How 3000 changed my poker career
Hey guys,
I figured it was time to start a new thread documenting the next chapter of my poker journey.
This thread will cover poker, coaching, solvers, building a training platform, streaming, interesting hands, and hopefully helping a few people along the way.
But before I talk about the project, I think it's important to explain why I built it in the first place.
A little over two years ago, I binked the $108 GG Mystery Festival for roughly $43,000.
At the time, I thought I was pretty good.
I was winning.
I was confident.
But I also knew there was another level I hadn't reached yet.
So I made what turned out to be one of the best investments of my life.
I hired Bryan Paris for coaching.
At the time, my total tournament profit on GG was somewhere around $80,000-$100,000.
Over the next several months, Bryan introduced me to GTO Wizard and the world of solver-based study.
To be honest, I didn't love it at first.
The solver looked complicated.
The outputs were overwhelming.
The concepts felt unintuitive.
But I stuck with it.
Over roughly ten hours of coaching, we reviewed hands, identified leaks, challenged assumptions, and started rebuilding parts of my game from the ground up.
After that, I purchased my own GTO Wizard subscription and continued studying on my own.
Fast forward about two years.
Today my Sharkscope rating sits at 99 (Macatack69 on GGNetwork).
My total tournament profit exceeds $500,000 USD.
My total cashes exceed $2 million.
I've cashed in the WSOP Main Event and won multiple packages along the way, including three WSOP Main Event packages and seven Bahamas Super Main packages.
Looking back, it's kind of crazy.
A few thousand dollars invested into coaching and study completely changed the trajectory of my poker career.
Which brings me to the reason I built this project.
One thing always bothered me about poker education.
Training sites provide tremendous value, but most learning is passive.
You sit and watch videos.
You consume information.
You listen to someone talk for an hour.
Maybe you retain 15-20% of it.
The alternative is learning directly through a solver.
That can be incredibly powerful, but it's also expensive, intimidating, and difficult for many players to interpret.
What I wanted to create was something that sits in the middle.
Something that combines the power of solver-based learning with a more interactive and accessible experience.
Over the last several months, my team and I have been building exactly that.
The basic idea is simple:
Take solver outputs.
Extract the underlying logic.
Convert those concepts into interactive drills, games, simulations, and training exercises.
Instead of staring at solver grids, you're actively making decisions and receiving feedback.
The goal isn't to replace solvers.
The goal is to help people develop solver intuition.
To help them understand why certain actions make money.
To help them learn faster.
The platform is essentially finished.
Now comes the hard part: building a community around it.
Which is another reason I'm starting this thread.
My goals are pretty simple:
1. Document my journey as I continue building the project.
2. Share what I've learned from coaching, studying, solvers, and tournament poker.
3. Help other players accelerate their own progress.
4. Give back to a community that has helped me tremendously over the years.
To kick things off, I'd like to offer 5-10 free one-hour coaching or hand-history review sessions.
No catch.
No sales pitch.
No obligation to join anything.
If you're interested, post in the thread and leave your Discord information.
I'll select several people and we'll set something up.
I'd also love feedback from the community.
What would you like to see in this thread?
* Hand history breakdowns?
* Solver discussions?
* Site development updates?
* Tournament stories?
* Streaming content?
* Coaching reviews?
* Behind-the-scenes startup challenges?
I'll happily share all of it.
I actually had a previous blog years ago that I eventually abandoned as my focus shifted toward building this project.
This one will be different.
I'm back to playing regularly, I've recently started streaming, and I finally feel like I have something worthwhile to contribute.
Hopefully some of you find value in following along.
Looking forward to the discussion.
1 Reply
Here's a hand I thought you guys would enjoy.. I got chatgpt to enhance the image.. it's from a 6th place finish I had in the Tuesday 25 GGWF event the other day. R. Romanovsky opens the BTN and we called in BB w K9dd.. I did think about rejamming here but I assumed his range was nuts or bluff so ultimately I decided K9dd did better by just flatting pre as it has too much value v bluffs but is obviously crushed when I rejam and he calls. Flop comes 1093ssx. I check, he bets min.. I debate jamming to end the hand but determine stacks are too deep relative to pot size. I call and am aware that I have now capped myself. Turn 3s.. I check.. he bets again. Still not going anywhere.. hand is too strong. River offsuit 5.. I check he jams and I call relatively quickly knowing that I am so capped on the flop as most Tx is check raise getting it in. I did feel like his line looked ridiculously strong but I've also played with him enough to know that he just bluffs way too frequently. I feel like his preflop logic is good e.g. jam all mediocre hands and minraise your premiums and the bottom of his raising range merged as bluffs. I also do like the fact he barreled off the bottom of his range on a board where I am severally capped as the solver would tell him to do this exact thing. My issue with the hand though is that 99-AA make up about 42 combos max if I dont count myself having the 9x in my hand.. but he is min raise bluffing probably atleast 100 combos from the bottom of his preflop raising range instead of jamming it. Roman is a very sick player & takes alot of very tricky & difficult lines.. one thing I have found are that his frequencies are out of order at times e.g. in this spot.. or lets say he has Ax blocker on a board with 3 of the same suit.. He will just go absolutely bananas with it far too often or for far too big of a bluff. Perhaps my sample size is limited and I am wrong here and he's well balanced.. but these are my personal observations & opinions.. Hope you enjoyed the hand!
