The $100K Grind

Hi Constantin11,

Nice Graphs and I look forward to reading how you get on

good luck at the tables

In poker you can make consistently the right decisions and still loose. Or you can play bad and win. Sometimes it's just not fair. But if you think about it, life in general is not fair. It resembles poker in a sense. We, like in poker, take a certain line of action based on our inherently limited knowledge and data, some take a line based on gut, emotions etc. Some are running better than their EV, some worse, some are born with their EV line completely messed up, be it upwards or downwards. But results are to some extent beyond our control, even in life.
And who knows this better than a poker player? Who has the chance to practice this aspect of life better than a poker player? Some degree of adversity in life is inevitable. And yet I cry like a little bi*ch when I loose 16 spins in a row. How can that be of any help? How can my bad reaction make what happened better?
No matter how bad I feel about the way I ran, my reactions can't possibly change the results from the past. But on the other hand if my reactions are bad, then it can make this moment, the one in which the reaction is occurring, and my future worse. There is literally no upside to having bad reactions to something that already happened.

I think maybe some of the time I will leave this type of mindset related stuff for myself. To have some "pre-thought thoughts" to come back to when I'm metaphorically crying or something ♦

I completely burned out at the end of the last month and didn't play 1,5k spins, so 1,5K spins is this month's goal.

@ metalmonkey80, thank you, kind sir. Good luck to you too!

This past few days I've been pretty close to going broke a few times.

Spoiler

No worries though. My ultra rare Pepe provides some nice support at the -600 mark. I'm ready to bet against anyone that I won't need a reload this month

Regarding my play. I'm happy how I play considering things. But I'm not happy cause rarely I'm still doing stupid stuff. I wonder if I will ever reach a time when I won't level myself. Sure, sometimes I look like a genius, most of the time like the biggest idiot tho'. It's just not worth it...

Hello there,

Long time no update, so let's get to it.

I've been promoted to 30's. I updated the 15's graph from my 1st post.

I joined SL at the end of December from what I remember, but couldn't really invest too much time till February.
Since February I studied close to 115 videos, attended more than 40 live coachings and played overall 5k+ spins, + various kinds of session reviews that I won't bother to count. And now I finally reached the month that I've been planning for the last couple of months - The Study Month ♦

I won't play too much and most of the play will happen in the context of my study.
But I did set for myself various study objectives, more demanding than everything I did so far, that I hope to achieve as I believe their achievement is imperative for a successful transition to a more grind-heavy "poker-schedule" in the future.

See ya at the end of this month. Let's hope it'll be a fruitful one for all of us!

Random update time.

I am 70% happy and 30% dissatisfied with my overall "performance".

I generally play ok-ish but man sometimes I randomly play bad some hands.
It's not a big percentage of them but it just pisses the shit out of me. Seriously, how tf can I be so stupid, even if it's a small percentage of the time???
I think this is some kind of weird type of "tilt". In game it looks like what I'm doing is pretty rational, I make the decision not based on emotions but rather reasoning (but very flawed). But those weird marked hands, when I review them, by analogy, look as as if I "rationally" decided to shoot myself in the leg. It's just stupid. Srsly WTF...

At the same time I ended up playing kinda tired a lot of the time. Which is unacceptable. I think there are a lot of "non-poker" related factors that I need to better control, which indubitably will have a positive impact on my overall game. In conclusion, the status-quo remains the same: work on my fkin' game, be it by studying specific spots, reviewing, attending coachings, sleeping better, exercising, reading etc. or slapping myself every time I do stupid stuff.

I guess I'll put a graph once I finish 3k spins @30's.
It will be longer than anticipated unfortunately cause I relocated for the summer and I have a lot of problems with the light & internet, which pisses me off again. I'm pretty pissed in conclusion ♦
So let's go crush somebody and suck out on some regs to feel better

This month has been decent. Results are good. The only way to interpret them is to assume that I was on an upswing and keep working on my game even harder to make sure that I'm not actually just a big lucky fish

Spoiler

At some point I was fighting for the top 3 at my stake promo which comes with a prize from SL, but I think I failed that. Partly by my own doing, because I still choose study over grind knowing I would fail my volume goals because of this, but also because of adverse circumstances. I lost like 7 days of July just by the fact that this shit*ty electricity company that provides the service can't get it's sh*t together. In retrospect, it still tilts me only thinking about it, but at the same time this has been an illuminating experience as well. It brought new aspects of my "game" that I needed to work on and still do. And at the same time I managed to read 3 books because of it, which is nice.

Since the beginning of the Summer I've managed to almost hit the same "study numbers" as before that in aggregate, so this is how I've been feeling lately ♠_biggrin:

Obviously I still get rekt on a daily basis. And I wouldn't want it any other way. I just want to soak as much as I can from better players and emulate their strenghts and combine them with mine, but also eliminate or diminish my weaknesses, and maybe that way I'll avoid ending up like Anakin on Mustafar ♦

I wanted to also speak my mind about all that happened around Alvaro. The story was developing exactly when I moved to the Diamond team. At some point I ended up being extremely disappointed. I actually started having doubts about Spin Legends. Cause the moment I've been working towards for so much time didn't end up meeting my expectations. All this hype they built around Alvaro, and here I am, In Diamond, and the guy barely has any content. Maybe for spanish is different and there is way more content, but for the english team it can be a bit disappointing. Especially when it turns out that "one of the best spins players in the world" is a fraud. What a joke. Srsly, Fu*ck Alvaro. I said it. And I'm not taking it back. I have never been scared to say exactly what I think and to look you straight in the eye if I feel like it, and most of the days I feel like it.
But this brings me right to my point:
Sometimes is easy to forget and not appreciate what you have until it's too late. I don't wanna be that guy. I got so used to Coffee at gold that I almost took him for granted at diamond. The bar was set so high by his coachings that everything seemed average at that point. And the same applies to the other coaches, but man, Coffee is a beast. This guy is extremely knowledgeable. I feel like I barely scratched the surface here. I have so much yet to learn and work towards thanks to this guy. He is amazing. If anyone has any doubt about SL because of what happened to alvaro, I can guarantee that the real treasure here is Coffee and the other coaches, they do all the heavy lifting anyways with us noobs ♦

For real, the guy is amazing, I will rest my case with a $100K $Ev graph in the end, no matter how long it might take. I will not rest and will keep this blog going until I put that graph or die in an attempt, prolly the first tho, seems way more plausible, but nothing in life is guaranteed except death apparently.

It's hard to get any strategical value from your ChipEV in the short term. Ideally, you'd want to analyze your "sample" from a decision making point of view. Let's assume we posses the knowledge to play perfect poker in absolutely every spot, but unfortunately we are humans and thus imperfect and prone to making mistakes. In this scenario I would analyze my sample, be it right after the hand occurred If I am able to do it on the spot or in session reviews if It proves to be difficult, and see how close I actually played to the best way possible, completely neglecting my short term results. This way I'll actually be able to form solid conclusions regarding my play rather than distort them at the whim of my graph.

Obviously we all are far away from playing perfect poker. But everyone of us has his own imperfect variant of this hypothetical "perfect poker". It implies that we played the hand best to our abilities given the knowledge, skill and experience we possess. I think this is the best way to interpret our "results" in the short term: by looking at our decisions rather than the actual results.

1. Don't look at the graph till the end of the month.
2. Play 1,5k spins at 30's.
3. Finish the remaining individual spot reviews from Diamond.
4. Read Tool of Titans.
5. Seek more structure.
(bonus) Do ISP2

Today that which in theory was bound to happen finally happened.
Barely got out of a $1,5k bleed only to find myself walking into this:

Spoiler

Until recently I thought that in spins you can only win at this rate

I guess what doesn't kill me only delays the inevitable.

Hello There.
How's life?
I'm good.

Long time no update, for whomever might be reading this nonsense.

Sad times, man. I'm just now realizing how hard spins are for reasons I won't bother to mention.

Been running bad for some time and I've been 10% a little bitch about it. But running bad is a perception. And perceptions are subjective, thus they do not necessarily reflect reality. Consequently, I need to mentally prepare myself to get f*cked even harder no matter how small the probability of that happening might be, but then again getting f$#ed is another perception, which would imply that the possibility of the f-ing not starting yet is another plausibly scenario I should consider, meaning that the occurrence of said event would be felt more severely than anything experienced till this point. All leading to a need to increase pain aversion. Did I get it right?

For suckers that still read in this day and age I recommend The Inner Citadel (or Meditations by Marcus Aurelius for that matter) where indifference was a thing even before the emergence of GTO. Spoiler: it's not the same s#%t.

Anyways, here is some random graph cause that's what people usually post in these updates, and I'm people, probably just one if we discard the other personalities.
He's joking, bro. It's just me, don't worry.

Not much to say. I guess it's enough to request a move to 60's by Cev. No way in hell that's a good idea even if I would be allowed. that And not because I think I can't be profitable there. It's just not the right time. I've got a plan. Everything will fall in it's place. No worries.

See ya next time. And remember, avoid breathing exercises underwater. Shallow-water blackouts can be fatal, and you will not feel the onset until it's too late.
True story.

PokerStars - 10/20 NL (3 max) - Holdem - 3 players

SB: 27.5 BB
Hero (BB): 24.5 BB
BTN: 23 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 7♠ 7♥

fold, SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 3 BB, SB calls 2 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) 4♥ 6♠ K♥
SB checks, Hero bets 1.8 BB, SB raises to 3.6 BB, Hero calls 1.8 BB

Turn: (13.2 BB, 2 players) 2♣
SB bets 1 BB, Hero calls 1 BB

River: (15.2 BB, 2 players) T♥
SB bets 4 BB, Hero raises to 16.9 BB and is all-in, SB calls 12.9 BB

Hero shows 7♠ 7♥ (One Pair, Sevens)
(Pre 81%, Flop 78%, Turn 80%)
SB shows 3♠ 4♠ (One Pair, Fours)
(Pre 19%, Flop 22%, Turn 20%)
Hero wins 49 BB

For November I'll play 1,5k+ spins @30
And do other stuff as well ♦

Hey Constantin11! I'll be following you

Quality meme sir, well done

Hope luck starts to turn around and you can move to 60s soon

Hey man !
Yeah and to be honest not the worst scenario possible for sure. At least your cev is very good !! It sucks that the chips won are so low. But I guess that's common, I had a tough result money wise on my first month on 60s despite the good evroi as well.
Gl at the tables and I hope you make good profit and cev this month!

Hey man I am following you!

I started playing spins too since 3 months ago. just moved to 3$.

Most of the effort is pushing myself to press that play button at the begininning of every sessions.

I play with Spin Legends too. Started on ps.it and just moved to .com

Good luck

Hey, Constantin! Very good luck to you !

Hey cyrax83, congrats on moving up. Yeah, I definitely have the same problem. I guess we need to work on that if we want to really kill it.

Hey, dardoolb, thanks! Good luck to you too!!!
Sorry for not following through with analyzing your game. But honestly, I'm just clicking buttons, as shown by my meme ♦. Prolly a better idea is to stick to coaches and avoid my bullshit. But if you still interested, I can take a look at newer hands, cause you probably improved from then.

Btw, I wanted to improve my 3 tabling and 4 tabling at lower limits but after speaking to management I realized that that's actually not a good idea. It would be just a time waste and from what they say, not many 4 table with much success 60's and 100's anyways... So I actually recommend anyone the same thing. You don't really need more than 2 tables to be honest, especially at lower stakes where the goal is to improve and move up as efficiently as possible.
I guess when you have a lot of experience and don't have too many thought spots you might be able to do it. But it is still challenging from what I've heard. And from experience I can tell that playing HU with 4 regs at the same time isn't as fun as playing 2 tables and chill.

GL everyone

Hey, Constantin i even forgot about that ♦ Yeah i think i slightly improved and moving up this sample so no need in that, but thanks!

Here is the sad story of a reg who thought splitting his range would be a good idea.

PokerStars - 20/40 NL (3 max) - Holdem - 2 players

BB: 15.2 BB
Hero (SB): 22.3 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 7♥ Q♥

Hero calls 0.5 BB, BB raises to 2.5 BB, Hero calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5 BB, 2 players) K♦ T♠ T♦
BB bets 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB

Turn: (9 BB, 2 players) 9♦
BB checks, Hero checks

River: (9 BB, 2 players) A♠
BB bets 10.7 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 10.7 BB

BB shows 4♣ 2♦ (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 33%, Flop 27%, Turn 35%)
Hero shows 7♥ Q♥ (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 67%, Flop 73%, Turn 65%)
Hero wins 30.4 BB

I thought a lot about this hand. It seems to be played really bad lol.
I had really good reads for making this play, but my problem was if this particular hand is good enough to do it. Because the 7 is a little bit weird, blocking some 7x bluffs, and I don't have a blocker to the flush, which would diminish his only plausible value range here (flushes) by 20% making my call even more profitable.
So the plausible value range consists of a few small suited combos (although I'm a bit in doubt about that because most regs usually don't Iso bluff them, cause folding them still sucks a bit, but it's still a possibility I need to account for) . But why do I believe that his range is deprived of all the high cards and stuff? Exactly because of the aforementioned range splitting, which after further analysis, and thanks to some work in Pio Solver as well, I think enables me to bluffcatch in this particular spot with 100% of my range without any real worries lol. How crazy is that.

Anyways, It's no big deal really and it doesn't matter too much. This is a very particular case (I had very exact notes, which rarely happens, and it's rare to find regs that are so unbalanced anyways). But hey, still fun to have one of these in like 10k spins ♦

What do you think? Anyone fishy and ballsy enough to make the call for 120$ or no?

And the award for the 2 craziest regs at 30's goes to...

PokerStars - 15/30 NL (3 max) - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 19.5 BB
Hero (BB): 30.5 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has T♠ T♣

SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 3 BB, SB calls 2 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) K♣ 3♦ 6♠
Hero bets 1.8 BB, SB calls 1.8 BB

Turn: (9.6 BB, 2 players) A♥
Hero bets 1 BB, SB calls 1 BB

River: (11.6 BB, 2 players) J♠
Hero checks, SB bets 4.1 BB, Hero raises to 24.7 BB and is all-in, SB calls 9.6 BB and is all-in