing haha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZmKnfDwTRc

Thanks for reading and GLGL

Sup fam? Just gonna come in for a few hands I'll give my thoughts would love to hear if you guys think otherwise or have anything to add:

https://www.boomplayer.com/29736854_E1A103BF82
vs brazillian bad reg. I mean, I think the hand speaks for itself, his BTN opening range presumably quite loose, flatting KK probably highest EV and slightly higher variance than 3b/c. Could be considered a little bit important to include some traps in BB defense range at this stack depth as I'll defend heaps. Wondering if i can ever check/raise flop on this type of texture but with top set I think we have too much of his continuing range blocked and again its good to include some traps. Turn I really wanted to jam to protect but figured it's just too costly to be folding out all his bluffs. River seemed liek a brick and literally only losing to 4 combos but just like these nits always ****ing do, they have it yet again.

https://www.boomplayer.com/29736611_22B948D5E7
put ya cape on. uhmm idk if this is good or not but weak players don't seem to be capable of going for thin value here that often and only value bet 2 pair + with this sizing but have heaps of bluff so made a pretty light call. might be bad in theory.

https://www.boomplayer.com/29731305_44E36287B5
a little bit hood but probably doing well as an exploit vs this bet size.

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Another day another set of deep runs without old Walmart finishing at the top of the heap. I keep going through phases of "FK GTO" and "GTO". I'm pretty sure the answer in MTTs is play GTO vs players who play GTO and exploit all the fish etc. GTO definitely isn't the optimal way of playing MTTs imo (as long as the population is not playing GTO which it most definitely isn't). Even players who like to think they play GTO are often nowhere close because they seem to run a sim on one spot and then make approximations and assumptions/generalizations. So the solver might tell them C bet 95% of range and then they just start c betting 100% in that spot and don't bother checking the 5% of hands which totally changes the strategy and makes it exploitable.

In a way it's all nonsense because it gives some knobs "perceived solutions" but the solution just means unexploitable and breaks even against perfect strategy. So they think they have the answer and use it to put themselves on a pedestal above others who haven't ran that spot. THAT BEING SAID: for obvious reasons it's very useful and important to work on understanding what/why GTO is in spots...

I think I need to put in some work with piosolver tomorrow and run a bunch of spots but at the same time I don't want to become some guy that starts bluffing GTO ranges on a river vs. a fish that never folds, why bluff at all? So many conflicting arguments haha, but these complexities is what makes poker fun and still very beatable.

Rant over and GN

- ATdd is hard to make more EV by flat compared to jam with those stack sizes and in that position with those stacks behind => easiest ai
- Ac4 imo standard bluff jam with that combo imo
- both 56 i think you are random overplaying/overthiking it

-KK like the flat pre, jam turn is way to go with that SPR imo => ton of draws out there that you are not blocking like Txdd or QJ /Axdd and is very hard for him to put you on set (u are supposed to GII preflop with PP) so he was probably b/c all draws and he was giving up on rivers with air imo
-A2 SBvsBB w/e
- Ac2 in 44pko you are most likely bluffing with best hand imo, random will never bet folding J or flush there on river having you covered in pko and all other pairs/overpairs will probably x/ behind => i would like to see c/r turn or flop and bareling

gl 2019

subbed, glgl

I think open is fine, but we mostly want to use a bigger sizing on this texture, especially with a hand like QJ which benefits a lot from folding out K highs. It's not so much about betting polar, we actually do very little checking, it's just IP's equity advantage combined with the texture of the board that makes a bigger sizing more profitable. Rest looks good.


I believe the turn sizing is on the smaller side, but looks fine.


If he is as loose of an opener as you say, then there's merit to jamming pre.

The ev of 3betting pre is almost impossible to beat vs a reg no matter how wide he is (unless you think he mindlessly 3barrels every board, but then he wouldn't be characterized as a reg), so I would always 3bet pre at this stack depth. Postflop seems std, I think jamming turn is a mistake.


I think river is fine but this looks like the best flop x/r hand

@re8uz: AT: Agree. In hindsight i think it's just way better to jam this pre.
Not sure which other 56 hand you're referring to but the one I'm most curious about is the one where I defended 3 ways. Not quite sure what we're supposed to be doing there as a default and vs. diff villain types.

Thanks for the thoughts and gl 2019 to you as well.

@blank0909: cheers m8 welcome to the journey. hope you enjoy.

@alexo: yeah agree with what you said about the QJ hand. villains range contains so many weak and middling strength hands. from EP we should prob c bet bigger on this texture.

AKss: yes turn is too small, should be going ~5300 prob.

As6c: not a spot i'd typically jam unless I had very surefire reads...that being said i def do have such reads on this guy so jamming would be viable. i'm thinking in a vaccuum the EV of defending/jamming are somewhat comparable. vs. a tighter opener it becomes closer to a fold perhaps.

KK: hmmm I'd be hard pressed to believe we shouldn't be trapping KK/AA with some frequencies, especially AA. the merits of including traps in BB defense range here are quite high....if we're 3 bet bluffing with a not-all in sizing...what are our best bluff candidates in ur opinion? A lot of regs just don't have 3 bet bluffs in this specific spot and I definitely think I don't do it enough and my 3 bet range not all in for this spot is supeerrrr nutted lol.

Ac2: yeah in hindsight think we can x/r and run it for sure.

Thanks al ot for your thoughts I appreciate it

56ss when u barel it https://www.boomplayer.com/29708760_2260DA03A9 fold pre, give up on that flop etc

about KK hand i dont know if u got me right => i like the flat pre i dont like turn call on that board/spot/ player (and obv population)

about 3bet bluffing => who is saying that we need to have "balanced" 3bet range in that spot in MTTs?? if vilain has right stats opening a lot /folding to 3bet alot we can 3bet any2 as exploit if he has other kind of stats we just linear value 3bet imo

about that 65o spot is ugly-imo fold most of the times with those stack sizes pre except if u know that SB is super fishy and even then is very ugly spot u are in the midle with 2:1 spr vs big stacks ... as played i will just call flop imo it looks kinda strong his Cbet sizing etc and probably fold that turn(all turns T+) and donk jam turns 3-9.. but yea fold pre off suited combos

why would you ever want to jamm turn if you flat the KK pre?


gl with your grind OP !

https://www.boomplayer.com/29736854_E1A103BF82

pre great/flop good/ turn:

because when u are hard blocking villain value range with SPR less then 1 on turn + very high drawy board and not sure that villain will emty the clip on all rivers + you are oop u want to take max value with your value hand

is more likely that villain will call shove on turn (in hero hand) with T or maybe JJ/QQ or draw vs that he will bet T/JJ/QQ on river or barel all busted draws

another argument as i said previously for jaming turn and expecting vilain to call off light is because with that SPR you are not supposed to have 88+ so your perceived preflop and shoving range on turn from villains perspective should be weakish imo => villains should bet/call lightish on turn

also villan should not Cbet/barell randomly on that board with that ef stack sizes so he probaly has smth to bet call off
for ex villain is probably bet calling with all combo draws (like 97dd/87dd/76dd/J9dd/Q9dd etc) all Txdd, AT, Axdd and maybe QQ/JJ if he is betting flop/turn and some random QJ but he is probably not bareling all of them (significant %) on brick rivers (and btw there are not many bricks on river any way vs his bareling range)

Only going to comment on the TT hand since that is were you leaked the most. You are trying to force a very capped and well defined range off the 2nd best river in the deck for that range. You are simply not going to have profitable bluffs in these spots. The guy isn't calling his overcards on the turn to fold when he hits top pair on the river, regardless of how good your blockers are.

I used to do this a lot too and I can tell you it's just lighting money on fire.