It's time to walk with my own feet - A journey about small improvements, by theicebergslim.

Hi guys, it's me again. After some time off trying to create another account, I eventually managed to create another one without problems after a lot of try and error, so now I'm active on my team again, and I'll do my best to make things work this time.

Although I have been inactive on my team for 2-3 months, I devoted myself to playing and applying the team strategy playing on GGpoker with my own money, that bankroll I built from scratch playing as many freerools as I could, after raising $15 playing freerolls I grinded on NL2 until reaching $60.

I know the amount in cash is quite insignificant, but I think it was good to preserve my mental health while practicing the team strategy for when I was going back. To be honest with you guys, the blocking of my account was really bad for me, and I was in a very self-destructive moment after that happened, so I believe that occupying my mind with something useful as building a new bankroll was definitely positive.

Well, now I have a study plan to remove the main leaks in my game that I currently have, which I believe are preventing me from moving up, and I will share this study plan with you guys in my next post for those who might be interested.

Anyway, wish me luck guys.

Good luck

Sounds good man, good luck 😀

Thank you, it's good to see you guys again btw 🙂

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STUDY PLAN

I think I'm playing fairly well as the PFR most of the time and I'm doing a decent job extracting as much money as possible when I have a strong hand (which is not hard considering the player pool that I'm playing against), but on the other hand I believe what is holding me back from moving up are the hands where I'm defending instead of being the aggressor.

Sometimes I call too much, other spots I overfold, and I'm also not raising enough in a lot of situations. The team strat that I'm following is pretty simple to understand and I think I'm applying everything well most of the time, but there's some spots that I know that I'm playing really bad and I will do my best to fix them before feburary ends (I think one month might be enough to improve in those areas), they are the following:

1. SRP OOP PFR - line xb33 and xb75

vs xb33: I know that the population overbluff a lot using this size and I noticed that I'm not calling or raising enough in this spot in certain board textures

vs xb75: that's a underbluffed bet size and I'm calling too much with certain classes of hands while overfolding with others (ex. board K53tt I'm calling with K9s without BDFD while folding JJ that has BDFD)

2. SRP IP PFC (BB x SB) - line b33, line b75 and line b33c-b75

vs b33: I think I'm overfolding a bit with some K-high on low-disconnect board and I'm also not raising enough vs this bet size in boards where I can do it.

vs b75: I never trained much vs this size or pot and I believe I'm overfolding sometimes

vs b33c-b75: another spot that I feel that I'm overfolding, I might be calling with a frequency similar to what I would do on BB vs BTN.

Method of studying: I will practice this spots for 30min before each grinding session (which takes 2 hours mostly), I think studying that way is better to memorize rather than just studying in the morning and playing at afternoon/night like I was doing.

First I will start practicing SRP OOP PFR for 5 days or more, than I will switch to SRP IP PFC and train for another 5 days and keep doing that until the end of february, I think it will be enough to fixate the main concepts in my mind (I hope so).

After that I think I will retrain myself on BB x BTN or CO river calls, which I also believe that I'm not playing well currently.

Nice to see you're back, good luck!

It looks like you have made progress in creating an effective learning system.
I hope the results will not be long in coming.

Thanks man, it's nice to see you again also

I also hope for that man, but to be honest with you even though I'm going through a sunrun since I joined this team I'm trying my best to ignore the results as much as possible, I'm really tired of all the emotional rollercoster that comes with that.

I think if you don't allow yourself to be happy when things are going well you will also not be sad or depressed when things are going bad, not sure if that's the most healthy way of dealing with variance but I hope it works somehow 🙄

My graph since I rejoined the team:

I'm not sure if I've been lucky so far or not, there's too little volume to start caring about that. It might be better to hope for an inevitable downswing that will certainly occur in the near future.

Looks good, keep it up

Looks super solid to me 😀

Thank you guys

I had my first database-review with a coach of the team this week and he noted some points on my game where I need to improve and I need to put the focus of my study, the points were the following:

1. Low VPIP/PFR: My stat is at 22/20 and the ideal would be 27/25. I think I'm doing ISO vs limp a lot less than the ideal and also overfolding in situations where 1 player open-raise and another calls while I am on the BB.

2. Low 3bet stat: This stat is close to the ideal (difference by 2 points), the 3bet range of the team has some weak hands that I think I am not 3betting enough, I will pay more attention to that.

2. Really low Squeeze: I didn't had watched the lesson about squeeze pots yet, and now I realized that I am not squeezing pots even close to the frequency I should.

4. Turn vs missed cbet: I should bet in almost all board textures when this happens and apparently I am not doing it enough.

5. Bet river % (after x-x): I noticed that I am not stabbing river enough with some decent merged hands and letting pass several opportunities where villain's range is capped and full of worse pairs that could call my stab. About the bluffing part, I believe I'm bluffing enough in this spot.

Quick update.

Since february began I put a huge ammount of time grinding and trying my best to correct my mistakes regarding my last DB review, I spent less time drilling on gtowizard and more time actually playing and applying what I learned, since it looked as the most important thing to do at the moment.

Now that I feel that I fixed most of my mistakes that were pointed on my last db review I will keep working on PFC spots that I believe that I'm not playing decently.

about the spot "SRP OOP PFR - line xb33 and xb75" I feel that I'm playing well 80-90% of the time compared to when I started.

I was reflecting this days and to be fair, I don't think it's worth it to try to reach a level in this spot where I'm playing close to 100% while I'm aware that in another spots I'm not defending even close to 50% of what I should.

That being said, I will not keep myself drilling this spot until the end of the month as I previously said, so tomorrow I will start focusing on another areas of my game that need more attention and are more important at the moment.

Today I took the day off to drill a bit on gtowizard and also analyze my database stats. Some things improved, while others remained stagnant, for my surprise.

1. VPIP / PFR improved, but it's still below the minimum required. 0,5 points below for VPIP and 0,3 for PFR. But maybe it's just bc of the low volume a have so far (13.5k hands).

2. 3Bet: The value is now between the ideal frequency.

3. Check-raise flop: Improved significantly, but it's still a bit below the ideal. I think I play on autopilot sometimes and don't raise when I should in certain boards.

4. Turn bet vs missed cbet: Improved just a bit, but it's basically the same value as before. I need to study my game more to see where I'm screwing up in this spot.

5. Bet river after x-x turn: The same thing as before and I don't know why, I know for sure that I'm stabbing river now a lot more than before, so maybe I just selected the wrong stat, I have the same suspicion about the Turn bet vs missed cbet. I will get in touch with the coach to know for sure what stat they used on our db review, since I don't remember exactly.

My graph for this month, just 6 buy ins up so far:

The coach also mentioned my redline going downhill on our last db review, that's another annoying thing that I have no idea of what I'm doing wrong exactly. I need to take some time to study my hands and figure out.

OFF-TOPIC

Yesterday something happened that really made me think about my life and the place where I live. I was almost sleeping when out of the sudden I heard a lot of rifle shots at my street (probably 762 caliber), and what amazed the most about that was that this didn't scared me at all, not because I'm a tough guy, but because this already happened other times.

It might be hard to believe, but this type of things became normal occurrences in the city where I live. There are some clashes going on between drug dealers and militia, and most of the population got used to that (including me). Another bizarre fact about this place is that few years ago my city was the #1 most violent city in Brazil, can you believe that?
In a huge country like Brazil with thousands of cities, my city somehow found a way to be the first one in this ranking.

But then you might be thinking, why people don't just move away to another city? The cost of living is really low in this place? Actually not.

I was doing some searches on google and the cost of living here is not really far from the most expensive city in Brazil, which is Florianópolis. The prices gone up, the quality of life gone down, and I think most of the people didn't stop to realize how worst this city became in the last 15 years and just got used to how things are being.

All of that might sound like something really terrible or depressing but to be honest with you guys that just served for me as another motivation factor to keep grinding and studying until I eventually move out from that city for good.

Quick update:

I'm currently reviewing my hands much more frequently than some weeks ago, that's bc I'm noticing a lot of leaks in my game that I know I need to remove ASAP, specially regarding situations where I need to choose between barreling for value or not, raising for value or just call or calling a sudden raise/shove.

I admit that this is not affecting my win-rate all alone, is also affecting my mood and even making me tilt sometimes (which will affect my win-rate even more, consequently).
So, let's say I'm trying to bring more awareness into some gray areas of my game by studying this spots every day and also asking for feedback from the coaches as much as I can.

The coaches told us that we had to post at least 5 hands per week on our discord forum for feedback, since there's no maximum I'm posting 3-5 hands every day to get as much feedback as possible and eventually move up from stake next month. I think I'm beating this stake decently, I'm 10-12 buy ins up so far if I'm not wrong (I need to convert the hands to know for sure) and my game improved a lot in this meantime, I just don't know if my stats improved as much as necessary to move up, but I hope so.

Returning to the subject of tilt issues, the bodog population play a really random strat that can be quite stressful sometimes, I will give you one example of a hand that made me tilt:

preflop
hero open 3bb, btn call, sb call.

flop
sb donk 1/2, hero raise 4x, btn fold, sb 3bet 2x, hero call.

turn
sb bet 15%, hero call

river
sb bet 10%, hero call.

I mean, when you 3bet this flop you will probably have two-pair or sets, right? KJ or QJ don't make any sense. And having two-pair or sets, why would you bet so low turn and river since now you have a full-house (besides J2s)? I thought about raising, but what worse hands would call this raise? This line makes no sense at all.

and SB had

Fish Donk/Reraise

I wouldn't exclude KJ/QJ and other weak-made hands from the SB range.
Fishes often do inexplicable things and it's part of their game.

Overall it was played well, I think.

That's interesting, I didn't know they used to donk/reraise TPWK that much, since I thought that was a really counterintuitive line even for a fish. And they are doing it more than TPGK, which is even more bizarre.

Thanks for the info btw.

Hi man hope you're doing fine and staying safe down there. When it comes to your low VPIP and downward red line, are you making sure you're not missing the opportunity to steal blinds very wide from the nits and playing wider ranges against weaker postflop players? Lower 3bet stat for sure has an effect on it. Obviously playing weaker ranges post flop means you need to adjust, but to me it looks like studying your postflop "red line weaknesses" is a bit pointless before your pref stats are where you might want them to be. Anyways good luck in your journey up!

About stealing blinds from nits, preflop I'm almost certain that I need to expand even more my ISO range vs limps (even though I already expanded a lot since last month) and I think that's the main reason why my VPIP is a bit low, my 3bet stats and squeeze are ok for now.

Regarding postflop I think I'm not transforming weak sdv hands into bluffs in many scenarios and that might be one of the reasons my redline is going down.
I'm often checking turn with weak sdv when I should be bluffing, villain bet on river and I had to fold. I think I need to improve my understanding of when a hand is good enough to check and call river and when is too much weak for that, I'm certainly not reflecting enough about it and just checking and hoping for the best, let's say.
Anyway, thanks for your wishes and feedback, any help is important.

Sounds good man. I would maybe try going for more thin value both IP and OOP. I know in theory OTR we should be doing quite a bit of checking OOP, but many of the rush table nits just don't seem to bet (or raise) for any reason nearly as often as they probably should, which imo means we need to be value betting more OOP. But what do I know lol, would like to know other people's opinions on that as well.

Update:

I had my new database review today, this time it was a lot longer than before since I had a decent amount of hands to be reviewed, I recorded the whole thing and I will probably rewatch and take notes at least 5 times, lots of good insights to improve my game that I can't absorb just by watching one or two times.

The coach did some positive comments about my volume and amount of questions asked in their discord server (I think 3/4 of all questions there are mine, and I was even filtering some out) and also pointed that my stats improved since our last db review (even though some of them are still below the ideal).

The sad part is that he said the only thing that prevented me from moving up this month was my downward redline (I was expecting for that). But the good part is that he took some time reviewing lots of my hands in order to show me what I did wrong and where I need to improve, most of them are recurrent little pots that I don't give a lot of importance, like MW and limped pots. It seems that I'm not bluffing and value betting even close to the ideal in some spots.

He reviewed something like 20–30 hands of mine, so I will write a resume of each one of them on notepad in order to fixate them on my mind once for all, I will also do my own db review each 10 days (specially to check my redline) since I don't want to lose another month in this stake anymore.

I had a really interesting coaching session today with the "performance team", which is a coaching session more focused on the mental/psychological part of the game, where we discuss things related to tilt issues and variance with a psychologist. Close to the end of the session I heard a tip from the owner of the team (a high stakes reg) about dealing with variance that made all sense to me and I would like to share with you guys, he said: