My poker story
02-15-2024
, 06:55 PM
Quote:
Hey!
I have decided to share my poker story with you guys - maybe for some of you it will serve as an inspiration to try out 6+ Holdem, or maybe it will help some of you struggling at other poker formats (in the end it saved me, but I will get there), or maybe it will simply be interesting read - either way then its totally worth it.
Most of the regs who play midstakes @ GG probably have seen me around at the tables, some may know me from 6+ Discord but for those who have never heard of me before, I would like to kindly introduce myself:
GG SN: LePatronCabron
Coach, managing GTO study group for 6+ & playing 1$-10$A stakes at GG Poker.
Nationality: Latvian
Age: 30
Before I get more into Short Deck, I feel it is crucial to share my poker background and how I got to Short Deck in first place.
Similarly as many of you who have started out poker at their teenage years with mom’s, brother’s or friend’s account trying to win few bucks at daily freerolls (or more advanced, fishing in random forums for private freeroll pw) I loved the thrill of getting FT and a chance to win some 50-100$ that would provide me, without doubt, with unforgettable (or actually very forgettable #blackout) weekend having tons of booze and a chance to impress girls. Amazing……. and just like that I was hooked on poker!
For many years I was on and off poker, never really serious, more like a hobby but poker always has had a very special place in my heart (or maybe I am just degenerate gambler by nature), there was always something that lead me back to it. First time when I started taking poker a bit more serious was at my student years when I discovered bum-hunting at 6max NLHE cash games (felt like I discovered some state secret or like one of those cliche click-bait ads “what these Millionaires don’t tell you”). Despite never playing anything above nl50, it helped me to get through student years and while others were eating frozen packaged food (Rolltons - eastern europeans will understand), I was able to afford something that doesn’t go into microwave before you eat it.
After graduation I started working 9:5 job, trying to make a mark and build my professional career, only not so soon later to discover that I lack passion for the routine job I had (no $h1T) and that nobody really gives a rat’s ass even if I work overtime and try to prove myself - that made me feel stuck, unmotivated and even a little bit depressed. One of the cons of living in capitalist country and family is that when you are in your 20s they forgot to tell you how important it is to choose something you love as your career option (well maybe they did but I didn’t listen). Anyways it was not a lot of fun to do something from 9 to 5pm that I didn’t enjoy. So one day I asked myself: “if I quit what’s the worst that can happen?” as the answer for that didn’t seem much worse then how I was feeling about my job back then, I decided to give poker another chance.
Luckily I had few poker friends who were grinding at that time and they recommended me to join a stable - seemed very nice option to have a community that share same goals, to have access to coachings and study materials, most importantly, money stake so I wouldn’t lose my own money that I needed for living expenses.
I joined Spin stable (which aligned perfectly with my degen desires, I mean what can be better than a spinning wheel before each game starts).
For a while it actually was going pretty decent, I was studying a lot the exploitative side of the game, climbing through stakes and over decent volume had something like ~65cEV on 15s/30s. Things seemed to be working out and I was very much looking forward to 60s which is the first regish limit where more often than not you end up in blender and regret even being born. Logical thing to do seemed to prepare for possible reg battle, so how do you do that ? That’s right you study GTO !
The only problem was not knowing how to study Solver properly. Sounds logical and very self-explanatory when we say not to focus too much on memorialising GTO lines but rather try to grasp the idea and concepts - but thats exactly what human mind does, we have seen some flop, we remember that here GTO wants to bet specific sizing and we do that because we know its GTO and its "correct", but then we forget what to do on some turns/rivers because its just too much for human brain and as a result you *** up somewhere and lose even more EV, so in the end by trying to copy (unsuccessfully) someones else’s game (GTO) I actually became worse. Not a surprise I struggled at 60s, got into MU, but even worse than that I couldn’t even win at 30s or 15s anymore - I was tilting, blamed variance, card distribution and even my cat was guilty of me “running” bad. By trying to salvage the graph that was sinking like a lost ship in the sea - I played longer sessions, more tables, didn’t rest or eat properly and basically did everything contrary to what you should do when facing a downswing. It got to the point where I was broke and was seriously considering giving up poker for good. Sad and miserable about not being able to fulfil my poker dream although I had the chance. To make things worse, I had no idea what to do with my life, the only thing that I knew for sure is that I am not going back to 9:5 job with my tail between my legs. So the only reasonable and logical thing left for me to do was to gamble the bitterness and sadness away with my last money at the most gambly and degeny game I could find. Luckily for me just recently PS introduced a new game: Short Deck Holdem. It seemed just perfect - enough gamble but still skill game so in the end I couldn’t blame myself for losing money at -EV game like slots.
Have to say that it was love at first sight, the games were so soft that it felt like 2003 all over again, even though I had no charts and basically played intuitively with some own made strategies, people seemed clueless and there were 2 distinctive types of players - either way too spewy and by that I mean calling off 100A preflop shove with Q8o or too nitty where they fold AQs against 50A shove. To make things even better, I felt like having flashbacks from my student years, table selecting, i.e. bumhunting, become handy again. I ended up grinding solely Short Deck for next 6 months at PS, doing around 55k hands per month (yes, I was basically grinding, eating and sleeping). You can see my results for that time period here:
Shortly after that I was offered to join a team lead by a reg who at that time I considered to be one of the best Short Deck regs online. In addition, at time when there was no publicly available information or materials about the strategy, they had just bought a very expensive and exclusive private multiway Solver for 6+. Even though I was not on best terms with Solvers due to how things went in past, having some actual approved charts and discussing strategy with other good regs didn’t seem like the worst idea. On top of that, I was offered a very attractive profit split.
Pretty much at the same time GG Poker was making their push in online poker industry and had some very nice incentives running for volume grinders like myself (10K leaderboards, rakeback rewards etc.) So the next 8 months or so I played solely on GG poker and mostly 0.50$ -1$ stakes with 50A strategy that I learned was very profitable back then. These are my graphs for that time period:
After that I quit the stable and continued grinding on my own.
After being broke and on the verge of quitting poker, and possibly going back to the profession that I don’t like, now few years later I just started shot-taking 5$ and 10$A games.
Most importantly I enjoy what I do for living, and seeing others angry, cynical and full of rage because of their jobs, not being happy about themselves, makes me realise how close I was myself on having a different path in life.
I have decided to share my poker story with you guys - maybe for some of you it will serve as an inspiration to try out 6+ Holdem, or maybe it will help some of you struggling at other poker formats (in the end it saved me, but I will get there), or maybe it will simply be interesting read - either way then its totally worth it.
Most of the regs who play midstakes @ GG probably have seen me around at the tables, some may know me from 6+ Discord but for those who have never heard of me before, I would like to kindly introduce myself:
GG SN: LePatronCabron
Coach, managing GTO study group for 6+ & playing 1$-10$A stakes at GG Poker.
Nationality: Latvian
Age: 30
Before I get more into Short Deck, I feel it is crucial to share my poker background and how I got to Short Deck in first place.
Similarly as many of you who have started out poker at their teenage years with mom’s, brother’s or friend’s account trying to win few bucks at daily freerolls (or more advanced, fishing in random forums for private freeroll pw) I loved the thrill of getting FT and a chance to win some 50-100$ that would provide me, without doubt, with unforgettable (or actually very forgettable #blackout) weekend having tons of booze and a chance to impress girls. Amazing……. and just like that I was hooked on poker!
For many years I was on and off poker, never really serious, more like a hobby but poker always has had a very special place in my heart (or maybe I am just degenerate gambler by nature), there was always something that lead me back to it. First time when I started taking poker a bit more serious was at my student years when I discovered bum-hunting at 6max NLHE cash games (felt like I discovered some state secret or like one of those cliche click-bait ads “what these Millionaires don’t tell you”). Despite never playing anything above nl50, it helped me to get through student years and while others were eating frozen packaged food (Rolltons - eastern europeans will understand), I was able to afford something that doesn’t go into microwave before you eat it.
After graduation I started working 9:5 job, trying to make a mark and build my professional career, only not so soon later to discover that I lack passion for the routine job I had (no $h1T) and that nobody really gives a rat’s ass even if I work overtime and try to prove myself - that made me feel stuck, unmotivated and even a little bit depressed. One of the cons of living in capitalist country and family is that when you are in your 20s they forgot to tell you how important it is to choose something you love as your career option (well maybe they did but I didn’t listen). Anyways it was not a lot of fun to do something from 9 to 5pm that I didn’t enjoy. So one day I asked myself: “if I quit what’s the worst that can happen?” as the answer for that didn’t seem much worse then how I was feeling about my job back then, I decided to give poker another chance.
Luckily I had few poker friends who were grinding at that time and they recommended me to join a stable - seemed very nice option to have a community that share same goals, to have access to coachings and study materials, most importantly, money stake so I wouldn’t lose my own money that I needed for living expenses.
I joined Spin stable (which aligned perfectly with my degen desires, I mean what can be better than a spinning wheel before each game starts).
For a while it actually was going pretty decent, I was studying a lot the exploitative side of the game, climbing through stakes and over decent volume had something like ~65cEV on 15s/30s. Things seemed to be working out and I was very much looking forward to 60s which is the first regish limit where more often than not you end up in blender and regret even being born. Logical thing to do seemed to prepare for possible reg battle, so how do you do that ? That’s right you study GTO !
The only problem was not knowing how to study Solver properly. Sounds logical and very self-explanatory when we say not to focus too much on memorialising GTO lines but rather try to grasp the idea and concepts - but thats exactly what human mind does, we have seen some flop, we remember that here GTO wants to bet specific sizing and we do that because we know its GTO and its "correct", but then we forget what to do on some turns/rivers because its just too much for human brain and as a result you *** up somewhere and lose even more EV, so in the end by trying to copy (unsuccessfully) someones else’s game (GTO) I actually became worse. Not a surprise I struggled at 60s, got into MU, but even worse than that I couldn’t even win at 30s or 15s anymore - I was tilting, blamed variance, card distribution and even my cat was guilty of me “running” bad. By trying to salvage the graph that was sinking like a lost ship in the sea - I played longer sessions, more tables, didn’t rest or eat properly and basically did everything contrary to what you should do when facing a downswing. It got to the point where I was broke and was seriously considering giving up poker for good. Sad and miserable about not being able to fulfil my poker dream although I had the chance. To make things worse, I had no idea what to do with my life, the only thing that I knew for sure is that I am not going back to 9:5 job with my tail between my legs. So the only reasonable and logical thing left for me to do was to gamble the bitterness and sadness away with my last money at the most gambly and degeny game I could find. Luckily for me just recently PS introduced a new game: Short Deck Holdem. It seemed just perfect - enough gamble but still skill game so in the end I couldn’t blame myself for losing money at -EV game like slots.
Have to say that it was love at first sight, the games were so soft that it felt like 2003 all over again, even though I had no charts and basically played intuitively with some own made strategies, people seemed clueless and there were 2 distinctive types of players - either way too spewy and by that I mean calling off 100A preflop shove with Q8o or too nitty where they fold AQs against 50A shove. To make things even better, I felt like having flashbacks from my student years, table selecting, i.e. bumhunting, become handy again. I ended up grinding solely Short Deck for next 6 months at PS, doing around 55k hands per month (yes, I was basically grinding, eating and sleeping). You can see my results for that time period here:
Shortly after that I was offered to join a team lead by a reg who at that time I considered to be one of the best Short Deck regs online. In addition, at time when there was no publicly available information or materials about the strategy, they had just bought a very expensive and exclusive private multiway Solver for 6+. Even though I was not on best terms with Solvers due to how things went in past, having some actual approved charts and discussing strategy with other good regs didn’t seem like the worst idea. On top of that, I was offered a very attractive profit split.
Pretty much at the same time GG Poker was making their push in online poker industry and had some very nice incentives running for volume grinders like myself (10K leaderboards, rakeback rewards etc.) So the next 8 months or so I played solely on GG poker and mostly 0.50$ -1$ stakes with 50A strategy that I learned was very profitable back then. These are my graphs for that time period:
After that I quit the stable and continued grinding on my own.
After being broke and on the verge of quitting poker, and possibly going back to the profession that I don’t like, now few years later I just started shot-taking 5$ and 10$A games.
Most importantly I enjoy what I do for living, and seeing others angry, cynical and full of rage because of their jobs, not being happy about themselves, makes me realise how close I was myself on having a different path in life.
What tracking software are you using ?