chronicling my live poker journey

Played 13 hours and made 1485 over the past week from two sessions. Not a bad start to the blog!

Played pretty well but certainly room for improvement.

Identified areas for study:
- Preflop ranges with straddle
- Preflop ranges with different opening sizes and rake

I think this is the best place to start, to rebuild my knowledge to be solid from the ground up. Don't get me wrong, I play reasonably (and better than 99% of the live population) preflop, but in more tricky/rare or marginal spots there is room for improvement. Will look to review how straddles, and different rake and raise sizes influence things to begin with.

Interesting HH:

2/5 1k effective

I raise AQss in the CO to 15, BTN 3bets to 45, BB calls, I 4bet to 200, BTN folds, BB calls.

Flop: Qd 2c 2s BB checks, I bet 100 BB calls

Turn 2d BB checks I bet 300 BB folds

- May not seem that interesting but really happy that I found the 4bet pre (and a good sizing OOP) recognising the really capped and OOP range in the BB. Postflop boring lol but Im really happy I went for this preflop, as opposed to lazily calling and going multiway. I think that BTN is often 3betting too wide and is put in a **** spot with everything but literally QQ+, AKs, while BB never has me dominated or beat preflop. Worked out well 😀

Goals for the following week:
- 10 hours of targetted preflop study
- 10 hours minimum of poker play
- Detailed notetaking of both player tendencies and HH in the time of play

That is all for today, see you next week

Actually one more interesting hand history:

2/5 with the 10 on 1.1k effective

I raise LJ to 30 with A8cc, BTN (live "reg" * ) calls, all else fold

*Note: I use live "reg" to denote the people that are often called regs by the general poker population, but play a largely faceup, simplified style of poker. Calling someone a regular simply because they dont just donate you 100bb is silly. These are players who are likely slightly losing long term vs the field, but aren't as bad as fish preflop, and dont play big pots without big hands like fish and whales so they never lose massively to you, but they will also never win vs you. Apologies for that rant, just something that needs to be said as there is a distinction between these players and fish/whales or other marine species, but there is also a distinction between these and any player trying to play well and for profit and it pisses me off when someone describes a hand history vs a live "reg" who is clearly not a reg whatsoever. Throughout the blog I will expand on my weird vocabulary gained in my time grinding live poker, so prepare yourselves.

Flop Ah7c6s I check BTN bets 25 into 75, I call

Turn 3d I check BTN bets 125 into 125, I fold

Again really happy that I took the time to think through the hand and make (what I assume was) the right fold.

A bit confused by his sizing on the flop. I think this should be a range check from me, and big bet or check board for BTN. That being said it is live poker and it doesnt really matter what PIO says is optimal live "reg"s will do live "reg" things and high frequency bet 1/3 pot on A high boards.

For this size BTN isnt valuebetting anything worse, and I think on this board they just don't have enough intuitive bluffs (specificaly T9s, 98s) while the rest of their air I imagine is much more likely to check and give up, while they would have a bunch of 2 pair combos, sets, better Ax.

That's all for now! I will update on study + gameplay progress at some point next week

Good luck with your live poker goals! You seem to be a pretty good player for someone who is playing for hobby/side income.

Where do you currently play 2/5 and 5/10 if you don't mind sharing?

Thanks for the support!

Would like to remain anonymous so don't really want to give away where I play, since I'm sure with enough context some regs will be able to pinpoint who I am. I'll just say it's not one of the big US markets like Texas, LA, Vegas. Beyond that could be in Macau, or Cape Town, or Belarus. You'll never know!

While it is technically hobby/side income, I do take the game really seriously, played some small stakes online up to 50nl to gain fundamentals, and think I've progressed a long way in the few years I've been playing. I would like to consider myself one of the best 2/5 regs, and certainly beating 5/10 for a decent clip (Note: this would be confirmed by my results, but obviously sample size issues as I've only played a little over 1500 hours lifetime of live poker).

Again, thanks for the support!

Good for you. Sounds like you might be better than the vast majority of the live poker pros in your area, and it sounds like you have every intention to get even better.

no im just an arrogant, overconfident piece of **** right now!

planning on doing the getting even better part though

been dying at work recently so havent had the time to play any poker this week and probably will only play one non-marathon session over the weekend, got a bit of study in though, and seems like I still know what's up. Have to keep reminding myself to be a nit in straddle games though, sims for those spots be playing absurdly tight, not that I will go to the extremes that it does, just good to know what optimal looks like to assess where population makes mistakes - ie. literally every "reg" and obv all the fish playing too loose. Also have to remember to be obscenely nitty in the BB vs big raises. Vs a 5x UTG raise AQo isnt happy lol.

Got the study in for this week but too exhausted and busy at work to have played thus far.

One more interesting HH from last week:

2/5 700 effective

BTN (standard LP live fish) raises to 15, 3bet the SB with As Qd to 60, BTN calls

Flop 6d 6s 2s I bet 90 into 120, BTN calls

Turn 7d I bet 225 into 300, BTN calls

River Qh I jam for 400 into 750, BTN folds

Got bailed out by the river it seems. Any thoughts on flop and turn play? Flop Im going to play bigger bets or checks on this rly low dry board, leveraging all my top overpairs. Turn I have good suits to keep barrelling, block calls, and have a bunch of outs vs his calling range. River easy value jam.
That being said, should I give up turn? Since I'm playing a fish is this flop strategy still fine? IDK. I think I played my hand well, but please tell me I'm wrong

really disappointed I played 0 hours last week work got the best of me and just needed to rest. Got some study intermittently though so that was good. Next week's study focus will also be preflop. in some of the (slightly) higher reach parts of the tree, being 3bet and facing 3bet in both straddled and nonstraddled pots. Currently just lazily playing linear and tight with 3betting and facing 3betting preflop. 3betting linear is good pre i think given people call too often, and 3betting A5s pre is dumb when ATo and A9o calls it.

The thing Im going to really focus on is the thresholds for each of these spots. Previously I used to have so much AJo and KQo and other offsuit stuff in my 3bet range (I have since largely removed this), but Im unclear exactly where thresholds are, apart from just generally 3betting good suited broadway cards, and calling similar.

Also busy with life this week but want to hit the 10 hours of poker, and 10 hours of study. I should be hitting a minimum of 6 hours in a friday session, and hopefully can squeeze in one more this week while balancing having friends - I should stop having friends and employment and a healthy life with a range of hobbies and activities and start gambling more :( .

Let's get it done