Hello! I'm fletch11 and I'm hoping to write about my poker progress here.

I've been playing poker with some seriousness off and on for 10 years. Most of that time I've had mediocre breakevenish results, which have had a lot to do with other stuff in my life affecting my decision-making.

Last year was a breakthrough profit year, between grinding $50 up to $4k on Carbon, and getting 5th in a big live tourney for $10k. I've invested a part of my winnings back into software, coaching and seminars/videos, and will probably be getting a coach again in the near future (especially if I can find one who specializes in Bovada fast-fold). My bankroll has shrunk from both live runbad, paying off debts, and spending money on things, so my main game is nl25z for now. I've now gotten started on Bovada around a week ago, and things have gone very well so far, getting my 1k deposit up to 2k.

I'm really glad to have started on Bovada, and particularly playing fast-fold - not worrying about bumhunting and targeting players feels like a welcome change after doing a lot more live poker in recent months. I'm looking forward to working my way up in stakes for the next while.

I have the good fortune of being able to play most days, so I expect to be grinding pretty consistently for a while.

I'm also interested in learning PLO. I've started with Jeff Hwang's book, and blown some money live. Mixing in PLO study and some play at micro stakes is a longer-term goal for me.

One thing about Bovada's zone (fast-fold) tables is that the nl50 tables aren't running most of the time. I haven't liked my experience with shot-taking at it so far when it's short-handed, so I'll probably be more likely to mix in regular nl50 tables as I see about moving up.

I've already been fairly reckless and done some nl100, which has left me relatively unscathed, thankfully. I'm hoping that I'll deal with whatever is causing me to play that high and be comfortable settling back into an nl25 focus with some nl50.

My major leaks include:
-getting station-y, especially against unexpected large bets or with mediocre draws
-more generally leveling myself, and insecurity/intimidation factors when i face players close to my level
-tilt issues; not quitting when i should, not shot-taking responsibly, and not taking effective and long enough breaks from the game

Another significant weakness for me is shying away from the sort of data crunching and population analysis that'll be crucial to success and growth on an anonymous site like bovada. In general, studying in a more engaged way is kind of hard for me. I often feel like I have a strong understanding of the math and probabilities involved in poker, and the rest is a leveling war. Finding ways to get interested and stay committed to studious work is a big issue for me, and just reflecting on my play/study efforts via this would be a substantial step in the right direction.

I'll be hoping to start with frequent/daily recaps here - tracking how i feel about my play, noticing and processing my tilt better, and trying to stay in touch with the grind of poker through the ups and downs. Games are pretty central to my life, and working on my mental approach looks to be essential to success both in and out of poker. Hopefully I can get rich from this game too someday.

hey man, gl

imo grinding bovada zoom is a really really suboptimal choice of all the sites/game formats you could pick. you can certainly learn poker fundamentals there but it won't teach you much beyond that as you'll be repeatedly playing a robotic ABC strategy that won't allow your critical thinking to progress in a way that other games (regular tables, also non-anonymous sites) will.

This makes sense to me and I'll be thinking about it.

Other than having limited site options from my being US based, I do think that focusing on fundamentals would be really good for me. Stuff as fundamental as just having a basic routine, a commitment to studying, and poker/life balance.

Something that my coach said that's made an impact on me is that the superstars of the world in whatever fields are people who both are absurdly talented and have incredible work ethics. Analytical and critical thought has never been my weak point; all the other crap has. I definitely don't have the work ethic or ability to persevere through repetitive training and study, in part because I've never had to have them. So playing a more braindead game while I try to learn how to study/manage the grind seems like it'll be a good thing for me atm.

So the inevitable downswing at nl100 happened - some poor play, some runbad. I'm still doing okay, especially with the deposit bonus, but the manic balloon is punctured. Recognizing the holes in my game as they happen, and knowing I need to start studying hard and building a routine.

(I'm pretty sure it's best if I don't post daily bankroll stats - I do enough tilting about my short term results without posting it publicly.)

I also have concerns that I'm starting to tilt at nl25 from being used to running hot. Something I'll be keeping in mind. I'm still pretty confident in my intuitive adjustments to the field/format (run everyone over whenever possible), but I need to start getting into the nitty gritty of studying specific spots and doing hand analysis with someone other than myself. I have pretty extreme anxiety/embarrassment issues about posting specific hands and discussing them and feel like group discussions haven't helped me as much as advertised. So I'll puzzle that out a bit more in time.

One thing that's remarkable, based on my current hand histories, is that the topline stats of the player pool are incredibly similar between nl25 and nl100. This might change a bit as I get more data, but it's still a hell of a lot closer than I expected. I don't doubt that I leveled myself when it came to playing the higher stakes.

I could write about various things that it would be nice if I were to do them, but I think focusing on what to do tonight and tomorrow would be best. Those things would be:

-no nl100 for the next 24 hours
-finishing the GTO webinar i've been watching
-doing a cursory review of the big pots from last night and today
-picking one spot to analyze with GTO and/or estimated ranges; either a river spot or a flop cbet spot
-2 games of League of Legends to keep from tunneling too hard on poker

Brief update: definitely not having my wits about me today for pokering. Brief sessions ended after running into situations where I had the thought that folding was probably correct but called anyway. Frustrated about feeling helpless to prevent this fogginess and impulsive frustration apart from playing less.

Getting my hand histories from yesterday, i see some pretty horrid plays that I made, but confirmation that i ran terribly is reassuring.

Will focus on studies and the rest of my life, and do a theory-related post later.

looking over the villain stats from my 10k+ hand sample, and I feel suitably chastened that I have no idea what I'm doing. There are clearly things around 3betting, 4betting, and opponent's ranges that I have been very wrong about. I'm glad to have managed to be more up than down before doing any population analysis.

Being able to see opponent's hole cards in HHs is an incredible gold mine. I hope to be able to put in the work when I feel well enough for it. River spots are probably best to study individually, but it wouldn't be awful to just run through a big block of hands just to watch how things play out.

For now, I'm going to redirect my energies from GTO-based book learning to basic nuts and bolts of constructing ranges and a better strategy based on the data. I actually am getting excited about this, which is pretty great.

I've felt out of sorts and like I don't know what I should do with my data analysis. Then I'll play for 2 or 3 minutes and one or two things will jump out at me to say, 'that would be a good thing to know'. Then I'm ready to start looking at HEM2.

[x] no nl100 for the next 24 hours
[going to do now] finishing the GTO webinar i've been watching
[half-assed x] doing a cursory review of the big pots from last night and today
[x] new goal: finding and tabulating basic player pool info
[x] 2 games of League of Legends to keep from tunneling too hard on poker

no posted goals for now. will do again tomorrow

A last thought before bed:

I'm trying to establish a minimum viable EV threshold for constructing my button stealing range. I'm getting anxious about meaningfully and coherently estimating an equity realization factor to modify an equity calc. It feels like a topic I haven't come across resources about, and that I don't know what to do with.

Then I realize that, more than models or figuring out GTO calcs, I have a database of hands that I can consult and get a framework for estimating equity realization factors from.

My Bovada database is too small to do this with much confidence right now, but it's a powerful tool that I'm realizing that I have available to me.

So that's pretty sweet.

word of advice: don't worry about gto on bovada. or, don't worry about gto.

Mediocre day of me calling off things I shouldn't call off. Trying to turn to study river overbet HHs about it. Interesting to see that there does seem to be a tendency for some players to bluff less than their full stack, around 2 to 4 times the pot, to take a smallish pot - most of the bluffs so far have been of that variety.

Feeling disillusioned about how much of an edge I have at the moment. Being off my best and making the same stationy mistakes i've been making for years really doesn't help. Wondering if a longer break from play is necessary.

Glad I haven't played recklessly at higher limits. Still pissed that I don't seem to have the capacity to play my A game, though I'm doing my best to be in a good place for it.

Goals:

-continue studying different trouble spots where i call too much and see how rarely people are bluffing
-study the other things i've made a note of
-actually don't play if i'm not up to it and do something else like LoL instead

Not treating my opponents as if they play well is important. But a significant part of my motivation right now is to relearn to play poker 'the right way', which is GTO-based. There is actually a right answer to a lot of this stuff, and approaching NLHE problems in terms of a known 99% correct answer is valuable and would be really good for my confidence.

There's also this thing with minimally exploitative solutions that intrigues me and seems well-suited to bovada and fast-fold.

So I haven't been good about studying. I feel like HEM's interface could be ten times better than it is and that interferes with my study a lot. I think I can get to doing more work/feeling more effective in using it, but it'll take time.

My play I've been mostly okay with, or at least I have a sense that I'm improving about the ****ty calls. People have been bluffy enough in many circumstances that bluff-catching isn't only burning money. The shift in strategy from where I started has been good.

I'm glad I mostly observed my practice of having a day off a week on Monday.

I'm going to be on a family trip for the next weekish, so poker will be on the back burner. Will see about developing a study routine and continuing to work on my poker writing project.

Mostly, though, I'm comfortable with my approach to playing poker in balance with the other things in my life. I know attempting to be +EV to the greatest degree usually ends up sabotaging my life EV and bottom line. And my degen tendencies aren't going to be fixed by suppressing them - even if a strict AA-type approach works for other people.

Basically, I need to be compassionate and kind to myself about my dedication to this in the midst of bull**** and stress. I have a longer road than many but I'm comfortable with how i'm doing things.

today's analysis lesson: stop being the first to flat an open with suited connectors lower than 9ts. Probably stop flatting with 65s and 54s altogether except for special circumstances.

today's field study: people do super passive **** with QQ+ and it makes me want to vomit. adjusting to it makes it funny/sad to see, but feels really unpleasant and making me not take thin value lines vs limpers.

another field study: wtf is this min/2x 3bet thing that people are doing that seems like it just started being a thing a few days ago. need more data. hate how it feels like it's probably a nutty range for some people and a pile of crap for others.

also i put a fairly substantial money on Golden State to win the championship because of a random stats article on 538 lol

Q: do I fold KK to a cold 5bet? (smaller bc of a min open)

A:

today's study lesson: holy wow do people never squeeze. affecting both squeeze and overcall ranges. also implies that squeezing as a bluff/semibluff might be more effective, but people seem to call so much at nl25z that that isn't so true.

also, my past few days of playing regular tables suggest that the field is way softer there. would do well to try to profile players and actually pay attention sometime.

Documenting my tilt pt 1:

So I'm in a spot with an unknown where I have AQ on AKxssx. I bet 60%ish pot on flop and turn. The river is a spade.

My opponent leads a quarter pot.

Steaming, I snap call under the logic that I'm still making money if villain hit the flush in the long run due to their bet sizing.

I could conceivably pretend that this is a game-theoretical sound strategy. But under the conditions, it was at least in part a spite call.

Basically, there are spots where frustration, anger and dread can lead me to make snap calls late in the hand to 'get it over with' and rationalizing it as GTO when bluffcatching rivers according to GTO is setting piles of money on fire.

A resolution to this issue would involve frustration, anger and dread not controlling me so much, which isn't going to happen any time soon. But slow work with acknowledging this happening can hopefully lead to being less tilted before, during or after this stuff happens.

On a trip for a memorial for my grandfather. Playing nl100 amidst emotional stress. running hot. Also running good on my GSW bet :fingerscrossed:

Pretty fully decommitted from zoom at this point. regular tables are so much softer.

Put in a request for a Poker In A Box coach. Had one before that I was happy with. Like the site, Mike Gano, and whatnot. Don't know if the listed coaching prices are for the lowest stakes, but holy **** does their coaching pay for itself in like a week for 95% of micro grinders at those prices. Is the market flooded or something?

Pleased with the feedback I got on my writeup on GTO math. considering making writing that and a subsequent project a structured part of my schedule.

Question: Carbon sent me $10 that I've run up to $50. There's also a 100% up to $500 bonus running until friday. Do I do the thing?!? did carbon go from lolterrible payout speeds to lack of payouts in the months since I stopped playing there? Is the player pool even more empty?!? Can I handle the pressure of screen names?!? Is NL500 still softer than NL100/NL200 there?!? Will I be able to tolerate using the internet client because the desktop client closes before connecting with the server?!?

interesting spot from today at nl50 (no HH yet because bovada) -

open 3x from utg with ATs, button and SB call.

flop is 468r with a backdoor for me. I cbet 80% pot b/c yay cbets, button folds and SB calls.

Turn is a Tx. opponent checks, i check.

River is A. Opponent bets pot.

It's very possible for my opponent to value bet the river with a worse two pair. But I'm not sure that it's very possible for my opponent to use that sizing with two pair. My feeling was and is that that sizing is polarizing enough that my top two is a bluffcatcher.

I would have snap called a 60% to 75% pot bet. But pot felt like my opponent's sizing said sets or a straight, and one that I'd consider to be a default fold if i think my opponent is a standard weak passive player.

This sort of logic is why I checked turn - I don't think I have two streets of value to bet, so I wanted to pot control.

[x] degening at nl100
[x] winning $$$

Tonight's big decision is not depositing on Carbon. I was motivated by the 100% reload bonus. I don't think playing rake-free(?) for 45 days is worth the stress when $500 is not enough of a roll to actually generate $500 in rake in 45 days on a limited selection of regular tables.

In thinking about whether or not to do it, I could feel guilt at the thought of 'leaving $500 on the table' and my stress levels rising and frying my brain. Remembering that I've never played on ACR and have a deposit bonus there to cash in someday was pretty crucial to my settling into the no to Carbon decision. I'm not rolled enough to take a degen shot on Carbon where I play nl100 on 5 BI or something, I'm really feeling comfortable and strong on Bovada, and i'm suspecting that this sort of thing is exactly the sort of stress that tilts me out of my A game for weeks on end. Feeling like I've failed by not maximizing EV for some idealized version of myself that seamlessly switches sites and grinds endlessly and emotionlessly when racing a bonus clock is just. that isn't actually me. so don't do the ****ing thing.

I still feel ****ty about it though. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.

-

Heard back from the coach today and started prepping for my first session next week. I'm pleased to get going. I think a constant presence and outside input in my poker life will help me a lot.

Something that seems reasonable to me while not being something I can explain well is that my being in the midst of traveling is why i'm playing nl100 instead of nl25/nl50. I had a couple successful nl100 sessions today where I was making strong decisions and having a thought process that involved actually changing my mind and making better choices. I'm as confident as I can be that, had I played nl25 or nl50, I would have autopiloted and tilted off a BI or more in some standard 'cooler' spot.

This doesn't mean I think I'm ready to make nl100 my main game. I do think I beat Bovada nl100 for a decent winrate as it is. The major issue is that I'm not emotionally rolled for nl100 full time. TBH, I'm scared about tilting off buyins at nl50. Making money matters to me, but improving and long-term emotional health are more important. I don't know if that means I settle into nl25 or nl50 for now, and what level of stress associated with grinding each day is best. Because if it's supposed to be no stress, then it's nl25 or even nl10 or nl5. Really not sure what's best when most of my life, I've played poker for the thrill.

I'm comforted at the thought that someday i can do a bankroll challenge and feel comfortable that i am not a tiltmonkey who's too much of a station and/or action junkie to crush nl5. And that will be good for if I pursue the coaching/staking/writing things that I plan and hope to do.

-

But yeah. no HHs because Bovada but I felt good about my play today. I didn't think I ran *that* good, and/or got close to max value when I did. It was nice to blow a BI with TT bvb and still leave that table with a profit. Getting very out of line, firing multiple barrels believably/successfully, and making good folds against postflop raises. Glad for my success/state of mind, adrenaline-fueled as it might have been.

Bankroll is $2750, plus $350 in +EV 'sports' bets pending. Nice life.

Frustrated with 50nl. My current feeling is that 100nl is easier for me to beat than 50nl, because thoughts like 'i'm too high in my range, i have to call' are actually valid at 100nl. That might be total garbage, and if I just focus on regular and not zoom my 50nl results are fine; i just feel like I've been dominating 100nl (in a very, very small sample size) and like I can't do that so much at 50nl. Preparing to move back down to 50nl means preparing to mostly give up on bluffcatching.

Maybe I have to learn to get way out of line to feel more successful at 50nl. It just feels harder to make money than at 100nl. Or I'm obsessing over random variance. I'll know better as I get more hands to compare the two stakes.

u wish u were this good

PokerStars Hand #3304489063: Hold'em No Limit ($0.50/$1) - 2016/06/07 17:00:24
Table '#10768837' 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: UTG ($149.23 in chips)
Seat 2: UTGplus1 ($75.96 in chips)
Seat 3: Dealer ($100 in chips)
Seat 4: Small Blind ($195.07 in chips)
Seat 5: Hero ($113.56 in chips)
Small Blind: posts small blind $0.50
Hero: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Qd Qs]
UTG: folds
UTGplus1: calls $1
Dealer: folds
Small Blind: folds
Hero: raises $112.56 to $113.56 and is all-in
UTGplus1: calls $74.96 and is all-in
*** FLOP *** [7d Kc 7s]
*** TURN *** [7d Kc 7s] [Ts]
*** RIVER *** [7d Kc 7s Ts] [8d]