Hi, my name is Carmen. I am a 21 year old girl that studies engineering and rows competitively in Halifax Nova Scotia. Over the past few months I’ve lost a lot of motivation due to a negative life experience (Long story short, I was trying to be there for someone because I have a big heart and it backfired big time). It left me a little depressed and feeling trapped here in this small (relatively speaking) city. With a study week fast approaching, I decided to look at plane tickets to London. I found some relatively inexpensive ones, checked to see if I could stay with a friend there and then bought the ticket. I have to say, that this decision was truly one of the best I’ve ever made. Before I left, I was in row-bot mode; waking up at 5, training 1-2 times a day, going to school, coaching swimming etc. The only thing that was making me happy was the little bit of live poker I’d been playing. After arriving in London, I was finally able to take time for myself. Ate lots of Pizza, slept in, went for walks, spent quality time with people I care about and played my first ever live poker tournament. To recap on that experience briefly; I lasted about 4.5 hours, was fairly card dead and got it in with AKs for my last 10BB. Guy behind me wakes up with AA and the rest is history. I also managed to play a bit of 1/1 there which was really cool because I had never played in a casino other than my own and I met some interesting people. All in all it was a great experience.

My casino is not the greatest for poker players looking to play professionally. The poker room is open from 12pm-2am on weekdays and 4am on weekends. They generally have 3 tables open at a time. 2 tables of 1/2 NLHE (max buy-in 200) and 1 table of 5/5 PLO (max buy-in 1000). Sometimes they open up more tables if the waiting list is long (which it always seems to be) and if they have enough dealers (which they never seem to have). Let’s just say I saw 5 tables running one time recently and that was impressive. They also don’t run tournaments which is why I’d never played one till London.
Over the course of the trip, an idea started to form. I’ve been playing poker recreationally now for 2.5 years, both online and live. I’m smart, hardworking and competitive. I’m decent at this game and I want to make a serious run at it. This whole idea has me finally feeling motivated again and not just for poker. I’m feeling motivated for rowing again and for school. So I guess this means I should tell you about my goals.

Rowing Goals: There are a lot of time based goals I can strive for this winter but my main goal here is to get my training in and approach every practice with intent. My current 2k PB is 7:48 (I am a lightweight rower for those of you that want to put that into perspective). My 2k goal for this winter is a 7:36.

Student Goals: Truthfully I don’t care too much about my grades other than passing. But I do want to pass and I am prepared to do the work to make that happen.

Poker Goals AKA the reason I’m here: My goal is to grind poker in London this summer from May to September. Why London? Well for starters, I’d likely have a place to stay with another poker player. The game selection is far better than what I can get here. Plus I still plan on rowing and England is supposedly quite good at the whole rowing thing. I will determine whether or not I will go to London to grind by the end of December. How I will determine this is where things get interesting.

Prior to now, I have never tracked results. So first things first, I have downloaded a tracking app on my phone for live sessions and have downloaded the trial for HM2 (still wondering about PT4 vs HM2, maybe you can give some insight on this). I have tracked one session (while I was in London) and have an interesting hand that I will be sharing later on. Why is it so important to start tracking? Well other than it just being the smart thing to do for any non-recreational player, but it’s also good for future backing and coaching deals. Ideally when I go to London I want to be on a backing & coaching deal. I’ve seen this work for others and think it’s GTO. I do want to add that this will not be a deciding factor on whether or not I go. It will just be a good way for me to take shots at higher stakes and get coaching from people playing the game at a higher level. So, what do I plan to do between now and the end of December? Study and Volume!! Since I’m a student, live volume will be a little difficult and I know that. After exams in mid-December I’ll be able to get more in but for now I will need to play some hands online at 10 and 25nl whilst getting as much live sessions in as possible. I want to get in lots of volume basically for learning and tracking purposes with the hopes of also building up my BR. By the end of this period I will know if I feel I’ve done the work to deserve London.

What studying am I doing so far? Not much, which is another reason I’m here on 2+2. This is a great place for discussing and analyzing hands at no cost. However this is obviously not enough. So I went on upswing poker today and downloaded their free opening charts package and that’s what I’ll be studying this week. As of now I want to use as many free resources as I can so if guys have any suggestions on where I should be looking for this stuff, it would be much appreciated. After December, my plan is to start looking for these coaching & backing deals. From there, I will continue the volume and study grind until May where I will go to London and do more (a lot more) of the same.

My plan with this thread is to update you guys every week or two on how much volume I’m getting and what materials I’m studying. I will also be posting interesting hands histories here whether they be from big pots or tough spots.

So without further ado here is the first hand

Background: 1/1 Aspers casino. V is LAG Asian.

Pre Flop: $2 straddle, UTG+1(V2) raises to $4 (tried to raise it to $3 but then noticed the straddle was on). Folds to the CO(V) who then makes it $12. It folds around to here($200 eff.) on the BTN we look down at JJ and decide to flat figuring that UTG+1 might try to re-raise and we dont want to get too out of line with JJ. UTG+1 calls and we are OTTF

Flop($40): T9X
checks to hero who bets $20, V2 folds, V calls.
At this point I'm putting V on a straight draw or maybe a hand like AT or A9. Hero blocks JQ, and J8 so he could have some KQ or two overs and is floating. I dont put him on any OP's since I think he would take a more agro line.

Turn ($80):T
V checks, Hero makes it $25, V calls.
I'm not sure I like my sizing here, I bet small here to keep some straight draws in since I block a J from rolling out. I also want to keep 9's in. And Its hard for him to have a T here especially now that he's just called.

River:9
V donk bets $52.

What would you do here?

Long time Carmen!

Gooooood luck!

Cheers Luke! We’ll have to meet up this summer when I go.


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Today I will be playing my first session upon returning from my trip to London. Already running good in that my weights session got moved back an hour and a half. So now I get to play for an extra hour or so. Normally I’d play from 12-3, go run and catch a bus and head to my weights session. Now I get to play till about 4:30. These sessions tend to be filled with casino room regreationals. Basically players that are there all the time that aren’t necessarily that good but can range from playing super short stacked and tight to spewy LAGs. Generally I don’t plan on making the big bucks in these afternoon sessions because the games aren’t usually very good. The only time I’ve done exceptionally well at this time is when I ran like the sun for the first 30 minutes and ran up my $100 stack to about $900.

So why play if you know the game will likely be ****? Well because right now my goal isn’t to “make money”. It’s primarily to get in volume and practice what I’m studying. Today I will be working on closing a few leaks.

Leak 1: Becoming a spew master after losing a miss-played hand. I truthfully don’t get tilted when I get sucked out on. I only get tilted when I make a mistake. After the mistake I’ll start calling too wide and I’ll spew off chips where I shouldn’t be. So today, instead of spewing, I plan to get up from the table in these spots and write down the hand before playing again. Then I’ll share those hands here so I can approach the mistake from a more constructive POV.

Leak 2: My opening ranges need work. In my casino’s 1/2 game, I tend to over call, and miss play my hands pre flop (AKA donating to rake). Whether it’s calling marginal hands out of position or not isolating enough, I have some work to do here. So today I will be decreasing my VPIP percentage and exercising patience. I did a lot better with this in my 1/1 session on the weekend and found it to be very beneficial.

Gl to all the grinders out there. I’ll be posting my session results and hopefully some hands after my session today.


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Noo stay in canada... alberta is the best place for 1/2 calgary is way cheaper then london and is a very nice city unless you basically have living arrangements sorted out for free then i'm jealous lol.

Well for starters I’d be staying with a friend. Possibly contributing to rent (we’ll see) but if not I’ll be contributing in the form of buying and cooking most of our food. One other benefit of playing in London is that poker isn’t taxed in England. Not sure about the Canadian tax rules. Perhaps you can enlighten me on them. It’s also my grandmothers 80th birthday in May. She lives in Spain so I’m already flying out in that direction regardless. So it all makes sense. Perhaps one day I’ll come out to play in Alberta.


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I don't think there is tax on cash games. But london is a beautiful place to live, but since ur Canadian you have good options such as montreal/alberta etc.

Maybe if you do well live + online this year you could move to montreal/quebec that is a very good place to grind as well, rent is very cheap i rem paying like $500 cad a month but further away from city.

Also i hate cooking/making my own food so everytime i was hungry i basically went to playground got free filet mignons and banged out a session at same time, so efficient lol.

First session back is done. Managed to get a little over 4 hours in. Game was actually decent considering the time of day. There was a lot of talk about the bad beat going off at my casino the other day. This old guy sitting next to me was on the winning end of it. One of the 2 older ladies on my table is a literal luck box. She had just come back from Moncton where she won a 10k royal flush bonus. And then my friend Harry on the other table (super sweet older gentleman) won the royal bonus today for 1.1k. Also the older ladies at my table were talking about taking a trip to Montreal next year to play at playground. And then they turned to me and said “Carmen you should join us”. So now I might be going to Montreal for a Ladies trip lol. Anyway results were very good today. TBH I spewed a little bit (maybe about $20-30) but nothing crazy. No real hands of note since most of my spots were pretty standard. I made one bad fold with JJ on a TKK flop to a raise, jam from the 2 players to my direct right. One had T8 and the other AJ.

Here is the one non standard hand I played.

Hero AQo ($287)
V ($287 eff) LAG who’s been raising a lot pre and playing a lot of hands

Straddle is on ($5)
I call thinking that V might 3B in the BB
We get 2 more caller before V makes it $12. UTG calls, I make it $37 (I think this sizing may be too small), folds to the V who makes the call. UTG folds and we are OTTF

Flop ($96)
854r
Here puts in a cbet to $50
V thinks for a second and calls

Turn (196)
9 bringing in a second heart
Hero puts in a bet of $100 trying to rep a strong over pair like AA or KK.
V thinks for a second and folds saying he had a strong hand.

I hate checking turn here since it’s super weak. And I think I should continue with the story I’m telling. This time it worked but I’d love to hear your thoughts.


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Hahah the free filet mignons. You are a genius my friend. I’ll have to keep this into consideration. Montreal also has an amazing rowing club at the Olympic basin. I competed there in July and it was really cool. And I have a friend there. So tbh it wouldn’t be the worst idea to move there eventually.


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Sounds like you should play online maybe start @ 2nlz and try to beat that then move up? Although i think 1/2 live is easier then 2nl you lack some basic fundamental skills no offence...

With AQ hand in a MW Pot, OOP i assume on 854r check and check HU as well.

I don't really have limp 3! re-raising ranges only in EP + full-ring game and if majority of villain's at the table have high PFR + will call 3! super light as well as a lot of passive ccing.

You are gonna want to 4x OOP + $12 for each ccer in this example.

So your range for limp 3!ing in EP in a 9-10 handed game would be like QQ/JJ+ AK/AQ+ and sometimes A2-A6s/KJs-KTs/QTs depending on a lot of other factors as well.

Lol I’m not offended don’t worry about that. I’m here for exactly that type of criticism. The villain in this hand was putting in a lot of PRF’s to straddle/ MW pots to try and steal. So I feel like I can limp raise there expecting to steal. And yes sizing was definitely not good here. I think 45-55 would be better.


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Upade: 2 days in and already making some changes to my original plan. First change is that instead of deciding to go at the end of December, I will be deciding to go after grinding aroung 150k hands of 10nl online. This brings me to the second change where I wont be grinding live as much as I had initially wanted to. Playing online will...

a) Prepare me for being far more successful once I hit the live tables. People that only play live experience a fraction of what online players do.

b) I need to work on solidifying the fundamentals. This is much easier to do online with resources readily available.

c)If I want backing or coaching, I'm going to need have results. Being able to provide them with a graph of over 100k hands (at 10nl) should prove whether or not I'm beating the game and deserve their time. Plus it'll prove to me that I can work hard and that I'm able to withstand the mental obstacles that poker provides.

Today I played a little over 2k hands of 10nl so I'll grab that graph for you. https://imgur.com/gallery/oq6jh

Winning just over 2BB/100. I lost a few big hands near the end and was starting to feel tired so I felt like it was a good time to stop. Gonna go review some hands. Do a little more review in the morning and then play.

Happy Grinding!

Yeah it's better to make those 25bb mistakes online as opposed to 25bb mistakes live which is like $50/125 whatever stakes you play, and everyone makes mistakes...

GL w/the grind ^^

What sort of stakes are you looking to play live in the UK? In London, the Grosvenor Victoria runs nightly tournaments between £30-100, most of the ones in the 40-50 range usually quite easily make it past 100 entrants with ~$1k FTW, obviously very soft as well. In my opinion it's the best option if you take into account MTTs available, service, staff, it's far from perfect but on average is better than others. Aspers is not a nice place to play IMO and they seem to have taken most of their smallest buy-in tourneys away.

Are you mainly going to be playing cash or tourneys live over here?

I'm looking to play 1/1 out there for starters. If i get backing I'll look into the 1/2 games. I do plan on playing the occasional tourney but I'm going there to grind cash. I'll have to check out the Grosvenor!

https://www.boomplayer.com/25958312_79221CB91B <--- basically how I've been running all day. Today's been tough. Been running super bad but I'm trying to push through. This is the reason im grinding online anyway.

I think its time for an update:
It's been nearly two weeks since starting our poker adventure. I've mostly played online (10nl) and played 3 short live sessions. I'll be honest with you. My online sessions have not been going well at all. In the beginning, I was forcing in volume without being that constructive. I was playing a few hours at a time and didn't make much progress. So after a short "coaching" session with a friend (including hand review and some general grinding analysis) he helped close a few leaks and told me to play for shorter lengths of time. Basically telling me to take advantage of the fact that im not stuck in a tourney and that taking breaks is a great way to stay sharp at the tables for the short sessions that I do play.

I slowly started to play a little better but still considered myself a losing player. (and i was losing lol). I believe that coming to terms with this is a positive. It's disappointing but truthfully if you're serious about getting better then it should motivate you. I dont really like saying "it's only because I'm running bad" even though in my case its definitely a part of why I've lost so many buy-ins in the past few weeks. For example I'm actually at the point where i think im a slight winning player but I'm still running like ****. So in order to counter it, I guess I'm just going to have to get even better (oh no what a shame to have to get better).

But in all seriousness, I believe im a winning player at Live poker. The whole point of this is to be an even more winning player. I'm glad im running bad at the start of this because if I was running good, I might get too comfortable. Anyway exams are coming up soon which means I'll be at home, grinding online during my study breaks. You might think its stupid to play during study breaks and that my mind will be unfocused or tired. However usually when I'm studying my mind feels sharper so we'll see how that plays out on the tables. Officially resetting my graph. Hopefully my next 10k hands will look a little better.

Good luck at the tables!

going to sub this good luck

Thanks

Im doing a challenge....50K hands in 3 days.

Why?
to test my and push my mental endurance.

How?
initially wanted to break it up evenly and do 17k hands each day but after day 1 we are a little behind and now need to do 20k a day.

What stakes?
mostly 2nl unless pokerstars has cash game challenges and if im running well.

Are you crazy?
yes.

Day 1 graph


and if that didnt work
https://imgur.com/gallery/qPZnC

I'll be streaming the journey live on twitch @ twitch.tv/shredded_coconut

have a great day!!

was finally told how to post images on here :/

Entering the final stretch! Here is the first 36k hands of the 50k challenge


Come watch the final 14k live on twitch @ twitch.tv/shredded_coconut

so did u make it?

WE DID IT!!!! 50 thousand hands in 3 days with 20 min to spare! We ended up losing about $40 overall because as you might've expected I got tired and sloppy. And when you start to run bad while you are tired and sloppy, you'll probably lose a bit of money. The biggest mistake i made was not changing back to 4 tabling 2nl and 2 tabling 5nl. I actually ended up moving up stakes to chase loses in attempts to entertain the stream. Didnt run too well in those stakes and ended up losing a fair bit. All in all, i feel i kept decent focus and composer despite being exhausted.

A few recommendations:

1. GET A MASSAGE GIRL. My shoulders and neck are still tight and sore from my poker posture. An alternative to a massage girl is a proper set up. make sure that your tables are at eye level so you aren't hunching. Get a chair with proper support. And lastly, have your keyboard/mouse at a lower level. have them set up so your elbow bend is greater than 90 degrees (hopefully that makes sense).

2. DRINK LOTS OF WATER!!! This helped keep my energy levels up somewhat, despite not getting much sleep.

3.EAT GOOD FOOD! Complex carbs will generally make you a little sleepy so make sure to eat them about an hour before you take breaks from your grind to sleep. Avoid super sugary foods and drinks. They will spike your energy levels briefly before crashing. Avoid things that are greasy/ things that will generally not make you feel good.

4.TO STREAM OR NOT TO STREAM? At times when I had lots of energy and I was running well, having people rail me on twitch gave me more energy. When I was running bad and exhausted, twitch tilted me a bit. Luckily for me my support was pretty good so I think the tilt for others would actually be worse. When i was tired and cranky, they are the ones that told me to go take a nap and shake it off. So for me I think twitch chat was good. But for others it might not be. If you have a solid group of poker friends, then maybe get them to rail you instead. They will often have a voice of reason and clarity when you get tired, so LISTEN TO THEM!!

5. DON'T REALLY LISTEN TO FEEDBACK/COACHING. I got some good and bad coaching feedback from chat. Without taking the time to learn these strats and the reasonings behind them, just ignore them. Keep playing your game and get those people to message you later to discuss certain spots and what you should or shouldnt be doing. I unfortunately made the mistake of trying to implement what people were saying and it didnt really work out for me. On a side note, if you already have a coach and he/she knows your game, then you can probably take their advice. For me, my "coach" (he's really just a friend thats better than me and sometimes gives me feedback) gave me one small simple piece of advice and it was the best advice I got from anyone. His suggestion was to take just a little more time preflop with each hand. Simple but effective.

6. HAVE A SCHEDULE. I made the mistake of not really thinking everything through. I kinda just dove in head first. I didnt know how many hands I could play an hour 4 tabling and then I realized half way through that I'd need to 6 table in order to complete. If you can, do this challenge where you wont get too many IRL distractions (like stupid parents ) so that the schedule you create wont have many hitches. SOO, know before hand how many hours the challenge will take. Set a schedule that works for you and make sure to include breaks.

If anyone here decides to do this challenge make sure to let me know so I can rail you. And if you have any further questions, dont hesitate to ask.

hu4bxtches here;
you have great work ethic and you're not bad for a beginner, my advice would be going forward you should reduce the amount of tables to like 2 or 3 to work on your preflop game to make sure you nail that down
use preflopsnowie to help you

and also lots of reviewing, despite playing 50k hands it's going to be a nightmare going through those hands to review cause there are so many

gl though