Yeah steve also my hand has enough going for it at that exact stack depth to be okay with peeling even if l/rr is 100% AA (at least that's what my gut tells me).

Yo viktor it's vs a rec; what if checking all my hands to induce and betting all my (tiny amount of) air for folds is higher ev than doing anything that resembles balance? villain is a fish... enough said. I wasn't declaring that to be the case but pointing out that it may well be true vs this particular type of fish which admittedly involves variables reads and history I can't convey.

Didn't play much today. Tiny bit of studying and connected with another zoom reg to discuss strat in the future. Also binged the first season of American Gods, it was pretty good.

I need to post this so I can come back to it when this mini-downswing (16bi?) turns into a 50bi one:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. --T. Roosevelt

Downswings are totally fine, I won't let this get to me. It's a necessary part of the game and enables us to play with people worse than us. This one isn't even that bad compared to some previous ones I've pushed thru.. I've even lost more $$ in one hand. I'm playing 1 hour sessions and making sure I play A game each time.

Regardless it's still an obstacle to overcome.
This is what i'm battling thru right now:


It only motivates me to put more effort in all across the board. I see such huge gaps between the tops regs and me, and I won't let this divide still separate us three months from now. Every day a little more, a little closer.

And such is PLO -- keep up the hard work dude and it'll pay dividends

Really having some difficulty, only played 4 hours yesterday and stars is at 27.378/100k. I'm still doing quite well with respect to what a good winrate would be so really it just means the heater is ending and I need to play thru it. I'll be fine, just working more off the table. Most of my losses are from net won converging with allin-ev, as in I was running way over EV before so this isn't unexpected. Still plowing along at a fine evbb/100.
I'm going to put in a strong effort this week to not look at my tracker and put in as many quality short sessions as I can.

Ok I put in 5.5+3 hours so far yesterday and today. I had a very productive 3 hour skype call with another reg that I hope will continue as I think we both can help each other in different ways.
In the meantime I've been having recurring issues in 3bet pots that I need to fix ASAP. I think it's by far the biggest part of my game that I have to fix.. that and river decisions. While I would like to say that I could just come and crush 500plz it's just not that way. The games are very tough and I need to put in a lot of work before I'll be at that point.

Rather than wait till the end of the month, since I'm deciding to drop down to 200plz while I work on my game, I'm posting my graph of all ring 500plz I've played so far since I got here:

While to some people this is a graph that represents success, I can see thousands and thousands of dollars of mistakes that I shouldn't be making if i'm playing in such a tough field. I understand that this can come off as me being hard on myself or having unrealistic expectations but it seems ridiculous to me to put in such a large amount of volume at 2/5 when I have unnecessary mistakes being repeated over and over.

In order to continue having an adequate $ev/day I'm considering putting in ~3k hands of 200plz a day, 1 hour of study, and the balance of my time (excluding some necessary leisure activities like running, socializing, and my sax) playing 2/5 plo live. The live games are very, very soft and have manageable rake.

Ok so that's that. I'm coming at this game with a vengeance.

Got in a solid 9.5 hours today that came out to 6.5k logged hands with a few hundred on b sites, going to study some before I sleep. Feels good man. Hard work is getting easier to do.. a few months ago I would have struggled to put in 6 hours, let alone quality ones.
stars is at 30.586/100k.

hands:


Not sure if I should flat flop:


I'm a fish? villain was playing quite aggro pre over 150 hands soo dunno. I don't show up with much better


Lol fold equity?

Seems fairly standard. Flop sizing looks suspicious can’t fold yet. Turn bet we can have better hands to continue with.

Yeah the flop check raise almost just seems likely to lose this pot with dry bottom set (aside from bd 4hi clubs). That said turn bet seems standard. River I can’t think of enough bluffs to call pot (we even block the low wraps however unlikely they are). Seems like we lose to QJT here almost all day long.

Yeah gross spot. Also prefer this as a turn bet/call since we dont have Ah. Also should be a spot where UTG check raises turn at a high frequency

Some serious button clicking going on here. Maybe he thought it was a spot to redline with some AKQ8.

Fwiw steve I thought that turn was raised at a very low frequency and I shouldn't be betting that turn much either.

I've put in 6.5 hours so far today mostly at 200plz with some b site. Stars is at 29.972/100k. I was a little worried as I was losing a lot in EV @ 200plz and I was confused/having some doubts about what was going on. Although I turned it around today so it was definitely just card distribution and I shouldn't mind it.
I'm jumping into some studying right now, I have a few thoughts about planning some future studying to systematically go over every texture category with the most prevalent range interactions, but for now I'm still consuming RIO videos with the odd sim here or there and a decent chunk of hand review. Hopefully tomorrow I'll fit in another session chatting with another reg too.
I'll probably put in 1 or 2 thousand more hands today depending on how I feel after I finish studying. I will be awake for another 3-5 hours so there should be time.

That all being said, I checked my tracker and I've played 14,000 hands on stars in the last two days. I was playing around today with a bunch of alternate lines and seeing if I could push some spots that I don't usually attack. I also focused much more in 3b and 4b pots and have been completely dialed in during my sessions. I had one particular hand come up where I'd just recently learned how to play that spot properly and got to execute my strategy adjustment and it worked. That felt really good! It also was nice to know some relevant information about what hands should be doing what, the optimal sizing and how deviations can be structured and why to do them. It's nice to have progress... I can feel it.

P.S. I think I missed a (pot sized?) bet:

All done, got in another two hours. Today was great! I'm quite happy with both my progress for working on my game and my routine. It will bear fruit

Subbed, glgl

Had a nice 2 hour chat about some spots to start the day then got in 7:12 of playing and a good bit of reading on financial intelligence/real estate topics. Stars is at 35.151/100k

Just one hand today..... awkward spot for sure!

Hmm. obv not beating any value but surely you're overfolding if you can't defend this hand. V underbluffing?

Can you expand on that

Looks wp. I like flatting the flop check raise to keep in his lower equity bluffs/protect our range and since we dont need to protect against the FD. River fold is kind of sick but I can't think of enough air he shows up with on this runout

Your 3betting range isn't going to smash this board too often, but its a board you still have a range advantage on (just not a polarity advantage), and thus should be cbetting fairly wide for a small sizing (as you did). This means oop should be check-raising at a decently high %, and you're going to have to call down with some overpairs (typically those with additional equity). Having a seven blocker is pretty damn important and you're really high up in your range, you have a decent amount of trips but probably not a ton of boats.

Ig idk what yours/his ranges look like. I have a lot of very aggro dynamics with some ppl who attack these boards vs IP 3bettor so personally it's a call down, but like I said I'm sure you have a vastly different meta so take what I say with a grain of salt. I would guess its a call vs somebody who's bluffing the correct % (not saying they are).

Ideally you'd want this hand without clubs, doubt youre making a mistake defending this combo tho

Ok I'll give it some thought. I do understand that from a perspective of defending enough that he can't bluff any four cards on the river I should likely be calling here but I can't find enough bluffs on this runout and I'm playing against a player at 1/2 not 100/200.
Would you still call in my shoes in this game?

I need some motivation. It's a little low right now, got back from a date that was pleasant. Put on some fargo, had some bananas and a burger. I don't have the high energy that I'd want to put in some hours. I think I'm going to shoot for less tonight, maybe only 6. I've already put in 30 min so we'll see how much more I get in in the next 7 hours.

Not feeling great. 2:46 into it so far and playing fine but really not feeling good. I just did a bunch of chores and made some food.. cleaned up the place after my flatmate had some guys over that left a bunch of waste around which helped me feel better and I'm sure he'll appreciate as he was a bit cranky when he went to bed. Going to give it a break for a few minutes then get back at it.

Alright I don't know how to feel about this. I feel weird. Grinding felt a little off, not quite as focused as i'd like. The good news is my auto-pilot/unconscious competence is improving quite a bit. The bad news is I used a lot of it today.
Are there some routines I can do like pre-workouts to get in the zone? I tried some pump up music but that didn't work for long.
I only got in 4:26 today which is pitiful for what I'm trying to reach. Stars is at 34.192/100k.
Also exercised my chat box for the first time today by needling a nit 2p2er that isn't actually as nitty as I thought although that made me think about how he perceives me and for the last 200 hands or so I hadn't been 3betting much OOP because I was ~450bb deep on all four of my tables. Which raised the question of whether I should either rathole and just play shallower or practice deeper OOP 3b pots or just exercise a more snug preflop gameplan and be content with that. More to think about for sure.

I've got another date when I wake up with a girl that I had a lot of educational overlap with so we should have some nice conversations. I met her at a party this past weekend.. dunno how well we actually will get along in a more calm setting. Hopefully this will kind of reset me, although the date I went on earlier tonight didn't. Hrmph
Although I did still get in just under 3k hands today. I'll shoot for the same tomorrow and pick up the volume two awake cycles from now.

Something funny that occurred to me is a cute little joke now that I'm on a weird sleep schedule.. that I still got a 9-5 after I left school, I sleep from 9-5pm.

uh huh.



Fine as played? low freq open fwiw

I think you gonna get owned more often than not on that 765 board when cbet from UTG. I'd just x/c and let someone barrel you off the range that doesn't connect that well with this board.

Gl, been following since start!

Given we block so much that xr i like betting this combo

Thanks yeah but it's 4 way so are people really going to be betting to get me to fold? They would only barrel for that reason after i've called but their first bet has to be into 3 other people so it's not like they'll bet super light here. And if it's checked thru on the flop I basically lose the hand. Dunno

Also steve that was along the lines of why I bet but plo's such a nutted game maybe i'm just lighting blinds on fire in this spot

I got back from my date and feel quite well. I'm going to try and get as much volume in as I can tonight while I still am on this wavelength

Somewhat eventful day. Great date, 4:30 of playing. Stars is at 32.683/100k but playing well for the most part. I reached out to be an agent for a rewards program and got signed onto one of those apps with an ok deal. Got a girl coming over for a movie when I wake up. Won some on the app and b sites, lost some on stars. It comes it goes.

Here is a total punt vs an unknown.

Well I unintentionally switched my sleep schedule from daytime to nighttime because of company. Since I was up so early this morning I took the liberty of checking out a local boxing gym, going around a rotating art exhibit, running some errands, doing some shopping, getting a haircut. Good life stuff. I'm about to go running with my flatmate. So far today I got in about an hour and a half in some soft games and a little 500plz.
I feel generally good but a little tired from all the poker I've been playing (92k hands tracked, probably another 3-5k untracked so far this month).. it's been a lot for sure.

I posted in the london regional community but if anyone reading would like to hang out, do some things around London/just generally relax and is close to belsize park I'm happy to meet up. Cheers

Oh and lost AAQ7r vs AKK6r aipf on the app for heaps at 5/10. That was cool

ill be in London for a week if u wanna hang and socialize. (6th til 15th or something)

fun fact 7778ss is doing better vs AA than AKK6r