The comeback is real! Second sesh of the day went much better although i spewed in a few pretty unnecessary spots. Had a lot of tuff run outs and had to fold on rivers and you can see that in my redline. I won't worry about the redline for now but if i continue to get crushed there i may have to look a little more into it. Graph for the sesh below:



Good night!

Weekly goal accomplishments and fails:

My Goals:

-Poker
1. Play 15+ hours/week.
- Crushed
-this goal and played probably 2x

2. Study 2x/week for 1 hour+
-Crushed
-this goal by at least 2x

3. Be profitable at any win rate.
- Win
-$58 at 50NL, +$235 100NL

4. No sessions lasting longer than 2 hours.
-Needs work
-I did not do well here and i need to work on it. I played several 4 hour grind sessions. It's hard to quit when you're feeling it, but even when i feel it my results are usually not great in the last 2 hours. Mostly i just feel worse after health wise, mentally/physically.

-Health
1. 3 days/week of gym/cardio.
-Needs work
-0 cardio or gym was done this week. Very disappointing but to be fair it was the 4th of july so i was doing more extracurricular activities than usual. We'll get there next week!

2. 10 minute meditation 5x/week.
-Needs work
-Zero meditation done

3. Read 1 passage from "The Daily Stoic" 5x/week.
-Needs work
-Zero passages read, this week we get up that.

4. To bed by 11pm on average.
-Needs work
-Almost never got to bed on time, but it was a holiday weekend. This week we improve!

-Other
1. Pass my school classes
-Decided to drop my summer course. Have done several straight semesters and needed a break. Shouldn't have regged it in the first place. Feel good about this break.

2. Go on 1 date/3 months
-Nothing yet but we got time

3. Practice guitar 2x/week
-Needs work
-I did practice alot of guitar but not learning theory like this goal was meant for. This week we aim for at least one!

The expectation for these goals was not that i would hit them in the first week. It was that i would progress towards hitting them in the future. Some things we did 0 of and i don't like that, but in others we reached them. This week we continue hitting the goals we hit last week and reach new heights in the others. LETS GET IT!

Yesterdays sesh was fun and all over the place. I think played well for the most part but deff had some questionable hero calls that i'll post below the sesh graph. Also had a few sick coolers and i'll post those below as well for funzies.



Hero call vs spazzy bluffy whale with weird line:

iPoker - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (CO): 120.54 BB
BTN: 51.84 BB (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 12)
SB: 136.15 BB (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 58.33, 3Bet Preflop: 50.00, Hands: 12)
BB: 89.94 BB (VPIP: 18.18, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 11)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K Q

Hero raises to 2.5 BB, BTN calls 2.5 BB, SB calls 2 BB, fold

Flop: (8.5 BB, 3 players) Q J 8
SB bets 4.04 BB, Hero raises to 12 BB, fold, SB calls 7.96 BB

Turn: (32.5 BB, 2 players) 5
SB checks, Hero bets 22.16 BB, SB calls 22.16 BB

River: (76.82 BB, 2 players) A
SB bets 99.49 BB, Hero calls 83.88 BB

SB shows T A (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 60%, Flop 39%, Turn 23%)
Hero mucks K Q (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 40%, Flop 61%, Turn 77%)
SB wins 257.19 BB

Took a nonstandard line here vs reg looking to get value from worse Jacks and spade draws? Idk if i like it:

iPoker - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 90.97 BB (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 50.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 2)
MP: 143.87 BB (VPIP: 30.69, PFR: 25.74, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 104)
Hero (CO): 156.56 BB
BTN: 109.59 BB (VPIP: 19.80, PFR: 17.82, 3Bet Preflop: 5.41, Hands: 102)
SB: 104.59 BB (VPIP: 9.88, PFR: 8.64, 3Bet Preflop: 3.33, Hands: 83)
BB: 177.71 BB (VPIP: 39.68, PFR: 12.70, 3Bet Preflop: 4.55, Hands: 64)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J K

fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, BTN raises to 8 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 5.5 BB

Flop: (17.5 BB, 2 players) 9 2 J
Hero checks, BTN bets 6.32 BB, Hero raises to 26 BB, BTN calls 19.68 BB

Turn: (69.5 BB, 2 players) 6
Hero bets 122.56 BB, BTN calls 75.59 BB

River: (220.68 BB, 2 players) 2

Hero shows J K (Two Pair, Jacks and Twos)
(Pre 14%, Flop 9%, Turn 5%)
BTN shows K K (Two Pair, Kings and Twos)
(Pre 86%, Flop 91%, Turn 95%)
Hero wins 46.97 BB
BTN wins 216.68 BB


Vs INSANELY SPAZZY WHALE:

iPoker - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 53.48 BB (VPIP: 36.11, PFR: 13.89, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 36)
MP: 153.36 BB (VPIP: 54.17, PFR: 4.17, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 24)
Hero (CO): 100 BB
BTN: 20.08 BB (VPIP: 60.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 5)
SB: 15.33 BB (VPIP: 61.11, PFR: 5.56, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36)
BB: 195.03 BB (VPIP: 29.51, PFR: 14.75, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 61)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K J

UTG calls 1 BB, MP calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4.5 BB, fold, SB calls 4 BB, fold, fold, MP calls 3.5 BB

Flop: (15.5 BB, 3 players) 3 J 7
SB checks, MP bets 4.99 BB, Hero raises to 20 BB, fold, MP raises to 148.86 BB, Hero calls 75.5 BB

Turn: (206.5 BB, 2 players) 3

River: (206.5 BB, 2 players) 5

MP shows 3 A (Three of a Kind, Threes)
(Pre 59%, Flop 20%, Turn 95%)
Hero mucks K J (Two Pair, Jacks and Threes)
(Pre 41%, Flop 80%, Turn 5%)
MP wins 255.86 BB

Vs same SPAZZY WHALE who had A3dd above:

iPoker - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 29.07 BB (VPIP: 35.71, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 28)
SB: 109.93 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 6.25, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 16)
Hero (BB): 188.63 BB
UTG: 8.09 BB (VPIP: 66.07, PFR: 10.71, 3Bet Preflop: 3.85, Hands: 56)
MP: 64.5 BB (VPIP: 60.71, PFR: 3.57, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 28)
CO: 99.5 BB (VPIP: 22.64, PFR: 13.21, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 53)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K K

UTG raises to 5.37 BB, fold, CO calls 5.37 BB, fold, SB calls 4.87 BB, Hero raises to 25.74 BB, UTG calls 2.72 BB, fold, SB calls 20.37 BB

Flop: (64.94 BB, 3 players) Q 6 6
SB checks, Hero bets 20.85 BB, SB calls 20.85 BB

Turn: (106.64 BB, 3 players) 7
SB checks, Hero bets 142.04 BB, SB calls 63.34 BB

River: (233.32 BB, 3 players) 4

UTG shows A 2 (One Pair, Sixes)

Main Pot [29.64 BB]: (Pre 26%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%)

SB shows 6 6 (Four of a Kind, Sixes)

Main Pot [29.64 BB]: (Pre 19%, Flop 99.9%, Turn 100%)
Side Pot#1 [203.68 BB]: (Pre 20%, Flop 99.9%, Turn 100%)

Hero shows K K (Two Pair, Kings and Sixes)

Main Pot [29.64 BB]: (Pre 55%, Flop 0.1%, Turn 0%)
Side Pot#1 [203.68 BB]: (Pre 80%, Flop 0.1%, Turn 0%)

SB wins 229.32 BB
Hero wins 78.7 BB


Let's hope today's grind goes better!

Frustrated with my play today. Went crazy spazzy in the middle of the grind. Pulled it back in the end but if it weren't for me tilting i would be up some good money. Also played farrrr too much today. So hard to stop playing when i'm stuck. How do you discipline yourself to get off when you're down?

Sesh graph:



Good night gents!

Quick 2 hr session today. Not really in the mood for a second one like i usually do so i'm just gonna try and grab some extra sleep tonight. Wimbledon tennis match roger v federer tomorrow!

Nice sesh today. Made a triple barrel bluff early on that upon further analysis decided i didn't like. Long story short we X/R A3cc on 259r with a club. Turn is 5 and river is 6 and we go for all of it. I don't hate the river jamm once we get to that point but i thin there are much better turns to barrel on. For one the turn takes away alot of our Sets and two pairs. Also it doesn't improve our equity andi think a good strategy for managing your triple barrels and to do it when you turn more equity. For obvious reasons of we get there more but also we just won't be barreling as often, can't triple every time you flop a draw. Having a back door flush draw get there on the river, even if it isn't yours, is also nice. This way i'm not triple barrelling toooo much. Any who here is graph for both sessions today.



Not loving my redline at 100NL so far. Hopefully as we continue to study this will improve. For now my plan is to 3-bet a little tighter from the blinds. I think players are defending correctly whereas in 50NL they were not and i could get away with it. Seem to be bleeding there. 3-bet OOP is my current focus of study. Let's improve.

Cheers!

Good day today up a few BI's! I know this is a bit early to be thinking about but plans are good right? Plan so far is continue studying and get through the upswing course. BR sits at 3k and i was thinking to shot take 200NL at 3.6k with a stop loss at 3k but i think i'm going to be a nit and wait until i hit 4k at least for the shot take. Couple reasons for this.

1. I want to have done some solver work(outside of the solver work done in upswing videos) because i know the player pool is much better at 200NL (lots of people playing for a living at this stake). I also want to continue pushing through the "beyond core strategy" of the upswing course at the same time so this means it's going to be slow moving.

2. I'd really like to get coaching before i go full swing into 200NL. But atm coaching feels really expensive with my role. So yet another reason to hold off a little longer.

Who knows maybe i just stay at 100NL until i can make the previously mentioned goals happen and if that means not shot taking until 4k+ roll or something than so be it. I don't want to move up before i'm ready just because i ran good, and maybe played decent too, at 100NL.

I know we got some high stakes regs lurkin in the thread. How much tougher was 200NL than 100NL for you? What would your opinions be on the matter of study, coaching, and moving up? Any advice would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks!

Session graph:



Cheers!

100NL first 9k hands:

Graph of July 14th-17th. It's been a ruff few sessions. Don't feel like i've been playing even close to my A game. Prob not even my B games. Let a couple coolers get to me and spewed off a little. But we are still battling and that's what matters most!

Weekly goal accomplishments and fails:

My Goals:

-Poker
1. Play 15+ hours/week.
- Crushed
-this goal and played probably 2x

2. Study 2x/week for 1 hour+
-Crushed


3. Be profitable at any win rate.
- Win
-+$958 100NL

4. No sessions lasting longer than 2 hours.
-Needs work
-Again played WAY to long of sessions and resulted in my worst session yet of -5.5 BI. But this week i am DETERMINED to be better and only play 2 hours and NO MORE.

-Health
1. 3 days/week of gym/cardio.
-Needs work
-1 hike!
-Not the 3 i am looking for but we are 1 closer than last week! This week lets
improve some more!

2. 10 minute meditation 5x/week.
-Needs work
-Zero meditation done

3. Read 1 passage from "The Daily Stoic" 5x/week.
-Needs work
-Zero passages read. I WILL DO BETTER THIS WEEK

4. To bed by 11pm on average.
-It wasn't an average of 11 but i had several good days as opposed to none last week so improvement! This week i'm ready to nail this one. Got a new sleeping med that ACTUALLY works so i'm hopeful in maintaining a good schedule.

-Other

1. Go on 1 date/3 months
-Had 2 opportunities but turned them down. One was an ex and i just didn't want to bother with that and the other a new girl but wasn't feeling very well that day...we got time.

2. Practice guitar 2x/week
-Needs work
-I did practice alot of guitar but not learning theory like this goal was meant for. This week we aim for at least one!(This again this week)
-Although i did start learning bannana pancakes by Jack Johnson which introduced some very challenging new bar cords and i'm starting to get the hang of it!

Good Luck

Thnxs Mate!

I really enjoy Jack Johnson's music. I'd imagine his songs would be very fun to play!

Congrats on meeting all your goals thus far.

Reallyyyy wasn't feeling the online grind. Went on a 6 or so BI downswing and just felt deflated. Decided to pull my funds off Bovada and switch it up a bit. Not sure what site i'll move to yet, maybe global.

This weekend i took a break from the online grind completely and went down to the nearest casino from me in wendover. About a 2 hour drive and played most of the day Friday and all day Saturday. Friday we ran horrific losing 2 all in on the flop hands with 75% equity for $400 pots. Also ran a bluff that was called down SUPER light on a 97334dd board with 95 for a 1k pot. We were down $600.

Saturday we came back and bought in for $300 and cashed out 24 hours later with $2800 so that felt good. Although had i stopped at a reasonable time like 1 or 2 am when i still had my mental wits about me we would have cashed out for 3.6k! Pretty massive stack for a 1/2 table but the games are good down there.

Anyhow i'll keep everyone posted when i decide what site i'm going to play on. Honestly even though i'm plenty rolled for 100NL and even 200NL if i wanted to shot take i might move back down to 50NL for a while to work on my mental game. It's my biggest leak and probably account for a loss of something like 5bb/100 so it needs to be fixed. I'll continue to study and work on my game as well.

Was very happy about how i conducted myself live though. There was some pretty gross berating of fish and bad plays at my table by some of the "regs" but i only once caught myself showing that i was visibly upset and said something other than "nice hand" with a smile. And that was in a $40 pot or something and i just didn't like the guy, he was smug and arrogant, but acting like an ass doesn't solve anything. For the most part very happy about my attitude during bad beats and coolers and i think grinding online has helped alot because keeping your cool online is 5x harder! But i'm getting better and want to become a mental game rock.

Talk to you soon!

Thanks!

Jack Johnson is awesome!

Got a 1.5 mile run in this afternoon and the nutrition game on point! A step in the right direction.

First day back on the online grind since before last weekend. Put $500 on Global to play in the 50NL streets. Doin a bit of a do-over. Trying to get my mental game on track and just feeling like i'm not quite ready for 100NL. I won at 100NL but boy did i monkey tilt some sessions and i don't want any of that bull**** 100NL+, the money means too much to me at that point. Once i grind back to 100NL i'll stay the second time around. I'll also be frequenting the 200NL tables live on the weekend as a bankroll boost and a good break from the online grind.

Live=BR builder
Online=Getting better

Up $200 at 50NL on Global today's session. Sad to say there won't be any graphs here for awhile because as you may or not know you can't download hand histories or use HUDS on Global. But i can still save hands for study so no worries there. Alright see you next time gents!

I am going to give you some friendly advice to get a coach cause I think upswing might be confusing you on some of your decisions. I used to have online poker subs and the players are very advanced and I would misunderstand what they were teaching and apply it improperly in the wrong spots. The key is finding a good coach which is probably less then 10% of the coaches teaching. Its not how your playing your hands as much as how your thinking about the situations your in. Some of the mistakes I am seeing in these hands will be gone if you get a coach and your play will rapidly improve. I will pick a hand and try to help you understand what your doing wrong but I have no time to coach so your going to have to ask around poker community to find a good coach that doesn't charge to much. I am sure you can find one. Trust me it saves you money in the long run.

Ok i will pick this hand. So on this flop we should be cb here. We don't block diamonds. or drawing hands that he will continue with. And if he is probably going to check back value hands we are beating. So I would bet like 1/3rd. We can also extract value from Jx here that we beat. Checking makes no sense based on his overall range. hands we want to check are like 88-TT or Ax. But we should be betting all of our Jx in general on this flop and try to get value from worse and not let him realize equity with small pair. We don't want him to turn an 8 with 88. Or like AQ and he turns a gut shot or something.

On the turn when he bets as big as he did i would fold here unless he has 3b calling range thats pretty wide from mp his range is a lot stronger then then someone calling 3b on btn. I would put him on QQ Kx kind of hand on big turn bet. And it doesn't really make sense for him to bet a drawing hand here cause we can have Kx and we have pretty strong on this board. I would think he would check back his drawing hands on 4 to see free river. 4 doesn't really change anything for him to continue bluffing. I guess you think when he bets big he will call your shove with weaker Jx or weaker value hand? The shove makes no sense to me. I don't see reason or him to bet QT against your 3b range and also is he calling 3b in mp with it wishful thinking but possible. So if we think about all his bluffs and value hands here he just has a ton of value hands against what he thinks our range is. I guess he might take this line with AQ but I don't see it I would see a check back on turn with that too a lot of times. I guess you think he has ATdd here? He might fold that pre flop too. I would think he checks that back too. So your shove makes no sense if you think about his entire range he is betting on the turn to that big bet.

It just looks like value hands Kx a lot or QQ that is trying to get value on you before bad scare card hits the river. And only hand we are beating are folding. I guess QJ might call if hes bad reg that doesn't understand ranges. So the turn is pretty easy fold for me but you can call if you know this player plays a wide range from mp and is bad player. The only AJ i might consider calling here is AJss where at least I have a flush draw with it. I would call QQ-AA and better but I would not feel to good about it but the AA blocks the AK a lot better so we have to call but not shove. We aren't happy here on that big turn bet. My stomach turning when he bets big on the turn. Shoving is not even a thought if we think about what range he is betting on the turn. So this should be easy fold here on the turn. It looks like its not if we just look at AJ on that board but if we think about his range in 3b pot from mp its a easy fold especially with his big bet size.

I tend to flat with AJs vs ep and mp raises cause their ranges are stronger and you get in tough spots like this post where we don't really know where we are at in the hand unless you know this guy is lag then 3b it is fine and they tend to fold out the worse Ax pre to 3b like AT. I wanna keep those worse Ax in his range by flatting and seeing a flop. I would say I flat more often then 3b but 3b isn't awful. But you need a coach to explain this in much easier way then I could so you can remember what to do in these spots in the future. This is very poorly played hand when you shove the turn. But thats good you have subscription with upswing and you have this blog with goals and trying to improve you will get there if you stay dedicated to getting better. It will just take a bit longer if you don't get coaching.

What is this? He breaking down the math for him helping him out. More 2+2 cancer..

Well gents it's been a couple weeks since my last post and i won't lie i've had a bit of a set back. I was playing live every weekend and it took it's toll on me. I love live and i think it's super profitable but it messes up the rest of my week. Because i live 2 hours from the nearest casino, playing live means making a weekend out of it. Also the games are no good on the week days and because of this it means i need to spend as much time at the tables as possible and i end up not sleeping. It takes me the entirety of the next week to recover. My body, and more specifically my live, just can't handle that kind of wear and tear. It also stops me from being able to accomplish my fitness goals. As a result i got pretty depressed and slept like 60 hours this week. No sleep is no bueno for this guy.

So back to online poker it is. This way i can control my hours and not feel like i absolutely must play during certain times. It will allow my to keep a healthy sleep schedule and maintain the fitness regime that i would like to maintain. Although live did give a nice little bump to my roll i'm still going to keep to the original plan and grind back up from 50NL. I don't think i was ready to be at 100NL when i was there and i'd like to prove myself, mental game wise, by grinding back up from $500.

Also having some cushion in the life roll is nice and gives me more wiggle room and options with the upcoming semester. Still trying to decide if i want to go or not. Not because of poker or anything just not feeling the school vibes right now and it's nice to know that if i decide i want to take fall off i can handle that financially.

First session back on Bovada today went ok graph below:



I want to continue posting the goals and commit to doing it on mondays!

Night Gents!

Also quick note the site i use to post graphs, "TinyPic" is going down this year so if anyone could recommenced me another free site to post pictures onto this forum that would be great. Thanks!

Upswing is a trap. For a basic idea of what sound poker looks like it's a nice intro but it won't teach you how to crush. Where is your edge coming from if you play like everybody else? What % of upswing students are succeeding rather than lowering their losses?

So yeah, +1 to getting a coach, be very careful who you choose. Make sure you're learning how to think, how to exploit, how to crush fish and how to handle all the ABC regs.

Example, AJ hand just call turn to leave bluffs in range OTR

I feel i should clarify. AJ hand was not standard i was trying to exploit a particular player at my table. I'm not saying it was good but it's not how i'd normally play it. But i agree i think a coach would be very beneficial. How do you know who is and isn't a good coach? Also the reason something like upswing is nice is because the price. $45 a month as opposed to however many 100's a coach charges per hour. How does someone playing my stakes afford something like that?

A good coach teaches you how to teach yourself, ask the right questions. A couple hours of good coaching can set you up for dozens of hours of study. 10-12 hours utilised correctly can set you up for life. If you feel totally dependent on a coach they are doing you a disservice