Hey,

So I figured this would be a fun/rewarding way to track my live NL progress. I've been playing online for quite some time, averaging 35-40k hands a month while working full time over the last 10 months. My results have been decentish, and my monthly average in 2016 was ~+$2300. A decent, but admittedly not fantastic result.

As for live poker, I've only been playing it since December, which was when I truly discovered it/finally got around to getting used to it and started forcing myself to go to the casino. It was a bit difficult at first since a casino can be a pretty unique/scary environment if you're not used to it. God knows how many times I messed up simple things at the table over the first few sessions. I definitely came across as a total idiot since I'd mess up simple things like raising properly, would act out of turn etc. lol

Anyway, since live poker is so ridiculously soft I quickly realized I'd be an idiot not to put in as many hours as possible every month (and basically focus less on online/sacrifice online hours in favor of live hours). I see so many bizarre plays each session that simply wouldn't ever happen online at NL100. This obviously isn't news to anyone, but after having been a strict online player for so long it's crazy to see. People are happy to basically call off 250bb+ with 88 on 432ssxTs all day etc.

I honestly don't see how anybody could go on a massive live downswing playing conservatively/fundamentally sound poker as a standard, and making exploitative plays in obvious spots. I'd estimate sustainable wr's to be 35-45bb/100 or something in that region, which doesn't really allow for huge downswings. I could be wrong/I haven't done my research regarding this, but this is at least very likely close to being true (after 1m+ hands online I'd like to think I'm at least decent at coming up with somewhat accurate estimates of sustainable winrates for different types of games).

I do love online poker though, and do enjoy studying it and putting in stupid hours. And that's why I don't wanna give up online poker altogether, since live poker's just a much slower, dumbed down version of the poker I'm used to. Making far more $ than I normally would is pretty appealing though, obviously.

Results 2017

January:

Live $2/$3NL: ~+$3100 over 50 hours (so, like 1500 hands lol)
Online NL 6m: -$1850 over 21k hands (my second losing month ever, and the previous one was close to b/e - so January was my worst online poker month by far)

Total: ~+$1200

February so far:

Live $2/$3NL: +$1700 over 13 hours
Online NL 6m:



I've also been playing one or two tables of PLO50 on the side, and my PLO results aren't included in the graph. So, I'm manually keeping track of my PLO adventures since I don't have the PLO version of HEM;

Online PLO50 6m: +$520

Total: +$3212

I'm incredibly awful at PLO, but the games are so soft I can't imagine not being a winner. I've been going over some PLO theory on RiO as well, so I'm not completely lost at least. I still much prefer NL, but ~one PLO table every session is pretty fun/refreshing.

Anyway, as ^ shows, I haven't really been putting in as many hours as I need to, which I'm also hoping this thread will help me with. Sometimes it's just so so hard to go to the casino. Once I'm there I'm in the zone and can grind for 8+ hours, but leaving my apartment and going there is a bit of a struggle at times. Especially on week days where I've spent ~8 hours working at the office.

My monthly goals will be the following:

• 75 hours of live poker
• 20k hands online
• 10 hours studying poker

Hey man,

What site are you playing on?

You can for sure have long downswings in live games. Volume is so low compared to online it makes stretches easily long in terms of time. Rake is aswell high.

Good luck!

A little mix of everything.

Yeah, I guess. But at worst, as a ~40bb/100 winner, it shouldn't be possible to be anything other than a slight loser over a sample as small as 5k hands. So in my case that would be 2-3 months or so, so I suppose it could get pretty dire if you're on a total death run. But yeah, if you put in at least 75 hours monthly playing in good games, a downswing shouldn't be able to get too extreme - even in terms of time.

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Put in a shortish online session today:



Got a big thing going on at work, and I can't really focus on anything else (not even my actual work lol) until it's been sorted. It's a pretty big deal and the outcome will affect my earning potential in poker pretty significantly. So, playing a calm online session seemed preferable to the live grind tonight. I'll prob do the same tomorrow unless tomorrow's the day my future'll be decided.

I've also been going through some of ElusiveMark's and Sauce's videos on RiO, and the contrast between the two styles/personalities is pretty hilarious. Sauce's videos are insanely entertaining, while ElusiveMark's videos quite literally put me to sleep after 3 minutes (even though the content's obviously good). Maybe I shouldn't watch poker videos in bed though.

Standard. And I don't think it's the quality of the content at all, case in point being "Hi Guys, this is Phil G.." ZzzZzzzZzzzzzzzzz

Haha yeah, Phil's another classic example of someone who'll instantly put you to sleep.

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For those of you who are into movies I'd recommend watching this (especially if you've somehow actually seen this exact movie):



Hilariously on point.

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Will try to put in ~1k hands or so tonight. Not feeling super hot right now but I'll give it a go soon.

Done for the day. 1k hands aka ~400 hands ,



Ended up losing $150 at PLO though, so I'm only really up $360ish today.

The session highlight was calling off a 100bb+ river bet with AK on 56QTQssccx where villain ended up having 34cc.

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I'm still feeling pretty horrendous, gonna watch an episode of Sherlock and try to crash asap. If I have trouble falling asleep I'll be sure to summon ElusiveMark or Phil G.

Good luck, Subbed. I'm on the same boat here: playing while having a full time job and starting to shift to live pokeras it is so soft. Do love online poker more though, more mental stimulating to say the least.

Thanks. And yeah, live poker kind of makes you appreciate the online grind so much more imo. How many live hours are you managing to put in every month on average?

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Left work early today, my throat's been killing me. Wasn't gonna play, but after a quick lobby sesh around 2-3 pm I simply couldn't not play. The tables were the greatest in poker history for some reason, so I even played a little bit of NL200 again,



The most notable hand/biggest loss was me 3betting TT on the BTN vs a CO open (awful reg), he makes a ridiculously huge 4bet with AQo, I flat (somewhat questionable, but fine when playing 50 billion bb poker), the flop obviously comes TKJssx and he snap-shoves for like 4x pot lol, gg.

Might play a bit more later.

I try to go one weekend a month, and usually play ~30 hours per weekend. But it really depends as the nearest casino is 3.5 hours away by bus

It's also much easier for me to put in a lot of hours at live poker. 10 hours sessions live takes the same concentration as 1 hour online.

Ah that sucks haha. Basically makes me feel incredibly lazy complaining over how difficult it is to go to the casino at times, since it only takes me ~25 mins to get there. And yeah I def agree, it's obviously far less demanding/mentally taxing in every way.

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So, quick update. Still haven't gone to the casino this week due to the thing at work/feeling like I might not be able to combine the live grind with work -- but the work thing still hasn't been resolved, so I'm gonna start grinding properly next week again regardless.

Anyways, I put in a bunch of hours online yday. Ran/played horribly (mostly the latter though) for the first half of the session playing NL200, lost like ~$700 in a matter of seconds vs some of the worst players to ever play the game (actual whales, not just weak regs ). Made some disgusting call downs that made me question my value as a human being. However - ended up playing amazingly well vs regs, exclusively, for the next 5-6 hours and ended up booking a $30 win. Had a sweet hourly of close to $4 yesterday.

And um, the plan was to put in a thousand hours online tonight, but the tables are super bad. I just played for an hour and literally only battled regs, and it was hard to keep the tables going since people would just snap-sit out vs me/leave once the only weakish reg left etc. - the usual. I also played some NL200 HU vs a horrible FR reg who decided to give me action for some reason, and I ran him over until he wrote "aosjfoiehg" in chat and left.

The month stands at:



~+$340 PLO
+$1700 live

~+$4424 in total.

Might hop on again in an hour or so if the tables look better. Not gonna be able to sleep any time soon since I crashed for 2-3 hours after work. Fantastic decision on my part.

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The song to listen to while 5betting regs 200bb+ deep:

Ended up one-tabling a decentish FR table last night, while watching a movie in bed. Won another $300 over <50 hands - the way to do it.

Got a dinner planned tonight, even though I'm still not feeling 100%. The plan's to go for drinks etc. after, but we'll see what I end up doing. Might go to the casino and put in a few hours instead of going out.

Just got back home. Ended up going out after all, but I decided to go to the casino once everyone left around 3 am. Just couldn't help myself.

I played for 45 minutes and booked a $360 win. There was one pretty hilarious hand that I just have to share right away,

Hero raises UTG w/ AJ to $15, aggressive fish OTB calls, the blinds fold.

Flop ($37): J63 Hero bets $25, BTN calls

Turn ($87): 5 Hero bets $70, BTN calls

River ($227): 6 Hero checks (kind of whatever, but vs an aggressive fish/villain on this type of board texture it's fine - especially when blocking Jx), BTN shoves for ~$250, Hero calls and BTN shows TJo

Standard lol-live. He was absolutely convinced his hand was good when I called. Good times.

gl

Ty, u2. Hope to see more (live) poker content from you soon.

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So, over the past couple of days I've mostly been playing NL200, and it hasn't been going too well. It's a combination of the games being extremely tough at times, and the fact I get into this weird mental state when playing a little higher vs certain types of players. I basically feel as though the very best regulars are trying to play back at me/exploit me to the fullest, which obviously results in me making non-standard plays/deviating from my regular strategy and losing. I'm essentially over-adjusting to the increased aggression in these games.

I really need to sort out the mental aspect of my game when playing NL200, and just calmly focus on playing as well as possible + keeping my frequencies in check. I am crushing NL100 over a huge sample, and I believe I'd be a big winner in these games too if I could just stop being a complete idiot. Seems simple enough.

Graph for the past 2 days:



and I'm up $140 at PLO, so I'm only really down ~$130.

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Big live weekend coming up. Planning on putting in 10 hours on both Friday and Saturday.

Put in a shortish session today and crushed. Played much better today than I have for most of the week,



I'm currently up ~$3200 online and ~$2100 live, for a total of ~+$5300 - making this my biggest winning month ever right now. Let's just hope I don't drop like $3k this weekend.

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Also bought new shoes a couple of days ago. Amazing $350 leather shoes. And today I completely ruined them by walking into a sharp edge and getting stuck with my right foot (was walking without paying much attention to my immediate surroundings, the only way to do it). I basically wanted to kill myself once I realized I'd ruined them beyond repair lol. #nonicethings4thisguy

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Didn't play yday (Thursday), and today I put in the first of the two live sessions I'm planning on playing this weekend. 8 hours played, +$1217. There were some pretty huge hands (won a $1800 pot towards the end of the session), and I'll post a couple of them tomorrow. Struggling to keep my eyes open atm so I'm just gonna pass out.

Ended up going to the casino on Saturday too, and I got seated at what was probably the greatest table in the casino's history, so naturally I ended up booking a $200 loss. I left the casino at 5 am, got home at 5.45 am, decided to play some online poker and won $330ish. Went to bed at around 8.30 am and passed out. Healthy and reasonable times.

I'll do a monthly summary after tomorrow's online session. For now though, I'll post today's graph:



I played so unbelievably poorly at times (made some awfully terrible river decisions (aka calls) out of pure frustration), so I'm pretty happy to book a win despite the hilariously low quality of play.

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On a side note, a thought I've been having over the past few days is that I'd really like to travel somewhere for poker for a few weeks. I'm thinking LA and the Commerce (a certain PG&C thread may have affected me a little bit ), so I've been looking over different options. We'll see what I end up doing though, LA's pretty expensive. I'd be ~$2k in the hole before even getting to play any poker. Plus, the tax situation doesn't seem too appealing either.

Ok, month over. Had another ridiculous session today where I dropped $700 in a matter of seconds, and somehow managed to magically win it all back and book a solid $10 win. I obviously ran horrendously, but I made about ~$200 worth of mistakes today - which certainly isn't ok. Anyways, here it goes:

NL50-200 (volume: 100 > 200 > 50) 6m online:



PLO50 6m online: +$219

LLSNL (~1/2-3/5): +$2963 over 30 hours of play

Total results: +$6736

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My best poker month ever, and it's not even close basically. Hoping for another big month next month, since I feel I can do better online + I'm obviously hoping to put in more live hours in March.

Tomorrow or so I'll make a post with the biggest live hands of the month, and maybe I'll include an online hand or two as well.

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Ok, so, a few live hands from this past weekend (so much effort to post live hands lol).

Hero raises UTG w/ AA to $12 (~$900 stack), UTG +1 (aggressive reg my age (~25), known as the best player in the casino) 3bets to $50 ($1500+ stack), everybody else folds, Hero 4bets to ~$145, UTG +1 calls

So, basically, we've got quite a lot of history. He plays very aggressively as a standard, and I'd say his strategy is pretty far from optimal in a live setting. 3betting a ton to isolate fish/weaker players is fine, but the problem is that this guy seems to have a hard time putting players into different categories. Either that, or he thinks everyone's a fish (myself included), since he's got a ridiculously high 3b%.

I've 4bet him a ton in the past, he's folded 0 times and has always ended up winning. As a result he prob views me as quite spewy.

Flop ($294): A67 Hero bets $90, UTG +1 calls

Turn ($474): 8 Hero bets $190, UTG +1 tanks for a bit and shoves, Hero snaps

River (~$1804): K Hero shows AA instantly and UTG +1 just sighs and mucks

Not a very interesting hand, but the biggest one I played on Friday/Saturday.

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So, the next two hands are me getting bluffed by fish who both ran up huge stacks on Saturday night.

This hand was $1/$3/$6 (straddle), everyone with 250bb+ in front of them.

Someone in EP opens to $18, 3 people call behind, it's folded to me in the BB, I call with 85, the straddle defends.

Flop ($108): AT8 Everybody checks

Turn ($108): 5 Hero bets $45, the straddle calls, a bunch of folds, BTN calls

River ($243): 4 Hero bets $90, the straddle folds, BTN raises to $300, Hero snap-folds and BTN shows K4

So, I think my fold's fine. I wasn't sure whether to go for the x/c or a small bet/fold on the river though. At the time I thought the BTN, a huge fish, would call a small bet with Ax but wouldn't bet it himself. Anyway, once he raised I just thought to myself "lol MW pot, bye" and folded very quickly.

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Same table, a few hands later. No straddle this time. We're ~300bb eff.

HJ opens to $15, it's folded to the SB who calls, Hero 3bets KQ to $60, HJ calls, SB folds

Flop ($124): KT7 Hero bets $80, HJ calls

Turn ($284): 8 Hero checks, HJ bets $110, Hero calls

River ($504): 9 Hero checks, HJ bets $230, Hero ends up folding, HJ flips over 53 and goes crazy

This is pretty meh. I went for the x/c OTT with the intention of calling off on a huge number of rivers, but the 9 isn't a particularly exciting card. This guy was terrible, but I didn't think he'd turn a hand like 58hh/any weakish hand with even the tiniest bit of SDV into a bluff on this specific river, which is why I ended up folding.

Nice month!

Tyty! Btw, since you're in NJ I'm assuming you play/have played a bit in AC? Would you recommend it? I'm considering going there for a couple of weeks instead of LA since it'd cost much less. LA might still be preferable though since there's probably (/definitely) more to see there, but yeah, who knows.

+1 nice month, glgl will be following