Hey guys,

I’ve thought about this for a while now, but finally decided to create a PGC myself. Since 2016 is almost here, and 2015 was quite a fail poker-wise (or results wise at least) I’ve set my goals and want to share my journey with you guys. Before I go into that, let me quickly tell something about myself. I am a Belgian economics student (commercial sciences to be precise) at university, play the most beautiful yet frustrating multi table tournaments and I am currently in quite some make up. Who isn’t, right? Anyway, 2015 was a really weird year. Ran pretty bad throughout, even to the point it started to mentally affect me. Won Ipoker major in august to clear a big chunk of my make-up. Then got crushed during WCOOP and especially in October (lost for like 15 consecutive sessions or w/e) and before I knew my make-up peaked at an all-time high.

I definitely made mistakes in 2015, and decided to move down to a lower variance schedule for a while, before I got my mind/confidence in the right place again. I also studied a ton after WCOOP (marked like 800 spots in one month) and improved my game lots during that time. I really liked this low variance schedule, but I also feel like online poker is getting harder every day. Therefore I have decided to play a higher variance schedule again in 2016, but I’ll try to avoid some mistakes I made in 2015. For example, late regging the b109 at the 2hours break in bb300 isn’t probably the smartest idea I’ve ever had. I’ll still avoid some tough tournaments where I believe my edge is minimal, and will try to play as much non turbo as possible. I plan on doing so until my make-up is hopefully gone or is at least at a very low point. As one of my goals is to play on my own at the end of 2016, I’ll then play a lower variance schedule again to build a proper bankroll.

I am currently studying for my upcoming exams in January (got like 10 of them), so pbb won’t be playing until the end of January. Great start of a PGC I know. I am currently in my 3rd and final year of my bachelor. Since I had this ambitious idea in September to finish my bachelor by June (or September depending on resits) next year, it’s definitely gonna be an interesting year. I also plan on keep working out at least 3 times a week, and in general just have a better balance in life.

So goals for 2016 are

[ ] keep doing well at university
[ ] play as much A-game as possible (don’t auto pilot)
[ ] travel to some fun places (whether or not poker-related)
[ ] read some (more) books
[ ] keep working out

AMBITIOUS GOALS

[ ] finish my bachelor, start master
[ ] play on my own at the end of 2016
[ ] final table a live bird (got like 10th, 11th, 17th and 23rd with like decent 5 figs up top)

I know you guys love giraffes, so here you go



I’ll probably also write about other stuff such as TV series, books, music and whatever I feel like doing so. Hope you guys will enjoy this. I am ready to give it my all. I’ll end this tl;dr OP with the GOAT motivational vid (longer version than the one in Thelipofund’s thread, which is an awesome thread btw)

**** yeah, in. Much gl in 2016.

So yesterday was my last session of the year, and it also was the first session I played b109, swu, 109’s on party, ipoker 75 major etc again. I honestly was really happy with my session, despite losing almost 4 figures. I got coolered a bunch at the start of my session but felt really focused throughout my entire session. Was very happy with the way I handled the negative variance. In the end, made a few small runs but wasn’t meant to be.

I got into a very interesting spot in the b55 towards the end of the grind. Definitely not happy with the way I played this hand.



Let me first explain my thought process. Think defend is pretty standard. Flop is interesting. Ingame I thought J9 would be a very good combo to x/c instead of x/r because whenever a jack rolls off, he picks up equity (whether it’s a pair or a gutshot) while we improve to a fullhouse, so we don’t need as much protection with this particular hand. Think it’s an ok logic, and pbb mixing ingame is the best.

Anyway turn is probably the most interesting. I don’t really have a leading range on these turns (which in general favours villain more than me) but definitely think it’s a viable option. Problem with leading these turns is being well balanced in those spots, since we are splitting our range so heavily. It’s something which is far less important in (midstakes) mtt’s compared to other games, but still something to be careful with anyway. So once he bets, we are in quite an awkward spot. Effective stacks are pretty terrible now.

Anyway I decided to x/c once again and now the river is a total blank. I figured at this point he would/should be checking a ton of hands back (since my x/c x/c range is super strong) and therefore decided to lead out a mere 14k, hoping to get a cry call from kx+ basically. But as I said, think turn is by far the most interesting decision/’biggest mistake’. I discussed this briefly with my backer, and we came to the consensus that x/r turn is probably the best. Although stacksizes are awkward, I think a small x/r is pbb the superior strategy right here (maybe even minraise). We definitely can balance it with enough (semi) bluffs to make him indifferent too, so I think I really like that. Very interesting spot all in all though. Would definitely appreciate any comments on this one.

A few more fun hands from yesterday



I'm not really interested in making my screennames public for now, but pbb won't keep it a huge secret either. would appreciate not posting them in this thread though. That's all for now. Gonna do some studying for university now, as my rythm is totally ****ed up haha.

subbed gl

no thread on pn?

gl!

gl in 2016/subbed

Illy. Nokia ftw glgl

subbed mate gl!

If i could give you a small advice, just don't look at the whole mountain. Try to do one step at a time, play every session separetely like its your last one and you'll get out of this pretty soon

Tonight I needed a study break (parents are away => no food in the house ^^) so went for a pizza, ate it at at friend's place, and they were playing small stakes PLO, so I fired some tables too when I was back at home. Basically my strat wAS '3bet all pretty hands, then flat 4bets 100% of the time and hope to hit something'. Was up a couple of buy ins actually, but felt like I ran very well though. It's definitely a funny game and I really enjoyed it for a change. Don't have any time for mtt's right now, so pbb will be playing a few more short sessions in my study breaks in the next month. Some fun hands from today






What a sick game huh, calling 100bb+ with ten high preflop, and being a 55% favourite 4way after the flop

This is basically me playing PLO though



thx, much love <3

ty

not at this moment no. ty

haha I see what you did there blakky, thx <3

cool thx. def good advice, something I lacked doing a lot this year actually. Just gonna play my heart out every session, and not care too much about results hopefully. you can save this quote for february tho <3

Hope you all have a good NYE, and gl in 2016

In for the ride, best of luck this year man!

So in for this PGC, gl my friend!

Clear that make-up

So I have been busy studying my ass of for the last couple of weeks. Currently had 6 exams, pbb passed 3 or 4 (was pretty unlucky with a few imho) Have my next one on wednesday, so decided to fire a small session yesterday (first of the year really). Started regging around the millball. Started out strong, didn't bust a single tournament for over an hour, then busted one after the other. managed to get a few mincashes, busting last tournament rather annoying but w/e. was slightly annoyed during/after my session. Something which frustrates me a lot is not being able to continue amass chips after getting a nice stack. It's something which is particular true for the last year. I'm sure it's just due to running bad, but it's still very annoying. For example, yesterday I got up to 170k in bb3k in my last tournament, then just got cartdead, opened a few spots, defended my bb a couple of times, and before I know bb is 6k and I got 20-25bb left. Sure that's the nature of mtt's, and I'm not forcing anything, but it's still very annoying and it sometimes makes me doubt myself. Anyway gonna hit the study grind hard for another 2 weeks (4 more exams coming up) and will start grinding in february. Probably gonna play a live bird as well in the netherlands at the end of this month, so should be fun. Meanwhile gonna try to not have too many resits in august (resits take place in august in belgium, yeah we are weird lol)

Looking through my pt4 database now, to see if I have some cool hands to share.



turn is pretty interesting, think betting large'ish is good to make him fold a lot of his <toppair hands. could check too, because I'll have better hands to double barrel as a bluf as well. Blocking turned 2 pairs is still nice tho. Going for 3 if river bricks most of the time.



king of the induce. think it's good to sometimes check back these coordinates boards with pretty strong hands.



Just clicking buttons Obv very exploitable but figured ingame villain will have a lot of broadway gutshots, and most of the times kx bets on the flop. Leaves him with 99, maybe some pp's (TT-JJ if he doesn't 3b/c them pre) and quite a lot of draws who will be forced to fold turns. Think it's a good exploit to attack capped ranges vs a lot of villains who don't think very deeply about these spots.

That's all for now

Ok, so exams are finally over. Results are in a week, so I’ll enjoy this beautiful moment as much as possible. (LOL) Anyway, had my last one yesterday morning at 9pm, took it and then immediately drove to the Netherlands to play a live bird in Utrecht. Pretty sweet tournament, almost all the regs from the Dutch (live) community are there, so I always have a good time there. On to the tournament then.

Despite having a very good starting table, I immediately dropped down from 25k start to 15k, just losing every damn pot. First break in I was already imagining myself at the bar, but things started to turn around then. Managed to win a few pots to get me back up to 30k, and then I pulled a pretty sick bluff which got through. MP (ok’ish player, somewhat spewy, but a thinking player) opens to 1200 at bb500, I defend KQss in the bb. Flop comes down A87ssx I check/call a 1600 bet which I think is super standard and we shouldn’t be doing anything else really. Turn is an ofsuit 4, I check, he rather quickly bets 4.6k. At this point it’s a pretty interesting spot, I think x/c is pretty meh since he will be checking back a lot of spade rivers, and we can’t really win the pot if we do miss. Think x/f is pretty decent, but I went for the x/r. So I made it 11.6k leaving myself with about 17k behind. I have all the 65s, all the two pairs & 77/88 so think that’s a viable line to take and balance it with a few flushdraws/straightdraws (with pairs or whatever). Anyway he doesn’t think too long about it, and calls. River is a ofsuited Jack, and I think about it for more than a minute, but I was like ‘this spot is almost never being bluffed, 9T got there as well, I’m just going for broke and he pbb snaps me with sets+ and some 2 pairs or whatever. So I jam, and villain folds like in less than half a minute and I feel like I am the GOAT obv. I told villain some bull**** story about having T9, and he allegedly had 78s. I don’t know, it seems a good call combination, but on the other hand, not much people are bat**** crazy to bluff jam that spot I guess. So that worked out well, chipped up to 80k, and then got reseated to a bigstack stable. First hand I’m involved is again a pretty interesting one.

I open black Tens with +- 80k UTG to 3600 (bb1600), and MP (very agro, lagg’ish but yet pretty decent live reg) makes it 9k. I call, think folding is too weak against this player. Flop comes 854r (with one club) (iirc) I x/c 10k bet, turn is 4c goes check/check. River is the 7c, I check and he puts me all in (55k into 40k pot or something like that) I think about it for more than 2-3 minutes, but eventually let it go. At first I thought this doesn’t make much sense, and I’m capped etc but then I thought he could play KK+ that way too, and that would really suck if he does that. So I made the tough fold, and he later claimed to have had aces, which is definitely possible but I don’t know if that was true. So after that hand, I waited for a good spot to get it in. Got pretty short, got one rejam trough, than doubled kk > kq to get an avg stack again. Last level of the night, I hit 130k, and then another interesting hand happened. I open MP A9cc to 6.3k or whatever, sb (the villain from hand 2) flats, bb (pretty bad lag reg) comes along as well. Flop is a62hhc (iirc) they both check, I decide to check back. Not totally in love with that check back, but definitely don’t hate it either. Turn is the 5c, sb leads 12k into approximately 20. I call. River is the 6h, and he bets 30.4k. I hit the tank for a pretty long time, and eventually folded. I think a lot of people will just snapcall because they checked behind etc but I think folding is ok. He definitely can play all his aces that way (and he pbb doesn’t play like much less than A8, so most of his aces do have me crushed). The 6 is a ok’ish card for me too, I will have some sixes, so he should be pretty careful with bluffing this spot, and flush got there too. So yeah, I don’t know, felt pretty gross but decided to fold. Villain again allegedly claimed to have had AJ. And also, what kind of bluffs should villain have. He probably will just give up with a lot of his broadways because they don’t pick up any equity, so that removes a lot of his possible bluffs imho then. I don’t know, tough hand. I eventually finished day1 with 85k.

Today was day 2, had 21bb’s and we were pretty close to itm, so I have a pretty good grasp of that game. Decided to nit it up, and take a few good reshove spots when they came up. I almost tripled pretty close to ITM (btn opens, sb reshoves, I look down at 2 beautiful black kings and hold against TT & AK) so that was nice. Got itm with around 40bb, and then got reseated. Was pbb the toughest table left, so I was going to wait for good spots and not force anything, and basically the first hand I got involved in, was my busthand as well. It was a pretty annoying spot, but don’t think I could have gotten away from it. So I open MP KJo (haven’t been involved in any action in two orbits at this table) en the guy next to me (german, pretty decent) flats. Flop is J42ccc I bet 14k into 35k he calls. Turn is an ofsuited 8, I check, he checks behind. Turn is an ofsuited king (I bet 39k into 65k) and he puts me all in for 65-70k more), and I puke called it of rather fast. Like, if we think about it. We block Jacks & Kings if he ever would valuejam those on the river, I’m not sure). He’s solid enough to not have 22 & 44, he could have eights, but then again would he be valuejamming those on the river? So yeah, his valuecombo’s are mostly flopped flush, and the Jc is on the table, so that removes quite a lot of flush combo’s, like AJcc QJcc KJcc and JTcc are all reasonable flatting hands for him I guess. So that leaves him with ace high flushes, but then again he was pretty solid, so I expect him to not have much worse than ATcc and 3b/c AKcc and sometimes AQcc, so those are really like 2 combo’s ATcc AQcc. Then he definitely could have KQcc, and he will sometimes have QTcc & KTcc (definitely won’t flat those 100% pre, but could sometimes). And then he sometimes has some suited connector flushes like T9cc 98cc but all in all, those are like 5-8 combo’s of flushes, and I didn’t really expect him to valuejam much sets (beside we block those) and I got a pretty sick price as well. I had to call 65k for a pot worth 300k+ so he should really be not bluffing not much at all for us to make it a good call. If he has 5-8 valuecombo’s, he should really only have like literally 1 or 2 bluff combo’s which I think is definitely possible for him to have. So yeah, I’m still pretty happy with the call I made and definitely with the way I played these two past days. Felt really in the zone, and had a very good thinking process in almost every hand. So yeah, I shrugcalled, and he did have the flopped AQcc wich was unfortunate but just a very unlucky river for me, and I don’t could have gotten away from it really. So I took like 40th or w/e with 50k up top, but that’s ok still pretty happy.

I hope you guys enjoyed this report, I always like reading these reports from other players so I don’t know. Gonna watch the world champs cyclocross (wtf is cyclocross??) tomorrow and gonna hit the grind hard after that. GL all tomorrow. <3

Sub'd glgl!

about time you had one of these!

Your savers are top. I appreciate that. Thank you.

gl this year. will be reading

Nice thread. Good luck!.

Yesterday was interesting. I first had a blast watching the world champs cyclocross; both the U23 and Elite were awesome to watch. Cyclocross is super popular in Belgium (and mostly the Flemish part) as basically all the top riders are either from Belgium or the Netherlands nowadays. It’s fast, spectacular, exciting and just very enjoyable to watch. Belgium’s top favorite got it in the end after a nerve-wrecking race so that was pretty sweet. To give a quick impression of what cyclocross looks like, here’s a short summary of the race:



Got on the grind after that. Started regging around 6pm CET, and basically played up to 109 buy in non turbo, and 33/44 turbo/hypers + warmup/millie as usual. Didn’t really get much going, definitely not at the start of my grind. I couldn’t seem to build any nice stacks, however I had a small run in the 27 hyper which eventually fizzled out after losing a few showdowns. Then around peak hour, stars crashed for the first time. At first I thought it was a regular freeze, but after a few minutes I found out whole client crashed while other sites were going strong. So I had to force the client to close, and after reopening everything seemed fine. Meanwhile all my timebanks were gone though, and I just had to click call in an 80bb pot with aces in the H11 which got folded obviously. So yeah was pretty ****ing annoyed after that, didn’t really affect my game too much. As the evening progressed, I was bricking tournaments left and right, but eventually build a few stacks in the last tournaments. Went from 1/47 to 30th in my daysaver (mainly after losing ak<aq for chiplead but w/e) and got a semi deep run in the 11r (which has an awesome structure now). Pretty weird my bb/100 winrate was terrible yesterday, even though I felt I played pretty good. I guess a lot of factors influence that winrate, so won’t attach too many value on such a short term to it.

Last week I did some kind of review/strategy talk with my backer, which is always very refreshing/interesting as he’s a top-class player, who is always on top of the newest trends and it made me think so much about different lines/approaches to take in so many spots, so yeah that was very cool. We really have done this way too less, and it’s just stupid because he is ****ing sick at this game. As a result of that, I marked about 35 hands yesterday, and went through those with him today as well. Was happy to see he agreed with me on most of those hands, as I took some different in a few spots, so excited about implementing that and progressing as a player. I’m going on winter holiday from Wednesday/Sunday but I might fire a session tomorrow (and sleep in the car then) not sure about that yet. I’m ****ing excited for this ski trip, as I didn’t go for the past two years and really regretted it. Snow conditions won’t probably be the best ever, but shouldn’t stop me from having a good time as most of the ski slopes are open anyway. I’d say I’m an above average skier but not super sick or anything. I can get along on all the slopes without much problems, might actually work a bit on my technique as I already have watched a few short movies on how to improve that. (LOL professional deformation much)

I’ll end this with some hands from yesterday which I thought were interesting/pretty cool.






This one was so ****ing painful in game, felt really close between bet and check on the river to begin with. Timed forever as he snapjammed too, but whatever.






Thanks all, really appreciate that.

var·i·ance
(vâr′ē-əns, văr′-)
n.
1. The state or quality of being variant or variable; variation: considerable variance in temperature across the region.
2.
a. Difference or inconsistency: Your behavior is at variance with your beliefs.
b. The state or fact of being in disagreement or in conflict: I am at variance with her over who should pay forthe damage.

So I want to share some quick thoughts on variance. Variance is what drives the poker economy, it’s why recreational players play the game, it’s why poker has been sustainable for this long, and it shouldn’t really upset me. And yet it does sometimes. Variance is hard to describe. It comes in so many different forms. Sure you can look at your bb/100 graph and compare it to your EV bb/100 line, but that doesn’t take a lot of things into accounts. Like for example coolers, but so many other things as well. Terrible runouts for example are a much underrated kind of variance. Today’s session – at least in the beginning - was one of those where every board seemed to runout in the worst possible way for me. Basically your game plan is ‘check twice’ and bet river kind of big, and BOOM there is that one card which takes away that option. Or you check back a monster, because it’s a board which is going to be barreled a lot, and the turn is the ace while you were trying to rep that hand, and thus villain doesn’t take a stab at it, and you lose a lot of potential value. Another kind of variance is whether or not your opponent hits a piece of the board while you have a strong hand, or whiffed the board when you missed as well. Sometimes you have these sessions where every continuation bet is being called, and you are being put in very tough spots, or you end up in very tough spots, and you just feel like nothing is going your way. Well, that’s variance too. It shouldn’t be that way, at least not always. If you open BTN and bb defends, you should mostly win on an A28r board. It’s very easy to confuse variance with playing bad. You realize you aren’t building any good stacks, all of your herocalls go wrong, your overbets got called but you might actually be playing better compared to a session where everything seems to work out and you are building stack after stack. In consequence, it’s very hard to measure when you are playing your best poker. It’s very easy to overestimate your skills during an upswing and it’s very easy to underestimate them when you are running badly as well. So if results aren’t a good measurement, and the EV is pretty flawed as well, at what can we look to determine if we played well? I guess there is only one good answer to this, and it’s trying to measure how many spots we’ve played to the maximum of our capabilities. Assuming we are winning at poker, we should just make as much optimal decisions as possible and detach ourselves from results. Although it sounds so easy, it can be so ****ing hard sometimes.

Today was my first morning/early afternoon session, and I have to say I’m pretty satisfied with it and it’s definitely worth repeating. Fields seem to be much softer, and there is a pretty nice schedule to be played actually. With the addition of the latest bounty builders and some new hots/bigs, it’s pretty decent really. I might play some more of those in the 2nd semester if I have some early classes to catch. Topped at 34 mtt’s which is much more than I expected, since I stopped regging pretty early due to my upcoming winter holiday. Eventually caught some heat in the end, and made 3 final tables, where I once again established myself as a proud member of #teamcantclose. Especially that 109fo was cruel. Had a big chiplead 3 handed (350k vs 130k & 60k) and had everything under control, but kept losing my showdowns and eventually busted in 3th. That’s variance too. Probably gonna win/or at least get HU >70% of the time, and now I got 3th although I played very well throughout that final table. Funny/weird overall graph today, it’s nice to see my post ante graph is improving, but might (again) just be variance too. Leave tonight/early morning for 4 days of snow fun, cya all next week kids.

hey,

in that batch of hands you posted above why do you lead turn smallish in h1 and overbet turn in h2? seems like h1 our range would benefit from a more chunky sizing or overbet ott as well..

tx and gl

Pretty much agree with everything you said about variance.

Its a bitch

hey thx for asking. Imho we benefit more in hand 1 from a wider range of valuebets compared to hand 2. It's hard to explain my exact thought process but in hand 1 I'd like to valuebet basically any pair on the turn, and in hand 2 I perhaps want to valuebet qj+ or whatever. So yeah the more genuine valuebets we have, the more i'm decreasing my sizing. Think villain's (based on population tendencies) checkback range is a lot weaker on a t62r board, compared to a jt5 fd board. I think it would be a mistake to valuebet a hand like 95s or t6s on the turn because villain can easily check back stronger hands. Not entirely sure about the overbet though, might be fine on a 3rd diamond, and might possibly be one of the best sizings for my current hand as an exploit, so I think it's fine'ish. You could def use a more regular sizing as well (70-80% or something in that neighbourhood) I'm not entirely sure about that. Hope that makes some sense

Arrived well in the dolomites. It was snowing pretty hard yesterday, so slopes should be goood.

Thoughts on the KJ on J98 hand?

think it's a good combo to balance our flushes with having the Ks which both blocks kq and king high flushes. Also villain doesn't have a lot of flushes the way he played his hand, but can have a good amount of qx, so that's why I decided to x/r instead of x/c (pbb a spot which is underbluffed usually too)

yeah it certainly does thx for responding

so in hand 1 you would v-bet 4x+ and that's just cuz pop tendencies at these stakes aren't balancing their flop x/b ranges enough, ya? and at higher stakes you would do more turn checking

Yeah something like that.

Got the results of my exams tonight. Passed 9 out of 10, super happy and pbb best case scenario. Ski'ing has been going very well too. Had a small crash at a black slope today though, but nothing serious. At the end of the day, the slopes become pretty icy with a lot of bumps. I'm an ok'ish intermediate, but when it gets icy I still mess up.

Don't know if you guys are familiar with the dolomites, but did the 'sella ronda' again today. It's pretty cool since you make some kind of 'circle route' around 4/5 italian mountains. You got amazing views during the route as well.

http://www.sella-ronda.info/eng/index.html