The $100K Grind

Nice to see that there's a sun up there..

Bet/folding is a River mistake or not?

PokerStars - 10/20 NL (3 max) - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BB): 23 BB
BTN: 26.9 BB (VPIP: 57.14, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 7)
SB: 25.1 BB (VPIP: 72.00, PFR: 45.83, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 28)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 9♥ Q♣

BTN raises to 2 BB, fold, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop: (4.5 BB, 2 players) 9♦ T♥ K♥
Hero checks, BTN bets 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Turn: (8.5 BB, 2 players) J♥
Hero bets 3 BB, BTN calls 3 BB

River: (14.5 BB, 2 players) Q♥
Hero bets 7 BB, BTN raises to 19.9 BB and is all-in, fold

BTN wins 28.5 BB

And here is a graph of me 12 tabling NL4-10 and sometimes nl20 without even having to try to play my best thanks to the donors at bet365.

Man, those were simpler times...
I can proudly declare that I am an NL2 expert. And by studying extensively with Yadi, I became NL2's Ultimate Genius Mastermind. Any cahs player in here wants 1 advice on how to crush nl2 for 11 cents?

I usually do stupid stuff but even a broken clock is right 2 times a day. And this hand is a masterpiece. I'm really proud how I played it ♦

PokerStars - 10/20 NL (3 max) - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 23.7 BB (VPIP: 61.29, PFR: 36.67, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 34)
SB: 32 BB (VPIP: 44.44, PFR: 44.44, 3Bet Preflop: 50.00, Hands: 9)
Hero (BB): 19.3 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 6♣ 7♣

BTN raises to 2 BB, fold, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop: (4.5 BB, 2 players) 8♣ 7♠ 9♣
Hero checks, BTN bets 3.5 BB, Hero calls 3.5 BB

Turn: (11.5 BB, 2 players) 2♥
Hero checks, BTN bets 9 BB, Hero calls 9 BB

River: (29.5 BB, 2 players) J♦
Hero checks, BTN checks

Hero shows 6♣ 7♣ (One Pair, Sevens)
(Pre 42%, Flop 65%, Turn 45%)
BTN shows A♠ 9♦ (One Pair, Nines)
(Pre 58%, Flop 35%, Turn 55%)
BTN wins 29.5 BB

Some might get the urge to x/shove this OTF, but the EV of this should be better ^ _ ^
Even if the ChipEV in the short term might be more volatile...
F%&k cEv. It sucks most of the time anyways ♦

Hey guys,
The SL management has been super nice and allowed me to start testing the waters at 60's with some additional benefits that reinforces my assumption of them being pretty cool guys. I've managed to play a bit more than 4k spins at 30's with around 55 cEV so far. And will mix 30's with 60's.

I am at the point where solid volume is very important and the lack of it is inexcusable. I wanna make solid bucks after all, and to do so, volume will be an important factor. But it's not the only one. The game is very complex and hard to master fully, so there are a lot of areas that need my attention. Studying remains very important and complacency in my opinion will only result in gradual failure. But these coming months I need to start looking to increase my volume no matter what.
In the end with enough work everything should be fine.

Here is the graph from the lowest stake to the 30's. I didn't really feel too good about the 30's. But I guess the games are way tougher. That might be the reason.

I really enjoyed doing ISP2 and working in Pio. And this week I watched some coachings which ignited some ideas for some individual study. I will put aside some hands from my database and will use them to study river play. Thanks to Coffee it should be a fruitful enterprise.

I finally updated the title of the blog. Wanted to change it for a few months already.
It'll be a long journey, but hopefully with work and more volume it'll become shorter

Good Luck with the 60’s, sounds like You have a good plan lined out

Hey, nice Blog!
I've seen, you have very interestings Stats in your Graph Box. Could you send me the formula für chip/EV, EV ITM, HU, EV ROI and EV Profit?
GL for your future projects!

you constantly cry about variance and your game of choice is spin n go

change your game or stop fkin crying, because it wont help neither you, nor your blog readers

i started reading your blog and after 3nd page or so the cry nagging in the back of my mind, and this is a forum, so i needed to get the thing out of my chest

Heya Phantom07, it seems that a few of the stats might be premium and I'm not allowed to share them, but I definitely can share the rest of them with you. Sent you a friend request.

Originally posted by CRI4BRA
you constantly cry about variance and your game of choice is spin n go

change your game or stop fkin crying, because it wont help neither you, nor your blog readers

i started reading your blog and after 3nd page or so the cry nagging in the back of my mind, and this is a forum, so i needed to get the thing out of my chest

Hehehe, you know what would stop my incessant crying for a moment? Getting you wrecked and still crying about it ♦

Hey man!! Awesome results!
Gl on your new challenge i'm pretty sure you will get it
Also lets have some match at the 60's

Originally posted by CRI4BRA
you constantly cry about variance and your game of choice is spin n go

change your game or stop fkin crying, because it wont help neither you, nor your blog readers

i started reading your blog and after 3nd page or so the cry nagging in the back of my mind, and this is a forum, so i needed to get the thing out of my chest

You are so rude lol, you simply can chose to not read if you don't like. And even so the you come here to rage. Such an douchebag

Originally posted by Constantin11
Heya Phantom07, it seems that a few of the stats might be premium and I'm not allowed to share them, but I definitely can share the rest of them with you. Sent you a friend request.

Accepted

Hey fpprox, Thanks!
I hope you crushed this month.

Originally posted by fpprox
Also lets have some match at the 60's

Sounds tempting, but I'd prefer to keep the money I won at 30's

I forgot to mention a very important goal for next month: To not look at cEv, money won or cashier until 24 of December.
I tried something similar this month but failed. So in December to incentivize me more, I will pay 100$ to my relatives every time I look. This hopefully will teach me ♦

Keep up the blog guys, I am getting very good insights in the struggles of Spins and gos. I too like to bitch and cry about the variance in this game. Best of luck and run good!:f_drink::f_drink::f_drink::f_drink:

Great blog, glad I found it.

Thanks, guys!
Sometimes this blog is me trolling myself or throwing some subtle jokes so that people might misinterpret them as me being serious. But I try to put serious stuff as well. I am just balanced between trolling and being serious, between acting stupid and being stupid. This way people will never know when I'm actually stupid lol... 48 Laws of Power, man, good stuff ♦
But jokes aside, I hope you guys get something good out of it

Don't get me wrong, Spin & Go is my favorite game because of all the fun. It's similar to heads up, but it can be more exciting because of the multipliers.
I played most formats and they are a bit more boring because you don't get to play almost any 2 cards. So the fish in me really loves that. Because they are packed with action.

On the other hand, playing so many combos and having a situation to tackle almost every second is more demanding, the probability to get put in gross or uncomfortable spots increases really fast and they become inevitable almost every session, unless you run good, so your resources get depleted faster, at least im my case. But that is the process of becoming a better player. My comfort zone increased drastically since I started playing the format, taking these hard and uncomfortable decisions slowly becomes second nature, and in the end you emerge as a more solid player, one that is capable of taking the right decision no matter what, based on the current ability and knowledge. But obviously the quality of those decisions can be reduced by factors that can be broadly thought as "non-congnitive" skills such as concentration, psychological state, motivation, discipline, willpower, grit, etc. These "non-cognitive" skills are dynamic and they oscillate between a range that is common to us. I think, theoretically again just based on my own introspection, that there is a "resting" range that our "mood" and "ability to perform" falls into. It's the point from which we implicitly start the day without any external stimuli. As soon as different situations start emerging we begin to disengage from our resting range, and generally towards one that is worse, because let's be honest, nobody will feel empowered by having a bad interaction with a person, hitting his car, hitting your toe, loosing a big pot or an important hand in a big tournament etc. And these things happen, they add up. So naturally everyone devised his own strategies to counteract this gradual falling. Examples might include Yoga, meditation, exercising, doing your favorite hobby, studying, reading, watching a movie, playing games, talking to a loved one, even taking a break etc. But most of these, although harmless or even bearing positive effects long-term, are a form of escapism, because in the end they don't address the root cause, they only "treat" the symptoms. So consequently the same pattern will manifest in the future given the previous conditions are met.
What is the cause? I'll let everyone answer that for themselves...

Because this is taking more time than I expected lol. In my mind this is maybe the middle point of this monologue, but damn, it's taking so much time that I'll abruptly stop. The 2nd part is bit less abstract; specifically about decreasing or neutralizing the effect of day to day negative experiences, of increasing our "resting range", and what it takes to go past it from a day to day basis into what some might call "flow", "the zone", "God mode" etc. It's a part that I've been reading, thinking and practicing a lot. But it's a really hard one, and it's so important for every type of activity in the end, that indubitably is worth all the time you can invest into it...

Spoiler: You need to document all your bitching because it's a very important step ♦

Cheers!

PS: I don't know if you guys like these weird monologues, so feedback would be appreciated, otherwise I would just keep them in my head next time, not post random sh%t without Graph$$$, and save my time and yours ♦

Good read! Thank you!:f_thumbsup:

Sooo, I've been doing some "Poker research" and at some point I decided to take a break and started thinking how to approach "that which I don't know". And I found my first response funny so I decided to post it here:

Guys, I swear I'm not high ♦

On a different note, I would like to mention that right now I'm at my peak, this probably will be my greatest achievement ever. Everything you will see from now on will appear small and meaningless compared to what I'm about to say...

Guys, I've discovered a cool way to...

You still don't know? Some of us actually got a good chuckle after clicking to the bottom of the spoilers. Damn u "middle finger!":f_thumbsup::f_thumbsup::f_drink::f_drink:

Hey guys, this will be one of my last updates for this year.
My biggest remaining goal for this month is preparing for the next one and putting in place all the pieces necessary to crush it. But on that a little bit later.

Now I'd like to share my impression regarding 60's. The limit can get really though at times. There are competent regs for sure, but the good news there are weak ones as well, and recs too. It's obviously a hard limit for a novice like me but I think I'll survive it eventually.

About my play, I'm really happy this month. This has been my best month decision-wise so far.
This morning though, unfortunately, I made my first spew "value" bet OTR in a 3bet pot at the new limit which tilted the s&it out of me the next second after I hit that button because I didn't think it through. And after analyzing the hand closely yeah, it was a bigger mistake than usual because I was playing vs a really solid reg who wouldn't give me value lightly there and would call otherwise with all the better hands that obviously completed on the river. It was a questionable decision at best, but I think I could've done better by being more thoughtful and mindful about the hand.
What tilted me about the hand is that I knew better, how could I rush it and and be so careless?
Because of occurrences like this I'll try to implement from now on a "mindful decision making protocol". I will apply it every session every hand, even the most simple open fold will go through this type scrutiny.

Another interesting fact is that after using 3 years time trackers, in the last 2 months I confirmed my suspicion that time trackers are not for me. I am still surprised by this, but last month was my Pilot one without a time tracked and I performed better and was more productive. And this one it's the same. And even psychologically I feel better and I got more motivation. I don't feel as stressed and I'm not confined to "activities" anymore. There is more fluidity between what I'm doing and I'm switching so much faster from one to another and so on without taking unnecessary breaks and adding unneeded separation. So in theory even if time trackers were supposed to eliminate unnecessary procrastination, I was actually procrastinating more with them. But overall they were a good experience, I learned so much using them and refined my strategy and approach towards my time management thanks to them.

Even so, the goal for my next year will be to move towards a more rigid schedule and I want to "work" more than I was doing these past few years. And why would I need a time tracker when I plan to work all the time anyways lol. To me a part of work since a long time meant studying. So I will start putting in place some kind of schedule, like the ones students have in schools or universities, where I will have a certain time allocated for different subjects I want to study or practice. I'll keep it varied and diverse, it should be a lot of fun.

Besides that, I think I'll cut my blog post count to the reasonable monthly update, without any more trolling or jokes. Cause this started to use more time than I wanted and that needs to stop with this post.

And now for people who are looking for cool books. Take a look at Steve Siebold's 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of The World Class. I've read 100+ books, a few of them insanely esoteric and complicated. I even read a book to understand another book. This one is super simple. One of the most simple books I've ever read. It's absurdly simple, I usually don't even read these types of books. But this one is incredible powerful. I can't stress enough how good this book is. It's so simple, so easy to read and understand but it's so powerful. It has condensed in it so many books, so much life experience, so many principles, that it's a super must read and reread.

By the way, how are you guys preparing for the next year? If you have cool ideas I'd really like to hear them out and maybe even steal them ♦

Cheers and good luck!

Great post. Would love to hear more about your mindful decision making protocol idea if you feel like talking about it because I think it will be very tough to be mindful about it all the time but if you do it you'll kill it. And thanks for the book suggestion, I'm avid book reader myself so will check it out. Maybe check out "with winning in mind" book, I feel it could help you with poker. Besides poker one idea I like more and more is the concept of clean 2019. Clean mind I mean as in morally. Like do not be doing anything that you'd be embarrassed about if somebody found out about it. Like lying, gossiping, getting fat around the belly, jerking off, or even being childish or pussy etc. Maybe you like it maybe you don't it's just an idea I will be implementing. Best to you in 2019