50nl Challenge: 50k Hands + Accountability and Growth
Hi guys!
I’ve been a professional poker player for about a year now, primarily playing 100nl. However, I’m currently on a downswing, and I’ve decided to step down to 50nl for this challenge. The lower stake will help me focus on volume, rebuild confidence, and work on my game without the added mental pressure.
Main Goal:
- Play 50,000 hands in the next 30-40 days with a win rate of over 5bb/100 pre-rakeback.
Side Goals:
- Become more professional in my poker work: This includes improving my study habits, game review process, and overall mindset.
- Use this thread to clear my mind: Writing down strategies, philosophies, and reflections will help me organize my thoughts and stay focused.
Best of luck, will be following!
Spoiler
If not a secret, can you share where are you from? What sites you play on?
How I Think About Poker and Winning Money from a GTO Perspective
I like to remind myself of this from time to time because it helps me stay grounded, especially when bad variance hits.
If we play GTO and our opponents also play GTO, we are even.. no one wins. With a 5bb/100 rake (post rakeback), we’d all be losing at 5bb/100.
However, this is purely hypothetical. In reality:
- I can’t play GTO perfectly.
- My opponents can’t play GTO perfectly.
- Even the best players in the world can’t play GTO perfectly.
But this is the starting point I like to use.
Every hand we play involves deviations from GTO. These deviations either lead to our range being exploited or our opponent’s range being exploited. In other words, our range either earns less than it deserves or more.
For example, let’s say we play 99 hands perfectly GTO (just for the sake of argument) and exploit one hand in a way that earns our range 5bb more than it deserves. In this case, instead of losing at 5bb/100, we break even because of that one hand.
Of course, this is still hypothetical. We can’t play 99 hands perfectly GTO, and even if we could, we’d still profit because our opponents make fundamental/pure mistakes.
A quick aside: I’ve heard of a bot a bot on pokerstars high stakes that did 0 exploiting just cashing on the fundamental/pure mistakes that high stakes regs were making, but the bot wouldn't make if he got in that same spot himself. So definitely playing solid is no joke.
What happens in reality is.
For every 100 hands:
Hand 1: Our range loses 0.5bb
Hand 2: Our range wins 2bb
Hand 3: Our range wins 10bb
...
Hand 100: Our range loses 5bb
When we sum it up, it needs to look something like this:
-0.5bb + 2bb + 10bb + ... + (-5bb) = 10bb (hopefully). If so, we’re winning at 5bb/100.
For our range to win 2bb in a hand, we need to understand how our opponent will deviate from GTO. If we don’t know, we won’t make money in that hand. We can try to guess and adjust, but the key is to avoid deviating too much when we’re unsure because it is possible we get crushed very very bad. It’s better to lose 2bb than 20bb. The goal is to estimate something reasonably close to GTO, ideally on the right side of it, while ensuring that the worst-case scenario isn’t catastrophic.
I like to think about that spots as "gray zones".. just don't ****up badly. Play some kind of defense.
Key Takeaways from This Theory
- We only win EV/money if we know how our opponent will deviate. It’s as simple as that.
- There will be many situations where we don’t know how our opponent will deviate, and we’ll lose EV/money in those spots. The key here is to minimize those losses. When we’re unsure, the goal is to lose as little as possible.
Based on the theory I shared earlier, here are some protocols I believe are essential for maintaining a strong winrate. If I don’t follow these, I’d consider it unprofessional.
Player Analysis on All Regs in My Pool
There are about 20-30 regs in my pool, and I play with them all day. By analyzing their tendencies, I can identify the deviations they’re making. This is where the money is made.
Always Have at Least One Fish at the Table
Many players have done extensive MDA showing that winrates are significantly higher when fish are at the table. Without fish, most of the regs are not making money.
Regularly Learn New Ways to Exploit + Fixing fundamental mistakes I am making
I will keep a list of the new plays in Notion, so I can have a measure if I am doing this.
Play Passively in Gray Zones
In situations where I’m unsure of the best action, I’ll take the most passive line possible. This minimizes losses. AND doing the opposite have mental game tax.
I like to think about it this way: Imagine watching a football game with friends and deciding to place a bet to make it more exciting. The truth is, no one really knows which team will win—it’s essentially pure gambling. This is very similar to poker’s gray zones. I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m essentially guessing.
The thing is that if I bet 5$.. who cares if I lose it or not. However, if I bet $100 then it's no longer fun.
The same logic applies to poker’s gray zones. If my range loses 1bb EV, it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of 100 hands. But if I lose 20bb in a single hand, it can seriously hurt my winrate. That’s why playing passively in these spots is crucial—it keeps the damage minimal when I’m unsure.
Limit Checking Results
In my opinion, checking your results too often is one of the most detrimental habits a poker player can have. It can kill your motivation to play and lead to tilt issues, even when you’re at the tables.
If you check your results and see a loss, it can create a tilt mindset where you start taking unnecessarily risky actions in every spot. This directly violates other important rules, like playing passively when you’re unsure how your opponent will deviate.
On the flip side, when things are going well, checking results can make you overconfident. You might start thinking that even poor plays are acceptable, which can lead to bad habits and costly mistakes.
Best of luck, will be following!
Spoiler
If not a secret, can you share where are you from? What sites you play on?
Thank you!
For now, I’ve won't share where I play and the where I'm from because I’m in a small, closed pool. And I fear someone could understand who I am and gain some kind of edge because I will most likely share strategies here.
While it’s unlikely this blog will become so popular that my opponents find it, I’d rather err on the side of caution for now. It’s also a mental game thing—I feel more comfortable keeping that detail private at this stage.
Sounds interesting! Glhf
Day 1: Review of 06.03.2025
Hands: 585
Duration: 1h 36m
Won $10 from leaderboards (will track that so I know how much rakeback I get overall)
Player analysis of one reg and only preflop and SRP IP PFR hands. Took like an hour. Have to find a way to do this thing faster.
Session was tough because constantly had multiple big hands going on.
Some mini wins
1. Played passively in all grayzones
2. Didnt check results
Things that went bad
1. Player analysis - wanted to make an analysis of 4-5 players. But ended very far from that
2. Volume was small.
Will share some interesting hands from today
Hand 1 - Punish trappy reg.
This is against a reg. He is very faceup that he knows I overbluff and literally snapchecks if he has a pair and snapcalls me in any broken line .. bro at least try to hide that
But here he decided to bet. I know that in general against raise most of the regulars are not 3betting enough and overfolding BvB. In game I didn't know that this exact flop will be overfolded since it hits many of the SB RFI range.. BUT he snapchecks the pairs. So in my mind he has some type of draw or nuts. So decided to raise and barrel because assume his range are mostly draws. Can't cover that with 2PR+ hands and not sure if he will bet those.
After the session checked MDA for SB vs BB. How often regs fold vs raise after the cbet small on B-B-L texture. F/C/R = 42/51/7. Later will try to find a GTO sim for comparison. But for now I am very happy because looks like they fold reasonably often.. I would assume more than GTO. So this guy for sure got exploited hard.
Hand 2 - attacking raises from weak range after I've shown weakness.
This is also vs reg. On the flop I rangecheck. First because I want to simplify my strategy and rangebet or rangecheck as often as I can. And second I have nice exploits in this line.
I assume he will never check A8 K8, set or 2pair on the flop. He is not likely to check 97 or 74s because they are nice draws..
My exploit on the turn is that he will overfold.
When he raises - in my mind is
1. Did I show weakness - yes. So for sure he could have bluffs.
2. He has some turned 2 pairs but for sure not many. He doesnt have many hands that are natural raises. Doesn't have many 2PR+ hands.
So I go for that and if he had called I am giving up otr.
Hand 3 - BU vs BB River Cbet Bluff on river bringing 3rd BW
This might be a bit too much overbluff. But I recently found that exploit. Basically his range on the river is so that he has to call quite a lot of hands weaker than 2PR. And the board looks very scary. According to MDA this bet get more than 55% folds - p75 with river bringing 3rd BW.
Here it is interesting that river p50 bets also gets over 50% folds. But I didn't want to try that. Gets a bit too greedy 😃
I know I have SDV, but If he will folds all TP then I think the bet will get more EV. Might sim it later.
And some grayzones.
this is against 28/12 player. And we play 5 handed. So more like 24/8 in normal games.
This is possibly a blunder.. but I like the direction
Day 2
Rakeback: flat $20, lb $10
Hands: 1400
Duration: 4h 40m
Didn't check results ✔
Didn't spew money in gray zones ✔
Spent 2 hours making player analysis. Finished the first guy and started a second one. Found very nice things about the first one. Basically he is a nit and I once called him down vs BBB.... He has not BB bluffs, nor BBB.
Something I am proud of. First time doing this filter - me raising river as a bluff
Day 3 08.03.2025
Hands: 659
Duration: 2h 14m
Leaderboards: $10
Checked the results from yesterday..
Possible spew
..
Checked the results in the morning.. when my head if fresh. I don't even remember why I did it. Checking results when I don't want to usually happens when I am kinda tilted or tired. But in the morning neither of these was true. I just wake up opened the laptop to see a hand from yesterday and just clicked through the results session..
In the morning was doing player analysis of a guy that I think is not the standard regular in my games - tight passive.
Turned out he is actually tight passive.
Played 100nl because couldn't find good 50nl tables. I think I will just play whatever table is good. Won't force myself to play 50nl.
I think there is a bot in my games. Plays many tables while also played 2 HU tables against me. Only uses p75 when betting the flop. Bets only draws and pairs. Played HU 20m with him because I see that he overfolds massively preflop and postflop plays very faceup. So decided I could make a huge edge on him.
However, I think I made a 50bb blunder, then tilted and stopped the session. I should fold this hand on the turn. The (possible) bot never bluffs there.
In GTO I guess it's like 0ev play. But in reality this could have been at least 15bb exploit if I folded turn
I think this is the blunder I made. Which is also the gray zone investment I didn't want to make.
Some things I feel bad about not doing
1. I don't review the marked hands from the session. The problem is that I usually have marked 20 hands at the end of the day but I am tired to review and usually going out in the evenings. In the mornings doing the player analysis thing.
2. Not developing a list with plays/exploits in Notion.
Will try to think how to structure all these things and will track them here.
Day 4 09.03.2025
Hands: 1000
Duration: 4h 50m
Library of exploits: 1
Gray zone investments: 1
Rakeback: $20 flat + $80 from leaderboards
Some hands that might be mistakes
The thing here is that this is against one of the players I analyzed. He has 0 bluffs BB, 0 bluffs BBB. WWSF 40. Absolute nit. If it was against anyone else, I am snapping this within 3 sec. But this guy...
The things that made me call is that he reps no value. 77 doubt he 3bets much (3bet 7% preflop) (very surprised to see the A6s) and even if he did, they'll likely bet the turn, if not the flop. And are like 3 combos.
The second thing is that
The things that made me call - he has almost no value and I show a lot of weakness.
1. He reps 77 or somehow slowplayed JJ. The thing is I don't even think he 3bets 77. And even if he does, he will stab them on the turn very often.
And the other thing - my line is annoying. I look weak. It is very predisposing for firing a bluff.
And this hand. Opponent is 50/10 fish. But I still think I should've folded. I didn't have read he is overplaying. And I didn't have info he is losing a lot that session. With any of the reads I could justify the call. But without.. think it's a fold
For the library of exploits thing. Created a notion page where I will post all plays that I thing are good. So if I watch something interesting or get an idea while playing or do some solver work I will post it there. It will be polished. Ready to execute.
This way I can measure if I am getting better as a player.
Spoiler
Day 4 09.03.2025Hands: 1000Duration: 4h 50mLibrary of exploits: 1 Gray zone investments: 1Rakeback: $20 flat + $80 from leaderboardsSome hands that might be mistakesThe thing here is that this is against one of the players I analyzed. He has 0 bluffs BB, 0 bluffs BBB. WWSF 40. Absolute nit. If it was against anyone else, I am snapping this within 3 sec. But this guy...The thing
WWSF is a weird stat. I’ve found it’s most useful when paired or used together with other stat(s) and it’s kind of weak on its own. I dont think that low wwsf means zero bluffs. Also a standard wwsf stat (I think) includes MW pots and such. I see noticeable differences when I look at wwsf-hu vs wwsf-mw+
Spoiler
WWSF is a weird stat. I’ve found it’s most useful when paired or used together with other stat(s) and it’s kind of weak on its own. I dont think that low wwsf means zero bluffs. Also a standard wwsf stat (I think) includes MW pots and such. I see noticeable differences when I look at wwsf-hu vs wwsf-mw+
Yes. Totally agree that a single stat is totally useless. For sure have to look at the big picture and combine the stat. The thing is that everything is nitty in this player. And by 0 bluffs I mean - I created filters in h2n for
1. bet flop, bet turn, bet river --> 0 bluffs
2. bet flop, bet turn, check river --> 0 hands that bet turn, then check river and lose
Day 5 - 10.03.2025. Rest day.
Although I played an hour or so and watched some poker training videos because don't have many other activities to do other than poker.
Goals week 10.03.2025 to 16.03.2025
1. 30 hours of play
2. 10 hours of building strategies.
Watching videos in study hours does not count.
The plan is to start playing early in the day when I'm most focused. The thing is that when I'm done with playing I'm usually very tired and it's very hard to study at that time. I will try going out in a cafe or something like that with the laptop for 2 hours and building the strategies there. Watched that if you change work location it really helps with the focus. Will see that.
And I will keep not checking the results. I do think this is the best mental game hack there is in poker.
And will continue keep focusing on not putting money in gray zones.
Review for the week 10.03.2025 - 16.03.2025
Played: 25h 30m / 30h
Hands: 7900
Library of exploits: 12
Rakeback: ~ $100
✖ Checking results: yes, somewhat often
✖ Putting money in gray zones: yes
Will try to post daily again because this help me remind myself what are the important things in the big picture and the metrics I'm tracking
So overall I feel I am not acting professional.
However, the results are good—since I’ve already reviewed them, will post them here.
Goals for week 17.03.2025 - 23.03.2025
I will play only 3 days since Monday I rest from poker and Friday to Sunday will be on vacation.
Play: 15 hours
Study: 3 x 90m
18.03.2025
Play: 4h 15m
Hands: 1300
Rakeback: $5
Study: 0 hours
No new exploits
Didn't check results ✔
Didn't spew in gray zones ✔
Yesterday I watched a podcast with Anna Lembke talking about dopamine. I've watched many podcasts on the topic. I love to do that because it reminds me of the blunders that I do IRL that affect poker tremendously.
She was saying that any time you indulge in activity that is artificially designed to release HUGE amount of dopamine (much more than is natural) after that you biologically feel demotivated to do anything. For me such activities are playing league of legends, watching youtube, and watching series.
Yesterday after my first play session I played a game of League of Legends then watched an episode of Vikings. And everyday afternoon I have that feeling that I don't want to be playing poker.
No wonders..
And more. I can't wait to finish my session so that I can indulge in some activity like that. Of course I will struggle with volume and will struggle to review marked hands and developing new exploits.
I do think if I wasn't addicted to those stupid things my volume and skills would be many times better.
Review for week 17.03.2025 - 23.03.2025
Play: 11h 25m / 15h
Hands: 4100
Rakeback: don't remember. But nothing significant. Probably around $10
Study: didn't track hours. However, I'm happy with that. I have 26 "plays" in the catalogue.
Goals for 24.03.2025 - 30.03.2025
Play: 30h
Continue to build new strategies and write them down.
Habits that I want to build / maintain
1. Not checking the results
2. Not put money in spots I am not sure about
3. I will train after the morning study/play.
4. Continue to write down everything new I learn.
The mid day training is a thing from the Anna Lembke podcast. She said that training increases the dopamine and there is no crash after that. And for me this dopamine thing is very important for how I play and how easily I tilt. So will try to build habits to support that.
Last week I read Matt Marinelli blog and was happily surprised to find out he has something similar to my catalog of exploits.
He says
"It's a waste of time to study new strategies or processes and not write them down, so writing and categorizing everything I work on makes recalling it and memorizing it much easier. "
Girlfriend broke with me yesterday. So won't force myself to hit the volume goals since I realize I'm currently predisposed to not think well.
Breakups are tough, keep strong! I was going to ask if you were still playing professionally as you said in the OP (bc your volume looks to be consistently low) but if it's because of irl, then obviously take as much time as you need to recover, playing after a breakup with your mind completely unfocused would be very very -ev.
GLGL
Btw, I really like your thought process, and I think about the game almost the same way as you do.
Breakups are tough, keep strong! I was going to ask if you were still playing professionally as you said in the OP (bc your volume looks to be consistently low) but if it's because of irl, then obviously take as much time as you need to recover, playing after a breakup with your mind completely unfocused would be very very -ev.
GLGL
Thank you! Much appreciated
Week Review 24.03.2025 - 30.03.2025
Hour Played: 25/30
Didn't check results ✔
Didn't put money in spots I am not sure about ✔
Not happy with the "study" ╳
rakeback: ~ $75
Review: 06.03.2025 - 30.03.2025 (Since start of the challenge)
Hands: 24k
Hours: 76
Days: 25
There is no chance I play the 50k hands for 40 days.
I will set the deadline to be 45 days since 06.03.
Regarding the goal of "being more professional"
- the good
--I am not addicted to checking the results daily
--I am not investing money in spots I am not sure about
-the bad
--don't have regular "study" sessions
--I have this bad habit around 1 PM where I watch YouTube or mindless content, which tanks my dopamine and ruins the rest of my day—leaving me both unproductive and feeling like crap.
Thoughts on Studying Poker
I always felt like my dedicated "study" time hasn't been used good enough. I feel I could/should improve more during that time.
I’ve realized that simply blocking off two hours a day for "studying" is flawed because the term is too vague. Here’s what usually happens: I schedule a study session for 5 PM, but when the time comes, I sit down with no clear direction. Big picture, I know I want to improve my exploits—learning how different players (regs, fish, specific opponents) play so I can adjust against them. But there are a hundred ways to do that, and by 5 PM, I’m already tired. Decision fatigue kicks in, I don’t know where to start, and I end up doing almost nothing.
I need a concrete plan—something specific to do at 5 PM, not just "study."
Right now, these three things seem most effective for me:
- Identifying my own leaks while playing and then analyzing them later in study sessions.
During game I get ideas like "MP opens, CO 3bets, I am BU with A5s. Can I cold 4bet?" This is very concrete thing I can check after the game.I usually get 20 of those in a session. I can process them in the "study" time
- Watching "Play and Explain" videos, playing the hand myself first, then comparing my decisions to the coach’s. If I spot a difference, I add it to my "Leaks" document with a structure like "I didn't know ...." Feel like improving through finding leaks of mine is very effective.
- Reviewing RIO (or other training site) videos to extract specific exploits and add them to my growing "catalogue of exploits."
This way, when 5 PM hits, I’m not staring at a blank screen wondering what to do. I have a clear task. I don any of the 3 above. Which one I feel like doing. I know all of them are fine.
How much rake are you paying per 100 hand? Gl with your challenge
