My journey as hard working poker player and how it's changed my life as a mentally disabled person

apologies all for the silence, normally a bit of silence is a sign that things haven't been going well and that was the case. the truth is those losses haven't happened that often, the majority of my disappointment has been done via streaming it. I had lost cash on four out of five days but in tournament poker that will definitely happen alot, the thing which made those losses feel extra hard done by was the amount of stick I'd been giving Brazilians', I was repeatedly talking about their over aggressive actions, the more I talked about this, the more stupid and results orientated my game became. I was making loads of snap called vs river aggression especially against these guys purely on the idea these were very aggressive, the truth is even these people will not find enough of the river bluffs and even if they did, over folding would not have that big an EV loss. My all in losses also became too results orientated and again it was me thinking Brazilians' got super lucky and would be ahead pre or get lucky post flop, again this is nonsense because most the stuff they got all in with was top of the range so varience will be high.
Sunday's grind looked great with a double final table at one point, unfortunately those were more or less my only good results that day and failing to cash out in any of my bigger buy ins made that day remain a losing day.

The tide itself turned round on friday, I went back to doing my usual grind of mostly vanilla tournaments and just a couple of PKOs, the varience at the late stage of vanilla tournaments is much lower than PKOS and allows a more tighter play, I did have one great PKO run where I reached the final two tables of a micro millions MTT sadly my A7o failed to hold vs Qj costing me a good chunk of my stack and I went out shortly afterwards. The big day saver itself came in a $10 daily big where I managed to come 3rd to win $461.10 and as a result I would come out with $300 profit for that day, ended short bad run. Looking back on the FT I certainly like my overall game play, I was defending the big blind very well, thought long and hard about when to shove and showed the aggression. Being my last MTT of the day certainly helped big time, when I'm down just one MTT I can focus very well and keep my A game going throughout.

My bankroll challenge itself had taked alot of damage recently, it was looked like my BR would be going back towards it's starting point but that great result on Friday has recovered the damage and put me back up to 4.26K.

The tide has turned round again, replacing PKO MTTs for vanilla MTTs seems to have done the trick, I managed to get in the profit 3 days in a row and made 4 FTs in that short period. My theory about this issue with PKOs is taking risks and finding aggression. In vanilla MTTs you normally very loose and aggressive at the early stages, the deeper you get in vanilla tournaments the more tight and passive I become, in a vanilla tournament this isn't too bad because the payouts across the tournament are much bigger than they are in PKOs. Even in vanilla tournaments I am a touch too weak as was seen towards the end of $8.88 Sunday mini crazy eights. I did manage to FT that tournament, however, their were a number a spots where I could have had the chance to take down a pot but was too passive.

My overall game play and risk taking as a whole is certainly getting lower, I took down a tournament on Saturday and when I look back at the tournament their were numerous spots where I made adjustable over folds correctly vs passive plays, I also took a few high risk calls which could have cost me including a spot where I cbet flop 865 as A8, a covering stack in SB X/R me and I called. the turn card was a brick which he barrelled, again I made the call, the river card brought a 2nd 6, my opponent shoved, I knew my tournament life was at risk but when I thought about it, I said to myself, SB should not have 97, the 2nd 6 reduces his 66 combos, I doubt he has 99 and with an 8 I block his 88. in other words his value range was super narrow meaning he didn't need many bluffs.

Poker itself won't improve over night, that's certain and I know it. I am super proud with how well my game has improved in recent months, the main goal for me ATM is improving my turn play in spots where ranges are capped and stop letting the pressure of risking my stack get the better of me in the late stages of MTTs.

My bankroll challenge has broke it's mark, I have now made it past 5K.
My final tabling is at a peak at the minute. I seem to be making a FT in everyone of my grinds. I have made it onto a FT 9 times this month. Alot of those final tables were short field events although I did make 1 big field event final table, $8.88 sunday mini crazy eights.
My poker bankroll isn't the only talking point right now because my stream itself has been growing very well. I am now getting double figures on a regular basis and my chat is becoming quite active, I witnessed some results orientated chat pro recently and that was a first, I've had plenty of chat pro from preflop over folding in the past but results orientated like chat pro was quite new. This sort of thing is very good, it certainly indicates how well my stream is growing and as long as this continues I will keep on streaming.
Part of me believes the streaming is also an effective way in helping me improve my auto piloting game, Streaming requires me to talk about my decisions all the time and repeatedly talking to myself when making decisions makes them become easier to make in future without taking too much time.

As my bankroll itself continues to grow I could start looking into moving up but in the short term I am gonna continue grinding the $5-$15 average buy in and only once I know for sure I am crushing these stakes will I move up. I do include the odd bigger buy in now including $22 PKO rumble on 888 and I am thinking of including $25 GG masters classic into my schedule soon because that is a great freezeout tournament with a decent structure, I have already took it down once and final tabled a 2nd time.

Another month has passed and it's one I'm very proud of both with poker and with streaming. I made $647.66+$135.75 across the whole of last month, the part of poker game I've been most happy about last month was my game play in the big blind, my aggression in that spot has grown alot especially river over betting after turn was checked round, I had been doing far too much blocker betting in these river spots but now I could be going the other way where I am doing far too much river over betting not realizing that the river card has uncapped my opponents range, this leak shouldn't take that long to remove, I just need to be more aware of certain unpairing river cards which will bring my opponent a decent number of 2 pair+ combos. A big part of my study this month is revolving around turn and river aggression when the previous street was checked, improving this aggression in the big blind didn't feel that tough because my opponent's range was normally capped and my range was usually upcapped, improving this game play OOP and IP as preflop raiser isn't gonna be as easy because it's all about understanding how my checking range looks, for starters I need to start understanding how much capped or uncapped my checking range is out of position, the main understanding in position is understanding when the turn or river card improve my checking range and how much betting I'm doing with my top pair weak kicker and premium 2nd pairs that have checked back the previous street.

As far as streaming goes, one thing I've liked about my streaming growth is the chat is becoming more active, I use to only receive the odd bit of chat mostly made up of saying hello but now I'm starting to notice people asking me questions and their was a number of new subscribers and followers last month. It is nice to see that my stream is growing well but one thing I do need to improve on is my swearing, I might have been doing too much swearing last month, I seemed to be doing it too often in hands I'd lost and whilst this swearing is only gonna be poker related, it can still give me a bad image if used on a regular basis therefore I need to be more careful with my speech when losing a hand.

one mental leak I could have which I need to stop doing, I need to stop getting so critical of myself. Nobody in life is perfect, even the best poker players make mistakes.

I will be going to goliath this week so I'm not gonna do any online grinding but I'll keep up to date with how goliath went.

As for bankroll challenge it did break the 5K mark twice but a big loss the last two days in a row has left it at 4.6K

I have arrived back from the goliath now and it was a certainly a great result for my first ever goliath MTT. I did try goliath last year but I couldn't handle the large crowd therefore I left on the very first day before playing any MTT. This goliath started off horribly I was quite confused with getting myself into the tournament and once I was in I would exit the tournament in level 1. I was gonna head off back home but some friends had a chat with me and pushed me to get back into the tournament and I did, I was in for a shock because I went on to make day 2 and not only that I went really deep into day 2 before my AQs would fail to hold vs A9s and I finished in 87th place winning 1.1K. It might have been a shame not to make day 3 but I am very proud with how deeply I ran in the tournament.

I might have been super unlucky at the end but I was very lucky to make day 2, we were 3 hands away from making it to day 2 when I made a 12bb shove UTG with Ats and ran into Aqo thankfully I hit a FH doubling up my stack and making it into day 2.

A number of interesting hands for day 2 included Qh6h which I limped with in SB, the BB checked back his hand, flop was Ac7d5c I fired a bet he called, turn was 3c and as a gutshot with nice blockers and unblockers I fired again, the river card was 8s and I thought to myself this is a great triple barrell shove. My opponent tanked down before asking me "what do you think I have?" my response to him was "will michel van gerwyn win grand prix?" I started talking about other darts stories as well, the whole idea was to make sure my opponent got no info from me and his response "shut up, I don't know what you talking about" said it all, he had a very quick thought before mucking his hand.
some debatable spots for me included Raising HJ with AJs and folding when Sb shoved 20bb, snap iso shoving my JJ following a UTG 5bb shove and 17bb shove by low jack, folding in small blind as A9s vs a 10bb shove by High jack. each and everyone of these spots are snap calling in chip EV, the issue with them in late stages of tournaments is ICM and future game. My thinking with folding AJs was that I doubt small blind will find enough shoves with worse and calling to lose would cost me 70% of my stack but their is also arguement for that with JJ because that isn't in very good shape either, that will be flipping vs the better Ax but it's even less likely to be coming up against a hand it dominates whereas AJs will still dominate hands like KJS QJs JTs and Ats. the main answer with each and everyone of these is the same, you have to to accept taking risks in the late stages of MTTS and when the fields have a massive number of entries like this goliath did, you will certainly need to take some risks and get lucky if you gonna take it down.

Even so coming 87th and winning £1.1K for my first ever goliath is a brilliant achievement that's for sure and I will certainly be going again next year with my friends

You'll have noticed I've been fairly quiet in here recently which can only mean one thing, I'm on a downer. This month has been an horrendous one online having had just one winning day so far. Thankfully I did get super lucky at goliath this month and as a result of my cash won their I am still up for the month just a shame that doesn't count towards my bankroll challenge.
It won't be long until Wcoop begins and part of me wonders if the run good is gonna be saved for Wcoop. I do aim to play a lot of Wcoop schedule for sure but if things don't turn round this month I might be left with no choice but to leave out the upper ends of my buy in and just play the lowest Wcoop buy ins because although their is a massive prize at the top of these events, the variance in them is gigantic and the last thing you want to have a high variance when on a bad run.

Another month is almost over and it's been my worse month of online poker since I became a full time grinder. I did have that great run in the goliath event but I like to keep my live poker cash totally separate from my online poker bankroll. I can't deny my game has been a real mess across the month, I was blaming my poor run on variance for a lot of this month but I saw myself ruin some really decent runs in the last few sessions of the month with actions that were clear blunders. Most of these blunders I did had one thing in common, I was just trying to do exploitive play without thinking about things, in other words I was just clicking buttons and then whenever my opponent showed up with a value hand I would get very results orientated and annoyed at myself.

My number 1 goal in September is to put more thought into my decisions and understand those middle and low boards better BB vs IP RFI. These middle and low boards where the ones I am most prone to just clicking buttons as the preflop raiser, it's also the spots where I constantly believe people prone to over cbetting in position yet I am not doing much exploitive play vs these cbets. The same issue is made with over folding, I make too many snap calls or snap folds when my opponents bet and then when I lose the hand I regret the call and when they flash bluff I wish I called. It's super important that you think about your decisions and I certainly need to take more time to make my decisions

Another big goal for me in september is improve my performance as a covered stack in ICM, whilst it's true that we need to be more careful as a covering stack in ICM it doesn't mean we should be checking back most flops vs the big blind, their are plenty of spots where we can fire cbetting on middle boards because we have certainly got the range advantage against the big blind.

I also need to improve my game play in the big blind as a super shallow stack, it might be harder to find check raising with backdoors as a super shallow stack but our backdoors still have the EV as a call and their are still plenty of times where we can find check raising even as a 10-15 bb stack, the main difference is we either find more shoves or min raises.

Every poker player is gonna have some bad months.. September is a new month therefore it's a new start and let's make this a big one as I aim to get some deep runs in wcoop and get myself more well organized with my poker game. I'm still in good profit since my full time poker grind begun.