Yet another fish with dreams of being a shark

gl mate

Thank you. I've been following your journey too. Glad to see you sticking with it and continually trying to improve your game.

Good luck

gl

Bankroll management is key, I'd say move down to at least 25nl and work on your game. You admit you need to work on your game, yet are playing above what your bankroll allows. This is how you bust your roll. Preferably I'd say move to 10nl and get a lot of volume in alongside studying.
Also there's benifits to playing zoom. On one table you can fit in over 200 hands per hour, two tables held get a lot of volume in without sacrificing focus. To fit that many hands in on regular tables you'd be multi tabling and would be unable to pause. On zoom you have just two tables to focus on which you can pause during big spots that require focus. You'll also build up stats on players over time. That's my opinion. Move down, play zoom, and work on your game.

Glgl

GL GL! Will follow this!

Thanks for the well wishes and advice folks.

Well looks like I will be going back to 25NL at least. I put in some serious volume over 2-4 50NL tables and could not have a damn thing go my way. Ran a full five buy-ins below all-in EV alone.

Truly the roughest session I have had since starting poker.

Not a pretty sight.

Honestly with the set ups that were going on I am very surprised it is only -50 AIEV-adjusted. The number of times that some gutshot or flush ignored pot odds and binked it on the river against me was nuts. Every time I made top pair I knew that bottom pair would call down and make trips on the river. Two pair? Straight. Set? Four-to-a-flush. Full house? Quads. Just a nightmare of a session.

The beginning was mostly coolers and draws getting there but by the end of it I was definitely very tilted and made some super questionable plays. I definitely earned some new tags and notes by the end of it so I am going to try to be aware of what certain regs have seen from me and how they may adjust. Yeah... there were definitely some new notes...

By the very end I had the fight taken out of me completely and was feeling dread when I was dealt a hand that I had to do something about. Gotta get out of a rough session earlier. By the time I reached that point I had ignored many exit signs and kept on going.

I need to implement a stop-loss even if a player or table seems so wild and loose that it is easy to justify sticking it out. Like yeah it is +EV in the long run for someone to be at your table shoving K9o into your AKs even if they do win both run outs... But online if that happens then what are the chances that you get it back before they hit and run or spew it away the next hand. Wishful thinking so when nonsense like that happens it needs to be a sign for me to walk away.

Realistically I am more likely to have my play affected by tilt than to have the right set up to be able to get it back before they leave the table with or without the cash. Especially because once they do something like that it is really hard to get them alone in a hand. Once they are done spewing it away then I am then left there tilted and more likely to become the target myself. Just gotta leave them to it and focus on not compounding losses.

The AIEV is both comforting and tilting for the exact same reason; it was out of my control. I can't help getting sucked out on but there are heaps of other things that I can work on. Going to be studying a lot, reviewing my hands with GTO Wizard and implementing new tilt-control strategies. Hopefully next time I post a graph it won't look like such a disaster.

Would advise ignoring yellow line, she's a dirty devil who likes complicated relationships

Yeah, I'm just going to study, focus on the things that I can do better and hope that my turn comes.

Some of those hands were wild and tilting at the time but I've gotten the money in bad as well so who am I to judge? Never quite as bad as a K9o preflop jam but we all have our own journeys.

When I shot took 100NL a combination of super aggressive table dynamics, a limp-jam trapper and a bluffy short stack I was trying to isolate resulted in me pricing myself into a three way all in with jacks. I nailed a third jack against both of their pocket aces. So all of this nonsense is pretty much just things going back to order unfortunately haha

The past couple of weeks I haven't been putting in a huge amount of volume on cash games, not enough to produce a graph that means anything.

Last session started well but ended with me getting sucked out on in a large three way all in where I had 85% equity on the turn. Then a few hands later I found myself tilt-bluffing into a set. Still have some mental game **** to work on that is for sure. Despite that though I am still on the way up from the awful day that I lasted reported on. I just have to tame that tilt monkey on my back and make sure I leave the tables before my play is affected.

My graph is a lot of little lines going upwards with the occasional large one going downwards. If I can get out of the wrong hands earlier and resist making bad river bluffs then I should be able to lower the fequency of the big downs and keep that green line moving up.

Despite the ups and downs of cash games the bankroll is healthier than ever...

I switched to cash because I was in a terrible tournament downswing. But with GGPoker running their World Festival I have been firing a few bullets at the low stakes events. Which, up until last night, had been massively eating into my (already limited) cash game bankroll with very little to show for it.

These are all massive fields so you have to lower your expectations but goddamn has there been some nonsense. I remember reading once that cash game players have downswings where they question their ability while tournament players have downswings where they question their existence. I get that.

After a heap of deep runs getting cut short by bullshit (aipf AK v AK four card flushes etc.) I actually found myself on the final table of the biggest daily GGMasters; the Bounty Warm-Up. Not one of the festival events but rather one I entered at the same time. Ended up coming 5th out of 5025 for my biggest score yet!

Time to follow the tourney donk tradition and donate it all to 10/20 right?

There are couple hands towards the end that I wasn't sure about (ICM etc.) but overall I was pretty happy with my play and I ran good in some clutch moments. Feels almost anti-climactic to get so close to that big win and the GGMasters badge and not close it out. But for a couple of the players on the FT and last few tables my entire bankroll is merely the entry fee into a high roller tourney so just to make it there amongst that competition was pretty sweet. Some day that badge will be mine.

This has been a huge boost to my bankroll. I think that cushion will actually really help my cash game play as well. Being under-rolled at 50NL I often felt a need to make things work and take down pots that I had invested in. This resulted in some bluff lines that I probably wouldn't have taken if my roll was less affected by me not winning the hand. For every time I stole a big pot I also ended up paying someone off in another so this attitude has been costly.

Now there's a lot more involved in fixing my blue line and poor decision-making than just having extra cash in the roll but I genuinely do feel as though it is going to make a big difference.

After busting tournaments in ridiculous ways for a month straight I really did need this both financially and mentally. It had been almost a month since I had seen a final table. Still going to focus on cash rather than tourneys. I'm currently not a consistent winner in either but at least in cash when I lose an all in it is because I punted and not because I was forced to by the blinds. It has definitely reignited the fire a little though and I'm not turning my back on tournaments completely. The excitement of a final table is something that no cash game session has even come close to matching.

Congrats on the score!

Alright, so the past week has been very little cash. Had a session where I lost two stacks in quick succession. I'll put the hands below. They were rough but I am entirely willing to believe that I butchered them rather than just got coolered.

Focused on tournaments a lot while the World Festival is still going on at GG. Given plenty back after the big score in my last update. Going to have to slow down on the tournaments otherwise I will have no roll left before I luckbox my way onto anothe final table.

I haven't been super happy with my play in a lot of them. Gotta stop triple barelling off in 3-bet pots. "What's that you've condensed your range to nuts? Here have the rest of my stack." Trying to bully people off of significant equity is a real leak of mine. I have to attack capped ranges rather than condensed ones.

I satellited my way into (and then punted my way out of) a few tournaments of a higher buy-in than I typically play. I felt out of my element and played like an absolute donkey in a couple of them. Got outdrawn on by flushes and straights a lot. I am not sure if I have been getting unlucky in that sense or whether I haven't been denying equity enough trying to get value. Also missed out on a $25 bounty because I was 0.3bb short of covering the player which didn't feel great.

In one of the larger tournaments I had Espen Jorstad on my table which was pretty cool. I took a pathetically weak bluff line against him after he didn't follow through on a flop donk. b50-c/x-b150/x-x. Showdown went to Mr Jorstad with the nuts... a pair of 4s. Had I followed through on river I could probably say that I have won a pot against a WSOP Main Event champion but instead the story is me getting owned by an overbet call and then being too much of a pussy to fire river.

Hands;

Was this bad luck or a bad jam? Obviously it was 4 to a straight but how many jacks are there in most 4b pots?

I convinced myself at the time that the king of clubs blocked flushes enough to jam here hoping for a call from.... I don't even know... I don't think I am ever going to get called by worse. Now obviously it wasn't the showdown I expected but even so I think it was a massive overplay of the kings.

Obviously I lost the flip but was this a reasonable defend against a very out of line small blind?

Same story with this one really. Obviously I, again, had the best of it going in and got unlucky in the flip. But did I need to be in it in the first place or should I have let the small blind get out of line? This was not the first time they pulled this **** but I don't want to be calling my stack off out of spite.

Then there is this doozy where I played a little clickback tennis. Probably my favourite hand ever so far. Put this into your solver and smoke it;

I don't feel really qualified to comment on the cash game hands, but that KK looks kinda spewy/ too thin to me. But I could be completely wrong.

A3o: You have like 11BB? I am not folding Ax 11BB BvB

KTs: That's super std for 8BB BvB unless that's a FT

Maybe just get ICMizer for a month and play a bit around with it. It's really helpful to figure stuff out like that, both from a Chip EV and $EV point of view.

I did a quick and dirty calculation in ICMizer on that A3o hand, assuming there is no significant payout jump and obv ignoring his bounty because he has you covered. So Chip EV = $EV, which is probably not perfect but close enough.

Seems like the breakeven point for calling is BB jamming >32% here, so wider than 22+,A2+,K8o+,K6s+,QT+,Q9s+,JTo,J9s+.

So if he is likely to be shoving as wide at Q7o the KTs is well and truly within the call off range? Nice.

Yeah I should definitely try out ICMizer. ICM adjustments are definitely one of the parts of my game that I am less knowledgeable about. I do make adjustments but it is influnced more by what my opponents are showing up with rather than the theoretical ranges. Going to have to work on that for sure.

The KK hand is pure spew yeah. Check back would have been way better once we got to the river. I am confident that most of the time I would have found it but this was just after the AQ one. It was like 3 hands later and I was tilted. Wanting to replace the stack I had just lost. Instead I just owned myself and made sure that there was no coming back for me mentally for that session. But at least that was the end of it. It wasn't that long ago that I would have stayed at the table for another two hours and three stacks. Still something that was avoidable and will hopefully come to mind next time I am in a similar spot.

Sometimes I don't go for thin enough value and other times I shove into the nuts. Gotta get better at hand reading and recognising when I am more likely to be paying off a bigger hand.

On the KTs hand:

Breakeven point for calling is BB jamming wider than ~21% (55+,A5+,A4s-A2s,KT+,K9s,QTs+)

Given he jammed Q7o, we can probably assume his range is (at least) ~38% here: 22+, Ax, K6+, Q7+, JT, J9s, J8s, T9s, 98s, 87s,76s.

Against that range, KTs is:

That's purely for Chip EV, in the late stages, especially FT bubble / the FT itself, $EV changes many things. It's a little bit hard to calculate without an actual payout scale, but I would assume the KTs could be a fold on a FT because you have a similar short stack and one with not much more chips behind you.

Awesome, thank you. Neither were close to the final table and for most tournaments I value a deep run more than a min cash so I'm happy to ignore all but the hardest of bubbles and follow ChipEV solutions until later in the event than some. The payouts are so damn top heavy.

There have definitely been some marginal at best punts that didn't take future game into account. Other times I have avoided some high risk high reward spots where I probably should have gambled a little.

Tourneys are hard. Sometimes in poker you do everything right and suffer for it. Other times you do everything wrong and get rewarded. The inherent variance of tournaments makes it a lot harder for me to figure that out. I try to review my hands but I am sure that my focus goes too often on the big wins or losses and not the small EV losses throughout.

Yeah, the cool thing with ICMizer is that you can choose a min EV Diff to fine-tune a range. So for example, you think you have a decent enough edge in a field and thus don't want to go strictly by ChipEV and avoid the most marginal spots.

Going back to the KTs hand, a more defined calling range with a 0.10% EV Diff against a ~38% jamming range would look like this:

"Other times you do everything wrong and get rewarded" is the reason why tournaments were, are and always be softer than cash games. 😃

Yep. When I first started I made my way through to a bunch of final tables just by clicking buttons and jamming like a maniac. But hey it kept this donkey in the economy and now I'm obsessed with the game and getting better at it.

It was on Ignition though. The fields on there are crazy soft compared to GG. I swear a $3 tourney on GG is equivalent to a $33 one on Ignition.

Running really bad in tournaments is harder mentally than cash due to the time investment and inevitability of all ins. It doesn't feel good to spend hours playing and bust just before the money but I keep coming back regardless. At this point it is the deifinition of madness so after the World Festival is over I think I will fully focus on cash and building that roll in a more consistent way.

Well the past week has been a bit difficult with my mental game.

I had a bit of a degen tourney spiral the past few weeks which honestly put me more off-track than it helped in any way. Had some really promising runs get cut short. For the life of me I cannot have a hand hold.

So the bankroll has really suffered. Still way ahead of where I was before the big (for me) tourney score but on a nasty downwards trajectory nonetheless.

My sleep schedule is also way out whack. The World Festival and the GGMasters events run through the night here in Australia so I have literally become nocturnal. Definitely becoming more isolated and it is affecting me. I have been trying to engage with different poker communities but so far haven't really felt accepted in any of them.

Cash results have been up and down. Probably about breakeven but I haven't put in enough volume to even bother putting my hand histories into notes. A couple winning sessions and then one really tilting losing one that messed with my confidence a lot. Overally not much to report on when it comes to the entire point of starting this blog.

I'm going to be putting in a lot more volume soon but I think I need to work on my confidence and mental game a little before I grind hard. I'm kind of at the nut low when it comes to self-confidence right now and have been second-guessing almost everything about my game.

I am channeling these feelings into progress though and have been studying a lot in order to try to build up my confidence. Lots of GTOWizard drills, YouTube videos and just absorbing as much about strategy and poker history as I possibly can.

I'm sure the mods on here have been wondering why I seem to be online constantly and it is because I have a lot of catching up to do haha. It has been fascinating going through old threads. Linus's old blog has been especially motivating. He had mental game issues but he was passionate and persistent. I truly admire him and his journey.

I have also started working with a coach who has been generous enough to donate some of his time as he builds up his initial coaching portfolio. For somebody in a rough financial spot this opportunity has really meant the world to me. We have only had a couple sessions but he has already made me aware of how much I am over-complicating some situations mentally. I sometimes level myself with fancy play syndrome when often the best move is to just pile money in when ahead and get out when it seems like I'm not. It sounds ridiculously simple but for some reason I keep not doing either haha.

So overall a bit of a nothing update. I've been donating to tourney prizepools, avoiding cash because I'm sad-bad and deteriorating mentally a little. But on the plus side I am feeling really grateful and positive to have the support of the new coach. I don't want to burden him too much though so hopefully I can maximise what I take away from however many sessions he is willing to offer me.

Plans for the next week are that I'm going to be putting in a lot more time with GTOWizard trainer and I'm going to read The Mental Game of Poker. It is obviously so widely recommended for a reason. No idea why I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. Tilt affects my play a lot more than I'd like to admit sometimes and if I am going to build up my confidence and mental game then books like this are essential.

sounds like you need a mental break, take a day or two off. Also I think it's important to have a routine, sleep roughly the same time each night. I see you're playing tournaments as well as cash, in my opinion it may be best to focus on just one thing. both are very hard, however I believe the threshold to become profitable is lower in cash, cash also has way less variance so would take less of a toll on your mental state, and with cash it would be easier to have a routine. I believe you'd do better to focus on one discipline and I'd vote for cash. Not to never play tournaments but let cash be the focus. Tournaments are incredibly hard, there's sooooo much to learn, even if you become profitable the variance is so high you may still lose for a long time. cash however although there's also a lot to learn, you can imo become profitable a lot quicker, it takes less of a toll on your mental state and you can develop a Kind of normal routine. That would be my advice, pick one discipline to study and get as good as you can at that before branching out. GL at the tables

Edit: if you do play cash GG may not be the best place...

Yeah I fully agree. The whole point of this blog was about moving away from tournaments and into cash. But I just kept going back to tournaments. Had one decent score and then went nutty with them.

My focus with study is on cash and that's definitely what I want to be doing for the consistency. Just kept impulsively registering for tournaments so I have to get out of that habit.

Also yeah I know GG is garbage. The rake is killing me. But unforunately there's not a lot of great options for where I live. I am in Australia so there's no access to Pokerstars, Party Poker etc.

I know the games are supposed to be softer at Ignition but the rake is similar to GG at the stakes I am playing at but with worse software and no rakeback because I created the account without an affiliate.

I have read that I can get onto ACR but am unsure fully about getting money on and off of it. Should try it out but I have read that the games there are harder than GG.

Coin Poker is an option but the rakeback is needleslly complicated and has low traffic.

Seals with Clubs is another option but they recently raised their rake and have low traffic.

I know some peopel in Australia play on app games but they make me uneasy. The process of agent deposits and the constant reports of clubs that are scams, rake traps and bot infested doesn't fill me with confidence.

I guess it's all a learning curve, but I definitely think picking one discipline would be best. As far as the games go on ACR I don't think they're hard, I used to play on there and did just fine and I was a way worse player back then. I guess things may have changed however, they also had a decent bonus scheme and the rake is low, lower than stars I believe and way lower than GG. I think for the leader board bonus if I could fit in 30k hands a week at 50nl that was usually enough to hit the 500 dollar bonus which can really help build the roll, I'm not sure if they have the same scheme now, this was a few years ago. depositing and withdrawing is fairly simple, you just need a crypto account. I guess it's an extra step buying and withdrawing in crypto but it's not too much hassle once you're set up. I think if you do play cash don't pick GG, you'll at best become a leaderboard grinder. ACR may be the way to go, plus you'll be able to use a proper HUD. Hopefully this isn't bad advice, it's just my thoughts.