Poker is hard! A honest insight on my journey to become a poker pro. Discussions desired!

I agree.
I do indeed suck at poker.

The handful of Crushers these days spend more time in solvers and are likely borderline autistic in the upper stakes. Unless they got some edge like a soft site(which are quickly disappearing) I don't see people winning cash games that function like average human beings psychologically beyond the microstakes which is abc Poker.

The top young guns I've seen that play purely on-line have some sort of Cybernetic like Approach. Their passion is spreadsheets, their passion is databases and people like Charlie Carrel and Viktor Blom don't exist anymore. The poker dream is probably alive for the average human being "live."

GTO + Randomizers + Exploitative Poker = a Math Geniuses dream... You snort that stuff and read it on your toilet paper you can grind out a few BBs per 100.

Maybe ICMizer and MTTs have some hope. They're less brainy and more straightforward. (I know of successful MTT players that don't have GTO running in their veins but for how long?) If the average man can handle the swings and tilt he can make a few hundred bucks a week...on-line

I think this guy is a genuine poker hero whether he thinks it or not. I think he's amazing taking a shot. A lot of people never pursue their dreams!

Totally agree. Fulltime poker is full of risk and not everyone can win, most people is just disapper when the result is bad. He is commite to himslef and have the guts to say "At the end, I failed"

We are all pokerplayer and dreams one day we can do nosebleeds and get tones of money, but not everyone have the courage to do something like this.

Maybe oneday OP will "try again" and the result is different

Hello Everyone

3 months have passed since I went back to regular work.
I did not fully stop playing poker and actually play some decent volume at the moment.

I never showed my full graph on GG from when I started playing in Dez 2022. I just showed starting in June 2023 after studying half a year already.

So here is my full graph since start until start of this month (May 2024):
(now BBJ rake is listed as well, I did not have the proper stats before and was never sure if BBJ was accounted for. Well it was not and BBJ adds another 1.7bb/100 in rake I pay)

As you can see I had a very bad start playing a lot of NL500.
The graph shows about -52k in losses and 80k paid in rake (65k regular and 15k BBJ fee).
The most I was ever down on GG was 25k at the start of April 2024. (because of rakeback and bonus system I am obviously not stuck 50k).

The goals now are:
- Get unstuck --> For this I will need 25k in my account since that's what I deposited in total on GG.
- Get green in all NL holdem games and stop playing once "My C won" and "All-in adj" are both green.
Fast games I only play the lowest red limit. ATM this is NL50RC. (since I don't see this format is beatable for 8bb/100).
Regular tables I can manage as I wish.

Play again on ACR since the rake is lower there.
And maybe some PS (lower rake, but currently 0% rakeback for my country).

Here is the rake list based of my experience:

April 2024 GG Results:

I can't see myself beating RC. Also running really bad ATM.

GG Net Results April 2024:
1k won, 850$ for all-in adj.
Paid 6k rake. Got about 2.4k in rakeback and bonus.

So account balance is about 4k. --> 21k to go.
We closed NL50 regular tables since now we are green there.

Greetings

Tryagain

Another month has passed.
Considering the net result it's the best month I had so far.
Still I did not manage to get green on GG in PT4 which is a post rake, pre rakeback graph.
It's really difficult to win 10bb+ which is needed to be green.

Results GG:

]

NL500 keeps being my worst stake by far.
I can't win pots there.
I tried out some VIP games (which is ludicrous considering my bankroll).
But 5kNL is my longterm goal and if the situation seems right I want to dabble a bit there.
You don't pay BBJ and the rake is lower.

GG net results May 2024.
Lost 3k, 4k as all-in adj.
Paid close to 11k in rake. Got 10k in bonuses (inkl. rakeback).
So the account balance is about 11k --> 14k to go.

Spoiler: I played past midnight and start June with a big minus of nearly -3.5k.
Lost a big pot in the 5kNL.
So I won't play VIP for the moment until I am close to 15k balance again.

Greetings

Tryagain

Respect the journey as I am on it as well. I'd probably stay away from anything 100NL and up at the moment. My philosophy is first you prove you are a winner at the previous stake with 95% confidence regardless of bankroll before diving into the higher one.

I have a couple of questions that might help if I get the answers.

1) What is your cbet percentage?
2) What is your 3bet percentage?
3) How often do you check/raise the flop?
4) Do you ever check/raise the river as a bluff?

My situation is the opposite of yours when talking about red line and blue line. My redline is high while my blue line suffers. At the end of the day the yellow line is what is important.

I think the whole "I suck at poker" thing is not good for your mindset. Instead, change that to "other players in my field are outplaying me". I know it sounds cheesy, but it is different. Skill is relative, and once you start to respect the other players for being pretty good you'll have the appreciation needed to pull off sophisticated bluffs or calls knowing that they are capable of making big laydowns or ambitious bluffs.

Fair enough. Not my philosophy though. I rather take aggressive shots and try to learn faster.

Data between April 1st and now for 2024.

Cbet 54% (still a bit low, working on it. It dropped due to different range construction 3months ago)
3bet 9.7%
x raise flop is 14.6 %
x raise river 4%, basically no bluffs there

You have my respect. You gave it a shot. You're "The Man in the Arena":

That doesn't seem too bad. I think you can really ramp up the cbet quite a bit. People love to overfold to 1/3 cbets even if it doesn't feel like it at times. When in doubt, cbet. Also If SB and BB call, you can cbet 1/2 pot on most all flops and probably make a profit through folds. When IP vs BB on flop, you can bet 1/3, check turn, and bet 1/2 on river for thin value, because people won't check/raise enough on the river. When you see other people do this that are reg-like, you can check/raise them on the river sometimes when your hand doesn't have enough equity to call, preferably when you pair a low card on the board blocking sets. Generally you don't want to check/raise pot sized bets or higher, even 3/4 pot can be a bit dicey, but 1/2 and 1/3 bets are going to be more willing to fold. For sizing, risk about a 5:4 ratio and I feel like a lot of regs will over fold to this especially if they are playing a lot of tables.

A lot of regs like to over bet turn after betting small on flop, but I don't really believe this is all that necessary, because people fold too much to double barrels as well. You can do 3/4 and get the same folds as 1.5x, unless they are quite stubborn. I do 1.5x ocassionally, but unless you are well studied on the line, I think it is really easy to overdo it. Someday I may change my opinion on this as a lot of strong players do this.

Versus some very short stacks that are not wanting to get their money in, you can bet small on flop, bet small on turn, and jam the river. You can do this on a variety of boards, preferably ones that have scare cards come in or draws that miss. These players like to over fold on all 3 streets. When you do these sizings, they feel like they are getting milked and so they like to fold.

The average player just wants to flop a good hand and if they don't hit it they like to fold. Especially in multiway pots. Once players show a bit of weakness you can start making some little stabs here and there to pick up some pots uncontested.

Also, if you call a 1/3 flop bet in BB versus an IP player and turn goes x/x, you can usually bet 1/3 or 1/2 on river and get a profit through folds. Obviously you have to pay attention to which players are over folding, but most are.

You probably already know some of this stuff, but maybe there are some things here that you haven't tried out yet, such as the beautiful check/raise bluff on the river after the turn goes x/x.

Thank you very much.
I surely will try some out some stuff you described.

How could it be different.
After the bets net month the worst drops behind. ^^

As mentioned already I basically started with -3.5k due to lost pot in the 5k overnight to the 1st of July.
Unfortunately 1kNL was really bad this month.
So I kept moving down in stakes and after a small relieve the rest of the month was just a beatdown.
So I ended up with my worst online net result.
In terms of buy ins it's not out of the ordinary.

We lost about 10k in EV and are back to 1k as a bankroll.
I took massive risks and paid the price.
Let's grind up again.

This month I play 50NL RC and 100NL regular again.
Let's hope the bad variance will soon be over.

On the positive side I made big progress in my overall gameplan.
Playing better range compositions, bluffing more (often successfully) and station more.

VPIP, RFI, 3bet, 4bet, WWSF, and WTSD went up big time.

This month especially I will focus on not calling down in big pots vs nits.
It simply does not pay off.

Greetings

Tryagain

I'm not sure if it was mentioned in the thread already, but the different stakes that you are playing along with the ante is going to affect your preflop ranges quite a bit which is the most important street to get right. So always be aware of that.

I also took a gander at your 4-bet frequency and it is a bit low. 4-betting bluff hands at a frequency can be tough because sometimes you can randomize in your head to pick the more passive option if that is your tendency. I would recommend selecting certain hands to 4-bet bluff pure if this is the case since the EV given up in a 4-bet pot isn't going to be so much.

I was playing the other day and this hand made me think of this thread:

PokerStars - $0.50 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 369.32 BB
MP: 120.7 BB
CO: 163.32 BB
BTN: 105.5 BB
SB: 114.3 BB
Hero (BB): 266.92 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J♣ J♥

UTG calls 1 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 5 BB, UTG calls 4 BB

Flop: (10.5 BB, 2 players) A♠ 4♦ Q♣
Hero bets 5 BB, UTG calls 5 BB

Turn: (20.5 BB, 2 players) 3♦
Hero checks, UTG checks

River: (20.5 BB, 2 players) 4♥
Hero checks, UTG bets 5.5 BB, Hero raises to 32 BB, fold,

This was actually against a more recreational player so it was a bit more risky. On the river I feel like his hand is probably something like KQ, weak ace, and some bluffs. When I check/raise river he may put me on AQ+ and fold. My flop sizing isn't probably optimal, but versus a typical limper any sizing less than pot is going to make money. River is probably close to a call with the sizing chosen, but I felt I had enough fold equity to go for the check/raise since I only need folds a bit more than 55% of the time.

I don't like to make a habit of posting hand histories in other people's threads, but I felt this hand in particular would be pretty helpful in showing the river check/raise bluff that I talked about in my previous post. In hindsight, the bluff might not even be that good. However, having the gumption to go for a bluff that is a bit intimidating is a good habit to get into though, because it will lower that threshold of fear which can hold you back from making some profitable plays.

Very interesting, thank you.
One question. Why would you bet the flop?
It seems to be a bluff.
What worse hands call? What better hands fold?

Nice river x raise though.

Yes. I did not 4bet enough last month.
Slowly trying to correct this.
This month so far looks much better in this regard.

Also saw that last mont I got literally destroyed in 3bp oop and in 4bp in general.
Gonna look them up to make sure it's bad luck and not bad play.

Greetings

Tryagain

That's a great question and it is actually a part of the reason I posted this hand rather than another. The AQ4r board is a good hand for our range and the bottom line is that limpers in this spot are going to be massively overfolding to the c-bet, because they have too much garbage in their range. It is true that our hand has some bluff catching potential, but when opponents are passive it takes away EV from our bluff catchers and make us want to bet out to deny equity instead. Sometimes they'll have a hand like 86s, turn and river come 8 and 6 and they bet and we talk ourselves into a call even though we know we're beat.

This scenario happens commonly in the IP vs BB spot versus more passive opponents. When they bet flop and we call and turn goes check check. Then river comes and we have something that is a typical bluff catcher we can sometimes lead for thin value or a bluff if the IP player is not betting enough. An example hand could be we have T9s in BB and the board runs out Q93AK with the same action. Versus a passive opponent I'm just going to bet 1/2 on the river, because they're probably going to fold Qx or a better 9. Sometimes you get surprised with a weird 66 or something like that, but then you also get the added bonus of understanding the way they play the game better. You also fold out potential bluff combos that you would have folded to since he isn't bluffing enough. Even though he isn't bluffing enough he probably is bluffing sometimes and when we bet, we do deny that.

Maybe 1/3 pot on the AQ4r is better as a range bet in hindsight, however, I've gotten comfortable with the 1/2 pot here for the sole reason that I've had more experience with it. It may be something that I change about my game in the future.

3bet pots OOP can be difficult to play. If someone is 3-betting you mercilessly it can be tempting to widen up your range a bit too much and then end up getting it in with marginal stuff or folding too much. It can be tempting sometimes, like say you open CO with A7s and BU decides to 3-bet and say they have a 3-bet stat of 15% or something like that. It's easy to talk yourself into a call or even a 4-bet here, but I often find myself folding the flop too often or getting 5-bet jammed on. You call 3-bet pots OOP not because you want to, but because you have to. If you play your normal range they'll naturally punt to you a bit too much over time. The most value you get against these players is when you have premium hands not the marginal ones. I'm not sure if this is a problem you've been having or not, but it has happened to me so I thought I'd share.

July 2024:

This month I won't play the last days so the summary here is a bit earlier.

This month was a rollercoaster with a large drop in the middle and some bad last days.
It's worth mentioning that I implemented a big flop CBet in most spots and did bet more often overall.
This led to a winning red line for the second half of the month.
It still needs a lot of fine tuning but I think it will be easier to be a post rake pre rakeback winning player if the red line is winning and one does not have to compensate for a bleeding red line as well.

Main Focus is still NL100 reg tables.

I had a great run between hands 9k und 16k.
After that I hit a nasty downswing getting rivered all day long as well as getting put into bad set ups constantly.
But because the red line is not bleeding that much the losses are in check.

For NL50 RC I don't see the more aggressive style to be as effective as for the reg tables.

Can't say why right now.
The last 5k hands were brutal as well, could not win any showdown at all.

Overall:
-1250$ and -400$ in EV.
About 1200$ in bonuses which is rather little.

I did not participate in BBJ winnings for the last two months which is unusual.
Payed 20k$ in BBJ fees so far and only got 10k$ back.

Optimistic for the upcoming months to get past NL100.
Still a long way to go though.

First I take a 5day break now and hopefully come back fresh.

Greetings

Tryagain

What is the reason for implementing the large flop cbet? Is this to get more value or more folds?

Thanks for the thread, think it shows how incredibly difficult it is to grind out a living online.

Why don't you play more live poker? I'm sure you can absolutely crush there.

rake on GG is absurdly high, so table selection is very important. In harsher words bumhunting. 90% of GG regs don't do this correctly and lose pre-rakeback. You can be like them or bite the bullet and play less tables but more quality volume. IMO this will make you a better more well-rounded player in the long run, anyway. Buy a smarthand or statname sub and be sure to identify which tables are worth playing and which are not. Some tables you can be a 10bb loser and some you can be a 10bb winner, it all depends on the fish(es). Good luck to you and I hope you succeed.

Comparing my stats vs GTO stats I saw that I lack aggression on every street and missing many cbets.
I thought exploitatively population overfolds more vs the big size ans plays more honest.
So I started cbetting big with air or draws to get the overfold.
If I hit and they call I also get more value.

You are welcome. xD

For many reasons,
- not a lot of possibilities to play live
- Bad times 8pm to 4am which is not in line with my life having a wife and kids now..
- It's really slow compared to online, I like online much much more. (I also have patience issues live)
- Not flexible enough (online I can log in for 1h and leave again).

Can you explain more on how to use smarthand to do table selection , do I need to compare and label player one by one according to the results ?

Now I only see the obvious signs (broken stakes, only play 1 table etc.)

I am on a similar path, and I have a tilt problem.

After losing 20 buyins in a day, which wiped out my whole month's profit this month, I came to realise that the biggest leak in myself in being on Tilt.

It is very subtle. There was a hand where I called down 3 streets versus an aggressive player (vpip 40%+, showed down bluff etc.) because I was beaten by him and many others in the same session before, with a one pair. On hindsight it was a stupid play. If I wasn't on tilt, I wouldn't have called. But I was.

So, I decide to stop playing for at least 2 weeks to work on my tilt by mostly reading some books and youtube resources.

Jared Tendler's book mentioned about the "Desperation Tilt". That is what I'm trying to cure myself of. It may be caused by accumulated anger or something from childhood.

Have you tried looking into tilting issues yourself? Anyone here else successfully cured themselves of tilt?