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. 


Very nice read, thank you a lot for sharing LePatronCabron. Yeah, it is very important to be passioned about what you do for living. Keep it up!

Nice bro... Very nice graphs... How long have you been playing 6+ ?

all this sanctioned astroturfing is very sad

Thank you! Around 3-4 years

I mean, yes, the blog was made to popularise 6+ community here, to incentivise people to try 6+ as it indeed is very profitable game in comparison to other poker formats and to encourage people who are struggling at some point of their poker careers not to give up, but I don't see what's so sad about all of this.

@LePatronCabron

Thank you for sharing your story! And nice graph

I started playing Short Deck this year and SD is the one of the best favorite poker games I have ever played!
I've played NLH and PLO in the past but I did not enjoy as much.

I think this is gonna be my last poker journey. If I failed at SD, I will quit poker!

So I'm gonna start a blog ITT and I hope some advice from you guys

I currently play $0.05 and this is the graph so far, I know I'm running hot!!!

I forgot to write my goals...

My current target stake is $50. Yeah this is gonna be really long journey.
I will play every day and post a some HH and the result.

And English is not my native language so go easy on me

What's wrong with me. I wanted to say "$0.5" not "$50"! Could anyone edit previous post?

You can edit your own posts by clicking on "edit" button on right side under your posts

Good luck in your journey and definitely post some hand histories so we can help you along the way.

it's very clearly a stable that all joined at the same time to promote their coaching businesses and are now pretending not to know each other

Interesting theory, I see why you might think so though. I mean there could definitely be future EV in selling coachings etc. if 6+ community grows, but most of the people can't afford coachings anyways so not entirely true.

I mean first of all, there is no stable. Secondly, I just genuinely enjoyed writing the blog and hoped that some may enjoy the read. Finally, have to look at the bigger picture, there is more EV in just simply getting the game more popular - more fish, more live/online events, less prejudice etc.

I assume you are not a Short Deck player, so you might not know this but besides GG Poker there is not a lot of action above 1$ games in PS or apps. Even at GG often tables are very reggish, so just having more tables to table select from would be huge. Also, even if there is some self-interest by doing all of this, it doesn't make everything wrote here and in my blog less true. Not even a lot of regs from other poker formats know or truly believe that it is possible to have EV bb 30/100. What top NLH regs make at zoom 8/100 !?

Ty ty Unfortunately there is no "edit" button on the right side

This is today's session. I could not put much volume today because I'm drunk
There were a lot of aggro players in the tables and I called their raises too lightly. I think I have to tight up my range vs those players.

Profit: 3.79



Hand Histories:

vs. the player who all-ins a lot. I think this was very spewy...

GGPoker, 6+ Hold'em No Limit - Button Blind $0.05 ($0.05 ante) - 5 players
Replay this hand on Upswing Poker

7a72e7c9 (UTG): $5.00 (100 bb)
616d3447 (MP): $5.00 (100 bb)
Hero (MP+1): $5.00 (100 bb)
a9e4061 (CO): $4.75 (95 bb)
72c2ce64 (BU): $4.95 (99 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.40) Hero (Hero) is MP+1 with A♦ J♠
1 fold, Hero (MP+1) raises to $0.60, a9e4061 (CO) 3-bets to $4.70 (all-in), 2 players fold, Hero (MP+1) calls $4.10, takes a walk

First Flop: ($9.80) 7♥ 6♥ J♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)

First Turn: ($9.80) Q♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

First River: ($9.80) 6♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Second Flop: ($9.80) 9♣ J♦ A♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Second Turn: ($9.80) T♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Second River: ($9.80) 8♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Third Flop: ($9.80) (2 players, 1 all-in)

Third Turn: ($9.80) (2 players, 1 all-in)

Third River: ($9.80) (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $9.80 (Rake: $0.20)

First Showdown: Board: 7♥ 6♥ J♥ Q♠ 6♣

a9e4061 (CO) shows K♠ A♠ (Pair of Sixes)
Hero (MP+1) shows A♦ J♠ (Pair of Jacks and Pair of Sixes)

Second Showdown: Board: 9♣ J♦ A♣ T♠ 8♣

a9e4061 (CO) shows K♠ A♠ (Pair of Aces)
Hero (MP+1) shows A♦ J♠ (Pair of Aces and Pair of Jack)

Third Showdown: Board:

a9e4061 (CO) shows K♠ A♠ (Pair of Sixes)
Hero (MP+1) shows A♦ J♠ (Pair of Jacks and Pair of Sixes)


I'm not sure about my all-in. I thought the villain would call any sets, lower straight or straight draw.

GGPoker, 6+ Hold'em No Limit - Button Blind $0.05 ($0.05 ante) - 4 players
Replay this hand on Upswing Poker

520bf539 (UTG): $5.00 (100 bb)
a19f0fdd (MP): $5.69 (114 bb)
4f532956 (CO): $4.90 (98 bb)
Hero (BU): $5.24 (105 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.25) Hero (Hero) is BTN with J♠ Q♦
1 fold, a19f0fdd (MP) calls $0.05, 4f532956 (CO) calls $0.05, Hero (BU) checks

Flop: ($0.35) 7♠ K♣ 9♦ (3 players)
a19f0fdd (MP) bets $0.18, 4f532956 (CO) calls $0.18, Hero (BU) calls $0.18

Turn: ($0.89) T♥ (3 players)
a19f0fdd (MP) checks, 4f532956 (CO) bets $0.58, Hero (BU) raises to $4.96 (all-in), a19f0fdd (MP) folds, 4f532956 (CO) calls $4.04 (all-in)

River: ($10.13) Q♥ (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $10.13 (Rake: $0.20)

Showdown:
Hero (BU) shows J♠ Q♦ (Kings-High Straight)
4f532956 (CO) shows 8♥ 6♥ (Tens-High Straight)
Hero (BU) wins $9.93

AJo readless here would be a fold versus nitty populations OR range, however if you think he is getting out of line a lot then I think its fine.

QJ seems standard and well played.

Please in future post hands under "hand discussions" channel.

Good luck at your grind!

@LePatronCabron
Thank you for your review and def I will post HHs in under "hand discussions" channel!

Is it ok to post the session results here??

I think it would be better if you post session results in General discussion channel since this channel is meant for blogs and people sharing their poker journeys

I completely misunderstood the content of this thread...

All good

Thanks for sharing @LePatronCabron! Was an interesting read and more importantly a nice, inspirational story. Currently, doing my best to balance the 9-5 life with my poker passion. Quite often though I am wondering how great it would have been to be there for the poker's golden age. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Mostly, I'm a NLH fan but I do enjoy the mixed game sessions at my home games. From following the poker scene I did think that I might need to delve deeper into PLO since it's harder to solve, the population just punts way more often and degeny moves can be more easily justified (at least in position ). But it is interesting to consider that 6+ might still check all of these checkmarks whilst still sticking to 2 cards.

Do you guys think 6+ will really become mainstream and if so how long do you think that might take?


P.s. From following the pro's I have seen a lot of mixed reviews with many really loving the game and many saying it is s*it (no offence) especially in a tournament format.

Update from 10$A shot-take.

Similarly as when crypto goes for new highs very often there is some resistance waiting and 10$ games where not much nicer to me.



Small sample but always sucks to run under EV when shot-taking. EV also is not what one should expect but less than 1K hands says nothing.

Reviewed all hands and as there might be some spots where I could of done maybe something different, most where just boring preflop set-ups. I will post below the most interesting hands I have from this small sample and you guys can tell me what you think:



Here maybe I could of exploitatively folded but Im checking river to bluff catch since I also have Ts. The question is if he will ever have bluffs there with pot size on river into 2 people.

Here I can also slowplay my hand IP but I like jamming cause despite how strong our hand might seem folding out QJ is huge for us. Happy to stack off versus JT that we dominate and higher FD is also very good.

I guess we thank him for not slowplaying as I am jamming all non-heart rivers besides A.

Can we find bluffs when I x river - sure, AT, AQ, QT, 9T. Also, I remember thinking that river bet looks very polarised in sense that he basically reps Jx or bluff and since he didn't bet on flop, I decided to pay him off. I was right in sense that he didn't have jack but well played to him and finding thin value. Question still remains though - is this guy ever bluffing rivers?! If not then I am just burning money in these spots.



sizing-wise maybe we should overbet river here since we can have AK and he can't and we have a bit more Kx in our range + he sneaky checked turn but which is fine of course.

Love the blog!

That hand where you have QT of hearts and you raise-jam it in on the flop versus Denys, are there any rule of thumb when to slow-play flush draws and when to play them aggressively ?

Thanks for your answer in advance and hope you will be able to turn it around! GL

good luck!
anyone interested in my journey climbing from nl10? thinking of starting a blog too, but i dont know if people will care, maybe i need to play higher stakes before i start a blog

Stakes doesn't matter so much in my opinion, if you have interesting story then I think people will enjoy it.

In general I think nut flush draws or flush draws with some gutshot or other extra equity so to say are good to play aggressively cause usually if you get it in then its either a flip or villain folds and you pick up money without showdown which in 6+ is huge. However, lower flush draws I like to play more passively cause you dont really want to get it in and get dominated by bigger flush draw etc.

So thats very general answer of course.

I think most people start at this level, so it would be very interesting, even tho I play higher limits I enjoy reading blogs about people trying to climb stakes