If not this, then what ?
Introduction
Welcome everybody, it is my first time posting on twoplustwo. My name is Seth, I am franco-british (my nickname) and I live in Japan because my wife is Japanese.
I started playing Poker in China in 2018 when I was an exchange student, because I had a lot of free time and I used to go to the internet cafés to play games and eventually got bored, which is when I decided to play poker. Back then, I didn't really study much except watching some streams and grasping the concept of opening ranges and cbetting, and it was enough for me to be breakeven in NL2, and earn 100$ a week through volume challenges, which was amazing considering my budget back then and the cost of life in China. I was used to play on 4 NL2z table + 4 NL2 tables, even though there was absolutely 0 thinking process I was just playing my cards and doing as much hands as I could. I eventually quitted because I was spending 12 hours a day clicking for less than 1$ an hour and was ruining my health for no reasons. I successfully stopped by myself, and played a little bit during covid but didn't do much more.
Last month, I saw that there was a bar nearby my house that was specialized in Poker (it's technically not for money because gambling is illegal in Japan), and I attended a few times. This live action motivated me to learn Poker more deeply, and even though I play online, I am moderate with it and mainly focus on learning new things. I have always been decent at maths and learning deep concepts and frequencies makes me feel incredibly happy, no matter if I play or not.
My goals
I currently play in NL2 but I start to have a good enough winning sample to switch to NL5. However I think that I still have a lot of things to learn, and even though I could play NL5 full time, I think that I will only do it when I am at my best in term of mood and energy, and I will use NL2 to try to integrate new concepts and correct some leaks that I have (not for too long of course).
I plan to study the game a lot and slowly move up until I reach online NL100/NL200. My ultimate Poker goal is to build a big enough bankroll and play live games in Macao/Manila, especially given the fact that I speak Chinese fluently. I would like to be able to play live games every day and maybe make it my living. I don't think that I will ever be a very good MTT player but I don't mind doing a low buy-in APT Tournament from time to time. I own a company, which requires me to work about 1 hour a day and is sufficient for me to live so I have a lot of time to practice.
Why this blog ?
For the month of February, I had a drive document with a lot of information and also a handwritten journal but I thought that it would be an ever commitment for me to post it online. At this exact moment, I think that I have a lot of leaks in my game. I am probably good enough to win in NL2 and breakeven in NL5 but there are a lot of situations where I am not sure that what I am doing is the right play or not.
I think that I am aware of a lot of bad habits that I have and even if I have seen myself getting way better over a month I still have a lot to work on if I want to climb the stakes.
March study focus
In march I will try to play 35000 hands in NL2 and NL5
In term of theory this is probably what I need to work on the most at the moment :
Know all the GTO 6-max preflop ranges 1/36 (just a review for RFI but I might do some mistakes in 3bet and BB vs SB pots)
Make 10 hand review sessions
Make a MDA based on the field I play against in NL5
Deep Work : Work on turn overbet hand families
Deep Work : Work on OOP medium hand postflop vs Agro exploit
Deep Work : Work on exploiting OOP vs 3bet too much
Deep Work : Work on exploiting OOP vs Cbet too much + board families
Deep Work : Work on IP wet flops GTO baseline
Deep Work : Work on OOP flop check raising GTO baseline
And probably a lot more
Do any of you guys how I can actually see my frequencies related to hand strength at the flop ? I wanted to check my OOP cbet frequencies in 3bet pots even though I think they don't raise enough to be a big issue for now I would like to learn more about it while it's not severely punished
4 Replies
The goal of this blog is to be critical, and I won't be scared of showing my mistakes. I decided that I would do an NL2 session and that if everything seemed to be fine, I would make an other session in NL5.
I always play a very good gameplan until I make 1 borderline call that costs me like 40+ bb and ruins my sessions. I don't know why I stay so disciplined for hours and then take a borderline decision.
I should probably fold here. I stopped my session straight after this hand (as you can see on the graph) because I wasn't sure I was playing my A game anymore.
My trips is worthless, I should find a fold, I don't mind the river bet in case he has A high or a low pair that he would call because of his 53/17 profile, but when he raises I should fold all day.
Graph March 1st
After review : I think that I play better postflop than I used to do at some point, but I feel like I struggle way much more to value my strongest hands in NL5, and have to double barrell with average hands way much more frequently than I used to do in NL2. My cbet sizings and frequencies are probably not optimal even though it doesn't have much impact for now. I also notice a very big difference in 3bet frequency between NL2/NL5. Overall I am doing ok but sometimes I should be more disciplined and find the FOLD button.
In general, on a wet 456 board from OOP we want to be doing a lot of checking as it hits the callers range more. If we do bet we want to be using larger sizes. The board is very dynamic meaning there's many turns that will change what the nuts is and the relative strength of our perceived strongest preflop hands like overpairs will go way down in value. For the strength we're trying to represent betting small doesn't make sense. The AKs hand I wouldn't worry about at all, stacking off pre for 100bbs isn't a mistake especially not vs some 37/14 fish
GL with your challenge
In general, on a wet 456 board from OOP we want to be doing a lot of checking as it hits the callers range more. If we do bet we want to be using larger sizes. The board is very dynamic meaning there's many turns that will change what the nuts is and the relative strength of our perceived strongest preflop hands like overpairs will go way down in value. For the strength we're t
Thank you very much for your comment, the first one so far. OOP In the first situation I usually bet 75% of the time on low boards since I wouldn't expect him to hit this board a lot (but of course it's not SRP so he probably have more hands that hit the board just calling the 3bet). I probably should bet higher however, and be more disciplined on later streets.
Thank you for your advice, I have a lot to work on
Small update, I had a local small PLO tournament which I earned a ticket for long time ago. I didn't know much about PLO (just the basics), but I managed to win.
After that I wanted to see how online PLO was and it seems that it is full of *not so smart people* who don't know the rules.
Probably won't make it my goal but I enjoy playing this game more than I though I would do.
