Regrind - My journey back into midstakes poker.

GL, try not to run me over in the process T.T

I always felt that trying different forms of poker helps your overall game; drmcboy once told me it was being good for the poker brain. then again this jack-of-all-trades thing may be why I've never been great at anything.

run good, you obviously know your shit.

play well + grind hard + tilt-free + a tiny bit of conservative br management + neutral variance = you're there

control the 4 you can control and you'll be fine!

4st

GL man, sorry PLO didn't work out

any thoughts / retrospective on PLO btw?

little better brm this time around and im sure ull be fine

Originally Posted by Penneywize

4st

GL man, sorry PLO didn't work out

any thoughts / retrospective on PLO btw?

PLO is really fun and like filled with a bunch of huge droolers. It's just insanely high variance and probably not going to be a fun experience if you don't have like 200BI for deep games or 100BI for 100bb and like a decent winrate of 5bb/100 or something. All of the good regs win for like 3ptbb+ though and there's quite a few that do so obviously there's a lot of money to be made in that game.

Been a week time for an update.



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Basically didn't get much volume because it was thanksgiving weekend! Played fucking awesome the whole time including the 7BI downswing at the beginning.

Table selecting like a boss and fuck doesn't it make life easier rather then getting into these I have a bigger penis reg fights.

Stats wise I'm where I want to be atm.

Studying I want to do a little more. I've actually been playing with eV calculations for some spots and understanding the eV of c/c versus different opponent types and the eV c/c and donking versus different opponent types. Also playing with 3b/4b/5b versus different people.

I want to defend my blinds more. I believe I'm folding them too much and could probably defend my SB about 5% more and my BB up to 10% more although this could be wrong because I've had some very tight players(30/10s,60/7s) on my right quite a bit. I know there is definitely spots I fold without looking at hey this guy steals 40% but he only cbets 45% so he'll be super easy to play against postflop. Also some tighter players who pretty much always cbet who I *think* flatting any PP is profitable versus. Some people will say this is wrong but I believe otherwise for very good reasons.

My plans for the next couple weeks is to grind 50NL at ~3000 hands a day 6tabling and probably 9tabling late if the games are soft enough. At this rate I will clear my 250kFPP bonus by the end of October. If I have a respectable winrate over this sample I will move up to 100NL once I clear this bonus. My plans after this involve basically mostly bumhunting CAP/40bb and 100bb. I think A LOT of regs play very poorly versus shortstackers of any variety including 40bbers. Playing 40bb also reduces variance so you can play on a slightly smaller roll at higher stakes. I need to develop a bankroll mgmt strat for this but I'll figure that out later when I have a sample at playing/learning 40bb. For now it's just focus on grinding out of 50NL and not looking too far ahead although playing higher again is a pretty awesome motivation for me.

Continuing to grind 50NL through November. Had a bit of a downswing. May have to grind .5/1 CAP a little later to reach 500k VPP but it's all good nah mean cause Imma rape the shit out of every motherfucker that sits down with me this month.

Isn't 0.5/1 CAP like ridiculously high rake? I remember you and m2m telling me this before.

It is which is the rly shitty thing. It's beatable but you have to be super selective in ur seats/tables.

Also on the runbad front cause that's the only front that exists atm. I'm getting to showdown sub 22% and winning about 40% playing 22/18. UTG I'm getting to showdown 23%(playing 15.6/15.6) and winning 25%. Pretty std etc. fml and f poker. Every1 I talk to pretty much agree w/ most of the shit I say but they actually win pretty decently. I'm actually applying everything I talk about now and never spewing w/o a good reason IE good 3 barrel where a guy snapped the flop and board ran out super ugly and I'm mostly getting folds when I'm 2-3barreling. I just can't win a fucking pot at showdown. This is the most tilting shit ever but I actually don't feel tilted. I'm being very very objective about my game and my decision making and I seriously just can't see what's going wrong. The only clear leak I believe I have atm is opening too loose into the BB but even that isn't terrible v some of the nits at 50NL but I'm going to cut it out anyway. I'm game selecting super well and getting off tables where players on my left are flatting/3bing me quite a bit. I've been looking at how other regs are playing by position and who has the best winrates in what positions and why, but most of the biggest winners are just table selecting really well while all the b/e players are like calling 3bs too much and peeling flops/turns way too light which I'm not doing ldo. I just seriously dunno wtf to do.

Actually here's my stats if someone sees something super super weird please let me know.

VPIP 22.2
PFR 18.8
3b% 6(I'm 3bing quite a bit more now as I develop reads cause there's so many monkeys who auto4b)
v 3b call% 17.8%
v 3b fold % 71%(I used to think this was nitty but every1 just like auto cbets so I think this is std w/ how wide I"m opening in steal positions)
WTSD% 22.2%
W$SD% 43.6%
W$WSF 43.0%(This is pretty low but remember I've been game selecting for fish and usually nits are peeling pre w/ super strong ranges)
Agg 3.89
Flop Agg% 48
Turn Agg% 35
River Agg% 23.6
Flop cbet 68.9%(46.7% success rate- maybe I should start checking back a lot more TPWKs and stuff iunno but it's not like I'm getting c/r a lot so meh)
Turn cbet 50.6%(40.9% success rate)
Fold flop v cbet 53%
Flop v raise fold 60%
Steal pct 41.2%
EP UO PFR 15.6
MP UO PFR 15.2%
CO UO PFR 28.3%(Remember i'm game selecting to have a nit on my direct left quite a bit but this could still probably be tighter)
BTN UO PFR 53.2%(As low as 30 on some tables, as high as 100% on others so pretty std)
SB UO PFR 49.2%(Probably tightening this up)
River call Efficiency 1.58(Probably a tiny bit too high)
SB Reraise steal 10.1
BB reraise steal 7.7
SB fold to 83
BB fold to steal 78(Defending more and more as I develop reads but I think this is fine considering A LOT of people aren't stealing loose AT ALL in the CO or the SB and some only like 25% OTB)
Also c/r flop 11.4% which is probably a bit nitty but Iunno @ 50NL.
Ty for taking a look.

Think you can defo afford to be opening MP wider, especially if you're table selecting to avoid positional 3 bettors etc and have fish in the blinds.

Idk why you wouldn't be winning more. Your game seemed incredibly sound for the most part when we did a sweat/talk on skype etc. Hit me up if you wanna do another one and I'll see if I can spot anything, teamviewer permitting.

Your stats look very similar to mine except that I am slightly looser from MP, and way tighter from SB UO.

Just keep doing what you're doing, and don't make any drastic changes. Be disciplined and quit when you are tilting; play shorter sessions/take more breaks until you start crushing again, etc etc...

Good luck

if you're table selecting vigilantly i imagine you could be playing a bit looser than 22/19? just a thought. also, do you adjust your preflop sizing based on table conditions? i've noticed a few guys at 50 6m who still fold their blinds >80% of the time to minraises

Originally Posted by rpm

if you're table selecting vigilantly i imagine you could be playing a bit looser than 22/19? just a thought. also, do you adjust your preflop sizing based on table conditions? i've noticed a few guys at 50 6m who still fold their blinds >80% of the time to minraises

I probably change my raise sizing based on table conditions more then any other reg @ 50NL. I mean I havn't even seen anyone else do this so...If I'm not changing my raise sizing I usually just quit cause it means I'm not paying enough attention to detail.

Anyways switching to a new site hopefully if everything goes according to plan. Super soft just about to launch if you want details send me a PM and maybe we can chat on skype. I "may" clear my 500k VPP bonus on stars if this site doesn't have enough traffic to at least 4-6 table during peak hours but that's just fine anyway amirite.

pfr > 24 or gtfo

pokers fun, that is all.

i know that phrase very well

=(

you alive bro?

playing sc2 imo

Originally Posted by Icanhastreebet

pokers fun, that is all.

Anyone else find it somewhat disconcerting that this was his last post ITT and it was 2 months ago.

crush the hypers bro

Well not many updates etc. Poker is going good. That is all I'm going to say for now.

IRL stuff
Back in school I think this has helped a lot with poker as it gives me something else to focus on. Will be doing intersession in the spring which is basically a 13 week semester crammed into 6 weeks but you can only do 2 courses so it's basically the same except that if you it take a while to process some concept you are basically fucked because you have 5+ classes a week in each course and 2labs/week in each course.

Also in the future if things keep going well in poker I will be taking on students in the future. By future I mean 2013 or MAYBE during the summer if I'm not busy enough with my own grind.

Edit: One more thing on the poker front. Once ZOOM comes out this may have a huge impact on if I go for a huge amount of VPP or not.

hi five for update, and gl with your schooling. spring and summer semesters are generally viewed as being shitty, but you can cram in a regular semester over both halves if you're playing catch-up. I personally prefer the shorter, more intensive schedule since you have a lot less to focus on at any given time.

gl with it and post moar poker stuffs imo

Doing some off the table studying lately. Playing a little. Gonna crush everyone soon.

Crushing everyone commences. Stay off my right if you like money.

Crushing CAP or standard 6max?

Originally Posted by Nekrogovner

Crushing CAP or standard 6max?

CAP. 100bbing is too solved ldo.

GLHF

Originally Posted by Icanhastreebet

CAP. 100bbing is too solved ldo.

sotru

Going to come up with some good/realistic goals for April.

Mad grind after the 13th though up until May 7th. Break I will have from school etc. Main focus will be continuing to play well but also aiming to clear 250k FPP bonus in this time. Once I clear this bonus I should be rolled for 3/6 and 5/10 CAP and with that will end this blog.

My biggest issue the past month has been lack of volume. A few reasons for this. The main one being grinding with all the pathetic 2/4 scum bores the fuck out of me but on top of this it was the end of the semester which obviously blows and all this shit was due etc. Also some personal shit that cut into volume but probably will not be a factor in the next month. The last thing is procrastination and finding other shit to do.

I have all the tools/ability to create the perfect CAP game and basically rape every motherfucker except the elite who have already created the perfect CAP game although even these elite have some weaknesses from what I've studied but I'm a long way bankroll wise from playing in the 25/50 and 50/100 games.

Since I'm here I may as well list some ways to fix the motivation problems
.
1) Change computer background to no excuses. Also needs to include some pictures of motivating things, not sure what to include. Open to ideas.

2) Even when the games aren't good or I don't feel up to playing find a way to do something with poker. Play with some software, study regs, insert way to create more long term monies.

This months targets
-25000 VPPs.
A) 150-300 sngs(~2.25-4.5hrs) a day depends on stakes I am grinding.
or B) ~1650 hands cash.(~3hrs)

-Session review/study/reg review of some sort 30min-1hr a day. Any general way to add to hourly without actually playing poker.

-Besides this I have 3 exams on the 12th/13th/13th which kind of blows. Will be looking to study ~2hrs a day as exams are approaching and probably put in some big study days on the 10th/11th/12th. Grades goals are
A)95+ in math. 100 is possible here because it's calculus and this teacher doesn't throw crazy curve balls at you. I already know all of this material very well because of loads of assignments/labs/good teaching. Final result will depend on if I make stupid small errors like -2+-8= 6 or random shit along those lines.

B)90+ in chem. 100 is once again possible but a little more of a long shot due to random things that can show up in chemistry tests like some random multiple choice. This will be my main study focus over the coming days.

C) 70+ in folklore. I would be thrilled with even breaking 80%. Prof is a brutal marker and marks harder then any English prof I have ever had. Tonne of material and this being my weakest area(Writing) will make this a very tough exam.

All in all will not be too bad. The toughest thing about these exams is the short period they all fall in so I have to focus on multiple things at once. Either way I am thrilled with school this year and am looking to finish strong. My past grades have been all below 70 except a few super lol courses. Basically I was a lazy fuck who never went to class and didn't hand in every assignment and did papers the last day/night etc. Shit becomes a lot easier when you attend every class and stay on top of the material you are given.

-Will be looking to work out at least 3 times a week. I have been getting back into this a little bit at a time. May do 4 after the first 2 weeks or something along those lines since I will have more time and be in slightly better shape.

-Update poker volume and hours studied on a daily,bi-daily basis, workout success on a weekly basis.

Cliffs.
-25000 VPPs
-15hrs+ poker study.
-25hrs school study.
-3 workouts a week
-Daily or bi-daily updates for everything. Weekly updates for workouts.

After exams I will have loads of free time and may ramp up the poker volume if I am already on pace before my exams are finished.

Hey man. Just my 2 cents.

Two hours a day studying? Are you fucking kidding me? There is no reason you shouldn't put in 6 to 8 hours. Prioritize, mf'er. Poker will be there waiting for you when you're done.

Get As in all your classes; you're an undergrad, there is really no excuse not to. Even if you're not sure what you're going to do with your education ultimately, you want to leave the door open for 2-3 years from know when you might consider going to graduate school.

So don't fuck around, get all As. You're smart enough to do it, obviously, so put in the work. Anything less and you're just selling yourself short.

Originally Posted by Penneywize

Hey man. Just my 2 cents.

Two hours a day studying? Are you fucking kidding me? There is no reason you shouldn't put in 6 to 8 hours. Prioritize, mf'er. Poker will be there waiting for you when you're done.

Get As in all your classes; you're an undergrad, there is really no excuse not to. Even if you're not sure what you're going to do with your education ultimately, you want to leave the door open for 2-3 years from know when you might consider going to graduate school.

So don't fuck around, get all As. You're smart enough to do it, obviously, so put in the work. Anything less and you're just selling yourself short.

You mean 6 to 8 hours everyday from now until exams for 3courses 2 of which I know the material like the back of my hand or the days before the exams cause that was the plan anyway. Just wondering if people actually put in that much study two weeks before exams...

300 sngs in 4.5 hours? that's pretty sick. How many hypers do you play at a time?

Originally Posted by donkbee

300 sngs in 4.5 hours? that's pretty sick. How many hypers do you play at a time?

10tabling 6m. I think it's just shy of 300 in 4.5 hrs. I plan on moving up to 12tables in the near future for grinding purposes. ATM I am only 4tabling 30s because this is where I do my studying.

Here's the update!

~1000/25000 VPPs
-224 hands cash. CAP doesn't fucking run without a mark and you need to just table hop. Most of the time I'd rather fire up 10sngs. When I'm grinding 5/10 this may be a different story but atm sngs is where it's at. Probably will play more of this on the weekend and adding good 30s I see as this seems like the most $/hr strategy I can use at the moment.
-240 15s(9-10tabling), 43 30s(4tabling + review after most of these sessions).
Sunrunning in the 30s. Should have an okay shot of making a good High orbit score in BoP. Last month ran really well in 15s and managed 11th in High orbit getting notched down the last day at some point.

~5/15 hrs poker study.(probably going to be closer to 30 this month)
~10/25 school study. Probably going to end up with 40hrs here.

Quick update

3300VPP/25000
-1701 hands cash
-240 15s, 230 30s(6tabling now), + some random shit. 1 100$ Hyper which I thought was a soft game but it turns out some people who blow at cash play these sng things and are quite good.
7-8 hrs of poker study
about 16 hrs of school study, was home for Easter over the weekend etc.

Another update

5918VPP/25000
-2443 hands of cash, running like shit. Std
-240 15s, 510 30s(was 12tabling last night cause lollol), 4 100s with some big marks.
School study complete, did very well on all my exams I felt. Kind of felt like a moron when I was writing my folklore because I had just finished 3hr chem exam 2hrs before it so my brain was all ;wiefjawlksgnw although I knew the content well.
-10hrsish of poker study which is really low but I'm done school until May 7th so here's to crushing and studying

Basic game plan is just grind massive amounts of SNGs whenever games are real juicy. Cut down when games are okay but not amazing or w/e and just 6table and review these 6tabling sessions. After 1k games of 30s I'll probably do a deep by position analysis for the earlier blind levels because I feel the regs are TERRIBLE in the early blind levels. Don't really want to explain why but I'll just put that out there.

edit: By deep analysis I mean fairly broad because analyzing individual hand types is pointless with such a small sample.

Originally Posted by Icanhastreebet

I feel the regs are TERRIBLE in the early blind levels. Don't really want to explain why but I'll just put that out there.

standard for sng regs

9878/25k
Just more 30s, nothing else.

Lots more poker study completed, well over 15s hrs total this month. I think in the future this will make up nearly 25% of my total poker. There's a reason all of the best in any field spent around 1/4 of it theorizing instead of executing. I think keeping your mind active and increasing your edge continually while most people are either staying stagnate or improving very slowly. IE a reg who studies the most active regs every 2k games as opposed to someone who studies them every 10k or never.

My biggest weakness although it isn't like an insane leak right now is ICM. There definitely are regs who play ICM better then me. This is awesome for me though as I feel I already have a major edge in the games and any areas I can pick up a few %s in eV is going to obviously be huge over a massive sample. Although I do miss some call/spots in ICM I feel I am very good at estimating what will happen on future hands and can justify some of the slightly bad plays I make. The other spot and I feel this is where a HUGE part of my edge comes from is early gameplay. I very often end of with a decent stack by the time it's down to 4/3 players because of my early aggressive style which I won't detail for obvious reasons. Obviously with a huge stack at this point you can bubble punish quite a bit even though bubble punishing isn't as big in 6m as it is in 9m it's still obviously really good in a lot of situations. Also I feel this is one of the reasons I get way more 1sts then 2nds, that coupled with all the terrible 18+ tabling regs shove/folding HU up to 20bb way more then they should has given me a very good win %.

12.6k/25k VPPs
Played donkaments yesterday. (broke even!!)

Final tabled one 6m event and busted 6 cause like I cc 3way AJo in BB v BTN and SB. I c/r squeeze AJ7r flop, guy who cold called in SB 3bs me and I've been a bully so I think it's non 0 he's FOS but his range is like 77 and bluffs. I mean in hindsight I think I should have folded to a turn bet cause every1s a bitch on FTs so that sucked. Also if I fold I can continue to run table over. Some people will say results orientation but I sincerely believe I should have folded and don't think it's really close now. I mean who the fuck c/cs flop and then has a bluff to 3b?

Anyways Hypers going well. Been playing some 37.50 satellites(lower rake higher BI, ship it). Played a few 74s too. Iunno how good regs are in these because I didn't play enough to figure out. They run kind of rarely, they were only running with some kind of mark from what I could tell which assures me I'm +eV.

Got 12th in BoP for +60$ so ship the free monies. Was Neptune division, score would have booked top 10 last week so that's kind of disappointing but w/e. BoP is broken anyway so hopefully stars makes some changes regarding it soon.

Originally Posted by Icanhastreebet

BoP is broken anyway.

How?

Originally Posted by Fielmann

How?

The people who run well are the ones who are rewarded. Kind of silly to reward someone twice for running good isn't it? I'm not sure what stars should do though. They discussed this at the last meeting and don't really have any good ideas afaict. Rake races is an idea that I also think is terrible because why should the people already grinding for SNE get to have more free rewards? That's just my opinion of course.

Originally Posted by Icanhastreebet

The people who run well are the ones who are rewarded. Kind of silly to reward someone twice for running good isn't it? I'm not sure what stars should do though. They discussed this at the last meeting and don't really have any good ideas afaict. Rake races is an idea that I also think is terrible because why should the people already grinding for SNE get to have more free rewards? That's just my opinion of course.

Yea I agree. Also the 20 game blocks are basically only for when you heater 18 and 27 mans. What do you think about what betfair does where you get points per game, per finish position from first to last and you can play and unlimited number of games? Basically combines the two above ideas.

Originally Posted by dneureiter

Yea I agree. Also the 20 game blocks are basically only for when you heater 18 and 27 mans. What do you think about what betfair does where you get points per game, per finish position from first to last and you can play and unlimited number of games? Basically combines the two above ideas.

Two Plus Two Poker Forums - View Single Post - Pokerstars: April Meetings: Representative Reviews and Discussion

Good post from 2p2, one of the guys that was at the meetings recently.

Quoting this out of his post

#1 Leaderboard for grinders
How this works is fairly simple, you do usual BoP style blocks of 20, and your total score is 10*your best block + 4*your second best block + 3*your third best + 2*your fourth best + 1*your fifth best. Specifically meant for grinders, but recs can definitely still win too.

#2 (Most important) SNG-Medals loyalty program
If you earned 5/25/50/100/200/400/1000/2500 vpp that day, you would get 2/4/5/6/7/8/10/12 medals. At the end of the month, you get bonus cash depending on how many medals you have. Also, 10% of your medals earned over the last two months carry over as bonus medals into the next month, so building and maintaining a streak is important, but it isn't devastating if you lose like the usual Ironman.

Something along these lines would be an excellent change IMO.

15.4k VPP!

Not going to make 25k obv but I kind of expected this part way through because I started grinding mostly SNGs. I want to be one of the best sng/hyper/cap players on stars eventually. I don't have as much time as I'd like to dedicate to studying/playing but I have enough to start working towards these goals. I'm not sure what kind of schedule I will be on in May when classes start+SCOOP but hopefully by the end of the month I will be grinding 100s in hypers.