I am trying to Poker, I Suck!

Having an interesting time with my studying. After watching a lot of Doug Polk, and Ryan Fee's videos I have really noticed what make them so good is their hand reading and thinking in ranges. I talked about the importance of fundamentals in my previous posts, but I think this is the basic foundation that every poker player needs.

By having an idea of their range on the flop we can think ahead to the turn and these "standard" lines will become apparent, but we then can understand the times when the standard lines are no good.

By knowing are range on the flop we can know what hands we should value bet, bluff, check/call and give up with. And I have learned that this is most important thing to get good at.

And by thinking about both we can rank our range based on it. This is going to take a really long time to get good at. Ryan Fee said it takes years.

Most of are decisions post flop are made off of this and while it is it's really difficult it is what separates the mediocre and the strong regs. This is the base skill that I am looking for and I am going to continue to one table for a long time until I feel comfortable thinking about it. I would guess that a common mistake is too many people play too many tables too soon and this skill doesn't get developed, and people bottle neck at NL25 or NL50. In order to have this in your head you need to use it. Like how a powerlifter needs to squat to get a big squat.

So I am going to continue studying constructing my ranges on certain board times for quite a while. I usually do quite a few boards a day, but I haven't been looking at turn and river cards yet.

I am however going to start doing this. I will post a hand in here and give my default range constructon for each street given the action, and we will see if I did it right at the table, and if this default range should be making any based on population reads etc. (Usually I don't triple barrel bluff, and tighten my range I call three streets with.)

I have noticed I as I have been studying 3bet pots more that I am much more confident in my 3bet bluffing. I have also noticed that lots of the NL5ers are folding to my value 4bets so it's likely profitable to have a 4bet bluffing range against regs, but I will study 4bet pots more first, as those still make me uncomfortable.

I am still fighting playing anxiety. I am break even and I find myself wanting to quit when I am up. It's really silly, but I am going to combat this with a set schedule and study time. I start a new job tomorrow, so my poker time is going to have to be fixed, and usually when I don't have so much free time I get a lot more done.

This is pretty much it for now. I feel my approach to poker has made me enjoy the process a lot more. I think once I just start playing more the anxiety will slowly go away. This is going to take a really long time to get good at, so I might as well enjoy the trip.

Fantastic posts in here brother!

Keep going on mindset and range analysis and you got this!

Originally posted by Eatyourpeas
Fantastic posts in here brother!

Keep going on mindset and range analysis and you got this!

Thank you for all the support. We got this!

Hand Analysis
I am going to attempt to figure out my entire range for the action on this hand. I might not have played this hand the best, but we will see.

The hand

Preflop:

Flop Hand ranking:

I picked my value hands that I would bet 3 streets with then I used the 2:1 bluff ratio and picked a lot of bluffs to get there. Most of the lower suited aces are with BDFD and said with the 65s. I am going to be value heavy here, most likely. That's a lot of bluffing.

Flop Call raise:

I kept the hands in equilab that had the most outs and good equity against villian's possible OESDs and Value raises. There wasn't much for him to raise with, so idk if I would raise here.

Call Turn bet:

I would theoretically need to call with 60% of my combos here, so kept the best draws and the value hands.

If bet on river:

If he bet on river something like 1/2 pot I would need to call with all of these hands.

I would more likely want to call something like this, since I am a nit and I play NL5, and I don't think they bluff the river enough, and KJs gets there on the river, something I think villian would likely be raising with as I think it is his best draw.

Let me know what you think about my analysis I am always open to critique. This exercise helped me think about all my range, so I will likely continue to do this in the future.

Getting back on track
I quickly found myself trying to do too many things at once. This is exactly what caused me to fail in the first place. I would try and think about too much get frustrated and quit. I need to take my own advice, work on getting better and not my red line.

I often find myself confused in spots where I have a middle strength hand. Call a flop bet abd face a turn or river bet. So I felt myself try and copy others rather than think about my entire range. If it wasn't for one of my good poker friends I would be lost in this. For default play we need to think about our entire range. This is something I am still struggling with. I can use the theory as an approximation to figure out what is right theoretically and then worry about adjusting to population reads or individual reads after.

I am currently playing NL 5 fast fold and I can't use a hud at the moment so most of the time I am playing readless and mostly need to go off population reads. But first I need to get good at thinking about my whole range. And how the board affects it. So this is what I am going to do. I need to remember to focus on building fundamental skill and the winnings will come.

Having friends in poker is a must. I gives much needed motivation to keep going and to keep on track.

Let's slow down and work on building 1 fundamental skill at a time.

I am not dead
I started my new job and holy shit I don't know anything about that either. I have done a lot of programming, but most of it is scientific computing related, and web development is completely different. I have to say that I am not enjoying it either, so the next few months are going to be a terrible grind. That being said..the days go by really fast.

I have been playing and I was running pretty bad, so for mindset reasons I got a 90 minute video review of my play from w34s3l, and he really gives you a lot in the 90 minutes. I was worried he would look at my play and tell me to quit, but he was very nice :). He even liked one or two of my lines. I do however have a lot to work on. I went back to some of his pokerstrategy series and I was calling way to wide.

I need a HUD
This is probably the biggest thing in my coaching. PT4 is no good on party fast fold with Mac. I either need to move my roll back to stars, or I need to get some sort of wine application to run. I have Winebottler but I need the two programs to share a file system.

Option 2 if I really want to stick with party is to buy windows and run bootcamp or parallels. Ideally I would just buy a poker computer that has nothing else on it, but don't really have the $$$ for it right now.

If anyone has got a work around for this please let me know.

My mindset is getting better
It's funny after running super bad from before I really care less and less about results now. I really think it is important to stick to making sure your choices are good.

I need to learn my #$@#$ing pre-flop ranges
I had to watch myself fumble through them for 90 minutes today. No more of that. Priority #1.

One more month of heavy study then ramp up the volume
I am going to continue to one table until my pre-flop ranges are down and I try to absorb as much of the content w34z3l wants me to study then I am going to try and turn up the volume so I can start doing database reviews. I only have like 5k hands right now, and the variance over low volume just feels a lot worse time wise.

I really like poker.
It's so hard and frustrating, but being a winner at NL200+ will be extremely rewarding. Just like Jiu jitsu it takes a lot of patience.

Moved my roll to stars
I just don't think it is worth it to stay on party with no HUD. I had a coaching from w34z3l, and it was a big topic. I also didn't realize the difference in rake from the two sites. Maybe I will go back once I get to higher limits and can cash out for a new computer.

Coaching really helped
To be honest that coaching session was one of the best things for my poker game. I got a lot of great feedback and a huge laundry list of things to work on, and it really helped my confidence. I didn't realize how crazy the variance really is. There was a lot of good general knowledge on mindset. Being blind to short term is really important. I am more than likely going to do some more.

Currently Study schedule and focusing on one thing at a time
The past few days I just worked on getting out the auto-profit spots for my limit down. Float and probe bets are printing money, it was really easy to implement, and it doesn't require a whole lot of other stuff, this way I can focus my study on other things.

That is pretty much out of the way, so the next thing I need to tackle is cbetting OOP. My cbetting percentages are about equal, so I need to do some range analysis on this to get an idea for cbetting, check folding, check raising, and check calling ranges. Going to smash some flopzilla on that for the next week or two, and then I have to start studying preflop, as I am just using ranges and more or less have an excel sheet playing preflop for me (it does print money though). After that I can really turn the volume up, as I feel confident I will be a winner at NL5 in the next while.

That is the update for now. I know the past few entries have been pretty quick and not super interesting, but I have had to really change up a lot of things. I will get back to better more structured blog posts soon. My next entry I will begin with a topic about this. We want to be planning, but never have plans. A wise, drunk, tech, lawyer, entrepreneur millionaire utter the following phrase to me: "Planning *Thumbs up*, Plans *middle finger out*". The more I learn about poker the more I think the drunk man is correct.

Always been planning but never have plans.
A much more vulgar variation of this above statement was uttered to me in a English pub in Vancouver's Gastown district. Something I think is extremely important. The implication is to move in a direction rather than have a specific place to be. This is a lesson that I think is extremely important.

From 2014-2015 I did my MSc at the University of Alberta where I went took a course based Master's program in Petroleum Exploration. I loved Geophysics, and more specifically solving inversion problems to image the subsurface. If you look at the year I did this program and know much about the petroleum industry you will remember the price of crude oil went from $130 a barrel to about $30 a barrel. The cost of production for a barrel of oil in Alberta was about $80. The job prospects went from looking amazing to 0. I had a lot invested in this career path, and to be honest I was pretty crushed. I found work back at home in Saskatoon, but after bouncing from contract to contract and eventually getting laid off in the mining industry that it was time to change. I had plans to work in oil and gas, and there was my mistake.

I eventually figured out that the main things I liked about Geophysics were applied problem solving and building the software to solve it. Really to generalize it as much as possible I liked applied math and building programming infrastructure to support it. I remember thinking about it and thinking "If I could do it all over again I would have gone into applied math and Computer science, then I could solve all kinds of these problems." Eventually that is what I did. I am currently doing just that in Vancouver at UBC. I am planning to do machine learning and data science, because it is so similar to what I liked, but I don't have plans to do it.

I think this is important to apply to poker as well. When you read my first post I was planning on having a certain learning path, but as I learn more about myself I kind of shifted. I am still teaching myself the basic fundamentals, but instead of planning to do it all on upswing I did hire a coach, W34s3l, who I can just learn from very well. He is really awesome with giving you a general plan, telling you why it works, and allows you to work with in your own framework to make things work for you. I really have an easy time understanding his reasons for doing things, because he explains and proves why it works. When I do something wrong he just tells me that's wrong and this is why. I see a lot of other places praising people just follow standard lines to get out of the micros, but his reasons for doing things teach me more about the concept in poker. He has lines that are geared for <NL100, but the underlying concept allows you to make the adjustments when needed. There is a lot more theory going on than I ever thought.

Re-learning implied odds
W34z3l actually caught me doing something that I had not realized was so important. That is calculating implied odds. I always used implied odds completely qualitatively. Then the next session after his feedback I calculated minimum implied odds for a pot sized bet on the flop. I did it in my head and realized I had probably been folding to those way to much. Here is the math below.

First we calculate our pure expectation in a vaccum for the flop

Ev = p_hit*(pot) - invevstment

At NL5 this was a potsized bet of 33c, with a FD, so we had

Ev = (.19)*(33 + 33 + 33) -33 = -13c

So on average we would be losing 13c if the hand ended on the flop. We not want to know what we would have to make to break even with implied odds.

(.19)*(pot + Implied_return) - investment = 0

(.19)*(pot ) - investment + (.19)*Implied_return = 0

-13c + (.19)*Implied_return = 0

implied_return = 68c, so on average we need a 2/3 pot bet when we hit to break even. Which, on average, seems reasonable for someone potting it from UTG vs BB. I was sure I was getting his stack here, but if we did something similar OTT, needed that 2/3 pot bet OTR seems less likely since triple barrels are much less common than double barrels. I did a more simplified version of that in my head, I used 1/5 for probability instead of 19% because that is just easier to do. Eitherway, Pokerstars decided to reward me for doing this as I called, he jammed the turn and I beat out his Queens. So above is a good way to off the table study implied odds.

A more general rule of thumb is then:
Ev = (1/5)*(3*Pot_F + I) - Pot_F , Where Pot_F is the potsize on the flop

to find the break even point we set EV to zero and solve for I

(3/5)*Pot_F + I*(1/5) = Pot_F => I = 5*(2/5*Pot_F) = 2*Pot_F, now Pot_T = 3*Pot_F (Pot size on the turn)

So I = 2/3 *Pot_T, just like we did before.

If you don't like math..Sorry. But it does give us a good rule of thumb to think about. I think it is good to work this out for other betsizes yourself on paper. But I am sure there are some videos or articles out there if you don't want to do it. 1/2, 2/3 size bets will vary a but since Pot_T != 3*Pot_F anymore and the return will have different coefficients. Homework for anyone reading this, and feeling like doing it, is to write a general form of the solution, for any percentage of a pot bet. I'll add the answers in my next blog post. Getting good at the basics is really important, and I think this is important to at least try and do the algebra yourself to understand it.

I wrote that really fast, and I probably made many mistakes. I was gone all weekend, and I am very tired.

Keep on grinding!

Running good
I am up a 5 BI in my last 1k hands. Hopefully getting the most out of this run good. Really feeling a lot more relaxed about playing.

I ran pretty deep in a 5k free roll, and got $3. No complaints about this. Also cashing in my 1k gold coins for $10, so I have a BR of $260 now.

Still having a hard time feeling comfortable with my preflop ranges. Like I study them and they make sense, but at the table I can be pretty far out.

Currently also working on under betting and protection betting. I actually watched a video on overbetting and the concept really fixed and issue that I am having in 3bet pots, or just low SPR pots. I use to feel really lost but learning about overbetting so you don't negitive free roll yourself really made me feel more confident.

Improving really reminds me of getting better at Jiu jitsu. Sometimes concepts, or situations can feel so out of focus, but with study and practice it slowly comes sharper.

I am learning how to learn at poker, and that is really exciting. If I was to build myself a lesson plan from where I started it would be different that how I was planning on teaching myself.

My goals for this week:
1) Learn the #%$%# PREFLOP ranges. (Volume is really hurting atm..maybe 10k hands from when I started this blog, and 4.5k from when I started get coaching from weasel.)

2)Protection and underbetting.

3) Play 500 hands a night this week.

A couple other things I am doing that I think works out well for a new player.

I actually studying a lot of the basic lines as place holders for now. (Auto profit IP and OOP lines are really simple and cover a lot.) This way I don't burn money, while I focus my attention on one thing at a time.

I am just worried about 100bb poker at the moment. I leave the table and come back.

If I am in a spot that sucks to fold or whatever I ask myself, what is the long term choice here, rather than what could he have here. Changes how I think about the problem and I haven't made fishy calls in a while.

The variance in poker is absolutely insane. This is why people call it gambling. Thinking about it in terms did I play the hand correctly, as opposed to what can I win or lose here is much better. When you watch a seasoned, winning grinder they don't really get excited. Something I am much better at now. I am going to write this as caps because I think it is important: DON'T GET TO INVESTED IN A HAND IT WILL MAKE IT HARDER.

Just do what you think is profitable and learn from it later. The goal of a session, in the beginning shouldn't be to win money, but it should be to learn to get better. If you played a hand bad, don't think about it as a negative thing. Think about it as a positive thing, you found a mistake and fixing it has increased your winrate. That is something to be happy about.

At some point I want to write something with everything that I have learned in an article that isn't so scattered and weird.

My posts are pretty hit and miss imo, so it makes sense why my replies have dropped off.

Not that important to me really. I more just want to look on this down the road to remember how I think.

POKER IS FUN.

You will learn the ranges after you have played with them for a while. And you won't do any big mistakes if you don't follow them 100%. So don't worry about that
You could print them or put then in excel so you can quickly take a look when playing. I have seen someone write ranges in their computer wallpaper too

Originally posted by la55i
You will learn the ranges after you have played with them for a while. And you won't do any big mistakes if you don't follow them 100%. So don't worry about that
You could print them or put then in excel so you can quickly take a look when playing. I have seen someone write ranges in their computer wallpaper too

Thanks :). I have w34s3l's ranges in excel, but I really don't want to use it as a crutch, so going to stick to one table until I don't have to check them that often.

I suspect I will have to shift into different "modes" through out the career. Grind it out for a few 10k hands then shift back into learning new concepts mode, etc. When in Grind it out mode I think I will be able to play more tables. Right now it's all so new, so I think I will be in learning mode for a while.

Mindset Trouble
I am currently having a mindset issue. It's something I always had. I want to quit when I am up. This is currently really hurting my already low volume and I don't want this to happen. I feel okay with my play thus far for NL5, so it might be time to tackle this one.

The best way to do this in my opinion is to have an external motivation to keep me playing. I think need to set a volume goal for myself. Doing this will allow for me to have some motivation to keep going, and not just quit. Forcing to face this mindset problem everyday will force me to overcome it.

I am almost back to break even now, so I think that the fear of dropping back down to -300bb might be affecting my mindset. So I need to develop the reflex to not care, and make the correct play regardless of the result. In the moment I am not thinking about it too much, and if I lose a stack I don't really care and can play after. Feels like there is something at risk, but really there isn't variance happens, and I am on an upswing. It will go back down. I will drop back into the red again, I am sure.

I think like with anything a reflex is needed. Physically we do it all the time with skill work in sports, for example, and I think we need to develop it in our brains too, so that is what I am going to do. I have one more session with w34z3l coming soon, so I think this is going to be an good opportunity to apply the next round of teachings. I will finished up my video session hands for coach, then I will try and grind out to 20k hands in three weeks. This might be tough one tabling, but I am getting to the point where I feel like I could handle two now, so that will likely change. To keep myself accountable I will post my volume each day. (It's going to be almost 1k hands a day, but I will try and do 3k over weekends to keep give me some room during the week)

Doing this will help with winning tilt, and will allow me to get better faster because I will be playing more hands. I will start this either saturday or next monday, depending on the hands I get into. Then I will shoot for 20k hands by November 11th. I don't know if that is a hard goal or not.

On the topic of implied odds. I was really tired when I wrote that post and it probably makes 0 sense. Here is a quick rundown of how to calculate implieds.

Expected value formula:
E = pT - v ; Where E is expected value, p is the probability that you hit, v is the amount you are investing into the pot once you call. T is the total size of the pot after you call.

With Implied odds we have to add in a factor I for how much we think we can get after we hit on average.
E = p(T + I) - v

To calculate the break even point we set E = 0 and do basic algebra and solve for I to get:
I = v/p - T

If you prefer pot odds you get:
I = (O + 1)v - T, Where O is the pot odds.

For example if you have a flush draw and need to call a bet of 50c into a dollar pot you need
I = (4 + 1)*50 - 200 = 50c on another street to call, which is a 25% pot bet on the next street.

If I is negative that means you're already in profit on further streets.

If you have an OESD the villian bets 1/3 pot bet
I = (4.5+1)*33 - 166 = (11/2)*33 - 166 = 15.5
so you would need 15.5/166 = 10% pot bet on the next street.

I faced and overbet for fun lets calculate what I needed for implied to call this overbet.
Effect stack size was 100bb and villan overbets $2.05 into $1.26,
so v = $2.05 and T = 1.26 + 2*2.05 = 5.36 O = 4, so we get

I =5*2.05 - 5.36 = 4.89 not deep enough to break even. Homeboy pushed me out of the pot.

I don't think trying to use this formula is good at the table, but just get some numbers down for the basics. We are really approximating outs anyway, so doesn't need to be super precise.

Just estimate the inverse of your equity ( or use pot odds +1) multiply it by the amount you have to call and subtract the entire pot, and that is how much you have to call on the next street.

I think math is the single most useful thing I have ever learned.

Results: Not as exciting as you would hope

So I hit around 10k hands and I thought I would post the results as a means of transparency. The results are not really exciting, but I think it is an important step in documenting the progress. It would be awesome if I could post some awesome sick graphs with a wicked red and green line. But if it was that easy everyone would be a pro. I am posting two graphs one before I got coaching and was playing on party poker, then the second once is after I had my first coaching session and started playing on Stars.

Before coaching, when I studied mostly form upswing:

After first coaching session, two sessions down so far:

Might be a combination of low skill and run bad. To be honest I feel a lot more confident now. When I was on upswing I really wasn't folding enough bluffcatchers, and the bad habit kind of spilled over, so it took some time to reform some habits.

Anyway this is where I am at for now. It does feel kind of fitting to be back to zero on starts before I start this 20k grind. I really want to post this to keep myself accountable and the most I post results that aren't spectacular, I think the less effect they really have. My first 10k hands kind of sucked. Oh well. Rest of my life to win money.

Anyway, I am interested to hear any comments before I start. (Probably Saturday or Sunday.)

My Volume Goal has started

I will be playing a minimum of 1k hands a day every day until November long weekend. I started on Monday and I have been hitting my goal both days.

To keep myself accountable I will be posting my hand count and my focus for each session.

Monday
Hands: 1013
Focus: Get use to two tables

Tuesday
Hands: 1043
Focus: Defending my checking range OOP

Last weekend I ran pretty good, which was really nice and I started off pretty strong with playing, so I feel motivated. Tonight I will be focusing on picking good spots to check raise and continuing with defending my checks OOP as the PFR.

Two tables takes a lot more focus and I feel I have to take a break half way through in order to regain my focus. I actually think it helps with my mindset issues I get so focused on the next hand etc and requires more "In the zone" I don't really feel that need to run. Kind of a nice suprise, but once I am sure two tables gets easy then it might come creeping back up.

Another 1k hands tonight and hopefully can learn lots. I will post my graph at the end of all of this, and hopefully it isn't a complete disaster.

Volume Goal Continues

Wednesday
Hands: 1005
Focus: Defending my checking range OOP/ Looking for Check Raise Spots

Thursday
Hands: 1017
Focus: Defending my checking range OOP/ Looking for Check Raise Spots

Friday
Hands: 702
Focus: Dealing with Running bad

Saturday
Hands: 1302
Focus: Dealing with Running bad

This week was kind of weird I had not realized how powerful variance can be. It is a good lesson to learn, and I think it is a skill all on its own. I was break even and then lost 3 buy ins, then was break even again then lost another buy in and I thought my entire strategy just didn't work anymore. It is insane how the tables can completely turn on you and the game feels impossible. Saturday came and I won 4 buy ins like it was easy. I understand that variance is a huge part of the game and you need a large sample to know anything now. This week was great for me it really helped put into perspective what I will deal with in the future as a poker player. I tilted off a stack on Friday, and I really felt stupid about it after. Now comparing to how Saturday felt it makes a lot more sense why people focus on mindset so much. I am a much better player today than I was at the beginning of the week.

That's it for me today. Back to the tables, as a more experienced poker player.

Monday
Hands: ~300
Focus: Get as many hands in as I could before leaving. It was my girlfriend's birthday.

Tuesday
Hands:~1000
Focus: Picking good spots to c/r as a bluff.

Wednesday
Hands:~1000
Focus: Picking good spots to c/r as a bluff. Looking for good spots to defend my checks.

Thursday
Hands:~700
Focus: I was really tired, and just wasn't putting focus into any specific area. I made a pretty important bluff catch
against a crazy person, which I think was really good, but then I am not sure. I block the flush draw, but she/he triple barreled with a 96dd high flush draw. I think the play was actually pretty reasonable for that hand alone, but the individual had a fold to 3bet of 11% over 250 hands. Just was super LAG, I couldn't fold all my bluff catchers against this player. I blocked the straight, and this player would have no problem firing the river with busted draws.

I am basically going to have to make up 1k hands for missing monday and thursday. I am also spending tommorow meeting my girlfriend's friends right after work, so I will likely need to be playing 4k hands worth of poker over the weekend.

The Last 5k hands have been absolutely great to me in terms of how I am running. I cannot forget about that dark creature lurking behind the corner. Variance is pretty crappy and I can't forget what it felt like. 3k hands of everything going wrong. I still run into very small patches of it, but it really don't seem to bother me as much anymore. People hit cards, you get sucked out on, whatever. Winning really can't be your reward in poker, or your downswings will just ruin you. It's know you make the correct play. Asking yourself "Is villian bluffing" is the wrong question in my mind; it should be: "How often is this a bluff". This change in mindset makes you think long term, which in poker, where we have such a low signal to noise ratio, is what we must do.

The mindset part is easy for me right now. I really haven't hit a shit storm in 5k hands, but having survived the last one I know what to expect now, so my ability to make good choices is much better.

Confidence is huge here. And you just have to play, not be scared to fuck up, and always try to get better in order to improve. I have such a long way to go, but I feel like I have taken a step forward from starting this volume goal challenge. Just playing a bunch of hands is really getting me to lose the fear in me. I was winning the whole session and I never really wanted to quit. Sometimes I wouldn't wince as I stacked of KK, knowing I am going to run into AA eventually, or having to make call with that bluff catcher knowing they are just full of shit too often to fold.

I think I was right to focus on improvement, as the mindset would follow. I like that I am spending a whole week on certain spots as well, since out of the time I have for poker grinding is taking up more of it.

I am sure since I am only at 17k hands on stars right now, that downswings can last a lot longer than what I was experiencing. I am sure I haven't seen anything yet. I think the softer NL5 pool makes it easier. My BR is $330, so after I finish this volume goal I am going to have to be looking to move up, assuming I don't crash and burn 10 BI in the next ten days.

Once the edges get smaller I am sure the swings are going to be worse.

Playing but not posting

Well this is pretty much the end of my volume challenge. I hit my 20k goal early. And I am having my coach look at the DB of results after this.

The variance in poker is insane. The same player pool at the same time everyday for 3 weeks, and sometimes it feels completely different. It's crazy. I don't really think I am a very good player. I think I hit a couple of good upswings. I think my coaching for the DB review will be really good.

The sheer feeling of everything not working is insane. I don't really get..or understand it. That is what makes poker so difficult. Anyway no more paragraphs time for graphs.

Here is my volume goal graph for the 20k hands. Looking at the volume goal alone I ran pretty good I think. I don't think my real winrate is this high.

For comparison against my full stars graph:

That is probably closer to my real win rate (5bb-6bb)..for now. My bankroll is super bloated, so I might withdraw some, or just start taking shots at NL10. It really depends on what Adam sees in my database. I will want time to get use to NL10, or to study more, but not really both. I don't know.

That is is for now. Been playing 1k hands every day and I feel like I am much better about "Wanting to book a win." So that goal is accomplished. I also think I have a better idea for the swings. There were days where I swore it was impossible.

Now that I have this out of the way I need to make a more structured schedule. A working plan for improvement, playing and posting here. This has turned more into my rambling once a week.

if you've been playing nl2 and are considering moving up, then i'd recommend just taking it one step at a time and move to nl5.
i mean, i like to be sure that i am going to put up a good fight at the higher stake, and if you expect your nl2 winrate to be ~6bb it doesn't seem impressive enough to go and fight on nl10 unless you're prepared to lose a little bit

[edit: i thought the $ values in the graph were low but it actually seems like a nl5 graph. then just move up and good luck]

Yeah it’s NL5.

The Variance Monster
I use to think an analogy of variance being something like a the Monster from IT. I use to think it would feed on your fear and come out to make you quit poker forever. I use to think it would come out when things are going great to crush your dreams. After playing more hands I think that it is much different that a monster that cognizant of your thoughts. I think variance is much more like the ocean. Some days it is a nice sunny day and everything is great. Other times it is fierce ocean with wave crashing down.

The difference is that oceans weather is the function of a many complex systems, and the output of the weather can be chaotic and hard to predict. This is why the weather channel gives you likelihood or a percentage chance rather than a true prediction. The system has some many factors that are sensitive to change that they need to use statistics to come up with the most likely scenario rather than trying to completely predict it. This reminds me a lot more about cards in a deck being stacked with you or against you. Shuffling a deck has so many small, sensitive factors that we assume they are random. There factors (pressure shuffling style etc.) that go into shuffling a deck can be random giving a random output. Another thing most people don't realize is that randomness is clustered. We use statistics like 1/5, which can imply something happens every 5th time, but that is not true. Over a large sample something only happened in 20% of the samples to give 1/5, but be cannot assume an equally space interval. When you are getting flushed over flushed and set over set for the last 3k hands, just remember randomness has clusters.

Another interesting fact is that if we assume our graph at any point in time is going to be our wr for a hand + some randomness. This is often used in signal analysis and in geophysics. We use signal for the term we can predict, (here it would be our winrate), and the randomness (what we call variance) to be noise. We often model the noise to be a normal or a gaussian. In geophysics we really only care about the signal. We use a term called stacking where we constantly do the same experiment over and over and over again. The Signal will always be there but the noise will constantly change and cancel itself out. So we add the same results over and over again, and so something like take the average the noise approaches zero and the signal approaches it's true value. This is exactly what we are doing in poker. Our given strategy has a winrate, and we are given 2 random hole cards, that our strategy applies to, and our opponents get two random hole cards and 5 community cards are delt. There is so many random factors that we can't really predict how good our strategy is until we repeat the same experiment over and over again until the noise begins to cancel out and we can see our win rate come through after 50k hands. We add in more factors with stats on our opponents. A poker strategy has a large set of solutions. So really running good and running bad is completely irrelevant. We just need to find our signal so we can optimize our strategy and then do it all over again. Becoming a great poker player is really an optimization problem to maximize our win rate. And playing the game is our experiment, but unlike a sport where the outcome has little noise (Like jiu jitsu) poker is the opposite and I think this is what makes it so difficult. I never really understood the important of mindset until I saw how long it takes for skill to make your lines diverge from random. IF you go on tilt your winrate will be a function of randomness and your winrate will cause more variance in your game.

If I have taken away one thing it is that you have to keep a cool head and right the waves of variance and just try and optimize your skill. Winning (in the short term) doesn't mean you are a winner in poker.

Boom! Shots fired.
I got an awesome DB review from Weasel. It was really informative and gave me a great plan to keep going forward. I need to just keep working hard and focus on improving. My BR is too big and I need to start taking shots at NL10. I bought stars helper with some of my BR and then going to put 3-4 BI towards a NL10 shot and just kind of hope I run good and it goes through. I just need to figure out how to work it. Played NL10 zoom on one table for a while to get use to the sizings, but really can't say much about the limit since I didn't play much and I watched lots of theory videos today.

Flop fighter focus
My check defending sucks. Lets make it better. Focusing on getting a good OOP C/R range as PFR and PFC for the next few weeks. My CR % is like 7 overall. THOSE ARE ROOKIE NUMBERS WE NEED TO PUMP THOSE NUMBERS UP. Lots of off table work today as I try and get a better idea of the types of hands I want to put into my oop C/R range. Then I will focus on widening it when IP ♦.

The population pool has weak checking range to turn probes
I have the highest turn probe rate in the pool (maybe of all time), and they still fold to me 55% of the time.

It has been a really exciting weekend, and I am excited to keep going. Once I can get to NL25 I will hopefully be able to pay for all my coaching out of poker, and not out of my full time job cheque.

I am also thinking about a way to give back to the poker community down the line. I really remember struggling at poker, getting frustrated and quitting, and I want to contribute to making it better. I think people like Jamie Staples do a great job at it. I would like to help down the line, but for now my job is to get good at poker.

That is it for today. Here is to hoping my shot goes through.