All done now :)

Havnet really been playing for the last couple of months or so due to dissertation and uni, but its all done now. Going to start playing next week, will probably play 500 to 1k hands a day to start and gradually build it up to 1.5k to 2k hands a day by end of the yr.

I will prob start to play 50k hands at 50NL (euros) since i havent been playing for so long plus i have turned into a even bigger BR nit, then move up to 100NL and grind there til i make 10k then move up to 200NL sometime next yr.
I feel like i ve got the skill to beat 200NL, i just need to make sure i play my A game as often as possible and not tilt when things get really shitty.
One thing that helped me loads after my 40bi downswing was focusing on small goals for each session instead of on my cashier, the goals i wd b focusing are as follows:

1. 3betting different ranges vs different players based on their tendency.
2. Cbetting and knowing firing multiple barrels in 3bet pots ( i feel like my cbetting strategies r pretty ok in single raise pot)
3. Beware of gameflow at all time, dont make plays just because its my standard e.g 3betting and 4betting pre, barrelling etc.
4. Beware of PSR, knowing how to set up betsize to put the last bet in or let villain to put last bet in etc.
5. Making sure not to autopilot
   

Beside these goals, i am going to make a real effort in experimenting:

1. Leading into PFR esp BB vs LP (grog gave me a lesson on leading a while back so will be trying that shit out, ty)
2. More cold 4bet bluffing, i hardly ever see ppl do it in my limit and my cold 4bet always seems to get a lot of respect, so will prob be doing 1:1 air to nuts ratio ( depends on gameflow obv)
3. Turning made hands into bluffs, this s an area i been thinking about a lot, don't really have a clue when to do it but i guess i will find out by doing it.

Off table work:
To get better at poker, i am going to need to do a lot more work off the table.
I am going to spend at least 2hrs a day working on my game which will mainly be reviewing hands, making notes on opponents and making gbucks calculations (no idea how yet but will figure it out) and watch some vids too if i ve got nothing else to do.

Thats all i could think of for now, will add more if i can think of anything else, any suggestion wd b cool.

Hope everyone s running good in life and poker!!

Martin

Short term poker goals. And some hands from today

Bet sizing - dont just bet 1/2pot because its a type 1 board, think about who the villain is and his range? if villain is never folding a pair, bet big for value. If villan is folding to any bet, bet smaller as a bluff.

3betting - 3betting different ranges vs different players. More tweener hands if they like calling, and suited trash if they fold too much. And pay more attention to gameflow, adjust air:nut ratio based on recent history. dont just 3bet bluff because it is in our normal air function.

Cbetting - just like bet sizing, think about who villain is, how hard did the board hit him? How likely is he going to peel light? Think about his strong/weak range on the turn, can we fold out his weak hands by firing multiple barrels? knowing where the point of honesty is for villain.

Dont call too much in the blinds - Dont defend shit like small SCs and PPs just because bobbo is doing it, just have to admit i am not good enough to play them profitably OOP for now.

PSR - beware with PSR at all time to plan better bet size, and think about how to max vs worse hands with diff PSR.

Hand 1: Facing donk bets 3 streets
Villain is 20/15 donk bet 11% of the time.
History: I joined this site 2days ago, and villain has been pretty aggressive preflop against me, but i have been owning him with 4bet bluffs + he ran into the nuts a few times. My image is pretty laggy, running at around 28/24 3bet round 10%

I can def see him donking the flop as a bluff, but when he donk into me 3streets, i think its either air or nuts. There is no semibluff in his range, i have a bluffcatcher on the river. His value range is really narrow but i just dont think he is donking 3 streets into me as a bluff, i guess i should fold?

Hand 2: Value bet river?
Same villain but this hand actually happened before.
I think when he calls my cbet, his range cant be very strong as i expect most sets and straight will raise flop, i think with FD he will raise me some% of the time too, i think his mostly range is 77 - JJ pair + str8 draw etc. So after he calls my cbet i planned on firing 3 barrels on good turn and river cards. Turn is pretty decent card to rep so i went ahead and bet it, but i expect most mid pairs will still call one more street so i was going to bluff him on most rivers.
But now i hit my ace which i think its the best hand like always, how should i maximize? Shall i value bet? i think all those mid pairs i ve mentioned earlier will have a tough time calling, if i decide to bet, how much shall i bet? a small bet since his range is most likely to be weak? or shall i bet big to look like a bluff? or is checking to bluff catch vs missed draws a better idea?

Hand 3: TP 3bet pot
Villain is 18/14 folds to resteal 67%. I dont really feel all that comfortable calling with ATo OOP vs this guy so decided to 3bet which is probably bad.
Even tho i flopped TP, i m not that excited because he is pretty tight. Do we want to just bet 3 streets for value? or is my line ok?

Ok, i lied!! some hands

After writing up my rountine, i didnt stick to it. i have been getting up early everyday, have breakfast lunch regularly, but i havent stick to my playing schedule. I have been playing very little over the last 2 weeks, instead of playing, i have been working on my game.

I have been watching these vids made by a stox coach called matt janda teaching how to play game theory optimal. I found the vids very very interesting, it showed me what is the optimal calling frequency vs different bet sizes on each street and optimal bluffing frequencies based on my best sizes. I dont know how useful this GTO stuff is to my game, i m not planning on playing GTO, just thought knowing what the optimal strategy will allow me to understand better at exploiting people's leaks.

I have also been using stoxev, to work on 3betting ranges and 4betting ranges and calculate the EV of my cbetting strategies on different boards. i feel like stoxev has improved my understanding of the game a lot, i think i know a lot better when to cbet, when to fire multiple barrels and when not to.

I dont think the reason i havnet been playing is because i m lazy, i think the reason is i enjoy learning about the game too much. I spend most of my time watching vids, thinking about 3betting and 4betting ranges, calculating EV and making a ton of notes. i just dont want to play until i have totally understood the concept i have been working on. And by the time i finish with 1 concept, i will want to learn another 1, it just never end.

I need to find a way of balancing my playing and learning, theres no point in learning all these stuff if i dont play. Right now, i m probably doing 80% learning and 20% playing. I am going to change slowly, starting from this week, i will be doing 50% leaning and 50% playing, nxt week i will be doing 60/40 and hopefully 75/25 the week after that.

Anyway enough bullshit, lets look at some of the hands i have played lately. All of these hands are 50NL euro games which works out to be around 60NL. I will be grinding this stake for a month and hopefully my roll will be big enough for me to move up to the 100nl euros games.

Hand 1: misplayed AA,
Villain is a 26/4 passive fish, flop is obv standard, i bet on the bigger side because he is unlikely to fold any pair. On the turn, i suffered from the monster under the bed sydrome, i was really worried he hit his 9. But thinking about it now, there shouldnt be too many 9x in his range, i shud just bet bigger for value vs pp and charge draws. On the river, i wasn't sure if i should value bet, there shouldnt be any Kx in his range unless its Kxss, TT- QQ will prob raise PF, and i wasnt sure if 5x, 66- 88 will call another bet.

Hand 2: Value bet river?
Villain is 13/7 nit, betting flop and turn is standard, if i get raised on the turn, i will prob have to fold since he is so nitty. On the river, i dont think he is ever folding Qx but i only beat KQ, QT, JT. But QT and JT is prob not even ijn his PF calling range, i guess this is too thin and i should just c/f the river.

Hand 3: Boat on river 3bet pot.
Villain is 27/20, raise 1st 41%, fold to 3bet 68%.
PF, he is folding to a lot of 3bet and he is OOP, i think my air to nut ratio should be pretty wide here, probably 4:1 at least.
Flop: the board is kind of drawy PSR is 5.7. I didnt pay attention to the stack size and thought we are just 100bb deep, so i thought of just betting pot on flop and shove turn.
Turn: I realized i fucked up my bet size on the flop, leaving an awkward stack size opn the turn. I didnt want to bet small since there are now two flushes on the board, but i donty really want to just shove. but thinking about it now, i should either bet small giving him a chance to shove over with his draw or just shove and get called by AJ, KJ and may be TT that didnt 4bet PF.
River: not the best card for me, it is quite plausible he has Jx here, FD prob shove flop some % of the time. I cant really see him bluffing here, eff is 40bb with 150bb in the pot, he cant expect me to fold anything. what shall i do here? can i call?

Hand 4: 3bet pot spew
Villain is 20/15, fold to resteal 75%. since he is folding so much i dont want really to 3bet tweener hands vs him, so i made my Kxs and Qxs my bluff range here.
Flop: PSR is 5, the board hit his range pretty well, so i guess i shouldnt really bet the flop, but i thought i have a over and BDFD lets give it a go. He tanked and called.
Turn: because of his timing on the flop, it really made me believe he wasnt very comfortable with his what is most likely to be a marginal hand. 8 is a bad double barrel card, and i assume he knows this so if i bet here i will actually look really strong (prob levelling myself). I decided to go ahead and bet 1/2p because i think it is big enough to put his whole stack at risk and i m giving myself a good price on the bluff. But with no equity whatsoever, i should just check and give up

Hand 5: FPS again?
Villain is 21/16 cbet 50% of the time
Flop: i think when he checks turn, he has a marginally hand very often and air obv.
Turn: since i think he hasa marginal hand here a lot, it makes me want to bluff him. I could lead out here and bet river, but i wasn't sure if 2 bets s enought to make him fold, so i went for a c/r thinking i can put pressure on his med strength hand and fold out his air.
River: so at this point, i think its pretty clear he has a marginal hand, so i went ahead and bet to try and get him fold. I know i m not repping anything, but i think people at this stake generally concerns more with their hands rather than mine.

Martin

Routine

Going to be back in Manchester on Sunday, and from the 1st of June, i m going to start playing more poker and follow a proper rountine everyday. My rountine is going to be as followed:

7:30, get up and shower

8:00, breakfast (I dont have breakfast regularly, i m going to make sure i do and i wont allow myself to play until i had my breakfast)Got to make sure i have my vitamins afterwards too.

8:30, have a walk near my apartments to clear my mind and calm myself down, got to make sure i walk slowly and not rush (again not allowed to play unless this s done)

9:00, start playing, going to stick with short sessions, no longer than an hr each and have 15 mins rest in between (may be 30 mins)

12:00, review hands for the morning, make notes etc

12:45, lunch time

1:45, 15mins walk to clear my mind again

2:00, play poker again, stick with short sessions, short breaks in between

4:30, review hands played in the afternoon and make notes and posts at least 3 a day onto the blog

5:30, hit the gym every Tuesday and Thursday

The rountine is only for Monday to Friday, wkend will be dedicated for studying, watching videos and making notes, doing EV calculations and playing on StoxEV. Will be playing a couple of short sessions if i have time and hit the gym at least once too.

trip report

Sunday: Woke up at 9am to finish packing and getting ready to go to airport etc. Just before we left, manchester airport announced that they ll b shut from 1pm to 7pm due to the volcanic ash and my flight was at 1:45 FML. Hotels were all paid for and non-refundable, gf almost bursted into tears, so i kept trying to tell her its ok while trying to control my taxi driver tilt (the dude just wont stfu!!!) Anyway got to the airport and the airline said we are flying from newcastle instead and they will provide transport which was better than not going at all. After 3hrs of bus journey and another 4 hrs wait at the airport we finally left at 9pm and got there ust after midnight. We got the bus from the airport and then the ferry to the rialto bridge which was near our hotel. Finding the hotel was a pain in the ass, the streets r dark and completely dead which was pretty scary, we finally got to the hotel after walking round for 30 mins. The hotel wasnt anything i expected, but it was very nice and comfy.

Monday: We didn't wake up til mid-day so we missed the breakfast. We headed to the grand canal and had pizzas for lunch, I had a seafood one and my gf had a pepperoni, they were super nice. we didnt actually do much that day, just exploring the town and went on one of those gondola ride which was nice but slight ripoff- 60 euros for 20mins (almost as expensive as poker coaching lol)


didn't do much after the boat ride, just more walking around and an very average dinner where i spaghetti with clams and gf had lasagna. After dinner we went bk to hotel and chilled. I logged on to skype to see if

Tuesday: We managed to get up for breakfast (the only one time) which was pretty nice, we stayed in the hotel and read some books til 1pm. We then went out for lunch where i had this really sick spaghetti with cuttlefish, it looks like shit but taste fucking amazing!!


We went to St Macro square after lunch, visited the museum in the cathedral, the cathedral was pretty cool, its quite amazining how ppl built shit like these without the machineary we use today.

We then went up to the tower near by and took some more photos



Dinner that night was really good, we went to this little restaurant near the hotel. I dont know if it is the Italitan culture or just in Venice, but people have two main courses each for dinner, first course which is usally pasta and second course is usually meat or fish. I really liked having two main courses giving me excuses to try all sort of food without looking like a pig, but it was kinda expesnsive, well compared to UK at least. Theres literally nothing to do past 9pm in Venice, so we just went back to the hotel after dinner

Wednesday: We had more pizzas for lunch lol, and then we took a boat trip to 3 different islands near by. We went to the glass factory first, they had this guy demonstarting which was pretty cool, he made a vase and a horse in like 5 mins, was really impressive. The next two island was kinda really nice, not a lot to do there, so just had a few drinks sit on the grass and chilled. The boat trip finsihed at about 6pm, and thats it for the day really

Thursday: Thursday was probably my best day there, we didnt actually do much, we walked along the coast for fucking ages and found this really nice park, we had a few drinks and just chilled the fuck out there for the whole afternoon. Dinner that night was super sick, had pasta with king prawns for 1st course and then veal shanks for 2nd course, probably the best food i had this yr!!

Friday: pretty much had to go to airport soon we got up, luckily the manchester airport was reopened so didnt have to go to newcastle and get the bus.

Overall, not the most exciting trip, pretty much just walk, read, eat and sleep, but i still really enjoyed it and wd def go bk one day.

Update.

havent updated this for fucking ages, the reason is that i just havent been playing much at. I played just a little over 30k hands since my downswing. i ve been playing well for the most part, i havent really tilted, my thought process at the table is a lot more clear than it used to be, I m no longer auto-piloting etc. I have been setting small goals for each session e.g 3betting like a beast, cbetting - how turn and river change his range etc. This really helps me a lot, it stops me focusing on money and helps me to play the best i can.

So uni s pretty much finished now, I ve handed in all my coursework this week, and all my lectures has finished, now i just need to do my dissertation which i dont have to hand in til september. So from now on I will be start playing a lot more, I am going to play 4hrs a day with 2hrs of reviewing hands a day and post interesting ones here. I am goin set a rountine up like grog did in his blog and follow it religiously.

After hearing so many good poker players go on about how important exercise is etc, i decided to join the gym close by. I havent been to gym for about 5 yrs, pretty much since my knee operation, and omg i m so fucking weak and skinny!! i lost almost 3 stones of muscles and i cant bench shit anymore (was struggling with 50kg lol). Being the weakest guy in the gym really piss me off, so i decided i m goin 2 hit the gym hard and go at least 3 times a week. Right now I weigh just a little over 13st, by September i want to go up to 14.5 stones and bench at least 110kg! prop bet anyone?

Going to Venice on Sunday for a few days with my gf for our 5 yr anniversary, really looking forward to it, going to eat lots of nice food there :)

Martin

I m shit....... this yr so far.....emo post

This is my graph so far this yr ( mostly 100NL on UB and some 50NL on ladbrokes), volume is low cos i only been playing since Feb.
I feel like such a failure!! there are so many fish on UB and ladbrokes, but yet i cant win shit. Doing bobbo's coaching has helped my understanding of the game a lot, but its useless if i dont apply the stuff when i play. I am auto-piloting all the time even tho i m only playing 4 tables. i dont think about ppl's ranges when i play, i just bet 1/2 pot because its a type 1 board and b/3bet cos i have an aggressive gamble.

I really don't know wot to do anymore, i feel like i can play good poker when playing my A game, but i can only play my A game when i m not running bad. I feel like my understanding of the game is decent when looking at forum posts and analyising HHs etc. But when it comes to playing, all i worry bout is how much i m up or down for the session. If i m up, i will tighten up trying to protect my win, if i m down i will start making desperate call when i only beat a bluff. I just dont have the mentality to become a good poker player

I only have 9 months left to become a winning player at 200NL, and at this rate i just cant see it happening. May be i shud just quit and concentrate on my study and get a job like everyone else when i finish Uni, I dont want to look back in 9 months time and think how much time i have wasted.