My way to high stakes
Hi all. I haven't posted for so long. I'm a grinder from a poor country in south america, right now I am playing NL200 about to climb to NL500. I'm a profesional poker player (only income) since 2019. I kind of slow on climbing stakes but is how I feel confortable. Since this year I have been playing 200/100 regular tables and some zoom 100 tables. I tried to climb on june with a 5 BI shoot but it didn't work. I plan to try again next month, on september if everything goes well.
To be honest the last 2 years I have been a rakeback player, kind of even in games, down on zoom, and winning ok in general. But the time has come to improve my leaks and go for it.
I'm about to turn 40, in my mind I thought these days I would be busy raising a family, I felt ok with the idea of being a 200/500 grinder and stop there, but it didn't happen, so why no go for it all? I decided to switch my "life plan" A (family) to be and elite poker player on high stakes. I won't look for a partner to grow a family anymore, it will just be plan B, and if the chance shows up I will take it, hopefully in a better profesional scenario.
I don't watch results every day, just every closing moth, so I won't be able to post everyday graphs but I want to post thoughts, feelings and hands for myself and whoever finds it entertaining. English is not my native language so my writing could be off sometimes. In the next post I will find the way to add an image of my last month graph and talk about some goals for this month.
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So this is my July. The point where I start coming back from the bottom of the sea was when I started to focus on changing one of my biggest leaks wich is 3beting. My general 3b was by this time like 7.5/8. Since then I obliged myself to go out of confort zone and now it is in the range of 10/11. I want to take it to ~12.
From this month I want to be obsesed again with poker, like the first 1.5 years, play, watch videos, study, read, etc. That's why I'm doing this blog, to focus more. Some goals that I used to do ok but I'm not being so seriuos the last months:
- Wake up 7AM, be 11pm in bed. Morning is for studing poker and gim.
- Do small sessions, 1,5hs and rest some time. The only excuse is very good tables + good mindset. If mindset is low just quit and meditate.
- Stop wasting time on cheap dopamine sources, specially chating with no purpose.
I will be posting my everyday feelings. If anyone is interested now or whenever, feel free to ask anything.
Today I played some good sesions but I did call some rivers where I knew I was losing to confirm or in the hope to win a hand after having some suckouts, wich is very wrong, I was able to control it but I lost 2/3 BI that I could save. Tomorrow I want to be with this clear on mind.
how much RB did you get in JULY?
- What network are you playing on?
- If you do not have people depending on you financially (e.g. family), you can definitely shottake more aggressively so take advantage of your situation.
Good luck 😃
- What network are you playing on?
- If you do not have people depending on you financially (e.g. family), you can definitely shottake more aggressively so take advantage of your situation.
Good luck 😃
- Hi. I am playing on PS and Ipoker right now. 75/25.
- I know but I also know I can't do a real god job having the leaks I have, like the low 3b, call too much rivers and low agression. I don't want to climb just to be a even NL500 rakeback player xD. I'm working on it and I feel confortable in the stakes I'm in. Also one of what I consider my strenghts is patience, inbetween fixin my leaks I will continue making 5 BI shoots every month. I kind of need the anxiety to fuel my desire to improve.
Thanks! I will need the luck. Everytime I climbed stakes I have this thing where if last stake was easy to climb, next will be very hard. I climbed 200 in one shot, so 500 is a final boss.
If you are 3betting low, your 4bets are probably low too. Don't forget about them, i've been developing this part of my game aswell.
If you are 3betting low, your 4bets are probably low too. Don't forget about them, i've been developing this part of my game aswell.
They are, around 3.5% 4b range. I am founding it hard to increse it. I avoid bluff 4beting some players like super loose caller recreationals or very agressive regs that don't fold anough to 4b OOP. It seems like I will need to develop an "extra" range of some hands to apply to the rest of the pool if I want to have it ~4.5
Today was not a good day. I felt sleep all the time, I couldn't sleep early yesterday because I slept too much on weekend lol. Wasn't lucky, they hit all they cards all the time. But I'm kind of happy with my way of managing it, not the best but didn't tilt. I quited zoom after the first break because I wasn't able to manage the speed of things. River CE it's ok, I called some arguable hands but I am doing it better at least.
I also called 2 or 3 shoves from short loose pasive recreationals on the turn with TP that I could have saved too, maybe if I was more alert and less anxious because of the run I would have folded. Those hands where you don't know the villain, he is a 50/15 in 100 hands and he pushes his 30bb left on turn with a crazy made straight with 85o. I need to focus on avoiding risks against players I don't know and noted yet, this may not be a mayor leak, probably even on those lines anyway but there is no need to call everytime.
The rutine for the rest of the day will be hard because my eyes are closing but I will try my best, after my 1 hour rest I have to:
- Play piano 1 hour
- Cook and eat
- Shower
- Watch my diary episode of some show (the only pasive activity on the full day)
- Read 30/60 minutes.
- Sleep before 00hs
Better session today. There was an stupidity point where I paid 2 all ins that where not horrible but I could have saved that money, I don't want to hero call that much with no excuse, then if the desicion is hard I have a random number generator to call 50% of the times and I didn't used it, just insta call.
Today was a good day. I think I didn't win much but I played very consciosly the full 5.5hs. No big mistakes, maybe I'm moving too much to the aggro side and bluff too much but I think that is a necesary price to get the skill. At first is easier because population don't know about your strategy changes and it gets harder when the addapt.
My mind is kind of in a fog because of "skirt" problems lol, but I managed to focus 100% at least when playing.
