Hey, I am Ruben,

and I will be writing about my 2nd poker journey accompanied by my life journey.

I played a lot of poker a bunch of years ago during my final year of school and my first years of university and was not overly but somewhat successful at it. It was a great time. Over the years I played less and less volume and finally quit as university got more time consuming and tougher. During the last years, I sometimes cashed in a few hundred bucks and basically gambled, however seemed to have forgotten the basics of brm. Therefore I ran it up some times but busted it most times. This was fun as well but probably in hindsight a bit of a waste of money.

Due to an accident, I started 2020 bedridden, which combined with Covid and challenging career obstacles took a toll on my mood. It was a very tough year and honestly there isn't much which brings me joy at this point. I kinda miss the cheerful kid I was before. Nevertheless, I have decided it is time to quit drowning in self-pity and anger at myself and get my life going again. I decided to start out by doing the thing, which brought my younger self great joy and self-confidence, which brings me back to the great game of poker.
(Please don't blindly copy this decision if you are in a similar state in life. I am no expert but I guess gambling while going through a rough patch can easily result in a gambling addiction, which would be the last thing you would want. I, to hold myself accountable decided to write this blog and decided to review the situation open and regularly with my girlfriend. Please stay safe.)

• I will be starting out playing 6max nl10
• My starting br will be 330 bucks
• I won't cash in more than this
• I will only play, when I feel capable to perform reasonable
• I will quit sessions faster than usual, if I don't feel good playing
• I will quit the great game for good if my life gets worse because of it instead of better

Have Fun, Ruben

Hi there,

the first two days went great in terms of poker.

I played 2453 hands and won 82.69, so 8.269 buy-ins. It's always nice to start a journey running hot.

Additionally I decided to enroll to the Bluff The Spot Lab for 1 month, since the playing style seems to have changed a lot and I liked their YouTube videos. A yearly Lab+ membership (or some membership on an other site) or a solver to play around with would be great, but they are not in the budget for now . I already watched a bunch of videos, but especially liked the check-decide feature they use, where you, yourself can replay the hands of one of their pros. It then tells you after each decision, how your decision differs from the one the pro took.

Somehow my Holdem-Manager seems to bug and I can't replay or view played hands. Therefore you have to wait until the next update to help me improve my gameplay

Have Fun Ruben

GL will be following!

G'day gals an guys and especially hi Thommehh,

the last days had a small cliff in there but in the end went very well again. I played 4252 hands and won ~5,5 buy-ins, which resulted in 124,2 bucks.

On Wednesday I did my first workout in a while. Since my body apparently was annoyed to all of the sudden having to work out again he decided to protest and I fell asleep on the couch till the evening. Therefore I was wide awake during the night and decided to gain the best out of the situation with a nightly session. Since the games are softer at night and I already had > 20 BI's I added in some nl20 tables as well. The session was great but I ended it with, what maybe was a spew on nl20:

***** Hand History for Game 1111111111 ***** (IPoker)
€20.00 EUR NL Texas Hold'em - Thursday, June 10, 03:53:56 ET 2021
Table 100BB Lahti 17 (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Player1 ( €29.26 EUR )
Seat 10: Hero ( €58.80 EUR )
Player1 posts small blind [€0.10 EUR].
Hero posts big blind [€0.20 EUR].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Ad 6d ]
Player1 raises [€0.30 EUR]
Hero raises [€1.60 EUR]
Player1 calls [€1.40 EUR]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3c, 2s, 8d ]
Hero bets [€2.40 EUR]
Player1 calls [€2.40 EUR]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4c ]
Hero bets [€6.40 EUR]
Player1 calls [€6.40 EUR]
** Dealing River ** [ Jh ]
Hero bets [€48.20 EUR]
Player1 calls [€18.66 EUR]
Hero wins €29.54 EUR
Player1 wins €58.02 EUR from main pot
Player1 shows [As, Js ]

Preflop I 3bet Axs sometimes when we are deep (maybe a mistake?), but I guess A6s,A2s,A3s I should 3bet the least often. On the flop and turn I am not sure if betting or checking is best (maybe a mix?). The shove on the river I think is fine.


Thursday was quite a swingy day but in the end I got lucky and did most of my winning at nl20 and my loosing on nl10.

Have Fun Ruben

Edit: Any tips on how to get my Hand-histories to look as nice as in other threads?

Start using preflop ranges from GTOWizard free, select 50nl and be a tiny bit tigher with opening and calling from bb because the rake is higher at lower stakes. Can recommend to play at 10nl until you've studied the ranges pretty well or if you can deposit more easily and don't care

In PT4 you can copy the hand in forum format, not sure how to do this in other software

Hello,

thank you Thommehh for the tip with GTOWizard. This site is great! The last days I studied my pf-ranges a lot. Sadly they have no pf-ranges for HU, in which I struggle more. Also I practiced a lot with the postflop tool where you can play through a hand starting at the flop. (I have no clue why I can use this feature, because I thought only paying customers can use it.)
Preflop I make very few mistakes but postflop I still loose a bunch of ev. (They point out that their postflop solutions are far from perfectly solved and noted that they will release better solutions in the near future. I still think, that they are a great help for my postflop play already.)

The last days I had my first small loosing days for this challenge, but I still felt comfortable playing. I played 3781 hands, lost ~12bb which resulted in a loss of 33,41 bucks. This brings my br to 500 euro. For now I will keep playing a mix of nl10 and nl20.

Have Fun Ruben

Good luck man, will follow you. I hope you can make it

Hi ,

thank you kidpoker3. That is nice of you to say.

Over the last days i won ~ 4,4 BIs, which mainly came from a great Tuesday, where I could win >12 BIs. My br now is 542,70 euro.
My most profitable game right now is nl10. Nevertheless I don't want to discount nl20 since it seems, that I am still profitable at it and I want to improve and want to climb higher

Yesterdays session was a bit annoying since I got disconnected two times, which lead to me squeeze-3betting KK and then involuntary folding it.

In terms of real-life I am still struggling a bit to pick myself up again (At least by now not literal anymore ). However yesterday was a great day. I went bouldering for the first time since January 2020. I climbed like **** and my whole body is aching today (only muscle soreness) but it felt great. To motivate myself in going more often, I bought an annual season-ticket. Now I have to go at least 0.8274 times a week to not have burned money .
Let's commit and call Monday and Thursday bouldering-days.

Have Fun Ruben

Good Morning!

Poker has been going well for the last days. I ran a bit above ev and now have my br at 722 euro. (Yay over 100% up from the start). I am currently playing nl20 and add some nl10 tables if my tables run out of fun players. My hourly aiev on nl10 is still way higher than on nl20 but as long as I am profitable I want to play nl20 to improve. I think this is the correct way for me to approach it. (At least as long as the hourly on my most profitable stake is not a substantial hourly in the real world.)

I tried the free resources on upswingpoker to convert a handhistory. So let's have a look if this works:

iPoker, Hold'em No Limit - €0.10/€0.20 - 3 players
Hand delivered by Upswing Poker

BU: €20.00 (100 bb)
SB: €45.61 (228 bb)
BB (Hero): €27.95 (140 bb)

Pre-Flop: (€0.30) Hero is BB with 9♥ 9♠
BTN raises to €0.50, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets to €2.20, BTN calls €1.70

Flop: (€4.50) J♣ 7♦ T♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets €2.97, Hero calls €2.97

Turn: (€10.44) K♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: (€10.44) 7♠ (2 players)
Hero bets €22.78 (all-in), BTN calls €14.83 (all-in)

Total pot: €40.10 (Rake: €1)

Showdown:
BB (Hero) shows 9♥ 9♠ (two pair, Nines and Sevens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 54%, Flop: 24%, Turn: 14%, River: 0%)

BU shows A♥ J♥ (two pair, Jacks and Sevens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 46%, Flop: 76%, Turn: 86%, River: 100%)

BU wins €39.10

Do you shove the river here with 99? My plan was to shove 88/99 for sure. I even think it is difficult to come up with enough bluffs, since I will be jamming AKo and AQo on the river and I think I have almost all my AK/AQ on the river. Also I will have some 7xs I will play this way.

In terms of real life I have to postpone my Bouldering-Monday already to a Bouldering-Wednesday since I climbed Mount Everest two days ago; And with Mount Everest I mean I did a 12km walk in mostly plain terrain but it was the most exhausting hike I have ever done and my muscles are aching accordingly. Still I am looking forward to Wednesday

Have Fun Ruben

Seems like a fine play! Don't think his call will be profitable but I don't play regular tables and ofcourse there is different dynamics there

Thank you Thommehh for looking at it.

Had a great poker-day today !





br at 993 euro

It's morning here already. Good night

Hi guys,

Today the inevitable happened. My sunrun came to an end and I had a very bad loosing session. I lost 6.5 BI's on NL50 and 3.5 BI's on nl20 and the last hand sadly was a very unnecessary spew on nl50.

Now is the time where my real challenge starts. It is also the time to keep my head up, step down to nl20 and nl10 again and try to preserve capital.

The next few days are pretty planned out with real-life stuff. Therefore I won't have time to play much.

Here a hand from yesterdays winning session:

iPoker, Hold'em No Limit - €0.25/€0.50 - 3 players
Hand delivered by Upswing Poker

BU: €119.17 (238 bb)
SB (Hero): €114.82 (230 bb)
BB: €51.25 (103 bb)

Pre-Flop: (€0.75) Hero is SB with J♥ 6♥
1 fold, Hero raises to €1.50, BB calls €1

Flop: (€3) T♣ 8♥ 7♠ (2 players)
Hero bets €1.50, BB calls €1.50

Turn: (€6) 7♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets €4.08, Hero raises to €12.66, BB calls €8.58

River: (€31.32) 4♠ (2 players)
Hero bets €99.16 (all-in), BB folds

Total pot: €31.32 (Rake: €0.94)
SB (Hero) wins €30.38

On the the turn, I really want to range check. I am not sure if we want a check-raising range or if we just call all continues, but it feels like he could exploit that heavily. On the river it's obviously not great to have hearts but I don't think I have any air without hearts on the river. (maybe a very tiny bit of 99, but that would be not even 1 combination.) Besides the hearts I think we have quite good blockers here.

Finally the current results for the challenge:







Now of to the bouldering-gym;

Have Fun Ruben

Looking very solid so far keep it up!

Well, hello there!

Thank you Thommehh. The last week had some good and some not so good in it; In poker as well as in in life.

I won 420 euro, thus had a nice recovery. I had two very bad sessions where I lost 10 BI's each. However most sessions were winning sessions which prevailed in the end.

I guess it can be nice to missclick-limp the button:

iPoker, Hold'em No Limit - €0.25/€0.50 - 6 players
Hand delivered by Upswing Poker

UTG: €64.16 (128 bb)
MP: €25.98 (52 bb)
CO: €56.14 (112 bb)
BU (Hero): €104.80 (210 bb)
SB: €84.84 (170 bb)
BB: €50.75 (102 bb)

Pre-Flop: (€0.75) Hero is BTN with A♦ A♠
3 players fold, Hero calls €0.50, SB raises to €2, BB 3-bets to €6, Hero calls €5.50, SB 4-bets to €84.84 (all-in), BB calls €44.75 (all-in), Hero calls €78.84

Flop: (€220.43) 3♠ 2♣ J♥ (3 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: (€220.43) 8♥ (3 players, 2 all-in)

River: (€220.43) K♥ (3 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: €220.43 (Rake: €1.50)

Showdown:
SB shows 7♣ 7♦ (a pair of Sevens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 21%, Flop: 9%, Turn: 5%, River: 0%)

BB shows K♠ A♣ (a pair of Kings)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 6%, Flop: 3%, Turn: <1%, River: 0%)

BU (Hero) shows A♦ A♠ (a pair of Aces)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 73%, Flop: 88%, Turn: 95%, River: 100%)

BU (Hero) wins €218.93

In the following hand I had no clue what to do. Do you have any thoughts on it?:

iPoker, Hold'em No Limit - €0.10/€0.20 - 5 players
Hand delivered by Upswing Poker

UTG: €22.41 (112 bb)
CO: €34.13 (171 bb)
BU: €45.86 (229 bb)
SB (Hero): €61.42 (307 bb)
BB: €22.09 (110 bb)

Pre-Flop: (€0.30) Hero is SB with J♣ J♦
2 players fold, BTN raises to €0.50, Hero 3-bets to €2.20, 1 fold, BTN 4-bets to €5.30, Hero calls €3.10

Flop: (€10.80) 7♠ 6♠ J♠ (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets €5.50, Hero calls €5.50

Turn: (€21.80) Q♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets €11.11, Hero raises to €50.62 (all-in), BTN calls €23.95 (all-in)

River: (€91.92) 3♦ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: €91.92 (Rake: €1)

Showdown:
SB (Hero) shows J♣ J♦ (three of a kind, Jacks)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 18%, Flop: 66%, Turn: 2%, River: 0%)

BU shows Q♠ Q♣ (three of a kind, Queens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 82%, Flop: 34%, Turn: 98%, River: 100%)

BU wins €90.92


Mentally I felt down many of the past days, which also lead to me not going to the bouldering-gym as often as planned, but when I went it felt great. Also it is nice, that after a long break one can improve and step up the climbing stakes fast again . The dream would be to reach the limits of pre-injury. I also went to dinner for the first time since ages. It is nice to sit at a town square, enjoy great food in great company, accompanied by happy people sauntering by. Hmm, maybe life isn't bad right now after all.

Have a nice Weekend and

Have Fun Ruben

Yea it's awesome that things like going for dinner somewhere is possibe again

The JJ hand, think it's played fine and you can't get away, he'll probably play AsAx, KsKx or AsQx the same way, I never play this deep myself though

It's great

Those were my thoughts as well. Thank you for your input.

subbed, gl OP!

You got this, sir~

Hehe TY, I will give it the best I can.

Hey ,

last week my old roommate was in town, which was great fun. We didn't even do anything special. It was just nice to chat and chill again for a few days.
Sadly the last few days, where I was ready to tackle the tables more regularly again, I got sick. I have/had a cold, some headache and some weird pain in my limbs, but luckily only negative Corona-Tests. However since yesterday the symptoms got lighter and I could squeeze in some sessions .

Pokerwise the good did beat the pants off the bad in the last two weeks. I was running a bunch (since the start of this challenge around 1k ) below AI-EV. However, since I started adding nl100 tables I got destroyed on nl50 , while winning loads on nl100. It's a weird feeling but I take it .
Also I added Unibet to my usual site, since I still had 179.1 euro lying there. (Cashed out 179.1 respectively on my main site)
br at 4072 euro

Let's hope the journey continues in this fashion

Have Fun Ruben

I forgot the handhistory I wanted to add

iPoker, Hold'em No Limit - €0.25/€0.50 - 2 players
Hand delivered by Upswing Poker

SB (Hero): €513.47 (1027 bb)
BB: €65.84 (132 bb)

Pre-Flop: (€0.75) Hero is SB with 7♦ 6♦
Hero raises to €1.25, BB calls €0.75

Flop: (€2.50) 7♣ 8♠ 6♣ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets €0.67, BB raises to €3.15, Hero calls €2.48

Turn: (€8.80) K♣ (2 players)
BB bets €6.16, Hero calls €6.16

River: (€21.12) 8♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets €502.91 (all-in), BB calls €55.28 (all-in)

Total pot: €131.68 (Rake: €0.50)

Showdown:
SB (Hero) shows 7♦ 6♦ (two pair, Eights and Sevens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 38%, Flop: 48%, Turn: 9%, River: 0%)

BB shows 9♣ J♣ (a flush, King high)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 62%, Flop: 52%, Turn: 91%, River: 100%)

BB wins €131.18

Do you have any thoughts on this hand?

Hi,

the last few weeks weren't the best. My girlfriend did take some days off from work, so we did go out for dinner a few times, did some hiking, visited a street art festival for a day and in general spent more time together than usual, which all was very nice. Mentally however I felt worse than with my pretty uneventful but somewhat structured daily rhythm I had going the weeks before.
Also I did not play much poker and when I played I felt lost way to often. Today I was motivated to jump into the grind again but did quit the session early due to receiving quite the beating at the tables and not feeling well because of it.
I am happy with my current results of the challenge, but poker feels way more humbling than back in the day, where I felt great and very self confident in playing the weirdest lines just trying to exploit opponents. Now i realize (at least I guess) that most of those weird lines are quite unprofitable unless very certain conditions are met (i.e. playing very long nightly heads-up sessions against the same opponent). But playing gto is just very hard and I often struggle to understand why I am taking certain lines on certain boards. In a lot of spots I am just trying to copy the style of the current meta without really understanding why this meta is correct.

Honestly, I haven't felt like writing for the last weeks and also today, but I don't want this blog to die. It helps me ordering my thoughts.

I append my current results for the challenge. (The pic shows the results on my local site; On unibet I lost ~380€)



Have Fun Ruben

Hi,

I have bought Kanus 6max course. The decision for me was between Kanus course and the one of MMAsherdog. I have read a lot of good things about both and alltough I got the impression, that MMAsherdogs would directly improve my hourly more (less unnecessary spots, good practical suggestions), Kanus course seems to give better insights on how poker works (a more academic approach). Since I want to get the feeling back of understanding the game as much as possible, Kanus course felt more tailored to my needs.
I realize, that 974 usd is a significant part of my br and a Gto-Wizard membership would have been way more cost effective, but I like one time purchases way more than memberships and I think it wouldn't bring me much closer to understanding the game (even though it would help me play better).
Also, even if I would stop playing tomorrow it would feel great to understand this game on a deeper level.

After this week my girlfriend again has two weeks off from work and we will do some short local holidays, but this week I devote myself to Kanu.

Cashgame fundamentals here I come!

Have fun Ruben

Hey man, some humble suggestions to help with this:

1. Try to focus more of your study time and attention on the heuristics in countless different spots. An effective way to do this is while you’re reviewing hands.

So try to figure out what your middle pairs are doing on every street, flush draws, straight draws, top pairs etc.

This will help you have a better sense of how to play all the different hand classes you have and make “playing gto” in game significantly more achievable.

A lot of the heuristics remain similar from spot to spot .

2. Spend some time each day working with a gto trainer, once again with the same focus as above.

A solver is also great tool for this, just learn how to use it well!

Videos are great but you seem to be struggling with the application more so than the concepts you already have studied. I would tackle that first.

That being said, obviously it’s important to keep learning more an more.
——-
Anyways, keep it up! GL, rooting for you

Hey,

first let me say, thank you very much Chessman for the study-tips.

Now a not so nice update:
Me and my girlfriend did some fun irl stuff during the last weeks, but there was no time for poker and I again missed my structured daily rhythm a bit. A few days ago I nonetheless decided to squeeze in a session of poker while being very tired. (Which normally is one of my biggest reasons to quit a session let alone to start one). It didn't take long until I really ****ed up. I even played nl400 to nl1k. Additional I got punished for my stupid behavior by running 900 below ev. In the end the damage was a whopping 1.9k euros (1k on unibet and 900 on my local site) and a feeling of anger at myself and a little bit of shame.

This brings me to a total of 2,5k winnings (sadly I ran 2,3k under ai-ev) on my local site and 420 in losses on unibet (where I have no hhs). Minus 830 for the course gives a plus of around 1,2k euros. Since I won't be playing until I feel more stable, I cashed out my 1,5k br. Normally I think I wouldn't quit after one ****-up, but I think it would be counterproductive to just go on playing given the current overall mental state I am in.

I will try other ways to get back on track and if I get back to poker I will let you guys know. Thanks for the tips along the short way. They have given me joy in a not so great time of my life.

Ruben