H1 (Q8dd): Standard

H2 (QcKd): You really only get called by a chop or better in this river spot I believe. Potentially you could check this hand otf/ott at some frequency. I know the result of this hand in question but you're going broke regardless of how you play it I expect.

H3 (AcQh): Hmmm... it would be nice to know his 4bet range in this spot in the case he may turn up with some AK. I personally feel like this is a fold since I don't think the average joe gets fruity enough with their KQJTdd kinda hands to stick it in as a x/r ott but is rather turning up with A9s,99 more often. Otherwise I would probably go with whatever stats you have to mainly inform your choice in this spot

H4 (JcJd): Standard

H5 (JsJh): Standard, nut bluff hand for villian to turn up with here

H6 (As6s): Nice value overbet

H7 (AcQc): Nice to know you can quit instantaneously. Not sure about backraising personally, I think your hand performs better as a flat even though it seems reasonable to isolate. Either way you're chunking it in on the flop and enjoying your flip equity vs whaley

In the last AQ hand I'd flat too (but consider I dont play or know this limit very well), my thinking would be go like with iso 3betting we basically not invite any of the worse hands to the action and maybe fold out many of the weaker ones from COs opening range.

But in the meantime our hand is also not strong enough to effectively combat a lighter 4betting range OOP especially multi-way I think (correct me if I'm wrong dont exactly know the math on this). I wouldnt be too happy 5betting, but in the meantime I think its still a better solution than flatting multi-way and see if we could flop some semi-value / if vs overflopped us. I think our hand also becomes a lot harder to navigate postflop multiway.
On flop I think its player dependant, which better to shove, or bet small for inducing (and gii). I'm definitely wanting to SD from flop, as I cant imagine a range construction our hand would do too bad against, so would consider myself "did well" as long we could gii for stacks on flop. I believe in worse cases even if villain flopped sets or straights our nfd+2overs shouldnt be too bad considering all the dead money in the pot.

strat itt

Thanks for the feedback again mate! hope you're doing well

While i tend to agree with a lot of the stuff you've said vs a 'normal' villain, when vs this player type you have to adjust accordingly. In this particular spot i'm fist pump getting AQs in pre and feel i massively lose out on value by not getting as much money in vs hands that i crush. As played i can get behind a small bet for sure though.

many!

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Had a day off yesterday for client work. Still waiting to hear back about the interview i had last week. What's standard procedure for these kinda things? If i was to be accepted onto the course i would need to have an essay completed by the beginning of July so i kinda need to know sooner rather than later. If anyone knows please shout!

On monday night some of the guys and i went to an awesome table tennis bar in central london. It's called Bounce and i strongly recommend anyone to go! It was so competitive that JVL_STARRR69 ended up splitting his trousers in the crotch

Unfortunately being back at the tables wasn't the best experience as seen in the graph. Another pretty terrible day.



There is a slight silver lining this time though. Smb sweated me for about 2 hours along with a pretty in depth hand analysis from the past week. It was so good for someone to witness some of the hell that's been going on the past 2 months and bar 1 hand that we reviewed, he was convinced that i'm playing well and that there has been close to nothing i could have done to change the way things have gone. I also liked getting a sanity check on small-medium sized pots where my redline is just plummeting beyond belief. Something that has been really getting to me is my extremely low wwsf. Having someone see hand after hand where i'm in 3b spots and have to give up 40-50bb pots just gives me a lot more confidence. I know loads of people have said that in here and to me, but it's good to confirm it by someone railing live. So yeah, kinda bitter sweet losses today.

vs fish:



vs aggressive reg:



vs tight reg:



Feeling surprisingly upbeat about poker which is how i have dealt with downswings in the past. I'll definitely put in real effort to hold onto this new found good spirit.

Going to see Radiohead live tomorrow night. Cannot wait!

glgl

Enjoy Radiohead. The new album is beautiful.

Sounds like we're both going through similar things with regards to poker, sooo frustrating being helpless with the wwsf/red line. Anyways we've all been there just gotta keep the discipline and grind on outta it.

^ +1 Radiohead

Think we're all in the same boat (apart from having a Radiohead gig to look forward to)

Above

Worst ****ing day ever today

Steaming lol

Can't win a hand worst run outs ever

Gl ben

QQ is fine I think, it doesn't look like you're calling turn to fold river so I don't really expect him to bluff rivers so you're in essence just giving a free card by calling turn. Obv betting flop is OK as well.

99 honestly I don't mind calling pre instead of 3betting vs some opponents. These hands just play so bad vs 4bets imo and it doesn't do increadible even if they flat. But as played I fold river if he's a standard player.

QT I really don't like turn barrel. As played I give up, don't think he's folding Jx since u have so many broadways with a diamond, and he can still have flushes/sets.

AK is a clear fold imo. He's gotta be pretty sick in the head to bluff here.

GL

I mean

Smb sweating being a good thing, what's the world come to?!

Jesus Christ is my n1gga btw

Yeah it really is. So excited!

Stick at it man, that's all we can do



i know the feeling all too well mate

thanks for this mate. Definitely agree with calling the 99 as an option but have to say that the QT is a fine barrel ott. Definitely not a river shove though. gl!

are you high?!

---

Another emotionally challenging day. wwsf 39, wasd 40 over 2k hands.



vs relatively spicy reg. Thoughts?



vs 29/23 wwsf 52, wasd 56. I think my flop sizing is off fwiw but yeah, thoughts please:



Very sad day today, the first time i've redeposited since turning pro nearly 6 years ago. Oh well, it was gunna happen eventually!

Back on the horse tomorrow.

gl

Rough few days mate, hope you can turn it around soon. Redepositing sucks, but I'm sure you've taken enough money out of the Stars client during your time.

Think we probably have to flick it in both of those hands fwiw. Horrible spots though.

first hand call quite quickly. 2nd hand call very quickly. dw brother.

Countdown to busto. So long. Gl w ur realjob!

If it makes u feel any better i never redeposited. Cheers!

Keep your head up mate downswings are horrible. When I run bad I usually play bad too, so if you are running bad and still able to play good poker you are still ahead of the game.

Get MGOP on audiobook and let Jared talk you through it.

Would you ever consider dropping down stakes until you are running better or you prefer to just battle through it?

i dont often post strat, but will make an exception today:

moving down is worst thing, cause if you catch heat you don't make it back
also have you seen his 200 winrate? he can't beat 200, so unsure how that would help him really, if he moved there.
moving up is the solution! you can win it back faster.

also when CHASING if you move up and you win, it turns out you were unnecesarily playing low, so you can just stay and not have to wait for buyin requirements, as you were just tested that you are beating that stake

Thanks boys.

Results

QQ: lost to AK
AK: lost to 78

haha thanks for the support as always!

cheers boss, trying to keep my head high. Jared is always there in my mind, helping me along the way Yeah i've been strongly considering dropping down to 200nl recently. Fortunately i am well rolled for 600nl even if i was to continue losing for another few months. I guess you may mean for mental reasons as oppose to financial, and yeah i think if i lose for another month then i would prob drop down.

great advice! Maybe i'll be moving up over the next couple weeks

---

So radiohead were absolutely sick. They played a two and a half hour set of pure quality. Played a mixture of their new album and some of their old. They played a really weird version of ideoteque that i absolutely loved and finished with everything in it's right place.

Arbitrary stage photo



Played a bit yesterday and lost 800. Played a huge session today but didn't manage to get much going. Nice not to lose again though.



Such a dire spot vs fish:



fist pump call vs 25/18/8 wwsf 47 wasd 50?



i enjoyed this one. kinda went into psychotic laughter for a while



Should have folded turn here vs loose but extreme non-bluffing reg. When i snap folded river he said, 'oh, i was sure you had an overpair '. He had 55



Time is running out to get out of it for the month, but tbh that's not high on the agenda. I just wanna keep making correct folds and keeping a real reign on the urge to blow up. fwiw i'm 100% succeeding in this so all good. Past 2 sessions showdown stats have been a ton better, 47 wwsf and 54 wasd. Shame i havent won any money! I guess that'll just come in time.

Gym now, then champions league final. Very exciting. Oh also, i'm going to the quarter finals in Lille with the boys. The way it's worked out, if England finish top of the group and win the game of the final 16, we'll be watching them. It would be sooo sick to see england play at that stage of the tournament.

glgl.

sharkneb?


england looking pretty decent for the first time in a long time gl

It would be sick indeed if this came to pass

Wow radiohead live nice brag! Gl at the tables, variance can be a bitch.

Just gotta grind trought the downswing and if you are properly rolled this shouldnt be too hard even for mental game etc. You have a good sample of you beating the games you play so just gotta always remember that. Variance can be a real bitch. For me it helped a lot to drop down and grind stress free, but if you are properly rolled, I don't think you should necessarily do this.

And this comes from a ****reg that had a huge downswing earlier this year, dropping from NL400-600 games and shotting 1k games, to dropping to even at NL100 for brief period, because almost going busto, but now I'm slowly easing back into NL400+. But then again one could question if I was even beating the games at upper midstakes or just on a huge upswing.


For me it always helped doing some sims at pokerdope variancecalcs to get idea of what variance looks like, even if it was just to fool me.




Can't even imagine what lolmttregs go trough.

ha, nope. a reg who i barely ever see play actually. yes they do! hoping for good things

haha, you're scottish right?

yeah man, it was amazing. it really can, feels like it's never ending.

Thanks for your insight man. It can be a very tough pill to swallow to move down but there's no shame in doing so. hoping things turn around before doing that though! Yeah the mtt guys must be in such a horrible state all the time, very pleased i became a cash reg for that reason.

---

Had a great first session, was brimming with confidence and then got totally annihilated to bring me back down to earth. I got super angry and tilted pretty badly unfortunately.



ugh vs weak reg:



Session quitting hand vs whale. I got up and walked around the room after this one:



Busy with family things tomorrow day but will no doubt grind in the evening.

gl

how can we jam river on the q8dd hand when all that will call is boats or kd flush?

not entirely true

but i gotta go with the x/f on this one unless >70% rfi otb

Follow and gl!