My Poker Journal

I played 30 minutes of 25z today.

I spent 2.5 hours writing my poker journey up to today.

Here is my journey from 11/12 - 17 years old.

How I discovered poker

Back in 2011 or 2012, it was a silent night in my house with everyone asleep. I’m fighting the grueling boredom searching for something to do. I remembered, earlier in the week I had played a card game with my family, idr what it was, and my Mom did this shuffle with the cards that was so satisfying to watch and listen to. I asked her how she did it. She said something along the lines of, “Practice”, not helpful lol. I thought, okay I’ll try to learn how to do that shuffle. But where to find a deck of cards? For Halloween, my sisters went as the Deal or No Deal girls, and for their briefcases, they used cases of poker chip sets. Ahah, I’ll use the poker set’s deck of cards. This is irrelevant, but it was a terrible deck of cards, the things ripped like a piece of loose-leaf paper. Upon finding these cards, I found the rules to Texas No Limit Holdem. This was the first time I can remember hearing about the game.

This night actually led to me learning magic tricks and posting them on my YouTube channel. I was 12 so the vids sucked but that phase of my life holds a nostalgic place in my heart. I don’t remember the first time I played poker or where, but my best guess is Governor of Poker or Bullfrog Poker on Miniclip. I just checked and the earliest vid I found of myself playing poker is July of 2012. That’s crazy, maybe I’ll do a hand analysis of me as a yungin… I just watched it and I take that back, it’s boring af. Also, I was kinda a dick :/

Soon after that, I begged everybody and anybody to play with me. My parents, my siblings, my friends, my relatives, my parents’ friends, my siblings’ friends, and even my goddamn homework tutor. Ngl I was a nuisance. A tiny 12 year old but a big ass nuisance. When I was 13 or 14 I started playing on an actual online site and grinded their $10 freerolls. 10 places were paid and there were usually around 300-600 entrants. I’m just dreaming about cashing so I can spin it up a bankroll and make boatloads of money. I cashed a few times, each time less than $1. The only thing I could play with that was 2nl, which I busted every time. Fast forward 2-3 years and I binked around $5 in a bigger freeroll. I started grinding $1.50 Sit n Go’s and worked it up to over $50. All I’m thinking about is vegas and the ****ing mirage. I finally have a bankroll that I can spin up. I started experiencing some connection issues, so I contacted the support. In turn, they locked my account because there was no ID associated with it :( After that, I was restricted to home games with my friends.

Years 18 and up will be coming in later posts.

Title updated

Table Time:
20 minutes of 25z (warmup for live play)
3.5 hours total of live play
- 45 minutes at 1/3
- 1.5 hours at 2/5 w/ straddle
- 1.5 hours at 5/5/10

I played well today. My mindset was good and was affected very little by tilt. I exercised this morning via pickup soccer. I find I'm much more on my game if I exercise beforehand. I'm unsure if this would apply for very intense exercise.

I want to carve out more time for these posts. Doing these at night right before bed tilts me toward rushing them to get enough sleep. Thus lowering the quality and utility of these posts.

My plan for tomorrow:
1. 30 minutes of online table time
2. Start writing at 9pm (bedtime 9:45p) and write about my poker journey from when I turned 18 until I moved into my college dorm.
3. Include exercise "Yes or No?" and the type of exercise in each post moving forward

Table Time:
35 minutes of 25z
Exercise: Yes - (Physical Therapy, 1 hour)

My day was fully booked. The only things I could have done to fit in more were either to get up earlier or not watch a few youtube vids in between meetings.

Turning 18 years old and leaving for college

My volume until I turned 18 was solely home cash games. Once I turned 18, I bought a $25 pre-paid card and loaded up my account. I played mostly Sit n Go’s and MTTs. I’d sprinkle 2nl and 5nl in there every once in a while. I started carving out time to study and memorize push-shove charts. In our classroom, our teacher put up the names of every student who got a 5 on the AP Macro and Microeconomics test. I remember the literal shock I had reading Connor Drinan’s name up there. One day in economics class, we had time to work on homework. I had already finished so I whipped out some push-shove charts and started memorizing away. My teacher came over and asked what I was doing. I said, “I’m studying game theory charts that are used for poker. The guy, Connor Drinan, on the wall over there plays professionally now.” She said she remembered him and said he was a smart kid. She mentioned the $1 million dollar bad beat he had. I said that he actually made money on the tournament and briefly explained what satellite tournaments and staking were. Core memory right there.

Turning 18 opened another avenue for poker. There was an 18+ card room that hosted cash games, sit n go’s and MTTs. My bankroll was maybe $400. Miniscule. I played a few $40 sit n go’s and cashed here and there. I think when my bankroll was around $500 or $600 I decided to take a shot at 1/2 cash games. I had a rough idea about bankroll management, but this quote reminds me of how incredibly naive I was regarding variance. I **** you not I can remember saying these exact words at my local 1/2 game when I was 18, “I can’t wait until I have 10 hours of play so I can get a good sample size and see what my win rate is”. Yea, keep dreamin buddy. I was making money, but there was a problem. I was disappearing for up to half a day consistently, I was worried my parents would notice. My parents were NOT fans of my playing poker. If they find out, they’ll confiscate my bankroll. I came up with what I thought was a genius plan. I’ll “confess” to my mom what I have been doing and why I’ve been gone. I thought this would increase the odds of getting to keep my bankroll and continuing to play at the card room. It worked, but then I realized I didn’t have the bankroll to play anything live anyway. Stuck again. I played online and home games until it was time to go to college. When I left for college, I planned to play online every Saturday or Sunday. I ended up playing maybe once during my entire time there. I still played during summers, which is what I’ll write about next.

Plan for tomorrow:
1. 30 minutes of online table time
2. Write my story of playing during college summers
3. Continue to include exercise in this log

Table Time:
10 minutes of 25z

Exercise: Yes - (Physical Therapy, 1 hour)

My sleep last night was abysmal. I got in bed at 10p and didn't fall asleep until 1p. I woke up at a weird time and stayed in bed for another hour.
I could have put in the volume right after I got back from physical therapy but the fatigue from sleep tilted me a bit so I watched an episode of Suits instead. After that, I put in 10 minutes so I at least get some hands in. I think I would have preferred getting the volume in and journaling more despite the fatigue. I'll make a mental note of that and attempt to put in the volume next time that situation occurs to get a better idea of which path I would prefer.

I think I'll be able to fall asleep on time tonight to catch the train and work on poker during the ride. If so I should be able to get about an hour of total work in. I won't have any time other than that because I have dinner w/ my sis and dad, then a soccer game afterward. I'm at a cross roads right now of getting to sleep on time or finishing my goals for today.

Goals for tomorrow:
Get on the train and work on poker during the train ride.
On the way to work, I'll work on writing the story of playing during college summers. First, my transition from Sit n Go's & MTTs to cash game. Second, playing poker part-time in the summer of 2021.
On the way back from work, I'll put in some online volume.

Table Time:
50 minutes of 25z
- 30 mins on ACR where I got railed for 3 buy-ins
- 20 mins on Ignition to reduce tilt cuz by playing against a softer field. I had 4 or 5 losing sessions in a row on ACR

Exercise: Yes (Soccer Game, 1 hour)

My sleep was awful. I was fried the entire day. I could barely do work at my day job. I napped and meditated on the train to work instead of journaling. I'll take extra sleep over more work any day, so I think that was a fine decision. I'm gonna work from home tomorrow so I can get better sleep. I felt I did better not being a calling station in my second session on Ignition. In my first session on ACR I didn't think some hands all the way through. Cost my stack on one of them. An improvement in my thought process would be to just take things slower.

Goals for tomorrow:
1. 30 minutes of table time
2. Journal again - I hope to finish writing the story I mentioned in my last update but not a requirement.

Table Time:
35 minutes 2 tabling 50z on ignition

Exercise: Yes (Physical Therapy, 1 hour)

I didn't slack much, if at all today. I watched 20 mins of TV I guess. I slept well today. I cut into my journaling time to play a little extra of online. I don't even know what stake I can beat online right now. I don't have a big enough sample size at any stake. I'm also having trouble importing 100nl hands and above into poker tracker for iggy :( What I am pretty sure about is that if I 8 table I'm prob a losing player at 25nl. Especially if I don't have complete focus. Any slight distraction and I might time out on a hand. My biggest leak is probably 4-bet pots with weak hands. I don't have an intuition or thought process for what I should do. I think I'm giving too much credit for the opponent having mixed in many suited broadway in their range. I don't have a big enough sample to guess the proportion of QQ+ to suited broadway tho. I'll look into this in the future.

Goals for tomorrow:
1. Play sum poker, whichever format I feel like
2. Journal again - Idk about finishing story yet. I'll be very busy tomorrow.

Table Time:
3.25 hours at home game - just for funsies

Exercise: No (Soccer, 15 minutes)

2 things I would like to improve on today. I want to fit in an hour of exercise and make sure I get to bed on time. I had a doctor appointment that took an hour longer than expected :/. So I don't want to be too hard on myself. Time flew by at the home game and I missed the time I wanted to go to bed. Normally I'd be pretty tired by then but I've been having trouble sleeping lately. This may be a contributing factor. I tried Tro zzz to fall asleep last night. It worked surprisingly well, but I seemed to get drowsy earlier in the day today. I felt the drowsiness start to affect my decision-making around 6p. I also didn't really exercise today so that may have contributed.

Goals for Tomorrow:

1. Exercise (High Intensity or 45 mins+)
2. Journal about story
3. Attempt a 2-hour or longer focused online session.
- "Focused" means no music, no background noise, no sips of water, no bathroom breaks, etc. This is to achieve a greater depth of focus so I can extract the maximum value out of my session.
4. Start getting ready for bed around 10:45p

Table Time:
3.5 hours 2 tabling 50z

Session 1 went well (2 hours). I was mentally locked in pretty much the entire time. It was also mostly 3 handed zoom until the last 30 mins. I made a notable mental mistake. This is one of the reasons I call river bets with too many bluff catchers. I don't have enough time to analyze it right now. I'll consider analyzing the hand and the mental leak on the spot next time. The benefit of doing this is I will be more motivated and focused to analyze the leak right then and there. However, this will decrease my daily table time. Before the session, I'll determine if it'll be uninterrupted table time or if I'll analyze hands right off the bat.

Session 2 went okay (1.5 hours). I got stacked 3 times pretty quickly. I don't think they were big mistakes, but I wasn't on top of my mental game. I was fighting falling asleep at the end of it. I planned to do a third session after I recovered but I got a massive stomach ache and watched a movie w/ my parents.

A better routine would be awesome. My day job will be fully remote starting November, so I'll be able to have more consistent days and have more time to play and study poker.

I also spent an hour writing about my earlier poker journey. I left off when I had left home to start my freshman year of college.

The Transition from MTTs to Cash

I ended up P2Ping and withdrawing all of the funds I had in my online account after it was dormant for some time. I’d still play live while I was home over breaks. I started looking deeper at the structure of the tournaments and the bankroll requirements. I think the rake for most tournaments at that card room was between 15 and 20%, before tip. Massive. The buy-ins I would do were $40 to $60. The card room offered last-out side bets which were not raked. Doing these side bets seemed the only way to make a decent profit, but this brought my average buy-in up to $100. The bankroll needed for that buy-in size was way higher than I had, and much higher than cash game. On top of that, I might play a 6-hour tournament to cash +$30 on average. That’s an abysmal hourly. After that realization, I made the switch to cash game. I haven’t gone back since. I loved playing MTTs, and they hold a place in my heart.

Playing part-time in the Summer of 2021

The summer of 2021 rolls around, the summer between my junior and senior year of college. I had a remote internship last summer that I didn’t like. I didn’t want another remote internship so I took the summer off and decided to play poker and run an eBay store part-time. Since I would be playing more, I decided to make get my first paid training. I bought a month of the Upswing Lab and learned the 4 categories framework. This gave me a much more complete idea of what my strategy was. However, this new framework, combined with treating poker like a job had unforeseen consequences. I stopped using critical thinking and legitimately just used Doug Polk’s 4 categories. I paid ZERO attention to what my opponents were doing. I played the exact same way against every single person. To be fair, it prints money, it’s easier to stay disciplined with zero exploitation, and I can do that **** in my sleep. However, it made the game stale and monotonous. I don’t want to attribute too much of this to 4 categories framework. Looking back, a huge part of this came from how I started to treat any kind of work. I think the 4 categories framework just gave me the ability to play the game in a monotonous fashion since you can apply it to most situations. I booked 80 hours and made $1600 over 3 months. I thought this was a good sample size and was confident that my win rate was $20 per hour. Looking back, I now know 80 hours is nowhere near a big enough sample size to approximate an hourly rate. I think I ran above EV but punted my stack numerous times bluffing with A5s. Do I think I was a winning player? Most definitely, but I haven’t the slightest clue how much I was truly expected to win.

Goals for tomorrow:
1. 1 hour of online table time
2. Journal Again
3. Exercise

I'm traveling to Milwaukee tmo so I'll have less time to dedicate to poker.

Table Time:
20 minutes 2 tabling 60z

Exercise: Yes - (Walking, 45 mins), (Sauna Blanket, 75 mins)

I think I'm going to stop doing online sessions right before bed. This wakes me up a bit and the emotions stirred by playing may inhibit my sleep. I also want to invest in a sleep tracker to improve my sleep. I watched a movie w/ my fam and helped my mom out with some of her work stuff instead of getting an hour of table time in. I could have cut the movie out, cuz we watched one yesterday. I was abnormally sore and fatigued today. My exercise amount yesterday typically wouldn't cause this amount of soreness. I hypothesize that I didn't sleep well. I want to try out the sleep is a skill course I saw in a Phil Galfond newsletter, but I feel I have too many things on my plate right now. Committing to getting nearly 10 hours of sleep per night has massively improved my mood. I just checked and it'll cost about $2k. I'll hold off on it for now. I think it'll be a no-brainer once I have the skill, bankroll, and time to play 5/10/25 consistently. Until then, I'm not sure.

Goals for Tomorrow:
1. 30 minutes of table time, but permission to stop the session immediately and analyze a hand.
Mondays are busy at work, so I'm unsure how much time I'll have.

Table Time:
90 seconds of 50z before I got stacked

Exercise: Yes - (Soccer 1 hour)

I then wanted to look at the hand in Equilab and GTO+. I'll have to reinstall Equilab. I put the hand into GTO+ but I want to watch some more tutorials on it because I'm not sure what I'm doing.
I had to work late today so I only got 10 minutes of poker in.

Goals for Tomorrow:
1. Exercise
2. Journal
This week is going to be very busy, I don't think I'll have much time to put into poker. I'll still commit to journaling once a day.

Exercise: Yes (Physical Therapy, 1 hour)

Work was busy today. I don't feel like only 20 minutes of studying will provide sufficient depth to understand the game better. So, I propose working late on Wednesday and Thursday so I can effectively take Friday off and dedicate that to studying. My main goal right now is pumping up my volume of time dedicated to poker as this will be a necessity if I want to make the transition to full-time. Also, transitioning to fully remote starting in November will be a huge help. However, I still have physical therapy near work (about a 2.5-hour commute total). The timing also makes it tough to make it to the casino at night.

Goals for Tomorrow:
1. Do extra work for Friday
2. Exercise

Exercise: Yes (Soccer, 1 hour)

I did extra work today. Hooray! I'll have to keep it up tomorrow to take off Friday. I started a log for my uninterrupted work and deep work per day, not exclusive to poker-related work. I think it'll be more useful to track the work I am doing instead of trying to plan my work for each day. I'm rather confident in this since the same principle helped me with my finances. Instead of planning how much I am going to spend or each month to calculate my 6-months expenses, I track how much I am spending each month and use that to predict my 6-months expenses.

Uninterrupted work: 220 mins
Deep work: 120 mins

Goals for Tomorrow:
1. Work extra to get off early Friday.
2. Track uninterrupted and deep work
3. Exercise

Exercise: Yes (Physical Therapy, 1 hour)

I struggled to focus today but I hit my goals.

1. I chose to dedicate a session of focus to work instead of poker so I can get off earlier on Friday

2. Uninterrupted Work: 130 mins, Deep Work: 90 mins

3. see above

Goals for tmo:
1. Bang out 1 hour or more uninterrupted focus session before meetings tmo
2. Exercise
3. Hit the poker tables or get in a deep study session

Table Time:
2 hours live - 1/3 uncapped

Exercise: No

Focus was horrific today. I planned to get a work session done in the morning, but I was on youtube and reddit til 5p. I ended up finishing work around 7p. Lots of things affected my sleep (spicy food before bed, lower body soreness, upper body soreness, poor pillow, pre-sleep routine, and thermostat being very very cold) in hindsight. I could have been more aware of the fatigue tilt and placed stricter boundaries on activities in the morning. Despite an incredible lack of discipline for most of the day, I recovered well. I cranked out my work session and was rarely distracted and I felt my mental game was well above average after that. So, I figured it was okay to hit the table and I played very disciplined. I genuinely believe committing to uninterrupted work sessions has had a massive impact on my mental game. My thoughts feel much clearer.

Uninterrupted work: 145 mins
Deep work: 80 mins

Goals for tmo:
1. Exercise for an hour
2. 4 hours of table time
3. Re-read Phil Galfond's goal-setting system and use that to set future daily goals

Table Time:
4 hours live
20 min online

Exercise: Yes (Lifting, 45 mins)

I maybe spent 30 mins studying, but it was distracted. Today was extremely difficult to focus near the end. I played a little bit of PLO but I was super fatigued at the end. I've been super undisclined today. I don't even want to write out goals for tmo. Also, because I've started journaling late. I'll set an alarm for me to start getting ready for bet tmo. I want to card room today that didn't have 2/5. Only 1/2 was running. Even though it was literally 2 feet from my house, I think it's still +EV to drive to the casino with 2/5 on weekends. This may not be true for weekdays. However, moving forward, I won't be hitting that card room on weekends.

I read a little bit about goal setting. I saw the SMART framework. The S stands for specific. Why would I want to be specific about my goals? This is question I could answer tomorrow because unfortunately I didn't leave myself enough time to write about it.

Even though I my emotion regarding how the day went is pretty low, I did indeed hit goals 1. 2, and 3 partially. Either this means I'm emotions are overreacting or the goals I set aren't the goals I truly want for the day. I'd like to contemplate this more but I don't have enough time. being rushed to write this suxxxxx. Also, the post is much messier today partially cuz of that.

Goals for tmo:
1. Exercise for 45 mins or more.
2. Uninterrupted 1.5 study session, whether it be working on goals or more closely related to poker
3. Set an alarm for time to start getting ready for bed. Abide by that alarm.

Table Time:
1.5 hours online two tabling 50z
2.5 hours live 5/10/25

Exercise: Kinda (Sauna Blanket, 1 hour 5 mins)

I've discovered a new leak that I have. Given a player that I've identified as capable of making "maniac" bluffs. Let's say I'm facing aggression from this player, I haven't been taking into account the line they have taken for this aggression and compared it to the line when I identified them as capable of making "maniac" bluffs. My criteria for identifying them as capable of making "maniac" bluffs involved the cards they flipped over, independent of the line they took. This means they chose to bluff with random cards but not potentially in a spot where the opponent has a weak range. There are two opponents that, in hindsight, I made light calls against based on the assumption they were overbluffing. However, the line they took is an incredibly underbluffed line, or even board. Possibly even tilt.
Here's a hand from today.

Previously I had seen "Maniac" bluff away with 52o, bottom pair, into my boat on a dry board. I don't remember the exact line but I did some checking.

5/10/25
3.1k effective

Hero EP: TcTh raise 75
BTN ("Maniac") Call
BB Call
Straddle Call

Flop 9d5d2d (Pot 330)

BB Check
Hero Bet 125
BTN ("Maniac") Raise 325
BB Fold
Straddle Fold
Hero Call 325

Turn 4c (Pot ~1000)

Hero Check
BTN ("Maniac") Bet 625
Hero Call

River 8s (Pot ~2200)

Hero Check
BTN ("Maniac") Bet 1200

I figure he's probably bluffing enough so I flick in the call.
BTN ("Maniac") show Kd3d for a flush.

I think about the hand for a bit and realize I've made a couple of calls like this where the villain has taken a line that's typically underbluffed. I now believe these players identify when a players range is probably weak and stick it in regardless of their holding. Check-raising on the flop into a multi-way pot on a semi-wet board isn't done light very often. I know some players who would do this but I now have them in a separate category of players. In the future, I can include these questions in my thought process for "maniacs": "When this player bluffed with a random holding, what was the perceived range of the players and what did the board look like?", "If so, how wet is the board and what is my perceived range?"

Goals for tmo
I don't think I'll have any time to study or play tomorrow. I have an improv class starting up and I have to go into work.
1. Get ready for bed on time
2. Read some more about goal setting if there's time available

No Table Time Today or Exercise

I burned the candle at both ends.

There was 45 minutes at the end of the day that I could have used differently. Either to recover better or to throw in some light studying. I used the 45 minutes to watch an episode of Suits. However, to be more aligned with my goals, I've banned Suits for two weeks. This goes for watching all TV shows alone. This does not include watching a show or movie with my family I could have instead done self-care such as a warm shower, stretching, light exercise, or light studying. I may have felt more fulfilled if I did despite it being more difficult. We'll see how these next two weeks go.

Goals for tmo:
1. Try going straight to play live poker from PT (if my mental state is good) If not, go home and get in at least 30 mins of light studying
2. Kill it at work so I'm able to take Friday off earlier. To be more specific, start a work session as soon as I wake up.

Table Time:
2 hours playing 2/5 live

Exercise: Yes (Physical Therapy, 1 hour)

I went straight from PT to play live poker. I get a reasonable amount of time if I go directly. However, the EV is significantly decreased for two reasons. One, I had to wait 20 minutes for a seat. Two, if I don't pack a dinner, I'll have to eat out. Eating a meal out would cost around $10-15. Maybe I could find a 7/11 near my PT and chop that down to $7-$8. On top of that, I may be fatigued at the very end of the day, slightly decreasing my win rate. I felt a lil more loosely goosey today. I caught myself contemplating betting a gutshot, no backdoor flush into a 3-way 3-bet pot as the pre-flop caller. I don't know the EV of that play on that board but it's something I would normally not consider at all. I'm confident leaving at a later PT appointment is not worth it, even if I want to play 5/10/25 because that'll have a large wait time. IFFF, I'm able to get in some studying instead. If I can't get myself to do that, then the small EV may be worth.
Today was an excellent day in terms of work efficiency. Not too much I could have done better. I could have improved with my meal schedule. I ate lunch and dinner very late.

Goals for tmo:
1. I think I'll try to do an extra session of work so I can have more poker time later in the week. I want to study where the EV comes from (Modern Poker Theory homework). However, that will take me a while to understand to the level of depth I want. So, a single hour-long session won't cut it. I'm guessing it'll be a multi-work session problem.
2. Exercise or use sauna blanket if I can't play soccer tomorrow.
3. GET TO BED ON TIME

Table Time:
5 mins online

Exercise: Yes (Soccer, 1 hour)

I'm itching to play and study. Work has been very busy. Starting November I'll be fully remote and have a decreased work load tho.
My mind is flying right now and I need to cool it down before bed. I'll keep this one short

Goals for tmo:
1. Bed on time
2. Make sure to get uninterrupted bouts of work.
3. Exercise

Table Time:
5 mins

Exercise: Yes (Physical Therapy, 1 hour) & (Sauna Blanket, 1 hour)

I missed a work session in the morning cuz I just heard about the Yotta bank situation. Delved into what happened there. I moved most of mine to Wealthfront before the funds were frozen. However, I wanted to check how this could happen with wealthfront and stuff. I'm getting off the topic of poker lol.
I'm proud that I got an extra work session in at night. I have to go to bed early cuz I need to go into work early tomorrow.

Goals for tmo:
1. Bed relatively on time (going out for Halloween)
2. Exercise
3. Uninterrupted bouts of work

Goals from yesterday:
1. Went out for Halloween, decided to end night relatively early and leave the bar at 12:30a. Didn't get home til 3a due to unforeseen circumstances. All is good tho
2. Exercise: Yes (40 mins, lifting)
3. I got a few of these in. I worked on the train both ways getting extra work in. Very happy about that. I forgot my headphones which made uninterrupted bouts of work next to impossible since boss had the TV on. Regardless, work amount and efficiency went well.

I'm not gonna do much reflection. Note on 25z JJ multi-way hand later tho. I had a massive mental leak in a hand yesterday. I def want to address that.

Goals for tmo:
1. Assess if mental state is good enough to play live poker, if so play some live. If not play some online.
2. Uninteruppted bout of work (at least one 1.5 hour session, online poker counts)
3. Find out what to do regarding insurance for shoulder surgery.
4. Exercise

Goals from yesterday:
Goal #1:
Assess if mental state is good enough to play live poker, if so play some live. If not play some online.
Outcome of Goal #1:
My mental state was good enough to play live poker. I noticed twice I was becoming fatigued. I then took a 15 minutes break in my car in an attempt to recover. This seemed to work! I'm proud of myself fol noticing this and being disciplined enough to act on it. I played 4 hours total. 2 hours of 2/5. 2 hours of 5/10/25. I got stacked in 5/10/25 for 3k. The shot failed. I'll have to build up another 3k in my bankroll before taking another shot at 5/10/25.

Here's the hand I got stacked

5/10/25

3.2k effective

Hero CO AsKc Raise 75
Straddle 3-bet 300
Hero 4-bet 725
Straddle Call 725

Pot 1465 (2.2k effective)
Flop KhTh7d

Straddle Check
Hero Check (I decided to mix my check/betting 50/50 here w/ AK)

Turn 5s

Straddle Bet 750
Hero Call 750

Pot ~3000 (1.5k effective)
River 5c

Straddle Jam 1.5k
Hero Call 1.5k

Straddle shows AA

Hand Notes:
Decision: 4-bet AKo 100% in this spot.

Problem: My 4-bet frequency w/ AKo was too high relative to GTO baseline. I woulda been 4-betting 100% in this spot. I don't have straddle preflop charts so I'm not exactly sure what the true GTO 4-bet frequency and sizing would be. CO vs BB 3-bet, I'd be 4-betting about 50%.

My reasoning for decision: 100% 4-bet. Even though I'm IP (typically would 4-bet AKo around 50% IP), this is against the BB and I'm in late position. Therefore, I should be 4-betting AKo more.

Defects in reasoning:
1. It's not the BB, it's the straddle, so I should adjust to be a little tighter
2. Unaware of how to adjust vs 3-bet range based on sizing and effective stack size. I think this was relatively okay tho.
3. I don't know my 4-bet vs BB/Straddle ranges. I was pretty much guessing here.

Actions to attack defects:
1. Adjust thought process to be more meticulous (this is general but being more specific will take time and it's kinda late)
2. Study how sizing affects vs 3-bet ranges
3. Study preflop charts with straddle

I like writing these things out, however I know I'm not going to do these actions yet. My poker studying throughout the week is too unstructured right now to fit these in.

Goal #2: No uninterrupted work bout (other than this journal I guess). I notice I don't get uninterrupted work bouts in after playing live poker for the day. This makes sense cuz I'll typically play live poker in the back half of the day. This I should either attempt work bouts before live poker, or on a completely different day. Takeaway, don't expect to do a work bout after going to play live poker.

Goal #3: Not done

Goal #4: Yes (Lifting 40 mins)

Writing this all out has made it more concrete that there is SOOOO much to do. This is exciting. However, I need to decrease the noise and increase input to pursue these things. I also abstained from watching TV today and I'm proud of myself for that.

Goals for tmo:
1. No table time or studying expected
2. Do chores & fulfill commitments (insurance, returns, gift card pickup, friends' show, open mic, fam dinner)
3. Exercise

i think ur massively overthinking there is no reason to randomize such a decision if i call or 4bet it depends on how old is that guy and how he sits at his chair if he is drunk etc.

if everything signals he is massive nitt I would not 4bet but given he straddled its 99% not the case he is there to play so you 4bet with AK.

hand is standard cooler but i dont think players really take a bite on K-high board 4b pot enough i would slowplay flop.