lmao

Update:


Just completed the 50 Buyin Challenge! Need to wait for my hands to download etc so will post specifics (graphs + review) tomorrow!!!

Also will edit video and post ASAP

Well played, good luck at 500nl

So as promised, here is the graph for my 50 buyins:



So I had a really good start at the end of May but then went on a really long breakeven stretch. The last week was obviously really good where I surged in winnings.

I had my first 500nl session today.

I played approximately 5 hours and ended up breaking even. Thought I played really well. Ran some bluffs into top of range. I will do a review on this session via video.

A little bit of a delay on the vid upload.

Out now:



Highlights up to finishing the 50/50 challenge

Best of luck at $500nl and hope to see you continue to put out great content on YT.

Congrats on completing your goal. Are you going to do any battle in short handed 500z or just reg tables?

Awesome work Skuzlad! I'm loving the video's

Yes I did quite a bit of short handed battling. Since rake implications are not as intense at 500nl I am happy to battle regs albeit edges are very small.


Thanks!

So just a quick update on 500nl. I played two days and on my second day (yesterday) I got smashed for 5.8~buyins. I played quite poorly and have decided to drop down to 200nl and grind back those buyins and take another shot next weekend.

I actually feel quite comfortable playing in the pool. Many of the regs are making a lot of balance mistakes which I was capitalising on. I have to say there were 2 regs that were really good. It forced me to really think about my ranges and ensure that nothing was too obvious. Unfortunately I had to run a lot of bluffs vs these players to ensure my value would get paid. Each time I bluffed I ran into the top of their range so it was pretty frustrating.

Overall I really did enjoy playing 500nl a lot more than 200. Its a lot more strategic (imo) and I can play my old strategy from Stars (which involved a lot of red lining). I will review the last 2 days once I download the hands and do a video on it.

Back to 200nl for this week. Going to be a good test to see if I have the mental discipline to drop back down and continue playing well despite a rough start to the shot take. Will grind and get confidence back and take another shot next weekend.

Any specific tips on dealing with those long BE stretches?

weed lots of weed

That is a really tough question.

It depends on the person as I think different things work for different types of people. However I will try to explain what I do.

Firstly, I want to say a breakeven stretch is much better than having a downswing!

but for downswings I will try and rationalize the situation.

I usually look at my previous results where I have been through a DS or BE stretch and see that every time (probably 5 or 6 times this year already) I have gotten out of it without destroying the bankroll. This kind of helps with the confidence issue where you start to think "am I ever going to win again".

Something else I like to do is look at other successful player's graphs. I am not trying to say I want to see others fail but it helps to know that other players who are crushing can go through long periods of breakeven or downswing periods and still maintain their winrates. My friend recently showed me a crusher with an 8bb/100 over a large sample go through a 70k hand BE period and still manage to maintain the win rate. This just helps put things in perspective and that I am not the only one who goes through these periods i.e. its normal. In fact it would be abnormal for a player to not experience these periods.

Having friends (both poker and non poker related) helping you rationalizing the situation is also important. That way if you are struggling to console yourself they can assist in the process.

These are just small things that help in the short term. I think in the long term it comes down to your mental game. Mental discipline and conditioning are important and those with an A+ in these areas will do really well to minimise these periods. In my opinion this comes from personal development that is unrelated to poker. E.g. if you are naturally an impatient person, then you probably need to develop some techniques to improve your patience otherwise you will start to open up 2-4% more hands. If you are naturally ill disciplined and find it difficult to keep to tasks that you create (waking up on time, going to the gym, responding to emails etc etc) then you are probably going to find it difficult to fold TT vs that 1% 3betting nit. These are just some minor examples that may reflect into your game.

If you are serious about improving this element of your poker game (which I think is more important than spending many hours doing study) then you should probably look at studies within professional sport, military or just listen to podcasts of successful people (in all aspects of life). I personally watch a lot of Joe Ingram's podcasts and listen to what the successful poker and business individuals do and try incorporate one or two things into my life.

I am not saying my mental is good, in fact its still pretty average. However it has significantly improved since the beginning of January. Each time I go through a downswing (BE's don't really bother me anymore) I learn something and have improved on it. I think just going through the experience multiple times has significantly helped. The first time I lost 25 buyins in like 4 days I didn't play for like a week. Then the next time I DSed I didnt play for a few days and then the last few DS's it just takes a good night's sleep to get over it.

Yesterday was my biggest losing day in terms of absolute value. I lost $3.3k. But I managed to rationalise the situation by telling myself it was only ~5.5BI at 500nl and then ~3BI at 200nl. I.e. it was only an 8 buyin losing day - which for me is not that uncommon. I then woke up this morning at 7am and just played a 2 hour session and felt completely fine.

Anyway this was a longer post than intended.

TLDR:

-BEs are not as bad as DS
-Use success from previous periods (or other player's) as a mental anchor to improve confidence
-Work on mental game outside of poker
-Going through losing periods regularly is not THAT bad for long term

Hey everyone,

Finally got around to uploading my 500nl Review of Day 1. I will post the entire shot into two parts.

This video will go over Day 1 (winning and losing Hands).



The video is a bit longer than usual but found it difficult to keep it short. After these two videos it will go back to normal length and structure. I just had a weird recording setup when I was playing and pixelated the screens. Therefore I decided to do an entire review.

70k be stretch and maintaining 8bb/100 is sick city

My 200z sample has a 70k break even stretch

love the vids @skuz, looking forward to battling you @500

yeah pretty sick.

find that hard to believe. Your graph looks like crypto pre 2018.

And thanks mate!!

I wish I could say the same but I would rather not have to run breakeven triple barrel bluffs when I'm taking my shot thanks...... but in all seriousness I wouldn't say no to a bit of reg (give ignition rake) battles.

New Video out reviewing day 2!



Let me know what you guys think of the hands.

One of the best posts I've read on 2+2, A+

Glgl at 500nl

Big +1 to this.
Skuz this is one of the better threads on 2+2 in a long time. Props to you!

Thanks, these comments mean a lot. Improves my motivation to create content!

Anyway, ironically, after posting the breakeven/downswing tips I have entered a downswing myself. So currently I am 26 buyins down (~6 at 500nl and 20 at 200nl). Rather than seeing this as a negative, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to demonstrate and log some techniques I will use to get myself out and return to my grind to 500nl. Hopefully this climb out will be used as motivation for others when things aren't going so great.

Do you think zones gotten tougher lately? 6 months ago it was passive pool just giving you money, but these days its full of aggro whales/bots/regs whatever they are. Its really different now.

Climbing out of a Downswing

1. Determine if you are in a DS: Ok so first of all I like to identify what is a downswing. I usually see anything more than 20 buyins as a downswing (obviously this changes for people). Its important because it gives you an opportunity to self reflect when you hit a certain amount of - buyins. Finding the right number for your downswing is important because if the buyin limit is set too small you might change your winning strategy (mental and theoretical) too often (don't fix whats not broken). If its too high then it might take you too long to recognize you are playing poorly. For me, looking at my past results, I generally recover after 20 buyins. Therefore anything after 20 buyins sets off alarm bells.

2. Review the sessions/hands: This one is pretty obvious. If you are in a downswing (and you are a winning player) then it is either one of two things. Variance or playing poorly. So once I've decided I am in a downswing I then review my play and check whether I am playing poorly or getting screwed by variance. A lot of the times it is a combination. For example, this current downswing I am in - I played poorly on the 2nd July (my 500nl shot 2nd day -6BI), 4th (+5BI) and 5th (-4BI) of July at 200nl. I actually won buyins on the 4th despite playing really poorly. Then I took the day off on the 6th of July (because I knew I was playing poorly) to reset. However upon reset I came back on the 7th, 8th and 9th of July for around -22 buyins. These 3 days I attributed to variance (however I noticed small misplays).

3.Identify what you are doing wrong: Even if variance is the main factor, you are still generally going to play slightly worse in a downswing. I recognised that despite variance was screwing me, I was making small misplays that could potentially soften the damage.

For example:
1. Not value betting as thin as I was. When confidence is low it becomes very easy to just check back marginal spots that I would normally just value bet really thin.
2. Folding turn often. I noticed I was folding turn in marginal spots because I was probably scared of having to call off a triple with a marginal holding.
3. Overplaying flush draws. I was overplaying flush draws in spots where villain has range advantage. This one is not that bad because the equities run a lot closer but why flip against fish in spots where fold equity is low?

These are just some of the many minor misplays from the past week.

4.1 Regain Confidence This one is probably the toughest. Confidence is important as it helps with motivation and putting in volume. If my confidence is low I generally tend to fold more often.

To combat confidence (I mentioned this in my previous post) I generally look at past results to reassure myself that it will be temporary and that volume is my new favourite friend. So at the moment I am currently working off my January period. In January I went on my largest downswing which was 43 buyins in about 30k hands (image shown below).



This was my first big downswing on ignition. I think this downswing went on longer than it should have because mentally I was not really prepared for this. My previous biggest downswing was on Stars at 55 buyins but at 50nl. Since 43 buyins at 200nl is a lot bigger than 55 at 50nl, I struggled a lot.

It will be interesting to see how I cope if i do drop below 43 buyins because now I have a new anchor point.

4.2 Regain Confidence Another way to maintain confidence, particularly if you are playing at a new stake is to count everything in buyins. If you start to think about the absolute value i.e. the $$ value. Then you are probably going to go down a long dark road.

5. Mental So this one is also something pretty obvious. For those who are unfamiliar with the science behind the brain (I am no expert, I have just read a few things) a chemical known as cortisol is released when you are under immense stress. For me when I am down 10buyins in one day, I generally tend to feel quite stressed. I.e. high amounts of cortisol is released. It has been scientifically proven that cortisol severely affects the performance of decision making. Therefore it is quite obvious that this is out of your control and that no matter how drilled you are, the biology of your body is most likely going to conquer and screw you over. Once again this is obvious but to reduce the levels of cortisol you should consider:

-eating well
-exercising
-sleeping
-socialising with friends
-hobbies outside of poker
-yoga/meditation

Personally for me to reduce this I usually take a day off and try not to think about poker. Generally I will do video editing stuff, go to the gym or just go out with my friends for dinner.

6. Bankroll I probably should have made this one no.1 but make sure you always always always play within your bankroll. Knowing that you can play at the stake for like 100buyins helps with the stress/anxiety. If you are a decent player with a decent winrate and no degenerate tendencies it is very very unlikely you will burn through 100 buyins. I'm not saying that you have to play with 100, in fact I generally keep 30 buyins on my account at the minimum but try and sit at the stake you play deep so that volume can abrupt these downswings.

7. Vent A lot of people hate the bad beat stories. I am guilty of screenshotting and sending to my friends the 1 outer or the ridiculous coolers. However I think venting is good - only to yourself. Generally I try and restrain myself from sending messages to my friends so a lot of the times I write on notepad some very aggressive thoughts about the players in the pool. It helps release frustration and built up emotion.

Anyway this is a super long post. I hope a lot of this stuff helps those who are currently in a downswing themselves. It is easy to say all of this stuff so I am going to prove to everyone that it works by getting myself out of my current downswing. I am not a crusher, I am just an average or slightly average reg. My winrate is at about 5bb/100 (probably slightly less now because of this DS). So if an average reg like myself can continually get out of a DS then so should you.

I will continue to update the thread of my performance and little things I notice.

Well this is interesting. Yes 6months ago in December/Jan it was soft. Then I noticed it got tough between March - May. However June and July I feel has been soft. It fluctuates I guess. The aggro tendency has definitely increased but I feel like those players are still playing pretty poorly. Probably all the weaker players went to Global Poker during March - May? I have heard Global poker is something else hahaha

43 bi in 30k hands that is awful, I feel a lot better about my ds now ty

Thanks for taking the time to write that post on DS.

One of the top 3 posts on 2+2 in the last couple of years. Much appreciate it.