Hey all, I've been lurking PG&C for a long time, and finally decided to take the plunge and start one of my own.

A little background on me: I'm 22. Currently on a sick full tuition + living expenses scholarship to study math/stats undergrad at mediocre state university in US.

Currently, my life is at sorta a crossroads. I'm graduating next spring, and I really want to avoid the 9-5 grind. Another option would be grad school (which would make sense since an undergrad stats degree doesnt really get you that far) -- but I'm rather burned out on school. And the work to money ratio for grad school is pretty terrible honestly.

Poker wise, I started playing online in 2015. $50 deposit with initial rungood and super nit BRM, I've never gone busto.

Lifetime giraffe (I lost a decent amount of hands from dead hard drive + untracked sites aren't included obviously so not entirely accurate, but I think my winrate has stayed roughly the same):



I mostly play PLO and PLO8 cash/tournies. I think I'm an OK reg (at least by US donk site standards), but most of my winrate comes from bumhunting.

I've also lately been focusing a lot more on crypto trading. I think the sophistication of a lot of the money in the market is along the lines of online poker players circa 2005. Patience, lots of study, risk management and keeping emotions in check are the name of the game -- all things I feel I'm very good at.

I'm starting this thread to keep myself accountable for putting in the hours I need to.

Poker goals:

• At least 3k hands per week (no exceptions and especially no week-month long breaks during downswings)
  
• Stop being huge bankroll nit and move up to 500PLO+ by end of year
  
• A lot more active studying. I need to review hands, improve some spots where I know I'm imbalanced, and put in hours studying training vids, looking at equities, etc. Right now, most of my studying time is when I'm half asleep watching training videos -- not very active.
  
• Some more live games. Unfortunately, I don't live near a casino, but I can occasionally make trips. I think there are a lot of opportunities in live PLO in particular so it would be a good spot to take some shots. I might try to play some of the WSOP this year as well.
  
• Update this thread no matter what. (Many times I have tried to keep better records but inevitably on the first downswing, it goes out the window).

Some interesting hands from yesterday:

Hand 1

Very unsure about this hand. I think flop bet is probably fine (although idk about sizing). Turn check and mostly giving up rivers seems also OK since I'm not sure how much fold equity I will have with no relevant blockers.

Then obviously the river jam is pretty questionable. I do think that villain can value bet at least somewhat merged when he takes this sizing and so I think i want to be shoving my 6 high straights and the occasional AA74 or whatever. And 77 seems like the best blockers I can really have (since 4x will basically always have a straight I think).

Hand 2

I also really dislike how I played this hand. First of all, I think its strong enough to raise pre (even though its almost surely going 4 way at this table). Then as played on the flop, I think I should give up. I think 99 is not good enough blockers here because its so easy to have a wrap or nut OESD that can continue. I should be bluffing with like TT and the wraps.

On turn, I think I just have to call down with the second nuts. Even though obviously villain will have AK a decent amount here.

Hand 3

I think this hand is pretty close preflop to the minraise. (Obviously its easy fold vs larger). Probably better to fold tho.

On flop I think I should be raising. I generally kinda hate raising into two strong ranges when this deep with a combo hand that is non nut both ways since its easy to get it in dominated both ways (especially since a lot of these weaker players are not gonna fold the higher flush draws no matter what). It especially concerns me that BB is leading cuz he is gonna have the most nutted made hands that dominate me.

Turn I think I need to continue since I pick up some equity and the ace shouldn't improve him that often. I thought about hero folding river, but I called given the sizing and possibility that he could be blocker betting a weaker flush (like idk 987dd) or turning two pair into a bluff.

Most recent crypto trade recap. I know a lot of people think technical analysis is bull****, but I really do think it gives you some good chances as long as you are patient and use good risk management

For example, a really good setup occurred last weekend in a lot of coins as people panic sold hard into strong support/reversal zones. These were the two trades I took and they pretty much worked exactly as I planned (ETH was for 5 figures position size and STR/XLM was for 4 figures)





Results:





Whenever people are panicking, there is often a great opportunity if you know what you are looking for. Here, it was clear that the $440-470 was going to be incredibly strong support for ETH price. A combination of former support/resistance, a relevant fibonacci retracement (.786 of the entire swing from $10 to $1400) and incredibly oversold oscillators.

Update 3/23

~400 hands of 100PLO, -$200.+$80 at ~100 hands of micro mixed games

I'm guessing I was probably +$300 or more in EV tho. Couldn't get the run good going today. I'll look at some hands later

Update 3/24

Hit volume goal for today, but didn't play well at all. -$250 but could be a lot worse with the mistakes I made and not winning a lot of big pots

Kinda got tilted (or maybe I was playing too many tables) and made quite a few preflop mistakes in particular. Made a few suspicious hero calls vs small river bets that people are probably way underbluffing but idk.

Two funny big pots:

Sick value bet

Preflop fiesta

Very interesting thread Spreek, good luck with the poker, scholarship and trading

in the three hands you posted, (hand 1) i wouldn't have 3bet pre vs the shortstack limp, how come you did that or were you intending to get the pot heads up vs the sb?
thought your river play was pretty cool, wouldn't have done it myself but probably bet the turn and given up on the hand if he calls

hand 2 I quite like your play on the flop, think you win the there quite often and as the hand plays out just have to call down yeah

hand 3 I donk the flop and am calling down such a small bet on the river

what sites and software do you use for your crypto trading?- interested to read more of your crypto posts in the future I might start to dabble but am clueless at the moment

anyway hope you've had a profitable weekend

Thanks for the kind words

Re hand 1: IIRC the shortstacker was the type that limps all his weak hands and raises all his strong hands, so I think he folds almost always to the 3bet. SB is also a weak player that raises too wide so I think building a pot HU is decent. I think I might still prefer calling though.

Totally agree about leading hand 3, for some reason I didn't consider that at all.

I use tradingview.com for charts and alerts. I use (primarily) GDAX and binance for exchanges (i.e., actually making the trades).

I'll definitely post my trades once I make more. Nothing has been very promising in the last few days so I haven't made more. One of my biggest lessons has been not to overtrade and just wait for the best chances to go hard.

If you are are at all interested in learning more about crypto/TA, I can highly recommend this youtube series. Lots of great stuff there although you have to sorta skip over him rambling and doing weird stuff lol

Update March 25:

Fired off a few PLO mtts including the $200 boss PLO on ACR. Started off well but couldn't win da flips. Also fired a $44 PLO on ignition and busted on like hand 3 with top boat vs quads.

I'll get back on the cash grind tomorrow.

Update March 26th:

Ouch, tough day. -$600

Semi interesting river spot

Villain is weak player. Known to donk pot on flop fairly wide and seems somewhat tilted. Not sure what to make of his line exactly. But I have an OK bluff catcher blocking some value and no clubs, so call seems OK.

Weird spot

Villain is known to bet flop fairly merged. Not sure what I'm doing with my range on the turn. A fair amount of my bluffs will have 8x, and I probably still have equity advantage vs his range? But this hand doesn't benefit that much from betting. On river, I'm kinda tempted to hero call because I think a lot of people are going to overbluff the A which is apparently a scare card.

On the other hand, I'm not sure he bluffs enough on the turn and my hand really isn't that high in my range on this runout.

Crypto update:

Took a small position here, hoping for the 450 low from last week to hold as a pivot.



But support broke and got stopped out at 490. Unfortunately, more downside looks likely for BTC and especially ETH.

On the ratio ETH/BTC, the support has likely broken (small chance .058 holding up but it is very unlikely at this point) and next target will be in the .045 to .054 range. I don't actually trade this pair, but it has a large impact on the ETH/USD market, so it's important to watch.



Assuming support on the ratio breaks, we can expect ETH/USD to go below 400 and possibly as low as 280-300 range if BTC also cannot hold the 7k-7200 region. (On the other hand, conditions are rather oversold at the moment so consolidation or a small uptrend in the very short term are not out of the question).

It's been a rough couple sessions lol. -$300 yesterday. Now down ~2k since starting the thread without a winning session yet. Of course, this is a totally standard downswing in PLO so there's really nothing to complain about. Not even many interesting hands

Even though I am very disciplined with BRM and fairly decent at quitting when I start to tilt, I still have a lot of mental game issues. Obviously, a standard downswing should never ever cause you to start playing badly. It's a bad cycle for me of forcing myself to play to make volume goals, running bad, playing bad, losing more, and then either giving up on the volume goals or bleeding money.

I'm gonna reread the Mental Game of Poker. And I'll keep quitting once I start playing badly, but I'm gonna go right back on the grind the next day.

Crypto update: It's been a rough couple days for ETH as predicted. I am very interested in entering a long around these levels. Conditions are extremely oversold and we are in range that should be decently strong support.

I'm keeping it on the small side so I have to room to increase position size on another panic down (I think anything in the 300-380 range is a super safe zone to enter a long).



On another note, a very good short term strategy is watching the EOS crowdsale wallets and waiting for them to transfer their ETH. Almost always the reaction is ETH dumping and EOS/BTC pumping.

They transferred 618,000 ETH 3 days ago and since then:

ETH/USD is -17%, ETH/BTC is -7%
EOS/BTC is +20%.

Ok finally got back on winning track today. Put special focus on keeping my preflop game under control because I think I put myself into a lot of bad

First of all, put in a +$200 session online. Got on the wrong side of two nuts or air games on monotone boards which is unfortunate.

Hand 1

I think pre is a little loose but IP with some weaker players in blind, its prolly fine. The rest of the hand seems standard, sorta have to bluff catch with this hand with 3 clubs even though most people in this population are probably underbluffing here.

Hand 2

I think this hand is also fairly standard. Even though probably people call down too much, the 4th heart is obviously bad to bluff, and there is a straight flush available, my UTG range is just gonna have a lot of nuts here. According to odds oracle, a betting range of Ahxxx on the flop is about 56.5% nuts which drops to 52% on the turn.

So i need to give up some bluffs at some point (especially given that the straight flush is possible). My guess is that my Ax without pairs or straights I probably need to bet at a minimum.

Luckily I binked a 3 or 4 way all-in with a double suited connected hand and so ended up ahead on the session.

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Also got together a nice home game and played some Drawmaha/Sviten Special (for those who are unaware, it is split pot game between 5 card draw and 5 card PLO with a draw phase after the flop). Pretty degen but also incredibly fun

Crazy hand to show the madness that can result. We are about 200-400BB deep. Pot goes 4 ways pre.

Flop (20BB): 785
Action checks through. Hero has JJxxx and draws 3, all 3 other players draw 3 as well.

Hero draws 3 to get JJJT4

Turn (20BB): 4
Small blind leads out for pot. Hero calls. CO repots, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero repots. Everyone gets it in. CO drew quad 2s, BTN has 8896, SB has 55 with nut flush draw.

River(~1000 BB): 9

Bink! Somehow hero scoops omaha pot and wins part of sidepot for draw pot.

Hand 1

fold that preflop, doesnt matter if there are weak players in blinds, your hands plays really bad mw aswell
I know it sucks to fold river, especially having 3 clubs in hand but seems like the field is soft and you will probably not be good enough of he time to make a profitable call

Hand 2

No need to do this, lot of people will call you down with Kh flush(just like you did in hand 1)


Good luck

how are you tracking the amount of hands you play on global

have you always had good brm? i struggle with it.

appreciate the advice, thanks. you are probably right that I'm not adjusting enough here to the population.

RE: Hands on global. I don't have an exact count, I just guesstimate based on how many times and how much time.

Yes, I guess I'm just a risk adverse person in general. I don't really enjoy the gambling part of poker, more the competition/strategic aspects (I originally was a chess and SC2/LoL player before starting to play poker).

So I'm not sure how much good advice I can tell you about how to fix BRM problems. But I guess I can try anyways. I'd say try to play games that you have a huge winrate in (lower risk of losing), make some kind of systematic plan for how you are going to move up/take shots, and train yourself to associate playing outside of your roll with bad feelings (For me, it's more or less unthinkable to sit at something like a 10/20 PLO game or whatever, because I know how ****ty I would feel if I just donked off 15k)

Quick update for 3/30

Played a short online session this morning -$100. Kinda forgot what happened tbh, I might look at some hands later.

Made it to casino tonight and sat at 1/2/5 PLO/PLO8. +$205 at pretty decent table though not much interesting happened. One funny hand though:

4 handed must move game. Villain opens 15 from CO ($250 eff). Hero 3bets JT76 to 50. Villain 4bets to 150. Hero calls.

Flop comes Q53. Villain checks, Hero shoves for $100 Villain folds. I was pretty shocked that villain ever is check/folding in a .3spr 4bet pot, but I guess #justlivepokerthings.

Quick update:

Online, +$400 since last update. Have gotten a decent amount of volume in, but very up and down sessions. Probably slightly below EV, but its all good.

Crypto update:



Previous play mentioned above worked out pretty well. Averaged down to $380, out at $430 ish. easy game.



No super promising setups in last few days (in hindsight, getting back in at $360 would have been a good idea but I didn't like the risk setup there). Kinda unclear where market is going (I'd lean towards more bearishness but who knows).

Update 4/3-4/8:

Had a bad week health wise, so didn't get much volume in. had a -$300 session earlier in the week, and a marathon +$1200 session yesterday. Finally some rungood

I'll probably look through some hands a little bit later today.

Update 4/8:

Another long session, ~1400 hands or so. Ran pretty well +$600.

One weird spot

I generally don't like to fold decent flushes in 2SPR, but I was kinda tempted to here. Idk it's kinda hard for me to figure out what his range looks like to check two streets and then shove over a bet. It also maybe looks like I'm trying to steal the pot.

Update: heat continues, 500 hand quick sesh today, +$500.

Bink

Nothing to really discuss. But always nice to get there

Weird spot in 3bet pot


So i feel like the CO should lead a decent amount when he RFIs, but when he isos 2 limpers, I expect him to hit this board a lot less often. Dunno if I really should be stacking off tho with fairly dry AA. I also don't really think I can call and use the blocker on later streets since the SPR will be so tiny and he will have so many flushes.

Kinda forgot about this thread for a while. Was running pretty bad for a few days, donked off $500 at live NL last week (ran bad but also made some really horrible stations on the river).

But hit a ridiculous sunrun at online PLO on thursday for +$3000 in a 3 hour session of 200PLO lol.

I've been trying to study more and plug some persistent leaks in my game. Two of the biggest ones I think are getting my preflop ranges in order (especially early position RFIs and cold calls). Also, as Jnandez calls it, calibrating ranges to handle very frequent multiway pots as you typically see in soft PLO games.

Then the other big one is river bluff catching spots especially in "weird" spots where villain has a line that doesn't really make sense for value or bluffs. I think the population tendency is pretty clearly weighted towards value in these spots. I'm just going to proceed with the idea that I need really strong justification to make a bluff catch on the river vs these populations.

Also quick update on crypto: I unfortunately haven't caught too much of the huge bullrun over the past few days (At least with my trading stack -- I still have a holding stack that is obviously pretty happy). Most likely I will make some plays on the coming correction (could be really huge next couple weeks if it plays out nicely). One possible setup might be this one:



Of course, the market can always surprise you, but the risk/reward setup there is incredible.

cheers for the crypto stuff you recommended, how's the poker and crypto been going the last week?