My Poker Journey as a Part-Time Player - Cash Game GGPoker

Hey everyone,

I’m currently playing the microstakes on GGPoker. Thanks to the Bad Beat Jackpot, I could technically play at NL50, but to be honest, I don’t feel comfortable there. It actually stresses me out a bit.

So, I’m starting my blog and challenge on NL25 with a bankroll of $1,600. Let’s see how this journey unfolds!

Looking forward to sharing more with you all

Lately, I’ve been working on lowering my Aggression Factor (AF) without sacrificing too much of my "Won When Saw Flop" (WWSF). I’ve noticed that most winning players tend to have an AF between 2 and 2.5, rarely going over 3.0. My 3-bet stat could also use some improvement—I definitely need to increase it a bit.

Additionally, I’m aiming to raise my "Went to Showdown" (WTSD) slightly while bringing down my "Won at Showdown" (WSD) percentage. As you can probably tell, my overall winrate isn’t very high, but with the help of rakeback, my bankroll continues to grow steadily.

Let’s see how these adjustments affect my game!

Good luck in your grind!
Will be following.

Reviewing My Game: Finding Leaks in My Play

Last night, I spent some time analyzing several spots in Hand2Note and identified a few areas where I'm losing money.

One of the more "fishy" leaks I discovered is my inability to let go of strong hands when the action or board runouts later weaken them.

For example, I noticed that I'm actually losing money with flushes as the out-of-position player in single-raised pots when my opponent in position raises on the turn or river. How is that even possible? The losing hands in this category follow a common pattern—they aren't the nut flush, and the board pairs.

I can recognize that my hand is no longer the nuts, and I shift into check mode. However, instead of playing check/fold at some point, I end up check/calling all the way to a stack-off. When I reviewed these hands with a solver, it turns out that according to GTO, I should have folded many of them and saved myself a lot of big blinds.

Example: CO vs. BB (Hero)

CO c-bets.
BB check/raises the flop with a Jack-high flush draw.
The turn brings a pairing card and the flush completes.
Hero checks.
CO bets the turn and shoves on the river.
Hero calls down.
The correct play would have been to check/fold on the turn with the weak flush, or alternatively, to lead small on the turn and check/fold the river.

There were several more examples like this, but I can't recall all of them off the top of my head.

What can I improve?
I need to think more in terms of ranges! With some logical reasoning, it becomes clear how my hand strength can degrade into just a bluff-catcher.

Major Mindset Leak

I know that poker is a game of high variance. I just need to stick to playing within my bankroll, make solid decisions, and try to make the best moves possible. My goal is to play my volume and review my hands off the tables. I can't control which cards are dealt, and even as a winning player, I’ll lose hands and sometimes multiple buy-ins in a row. But in the long run, I’ll come out ahead.

However, today I lost 4 buy-ins in just 190 hands. I reviewed them—it was just bad luck. But despite knowing that, I still struggle with it. Stupid game. No motivation. Logged off. And this happens every few weeks.

Deep down, I’m the kind of person who wants to do the right thing out of conviction and expects positive feedback for it. But in poker, you can often do the right thing and still lose. This conflicts with my inner beliefs. Sometimes I wonder if the kind of person I am is even suited for this game.

Following!

Blog Post: Insights from Watching Jektiss and My Own Learnings
Yesterday and today, I watched some of Jektiss’s streams on Twitch. He makes really solid, consistent folds. However, there was one hand he couldn’t let go of on stream. I can’t remember the full action, but he had trips with AJ on an A37A9 board. The opponent bet 80-90% on the river, and Jektiss thought for a while before calling, only to see his opponent show a full house. He mentioned that offstream he would have folded, but onstream he didn’t want to look too nitty.

Getting to the point where you can make good folds without too much emotion, even when you have a strong hand but the opponent isn't bluffing enough or always has the better hand in certain spots, is something I still need to work on. But I believe finding those good folds is crucial.

Here's a hand of mine that fits this theme perfectly. I found it on Hand2Note today, though it's already 10 months old. It’s a great example of what I’m currently trying to learn.

I think I played the flop and turn well. But at the river, logic needs to kick in: 4-flush board, warning! The card changes everything! What’s happening now? What hands does he raise on the flop, bet on the turn, and then bet again on the river? The easy-to-find bluffs on the flop have now become nut and 2nd-nut flushes, and we’re not playing against someone like LinusLove who might turn low pairs into bluffs.

Are we beating any value combos? No.
Is the opponent over-bluffing or under-bluffing here? Likely under-bluffing.
Does the opponent have natural, obvious bluffs in their betting range? No.
Is this betting line/board runout easy to over-bluff? No.

Only the position and the river bet size suggest that it could be over-bluffed, but these reasons are too weak given the board runout and the betting line.

Conclusion: This is a fold.

However, I don’t make these logical connections often enough at the table. Instead, my thought process is more like: "I have a flush, not the nuts, but it’s still a strong hand. I won’t build the pot unnecessarily, but I’m not folding either." End of story. The fact that my hand strength significantly decreases on the river doesn’t seem to fully register—at least not in my B-game or C-game.

I’m writing all of this down to better internalize it myself, and maybe someone else can take something from it too.