NL 10, 23355 hands, -39.28 usd net won, -1.7 bb/100, -3.6 EV bb/100

There were some really bad players and I still couldn't win. That must mean I play really horrible poker. I still don't even know what's my biggest problem. My NL 10 stats so far are vpip 23, pfr 19, wtsd 28, wsd 54, wwsf 45. Won when saw flop seems low, but that could be caused by so many different things. I might be folding too much or getting caught bluffing too much or calling too much. That stat will also naturally be lower in micros than at high stakes. Many people limp, and I have to just check my 57o from big blind and check fold flop. There are also more multiway spots. So I don't see any easy solution to my problems.

If I think about it, it's actually very easy to be a losing player. All you need to do is 3bet one wrong hand every 100 hands and boom a solid 5 bb/100 grinder goes negative. All this tells me I should drop down to 3 zoom tables. But now that I have tasted the forbidden fruit I really don't want to. It's so easy to hit my volume goals. I think I will continue with 4 tables unless my bankroll drops down to 5 NL levels. Going back to 5 NL would shatter the last of my ego, and I should have no problem 3 tabling.

My full handhistory just disappeared. Holdem manager somehow managed to eat it up. Deleted that stupid program. The hands still survive in hand2note, so that's nice.




Wizard really doesn't like my turn bet. Somehow it favors betting AKs. It seems utg has lots of kings and queens in his range, so blocking a hand like JJ doesn't make much sense. My reason for betting is that I rather bluff a worse hand. AJ functions pretty much the same as AK.

NL 10, 25681 hands, -13.91 usd net won, -0.5 bb/100, -2.7 EV bb/100

Pretty nice day. I was up more but started playing bad and getting hit bad.




NL 50 preflop ranges show that ATo is 57.5% 4bet and just 0.5% call. If bb 3bets than you call more 21%. River is just a big overplay from me. Somehow I thought there's no way he has an ace. He did think for a long time before calling. It clearly shows how thoughts were completely misaligned.





Kirill played the timid 22. exf5. Normal response would be 22. d4, but I'm sure he calculated some ghosts. I'm guessing he missed 22... f4 23. Qc1! calmly preparing to take on e5. 23...c6 24.Bb4 c5 25. dxe5 Bxe5 26.Bc3 and f4 is in big trouble.

NL 10, 26789 hands, 7.31 usd net won, 0.3 bb/100, -1.8 EV bb/100

Wannabe is back swimming again. Everyone thought he drowned, but he miraculously survived.

I was watching this guy go full Hercule Poirot on Villain's little river fold. As the comments say he probably went a bit too deep on it when the opponent didn't actually snap fold. Still, I found his attitude very healthy. There's more information out there then just the cards and bet sizes. And even though I play in a fairly big pool of players, I still often see the same guys again. Making notes is valuable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZONomqTtbY0&t=156s




Wizard doesn't care spr is below one on turn and either bets 17% pot or checks. It rather goes all-in with QQ, AQhh, KQhh.




Another flop where I'm supposed to do very little checking, only 6.5%. Betting 73% pot is the favorite over 27% pot.




Holy crap, preflop I'm supposed to go all-in 3.9%! (not with J7s it's just a fold). Was paisting right all along? Punish those blind stealers with a hard hand. But again it depends so much on the ranges you use. GTO just doesn't like coldcalling, but fish really like to do that with most hands. I don't know if I want to increase variance that much. Maybe it's +ev to shove QJs pre, but I suspect it might be more +ev to just call and wait for more mistakes.




It was an exciting round. No draws. Nepo has very good chances to win the candidates now. What's engine's first choice?

I've been looking at your hand histories. I'm not sure you focus your attention on the right aspect. The second hand is more interesting. Since you point out the freq of bets you should do on flop. Wich is high bc its a flop that would favor you a lot. You should rank your hands and think what i'll do with each subset of hands. It would be more efficient. Than trying to memorize freq wich in application dont tell very much.

NL 10, 27428 hands, -28.09 usd net won, -1 bb/100, -2.5 EV bb/100

Just kidding. The swimming was actually just a few drunken swirls.




Probably not too wise to play like this against 16/12. He had a low go to showdown stat that made me call river. But the sample size was only 200 hands, and vpip and pfr are much more likely to be accurate than showdown stats. Probably I should fold turn. Maybe folding pre is best.




Wizard thinks btn has a huge range advantage even after checking flop. After mistakingly betting turn it's fine with also betting river.




Not knowing preflop ranges can be costly. A4s is a pure fold and A5s is all-in 89%.

You're right. Every hand is unique and needs its own love to detail. But it's a very slow process. I can spend one hour going through just one hand if I want to understand everything that's going on, and even then some things will be left for another day. I just believe I make big blunders every session and finding and analyzing those blunders makes more sense than trying to get perfect in some random spot. You could be right though. Maybe If analyze every hand with the smallest comb available to humankind, I would transfer that process to my play also. It would at least have a calming effect.

If a flop gets 95% betting, I can be sure that all my hands will do some betting. That makes me more willing to just jump to analyzing turn. Some things I already know about flops. Monotone flops get lots of checking or betting very small. Very dry boards like 888 you bet a lot. Two broadway cards or more see more overbetting. Overbetting means medium hands do more checking.

I also know some basic stuff: More checking and betting small with top set. Top pairs with great kickers do more 3/4 pot betting than top pairs with medium kickers and middle pairs. Gto loves backdoor flushes, so cards with those suits continue more.

AJ, preflop, flop and turn are fine imo, fold river though

AQ yeah I guess all hands we beat are betting flop

A4 I woulnd't shove any trash ace against a 4bet unless you have very good reads, these GTO ranges simply don't work well at the micros since people rarely 4bet light

AQ hand. Wizard unsurprisingly is very balanced in villain's check flop range too. There are weaker hands than AQ in his range but there are also some sets. Basically nothing changed on turn, so villain's range advantage continues, albeit slightly weaker. Don't know how it goes against real humans.

I wouldn't go that far. I have gotten some 4bet folds. It's also good to note A5, A4 unblock his 4bet bluffs. Villain might easily 4bet AJo when he doesn't want to fold it, so it's not good to 5bet it.



NL 10, 29835 hands, 9.98 usd net won, 0.3 bb/100, -2 EV bb/100

Pretty good day. I tried to do a lot of thinking before acting.

Using ev bb/100 instead of bb/100 decreases variance a decent amount. One guy's results:
"StdDev(evBB/100) is at most 28BB/100 lower than StdDev(BB/100), on average not more than 19BB/100 lower."

I have done very little donking. I wonder if I should slowly introduce that to my game.





I have sometimes trouble knowing when do you call flop with your high cards when they miss. Here KJs is 98% fold and 2% raise. All the hands that are folding are doing small percentage raising. If you don't use rng, it will be impossible to implement it. AQo and AKo seem to prefer clubs. Villain knows hero likes to continue with those backdoor flushes, so villain concentrates betting his bad hands with those suits. Villain's strong hands do the opposite and prefer clubs. So we call more with AQo, AKo with club suits, because it counters villain's strategy. Dunno how many of my opponents play like this in NL 10.




Recently I have been a bit too passive in limped pots. I honestly just haven't cared about winning them. Part of the reason is my experience getting ****ed over being oop with **** hands. Villains never fold to a flop bet. But blind vs blind I can give some hits.




Wizard doesn't like my turn raise. Maybe because villain is betting lots of AXs hands that I'm blocking. 4x hands are great for c-raising. On the river I should continue betting half pot for some reason.




My first big river overbet fails in result and gto. Ace with spade is the preferred bluff card.




Interestingly AT is the worst hand I should valuebet on the river.






As predicted Nepo won candidates. Wang has been losing all boring equal endgames. This position has been talked a lot already, but I couldn't find anything better. Do you play Bb2 or Bc5? One wins, the other one loses.

Do you use training sites? I'ts kinda interesting to see how you approach the game. You try to have a gto look on things. Where I think learning poker 101 could be more usefull. I think thommehh is right with is bad ace read. okay some people will 4bet bluff. But its not everybody. More so in the micros. So I think you will add more variance to your game and mb not for a huge incentive in terms of EV.

GLGL

I think this is actually a really nice exercise. Very difficult for me as I somehow tend to "forget" that it's not always necessary to stop the threat directly but instead play for counter-tactics.

I use wizard. It's expensive for a microstakes player but so is all poker software. I thought I had to buy some kind of help because I haven't been able to beat micros on my own for many years. You're absolutely right using a simple though process can work in poker, but I haven't been able to do it. Often I got to the river and had to decide if I wanted to bluff. I just hated thinking about it. Using rng removes that time waste. I can decide to bluff 25% with a specific hand instead of 100% or 0% that might easily happen if I trusted my intuition.

You could be right about not 5bet bluffing. Of course it also depends on the positions a lot. co vs btn is a pretty normal battleground. There should be some bluffing going on. Obviously I would love to know the population ranges, but so far I have just been guessing and following gto.

It was difficult for Alekseenko too. It just shows that you have to try to find the best moves for both sides. You can't be lazy in chess.



NL 10, 30565 hands, 39.24 usd net won, 1.3 bb/100, -1.4 EV bb/100

Not too many hands were played. Sometimes I don't want to play more if I'm doing well. I don't want to ruin the day.

I think I'm studying too much. I get too tired to play poker after. I feel a bit burned out. It's time to admit I make so many mistakes I don't have time to look at them all.




It seems I should range bet 1/5 pot on turn. Like I said Yesterday I just haven't done much donking. It keeps the game tree smaller and makes it much easier to multitable. But no doubt I'm losing some ev with this simplification. My c-raise is approved by wizard.




Candidates have finished. Wand Hao lost another equal endgame, and he announced he plans to quit professional chess due to digestion problems. Funnily both the leaders lost. I think the last time that happened was when Carlsen was in it. Kramnik lost to him in tiebreaks. What should Nepo do?

I would play Bh3 lol dont make fun of me I'm chess fish
Edit nvm I messed that up in my head idk what to do!

Wait. Ng3 looks good to me.

Nepo formulated his memorization issues into something like "sometimes it's bad to know too much" which feels like a pretty nonsensical statement in this case. The problem was that he didn't know! He thought he knew which is an entirely different thing.

NL 10, 31743 hands, 92.06 usd net won, 2.9 bb/100, -0.3 EV bb/100

Yay I got invited to a new work project. I just have to read 250 pages and pass a test and then maybe finally I will have more than 0 euros in the bank. All my chess students have disappeared so the timing is nice. I wouldn't say I'm a bad coach especially if you look at the cost per hour. It's just that many have realized chess is hard and there's no magical way for a teacher to lift someone's rating hundreds of points in a short period of time. It's also really easy to study on your own using free resources. Poker is also moving in that direction. Personal guidance in well researched games like texas isn't as valuable as it was 10 years ago. Some students also look for some kind of true friendship or emotional support. I can't really provide in that area. It might be a small marker hole. I suspect it's possible to earn a living just by saying good things to someone. I might as well start myself.

For 5 dollars I will compliment you for 15 minutes. Payment usually by paypal.




Wizard says KQs is a fold pre 76.9%. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a pure fold against population. On the flop I should c-raise. I am just so used to playing passively oop that my hand is already clicking call before I even realize what the spr is.


As Roadtopro likes to say, there are no wrong answers. These elite players failed to find the right move in classical games. All their mistakes were understandable. It's okay if you do it too. Ng3 is a decent move as you win an exchange. It's just that black is full of dark square weaknesses and white still has Bc1. Black king will never be safe. Nh5 is more active than Rf1. If there's a way to continue the attack, you should choose that one.


Or he knew he didn't know this exact position but had studied something similar and there the right move was the one he played.

Do you also accecpt BTC paiments? But more serious. I think it's normal people want ti hear some chearful stuff. The variance of life is hard sometimes. If you have 0 in the bank. Must be very stressfull for you.

I still want that coaching I'm sorry for procrastinating I just barely even have time to play poker and I ended up pushing things that are not as important to me to the side but I will send some XMR today and we can plan a day to hit the board. Is your address still good?

NL 10, 32812 hands, 33.49 usd net won, 1 bb/100, -1.6 EV bb/100

It's time to drop down to 3 zoom tables. The bigger your ego, the less money you make. It makes no sense to max grind if there's no proof you are even a winning player. Even an idiot would rather slave away in mcdonald's than push buttons in no rakeback stars. I have been so stupid. I will re-evaluate progress one week from now. If it's still not working, then I have to change to 2 tables. Hopefully I won't have to go all the way to 0 tables.

Two random music suggestions for the bored person
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6A2LHGx8_A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xH-yRdm7Ls

Comedy blast from the past https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTqsV3q7rRU




I insta called all streets. My logic was gto wouldn't fold this. I didn't even glance at the bet sizes or the cards. Well would you look at that, wizard is doing a fair bit of folding on the turn and river. It prefers to call KK with a diamond suit. It's not blocking villain's flop backdoor flush hopes. Very similar logic I discussed here a few days ago. Clearly I haven't learned anything. If I had thought about it, I probably would have folded just because people don't seem to bluff enough.




My 4bet size is a bit too small. 25 bb is recommended. How much would you bet flop and turn?





A rare occurrence, a human move undeservedly gets question marks on lichess. 19. Rh5 was probably not the best move, but it still keeps white's advantage. Game continued 19...Qa5 20. Rc3! Qxb5 21. Rxg5! Re8 22.Bg6! Ke7 23. Qxf7 Kd6 and now the simple 24.Qxe8 Bxg5 25. h7 would have kept a little edge. Unfortunately Le Quang Liem lost after many complications.

It's not exactly zero but close. I live in one of the easiest countries in the world, so I don't experience much stress. I could still pay the bills with government's help if I was unemployed, but it's obviously better for your mental health to do some work than nothing.

There's no pressure. I haven't even taught you anything yet. The address is the same and any European time after noon probably works with me.

Hey saw you at the tables today!

Wouldn't really care too much about what wizard says about blockers in this hand imo because it's 10NL, but usually you're up against a set or a straight in the KK hand

AK bet bigger otf so 99 will probably fold, if you make it like $2 you still have a 80% pot bet shove ott

The month is over and it's not looking pretty. I had three goals for April:
[F] 60k hands
[F] 25 NL main game
[F] Regular schedule

All failed. I didn't play much because I wasn't winning. I didn't get to NL 25 because I wasn't winning. I didn't have a regular schedule because I wasn't winning. Would you force yourself to play losing poker just because your schedule has an appointment for it? I can also get work at any time of the day, and I have to stop what I'm doing and do the work so I can pay my rent. Often the work comes in batches of 5 minutes... Don't be overconfident in bashing my analysis. I have many more excuses lined up for my defence.

May goals:
1) 30k hands is enough.
2) Become a winning NL 10 regular
3) 10 sets of 25 minute Pomodoros a day. The main reason is to just move my old bones a bit. Having breaks is good for your mental and physical health. It's just so bad to sit all day in your thirties.


I have been thinking about the importance of youth in relation to improvement. To me it's clear the later you start learning chess, the lower your max rating will be. The closer you get to your absolute peak, the slower you improve. So not only will the younger man achieve a higher rating, he will also get faster to the older one's max peak. The only exception is at the very beginning. It makes sense for a noob adult to improve the first 200 rating points faster than a child due to his larger network. The network will later become a hindrance because it's not specialized in chess. To me poker doesn't seem as age limiting as chess. The opponent's actions don't have a big impact on your game. He can do a sneaky check-raise, but he can't threaten mate in 20 different ways. Chess is a very visual game. It's very difficult to learn to see what goes on the board in a split second like grandmasters do. Only in plo have I sometimes felt like this. My brain needs some time to comprehend how good my cards are. Still it's nothing compared to chess. I would estimate plo is visually about 5% as difficult as chess. This is good news to all adults who want to improve in poker. Multitabling is harder to do the older you are, so you might earn less than young people, but otherwise I don't see any big problems to stop you from improving at any age.




Wizard doesn't bet more than half pot on the river. It seems we want to get some value with out sets, so we can only go small. It also doesn't bluff with 99 but with 77 and below.

Caring about suit blockers is a good way to limit your stupidity.
Betting 2 bucks could very well be the better play but note that even with 0.8 dollars he doesn't have the direct odds to call if I have an ace. If I have AA, he's royally ****ed.

Well you don't know he has 99 exactly, but anyways this betsize is just too small
In this spot just make it $2 with every value hand and shove the turn

702 hands, -16.10 usd net won, -22.9 bb/100, -17.5 EV bb/100

Not an optimal start. Right now I feel very tired for some reason, but I also feel good for jogging from wall to wall.




Wizard wants to make a small bet on the river for value. Villain should call with k high most of the time.




Another passive hand. Kx are checking but all other missed hands are betting on the river. This might be one of my leaks.




Flop call is marked as a big mistake. Only AQhh+ is calling. It's so hard to get these things right. So easy to float too loose or too tight. Check river is probably ok. He might have some kx, qx junk.




Another bad flop decision according to wizard. It's a pure fold. My range is only raising 8.3%. ATss is only calling if he bets small. If it was btn vs bb, then even A8ss is calling a bigger flop bet. So many stupid details in poker. I am fine with my turn and river play.



AKo is a pure fold. AKs is good enough to call. QQ is calling 72%. If the open was from co, then AKo calls.

I forgot to say I also saw a glance of you at the tables. Next time I'll send a piggy.
The reason why I bet so small on the flop is that hu in 4bet pots wizard does that sometimes. I don't know if I should bet smaller or bigger multiway. Betting smaller makes sense in the way that I can get away from trouble cheaper. Betting bigger also makes sense. Sometimes a chain reaction of calls happens and everyone has the odds to call their ****. Anyway, next time I will try your 2 dollar bet.