Failed PG&C threads:


Starting at Microstakes (NL25); Questioning Convention to Create a Unique Playstyle
Quit My Full-Time Job.. Playing For a Living; Starting NL50
VPIP:45 Challenge; starting at NL25 6max
From 2nl; re-inventing conventional poker wisdom
Hungry Student of the Game; Starting at nl2, working hard to climb the stakes
Like Mario, nothing will stop me from rescuing the princess
PokerPhilosopher's journey from 2nl to the top. Agro BRM + Unconventional playing style
PokerPhilosopher Starting anew at NL2, Goal #1 is $10k profit
Me again? NL2z to NL50z in 2018; Having fun and aggressively trying to move up
Quest for a Real GTO Strategy; Challenge 1: NL2 to NL5


All of my past failures in poker (see links above) have led me to this exact moment in time. I have spent countless months in the past, trying to figure out what GTO is all about. Trying to figure out what balance means, and how to apply MDFs. Sometimes, I've even donked around with completely dumb strategies. All of it, although riddled with countless mistakes, has led me to my final "aha" moment. The moment where I realized where I went wrong, and how to build a winning strategy moving forward.

After 7+ years of poker failure, I have not yet given up. I was almost ready to, near the end of last year. Feeling dejected, I went back to my other passion: videogame development. Started work on a game, but a few weeks ago, I had the aforementioned "aha" moment. So I did what any sane man would do. I ignored it.

Fast forward to the past week or two. I couldn't ignore it any further; I want to give this poker thing one last shot. I know what I need to do to work on my strategy. It will take me a little while longer to finish the basics of it, but will start playing NL2z again soon. Want to be aggressive with BRM at the start, to get out of the lowest of the micro stakes.

I will one day be the best. It will take time, effort, and a bit of luck. But that is my goal, and this is my last shot at achieving it. Join me, as this newly-formed Zoom prodigy climbs up the ranks and shows that a leopard can indeed change its spots.

More details to be forthcoming. Would like to start playing before the end of January.

lul. You didnt realize where you previously went wrong despite literally every poster in your previous threads telling you? Considering you are obsessed with gto have you bothered to actually buy some gto software yet or will you continue to just make it up as you go along and waste your time again?

GL hope this one works for you c:

P.S. mirage01 = the most sexually frustrated guy on Earth ^^

Hahaha thanks Finland. Mirage, you know I'm too cool for commercial GTO software. I program my own, PokerPhilosopher style! Ok, I'll humor you. My main problem before was that my frequencies were out of whack, and sometimes quite badly. And I was going about range construction in the wrong way.

Now that I know what I'm doing, ain't no one gonna stop me! My top-down understanding of the game is elite. You're just gonna have to wait until I start cruising up those stakes.

(As you can tell, I'm trying to have a bit of fun with this thread )

Even though I'm trying to have fun with this thread, I'm completely serious about finally turning my poker results around. So time to post my first goal:

1) 40 hours/week devoted to poker

Won't be easy, as I work full-time. But need this as the foundation to any success I might will have. I still have the urge to create videogames, so will be difficult to suppress that urge. Just have to keep the bigger picture in mind.

Still working on the software to help with my range development, but getting close to finishing it. It's not GTO software like I was trying to do before. This one is just meant to help me "sort" (for lack of a better word) my ranges, and to help build proper value and defending ranges. Once this program is complete, which will hopefully be within the next week, I can start building my ranges properly. The program won't build my ranges for me, but it will give me the tools to build rock-solid ranges myself.

So the plan is as follows:

- Finish developing the program, and then build the main preflop ranges.
- Start playing nl2z, and try to play somewhat reasonable postflop. During this time, I will do 75% study / 25% play. Study time will be devoted to working on my flop ranges. Will not move up to nl5z until my basic flop strategy is complete.

Once my flop ranges are done, I'll move up to nl5z (assuming BR has grown enough). Will then switch to a 25% study / 75% play ratio. I'll probably be trying to use an aggressive BRM approach to move through the micros quicker, but won't move up to NL50 until I've worked sufficiently on my turn play.

I'll be looking to improve my strategy by building from preflop on out. Start with solid preflop ranges, and then build my flop strategy for every preflop range. From there, move to the turn, and then finally to the river. By that time, hopefully I'll be at 100z or 200z.

********************

Goal for the rest of this week (from Jan 21 to Jan 22):

[] 10 hours (100% study)

Study checklist [Needed before starting play at NL2z]:

[] Finish programming the software
[] Preflop RFI / Iso-raise ranges
[] Preflop 4Bet / Call 3Bet / Call 5Bet ranges
[] Preflop 3Bet ranges
[] Preflop 5Bet / Call 4Bet ranges
[] Preflop Call RFI ranges
[] Preflop Call Squeeze (after Calling RFI) ranges

what one earth for?

Don't you have any sort of life? Aren't you like in your late thirties...I can think of way better ways of spending all that time, and if you've got a family it gets even worse.

If you work full time, you are playing poker recreationally. Even if you are a serious devoted rec, you can easily tailor your poker time around the rest of you life, but obviously not if you are going to put in the hours of a full time grinder.

You seem obsessed with beating online poker (which frankly you should have done years ago, if you are any good at it) without really having any rhyme or reason behind your obsession.

Pretty confusing really????

and as for the "fun" thread thing...nah. Does not work like that. If you want a fun thread, fill it with humour; not random comments about how good you are/will be.

6 days since opening post, how many hands played?

solid pre flop ranges are not rocket science.didnt you 'build' some pre flop ranges months ago where u were playing 7/5 or something?

I guess troll can't read lol.

Fatboy, it's because I am super-competitive, and if I have any glimmer of hope, I will continue to try. The only reason I haven't given up after the last attempt is because I believe I finally have the correct top-down (big-picture) view of the game. I finally know how to build my frequencies correctly. I still need to figure out smaller details, but I finally see the whole puzzle.

I want to push myself hard now so I can move up quicker. I'm not going to be playing a ton of tables (probably just 2 at the start). I want poker to be able to replace some of my work hours eventually. You can feel free to laugh at me if I fail again. Otherwise, just enjoy the journey where I show that even after years of failure, it's possible to find success.

It's not about laughing at people, and nor do I buy your "I'm competitive" line.

it's about being able to look in the mirror and be honest with yourself.

Go off and read/follow the pgc of people that have actually made it in online poker...you will find a number of common traits (obviously there are always exceptions).

they are young
they are single
they grind big volume at very unsociable hours (ie when the fish are online)
they study very hard and always with the latest tech resources.
they move up quickly (and specifically, they spend very little time at microstakes)
They know the environment and there is far more to their game than just technical knowledge.

How long have you been playing nano-stakes?

Face it, its not happening. Just enjoy your hobby and look elsewhere for success in life.

What makes you think you could execute a "GTO" strategy if you had one?

gl

If you think I'm gonna fail, then I'm not gonna continue to try to change your mind. You're entitled to your opinion.

I'm not trying to execute a GTO strategy. Who knows what that really even looks like? I'm just working on a solid, balanced strategy that will not be able to be easily exploited (Maybe "GTO Lite" if you'd like lol). Then, once I've started building up population samples, I can mix in exploitative strategies.

One new piece of news. There's a possibility I may be working a second job (so 6 or 7 days a week instead of 5) in the next couple weeks. So if that happens, I may do more studying while I save up a little bit of money, and then just make a deposit and start at nl25z or something and skip a big chunk of the micros. Until I hear back from them though, I'll continue with the current plan.

********************

Last Week (Jan 21-22):

[-] 10 hours (100% study) [8.1 hours]

********************

Goals for this week (Jan 23-29):

[] 35 hours poker time (100% study, until checklist is complete)

********************

Study checklist [Needed before starting play at NL2z]:

[] Finish programming the software
[] Preflop RFI / Iso-raise ranges
[] Preflop 4Bet / Call 3Bet / Call 5Bet ranges
[] Preflop 3Bet ranges
[] Preflop 5Bet / Call 4Bet ranges
[] Preflop Call RFI ranges
[] Preflop Call Squeeze (after Calling RFI) ranges

Okay cool fair enough. Just keep in mind a lot of the exploits are pretty simple/obvious and you shouldn't delay integrating them if you want to get out of micros.

I cringed. Good luck

gl

Fair enough I'll leave you in peace...but with this thought...

Your words in 2012, in the first of your 11 (to date PGCs).

Think about that before you come back again and start your 12th.

lul

Thanks for the gls. Fatboy, you're welcome to stay; I'd be more than happy to prove you wrong lol. Sure, it's taken me a lot more time to improve than some, but 11th time's a charm, right?

The software is getting very close to completion. Most of the hard computational stuff is done. Just trying to find a practical way to store/access/display all the (soon-to-be) computed data, and then it's almost about good to go. Once that's done, range/line development will go a lot smoother. And you'll finally see how those several years of mediocrity have led to this prodigious journey. Maybe I started this thread a month too early lol, but it's good to have something to keep me motivated through this somewhat tedious work.

Possibly my last update for awhile. I will most likely be working a second job very soon. I think the only thing to be figured out is if we can work out a schedule that works for both places, in which I don't foresee any problems. I used to work for him several years ago.

So, I will be trying to save up maybe 30BIs or so for NL25. Once I'm able to make a deposit, will start playing NL25, and once the bankroll hits $1k, will probably build shots for NL50. I will allow myself 3 months to save up this money. Could be less, if the extra hours are enough. I don't think it would take any longer. So I'll set a tentative return date of May 1 to this thread.

It's probably good anyway, as my software will need more time to develop. Right now, I could work on my preflop and flop game, and part of my turn game. But my software will need to run probably close to 200 hours to finish computing and storing the turn data (so maybe another week and a half or so of constant running). And the river data will take much longer. Although, I probably won't truly need the full river data until I make it much higher, as I can use reasonable estimates for most situations I won't have the full data for.

So yeah, that's all for now. If all goes as planned, I may still play a little here and there before making the deposit, if I feel like testing anything. But I probably won't update again until I'm ready to make the deposit and start playing higher. Or if I don't end up working a second job and have to keep chugging along lol.

Looks like you have learnt literally nothing from your last thread and the worst thing you could do is deposit to play higher.

If you were serious about poker you'd just get a coach. That way they could tell you how stupid you're being and actually start making you better at poker.

The difference is I see things differently now. I see where I went wrong strategy-wise in the past. I know how to build a proper strategy now. Bottom line is, this strategy is my last chance to make it in online poker. If it doesn't work, then I'm done.

So the way I see it, I have two choices: I can either start at nl2 and slowly work my way up until I find out a long time from now whether or not my strategy is any good at the higher stakes. Or, I can work more hours short-term, save up some money to deposit, and start playing those "higher" stakes a lot sooner. Doing the latter, I'll know sooner whether or not my strategy is any good. If I'm not doing the latter, then I'm just wasting more time than I need to (whether my strategy is a winning one, or a losing one).

I will be a maestro of poker, and this strategy is my magnum opus. Or my swan song.

As I said, if you want to be serious get a coach it is a better use of your money. A good coach who plays those higher limits would be able to tell you how ridiculous your strategy was straight away no doubt.

Also 25nl is micro stakes if you are working an extra job just take shots at 200nl. There is no such thing as a bankroll unless you are a pro so needing 30BI for a limit is stupid it's completely ok to reload.

Not that you should do that but if it's what you want to do it's a more optimal way of doing it.

Where do I even start lol? Why are you assuming my strategy is ridiculous? You know next to nothing about my strategy.

You are completely wrong when you say "there is no such thing as a bankroll unless you're a pro", unless your definition of bankroll is different than the actual definition.

You do have an interesting idea though. I'm not gonna take it to that extent, taking nl200 shots right off the bat lol. But instead of saving up 30BIs (or whatever number) for nl25, maybe I'll just deposit $100-200 every couple weeks and take 4-8 BI shots at nl25. And maybe eventually nl50 shots when I grow the bankroll large enough with the deposits. 50nl is where I don't mind spending time grinding up the normal way, as I'll probably need to really flesh out the strategy more before hitting up nl100.

So instead of testing your new strategy on lower stakes like 2nl which you cant seem to be even beat, you are just going to deposit and play on 25nl a stake you have never played or beat? Sounds solid. Get used to making those sandwiches.

Oh mirage, mirage, mirage. I know my strategy will be more than good enough to beat nl25. Just have a little faith! I'm not trying to do any unconventional stuff anymore. Not trying to reinvent the game. Just simple, solid, aggressive poker.

At any rate, there are a few hiccups in the second job. My current job may need me on the days the second job needs me (over the next month or so). So if that's the case, I don't know if the second job can wait that long. If not, then it looks like I'll be staying the course and just continuing with nl2z for now. But obviously, I'd prefer the other option of working two jobs for the next little while to save up money to play higher.

Well, having my doubts now about if I'll get the second job. Just don't know if my current boss will be able to give me the required days off. So I'll probably start playing at the lower end of the micros soon. Thinking about depositing $100 on Stars to get the bonus, and then probably starting at nl5 (will decide on how aggressive I want my early BRM to be later).

One thing I wanted to run past you guys.. I just finished calculating my RFI frequencies (ran into some hiccups with developing the software, but that is nearing completion now). I'm using Janda's method of treating later street bluffs as current street value bets (when used to determine current street bluffing frequencies). Which I think makes sense, and seems to provide reasonable RFI frequencies. The SB RFI% though is a lot more than all opening charts I've seen out there. These are my results:

EP - 19.3%
MP - 23.8%
CO - 31.0%
BU - 44.4%
SB - 93.6%

This is with a 2bb open size. A bit looser than I'm accustomed to, but that might just explain a bit why I was having trouble winning at anything above nl2z before (playing too tight). The SB% still seems a bit weird to me, as I'm not accustomed to opening that wide there. Again, I'm not trying to do anything weird and unconventional. So if that's not correct and I made a mistake somewhere, then I'll obviously need to fix that.