Hi all,

I'm an aspiring live poker pro (lol) who needs to get less **** (or more good, if you like) at the game so as to be able to realise my dream of playing low stakes live poker for a living in London or wherever.

I've booked a flight to Vegas for the 2nd of February so have until then to grind online and learn how to use PIEsolver.

The goals

- Play at least 3 hours a day.
- Study for a further two.
- Win a modest but significant amount of money (let's say $500).

The plan for improvement

- Sponge info from talented friends - I know a few guys who either play or used to play low-mid stakes online who I will pester for tips.
- Watch RIO videos - will likely be my main focus for the first few weeks.
- Play, play, play. Starting at 25nl, moving up if it isn't challenging enough and moving down if it starts getting too expensive.

I'll try and post everyday: although I fear this thread won't be too interesting I hope it will at least hold me to account.

Cheers

On the study side of things, yesterday went fairly well. My objective for the day was to formulate my pre flop opening ranges which I did in around 2 hours. I also watched about an hours worth of videos and reassuringly found myself able to generally anticipate the video makers' decisions. Obviously this doesn't mean I'm capable of playing even close to well in loads of spots, but maybe means I'm not as far off the pace as I feared.

Because of a few prior committments and the study, I had to settle for two tabling zoom for only a couple of hours. The session went fairly well, although I did feel lost in a number of spots.

***Can't get the graph to work, will post one at the end of the week. Trust me when I say you're not missing out.

A few hands:



Is this a mandatory c-bet? And if so what sizing should we go for?





Pre-flop is nitty as hell I know but villain seemed tight and this deep OOP in games I'm not yet familiar with I don't think taking the passive option is ever too bad, especially as I flat a little wider from the BB than most. As penance for my pre-flop nittiness I decided to engage in some post flop spazziness but got punished. Villain obviously has KK there is no need to write in and I considered making the soul read hero call before I realised JJ does not beat KK and grudgingly decided to fold.





Is folding turn too nitty? I think it might be one of those moves that feels wrong but is actually right.





Do people still 4 bet small suited aces? Feels very 2015. Turn is a bit of a mess and any explanation I try to make that doesn't start with the words "I panicked and..." would be disingenuous.





Aims for the day:

- Play 3 hours.
- Memorise pre-flop opening ranges and frequencies.
- Formulate BB calling ranges v every position.
- Watch one full video.

I wrote out a longish post which got deleted so I'll just post the hands and cliffs.

- Went on a little holiday so haven't been able to play too much.
- Still mainly focusing on studying, although I need to concentrate on actually finding answers for the numerous questions I have rather than just aimlessly watching videos.

Graph since thread start.


A few hands:

From my first session, feels like I shouldn't get stacked here but what ya gonna do? V was unknown.





Need to do some work on this one, think they're only very rarely betting river here and when they do I can just call with my straights. Certainly an argument for just ripping flop.





To do today:

- Get a better grasp of BB calling ranges v different sizings.
- Start work on 4/5 betting ranges.
- 3 hours.

Yesterday wasn't fantastic. I ran really well early but the fact that all of my 'plays' went pretty horribly suggests I played quite poorly, it certainly felt that way. I'm not going to look at my graph until the end of the week but I'd say I lost a buy in or two yesterday and maybe 3 or 4 in EV.

Yesterday's aims were:

- Get a better grasp of BB calling ranges v different sizings.
Put in maybe half an hour on this, feel more comfortable than I did at the start of this thread but still mashing buttons more than I'd like
- Start work on 4/5 betting ranges.
Uncompleted: not even started.
- 3 hours.
Tick

Hands for review

A semi-interesting spot versus a fish. I'm torn between flatting and shoving, I think flatting is likely the better play but I don't really know.





Just total button mashing. Think it's possible I played every street worse than the last but I don't really know.





Similar spots to this come up quite often live, I think it's a flat but I'm not really sure.





Versus 46/34 (35) fish.





To do:

-Set more quantifiable goals than just "get better at x".
-Study 90 minutes.
-Play 90 minutes.

Hand 7 - 130BB I'd just be shoving this pre or clicking it back, eithers fine.

Hand 8 - I'd give up OTT as we block a lot of his OC floats that will fold. I probably wouldnt shove river as I think his range is quite strong when he calls down

Hand 9 - I would just make a nitty fold on the flop; the SB 3better is uncapped and your equity isnt that fantastic against a bunch of hands.

Subbed gl!

Thanks for the comments, I'm a BIG FAN of your work .

Hand 7 - Agreed, click back is interesting but actually seems like it would be a good option here.

Hand 8 - I didn't realise this at the time but apparently he actually doesn't need to float that many or even any overcards OTF - AQ with any amount of clubs the only OCs that aren't clear folds, and I think he can 4b it at some frequency too. Obviously this does just support the idea that I should stop betting at some point.

Hand 9 - I ran this through EQUILAB and it seems I have more than enough equity to get this in here - I'm 44%* and even if he never folds to my jam (which is obviously an incorrect assumption) I only need 33% or so v his GII range. Also, the fact that he started with 400bb might be significant here, fish generally don't build stacks of that size unless they're willing to throw money around (this is totally post-hoc and not something I considered at the time).

*V open to criticism on this. I think it's all too easy to presume that crunching some numbers in EQUILAB quantifies matters and settles the debate, when in reality what really matters is the ranges that are actually assigned in the calculation, which is often as subjective a matter as Big John down at the local £1/1's opinion that Asians never fold.

--

Yesterday went ok, I had a fairly easy first hour or so in the sense that I didn't face many tough spots and then in the last half an hour I just kept on finding myself in awkward spots and in the end probably folded my way to a small loss.

Yesterday's aims were:

-Study 90 minutes.
I managed an hour or so of actual pen in hand study and then a further hour or so of looking at hands on twoplustwo/RIO and showing spots to a mate of mine who is a really good player.
-Play 90 minutes.
Tick



Pretty rough spot, not really knowing what his sb range looks like here makes things tougher than they need to be. Think there are some people who have no suited aces in this spot in which case I should just bet even if I just don't have many bluffs here apart from maybe some sets.





Think this is a river mistake vs a 23/15/8 reg. My thought process was basically 'I should check to protect my 99/88/77/JJ(maybe)' but in reality I think I should just be turning a lot of those hands into bluffs and he's probably not value betting anywhere near thinly enough for this to be a check.





Think this a check/fold v a reg and more difficult (probably still a fold?) v a fish. Villain was completely unknown. Folding pre might not be terrible but feels really nitty and I need to 4bet more so i included AKo here as a sort of merge-bluff type thing.



To do:

- 3 hours play
- 1 hour 'formal', pen in hand study.
- 1 hour looking at hands/threads etc.

- Played for a little over 3 hours.
- 80 mins of watching RIO
- Didn't time this but feels I spent at least 90 mins looking at hand histories either here or on the RIO forums.

-

Feels like I broke-even yesterday and maybe lost a buy-in or two EV. Fairly happy with how I played though, feels like my decisions have a bit more logic behind them now.

I noticed I have a pretty big 'scared of the nuts' leak from my time spent playing PLO over the last year or so, which is possibly costing me money in a few spots. Hopefully as I play more hands and see more spots I'll re-realise that the second nut flush isn't just a bluff catcher and turn some of those +50bb pots into +100bb pots.

-

Hands:

Vs reg, feels like I could maybe have played flop differently. The fact that he just basically doesn't have any value here apart from the odd slow played overpair - and even that is very unlikely against this particular villain - tilted me towards a call (and then the turn came and tilted me to goddamn tears). Fact that my hand is in such great shape versus a flush draw may make 3 betting flop viable, esp as I might want to do it with the odd bluff?




-

Q is such an awful river card in the sense that it is probably the card that appears in his bluff range the most that I almost folded. I guess he value bets enough sets of his own here to make this a sigh call. - Note this is results orientated somewhat, not so much by this hand but the results of the 5k or so hands I've played so far: regs just aren't bluffing enough (it seems) in SRPs.





Don't hate this line until the river, where things just get ugly.





Pre is a bit spewy but they open very wide. On the turn, The Ghost of PLO Past, Ziigmund, whispered in my ear and told me that FD and wrap (Ziggy describes any straight draw as a wrap, helps to explain his results since 2011) has enough equity v his range so i stuck it in and binked.





This is one of the hands I had in mind when I thought I was being a little too wary of the nuts* but on reflection I don't think I played it too badly. I didn't really want to check raise the flop because I didn't think I have any bluffs there but I actually do have gutshots so maybe I should have just played the hand in a more orthodox style and tried to gii on the flop.



To do:

- 3 hours play.
- 1 hour real study.
- 1 hour 'fun' study.
- I don't like including personal goals here, but last night I went out and made a really bad, offensive 'yo mamma' joke to a good friend of mine and he got a bit cross. It's a bad habit and something that I really need to cut out. So... no more bad, offensive jokes.

Yesterday followed what seems to be the familiar pattern: win money early, lose it back late. I accidentally looked at my graph for the day whilst tinkering in HEM so here it is:



Confidence is such a erratic emotion: at hand 189 I was scoping out the $2knl lobbies looking for a weak lineup to jump into; by hand 1200 I was half-way through composing a long, abusive letter to Ishter, angrily berating him for making this bastardly game look so much easier than it actually is.



Rough spot, I wanted to overbet the turn (and thought I did) but my timebank was dwindling and it turns out I just mashed pot.





Spew versus an unknown Vietnamese, if similar punishments for ethnic stereotyping were given out in real life we'd probably have a woman in the White House.





Versus two seemingly spewy fish I quite like this line



-

In a bit of a rush this afternoon so won't post any more hands.

Yesterday's goals:

All ticks.

Today's goals:

- Play two hours.
- One serious hour of study.
- Half an hour looking at hands.

- Think I managed about 90 minutes.
- Studied for about an hour so tick.

--

Didn't really play much yesterday, I felt like I was losing lots of money in certain spots so decided to do a little database review of the 10k or so hands I've played so far and, yeah, I've got some leaks. I'm winning about the right amounts from EP through to the BU and am breaking even from the SB but I'm just getting killed from the BB, playing far too many hands and losing at well over 100b/100.

Ordinarily I'd be wary of reading too much into what is a tiny sample of BB hands, however further analysis showed that 1) population isn't stealing anywhere near wide enough in certain spots and 2) even if they were I'm still calling too wide, so I'm confident that I need to tighten up a bit pre.

--

Slim pickings on the hands front:



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Not in love with this bluff especially the turn sizing but he tank called one of his best bluff-catch hands so I think it's probably ok.





To do:

- 1 hour serious study
- Codify BB calling ranges.
- More work on calling 3 bets.
- 150 minutes of play.

Last week's graph.





Not great, happy with how much I learnt in the opening few days of the week but time constraints meant I couldn't study as much as I wanted over the weekend and I got very sloppy in lots of smaller spots as my concentration waned.

--

Have a free diary this week and have actually thought through my targets so will be disappointed if I fail to meet them.

--

Only played for about half an hour or so so only one hand from today, it looks really fps'y/spewy but I don't think it's necessarily a terrible line versus a 30/0/(60) fish.



Literally as the hand was taking place I was looking at my HEM and congratulating myself on tightening up from the BB - it's going to take a lot of folding K7 from the bb to make up for it



Aims for the week:

- 18 hours play
- 11 hours study

As there isn't going to be much play this week I'm going to start updating every other day to save my loyal subscriber from having to read 'today I studied, it went well' on a daily basis.

Could only play for four days this week so not too much to report. Clicked a few too many buttons at times and made a few truly horrific plays but at least I managed to keep to a fairly disciplined study regime - I have now exhausted all the RIO videos recommended to me and have both formulated and mostly memerised my standard ranges for most spots - so it wasn't all bad.


Goals were:

- 18 hours play: Not quite, only managed 11 and a half hours.
- 11 hours study: 7 hours of formal study; a good couple of hours looking at hands; few hours yesterday watching a good Twitch streamer so close enough to 11 hours, yeah.

Graph



A few hands:

V aggro reg, bit of a levelling spot but I should just fold river.



--

Most of the hands I post here seem to be failed bluffs so here's another one





You know that spasm of pain you get when out of the blue you remember something spazzy you did when you were drunk and/or a teenager? That's how I feel about this one.











Actually going to post a hand I think I played well for once. If $150 worth of godawful failed check-raise bluffs have taught me anything it's that mother ****ers at 25nl really don't like to fold once they've put that initial bet out there.





Goals for the coming week:

Play
- 3, 2 hour long sessions.
- 18 hours play
- Win money. If I can stop doing stuff that I know is bad I'll hopefully be able to provide some evidence that I can actually beat these games.

Study
- 7 hours

Hand 1 - AJ - Is whatever youre top of your range yadda yadda, calling is ok.

Hand 2 I would just fold the flop. He has all straight offsuit combos here in the BB and your equity is terrible vs the bottom of his range.

Hand 3 is ok. When he xc flop and turn just expect him to have folded whatever hes going to fold by the river though. I think it would help trying to work/guess his ranes on each atreet. Pre is whatever, if he has a high f4b go for it.

Hand 4 KdJd wp

Hand 5 Vs a fish I really like the line with QQ, nh

keep it up!




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Agree with all your points. Folding A,Q on the flop maybe seems a bit iffy because it's not a massive c/raise and fish do occasionally raise worse queens but from what I've seen so far at 25nl just letting it go may very well have been the best play.

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Last week's goals:

- 3, 2 hour long sessions.
Only managed two
- 18 hours play Managed about 15 which is fine and good
- Win money. If I can stop doing stuff that I know is bad I'll hopefully be able to provide some evidence that I can actually beat these games. Yup

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Don't want to read too much into what is a tiny sample but I definitely played better this week. Whilst I've been a little hesitant to carry out database reviews because I'm studying more to sharpen my live poker strategy and skills than in an effort to crush 25nl (handy given my results), I did some work earlier this week on population tendencies and felt a fair bit more comfortable.

Graph



Hands

At the time I thought that this is actually pretty rough spot versus an 18/14/3.2(150), although maybe I was just feeling a little snakebit:



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I remember thinking this was a little fps'y at the time but looking back I like it a lot more now. Villain's stats suggested a very loose fish albeit over a very small sample.





HUD suggested that they were fairly aggro over a small sample, but i only really had a cursory glance.





I would have basically just rolled my podgy face across the keyboard OTT here at the start of the month, graduated to using my fists now but I've been told my line is good.






should have practiced avoidance my man.





I don't think it's results orientated to say that my flop 3-bet sizing here is a pretty big mistake, river is a rough spot but he tanked for a fair while before jamming and I decided to go with the timing tell.







Still nowhere near sure about this one.



The OP is incorrect and I actually leave for Vegas on the 6th of Feb so even though this week is going to be busy I'll make another post next weekend provided I get more than say 5000 hands in.

Either way I'm very happy I committed the time this month to getting better at online poker, 25nl is different in a lot of ways to live but there are actually a fair few similarities and I imagine becoming more well rounded theoretically will be really good for my bottom line and also my mental game, even it it just means I'm less likely to spend the hours between significant hands beating myself up about a marginal spot.

If this my last post then I'd just like to big up anybody playing online poker for a living in 2017, that **** ain't easy and the mental fortitude required shouldn't be underestimated

GL everybody.

Having played both 25z and live, as I'm sure you're aware, you come to realise the games are VERY different, in more ways than you realise. You find it hard to understand just how many more pots are multiway live (since they all seem to be), and just what vpip/pfr live players are playing and just how massively different the two games are.

I agree that playing 25NL will be excellent for your game in terms of theory and understanding but remember the games play nothing alike. GL with it and I look forward to seeing some live stuff from ya

Oh yeah I basically share your viewpoint. The differences are massive and often severely underestimated by decent players transitioning from online to live. When I was last playing live regularly it was in a student city and I'd often see young guys who've been playing poker for a year or whatever and can maybe beat 10nl online come in for the first time, scoff at the regs opening to 6x, and proceed to fire off their 2-3x pre-flop raises. It didn't usually take them more than a week or two to adjust.

Basically I think 25nl and low stakes live are similar in where and when you should deviate from a GTO orientated approach - most pre-flop play and post-flop bluff-catching, for instance. Also, playing online does give you a big edge in those HU spots that do still occasionally occur live - 3 bet pots v regs, say - in which the general live reg population is at its most button-mashy.

Pre: I think I'd fold pre as the sizing is (fairly) large, although we are a bit deep. In general if a spots marginal at best I prefer a fold. 140BB with that sizing I'd defo call tho

Flop: This is just a fairly trivial call for me personally. I don't se him jamming 2x pot with QQ full, and it could easily be some guy getting drawn out with AA based on 150 hands.



Pre: Callign or folding is fine, I personally call but thats me.

Flop: I like cbetting about 1/3 pot with entire range. 1/2 pot isnt unreasonable though.

Turn: Yep

River: I do like the check-raise but think check-jammin for 4x is a bit too thin unless he always 3bets AK pre, as if he flats it prob makes up a decent chunk of his range.



Pre: Yep

Flop: I would definitely cbet much bigger like $1.50, noones folding a set/2p/pair + oesd etc etc. As played I think the 3bet is a good size.

Turn: Yuck. proooobably fold (???). :/ When he flats the SB, in general I assume him to be a fish, who'll call with lots of medium-big offsuit connector type hands like T9, J9, JT etc although this is largely a guess. Whether or not he jams them is another matter.

gl

Agree with basically all your points, Acid.

I generally 3 bet tens BB v BU open and will at pretty much a 100% frequency v this particular reg.

Agree with you on the 7,9 hand. I can't fold turn and if turn is ever a fold (it isn't) then I should just be folding pre, which I probably do most of the time anyway.

I was concerned about A,K too and time-bank jammed. It's really hard to estimate his frequencies in this spot as there wasn't too much HUD data but I had him pegged as a bit of a madman and I basically think this type of fish either 4 bets A,K or bets turn most of the time, although that may just be a post-hoc justification and isn't grounded in too much evidence.

I folded the K,Q.

GL

Thanks Avizura, good luck to you too.

Managed to play a little this week, actually could have played a lot more but I needed to cancel my bankcard so cashed out from Stars a few days ago.

Nice when you always have it. Please consider the fact that I probably wouldn't have posted a losing graph before lavishing me with any praise.



Lots and lots of spew by villains this week so not too many interesting hands, here are the pick of the bunch though (or at least what I could be bothered to find).

Ah f it, couldn't find anything of interest, should probably have considered playing more than 3000 hands.

--

GL everybody, take care on those online streets.

edit - Oh, I'm less **** now. Jury is definitely out on quite how much less though.

I've booked a flight back to America next month to grind live and will be putting in a few weeks online grind to prepare. Thought I'd therefore sate public demand and revive this thread.
Haven't played any poker for 4 months so will start @25nl, moving up or down as appropriate.

GL me.

For tomorrow:

- Find old notebook
- Go over all my old notes
- 4 hours grind.