2013: Make or break

Well "short stack" is still almost 100bbs right? $450 stack at 5/5, everyone else is just $1k+ stacks.

I feel like squeezing TT vs UTG+1 open full-ring is kind of over playing a bit no? Especially since it seems like ppl are doing stuff like flatting AA in MP's spot.

As for playing more live - It's such a hassle haha, and takes sooo much time. That was a ten hour grind, 12 hours when you count leaving my house till getting home. But yah probably should :P

Also note about the 60 hands per hour. This is video poker, with the screens and no dealers and a time limit per action. Obviously 'real' live poker is waaay less hands per hour than this.

Yeah, table stacks and raises seemed so big that $450 seemed like a SS. True, people do flat AA in MP's spot, call is legit, you can squeeze more polarized.

Sick that you get 60 hands/hour! Lucky to get 25 with human dealers.

Nice suckout on TT hand, I approve.

So was 2013 Make or Break?

Originally Posted by !Luck

So was 2013 Make or Break?

Haha well I think it was "make enough".

I think studying GTO the last half of the year has given me a lot more confidence to be playing well at 2/4, so I'm hoping that will continue over into the new year.

It's definitely been "make" in my live game. I'd imagine 2014 will be a much larger split of live and online than I ever would have anticipated, so that's good.

My goals for 2014 are pretty simple:
1) Grind enough on Stars to make Supernova by June/July
2) Keep studying GTO (a LOT)
3) Go to Casino at least once per month, and ideally twice a month.

Griffey, looking back at your OP, you said you were focusing on avoidable losses as well as varying bet sizes. How did these things work out for you in the past year?

Avoidable losses - I think this improved SIGNIFICANTLY over the course of the year. I think last week I was getting bombed for a $4k losing session, and that was the first session in months and months that I think I did some monkey spew.

I'm pretty confident that all my GTO studying helped a lot with this. Having a foundation that you're sticking to definitely helps keep you in line. Decisions don't seem arbitrary anymore, they are based on fundamentals and being done for a reason. (ie: I'm not just randomly 4b whenever I feel like it, but it's based on solid ranges that I've worked on, for example).

Varying bet sizes - I think I've also been working on this too. I think again this ties into GTO studying. For example, I'm thinking more along the lines of, "If I bet X size, then villain needs to continue with Y% of his range.", which extends to: "I would like to bet Z range in this particular spot. In order for betting this range to be profitable, I need villain to call with Y% of his range. If I bet X size, then villain needs to call with Y% of his range, therefore my bet will be profitable"

If that makes any sense? haha. Really just thinking a lot more about my sizing, and what that means for villain and how often he has to continue.

ie: If I bet half pot on the river, villain needs to continue with 66% of his range. So in that spot I know that I'm winning more than 50% of the time if he calls with 66% of his range. So villain is in a crappy spot where he can either call appropriately, but my range beats his more than 50% of the time, or he can fold the bottom of his range such that his calling range beats my range but he's folding too often.

I've been thinking about bet sizing a lot lately. It seems to me that most players make serious mistakes in sizing, especially with good hands...I often find myself thinking, "how do you expect someone to call with worse here?" I've always tried to tailor bets to opponents' ranges and think it works well most of the time. But I've been finding myself in spots with nutty hands where I could probably make more but I underestimate how strong people are. I'll post more about this in a couple days in my own thread...relates to some goals for 2014.

Originally Posted by griffey24

Avoidable losses - I think this improved SIGNIFICANTLY over the course of the year. I think last week I was getting bombed for a $4k losing session, and that was the first session in months and months that I think I did some monkey spew.

I'm pretty confident that all my GTO studying helped a lot with this. Having a foundation that you're sticking to definitely helps keep you in line. Decisions don't seem arbitrary anymore, they are based on fundamentals and being done for a reason. (ie: I'm not just randomly 4b whenever I feel like it, but it's based on solid ranges that I've worked on, for example).

Varying bet sizes - I think I've also been working on this too. I think again this ties into GTO studying. For example, I'm thinking more along the lines of, "If I bet X size, then villain needs to continue with Y% of his range.", which extends to: "I would like to bet Z range in this particular spot. In order for betting this range to be profitable, I need villain to call with Y% of his range. If I bet X size, then villain needs to call with Y% of his range, therefore my bet will be profitable"

If that makes any sense? haha. Really just thinking a lot more about my sizing, and what that means for villain and how often he has to continue.

ie: If I bet half pot on the river, villain needs to continue with 66% of his range. So in that spot I know that I'm winning more than 50% of the time if he calls with 66% of his range. So villain is in a crappy spot where he can either call appropriately, but my range beats his more than 50% of the time, or he can fold the bottom of his range such that his calling range beats my range but he's folding too often.

Nice work.

How's real life job going for ye, this is my annual catch up post

haha real life is good! First full year at the new job went well, but still ready to retire any day now if I could.

Raptors are doing a good job anti-tanking right now, so I'm torn on that.

How are things going with you?

Not surprisingly, after approximately a year of playing like a total nit (3b of around 6% or so), I've started the year at the complete opposite end of the spectrum (3b of 13%).

My "nit experiment" went well.

The advantages to having a low 3b:
1. 3b have more fold equity, so you can add some bluffs that will often get folds
2. You rarely get 4b, so even your bluffs get to see flops
3. Your cold calling range is much stronger, so you can defend barrels more easily and raise more flops
4. Your cold calling range is much stronger, so you can back-raise more credibly over squeezes
5. You keep in hands you will dominate post-flop

Disadvantages of having a low 3b:
1. Difficult defending enough from the SB by cold calling (getting squeezed by BB often)
2. Difficult cold calling in general, getting sq often
3. Difficult getting action on big hands. (I would almost never get it all-in with someone if I was the 3bettor, and would only be likely to stack someone if they 3b me and I 4b)
4. Having strong premium'ish hands (JJ/QQ/AQ/AK) that make good one pair hands often go multi-way (I flat raise and get callers behind). Which could be an ok thing, but sometimes not ideal.
5. Can be capped on certain board textures in 3b pots. ie: you 3b and flop comes KQ9 or 789. Villain can put a lot of pressure on you knowing you don't have JT.
6. While you keep in hands you dominate, you also allow these hand to realize their equity.

After a small-ish sample of 8k hands or so playing much laggier, my observations are.
Advantages of 3b wider:
1. Obviously you get much more action on your big hands. Big pairs getting all-in pre with lower pairs much more often.
2. Can widen blind defense ranges. Can defend wider in SB by 3b, and can also widen BB defense range by 3b some hands that you would otherwise fold.
3. People start 4b you wider (some wider for value, but many 4b bluff more as well). This means that your 5b range either gains equity vs the calling range, or gains fold equity and some more dead money.
4. Not capped on certain board textures.
5. People will start 4b much wider (air - lots of Ax etc). So flatting 4b becomes more viable, as often ppl will have pretty well defined ranges.

Disadvantages of 3b wider:
1. Cold call ranges are weaker, so might be more difficult to call down appropriately. That being said, when you 3b more often then the frequency of cold calling also goes down significantly. So although calling down becomes harder, you also have to do it much less often.
2. You fold out hands you would have otherwise dominated.
3. Facing many more 4bets, esp btn 4b when you're in the blinds. Need to be willing to either 5b shove much lighter or start calling 4b (even OOP), to not be exploited by 4b.
4. Sometimes end up bloating pots OOP when deep.
5. 3b IP lowers SPR and minimizes our positional advantage. "Drawing" hands like SC's etc go down slightly in value, while hands that make decent top pairs go up in value.
6. Having a wide 3b, it's safe to assume that you would use your image and almost always 3b your strong hands. This leaves you even more vulnerable to squeezes the times you do flat.

I'm sure many of these points are quite obvious, but just running through them anyhow. I'm sure there are others. Personally, already after a week or two I can tell that the more laggy style is my preference.

In the past I would lagg it up and have pretty messed up frequencies, but this time I'm focusing much more on GTO and ensuring that despite my wider 3b ranges, that I'm defending appropriately to 4b etc.

Best Operation. Good luck in 2014.

Originally Posted by !Luck

Best Operation. Good luck in 2014.

Thanks man, you too!

Originally Posted by griffey24

The advantages to having a low 3b:
1. 3b have more fold equity, so you can add some bluffs that will often get folds
2. You rarely get 4b, so even your bluffs get to see flops
3. Your cold calling range is much stronger, so you can defend barrels more easily and raise more flops
4. Your cold calling range is much stronger, so you can back-raise more credibly over squeezes
5. You keep in hands you will dominate post-flop

I imagine the biggest advantage you had was that you always knew what the fuck you were doing, where you were in your range, etc. People tend to think of this as extra-theoretical or as a non-play consideration or something, but it actually is a cold-hard theoretical advantage to have a well defined range for which you have a plan. Money isn't so much won or lost on whether you 3b J8s in BU vs BB, so much as it's won or lost depending on how that play fits into your overall range on that street, your overall plan throughout the hand and your overall exploitation plan against that player.

So people naturally equate "It's not what you play, but how you play it" with some rhetorical bullshit akin to "You can't hug your kids with nuclear arms," but really it's actually solid theory.

So yeah, I'd throw up there on the board, "Advantage #6, you much more often knew what the fuck you were doing and why you were doing it."

surviva - I agree and disagree. I agree that this is VERY important. Knowing your ranges at all times is key for sure, and helps play close to GTO in many spots.

I disagree that this should necessarily fall into an advantage of having a low 3b. I think this should fall into an advantage of "knowing your ranges", regardless of whether it's a result of a low 3b or a high 3b.

Suppose now I have a high 3b. All this means is that if I cold call now and the flop comes Jxx, I'm pretty sure that QJ is near the top of my range for calling down, whereas before I would have had many more KQ and some AQ even. So I will need to adjust my call down ranges accordingly.

Right you are. I was operating on the assumption that trying to put the pedal to the metal and push as hard as you can all the time is going to be less of a "controlled," "understood" game with well defined boundaries, whereas more conservative approaches tend to be more under control, even they're stupid. Eg: even someone who only 3bs QQ+/AK and auto-ships QQ/AK against any and all opponents still has a firm and certain plan and kinda sorta vague understanding of what they're doing, even if the plan is stupid as fuck.

That assumption is probably mostly true, but not theoretically essentially true, and it would, in fact, be inaccurate to list it as an advantage of 3b'ing less.

Things have been clicking pretty well lately. I'm getting a better feel for the game and dynamic latey, and am hand reading a lot better in more marginal spots as well. I'm hoping this isn't just a good bout of variance! Here are a few more marginal spots lately.

Hand 1
-I had been 3b a ton in this hand, and villain has a very high 4b, especially on the button
-this spot was a gross spot on the river, but given QQ is the top of my range here, I had to make a GTO call

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($742.50) 186bb
UTG+1 ($92) 23bb
CO ($230.38) 58bb
BTN ($1,142.93) 286bb
SB ($121.13) 30bb
Hero (BB) ($897.07) 224bb

Pre-Flop: ($6, 6 players) Hero is BB
3 folds, BTN raises to $8, 1 fold, Hero raises to $30, BTN raises to $75, Hero calls $45

Flop: ($152, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $82, Hero calls $82

Turn: ($316, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $156, Hero calls $156

River: ($628, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $829.93, Hero calls $584.07

Final Pot: $1,796.14
BTN shows

Hero shows


Hero wins $1,793.34 (net +$896.27)

BTN collects $491.72 (net -$651.21)

Hand 2
-This kind of spot, and the next hand as well are good spots to analyze the influence of bet sizing. When I bet so small on the turn I was pretty confident he was peeling all gutters again and would try to steal if I checked the river. Also I feel like strong hands would raise this small turn bet.
-After villain calls this turn it really doesn't make any sense for him to overbet jam on the river, or rather to get to the river with many hands strong enough to suddenly shove.


$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($1,014.67) 254bb
CO ($400) 100bb
BTN ($463.30) 116bb
Hero (SB) ($520.79) 130bb
BB ($400) 100bb

Pre-Flop: ($6, 5 players) Hero is SB
1 fold, CO raises to $10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $36, 1 fold, CO calls $26

Flop: ($76, 2 players)
Hero bets $28, CO calls $28

Turn: ($132, 2 players)
Hero bets $38, CO calls $38

River: ($208, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $298, Hero calls $298

Final Pot: $804
Hero shows

CO shows


Hero wins $801.20 (net +$401.20)

CO lost $400

Hand 3
-This is a similar hand to above, in the sense that a lot of his strong hands might raise such a small turn bet. If not raise, they would be happy to take a showdown once a check the river. This is a spot where spades get there on the river, but that also makes it more likely that he will bluff shove his JT/QJ type stuff.
-this hand was a lot tougher than the hand above. My turn sizing was a bit bigger so flatting 8x was conceivable, and some BDFD as well. Villains river sizing was my turning point, as he chose not to shove even though a shove would have been credible. I took this to mean that a shove would look "too bluffy" but sizing it like this would make it seem more value'ish.

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($566.60) 142bb
UTG+1 ($797.20) 199bb
CO ($400) 100bb
BTN ($160) 40bb
SB ($820.67) 205bb
Hero (BB) ($625.51) 156bb

Pre-Flop: ($6, 6 players) Hero is BB
2 folds, CO raises to $10, 2 folds, Hero raises to $32, CO calls $22

Flop: ($66, 2 players)
Hero bets $34, CO calls $34

Turn: ($134, 2 players)
Hero bets $64, CO calls $64

River: ($262, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $180, Hero calls $180

Final Pot: $622
CO shows

Hero shows


Hero wins $619.20 (net +$309.20)

CO lost $310

Hand 4
-This was a huge hero call, but was a read based decision. Villain raises flops often in 3b pots, and there was just something about his timing and sizing that didn't feel right all throughout the hand. I almost never hero hands down in spots like this, but sometimes you gotta go with your gut.

$2/$4 No Limit Holdem
6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($400) 100bb
UTG+1 ($440.21) 110bb
CO ($800.94) 200bb
BTN ($447.20) 112bb
Hero (SB) ($400) 100bb
BB ($414) 104bb

Pre-Flop: ($6, 6 players) Hero is SB
2 folds, CO raises to $10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $36, 1 fold, CO calls $26

Flop: ($76, 2 players)
Hero bets $46, CO raises to $105, Hero calls $59

Turn: ($286, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $90, Hero calls $90

River: ($466, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $464, Hero calls $169

Final Pot: $804
CO shows

Hero shows


Hero wins $801.20 (net +$401.20)

CO collects $590 (net -$105)

Few extra notes on the hands above.

Hand 2- I'd prefer to hero call a hand like A6o here than KQ/KJ, even though they are almost the same in value. This is mostly because KQ/KJ block villains gutters, and in the rare chance he turns Kx into a bluff, it also blocks those hands.

Hand 4 - Villain really narrows his range significantly by raising the flop. Or rather he polarizes it more. Having reads on villain, he just doesn't show up with Kx raising flop that often. Given my aggressivenes pre, he for sure 4b/call off JJ.
Flop:
Villains range on flop after raising: KJ/22 for value. I'm not even sure he calls pockets to 3b, so 22 discounted heavily. Value combos (about 10). If we include Jxhh (4) - total combos 14.
Bluff combos: Axhh, AQ, ATs, 9Ts,QTs (31)
Turn: Turn is a great card, his 10 value combos on flop drop down to about 7, and Jxhh likely checks back turn, but if not 11 combos. Bluff combos still 31.
River: Jxhh definitely checks back here, I don't think he expects me to call down so light in this spot yet. Value combos 7. ALLL of his bluff combos get to river and brick this run out. I need villain to have 1.86 (or 2) bluffs on river to make this ridiculous pot odds call. So he needs to shove 2 out of 31 hands he gets to river with, which is very credible.

Haven't posted in a while. I was away all over the place in Jan-Feb. Was in Austin for work, and then Miami for a bachelor party and Sri Lanka for two weeks with the wife.

Got back last weekend and was super jet lagged, but had a mega grind this weekend. Probably my biggest grind weekend ever, 10k hands in two days. I don't usually put that much volume in. Also it wasn't a great grind, was working my way back from 5 buyins down each session. Ended up $500 in the end, so not too bad.

Also, I'm using HEM 1. Does anyone know much about making custom reports in HEM 1? I know there's a way to write your own '.REPORT' files, but I'm not too familiar with the syntax being used etc. If anyone knows about it, please let me know.

I came across this guys site ( http://holdemstats.weebly.com/stats.html ) and he seems to have made his own reports and is selling them. I feel like I can make these myself if I just knew how!

Went to the casino today, after a mega doomswitch at 1/2 for the first two hours, moved to 2/5 and then 5/5 and ended up the day up $1500 over 7 hours.

Total Tally over last year or so:
10 visits
$16.5k
Total hours: 57 hours
Hourly: $289.5
Hands: 3420 hands (60 hands/hour)

Had quite a few crazy hands today.

1. 1/2, with $325 effective. I was by FAR the most active player raising a lot. Two limps, I open to $17 with (I was opening at least $15, cause it was cell central). Player on my immediate left 3b me to $40 (pretty small), I call.
Flop pot: $85, flop , I check, villain shoves $285. HUGE shove. I figure nothing makes sense here, he either has a FD or something stupid like AQ/AJ. I tank and call, villain shows , turn brings the and river brick, villain wins.

-$325

2. 1/2, $300 effective. I open UTG to $15. Villain2 on my left (same villain as above, with $750 stack) calls, villain3 on his left with $900 stack calls. Two other players call.
Flop pot: $80ish, flop: . I bet $40, villain2 on my left calls, player on his left raises to $150, folds to me I shove all-in and player to my left goes all in for $750 and villain3 with $900 stack calls. HUUUUGE pot. Villain2 shows (HORRIBLE stacking here for like 325bbs or whatever), and villain3 shows
Turn brings: and river bricks. Villain3 binks huge pot.

-$300

3. 1/2, $325 effective. Vill1 ep limp, vill2 limps behind, vill3 limps, I make it $25 with MP folds around, vill1 calls, vill2 back raises to $75, vill3 folds. I really thought I was good here, seen ppl show up with nonsense AQ/AJ/KQ etc. Especially since vill2 wasn't open limper I didn't give him much credit, figured he wouldn't limp behind with a big hand. I shove all-in, folds to vill2. vill2 tanks and FOLDS (shows) and starts saying "I didn't want to risk it, been building up for a while. i would have folded KK" - wow live. I'm not sure what I think about my TT shove now. I mean it's obv a horrible value shove, but a good bluff? lol

+100

4. 2/5, I've shown some bluffs in smallish pots losing like 20bbs. Vill1 just caught me bluffing betting turn flush card and river pot with just the nut FD. 2 minutes later I open MP $25, two calls, Vill1 sq to $75. I jam $400 effective with and run into . This is bad luck, but also bad luck given I had a bad image going and esp bad image vs this particular player.

-$400

Up to this point on the day I was probably down $1k.

5. This was my biggest hand at 2/5. Effective stacks about $650. Again I had been very active. Two players to my left are online type players, aggro types. Probably getting fed up I'm opening on their right so often and barreling. I open to $25 with , vill1 calls and blinds calls. Flop is and I bet $40 into $75. Villain has been peeling ALL flops. Villain calls.
Turn is , this isn't an ideal card but I think he continues with all 8x now and JT etc for sure. I bet $105 into $155 and villain raises me to $300 (leaving $285 behind). It's hard to say the kind of reads/feels I get in hands. In general this is a standard fold here, but based on dynamic, my aggression, the fact that villain was peeling all flops I felt like he might make a move with some pair+gutter type hand (raising like 56, or 89 or something). Something also just didn't "feel' right with his timing, so given my read, I jam over his raise, he tanks and calls and I hold and win.

+700ish

6. 5/5, I triple barrel on board, betting river hard $375 into $405ish, same villain as hand 4. I KNEW he thought I was very bluffy, he calls and loses. No clue what he called with, but I figure it was light given I block Tx.

+625

7. 5/5, effective stacks $1700. This is the next hand after the hand above. EP raises to $35, I call , two players behind call. Pot is $140ish and Flop is . EP cb $100 into $130, I raise to $315, vill1 with $1700 or so cold calls my $315 (This was SCARY to me, at this point I figure I'm dead to 99/TT, or pretty far ahead of his 9T (he had been calling all offsuit hands too), and good shape vs random KQ/KJ/QJ. Turn is and I check. Villain bets $500 which leaves him about $800 behind. I figure I gotta go with it, I shove and he calls and bricks.

+1900

8. 5/5, $1800 effective. One limp, vill1 limps behind, I iso to $25 (had been raising fairly often), folds around, first limper calls and vill1 back raises to $75 (sound familiar? Similar action to hand 3 above). Again I REALLY don't believe this limp behind, back raise nonsense. I especially don't believe this player would have very much of a back raising range with these stacks given how he had been playing, and even moreso I don't think he would 3b a premium hand this small OOP if he did in fact have it. I 4b IP to $265 with and villain folds.

+100

Played quite a few other bigish pots, but these were some of the biggest. Clearly I'm hitting sets like there's no tomorrow, mind you I also had some run bad. I'm just glad te run bad was at 1/2 and not 5/5!

Sick hands, sick win rate.

Gotta tell you that I find this overlimp/backraise thing to be non-credible too, but it's happened to me 3 times in the past couple months. Two were in casinos, and I ran KK into AA, and another hand I folded AK because the guy just clearly had it. The one time I continued, I mentioned it in my blog, and I 4-bet the guy with AK and he folded QQ face up.

I've also seen bizarro hands where it's a 6-way limped pot and somehow showdown is a 30 BB pot with QQ vs. AA.

On a $10k downer at 2/4 over the last few months. Running very bad and I think I'm taking some of this GTO stuff a bit far. (ie: calling rivers too light , too often). I'm well beyond the point now where I have enough stats on villains that I shouldn't need to just play GTO all the time because I don't know any better, I have enough information that I should be able to make more exploitable decisions.

I don't have that much on my stars account anymore, and I'm trying not to busto my online roll at the moment to avoid having to deposit. I might slow things down a bit this weekend, and study instead of grind.

Was doing some prelim studying on this $10k downer and analyzing spots i'm losing the most:

3betting IP (BTN and CO) - I was down like $6k over this downswing. I had been playing pretty aggressive. This is clearly AWFUL, as I would have essentially been better off just folding all of these hands. There is NO reason to do anything -EV outside of the blinds.

Heavily related to the above point, 3betting and flatting 4b IP - down like $3k or so. Running at like -1450bb/100. Presumably my 3b IP are generally to 8-9bb, so 3b and folding would result in at worse -900bb/100. I'm actually doing worse by defending by peeling IP to small 4b. (stuff like 3b 78s, or KQs and peeling 4b).

My blind play over this stretch hasn't been great either. -22bb/100 from SB and -37bb/100 from BB. Need to really focus on my blind cold call and call down ranges.

I currently have CReV and Combonator and have been pondering getting Flopzilla too, though not sure if necessary or if ppl have compared these? I want a program that will easily allow me to set solid call down ranges vs different btn cbet ranges on different boards.

GENERAL changes:
-I need to get back to playing every table for a reason. If there is no clear reason to be on a table, just drop it. Even if that means 4-5 tabling the session, instead of 8 tabling.

Went to the casino today, up $2k in 7 hours.

Total Tally over last year or so:
11 visits
$18.5k
Total hours: 64 hours
Hourly: $289
Hands: 3840 hands (60 hands/hour)

Things were pretty quiet early on at 2/5 and picked up at the 5/5 game. Some hands.

1. Villain appeared to be calling all raises IP and floating peeling all flops. I figured he was calling to steal pots later. I raise to $25, villain calls, rest fold.
Pot to flop $67. I cbet $32 on he calls,
turn I c/c a bet of $75 and
river I c/c a bet of $150. He shows , I'm pretty sure I'm calling river even without two pairing.

+275

2. I raise MP to $25 get one call from MP and another call in blinds.
I check , MP bets $55 one fold I c/c.
Turn (pot 185) I c/c bet of $75 on ,
River (pot ~$335) villain bets $125 on a brick, I tank and pot odds call and villain shows for air.

+300ish

3. Same villain in hand 1, 2/5 and $900 deep or so. One limper, I raise in LP to $35, vill from hand 1 calls in blinds and EP limper calls.
Flop is ck ck, and I ck back.
Turn pot ($110 or so) , cks to me and I bet $75 villain from hand 1 c/c.
River , and pot ($260) villain donks into me $125 and has around 650 behind. I was somewhat confused but figured he might play a better Q than mine like this and that he could also fold 7x to a shove on this particular board. I jam and he folds.

+270ish

Moved to 5/5 game.

4. New guy at table has been very aggro raising what seems like 50% or so of hands. EP limps (300 effective), crazy guy iso raises to $30 two calls, I sq in SB to $135, EP limper shoves everyone else folds. It's like $175 more to me and this is a gross spot. I figured I must have like 33% equity here (though based on what ppl say after it sounds like this guy will always have QQ+ so I'm probably dead). I call, he has AA and I lose.

-$300

5. After the above hand, crazy guy said he had a big pair and would have gotten it in vs me. Another guy at the table says he's crazy since i'm a nit (which I'm so not lol), but I had been playing VERY tight cause i was getting garbage. So now crazy guy thinks I'm a nit. I take advantage of this and double barrel him one hand and he folds.

Few mins later ($1k effective) he opens utg to $25. HJ calls and I 3b sq on btn with to $85. I think this is fine to call too, but given I was just called a nit not long ago I wanted to take advantage of this. EP calls (which I figured he would - he had been calling everything and raising tons of flops). HJ calls, pot on flop is $260ish.
Flop is and crazy guy donks $55 into $260ish. HJ folds and I raise it to $250 and crazy makes it $505. This is a VERY marginal spot but I had a strong feeling it was BS, and I ship over. Villain calls for OESD and binks a 3 on the turn.

-$1000

6. Same crazy villain a little while later. I open to $25 UTG ($1900 effective), MP calls, villain sq on btn to $125. I 4b to $375, crazy btn flats.
Flop (pot is 760ish), which is pretty gin. I cbet $250 and he calls (at this point I'm putting him on JJ-KK very likely and am somewhat worried about AK but going with it either way).
Turn (pot is $1260) and comes I bet $400 and he calls and based on his demeanor I'm very sure I'm ahead now. River (pot is $2060) and I shove my last $750 and he folds.

+1000

Had some other hands too, few sets to win a few barrels and some trips. Didn't have too many huge hands preflop, but prob ran well in terms of sets to some extent. Things going well live at least, while online is a disaster!

Originally Posted by griffey24

3betting IP (BTN and CO) - I was down like $6k over this downswing. I had been playing pretty aggressive. This is clearly AWFUL, as I would have essentially been better off just folding all of these hands. There is NO reason to do anything -EV outside of the blinds.

what's happening here? overplaying your weak hands postflop by too much consideration of the strong end of your range?

Originally Posted by griffey24

-I need to get back to playing every table for a reason. If there is no clear reason to be on a table, just drop it. Even if that means 4-5 tabling the session, instead of 8 tabling.

what do you think the quality of your decisions would be like in the sessions you end up 4 tabling vs 8-tabling? fewer tables for me means a struggle to keep from expanding my preflop ranges too much, but when i succeed on that front things work out pretty well for me.

Originally Posted by daven

what's happening here? overplaying your weak hands postflop by too much consideration of the strong end of your range?


what do you think the quality of your decisions would be like in the sessions you end up 4 tabling vs 8-tabling? fewer tables for me means a struggle to keep from expanding my preflop ranges too much, but when i succeed on that front things work out pretty well for me.

With regards to the losing money 3b IP. It's mostly 3b EP raisers that have somewhat wide opens (20%) with hands that flop top pairs well (KT/ATo, KQ/KJ etc) and then too often either winning on the flop when I'm good or losing at least two streets (ck back flop and call turn/rivs when I'm not). ie: Flop QJx with KJ and ck back flop and call a couple of streets etc, cause it's near the top of my ck back range on flop).

As for the 4 vs 8 tabling, this is tough. I think my optimal is probably somewhere between there. Less tables I focus more, but I also am almost not busy enough to the point where I can get too creative and spew. 8 tables, less focus overall is not ideal but also too busy focusing on 8 tabling that i don't have enough time to do creative dumb spews.

Online has been pretty crazy the last month and a half. Down around 45 buyins and running under ev by 20 buyins. This is not counting the hundreds of ridiculous river spots where big hands are getting raised post flop and since I'm trying to play GTO to some extent I'm being forced to call down (where I could conceivably be finding very big folds).

Variance is a scary scary thing, and it's pretty discouraging being reminded how bad it can own you. I can honestly say about 75% of my last 20-25 sessions I legitimately could NOT have won. I could have certainly minimized losses more, but it would have actually been impossible to net in the plus. Needless to say my drive to grind lately has been somewhat low. Going into the session thinking "I wonder if it's even possible to win" is NOT a good mindset!

I'm gonna hit the casino again today and maybe I can at least avoid the doomswitch there!

8 table 25nl for a session or two, relax prove to yourself that the pokers arent rigged.

Originally Posted by !Luck

8 table 25nl for a session or two, relax prove to yourself that the pokers arent rigged.

haha oh man the spew that would ensue if I did that But yah I agree with the idea in principle!

Went to the casino today and was a pretty slow day overall. No 5/5 was playing, so played 2/5 most of the day (7 hours), and ended up , up $300 or so. Was up $1400 at one point, but it was a VERY swingy session and I ran a few big bluffs that got called, including bluff c/bombing river into a ROYAL FLUSH haha.

Total Tally over last year or so:
12 visits
$18.8k
Total hours: 71 hours
Hourly: $265
Hands: 3550 hands (50 hands/hour)

Notable hands:

1. My bluff into a royal flush!

I raise from UTG+1 to $25 (effective stacks ~$640), MP calls, LP calls.
Flop (~$85), I ck, and it cks around.
Turn (~$85) I bet $45, MP calls, LP folds
River ($175ish) I ck, villain bets $70, I jam around $500 (I really felt like with villain's sizing he probably didn't have Ks, and even if he did that with the paired board it would be a difficult call). Villain calls Royal Flush.

-$600

2. A little later, new guy at the table has been isolating limpers light it seems.
Two limpers, villain iso's to $30 on btn. I make it $85 on SB with , villain calls. Effective stacks about $500.
Flop ($175ish) - - I bet $65 villain calls. At this point I put him mostly 9x, TT, JJ, JT, QJ and some KQ/KJ (which I obv block). I plan to fold any ok turn, as I think he will fold more than 50% of the time to my turn pot shove.
Turn ($305ish) - - I shove all-in pot. Villain tanks for a while, and says "screw it I'm tilting from this week" and calls and holds

-$500ish

Needless to say my image wasn't the greatest at this point. Somewhat later.

Hand 3:
Two limpers, I make it $35 with , one LP caller, and two limpers call.
Flop ($150ish) - - one check, second limper donks $5 (weird!), I raise to $50 and LP player makes it $160. LP player is a decent reg, and I'm fairly confident he just thinks my raise is bs vs the small donk. First limper cold calls the $160. I'm pretty confident that LP player does not have a strong hand and will think my call and cold call is scary so won't bluff anymore anyhow. I decide best way to get most off cold caller is to raise again small, so I make it $275ish villain calls.
Turn ($700ish) - I shove my last $270ish, villain calls with lol yikes live haha.

+$600ish

Online Poker vs Live Poker and Memory

I've always had this thing playing online poker. This inability to really associate reads / tells / remember history with players online simply based on their alias. I'm sure part of this is that I just never really focus on their name to the point where it sticks in my brain and I associate certain lines/hands with the alias.

During the session itself I have no problem relating action across tables to the same person, but once that session is over and a few days later sitting down again, I've lost that memory.

This isn't THAT surprising to me, because over the last several years my memory has been pretty bad on most things in general.

But this is only really dawning on me now, after playing more and more live. Live play - I remember EVERYTHING. I remember hands vs certain ppl from months ago, because I can associate the hand with the person, wiht their face etc. I might not remember their name (which in my live poker games - the electronic version - shows up on the screen), but I do remember their face.

So why am I remembering things so much better live than online?
-Am I drowning out my online memory by focusing too much on my HUD/stats?
-Am I just not correlating strong enough associations with their poker alias online to their play style etc? (ie: I'm more of a visual person?)
-I'm 6-8 tabling online, so there is just less attention being paid overall to any given table and any given player?
-Live - I see the person for hours. There's less hands, so it's easy to remember the memorable ones and associate it to a person?
-Live - ppl are so uncreative that any interesting hand stands out so much?

I'm not really sure what the reasons are. Does anyone else experience this? Any advice on strengthening online player style to alias association? Can you create avatars for ppl on stars? Maybe this visual queue would help me? Hard to say.

Notes.

If I was grinding against the same people all the time I'd be spending time at least every week compiling all my info on regs and making sure my notes had this information in a form that helped me play better against them. I could be off on how often you should do this but I think it should be reasonably often as regs games should be evolving whether or not they actually are though is another thing.

I definitely take notes on people all the time. I think they key point you bring up is "in a form that is useful". I usually keep HEM notes, and when I'm analyzing ppl in HEM after the fact I also add notes in that fashion.

I think my notes get boggled up to a point that loses its usefulness. How do you format your notes to make them useful? particular short forms etc?

Software

Generally speaking I'm pretty on the ball with software. I have CREV, Combonator, Equilab, Stove etc. That being said, I tried HEM2 in beta, never liked it and stuck to HEM1 ever since.

Part of this is familiarity with HEM1. Partly not wanting to change my HUD and just not wanting to learn a new program.

I'm pondering making the switch though. Anyone have any thoughts on HEM2 vs HEM1? Or even PT4 vs HEM2 for that matter? Also given all this talk in this thread about my memory, I might get NoteCaddy as well (any thoughts on that?)

Was a busy weekend as I had a bachelor party in Niagara Falls. We went to a club so thought i'd give the fallsview poker room a go post-club at 2:30am. I was pretty tired so decided to only grind for an hour or so. It went pretty well and was up $500 in an hour.

Then on my drive back from Fallsview I stopped by at Woodbine to grind for another 5 hours. Was up $1800 there today, so things are still going well live overall.

Today was a pretty boring session overall. My biggest hands were hitting some turned flushes and ppl calling a few barrels. Also ran several bluffs barreling in spots, but nothing too interesting.

I should probably start talking about hands that I actually folded going forward, cause in these live games the biggest differences could actually come from the folds if anything.

Total Tally over last year or so:
14 visits
$21.1k
Total hours: 77 hours
Hourly: $274
Hands: 3850 hands (50 hands/hour)

Originally Posted by griffey24

Software

Generally speaking I'm pretty on the ball with software. I have CREV, Combonator, Equilab, Stove etc. That being said, I tried HEM2 in beta, never liked it and stuck to HEM1 ever since.

Part of this is familiarity with HEM1. Partly not wanting to change my HUD and just not wanting to learn a new program.

I'm pondering making the switch though. Anyone have any thoughts on HEM2 vs HEM1? Or even PT4 vs HEM2 for that matter? Also given all this talk in this thread about my memory, I might get NoteCaddy as well (any thoughts on that?)

HEM1 support is ending at the end of april so you will prob want to move away from that; can't speak about HEM2 vs PT4 though.

Also GL sir, nice hourly at live poker

Originally Posted by dneureiter

HEM1 support is ending at the end of april so you will prob want to move away from that; can't speak about HEM2 vs PT4 though.

Also GL sir, nice hourly at live poker

Thanks!

Yah I just bought HEM2 yesterday and I also got notecaddy (as per my previous posts on sucking at remembering anything). So I'll give an update on those once I start using them a bit.

I despise HEM 2, I think it's the worst ever. I use HEM right now and will be making the switch to PT4 if I can ever get enough energy to do it.

Originally Posted by donkbee

I despise HEM 2, I think it's the worst ever. I use HEM right now and will be making the switch to PT4 if I can ever get enough energy to do it.

Why do you despise it?

I found it buggy in beta but haven't used it since. Is it that much worse? Geez now you tell me after I already buy HEM2 and notecaddy haha.

I'd be interested to know this as well. With no more HEM support, I assumed I would just move to HEM2.

Originally Posted by Jason

I'd be interested to know this as well. With no more HEM support, I assumed I would just move to HEM2.

This

My spree of invincibility has come to an end. I went to the casino today, and played for about 6.5 hours and lost $900. I was down $1k most of the day and had it back 'up' to around -100 and then lost another 800 in the last 90 mins or so.

15 visits
$20.2k
Total hours: 84 hours
Hourly: $240.47
Hands: 4200 hands (50 hands/hour)

Some of my bigger hands today:

1. These two hands are versus the same player. He seemed pretty bad, or at least this was my first impression. 2/5, people were getting fed up with my opening I could tell.
I two limps $5, I open $25 , two calls.
Flop ($82), , cks to me and I bet $37. one fold and bad player c/r to $137 (leaving about $155 behind). Based on dynamic this really felt fos to me, esp since ppl were getting tired of me. I call.
Turn ($356), , villain quickly shoves allin remaining $155. I really pondered a call here, but figured any Ax air and Axss now gets there, I fold and villain shows a complete air ball and is SOO relieved I folded, breathing heavily etc. It becomes clear to me that this money means a lot to him and the idea of losing it was a big rush for him.

10mins later.

I open MP to $25 and same villain as above limp calls.
Flop ($52): villain donks $20, I raise to $75. Villain calls.
Turn ($205): villain c/c $125
River ($455): villain donks $100.
I say: "I beat Qx. I really feel like this is Qx more than a boat", I think and jam for $360 total. Villain folds pretty quick and shows Qx, I show my bluff and he starts steaming. Open shoes T7cc from EP for $230 and starts playing bad.

2. I was bricking hard all day today, so had to manufacture some hands, since I wasn't winning any at SD.

I tripled on , $177 into like $450 on the river, and got called by , in retrospect don't like this one give my image at the time on this table.

3. Made some other decent folds.
I raise MP to $25, , get two callers
Flop ($82) - , I bet $37 and get two calllers.
Turn ($193) - I check, villain shoves pretty fast $156 all-in. Player behind with $700 effective (similar stack to me) cold calls after thinking. I would have snap shoved the all-in player, but cold caller was scary. I fold, shover has and cold caller has and river brings 2x, so I would have lost to both players.

4. Nothing else too interesting. I lost with all of my overpairs today and I had AA in the BB once and folded around to the blinds and we auto-chopped. Played decently, but was due for a loss.

Oh another hand I remembered, where I value towned myself pretty hard.

I open $30 MP, EP limps and UTG+1 bad player (whale) limp calls.
Flop ($97) - , EP donks $30, whale folds, I call.
Turn ($157) EP checks, I ck behind expecting him to bet most of his range on river.
River ($157) villain leads $125 with $260 behind. I really tanked on this. I didn't think he could fold QT or QJ, I really didn't expect AQ, so mostly only beat by 55/66 and I suppose 34. I ended up jamming and he called 555.

Can I ask why you always raise big in live games? Like 5x or 5x most of the time

I was speaking to one of my mates at the casino, who is currently getting coached by a well known UK poker player, and his coach recommended that he open at least 5-6x in live cash games. I thought this was crazy when I first heard it, what are your thoughts/reasons?

My standard open at 1/2 , 2/5 and 5/5 is 5x, and with limpers in front 5x-7x.

This is really just because if you 2.5x, you will honestly get 6 callers. I'd rather 5x and get 1-3 callers and narrow their ranges quite a bit (and the pot to the flop is still the same size), rather than 2.5x and get 6 callers.

If the game is playing tighter though then I'd start opening smaller. Given that ppl 5x and flops go multiway often, this means that the SPR on the flop is often MUCH MUCH lower than in an online game.

Live - effective stacks - $550 at 2/5. Open to $25.
Two callers, pot on flop ~$75. SPR 7
Three callers, pot on flop ~100. SPR 5.25

Online - effective stacks - $550 at 2/5. Open $12.50
One caller, pot on flop ~30. SPR 17.

So on average, the most common situation in a live game is an SPR of around 6 (unless stacks are deep) and in a live game the most common situation is an SPR of about 15-20.

This is a SIGNIFICANT difference. People way overvalue implied odds type hands (SC's etc) OOP in live games imo. Hands that can make top pairs go up in value with SPRs so low.

on kk9 where you had q9, why not shove over on flop? you have agro image cant they call with worse?

I really don't expect much worse, other than maybe the nut FD. I have position in the hand vs c/r, there's really no point in negating position in this spot. The only worse I'm getting called by is FD's, so with position I can just peel to avoid a spade if I really think I'm good.

I kind of like HEM2/notecaddy combination so far. Though I must admit, it's much slower, and making any changes in notecaddy takes FOREVER if you have a large database. Like... days!

One interesting filter in HEM2 is producing reports by number of tables being played. I think most ppl would assume that the less tables they play the better they do but my results are the opposite.

With 5 or 6 tables -> I run around 32/27, with the worst results
This slowly tightens up with each additional table until:
11-12 tables -> I run 23/18, with the best results

So clearly the key variable here isn't necessarily the amount of tables, but rather how tight I'm playing. But it's an interesting finding nonetheless, and probably a good indication that I should focus on tightening up regardless of how many tables i have on the go.

Originally Posted by griffey24

One interesting filter in HEM2 is producing reports by number of tables being played. I think most ppl would assume that the less tables they play the better they do but my results are the opposite.

With 5 or 6 tables -> I run around 32/27, with the worst results
This slowly tightens up with each additional table until:
11-12 tables -> I run 23/18, with the best results

So clearly the key variable here isn't necessarily the amount of tables, but rather how tight I'm playing. But it's an interesting finding nonetheless, and probably a good indication that I should focus on tightening up regardless of how many tables i have on the go.

I used to find this a lot before I started playing Zoom and there is definitely a sweet-spot for a lot of players imo between too few and too many tables. I used to find that once I got past that sweet spot however, I was still playing around 23/18 but my 3-bet and AF used to drop dramatically and then cause me to go on a bad run. I think the main issue was that I was just missing out on way too many profitable spots in the smaller pots and stacking off pre with a default range that just wasn't appropriate against a lot of villains.

I'm still finding a strong correlation between my VPIP/PFR and my winrate though now I'm 4-tabling Zoom too. I often run as wide as 32/27 in sessions and rarely have a winning session, whereas my 23/18-ish sessions (about as tight as I get nowadays) are rarely losing sessions. Daven referred to this recently as "range creep and post-flop ridiculousness" and he's absolutely spot-on as far as the worst elements of my game are concerned (and usually the former leads to the latter!). In short, I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not good enough to play the sexy LAG style that we'd all love to be able to play, but who cares when a TAG style kills it at the stakes I play?

Yah I agree.Honestly the only point to play LAG is that you either think all of the hands you're adding are +EV on their own (this seems somewhat doubtful), or that the image/dynamic you create will over-compensate any -EV hands by gaining EV in other hands (this could be more likely).

That being said, really there isn't THAT much reason to lag it up unless you consciously notice that you are getting considerably less action than you would expect from your TAG image, and this forces an adjustment. While you're getting action, I don't see that much reason.

Went to the casino today and was down 2.1k in 6 hours. Couple losing sessions in a row, need to right the ship. Running a few too many bluffs, probably since I'm card dead overall. I can't let that dictate running bad bluffs.

16 visits
$18k
Total hours: 90 hours
Hourly: $200
Hands: 4500 hands (50 hands/hour)

Played ok but not great. I was very card dead again, but kept getting AK/AQ in spots facing LP opens or other opens in spots I had to 3b. I kept bricking flops in these spots while I had a bad image, which makes them hard to play. I should potentially start flatting AQ/AK pre on occasion when I have a bad image vs stations. THey won't fold pairs on low boards for sure.

Few interesting hands at 5/5:

1. UTG+1 opens to $25 ($1600), Hero MP ($1400) 3b to $80 with , SB ($680) bad player (though I didn't realize how bad until this hand) cold calls, UTG calls.
Flop ($250), , UTG cks, Hero bets $220, SB calls and UTG folds.
Turn ($690), SB checks, hero shoves $380. In retrospect, even though I knew SB was weak here I don't think I have enough behind to get a fold.
SB calls with (holy!) and wins.

-$680

2. This hand was a very read based play. Villains line made no sense, and after the turn I concluded he had air and would likely call most rivers other than potentially a heart.

UTG ($840) opens $25, Hero UTG+2 3b to $80 with , UTG calls.
Flop ($170), UTG cks, Hero bets $110 , UTG calls.
Turn ($390), UTG donks $270.
At this point in the hand I decided that his line made ZERO sense. I'm putting on a range of hands that are mostly draws that won't have very good SD value and can't c/c turn again in case I ck back river. Hands like JT, QJ, Axhh, KJhh, KQhh type stuff. I decide to call turn and call any non-heart river mostly.
River ($930), Villain shoves all-in for $380. I call and villain shows which was killer but I feel pretty good about my read and being able to hero call this spot correctly.

-$840

3. Hero ($1000) opens BTN $30 over 1 limper. BB calls and limper calls.
Flop ($100): , ck ck, hero bets $55, BB calls and limper folds.
Turn ($210) , ck, Hero bets $150, BB calls. I think the turn barrel is decent since a lot of Jx will fold and if Jx don't fold they will definitely fold a river. I also think hands like QT/JT/KQ etc may peel this turn but fold river. QJ is the only hand I'm worried about after this turn.
River ($510) ck, Hero bets $350. I need villain to fold better 41% here for this bluff to be good. I think given my frequency of raising LP, he for sure 3b AJ/AQ type hands. I'm mostly worried about him potentially calling QJ or having slow played A8, but I think he folds Jx, Qx and one pair Ax hands on river.
Villain calls with

-$620ish

Seems like your reads were pretty spot on , just running pretty shitty !

last hand how deep r u w/ bb?

i think u should be shoving all in regardless rly, hate your bet size

Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

last hand how deep r u w/ bb?

i think u should be shoving all in regardless rly, hate your bet size

Last hand, $1k effective, so $750 or so behind on the river with $510 pot.

Overbet shove? I do have a pretty sweet hand in terms of blockers (blocking KT/A9)

Went to the casino for the first time in a while. Things have been pretty crazy on my end lately. My wife and I recently bought our first house, and we're closing on June 30th. On top of that we're expecting our first baby boy in September of this year!

Needless to say with all these changes and big purchases, the poker roll which always acted as a buffer in my life is gone. It's strange to be brought down to reality. Will now be living like most other ppl with regards to needing to budget etc.

The fact that most of my roll has been used for a downpayment, also makes it a little tougher to handle the potential swings, especially in live. Losing $2k is legit now, and has legit impacts (like.. not being able to furnish our dining room for a few months haha).

I played pretty well yesterday, and as up $1700 in about 5 hours. This was my first friday evening session ever. I was expecting a crazy drunken spewfest from the stories I had heard, but it didn't seem to be that way at all.

17 visits
$19.7k
Total hours: 95 hours
Hourly: $207.37
Hands: 4750 hands (50 hands/hour)


1. $1k effective, utg+1 opens to $25 at 5/5, I call in MP, one call in blinds. UTG+1 would later turn out to be the mark at the table, spewy, but I didn't know this at the time.
Flop $80, villain bets $45. I call.
Turn $170 villain bets $110, I call.
River $390 ,river brick, villain checks. I bet $255, villain shoves all-in for like $565 more. Definitely not fistpumping here, but I really don't think many ppl are going for a c/r here with the nutflush, and I really think this is nutflush or nothing. I call and villain shows which I was surprised to see being turned into a bluff.

+1000

2. This one was a hero call. I had been opening a ton, villain who called was pretty bad. 2/5, and we're like $250 effective. I open MP to $15, villain calls in BB (he had been defending light, he's wide here for sure).
Flop $32, ck, I ck back
Turn $32, villain leads hard $27, I call
River $86, villain leads again $70. I think there's a ton of hands he can have here, all sorts of spades based on his turn sizing, JT/QJ/67, not to many any other random nonsense hands like Ax, and overs. His sizing on the turn and river together felt very polarized to me. I call and win vs villains

+$115

Congrats on the kid and gl with the house. Bet you're going to have lots of fun baby proofing the place.

grats on house and baby. maybe it makes sense to grind up online a bit before going somewhere where you are underolled. nothing worse than you droping 5-10g and then needing to wait months/years to get back into the game...

good luck

Thanks guys! Yah it'll be an interesting transition for sure!

Originally Posted by !Luck

grats on house and baby. maybe it makes sense to grind up online a bit before going somewhere where you are underolled. nothing worse than you droping 5-10g and then needing to wait months/years to get back into the game...

good luck

Yah the problem is the live games are soooooo much softer than online. But yah I'll probably keep playing the 5/5 games ($1k buyin) as long as I have a 5k buyin and drop down accordingly. The games are soft enough that I'm not quite as worried about variance in them. Also the games are much more passive than online, which should also lower variance.

Went back to the casino today. Played around 5.5 hours and was up $1050. Not too many interesting hands. Mostly just value betting big hands, and making reasonable folds.

18 visits
$20,750k
Total hours: 105.5 hours
Hourly: $206.46
Hands: 5275 hands (50 hands/hour)

I figured that since I'm generally waiting about 30mins to play and driving 35mins there and back, it might also be useful to see what my total hourly is (including travel and wait time).

Additional hours per visit = 100 mins (1.666 hours)
Total hours over all visits = 18 visits * 1.666 hours/visit = 30 hours
Total hours (incl wait/travel) = 135.5 hours
Adjusted hourly = $153.13 per hour

Went to woodbine today, only went for a few hours. Was planning on doing a long grind but was feeling kinda tired and the fish at the table had left, so just played 4 hours. Was up $1k today.

19 visits
$21,750
Total hours: 109.5 hours
Hourly: $198.63
Hands: 5475 hands (50 hands/hour)

There were quite a few interesting hands today for such a short session.

1. One limp. I had been raising / isolating a ton. By far the most aggressive player. One limp for $5, I make it $32 on the button with , limper calls. $600ish effective.
Flop ($71) -
Vill checks, hero bets $32, vill c/r to $85. hero call.
Turn ($241) -
Vill bets $75 (right now I decided I was probably good based on sizing. Felt like Qx to me). Hero calls.
River ($391) -
Vill checks. I didn't notice that four straight was on board, I should check given this. I valuebet $100. Villain huge tanked and almost folded and ended up calling -the fact that he tanked makes this vbet waaay worse. I should have almost shoved as a bluff.

2. I raise ep to $25 , reg calls IP. Effective stacks $650ish.
Flop ($57) -
Hero check/calls bet of $35
Turn ($127) -
Hero check/calls bet of $100
River ($327) -
Hero checks, and faces a bet of $100. I really tanked here. GTO needs me to call the top 75% of my range here. My range is mostly weak Ax, KK/QQ/JJ/TT. Given I probably show up with a reasonable amount of weak Ax here and def KK/QQ I folded. Though I was close to calling and said "oh man, bad runout to bluff. If you're blufffing you should show it" and i folded.
Villain shows

3. Same villain as above, an hour or so later.
I raise EP to $25 with , villain calls.
Flop ($57) -
hero checks, villain checks
Turn ($57) -
hero bets $25, villain raises to $80, hero calls
River ($217) -
hero checks, villain bets $175.
I was on the level that given hand 2 above, villain bet IP all the way down with air previously, that he would for sure value bet down any legit hand starting on the flop in this case. Based on this logic he couldn't have much that beat me.
I call, villain shows
This shows that I really should have been on the much more likely level: that villain won't bluff me after he just showed a bluff earlier.

4. Decent player opens to $20 MP, $600 effective. I call in the BB.
Flop ($42) -
hero checks, Villain bets $25, hero c/c
Turn ($92) -
check/check
River ($92) -
hero checks, villain bets $65, hero c/r to $215. Villain tanks and folds.
I like the bluff here with both the nut blocker, and also the fact that villain checked through the turn so rarely has a flush. I would prefer if I had made it a bit bigger.I think my sizing is making it a bit too easy to call. $250 would have been better.

My online grinding has REALLY been taking a hit lately. Summer here, playing lots of sports, new house prep and grinding live have all been a factor. I'd like to have some reasonable balance of like 2k hands a week online at least and maybe 2-3 life sessions a month.

Went to the casino today. Another shortish session, 4.5 hours and up $1050

20 visits
$22,800
Total hours: 114 hours
Hourly: $200
Hands: 5700 hands (50 hands/hour)

I was playing more aggressive today than other days. Running a few bluffs. All hands were at 2/5.

1. Table is 5 handed, I open CO to $15 with . I had been opening a ton while the table was just starting and still short. BTN decentish reg 3b me to $35, I call.

Flop ($77) - - I check, villain bets $45, I c/r to $130, villain calls.
Turn ($337) - - - I bet very small $75, villain folds.

2. EP limps, MP limps, two other limps, I check in BB.
Flop ($30) - - ck, I ck, utg cbets $20, MP calls, I make it $65. Both players call.
Turn ($225) - - UTG is short with $183 behind. MP has like $600 behind. I bet $183, UTG calls all-in after tanking and says "time to go home", MP tank calls.
River ($774) - - I bet $150, MP folds. I was pretty confident I was good, but UTG shows

3. This hand is pretty merged. Good blockers, and I think all of his flop b/c range I can take him off by the river.

3 limps EP, I limp behind on button . I have been doing a bit of limping behind on button lately, cause ppl are just so bad and make big mistakes, especially OOP.

Flop ($30) - - MP bets $12, HJ calls, and the sizing looks very weak to me. I make it $45 expecting FD's to peel, QJ/JT to peel, Kx to peel. regardless of what he peels, I think I can take him off most of his range by river. MP calls, HJ folds.
Turn ($132) - - ck, I bet $85, MP calls. At this point I was fairly certain it was Kx or Kxdd or some other FD. I was mildly concerned he was slow playing K9, but that's the only hand I expect he will play this way and c/c a brick river.
River ($302) - - bink my two pair. I bet $235 (my plan for any brick river), and villain folds and shows

In retrospect, given I was so confident about getting a fold in this spot to this sizing, I should probably value town here and bet like $135ish. It's not balanced at all, but no need to be vs some of these guys.

4. This hand was versus a nit. I actually hero called him earlier with A high and he had a set. I didn't know he was a nit, but later someone else referred to him as a nit.

3 limpers around, I complete in SB
Flop ($20) - - I donk $18 into field, only nit calls on btn
Turn ($56) - - I bet $19, nit calls
River ($94) - - I overbet $135 and was pretty confident I'd get a fold, since flop had very little possible air. Villain folds.

GJ griffey

I've been reading your blog for a while now. It's great to see you are earning at a nice $200 hourly Live. What's stopping you from playing 30 hours live a week and making a decent clip?

I've basically stopped playing online now. Cashed out all my roll and I now have a day job that pays about $400/day. Would love to just play poker @ $200/hr, but alas I don't think I'm as skilled as you. I still play a couple of times a month for a bit of profit. Anyway, keep up the good work

Thanks Salsa!

There are a few reasons I'm not just quitting my job and full time grinding live.

1. Online poker has made me VERY skeptical overall, as it becomes clear to most grinders that variance is a b*tch. I'm very skeptical to the sustainability of this winrate. Most live grinders I hear talking about winrates mention needing to grind for like 5000 hours at least. I'm definitely nowhere near to this, and it's not unreasonable. 5000 hours would equate to about 250k hands, which is a decent sample.

I DO think however that given the skill level in this game (1000x easier than my online 1/2 and 2/4 games) that the overall variance should be lower. The games are also less aggressive which should reduce the variance. I'm 1 tabling instead of 10 tabling, which should increase my focus / help me make better decisions / play better, which should also reduce the variance.

So while $200/hr may not be sustainable, I think I can confidently say that a ballpark of $130/hour should be.

2. I question the longevity of these games. Or at least the ease of them. 6-8 yrs ago this was how online poker was. Anyone decent was printing money, and no one could have predicted the swift collapse to the state of the games today. I don't think it's a good long term decision to drop a full time job for poker at this point. You never know how games will be 5 yrs from now.

3. I just couldn't do it. I go once a week and I get bored / tired of playing after 4-5 hours. And this is when I'm playing well and doing well and I still can't motivate to play longer. I can't imagine grinding 40 hours a week, and i give credit to those that do. It's mentally draining!

Also day job that pays $400/day is pretty sweet! I'd assume with that pay you can probably manage to start up a roll at some point in the future if you wanted?

Thanks for posting!

Depends though, I don't know what house prices are like and stuff like that but if you didn't enjoy your job or it if you had a job that didn't pay that great (neither applicable here I don't think) the ability to make $100 an hour is like $200k a year. If you could live on the cheap for 3-4 years it does leave you pretty sorted for live. Definitely wouldn't be a horrible thing for someone in their early 20s to try imo.

All assuming you don't pay taxes and what not on poker earnings in Canada.

Also aren't most live grinders fairly old? I've heard from a few people that the standard live really hasn't improved anywhere near as much and most of the people playing in those games have no intention to get better. Also most the online grinders that transition to live pretty much stop working on their game completely because they can win so they don't see the point.

Keep up the grind Grif. Does woodbine carry the $1/$2 games or just the $2/$5 and $5/$5??

Originally Posted by jyms

Keep up the grind Grif. Does woodbine carry the $1/$2 games or just the $2/$5 and $5/$5??

Yaah 1/2 game (min buyin $50 or $60 i think, max buyin $300)
2/5 is min buyin $100 and max $500
5/5 is min buyin $100 and max $1000

1/2 game is RIDICULOUSLY soft. Quite a few $60ish stacks, who are limping $2, $2, $2 and then you iso to $17 and calling and then folding to half pot cbets etc. Or just limp limp limp and fold ot an iso. Either way sweet deal.

Originally Posted by griffey24

Thanks Salsa!

There are a few reasons I'm not just quitting my job and full time grinding live.

1. Online poker has made me VERY skeptical overall, as it becomes clear to most grinders that variance is a b*tch. I'm very skeptical to the sustainability of this winrate. Most live grinders I hear talking about winrates mention needing to grind for like 5000 hours at least. I'm definitely nowhere near to this, and it's not unreasonable. 5000 hours would equate to about 250k hands, which is a decent sample.

I DO think however that given the skill level in this game (1000x easier than my online 1/2 and 2/4 games) that the overall variance should be lower. The games are also less aggressive which should reduce the variance. I'm 1 tabling instead of 10 tabling, which should increase my focus / help me make better decisions / play better, which should also reduce the variance.

So while $200/hr may not be sustainable, I think I can confidently say that a ballpark of $130/hour should be.

2. I question the longevity of these games. Or at least the ease of them. 6-8 yrs ago this was how online poker was. Anyone decent was printing money, and no one could have predicted the swift collapse to the state of the games today. I don't think it's a good long term decision to drop a full time job for poker at this point. You never know how games will be 5 yrs from now.

3. I just couldn't do it. I go once a week and I get bored / tired of playing after 4-5 hours. And this is when I'm playing well and doing well and I still can't motivate to play longer. I can't imagine grinding 40 hours a week, and i give credit to those that do. It's mentally draining!

Also day job that pays $400/day is pretty sweet! I'd assume with that pay you can probably manage to start up a roll at some point in the future if you wanted?

Thanks for posting!

Hi Griffey

I have a roll, but due to the circumstance of being in Australia where there are no reasonable venues to play, I am currently gambling on the stock market.

$400/day is nice considering my job is pretty chilled out. I have a long term girlfriend making similar and we have our residence paid off and no kids, so we are OK but not rich.

Ideally I would work 3 days a week and spend 2 days playing live poker making $100/hr no tax.


sidetrack:

2 hands I had last night playing 1/1 [a home game that runs once a month and I'm up about $1000 over 6 sessions, it's a friendly social event with tech start up people]
effective stacks with villain is $220
My image is aggro (for the game - in reality I've been card dead)

I'm in CO with As Ks
UTG limp, HJ limp, I raise to $10, button call, limpers call, pot = $42

Flop
Kd 9h 6d
Checked to me, I bet $30, fold to villain in HJ who calls, pot = $102
history with HJ is on one hand he called all in for about $80 with Q8, T962 3 diamonds board with a double gutshot, I had KT with Kd and he hits non diamond queen on the river to double up, on another hand I have JJ, raise preflop, hit a top set and he check calls my 3 barrel with a pair and straight draw and got stacked.

Turn
Qh
I bet $100, villain shoves his $180, I call $80


A second hand

Ad Kd on the button
2 limp, I raise to $10, blinds and 1 limper folds, UTG+2 calls [effective stack $250], pot = $23

flop KTT rainbow
UTG+2 bets $10, I call

turn low brick
UTG+2 bets $20, I call, pot = $83

river low brick
UTG+2 bets $50, I call

Read on UTG+2 = regular to the home game. Loose passive pre flop, loose aggressive post flop. Bluffs some of the time. Normally air is not part of his donk-leading range. Has sat down for half and hour and hit hands to go from $100 to $250.


Any comment?

Savy - Yah I agree, the decision to grind poker full time vs work full time is obviously 100% related to the difference between the job and poker options and the stability of the job etc.

Yah most of the live grinders I'm playing are probably 45+. But this is all the more reason my point is valid. The games are so soft now because this is the case, but surely there are more ppl like me (historically online grinders who are slowly converting to live). If more and more of these online grinders convert it won't take long for the games to be MUCH more difficult. All it takes in live games is for one of those seats to be filled by a solid player than a fish to make a big difference.

Salsa -

If your iso raises are generally getting 3 callers, I would probably choose a bigger size that bloats the pot up more with our stronger hands that make one pairs. This kills the SPR, and makes the suited nonsense or low pairs they are calling with less valuable, and also makes hand reading easier playing one player.

As for the K9xQ board. That's a disaster board. If i had solid reads that this particular player would just never shove a bluff here or a draw, I could make a hero fold I think. I'd probably bet $80ish on the turn. My live experience is that ppl don't look at bet size relative to pot, and just view the absolute size of the bet.

KTT hand - I expect to see Tx a fair bit, but yah I'm not folding for these pot odds on river, but even if its 70% of the time you're still good to call.

Originally Posted by griffey24

There are a few reasons I'm not just quitting my job and full time grinding live.

1. Online poker has made me VERY skeptical overall

2. I question the longevity of these games.

3. I just couldn't do it. I go once a week and I get bored / tired of playing after 4-5 hours. And this is when I'm playing well and doing well and I still can't motivate to play longer. I can't imagine grinding 40 hours a week, and i give credit to those that do. It's mentally draining!

I've come to similar conclusions myself. When I first came up the poker ladder, I got my hourly to $40 which was on par with my day job. Someone in my blog or somewhere even made a post to the effect "why not do it full time"? Then Black Friday hit and it's like "wow, how stupid would it have been to quit a nice day job for poker?" - especially as an American player. Also, regarding point 3, limon at 2+2 has mentioned this a few times, but if you play poker long enough, you start to realize that poker can be really boring - especially live. It is NOT passive income. You have to be inside the casino logging hours and hours mostly folding and waiting for the right hands and the right situations hoping you don't get coolered, sucked out on, run against top of ranges, and don't even think about tilting. I could maybe grind online 4 hours a day 5-6 days a week, but I don't think I could do 40 hours unless I had some ABC chart style of play that required little thinking. And even in that case, it wouldn't be fun, it would feel like a job and I'd eventually hate it. Grinding live for 40 hours a week live sounds like agony, too.

Originally Posted by Jason

I've come to similar conclusions myself. When I first came up the poker ladder, I got my hourly to $40 which was on par with my day job. Someone in my blog or somewhere even made a post to the effect "why not do it full time"? Then Black Friday hit and it's like "wow, how stupid would it have been to quit a nice day job for poker?" - especially as an American player. Also, regarding point 3, limon at 2+2 has mentioned this a few times, but if you play poker long enough, you start to realize that poker can be really boring - especially live. It is NOT passive income. You have to be inside the casino logging hours and hours mostly folding and waiting for the right hands and the right situations hoping you don't get coolered, sucked out on, run against top of ranges, and don't even think about tilting. I could maybe grind online 4 hours a day 5-6 days a week, but I don't think I could do 40 hours unless I had some ABC chart style of play that required little thinking. And even in that case, it wouldn't be fun, it would feel like a job and I'd eventually hate it. Grinding live for 40 hours a week live sounds like agony, too.

Yah I agree with these points for sure.

Barring legalization of online poker in the US, poker will only get harder, so maintaining the status quo will get tougher. While technically a paying job should be on the up and up over time.

Having poker as a fall back (in case of being laid off) and as a supplemental income is definitely an asset though. I'll probably keep playing online, if only to test myself and maintain my skill level.

Had my first losing session in a while today, and I was for sure due for that. Ran card dead, in the spots I did hit cards I ran bad, and in the spots I ran bluffs I ran bad with ppl hitting stuff. Yay variance. Down $1600 in like 6 hours today.

21 visits
$21,200
Total hours: 120 hours
Hourly: $176.66
Hands: 6000 hands (50 hands/hour)

1. A few run bad preflop hands vs short stacks (stacks ranging from $100-$150 pre), included AQ<KTo, AQ<A5o and A8o<KQo ($60 stack)

2. This is one bluff vs a meh badish player. he's the type to way overplay hands, and when he only b/c turn he definitely is not that strong. I'm very confident in this spot in the long run his b/c range on the turn, will c/f to a shove on the river like 70%ish of the time, when in practice I only need it to work less than 50%.

I raise CO to $15 ($500 eff) with , BTN calls, SB calls and BB (villain) calls.

Flop $60 - - cks to me, I ck, BTN cks
Turn $60 - - ck to BB, he bets $40, I raise to $145 (again it's important to note that the plan here was not raising for fold equity on the turn, but rather knowing that I'll have $340 remaining on the river, and I'll get folds for sure more than 50% of the time). Villain calls.
River $350 - - villain checks, I shove as planned, villain calls and shows for rivered straight. Pretty brutal turn call ofcourse when he's OOP with 7 high but knowing he's brutal is part of the overall fold equity plan to begin with.
This is the kind of spot you can't feel bad about in poker. You go with a plan, and in this case my plan would have worked 84% of the time. 12% of the time he stacks me with a straight and 4% I stack him with a flush vs his straight.

3. This hand was a BB special with ($520 effective). Two MP limps $5, decentish but sorta taggy tight player limps btn, SB folds and I check.
Flop ($22) - - cks around to villain who bets hard $20. This is a spot I could probably find a fold, but I just felt like most of villains Ax would raise isolate on the button pre, and something like 999 certainly would. His big sizing felt polarized, I call.
Turn ($62) - - I ck, villain bets $35 and I raise to $105. Villain calls.
River ($272) - I bet $215 and villain jams for like $175 more. This is a very gross spot and nothing made sense. A9 villain would raise pre, 999 villain would raise pre, villain wouldn't be jamming A9 here. The only hand that makes sense is something like A2o, of which there are only 3 combos. I call and villain shows

4. $500 effective. I open utg for $15. UTG+1 solid player (one of the few) calls on my left. Guy in blinds calls.
Flop ($47) - I bet $28 and UTG+1 calls.
Turn ($103) - , I bet $57 and villain calls.
River ($217) - , I check and villain bets $135. I was cursing this spot. So many draws bricked, but it sucked that I blocked most of the straight draws. The most likely hands I lost to felt like floated AK and Axdd. I called and villain shows

Block bet the river w/ QQ, def more profitable than c/c

Would not be calling the worse 2x in range in prior hand when raised OTR.

You are underestimating how well the flop+turn combined connects with BBs range here, I don't like making this play without a blocker. You have good implied odds with a turn call also and you have some minor showdown value against weaker flush draws that give up after betting.

Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

Block bet the river w/ QQ, def more profitable than c/c

Would not be calling the worse 2x in range in prior hand when raised OTR.

You are underestimating how well the flop+turn combined connects with BBs range here, I don't like making this play without a blocker. You have good implied odds with a turn call also and you have some minor showdown value against weaker flush draws that give up after betting.

Yah QQ hand, I felt as though it was a run-out that I would bet/bet/check (to c/f) often with hands like QJ/KQ/KJ/78/all FD's (ie: I prob wouldn't run a triple bluff in this spot that often), and I would be tripling all Ax here, so a hand like QQ would fit in well into my c/c range on river.

That being said, balance isn't the biggest of concerns in these games. How much would you block for? Like $80?

And yah I agree about the Kxs bluff on the turn. I could def find some better candidates for a multi-street bluff. My default is generally to have blockers here for sure, most likely 6x

Went to woodbine today. Played for about 5.5 hours, up $900. Was a very swingy session. Was all-in a fair bit, and my vpip was like 28% for the day, with PFR probably around 25% (which is pretty high for full ring nitfest).

22 visits
$22,100
Total hours: 125.5 hours
Hourly: $176
Hands: 6275 hands (50 hands/hour)

1. As mentioned, had quite a few all-ins. One hand (JTs<AA) I got small 3b ($20 to $35), I called IP JTs, flop was JTxhh villain cbet $100 into $80, I jammed for $370 total. Villain calls AA, and turn/river comes 5x,5x and I lose to his two pair for an $800 pot. Other spots include QJ<KThh on J62hh facing c/r shove from PFR in $400 pot. 333>A6dd on A35dd flop in $360 pot. I'm forgetting some of the other all-ins.

2. Interesting bluff spot. This is another bad variance bluff spot. I raise HJ over MP limp, $5 to $20 with (again - I was playing pretty loose today, the table was soft so I was pretty comfortable with this). CO calls (he was getting fed up of my raises, calling me a ton IP) and limper calls.
$80ish pot, , cks to me, I ck, villain cks.
$80ish pot, turn, vill cks, I ck, CO (who had been betting a ton IP facing checks), bets $50, vill calls and I c/r to $160. CO folds and vill says "ugh you probably have AK" and then he calls.
At this point I'm 95% confident that villain has hearts, so my plan is to shove on any non-heart river and any non-K riv (as I expect a lot of nut fd's).
$450ish pot river ($185ish behind), , villain checks and I bluff shove river. Villain says "geez I'll pay off your AK" and calls with
I'm fine with my read here.

I have $100 to burn today. Wish me luck!

Sick hands griffey i love them plz post more

Haven't posted in a while it seems! Which probably makes sense as I haven't played a hand of poker in like 40+ days (online or live). I moved a couple weeks ago and everything has been revolving around move preparation and move in and setting up the new place etc.

Things are slowly settling down so hopefully I'll at least hit the casino soon. I have a limited window right now, as I'm expecting my first kid at the end of Sept and who knows what kind of impact that will have on poker!

Hope everyone else is getting in more volume than me!