New Beginning

Hello again! Its time for an update!

Poker has been going pretty much breakeven for last few days, so thats the end of that upswing. Released my first 10% of deposit bonus and got some more rakeback from another source, so bankroll has grown anyway.

Bankroll: 567€

Watched few videos today too. One video was about stealing as I thought I could become more confident doing it when I know what exactly am I doing. Well, I learned to target another kind of player while stealing and also focus more on villain's fold 2 c-bet stat when deciding should i steal or not.

I learned some really neat stuff today, which is calculating equity of my steal. Now I know why there is some regs with so high steal% and they steal with 2bb opening. Also found one leak, which is my low call% from blinds. I guess im happy with my 9%/10% 3bet from SB/BB vs steals, but I think my call% is too low. I learned not to call much from blinds as I am going to be OOP and its harder to play, but I think I could definitely look for more spots to call vs. high steal% players. My fold at blinds is whopping 78% so many players can exploit that easily. Going to watch video about restealing tomorrow and hopefully build some kind of a callrange vs 30/40/50 steal%.

I also found some old hand histories from cash games. Graph doesnt show them all, but that should be most of my cash games hands. Almost half of the hands are from NL10. Thanks god my VPIP/PFR doesnt look that low anymore ♦

I decided to start posting my notes about videos I have watched. Maybe it will help someone and maybe someone might have to add something to the topic. They are nothing too specific, its just for me to remember.

Thought process

Basic blind stealing

Hey Phenomenomzor,

Welcome to the blogging world.

It seems from your Army Experience you have some nice discipline and planning going on.

Regards,

Kyle.

Hello once again! Its a been a while since last update

Seems like I got platinum level, yay! Not bad, since I could grind only half of the month. Maybe we'll see diamond next month, especially with this level up promo going on

Sooooo, games have been going "okish". Had some swings and swongs and tilted once at which I am really disappointed. But, definitely enormous grown has happened from last year. It was this one fish who tilted me 'cos he run so freakin' hot coolering me few times by showing quads vs my FH and better FH. Its quite funny, literally I have seen at least 10 quads during this ~10 day period. Had my own few times with no payoff, but paid off few quads myself

One swing was 20 BI, which is way too much and shows I played really bad, which is true. I could have saved easily 10BI, but my huge weakness is not believing fish when they got it and I got good hand too. Also had some ego issues with one of the regs, trying to show who is the best at the tables, but that didnt really go well, but that issue is fixed now

Anyway, you can see from graph. Had an upswing where I ran like 8 BI over EV winning every flip and 60:40/70:30. Good times. Didnt last long though, and variance put me back where I belong, running under EV ♦ Lots of suck outs and bad plays.

But now to the big news, as my BR is now 872€ and I get ~400€ soon from outside sources (+little over 100€ from RB by the end of the week) I will be pretty close to 1.5k€ roll. That means I am going to take a shot at NL50 as long as everything goes well this week. I am aiming this to happen next weekend for maximum fishiest games and it is going to be 2 BI shot. So when I drop to 1.4k€ I go back grinding NL20 for few days and try again until I succeed (go on upswing ♦)

ps. I also got HM2 which is really cool with it's fancy stats!

Just a quick update cos I am pretty happy right now and had a sick sick day ♦

Story starts from today's first session where I lost 6 buy ins. It was insane, I didnt know it was possible to run into so many coolers and suck outs in so little time. I had nut FH with AA and ran into quads, KK v AA, AA v AK lost etc. etc. So I quit before I managed to tilt away money, session lasted only 30 minutes and -6BI, so sick. At this point my roll was around 750€.

Anyway, day got better because I got a letter today from school where I tried to get and I got accepted, so thats really nice! I only had 0.33 points more than lowest accepted had, so thats really sick. Now I have about 2 months before school starts, so thats plenty of time to grind poker!

Now what made the day, was a session I just completed which broke my record. I won whopping 12 buy-ins in one session!! Amazing run and I also played really good.

Bankroll: 994€

Few hands from last days ♦

saw flop | saw showdown

CO (€43.27)
Button (€20)
SB (€20)
BB (€20)
UTG (€25.73)
Hero (MP) (€22.57)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 6, 6
1 fold, Hero bets €0.60, CO calls €0.60, 2 folds, BB calls €0.40

Flop: (€1.90) 4, 7, 9 (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, CO bets €1, 1 fold, Hero raises €2.80, CO calls €1.80

Turn: (€7.50) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets €4.60, CO calls €4.60

River: (€16.70) 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets €16.70, Hero calls €14.57 (All-In)

Total pot: €45.84

Results below:

Villain is quite nitty, known to stab in multiway pots when last to act. I decided to make a move because of his stab tendency + hes quite nitty.
On turn I get some extra outs and fire a second barrel which he calls, now this completely takes away any made hand from his range unless maybe 68cc.
Now I am not sure about river check decision, I guess I was kinda scared and was hoping for him to check, but instead he shoved and I started to think hand more thoroughly. His shove didnt make any sense to me, he wont have any 7x in his range, no full houses, not even pocketpairs so it was superbluffy range he had and I decided to call.

Another interesting hand

SB (€48.30)
BB (€22.01)
UTG (€20)
MP (€23.40)
Hero (Button) (€51.11)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 8, 6
1 fold, MP bets €0.60, Hero calls €0.60, 2 folds

Flop: (€1.50) 10, 3, 5 (2 players)
MP bets €1, Hero calls €1

Turn: (€3.50) J (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets €2, MP raises €4.50, Hero raises €9.40, 1 fold

Total pot: €12.50

Results below:

I have been pushing this villain around a little bit during this session. Flop is standard float imo, his range mostly consists of broadways and PPs.
Anyway, on turn I picked up few reads. Sizing and timing tells. I saw him doing smaller than usual reraises with pure crap and it took quite a long time from him make a decision. Paired with not so good stab turn card, ie. if I had Tx, I probably wouldnt be betting turn so happily and rather checking and with better hands would probably bet little bit more. So I thought he probably picked up that while thinking and c-raised me. Because of those reads I decided he is FOS and 3bet him with air.

Nothing to say about this hand ♦

Button (€54.39)
Hero (SB) (€20)
BB (€20)
UTG (€10.01)
MP (€24.37)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, J
3 folds, Hero bets €0.40, BB calls €0.30

Flop: (€1) 3, 3, J (2 players)
Hero bets €0.70, BB calls €0.70

Turn: (€2.40) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets €2, BB calls €2

River: (€6.40) J (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets €6.40, Hero raises €16.80 (All-In), BB calls €10.40 (All-In)

Total pot: €40

Results below:

And this ♦

saw flop | saw showdown

Hero (UTG) (€20.64)
MP (€24.07)
Button (€30.44)
SB (€15.03)
BB (€20)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, A
Hero bets €0.60, MP calls €0.60, 3 folds

Flop: (€1.50) K, K, J (2 players)
Hero bets €1, MP calls €1

Turn: (€3.50) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets €2.30, Hero calls €2.30

River: (€8.10) K (2 players)
Hero bets €5.60, MP raises €20.17 (All-In), Hero calls €11.14 (All-In)

Total pot: €41.58

Results below:

Took a shot at NL50 today. Couldnt find proper tables, so I went to play on this deep table. I was supposed to buy in for 50€, but forgot to turn off auto-buyin and bought in for 100€. Well, f*** it I told to myself and just played.

Anyway, here is a perfect hand when taking a shot at higher limits!

saw flop | saw showdown

Hero (UTG) (€100)
MP (€100.75)
CO (€92.64)
Button (€201.57)
SB (€66.92)
BB (€50)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q, Q

Hero bets €1.50, MP raises €5, 4 folds, Hero calls €3.50

Flop: (€10.75) 7, Q, J (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets €6, Hero raises €20, MP raises €89.75 (All-In), Hero calls €75 (All-In)

Turn: (€200.75) 8 (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (€200.75) 5 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: €200.75

Results below:
Hero had Q, Q (three of a kind, Queens).
MP had K, K (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: Hero won €197.75

Alright. I have been quite lazy last few days, well, actually last week. I REALLY have to change that. Would be a shame to fail right at the first goals I have put for myself, so I really have to get it together and start working towards my goals. First week was great, second, not so great.

Anyway, even though I have been lazy, my bankroll havent been and it has grown a lot lately!! Soo, my first NL50 session was going great, as you can see from my last post, I even got up to +4BI at that session, but I came down crashing just as quickly as I got up and swing took some extra with it. At one point I was -80$ from NL50 and close to quitting at NL50 shot, but it turned around and now I am something like 60-80€ up from NL50. NL20 been going good too and I've had some nice sessions lately, even though there has been only few of them because of my laziness.

So, I have won from cash games around 1k€ during 50k hands, thats about 3 weeks and with rakeback included. 6bb/100 and EV 8,5bb/100, so thats really nice and I hope I can keep that up. I was aiming at 5bb/100 and I think I can meet that goal on longer period. 50k hands still doesnt say anything because during one session my bb/100 can go +/-1. Still got about month and a half before I have to stop grinding poker and Im really gonna put my all to this now as I dont want to remember later on that I could have done better and played more etc.

But, now to the news I really made this post about, was just rambling around. So, I am quite tournament addict and I used to put lots of my winnings into tournaments before, I think I am still up from them because of few okish scores, but they are really, really swingy and it wasnt fun afterwards watching how I just blown all my cash game's session winnings into tournaments with no return. Anyway, as I broke 1k€ profit today, I decided to play few tournaments. One was 20€+2 which I busted out and another one was 5€ turbo rebuy. Well, I busted that 5€ tournament too, but as 2nd! My A9s vs his KJs and I lost it, but no biggies, 681€ still really nice! Running good

So, right now I can continue playing nl50 pretty much as much as I want to, though there is not many games running, even at peak hours so I am mixing up some NL20 too. I also noticed I could actually make more money at NL20 than at NL50 if we assume my winrate drops at NL50, but its not much different than NL20, so no big worriers about that, just few better regs than at NL20. But, to explain myself, NL20 has turbo tables which fish loves to play whereas there is no turbo tables for NL50. So, I get like 3x more hands at NL20 than at NL50 + bigger winrate and pretty much same raked/hour = possibly more/same amount of money from NL20. But anyway, mixing it up I get more fishier tables because now I can be more picky about tables I will play at.

Bankroll has grown enormously since last time, thanks to tournament and some nice sessions.

Bankroll: ~2.2k€

Just played really nice session. I felt like I was invincible after halfway of the session. Won some flips and KK v AA ♦, some sick set-ups and of course fishes donating their money

It feels really sick that just few weeks ago I was really, really happy to see session where I won 100€, now I have those sessions constantly and +500€ is serious money for me ♦ I have never even held 100€ bill in my hand, lol.

It also seems like I could take NL100 shots now :f_biggrin:, but I dont feel like my game is up to it. Basically, I am not happy with my perfomance in latests sessions at NL50. Need some fine tuning in certain spots and especially stop bluffing too much. Also have to just stop and think some spots esp. when getting reraised and not being blinded by having really nice looking hand like trips and flushes on paired board. I think if I can do those 2 mentioned, I will win nice monies at NL50. So plan is to take shots at NL100 somewhere around the end of this month. Probably will be playing at least 50k hands at NL50.

Bankroll: ~2700€

Awesome success man!

I had similar burst when I moved to nl25.

I want to say that your bluff you were talking about- it is a great moneymaker but eventually it can take you on tilt if you start doing that too often or someone notices that and adapts.
Though- i love those times when it works out.

Keep them crushing.

/following

Originally posted by ilioas
Awesome success man!

I had similar burst when I moved to nl25.

I want to say that your bluff you were talking about- it is a great moneymaker but eventually it can take you on tilt if you start doing that too often or someone notices that and adapts.
Though- i love those times when it works out.

Keep them crushing.

/following

Heyyyyy, nice to see someone reading my blog :). I really really agree with your point that it can put on tilt. Happened so often. Sometimes I am amazed how light they called me, especially in multiway pots, makes me wonder am I really that easy to read or are they just somekind of regfishes, tilting or whatever. Eventually I just get mad at myself for making that bluff and tilt.

Sometimes I even wonder do I subconsciously do those bluffs, just so my body can have adrenaline rush. It is a great feeling though when they take their time and then fold something better in a big pot.

Sooooo, it might come as surprise, but I havent touched poker for last two weeks almost at all. I definitely got burnout. Which is just lol, considering I only played maybe 3 weeks and not even that much. Literally everytime I sat at a table I just got sick and didnt want to play at all and just quit after few hands. I miss those times when I could just sit at a tables, put some nice music on and felt like I was in heaven. But now it seems I am finally getting that fire back and will be starting playing soon again.

During last two weeks I have been enjoying summer, but also been kinda mad at myself how lazy I am, how I cant do anything productive etc. Somehow it is just so hard for me to stop reading all the shit from internet, watching funny cats riding turtles and whatnot. Maybe there is some kind of underlying issue, like not playing poker because I am afraid of next downswing, or I am not a winner orsm like that. For now, it is definitely burnout, but there is also definitely something else. Also how am I gonna avoid burnouts in the future, its no good if every 3 weeks I take 2 week break because I simply cant play. I thought I had enough of time away from poker, some free days and only playing 5-6 hours a day.

Anyway, just before taking my break I got pretty excited about poker, pretty weird time for burnout to come too. I was learning some really cool stuff and taking my thought process deeper. Because of that, I also have to drop tables from 6 to maybe 2-4.

Well, I remember having more stuff to write about poker, but I just cant remember which stuff. Tho, I have to say, there was a HUGE difference between NL20 and NL50 after playing maybe 13k hands at NL50. Had one sick hand with reg where I 6bet AI (100bb deep XDD) with pure crap and he called with questionable holdings. It might have even been not so bad play from villain if he really had good read on me, not sure, didnt actually review that hand with any tools, just told myself "dont do that again, ever, ok?"

For my defence I actually had reads on him, knew that he knows I can 4b light and thought that he can definitely pull out stuff like 5b bluff. Just because his 5b was not AI and kinda smallish, I had a feel that he doesnt have legit hand. But if we assume if my range is like AQ+, JJ+ he just might have equity to call it off, esp. if I sometimes have brainfarts like that. It really came as a huge surprise that he called. Def. huge -EV for me with that hand, but I could really easily exploit my image against him by readjusting if he keeps calling with that.

MP (€47.27)
CO (€50)
Button (€62.40)
Hero (SB) (€120.35)
BB (€52.82)
UTG (€56.94)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, 6
4 folds, Hero raises €1, BB raises €3, Hero raises €7, BB raises €14.50, Hero raises €112.10 (All-In), BB calls €34.82 (All-In)

Flop: (€105.64) Q, 9, Q (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: (€105.64) J (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (€105.64) K (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: €105.64

Results below:

Well, lucky me :f_biggrin:

I also found new apartment for myself from the city where I am going to school. It is pretty sweet actually, nothing balla, but pretty good for ~400€/mo. Just repaired too, everything looks so white, haha ♦. It also has a some weird second story as a bedroom, but its pretty sweet. Got some friends from that city too, seems like one of them is getting excited about poker and might start playing with me ♦. We'll see how long he will last at NL2.

Anyway, g2g now, see you soon

Lately I have been playing 3 tables, definitely had to do this so I can l2p. It feels like playing completely new game. I am basically playing NL50 and NL100 mixed now, just picking best tables from both stakes. I am also up from NL100 few BIs so thats nice too.

I feel like I can beat both stakes, especially when I am cherrypicking best 3 tables so pretty much always all tables are going to be avg 30VPIP+ whereas when 6tabling before I "had" to play at 25VPIP tables too. Difference between these tables is noticeable. I also noticed NL100 has slightly more fish, but thats no surprise. I am pretty happy about this all around, I get better as a player, my bb/100 probably at least doubles compared to 6 tabling and I feel like I am playing poker rathen than autopiloting. Moneywise, I actually dont fall much behind compared to 6 tabling, at least thats what I am expecting. Still getting motivating hourly for a student anyways.

I probably going to look for a coach sometimes soon, maybe this or next month. Well, when I feel I wont get much out from videos/reviewing on my own and need help. Definitely going to be +EV and maybe, just maybe I might be playing NL200 by the end of this year

Bankrollwise I am over 3k€, but it might get lower sometimes soon if I get cold run and also need to buy some stuff for my new apartment. I actually have a couch and some tables there ready, landlord asked if I want to keep them as old tenant left them there. I thought why not, couch wasnt so bad and I need tables. So probably just have to buy proper working chair, but nothing too expensive. Suggestions are welcome

Damn, time flies by so quickly. I have been putting some hours last week, ~7.5 hours every day, but only 1-3-tabling so not many hands. I really much like NL100 and hope I can skip NL50 once and for all, still got about 7BI before I have to move down to NL50 and if there is to believe my swingy up and down trend in my graph, it seems like I should be going up soon ♦ we'll see.

I feel like I could beat NL100 for small amounts when 3-4 tabling. Regs are definitely aggressive preflop and as few succesful people have told me, fight fire with fire and so I have been doing. Need some fine tunes for preflop and I think I am gonna be ok vs. regs in that area as long as I play my A-game. Postflop I am total fish, but it also seems that at least half of the regs are too. What comes to A-game, well, I have to stop playing over 7 hours sessions and cut it to max. 2hours, maybe 1.5hours. I have noticed that start of the sessions I play really great (maybe miniheater, dno) but then shits hits the fan and I start spewing around..

Anyway, looooooooooooooots to learn about postflop... I dont even know where to begin. Well, I guess I am going to start from bet sizing and proper game plan and spots where I could be more aggressive.. Especially need to learn to play postflop in 3b pots, it is really, really important and I think im gonna start from that.

Soon I have played 10k hands at NL100, I was up 10 BI at one point, but came crashing down thx to my spewing and retarded plays, kinda makes me mad I still do that, but like I said before, more breaks.

Well, I guess see you next time when I get some breathing room bankroll wise or when I go down to NL50, lol.