I just want to become better

Program for the days to come (18th - 20th) :

July 18th

(GG Poker's big maintenance)
Work on BigBlind 3bet range 100bb deep vs SB BTN CO HJ UTG
Study a lot about OOP 3bet pots
Hand review 3bet pots OOP

July 19th

Ryukyu Series Of Poker - Main Event Day 1A (A tournament with a 200$ Buy-in, I play it because it's very rare to have tournaments in Okinawa with such a slow blind structure. It's usually 15-10min blinds) - 4pm to 12pm
Range Practice
Play about 1000 RNC hands (less than usual because of the tournament)

July 20th

Rest day and date with my wife

Gl in the grind, following!

Thank you 😀
Will do my best

By the way, it was hard for me training on GTO Wizard OOP 3bet pots because I just couldn't understand how the betting frequencies and sizes were made. I got this video later on and it definitely helped me a lot : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e7aGGYM...
I probably will have to rewatch it but I feel more confident while cbetting, and I think it's where I lose the most EV in general, because I seem to not be able to value my strong hands, and whenever I bluff Villain has the nuts. What I am saying is that I probably don't do it well enough, otherwise I would be indifferent to villain calling or folding (and maybe would exploit imbalance but for now I am trying not to punt)

GL! So this is 6max nl2? Can you post position stats including showdown/nonshowdown winnings? Imo stats looks decent, so I am interested on what is problem here. Perhaps you try to do some more advanced stuff to nl2 players and burning money with marginal holdings trying to fold villain?

On what site do you play?

Generaly speaking, on nl2 it is enough to play strictly for value and do not spew a single bigblind in anything more advanced (which expects some thinking/discipline on villain side). Usually they do not care about anything other than their cards and they think that you are bluffing them (just my observations).

As you already guessing - it is not needed to do any light 3betting from blinds, also most of the time it is not needed to do some double barelling on nl2.

Remember I was in similar situation as you are, but then I realized it is really straightforward to beat nl2, simple pure abc poker (more than I can imagine at time), wait for you big hand and let them pay, do not overplay medium strength hands (TPTK, overpair). No 3 betting light, no turn barells, if you are wide open on btn for instance, it is recommended to steal alot its ev+ because often villains do not defend enough, but if they do, do not waste money with barelling without equity (on some wet flops you can also giveup without cbet), if on blinds sits calling station, be more tigh, wait for good value hand and valuebet.

Every level is specific so you cant apply stuf you saw in guys that are playing nl50 and more.

Looking forward what others thinks

Hello,

I don't think your pre stats look bad at all in a vacuum at least. I've never played GG 2NL rush, but my understanding is that it's a combination of mega spew whales and nits. Try to identify those and adjust accordingly, that might increase your VPIP, PFR, 3b a couple of %-points.

Also 28k hands isn't a lot, here you can see how much results can easily vary over different small samples like this with different true winrates: https://www.primedope.com/poker-variance-calculator/

Also 2NL rake is absurd. Not unbeatable, but you shouldn't be too hard on yourself if you're post rake graphs without promos and rb don't look like the cover of a graph porn magazine.

GTOW articles and videos are very good, they might help you better understand solver sim results you see in their libraries.

I would personally suggest not playing Rush at all now. Everyone enjoys the game when they are clearly winning, and that should be easier at regular 6-max tables where there's more paying attention to what villains are doing each street against each other, and fish play looser because they get bored otherwise.

I'm sure there are smarter people here to give you better/additional advice and correct me if needed.

Glgl

Hello DeezedFours,

First of all, thank you for taking the time to make a constructive answer.
It is indeed a combination of whales and nits. I know that NL2 rake is probably high, however I still think I should at least be over 0 bb/100 in it. I think that the overall population (Whales + Nits) isn't so different from live cash games population hence I should try to exploit it well.
I definitly look at GTOW videos because they often explain with better words some complex notions that I might not have understood properly (or not at all) by myself.

For the suggestion, it's true that at some point I "normal speed" NL2 tables (6 tables), and my winrate was way higher (around 6 evbb/100 maybe). I think it is easier to beat especially since as you said, fish play looser (and you can also have more hands into your tracker because of how GG encrypts nicknames). However, my thought is that while playing non RNC games (I play RNC on only 2 tables to have some thought and not play only ABC), it's hard for me to generate enough hands (about half of RNC) to make a sample that is big enough for me to look at my leaks in general.
I don't mind being breakeven as long as I can learn things and get better (especially in NL2 where it's not the rent at stake), but maybe I should mix a little bit between RNC and normal tables, first to apply things with a more constructive thought and there more automatically ?

Anyway I thank you for your answer, I just woke up so my thoughts are a bit blurry but I will read you message again later today.

Sethhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Hello!
Sorry, I know that's not the intention of your post, but I saw that you live in Japan. I'm a professional in Brazil, and my wife is Japanese and would like to return to Japan. I did a lot of research, but I couldn't find anything about professional players living there. I know that online poker isn't clearly defined, whether it's illegal or not, but it's still possible to play online. I think that's the only thing I know, lol. I'd like to know, from those of you trying to become professionals, if it's feasible. How exactly does it work to withdraw money from websites? Do Japanese banks accept it? I saw that some traditional online wallets used here don't accept it in Japan. Any help would be welcome.

I have little experience with NL cash games, but I believe that 28,000 hands is very low, especially for a cash game. I think that line you used with 3b pre is very good; last year, I remember spending about two months focused exclusively on that. However, I also recommend studying thoroughly about how to call 2bets preflop, too. Study hard, but play even harder. I highly recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zJfNHnf...
Thank you!

Hello there, thank you for the Podcast 😀
I know some professionals, but most of them play in other countries (Taiwan, Macao, Cambodia...). Online is also technically not allowed here even though they don't really do anything about it, and I can justify having an account because I am half british which helps.
Thank you for your help, and I will give you an other answer after watching the podcast tonight (got a bit live MTT today)

Hello guys
Today I had a live MTT as I said, probably the biggest of all time in Okinawa region because of Japan’s regulations towards poker. I just play the main event.
With a starting stack of 50k, I had some trouble having QQ with a QJ7 flop finding a fold river on a board with 4 spades with red Queens.
Then I had a big pot where I 2 barrell with KK and river completed a 1 card straight which my opponent showed me after I folded.
I had only 12500 left on 400/800 blinds and I shoved AKo called by A4s.
Flop had a 4 but the turn gave me a King.
After, a whale limped utg which I raised with 88. He went all in 40bb deep and I called and won vs his 44
I went up to 300k being top 5% around the bubble but lost preflop
J8s < 42s (all in SB vs a BB with a 4bb stack left)
T7o < KTo on a BvB again with a flop KT7 he all in as the SB and I called for 9bb
Then lost preflop KJs < A6s for 6bb
And finally 88 < AQs for 12bb (same guy that had A6s)

I fell from CL to 8bb, and I had to 3bet all in AQs (villain fold), and squeeze for 10bb with AJo on the big blind (RFI was shorter than me 8bb and raise/folded)

I am officially qualified for Day 2 with 140k for an average of 244k (19/93 qualified)
Tomorrow is Day 1B so I expect about 40 players for day 2
Also, Day 2 will go back in blinds; it was 5k/10k but it will go back to 3k/6k, it just went that high because they needed top 20% to advance so we were a bit shorter at the end of the day with faster blinds than the beginning of day 1 and than day 2
Overall happy except 1 move, tell me :

Opponent is Reg Woman (which I think spew less chips in general) on the BB with average stack of about 30bb
I am the table chiplead with 65bb

Cut Of Jh8h I open 2bb
She calls
Flop 4d2h7h
BB donks 2bb I call (2 over + FD) but it’s strange
Turn 6d
BB double barrell 5,5bb I call (thought about folding but I now have FD + Gutshot + I think 8 and J are still good sometimes + I can still checkback if needed
River 8s
BB checks
Here I went for a 75% pot bluff bet, which she called in about 10s and showed me 4s2s
I initially was targeting weak flop top pairs or draws that missed (straight mostly), but probably shouldn’t have done that ?

Thank you everybody, today is day off as written on my planning (3rd message). Have a great weekend and take care of your loved ones

See you Monday (might put some pics if I have time)

I'd ask 2 big questions to yourself just to see how serious you are about getting better as well as how big are you dreaming regarding poker, and you can answer them here if you feel like

1) What are you doing to get better besides playing?

2) What is your end goal upon getting better or perhaps some rough idea of what you could see being a cool outcome? What stakes are you playing, how many hours per week, are you playing full time?

Hello LucidDream, thank you for your answer.
I have a planned "daily routine" that helps me get better, or at least give me an idea of improvements.
I will first give a vague idea of the daily routine, which is basically

8 am - Wake up, eat, clean my face and stuff
9 am - Preparation drills mostly RFI, 3bet, 4bet ranges for every 'stack depth' for 30 min
9:30 to 11 am - First grind session
11 am to 1 pm - Gym
1 pm to 2 pm - Lunch
2 pm to 3:30 pm - Second grind session
3:30 pm to 4:30 pm - Free Time
4:30 pm to 6:30 pm - Theory session (it can be reviewing hands, working on postflop in special situations where i didn't know what to do such as 3bet pots OOP BB/SB, or even Hand2Note field data and how what they make impact my game compared to GTO). Usually I already have the 3-4 next days planned because there still are a lot of things to work on.
6:30 - 12:00 : Dinner and free time, even though when my wife isn't home I usually extend the theory session after dinner (having a break to refresh)

Because I think it's too vague, let me detail a bit more how I remember and how I improve.
First of all, I have a big binder with all the categories (Preflop, Postflop, SRP), where I put all my notes over time. I also have a part dedicated to "Special Sessions" where I study a special topic but I have to focus on basics first. I will take a video or pictures of the binder if you want to have an idea of what it looks like but I like the way it's organized because of the color scheme I am using and stuff. Actually let me give you a picture now

In order to quantify my 'knowledge' I keep track of 2 main datas on a google spreadsheet. The first one is mostly for preflop ranges by deepstack and positions vs positions. The second one is a document I edited that gives a priority importance based on frequencies, average size pot and my GTOW% score, even though I haven't done it yet. I send you some screenshots. I use these three documents as a base because I want to remember what I learned and review effectively, and also because the spreadsheets can help me quantify improvement over time and is kinda similar to the popular 'gamification' concept.

I think that gives you an idea of how motivated I am. I started to learn this way just a week ago, I don't mind playing low stakes, I am not ashamed to say that I am breakeven in NL2 and I don't care what people think. However, I love the game for the sake of it, the emotional control, and the deep complexity that it can have sometimes.

Since you asked me, my end goal would be to win trophies. Not money itself, as I said, I am retired already, but trophies. I played semi-pro basketball in South Korea, and never really became a full time pro. I think that now being 27, I don't have the possibility to be a high-level athlete any more, and so would like to win trophies to at least, be proud of myself and know that I was good at it. Well, it might not be now, but I have all my life ahead to achieve it, so I can take my time. Hopefully this blog can be the second most popular ever in a few years (behind my idol Paisting-sama).

See you soon, I hope it wasn't too long to read

Seth

Well 15th it is, I had a lot of fun tho.
Now it’s time to plan the studies for the week

Hello guys,

Since I finished my little "once every 6 month" live tournament, I can go back to the grind starting tomorrow. Hence, I would like to give you information about what topics I will focus on each days, and if you have any video, post or podcast that you like linked with the subject (even drill).
I will probably post weekly graphs every Sunday, but if something unusual happens I might change that.

Study Subjects :

July 22nd : BB vs BTN (As BB) and reviewing OOP 3bet Postflop
July 23rd : 3bet Pots IP and review of BB vs BTN (As BB)
July 24th : BB vs Other positions (As BB) - Made BB vs BTN a priority because it's the highest one by frequency, doesn't mean that I wont work on the other ones individually later on
July 25th : Preflop ranges 150bb effective
July 26th : Preflop ranges 200bb effective
July 27th : Rest Day (well I don't like it at all to be honest but helps me avoid a burnout over time probably)

25th and 26th are mostly if I keep performing poorly when deep, and if anything needs to be changed, please keep me up. I want this topic/journal to become a reference on how to organize and build study methods, for people that might try to do the same as I aim to do. And I surely don't mind losing EV in NL2, and even if I was higher I wouldn't, because people who are ready to work every day probably would get there at some point.

See you soon guys, with, I hope, not a breakeven graph 😉

Sounds like you have thought about this and other things well already, good for you. Just don't burn yourself out and give some room for mistakes, since they happen to everyone. I think it's good you wanna study the game in stakes where money doesn't matter and slowly improve. I do think it's a healthy approach but not for everyone. Most people don't have that patience, and I'm looking forward to see where you're at later this year so gl.

Thank you Deezed, will do my best !

Today has been a very tough day for me.
To be honest, I am full of doubts. Recently, I am losing, and not just a bit, but quite a lot. I don't feel like I try to bluff that much, I don't feel that I overcall, I am not really tilted or anything. I don't really have any negative setup (except 1 KK vs AA), but yet I feel like I am on a constant downfall. I just have to fold in 3bet pots or SRP pots on later streets, and lose 30bb here and there constantly, which gives me an impressive dip in my graph. Reaching an all-time EV low after 31k hands didn't make me angry, but I was just empty.
Empty because I work so hard to understand more and get better, and have worse results that I had before. Empty because I don't feel like I am throwing away my chips at all, but just losing money here and there constantly. I don't really care about running under-EV, because it's not a representative amount, but when EV is going down then something is wrong.
It has been haunting me for hours because I try to put a good amount of theory learning, but to use it to play exploitive and not GTO (except if I have no info). The things I work on are the things where I underperform (3bet OOP, BB defense...), and it gets better but everything else got worse. I try to grind in the best possible conditions, for not too long so I can stay focused, not too many tables so I can think about what I am doing...
I wrote this message because for hours I thought that I would never ever be able to go up in limits. It's not about the money but all the amount of work I put in recently.

This week stats :

Sorry to hear you're feeling down. But others please correct me if I'm wrong, I think we should be stealing blinds quite a bit more than equilibrium BTN and SB in a nitty pool.

Sorry to hear that :(. Do you consider at least temporarily switch to regular tables instead of rush? Heard that it might be easier to beat.

Can you filter biggest loosing hands both for showdown and non-showdown from sessions that did not went well? Remove coolers.

Perhaps it can be that player pool might be harder on GG, I can legally play only on iPoker and nanostakes are really soft.

Hope it turn around soon!

Hello guys, thank you for your answers.
I actually started playing normal tables instead of Zoom tables since yesterday. I will update the biggest lost hands of the week after today's session.
Thank you guys for your support, I will keep working hard even when it's difficult mentally

It's only 30k hands, even big winners will have breakeven & losing stretches over that period. I personally wouldn't worry about the results too much as long as you're improving away from the tables which it looks like you are

Would def recommend reg tables too. glgl

Today is July 25th. I think that in my Poker life, it was the hardest day I ever had in about 7 years (if I consider when I played, a long time before).
I played a bit, but not that much, and it was mostly mentally that I had to think a lot. I usually am a person that can achieve pretty good results in most subjects without trying too much, even though I have never been "the best" in anything. I have this natural talent to understand things fast (instruments, math, physics, languages, businesses...) but I have never been an expert in any of those.
When I got introduced to Poker, I have never been a real "big fish" and never had to deposit again. I understood after maybe a week or so, that I needed to have a good BRM, and that there was a way to learn efficiently. Back then, I didn't know anything about GTO, and so I learned using a French channel called "Kill Tilt" and I watched YoH Viral streams back then (even though I wouldn't nowadays). My favorite player was Daniel Negreanu, I don't really know why, and I was just playing a high volume of NL2 to grind the Weekly Leaderboards and buy myself something from it. From NL2 itself (without rakeback and leaderboards), I was breakeven as I said in the first post.
As I previously stated too, I don't work and am retired at 27 so I play Poker to perform. Hence, when I came back into Poker, I invested in GTO Wizard, Hand2Note, and figured that since I was breakeven, I could only improve from it and go up in limits over time.
The problem is that it has been a few months now and I don't feel any kind of improvement. Recently, I might have a little "bad run" but I also don't feel more confident playing than before, and the time I invest into learning and playing is similar to a full time job. I don't get why I don't really have any improvement in my performance in general.
The recent sessions made it even worse because I reached an all time low and it really made me think about if I really wanted to play Poker because I could technically just spend my life doing my things. The other problem is that no matter how I perform, I am always by myself. I am not Japanese so it's difficult to adapt into a society with people with a different culture, that work 60+ hours a week when I am just chilling at home every day. I have been looking for people to practice with me, both in Japan and online, but I feel like everybody is either way too advanced to need me (like NL25+), and usually NL2 players aren't really serious people either.
Somehow, after two days of thinking about not doing it, my wife motivated me to keep going (in a country where gambling is seen as mafia and stuff and she hates it), because she thought I had never been so serious about something before.

As you can see in this topic, I am highly motivated, I am not scared of showing when things go wrong because it would mean lie to myself, and I am open to any recommendation. For two days now, I play regular tables and stopped Rush and Cash. I think it's a bit easier even though it's not a huge difference, there are definitely less NITS. However I have experienced several setups so I will need a bigger sample to be sure about it.
I will keep learning because I love it, and I won't give up, thinking that at some point I will improve.
I was thinking of getting coaching vs profit% but I play NL2 so I don't think anybody would waste time doing that. It's not that I mind coaching, but my wife goes back to studying for 3 years in China (where we met and she stopped to let me come to Japan and stuff so I owe her this), and I will have to pay for the 2 lifestyles (she deserves it, she took care of me when I was broke and never asked for anything ever), meaning that I won't really have any extra money, and NL2 will probably not pay for coaching so I don't know how to improve outside of Youtube.

I was thinking that my way of learning was wrong, but the structure doesn't seem that bad, I mean, it's well organized with specific topics, I know when to play and when not to, so maybe it's just the content that's wrong ?

I don't write this message so that you pity me, it's just Poker at the end of the day. I write this message because you guys follow this journal, and so far, have given me good suggestions. I would be a fool not to listen to your advice, and as somebody that has everything to learn, I humbly ask you what you think I should do.

I will keep updating this journal everyday for years,

Regards,

Seth

Thank you for your message,

I don't know if it applies to me since I see in my game that I am not a big winner, but it definitely gave me motivation during these dark times.

Regards,

Seth

Alright so I just had a normal session, I don't really know what to say about my performance, I don't really care about the global performance but noticed that there are a lot of hands where I didn't know what to do, mostly 3bet pots.

Hand 1 : I stopped the session after this hand, so it's technically the last hand of the session. I don't know if I should have put everything on the flop, or folded on the turn, I feel like I have this situation all the time and never really know what to do. I also feel like regs usually raise a lot vs 1/3 in 3bet pots. I don't like going all in on the turn but if I call I have about 20% pot left on the river

Hand 2 : Exactly the kind of situation where I don't know if I should call or fold, don't know what he triple barrell overbet river bluff with, yet feel like a strange value line

Hand 3 : Similar to Hand 2, I think it's the same opponent so it's tough. He was 16-15 so pretty tight but it's really something where I didn't know what to do.

Hand 4 : Well this is more about exploits and stuff, this villain constantly was barrelling 85% pot on any paired board OOP. I didn't really know what the answer would be, especially since I missed most of the boards vs him.

Hand 5 : 3bet pot on SB (my biggest problem recently), I feel like every time I check, I face aggression and have to fold, and every time I bet, I get raised or called and face horrible decisions on the turn.

Session's graph, as I said I stopped playing straight after the AQs hand. Regular tables, no Zoom

Total graph (breaking my heart a bit)