If I lived in Venezuela at this time I wouldn't mind my body storing some extra calories as fat Anyways i hope the situation gets better in your country soon and I wish you good luck with your poker career.

Hi guys

It was a hard weekend. I played very poorly and end loosing 40 BI since thursday regarding spins. The total EVchips was terrible, -4000 on 200 games. My worst weekend by far. The possitive part is i am learning to deal with these things. Months ago, i just let all the poker stuff by weeks before i get ready again. This time i just think i am going to rebuild, and going to the lab again. The worst the results, the harder the work need it.

As i mentioned in my last post, i am going to work in a weekly approach, so, here are my goals for this week:

1. Study 20 hours. This is going to be something like 12 hours reviewing the videos and 8 hours of database analysis. I am planning to analyze my preflop game hand selection in 7-10 bb spots and my flop game in 20-25 bb spots.

2. I am going to starts with my workout routine. I plan to do 4 days of UFC fit. I want to start slowly, check my limits, start with the routines and after i feel confortable, start to improve my diet.

3. Play 30 MTT, just to relax a little and dont lose the online poker rythm.


See you guys.

Hi mates


Last week i put cero volume at the tables, not playing spins or mtts. The complete week i put a lot of hours studying/reviewing my game trough videos or HM2. I put a total of 23 hours reviewing my game. Some of the topics i studied where:

• Preflop hand selection: I am playing to tight when i am at 10 bb or less, and i am losing to many chips in that spot, specially HU when i am supposed to have wider ranges.
  
• Cbet: I have a very high %cbet in flop textures i am not supposed too, and people (this is a population tendency) call a lot with any piece of the flop, so i need to down my aggression a little and way for the correct spots to cbet, specially for value.
  
• Donk betting: I have to stop doing this. Same reason like the cbet scenario. Most of the population here dont think about the opponents hands, and just call to any piece of the flop, and i put myself in very unfavorable spots OOP.

As the results werent good in the 1$ spins, i was downgraded to the 0.25$ again. As far as i am dissapointed with this, is the right decision. If i cant beat 1$ spins, i am doing a lot of things wrong, and the correct place to fix this fundamentals leaks, is at the microlimits.

Regarding my fit challenge, i started with the UCF FIT last week. Personally i like it. Have some new moves different from other programs, and the routines are short and entrertaining. I was supposed to do 4 days, but i ended doing just two. Very lazy i have to admit.

As an aditional fact, i started to reading The Myth of poker talent from Alexander Fitzgerald. I have read two chapters, and so far i like it. It doesnt look like the definitve solution to poker, but i thing is good reading so far, more like an extended blog, when every chapter talk about a topic and he explains how he learned that topic and how he thinks about it.

My Goals for this week:

1. Play 250 spins
   
2. Make 4 UFC routines
   
3. (Re)View/analize 4 training videos.
   
4. Do 30 min of HH review (i am thinking about checking the last 2-3 games i lose the previous sesion) before starting every game sesion. I have read this is a good way to warmup and enter in poker mode.
   
5. Read 4 chapters of The Myth of poker talent

See you guys

The situation in your country is really inhumane,
I hope it gets better for everyone.
Any unwanted situations you can report here.
I'll do my best to help you.

I wish you the best man! From BR

It's very good that you have the discipline to move down limits when you are not properly rolled for the current one. i wish I had it too :-D
About the study, it's good to review strategy but be careful not to loose confidence on your strategy and over-review everything...
Tweaks are fine, but be carefull not to overlook.
Cheers.

Sent from my LG-K430 using Tapatalk

Play to study ratio should be like 66/33 even for complete beginners. Definitely shouldn't be having an entire week (at least a week when you're working on poker), where entire time is spent on study. I've had these problems too though, a lot of it could be to do with fear of grinding for whatever reasons, maybe for you it's fear of not beating the games etc.

For more advanced players 80/20 or 75/25 at most.

You are studying way too much and not playing enough. Xptboy's post is good - you want to be playing at least as much as you study, 60/40 or 70/30 are also fine. You won't get anything just grinding study materials without applying them.

@Isidex

Thanks for the kind words.

@Mohsen, Xptboy and Duncelanas

Thanks for the advice. Yeah i think after get that rough weekend at 1$ i lost some of my confidence and maybe that is why i tought that go over all the material was the best way. But the play study ratio is something i plan to fix this week. For the goals i planned this is going to be something like 25 - 30 hours of play, and 10 -12 hour of study, and that accounts for the 60-70% you recommend.

See you guys

Hi mates

Two weeks without an update. Things have been getting tough in my country. People is more and more an unhappy in the last days an there are some political strategic movements by the goverment tha have upseting the people even more.

A lot of people protesting along the streets (most of them in a good way, but a bunch people mixing with some violence in there) blocking most of the streets an main roads. Regarding my family and me, we are trying to guarantee our safety by ourselves, mainly avoiding the protest zones and keep in us in house as early as posible. I am optimistic that is matter of time to get a temporal deal, a sort of negotiation between the parts, but not really a solution long term.

Of course all these events has his impact in our daily lifes. Losing time to arrive work or return to home, closed stores, and failling in some the basic services like water, electricity or internet.

Pokerwise, i had very low volume this month. I have played mostly spins since they are short and i can put in short sessions given the current difficulties. I have paused the mtts at the moment since the services are not currently reliable. I have put in 300 games in last two weeks, not that much, but i dont want to stop. I plan to add more hours in the weekends to compensate an fix the week issues.

I have to admit, the more the difficulties i get here, the more i want to work. This situation is motivating me even more to try harder and harder. I am very optimistic that i going to start climbing the limits again very soon, and this time i am going to be a rocket

Cheers

Hi mates

Almost a month since my last update, and things have not getting better in my country in the political/economics fields. This sunday July 30th is the election of a new constitutional congress, that is supposed to take all the powers by a undetermined time frame. The mission is rewrite or "fix" the current constitution and set the new foundations to repair everithing is wrong here. As you can see, the message is clearly Bullsh...! This is a process tha our goverment is selling as very democratic, but in reallity, is just fixed right now, so we are basically ****ed, but for external politics means they need to show a massive participation and that the world can see the entire country is happy with all this s*?¡. The result, we, the public employees are in a direct threat, we vote on sunday or, if we dont vote, we are going to get fired on monday. My mind is in a moral debate right now, i really dont want to vote, since is a form to validate all this trash these people is doing to Venezuela, but in the other side, i cant afford to lose my job, at least not now. I think not to vote is the correct thing, But it is the right think to do, even knowing that if dont vote the result is going to be the same? I have up to sunday to figure out.

Pokerwise, i could say is have been a good month so far:

* I have played 75 mtts, 0.70 $ ABI, with a net worth of 15,75$ so far. Is not a lot, but mtts is my weakest poker format, and even with the learning curve in the starting phase i have managed to play a decent level of poker. I am very happy with how my mtt development is going. I think the hardest thing about mtts is play the correct volume to build a reliable sample. But i plan to fix this progressively.

* I cross the mark of 700 0.25$ spins, with winnings of 4$, but the most important thing is that i get a 97 EVchips and my stable give me the permission to up to 1$ spins again. I plan to put in 200 1$ spins by the end of the month, and i am very confident that in the next two weeks i can make it to the 3$ spins.

* I played a few cash sesions on an untracked network, some NL2, and won something like 18 euros in 1500 or so hands. I played this when the internet was not reliable at all, and dont want to risk playing spins or mtts, so it was most a way to no lost contact with the game.

In summary, is not a very good month in the money side, but i am very happy with how my learning is going, both in spins and mtts. If i can keep this progressive evolution i am going to start to see greats results very soon.

Best regards

Good to see you're in good mood in the game and making progresa.
About political iasues you're having , this is excactly what happened to Iran after the so called Islamic Revolution.
I am a 24 year old and if I don't vote legally I didnt't anything wrong, BUT if I want to be employed as a government employe they will deny my application and give me some bull**** reason!
Sorry to hear you're going through the dictatorship that Mullahs put us through the last 40 years....

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Hi Mohsen

Thanks for the support. The situation is really hard, all goverment employees and any person that is getting a benefit from the goverment in any form is obligated to vote or simply lose any help he/she has right now. More and more people are just leaving the country, and i expect to set the right conditions to leave the country with my family very soon. I expect that maybe by december or max by the first quarter of 2018 i should be moving to another country.

Best wishes

Hi there

A little update here.

This past sunday was the voting process for the congress that will modify the current constitution. The result was the expected, so no news in this aspect. I decided not to vote, so i expect to get fired of my job anytime. Given the slow and unefficient these people are, i think i have at least 3-4 months before i get the notification. I am evaluating my alternatives countries to move on: Chile, Uruguay, Perú, Mexico or Costa Rica remain as the main options. I am doing my best to leave by the time frame Dec-March, it looks like a long time, but that is going to run really fast, and with a family to support i need to set all stuff the best way possible as fast as possible.

Regarding Poker, i ended the month in really good shape. As i said in my last updte, i was upgraded to 1$ spins again. I was hoping to get 200 games in 1$ spins before the end of July, but i just got close, 182 in total with a very good 97 cEV.

The good news is i closed with some winnings in the month between spins, mtts and some little cash sessions i played. I won 70$, that for me is twice my current salary as an engineer here in my country, just crazy.

In the first 3 days of august i have not played at all because of personal reasons, but i am going to start again today. My volume goals of this month:

• 120 MTT. I have a doubt with the ABI i should play. I am playing at 0.70 $ ABI currently, but my bankroll to play MTTs is like 600$ across all sites. Should i play in the 2-3$ ABI or i must stick to the 1$ mark a little more?

• 1000 spins. I expect these to be a high % of $1 spins, and problably can take some my first shots at the 3$ with a short sample of 200 - 250 spins. If i keep the results i am getting at my current level i should be in the 3$ spins in two weeks.

About the study goals, this is something i going to plan week by week as a function of how the game is going.

Best wishes

Very brave choice not to vote considering multiple mouths to feed. Congrats on that.
Hope you moge smoothly and get a better life experience asap.
As of poker, nice to see you're getting results.
I personally would love to see some graphs as well.
Cheers

Sent from my LG-K430 using Tapatalk

Hi

A lot of things had happen in the last month, some good and another not that good.

Lets start with the good things:

• I played a small amount of 1$ spins, close to 600 games. Money wise it was BE, i just won 3$ in that sample, but regarding evChips i get a very good 90 value so i got promoted to the 3$ level.

• MTTs: I played 72 tourneys with a 0.77 ABI and ended winning 111$ so it was a nice month.

As you see, regarding poker the thing are getting better with the time, a little slowly but i am happy i am in the right track.

The bad news, are related with my personal life. Last weekend we went to visit some family, we travel to another town and take two nights out of my house. When we returned, we notted that some people entered the house and robbed some of our stuff, electronics, jewerly, some money, clothing, and between the thing they robbed it was my laptop. It was a very low punch for us, very sad.

I am trying to recover some of the most necessary things (i have to buy it), so is possible i have to stop playing poker some time until i can get a pc again. I expect to keep studying in any way possible until i can play fully again.

These kind of things are really frustrating and sad, but we just had to get up and keep moving, keep working as always.

Best regards people.

Hey bro, im sad to hear what youre going through. I've did some research over those years about Venezuela, as i like stuff about politics and im your neighbor (im from Brazil), so i """know""" how ****ed up are the situation there.


Here the situation isnt so good as well (ofc far better than Venezuela), but we brazilians are very receptive if you and your family are thinking about moving here.

Now, about poker, your results are already showing, keep playing/studying hard that im sure youll make more than enough money for you and your family!

Best wishes, m8.

November 06, I am back

THE INTRO

Two months after the lost of many of my things, i am very happy to finally start writing again. A lot of things, a lot of thoughts, a lot of ideas, and other many decisions. During these two months i had to rebuild some of the many stuffs i lost, including some clothing, so my savings area a little down at the moment. But the most important is that prioroties are all done already.

THE DECISIONS

In the personal area, i reactivated one phase of my life that was in pause (mostly by country issues, like most of the things) and that i am going to finish ASAP: My master degree. I expect that by feb-march i must be finishing and defending my thesis, so i can claim a very personal goal i had since many years ago. I am in a very good path and very happy with my development in this area. The finishing time of this task is the same i am setting as a deadline to my departure from Venezuela. I dont have very clear were i am going, but i have 5 countries in the list: Uruguay, Argentina, Peru, Chile o Costa Rica, in that order of preference. All of those offer a good quality of life and the money that must be earn is not that much, so i can use the poker as an extra income or even as a main income is the things are good.

In the poker side is where a had most of the work to do, but the one that get me more excited. My computer time was virtually zero the last two months, that includes playing or studying poker. However i manage to study here and there, mostly by videos when i had the chance to visit some families and take advantage of that. Finally i can say i have a computer again. Of course is not a workstation, but it comply with the minimal requirements to play and do the tasks i usually do. I came with some decisions during this time that are very important in my path as a player:

1. I decided to quit my stable. There are several reasons for that, but maybe the more heaviest are the fact that the quality of service are slowing more and more and they are basically (a very personal opinion) converting the stable in a volume store with more and more players, but not enough atention to that players, and i think my development is going slower than i want to. I am going to honor all my debts to them, and actually i already contact them to pay all the make up i had. We are negotiating other stuff, but i am going to comply with my word. That this mean i going to abandon the spins? No, i plan on keep playing on spins, but as my second game, and one reason is that are many time slots of 1-2 hours when i have free time to play but is not enough to full charge an MTT sesion.
   
2. I choose the MTT as my main game. When i compare the material from my former stable and the MTT apprentice course, is just a gross difference between them. The mtt is very foundational, step by step, developing the game in every stage, that i honestly must say that just a small amount of info of the MTT course improved my game highly. I cant not say the same about my stable learning material. Just recipes on how to bet, how much to bet and when, but not the whys. And even at the micros i think the foundations must be strong, teaching you to think, to be aware, to analize, not just to follow recipes.

THE METHOD

I had a plan in april, according to, i should be playing 15$ spins and 5$ MTT by december. Seven months after, i am not close of that. I can say i had two months without internet and two months without a computer, but the reallity is what it is. I am not close, so i have this two months that are crucial for me, both in the learning stage and in the grinding phase.

What is the plan then?

1. Play 300+ MTTs/month: 70% Regulars, 15% turbo, 10% Other variants, 5% hypers. In the 70% regulars, i can choose when necessary 180/90 MTT SNGs. Aditionally i am going to play small fields (<500 people) in week days to low the variance a little and to manage the time better. On weekends i can add the more large fields to start testing some other situations of the game.
2. Play 1000 1$ spins/month. This is a very achievable number playing two tables of spins, that i can handle very well right now. Of course these numbers can be lower if the conditions are right in favor of MTT volume.
3. I expect the play/study time ratio should be 4/1, so for every sesion of 3-4 hours i should be studying 1 hour.

I plan to distribute these play along 25 days/month. Of course this volume is going to demand some sacrifices, but as a wise people said: “eat s### for two years and then eat caviar for the rest of your life”. It looks like a very ambitious goal, but i am very confident i can do it.

THE RESOURCES

Regarding the bankroll management, currently i have the following distribution:

• PS: 179$
• PP: 214$
• 888: 148$
• ACR: 123$
• Tonybet: 66€ (not HUD allowed)
• Betfair: 163€
• Betsafe: 21€
• GGnetwork: 477$ (not HUD allowed)
• 500$ skrill

Having taking all the money i need to attend my personal issues and my upcoming plan, it is all the money i have available to play poker. I am probably a bankoll nit, but so far i was playing at 1$ ABI. The first step of course is add money to the PS account, since there is where the most offer of games are. But i probably add some money on PP an 888 too and start play a higher BI. If someone is reading, what limits should i be playing with this bank? I also plan to buy flopzilla for 25$. I know i have to buy ICMizer or HRC, but i am expecting to go one or to levels up to buy a subscription to any of those.

FUTURE WORK

Reviewing my notes i came with some observations that i need to fix:

In MTTs:

• Almost unexisting 3-bet bluff range. I dont know is this is that necessary in micros, but the leak is actually there.
• My opening range from SB is higher than from the BU.
• I have difficulties to know when i have to double or triple barreling, in both single raised pot and 3-bet pots when i am the preflop aggresor.
• Playing flops OOP in general
• I have noted the my play tend to be better when i am short stack. I have reached situations where i have got good chip leads on the bubble and suddenly i start bleeding chips by fear of confrontations against other chips leaders or become very nitty. Is this one psychological?

In spins:

• I have difficulties to know when i have to double or triple barreling.
• Playing Ax from the BU, specially the low unsuited when 20-25bb.
• I have problems HU when the game in <10 bb, i dont know if is just a false fear, but i tend to feel that when i shove the Kx,Qx,Jx type of hands i am in high % at disadvantage.

Those are some of the areas i plan to attack in the next days.



I think that is all for now. Best wishes for everybody!

Pretty motivational seeing your posts, that's for sure!

So your total BR is about $1800-1900? I like having some money on several sites but as you suggest, I think you're best concentrating on fewer sites. So keep $50-100 on the smaller sites to play some $1-3 MTTs with fewer players and put the rest onto Stars/Party/888. The smaller sites are softer but it's tough to get enough volume.

Even being conservative, appropriately given your life/salary situation, you can comfortably play up to $3 MTTs on the main sites, which gives you 600 of your highest buy-in and probably 800-or-so ABIs. You can even throw in a few shots at high value MTTs up to $11 (Bigs, Specials) but only one or two per session.

Mucha suerte!

Happy to see your back to say the least.
No MTT experience.. Sorry on that.
Good luck bro.

Hope everything is going good with life buddy!

Reading where your coming from made me take a long look in the mirror and stop whining about little things as I obviously have it made.