Journey to $10,000 playing 1 million hands of 10nl zoom

I will keep my identity on BetMGM a mystery at this time. I shall gather money quietly in the shadows.

PokerStars had a deposit bonus that allowed me free entry into a satellite. I kind of enjoy satellites sometimes for a change of pace. I was able to fold AK preflop with like a 3BB stack or something SB v BB. Satellites are pretty crazy sometimes, but the dynamic can be quite fun even though I don't always understand all the spots. I ended up cashing into a $100 tournament that was a two day event. Started at 2pm and lasted until midnight then resumed the next day at 7pm.

I'm not really that well studied in tournaments, but I basically treated it like a short stacked cash game and that seemed to work pretty well. I tried my best to intuit ICM, but not too much to the point where I use it to make excuses to take overly passive lines. Ran super good in a field with 858 entries and came in 18th place. I was slightly disappointed that I didn't win, but I can't complain about the $617.26 profit. I really wanted to win though.

While this was happening I have also been doing marathon sessions on BetMGM, because it simply is a goldmine. The action on PokerStars has dried up a bit, but I've been really enjoying the pool at BetMGM. The promotional deals are pretty insane. I've come up with a system of playing for all the sites to make the most bang for my buck. It seems that poker sites reward playing high volume for short periods of time where increased volume does even better. To take advantage of this, I've been going really hard on some weeks and taking it easy on others. It just makes it so much better for rakeback and other promotional deals.

Apparently BetRivers is now available to Michigan players which is pretty cool. There is a $1000 bonus waiting for me there, but I haven't checked the site out yet. I've heard something about it being a site of anonymous poker and built in HUD, neither of those plays to my strengths so I'll probably just clear the bonus and ditch.

The charts I built in my previous post were pretty cool, but they are quite time consuming so I've put my focuses elsewhere. I have purchased some dodecahedral dice to randomize. I like dice because they are fun. If you node lock flops where each hand class happens at a fraction of 12 you can get some pretty implementable strategies without too much EV loss against a perfect opponent. Even when you ignore draw combos and treat them the same as air you can still maintain quite a bit of EV on some flops that would be surprising.

I joined a discord group called Chai Poker and have met some pretty cool people there. I recently drilled BU v BB AKxtt spot in GTO wizard for turn and river after over betting flop 125%. I made a post in the discord. I'll post it here:

I’ve been looking into BU v BB in SRPs for AKxtt (where x = 9 to 2) strategy for an unhealthy amount at this point. I’ve noticed some really cool heuristics to avoid blunders and have an okayish strategy.

If you over bet flop and get another low card on turn, for example A K 6 3, you can create a pretty cool strategy that comes up very often.

For value, you bet 2pair+, AQ & AJ
For middling strength, you check all other top pairs and second pair (if you have a flush draw with it though, it is better to bet)
For bluffs, you bet 3rd pair, 4th pair, and any air suited cards not of the heart variety . JT only if it has no spade. QJ and QT only if neither card is a spade or heart.
For give ups, check Q high flush draws, low straight draws(often even if they’re combo draws), and offsuit combos in general. Also pocket pairs.

The cool thing about the turn bluffs is that if the river is a non spade, you can safely jam as a bluff with all your suited air that are not spades. The 3rd and 4th pair hands end up being the give ups and they sometimes can win. If the river card is a spade then it flips and all the suited air combos become the give ups and the 3rd and 4th pair combos containing a spade will become bluffs (since they block the flush).

If you implement this strategy you will have quite a bit of bluffs on the river, but you’ll still be under bluffing because you’re actually supposed to bet suited heart air about 25% of the time on the turn and also some offsuit air combos without a spade. Also on the river you’re even supposed to bet 4th pair and missed spades sometimes even in some not as intuitive spots. Either way, it is better to be slightly under bluffing by a bit than over bluffing by a bit or not bluffing at all.

I'm not sure why, but I just think this particular spot is super cool. There are other patterns that emerge as well. For instance if a flush completes on the turn it's not a bad idea to use 1/3 to 1/2 sized bet. If you check, you're rarely betting the river and 3 of a kind is sort of the middling ground for where you may want to consider betting. Most things weaker always check, which seems nitty, but it is what it is.

Here are two cool hands that happened today:

Hand #1
PartyGaming - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 109.88 BB (VPIP: 42.08, PFR: 3.47, 3Bet Preflop: 2.80, Hands: 208)
SB: 61.19 BB (VPIP: 35.20, PFR: 23.68, 3Bet Preflop: 19.42, Hands: 339)
Hero (BB): 164.07 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q♦ 3♥

fold, SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero checks

Flop: (2 BB, 2 players) 9♠ 3♠ 9♣
SB checks, Hero bets 1 BB, SB raises to 2.5 BB, Hero raises to 5.94 BB, SB raises to 17.5 BB, Hero raises to 163.07 BB and is all-in, fold

Hero wins 180.57 BB

There is this line that I like to take sometimes in BB v BU where a flop comes AAx. When the button player bets 25%, I will raise 25% and if they are the kind of player that likes to fight a bit more they will sometimes throw in a smallish 3bet and I'll throw in a 75%ish 4bet with high broadway cards to take it down. When this hand happened it felt like a variation of that, but my opponent was trying to do it to me except it was on 993tt instead and SB v BB. In the past few hands the opponent seemed a bit overly aggressive and also their check/raise stat was 23%! When I made my tiny 3bet I was half expecting it to induce a 4bet raise which I could 5bet bluff over. I was quite in the zone and after the hand happened I just realized that I 5bet bluffed a flop. That doesn't happen too often.

Hand #2
PartyGaming - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 165.75 BB (VPIP: 26.91, PFR: 21.31, 3Bet Preflop: 10.03, Hands: 1,747)
SB: 120.71 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 16.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 26)
BB: 100 BB (VPIP: 32.32, PFR: 17.66, 3Bet Preflop: 6.92, Hands: 5,376)
Hero (UTG): 264.17 BB
MP: 62.35 BB (VPIP: 36.21, PFR: 24.43, 3Bet Preflop: 20.83, Hands: 366)
CO: 97.72 BB (VPIP: 57.86, PFR: 2.14, 3Bet Preflop: 0.99, Hands: 430)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K♣ Q♠

Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop: (4.5 BB, 2 players) 5♠ 9♠ T♣
BB checks, Hero bets 1.4 BB, BB raises to 4.92 BB, Hero calls 3.52 BB

Turn: (14.34 BB, 2 players) A♣
BB bets 15 BB, Hero calls 15 BB

River: (44.34 BB, 2 players) 2♠
BB bets 31.41 BB, Hero raises to 242.25 BB and is all-in, fold

Hero wins 315 BB

In this hand the cool part is on the turn, because I think versus most people it is a give up since there are only 4 outs to the straight which 2 of them aren't that clean and the overcards are sort of meh in a check/raised pot. However, if a spade or club comes on the river and I believe that they will check back sometimes I can use these cards as an unexpected bluff combo on both a club and a spade. When he bet out on the river, I almost folded, but then I thought to myself that he probably has a set or two pair, but will fold to a jam believing I would unlikely be bluffing and put me on a flush. Felt a bit wild with so little behind, but I went for it and I'm glad that I did. I think it is pretty hard to have combos containing a lone spade considering that I opened from LJ so this feels like a pretty decent bluffing card. Even with it, I'm probably under bluffing and my opponent made a reasonable fold.

I've been developing new systems to improve my game. I basically categorize flops into 24 categories now and my cbet strategy is pretty defined to those 24 categories. The categories of flops do not overlap. For instance, AK6 monotone falls into the monotone category and is treated the same as 863 monotone. AK6tt and AK2tt get put in a category of their own. Having flops not overlap categories allow for my betting system to be easier to implement without having to make stuff up on the fly. I have already mastered playing HU poker in SRPs as the preflop raiser. I will not lose more than 2% EV on flop if I choose to follow my system (I actually can't be sure of this 100%, but close enough I think, maybe not. haha). Of course I don't always have to follow it, but it is a nice default strategy that is super simple and it actually works pretty well.

There are definitely flaws with my system as I give up some EV for simplicity, but I do feel my strategy is quite a unique approach to playing poker and it seems to be performing well. I do lots of node locking on my own strategy rather than my opponents. In a way, I'm playing a dumbed down version of GTO, that can be refined over time to be more precise.

I still have to memorize 3bet and 4bet strats for my 24 flop categories in HU. Also all the 6 positions for 6max and the other positions for 3bet and 4bet pots. Once I master BU v BB, BU v SB, and SB v BB, I really believe that I will have a really formidable strategy. Of course, I also have to play good turns and rivers, but with a good flop foundation that only becomes easier to do.

I played a bit of 200NL at BetMGM and I finally seem to have gotten over this mental barrier. 200NL is tougher than 100NL, but I think sometimes I work myself up too much about it. Anyways here are the results over a small sample. I did feel I was playing sharp too.

Being above 9.79BB/100 adj. is a huge confidence booster even though the sample size is very small.

I've begun playing at BetRivers and surprisingly, I actually feel like I do even better at anonymous poker. I'm not sure if it is because my strategy is much more disguised or if the competition is worse. I think the latter. Seems like people sometimes go overly aggro or overly tight and less balanced. I feel a balanced approach is best with some extreme exploits where the spots are more rare. For preflop though, I think a well balanced strategy plays well. If you assume people are over folding to 3bets and start 3betting mercilessly you might make a really good profit, but as soon as you get a loose 4bettor at the table now you start bleeding money. Same thing with 4betting when you face a loose 5bettor. If you play a balanced strategy, regardless of what level your opponent is playing on they are either going to be folding too much to the 3bets, 4bets, and 5bets or stacking off into a solid range.

I honestly feel like I've been running bad at BetRivers sometimes, but the plays are just so wild that it doesn't even matter. I've been playing 100NL at BetRivers, because anonymous poker is a format I'm less used too, but I'm up 14.49BB adj with a 11,671 hand sample. As soon as I get $8000 on this account I'll probably start playing 200NL there. BetMGM has incredible rakeback, if playing optimally you can get over 66% effectively. I haven't done all the math with BetRivers, but I'm pretty sure it is significantly higher and on top of that the competition seems even softer. This is like a second poker boom I feel. It really is. I've actually gotten lazier about playing more lately, but I probably should take advantage of this opportunity, because who knows how much longer it will be around for.

Here are two hands I played on BetRivers recently.

Hand #1

PokerStars - $1 NL - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 124.72 BB
SB: 83.72 BB
BB: 100 BB
UTG: 100 BB
CO: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) CO has 7♠ 7♥

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BTN has 6♦ K♦

fold, CO raises to 2.25 BB, BTN calls 2.25 BB, fold, BB calls 1.25 BB

Flop: (7.25 BB, 3 players) J♦ 3♦ 7♦
BB checks, CO checks, BTN checks

Turn: (7.25 BB, 3 players) 6♣
BB bets 2.29 BB, CO calls 2.29 BB, BTN raises to 4.58 BB, BB calls 2.29 BB, CO calls 2.29 BB

River: (20.99 BB, 3 players) J♠
BB bets 19.89 BB, CO raises to 93.17 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 93.17 BB, fold

For this hand, it is interesting, because with my previous strategy I would bet this hand on the flop which isn't necessarily bad. I think betting and checking are both reasonable options, but with how my new strategy is, I do a lot of checking CO v BU, especially with BB behind. With the way my new strategy is constructed I actually really like the check, because it really is important to protect that checking range versus BU cold callers. BU cold callers really like to do some fancy stuff sometimes and I find trapping does well against that.

When BB leads turn, I do have the option to raise, but I generally like calling a bit more to keep the SPR deeper so that mistakes on the river are magnified. Also, people can get skittish when flops are monotone. I would also call flushes and nut flushes. I can raise as well, but I opted to call. Once BU player raises, I likely have no 3bets. I also think with his sizing he is likely a recreational and I'd like to keep bluffs in and draw to a boat.

The river is probably the most interesting thing about this hand, because I can call to try to milk BU or possibly get a 3way all-in, but I do risk the chance of BU folding or only calling. I felt BU would have odd bluff or flush often and also with a pot sized donk bet from BB I could even stack a smaller house. I decided the all-in sizing was best, because I exploitatively am never bluffing here as I expect to get called quite often. If I call and BU jams there is no guarantee that BB will call behind, so I just put the money in myself.

Hand #2

PokerStars - $1 NL - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 100 BB
BB: 378.2 BB
UTG: 149.5 BB
CO: 318.75 BB
BTN: 250.18 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BB has 4♠ 6♠

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) UTG has 8♦ 8♥

UTG raises to 2 BB, CO calls 2 BB, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop: (6.5 BB, 3 players) 3♠ 9♣ 8♣
BB bets 4.1 BB, UTG calls 4.1 BB, fold

Turn: (14.7 BB, 2 players) 5♣
BB bets 13.93 BB, UTG calls 13.93 BB

River: (42.56 BB, 2 players) Q♥
BB checks, UTG bets 5 BB, BB raises to 21.76 BB, UTG raises to 42.72 BB, BB raises to 126.48 BB, UTG calls 83.76 BB

This hand is really cool. So the opponent was open ripping preflop quite a bit and 3bet jamming. Very aggro maniac type. When he leads flop, there definitely is merit to raising, but then again. I do love to trap aggro players, yeah I'll get outdrawn sometimes, but I really want to keep crazy bluffs in. Also, sometimes the player behind will attack more thinly with value knowing that the aggro maniac is betting too loose and won't know if I'm just calling loose as well.

Turn is unfortunate, but I'm prepared to go all the way calling down with this hand. If river came a club, I might have to let it go unfortunately, but most runouts he's just gonna have too many bluffs where I just wanna keep them all-in, because he really is that wild. Just to note, If my hand was more vulnerable, like A9 or an over pair, I would strongly consider raising flop or turn. With a set I'm pure calling because the hand is less vulnerable and can stack an improved two pair or even a 3 of a kind sometimes that will likely do some weird merge value jam.

River is a decent card, because it isn't a club. Now when he checks, I just fully believe that he does not have a flush, because I was expecting a jam very often. Based on the way that he was playing, I felt confident in my read that he had pure bluffs in his range and no traps. I don't normally go for the 1/10th river bet while IP, but I made an exception versus this opponent, because I thought his range was so weak that it could induce a raise. It is tempting to go 1/2 or 1/3 or even jam, but thinking about the hand carefully, I really wanted to induce. Once he check/raises not all-in, it is a bit intimidating, because I could totally be off and he could have a flush, but I decided to 3bet small because I wanted to make the highest EV play even though it is a bit uncomfortable. Even if my opponent knows I'm not bluffing, it can be hard for aggro maniac players to resist the 4bet bluff jam. I mean, wouldn't it just suck if he folded and I showed a bluff. He's not having none of that. Fortunately he was bluffing.

I consider myself to be a quite balanced player and usually take the side of caution where I doubt knowing what my opponents are doing and play balanced to be safe, because I have definitely been burned sometimes by over adjusting which can become costly fast. I still also believe that in certain situations that come up you have to trust your conviction if the information is strong enough to make an extreme exploit.

Been really enjoying the game lately and I'm excited to be playing 200NL soon. And hell, why stop there. Once I get to $20k on the account I'll be at 500NL and hopefully beating that as well.

I've brought the account to over $15k so I'm not too far from $20k where I'll likely try out some 500NL. Sometimes those higher stakes don't run as often on BetRivers though so who knows how much action I'll get. I did come in 2nd place on the leaderboard last week so I've also received an additional $800 in bonus points bringing my affective account balance up to $16k.

Recently figured out how to combine all my usernames into aliases on PT4 so that I can post my overall graph for every site combined. Here is what it looks like. I've already played over a million hands.

If you do the math, I've basically made a bit over a nickel for every poker hand I've ever played. It is kind of a fun visualization. It is actually higher since this includes stakes where I played smaller and doesn't factor in any rakeback or bonuses. But I like the idea of every hand I play basically being an extra nickel in my pocket.

I've also decided to write a guide on cold 4betting which I shared in one of the discords I participate in. I thought it would be cool to share it here as well. Maybe some of you who are moving up in stakes like me might find it useful. Creating this has also helped solidify the strategy more in my own mind which is beneficial as well.

I actually haven't tried out my new guide yet, but I'm feeling fairly confident that the strategy will do well.

Here is my graph for 200NL at BetRivers. It is looking really good lately and I'm feeling really confident with some of the new strategies I've been implementing.

I've taken this Thanksgiving week a little bit slower in terms of playing, but I'll be back to grinding quite a bit more poker in the following weeks.

Great heuristic on cold 4bet, have you thought about adjustments based on opponent tendencies on calling off

For example in the BTN v SB v BB config, SB is supposed to 5bet Jam 90% ATs, 50% KQs and 30% 88. In game no one is ever close. Hence vs a 5bet here you may need to fold much more than GTO

That's a solid point. I am a bit hesitant to do that in the anonymous pool, because you never know if the opponent is going to just be a spaz and jam with garbage, which has occasionally happened. Although, I can't imagine it would hurt to overfold a bit since on average players aren't going to be doing that.

Since I've made this post, I've encountered three spots where I was able to cold 4-bet these new hands added to my strategy. One, I had AQs and got jammed on and was forced to fold. The other two I had KQs and ATs, and I was able to take down the pot post flop.

My account balance climbed up to $17.4k and has fallen back down to $16.3k. I'm not feeling too awful about the swings so I think my mental game has definitely improved quite a bit. If after a bunch of hands I'm not profitable I can either move down in stakes, quit poker, or build upon the strategy so that I can tackle it again. When I frame it this way it really makes it a matter-of-fact mentality without all the added emotion. Not being able to whine in chat has also helped my mental game. I used to view it as a way to vent my frustrations, which in a way it does. But it also has acted as a catalyst to get angry in the first place knowing that I can. I know that sounds weird, but yeah.

So my mental game is still kind of ass sometimes. My last post made it sound like I had it figured out, but I guess I don't. The other day I ran so bad and after I lost a hand I snapped and went on a rage and slammed my 4x4 Rubik's cube on my table multiple times and then threw it on the floor where it broke and scattered into a bunch of little pieces. I then proceeded to grab my 3x3 Rubik's cube and smashed that on the floor as well. Normally I like to fidget with my Rubik's cubes while I play poker, but now they are gone because I got mad. I have now gone back to shuffling a deck of cards instead.

This last week I was grinding for the leaderboard on BetRivers. For the last day I was already in 1st place by a small margin and had a good nights sleep prior. This last day I was prepared to play all day or at least get enough points so no one would try to beat me. The guy in 2nd place decided to make me play all day though. Towards the end the gap between our points were closing in. Instead of playing my normal 6 tables I decided to do 8 and I was able to handle it. I was a little worried he would catch me. A few tables of 1knl were running. The 1knl was a heads up game and that is super helpful for points since it rakes a lot for the house. To prevent my lead from being overtaken I decided to hop into a 1knl table and 500nl table just for a bit to keep my leaderboard lead. In hindsight it was likely unnecessary, but I was concerned about the narrowing gap between 1st and 2nd place. I played a total of 15 hands at 1knl before I decided to bail on that strategy.

Here are two hands:

Hand #1
PokerStars - $10 NL - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 101.5 BB
BB: 104.82 BB
BTN: 102 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BTN has J♦ K♥

BTN raises to 2.5 BB, fold, BB calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5.5 BB, 2 players) 5♥ J♣ 2♦
BB checks, BTN bets 1.33 BB, BB raises to 3.98 BB, BTN calls 2.64 BB

Turn: (13.45 BB, 2 players) 6♠
BB bets 9.94 BB, BTN calls 9.94 BB

River: (33.33 BB, 2 players) 2♠
BB bets 24.85 BB, BTN calls 24.85 BB

The 33% pot raise on flop was interesting since it is quite small so I'm going to have to defend a bit wider than usual. Turn we lose to sets, two pair, and str8s, but there are also quite a bit of draws like A4s, A3s, 87s, and maybe even something like 74s. By river, I'm not too stoked, but I do feel there are enough bluffs to justify a call. The fact that the sizes are a little smaller made me feel a bit more uneasy since a lot of the strong hands might want to be sizing to get all-in by the river. Naturally, the bluffs get picked in that sizing as well so it could be easier to not bluff as much for the smaller sizing. I thought his sizing looked like AJ or J5s for value. It is anonymous poker though so I don't want to make too many assumptions so I decided to do my best to play a GTOish defense. Unfortunately he had A♣ J♥

Hand #2
PokerStars - $10 NL - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 101.5 BB
BB: 145.88 BB
BTN: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BTN has T♠ T♥

BTN raises to 2.5 BB, SB raises to 12 BB, fold, BTN raises to 27 BB, SB calls 15 BB

Flop: (55 BB, 2 players) 2♦ 8♦ K♠
SB checks, BTN bets 13.7 BB, SB raises to 27.4 BB, BTN raises to 73 BB and is all-in, SB calls 45.6 BB

Turn: (201 BB, 2 players) Q♠

River: (201 BB, 2 players) 5♦

The check/raise on the flop is interesting since most people don't really have a raising range here for a king high board against a preflop 4bettor. I figured he would likely have KQs-KTs or perhaps a flush draw. Versus this small check/raise I decided to take a jam or fold strategy. With KK I probably do flat though since it isn't as vulnerable and in case he has some weird bluffs. With AA, AK and flush draws I put it in. I figured I probably should have to jam with some pocket pairs otherwise I'll just be overfolding. I prioritized jamming without a diamond so that I'm more likely to be up against the flush draw than Kx. Might not be the right approach, but I do think I am supposed to jam w/ QQ-TT at some frequency. In game, I admit I was a bit frustrated and that may have inclined me to pushing all-in a bit too much here. I don't know if I'm too happy with the way I played this hand. Maybe I'm being results oriented, but at the same time x/r on flop in 4bet pot is probably just going to be under bluffed just from my regular intuition. At the same time the people on this site just play all sorts of garbage hands because they are anonymous and just like to do weird stuff with junk so I dunno.

He ended up having 8♣ 8♠ which kind of surprised me because I think there is more value in flatting a hand like that than x/r flop. Then again, I wouldn't have put my stack in with TT so it did perform best versus my specific hand. However, I may have barreled off a hand like AQ, AJ, or AT on various run outs which I'm always folding to the flop x/r.

I was able to maintain 1st place on the leaderboard by midnight so I will receive the $1k prize for first place. The guy in 2nd place gets $800, but he also probably was one of the two guys who got money from me at 1knl so it actually worked out better for him than me even if he doesn't know it.

I played for 12 hours straight, didn't stop for dinner or breaks. Pretty pokered out for the time being so will likely be taking this next week slow.

Unfortunate run bad, but good to see you arent playing scared money at 5x the normal stakes. Looking forward to a year end recap!

I decided to play on BetMGM this past week so I could unlock the gold tier for all of next year. I was a little nervous because I had been playing anonymous poker so much lately on BetRivers I was afraid it might have affected my game in a negative way. Fortunately, I ended up playing decent and running well. Ended up making around $3.2k this week. Unfortunately I didn't time my playing correctly. The weekly promotion begins on Saturday and ends on Friday at midnight so I missed the extra $250 with my playing which is a bit sad, but I did have a good week so I can't complain too much. My graph for 200NL has been looking pretty good:

7.79bb/100 winrate adjusted for a small sample of 27, 885 hands. However, I'm feeling fairly confident. I lost my cool at the table a couple of times calling people luck boxes. Will continue to work on not being an asshole in the future more, I was able to resist the temptation a couple of times, but I still need to get better at that.

Looking forward to some 500NL at BetRivers, which I'll probably be doing quite a bit more of next year. Since those games don't run as much I'll probably have loads of 200NL as well. I want to hit the leaderboards over there a bit more before they add the New Jersey pool over there which will probably make it harder to hit.

I've been trying not to over fold so much especially versus more competent opponents. I have to give people more credit for being able to bluff, it is necessary in order for me to improve.

Here are some hands:

Hand #1
PartyGaming - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 95.71 BB (VPIP: 30.73, PFR: 14.66, 3Bet Preflop: 8.17, Hands: 1, 486)
BTN: 163.02 BB (VPIP: 24.34, PFR: 19.31, 3Bet Preflop: 9.72, Hands: 13, 538)
Hero (SB): 124.48 BB
BB: 115.76 BB (VPIP: 31.03, PFR: 14.94, 3Bet Preflop: 10.26, Hands: 91)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

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

fold, BTN raises to 2.5 BB, Hero raises to 10 BB, fold, BTN calls 7.5 BB

Flop: (21 BB, 2 players) 7♥ 6♣ J♦
Hero bets 6.6 BB, BTN calls 6.6 BB

Turn: (34.2 BB, 2 players) 4♦
Hero bets 24.9 BB, BTN calls 24.9 BB

River: (84 BB, 2 players) 9♦
Hero checks, BTN bets 121.52 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 82.98 BB and is all-in

Hero shows J♠ A♥ (One Pair, Jacks)
(Pre 46%, Flop 86%, Turn 77%)
BTN shows 5♥ 5♠ (One Pair, Fives)
(Pre 54%, Flop 14%, Turn 23%)
Hero wins 248.95 BB

Wasn't sure about this river call tbh. I don't have a flush blocker, but at the same time I don't want to not protect my B - B - XC line in 3bet pots OOP too much. My opponent was a decent reg, so I felt like he might be able to find some bluffs. There is some merit to jamming river myself if I think he'll under bluff versus the check, but I also feel that is incredibly thin with the diamond and 3 straight possibilities on the board. Since he had 55 I can feel moderately happy about the call, but at the same time it didn't feel like an easy spot.

Hand #2
PartyGaming - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 114.85 BB (VPIP: 27.81, PFR: 24.26, 3Bet Preflop: 9.54, Hands: 1, 533)
UTG: 103.12 BB (VPIP: 42.49, PFR: 2.93, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 279)
CO: 148.91 BB (VPIP: 36.48, PFR: 12.11, 3Bet Preflop: 7.29, Hands: 2, 227)
Hero (BTN): 120.06 BB
SB: 185.28 BB (VPIP: 18.02, PFR: 14.69, 3Bet Preflop: 7.52, Hands: 1, 020)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J♣ 7♣

UTG calls 1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 4 BB, SB calls 3.5 BB, fold, fold

Flop: (10 BB, 2 players) 6♣ 3♣ Q♣
SB checks, Hero bets 4.72 BB, SB raises to 13 BB, Hero calls 8.28 BB

Turn: (36 BB, 2 players) A♠
SB bets 23 BB, Hero calls 23 BB

River: (82 BB, 2 players) K♠
SB bets 145.28 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 80.06 BB and is all-in

SB shows 3♥ 3♠ (Three of a Kind, Threes)
(Pre 50%, Flop 34%, Turn 23%)
Hero shows J♣ 7♣ (Flush, Queen High)
(Pre 50%, Flop 66%, Turn 77%)
Hero wins 240.62 BB

I almost folded the river on this one since SB is an 18/15 player. I figured he'd have the nut flush often, but I can't always be assuming I know exactly what people are doing. In theory this would never be a fold and I think the adjustment for folding would be too extreme even against the nitty 18/15 stats. I mostly expect SB preflop calls from nittier players to be pocket pairs and ace high flush draws, but I can't assume there are no AJo, ATo, and suited connector type hands. Sometimes I feel like I give these tighter players a bit too much respect for having hands and end up over folding to them so I've been working on not throwing my hand away all the time against them.

I still haven't memorized all of my flop aggressor spots for every position yet. It is a bit of a monumental task, but at the same time I gotta bite the bullet and work on that as well. I've been putting it on the back burner lately, but I really need to get that stuff down so that I can increase my EV.

Update??

I was having trouble getting into the old-style-looking 2+2. For awhile I could only log in to the "new" version and I really hate that format. The old version is working again and I like it way better.

January was good, but February and so far in March has been pretty god awful. Observe the massive drop in the following graph at BetRivers 200NL:

It's like overnight I went from solid poker player to absolute drooler and I'm not even really sure what I'm doing wrong. My overall graph at BetRivers isn't so bad.

Overall, I'm a bit disappointed with my results as I thought that I would be doing much better than I am. At 200NL I had lost around $4k in 4k hands which is about a $1 per hand. It doesn't feel like I should be losing so much to these 50+ vpip players, but for whatever reason they are kicking my ass. I went into the BetRivers discord and announced my concerns that there may have been cheating going on, but perhaps that is just cope for my run bad/deteriorating playing ability. Due to this setback, I went back into my GTO cave and started working on my strategy. A week later I returned. Today I played again and lost another 1.5k. I did run 1k under EV, but still. It was unpleasant.

I'd probably play more 100NL, but the games don't really run that often anymore. You kind of have to play 200NL or not at all if you want to be able to hit the leaderboard and keep the benefits of level 7 while still having a life outside poker. Problem is I'm not sure it is worth it since I don't know if I'm profitable in these games anymore. It could always be variance, but the steep drop is quite alarming.

What is kind of weird is my heads up results have been quite good and that is odd, because I feel like when I play heads up I'm often outclassed and it is mostly to get tables going. Those are very small samples though.

I was hoping I could get the poker bankroll up to around $70k before July and I'm around $41k right now so I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it if I can't start to beat these 200NL games. My winrate is 1.32 bb/100 adj. after 102k hands for 200NL (at least theoretically). It is 8.58 bb/100 adj. after 116k hands for 100NL.

For my last 7k hands at 200NL primedope says with a 95% certainty that my winrate is between -52bb/100 and -7.48bb/100 which is really bad. I did cherry pick that hand sample by grabbing at the peak before the massive fall, but even still. -7.48bb/100 is the ceiling of the 95% confidence interval which is really bad even for a cherry picked piece of data.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I went through a pretty bad run of cards that was really tough, but I'm back to playing again. Started counting the number of heads up scenarios in 3bet pots and it seems like SB v (BU & CO) ended up being the most common formation so I'm going to focus a lot more on that in the following days.

I decided to run a cool filter on all the poker hands I've ever played to see how my winrate changes based on the number of effective bbs in a hand. Here are the graphs:

0-99bbs

100-149bbs

150-199bbs

200+bbs

It is noticeably more profitable for me to play against short stacks with a 17.36bb winrate than say 100-149bb stacks at 3.10bb. This is not too surprising since short stacks are generally recreational players. The real thing I wanted to see was my deep stack play which actually improved at 150-199bbs at 12.23bbs and even higher at 200+bbs at 17.64bbs.

I always felt like my deep stack play is a weaker game than my 100bb stack play especially since I don't do frequent overbetting like a lot of other solid regs. That is a lot more important at deep stack play. I do tend to go to other tables if I have the option when my stack gets above 200BB and I feel like the other guy is decent. So this could affect that winrate as I usually stay deep stacked when I'm up against quite fishy players. At the 150-199bb range I don't leave a lot and yet it is still higher than the 100-149bb range. So either my deep stacked game isn't as bad as I previously thought or when I'm against weaker competition I'm more likely to build up a bigger stack and that skews the results. Either way this was cool to look at.

Had a really successful month so far. Up around $30kish with playing only 50NL and 100NL which is exceptionally good. Been putting in a lot of hours. I've changed quite a few things about my game, hopefully for the better.

I've been 2betting BB v SB more often especially when facing a small continuation bet. Along with this I've been focusing on backdoor straight draws a lot more. In the past it is something I feel I kind of over looked. I've considered backdoor flush draws, but backdoor straight draws are important too and I haven't been giving them enough love.

Here is a hand that demonstrates this.

PokerStars - $0.50 NL - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 231.02 BB
CO: 109.6 BB
BTN: 100 BB
SB: 104.26 BB
Hero (BB): 161.6 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 3♦ 7♦

fold, fold, fold, SB raises to 2.96 BB, Hero calls 1.96 BB

Flop: (5.92 BB, 2 players) A♣ 5♥ Q♦
SB bets 1.7 BB, Hero raises to 6.2 BB, SB calls 4.5 BB

Turn: (18.32 BB, 2 players) 4♦
SB checks, Hero bets 13.02 BB, SB calls 13.02 BB

River: (44.36 BB, 2 players) 3♥
SB checks, Hero bets 139.42 BB and is all-in, fold

Notice that on flop I have backdoor flush and str8 draws which I think makes a great candidate for 2betting. If turn is a diamond, 2, 4, or 6 I have an attractive double barrel. Even barreling a 3 or 7 isn't out of the question. Normally I don't like to triple with flush draws, but I think this river is an exception since so many blockers are nice and this is just a really good candidate imo. It can't be fun holding Ax in opponent's shoes. Even two pair isn't exactly jumping for joy either.

For the longest time, after isolating limpers preflop, I would fire a 1/2 pot continuation bet. I've lowered this to a 1/3 sizing. Though the 1/2 pot sizing is more unique and can throw people off their game, I just find the 1/3 works more in a lot more situations and the limpers just aren't check/raising enough and I do feel more comfortable navigating the situations for when they do. I now think of isolated pots as if they are 3bet pots, but with deeper stacks and wider ranges. Kind of helpful when I think about it this way.

Also I've gotten more comfortable with 3betting flops especially OOP, but IP as well. Not just as an obscure exploit, but as a decent default strategy sometimes. Often times I really enjoy trapping by calling 2bets and letting people barrel off with too weak of a range. Sometimes though I run into players that don't barrel it off or if they do it is a better constructed range. Also some 2betters just have a lot of weak stuff that I need to deny equity too, especially OOP.

Here is a hand that shows some of these principles in action:

PokerStars - $1 NL - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 107.46 BB
BTN: 119.99 BB
SB: 103.68 BB
BB: 106 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) SB has A♥ 5♥

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BTN has 9♥ 2♥

fold, BTN calls 1 BB, SB raises to 5 BB, fold, BTN calls 4 BB

Flop: (11 BB, 2 players) 6♥ A♠ K♥
SB bets 3.44 BB, BTN raises to 10 BB, SB raises to 20.04 BB, BTN raises to 78 BB, SB raises to 98.68 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 20.68 BB

Turn: (208.36 BB, 2 players) K♠

River: (208.36 BB, 2 players) 9♦

Granted, A5s is probably close to a pure call in theory if I had to guess. However, I felt my opponent's 2bet was a bit loose here in game. Trapping definitely is a fine option, but 3betting also has the ability to get action as well with 4bet bluffs and sometimes I overlook that a bit too much.

Finally, I've begun raising even against pot sized bets and overbets when the time calls for it. Often times I really like to default to having no raising range against pot or over bet, but again they don't always barrel it off. Doing this against spazzers is great, but some players can put on the breaks. Even recreational players that love to click pot. Sometimes they pick a big bet size knowing they won't get raised and give up all rivers unless they hit. Against these types, I need to fight back at least a non 0% of the time.

Here is a cool hand against an Alan Keating type of player.

PokerStars - $1 NL - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP: 105.08 BB
CO: 213.85 BB
BTN: 103.09 BB
SB: 545.69 BB
BB: 113.29 BB
UTG: 117.48 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) SB has 7♦ 8♠

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) UTG has T♦ T♣

UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, CO calls 2 BB, fold, SB calls 1.5 BB, fold

Flop: (7 BB, 3 players) 6♥ 4♦ 4♠
SB bets 1 BB, UTG raises to 5.32 BB, fold, SB calls 4.32 BB

Turn: (17.64 BB, 2 players) 9♦
SB bets 33.22 BB, UTG raises to 110.16 BB and is all-in, SB calls 76.94 BB

River: (237.96 BB, 2 players) Q♣

On the turn he can definitely have a 4 and some other type of holdings, but I felt a majority of the time that this sizing was to generate fold equity and also buy a river. TT falls into that category where I think I'm winning enough, but there are so many river cards that could be bad for me. I ended up jamming as an equity denial type of play. The thing about some of these wild player types is they are willing to use multiple bet sizings which can make them harder to play against or figure out what they're doing. At the same time, I believe it can give away more information so if I feel confident on the read sometimes I just go with it. I don't really have many hands jamming against this overbet. Probably TT and JJ. The thing about TT and JJ is they don't block 9x calls which I think are possible. Also I beat 96s. These player types do seem to go after regs that are a bit more timid which makes them quite decent at deeper stacked poker. I think their main weakness is lack of theoretical knowledge in smaller stacked poker and when their exploits fail sometimes they have a hard time adjusting when their over aggression isn't getting through. Sometimes I can get in the habit of underestimating these type of players because they make a lot of errors. At the same time they can be really good at finding some unorthodox exploits that even regs aren't prepared for.

I'd like to share one more beautiful hand against a very wildly aggressive player. I noticed that he liked to check/raise me on flops a lot. He does tend to take it too far though and has too weak of a range in most spots.

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

UTG: 105.68 BB
MP: 92.02 BB
CO: 100 BB
BTN: 259.8 BB
SB: 70.02 BB
BB: 216.88 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BB has T♦ 2♥

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BTN has Q♠ Q♣

fold, MP calls 1 BB, fold, BTN raises to 4 BB, fold, BB calls 3 BB, fold

Flop: (9.5 BB, 2 players) J♥ 2♣ Q♦
BB checks, BTN bets 2.26 BB, BB calls 2.26 BB

Turn: (14.02 BB, 2 players) Q♥
BB checks, BTN bets 4.38 BB, BB calls 4.38 BB

River: (22.78 BB, 2 players) 6♥
BB checks, BTN bets 7.12 BB, BB raises to 14.24 BB, BTN raises to 51.78 BB, BB raises to 206.24 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 154.46 BB

The flop is quite standard. There is rationale for checking it back, but I think that would be a pretty severe mistake against this player type. My default strategy is to range bet 1/4 on this board and I see no reason to deviate. Turn is where it gets interesting. We are 200BB deep and normally the play would be to polarize to get his stack or go for my sissy default sizing of 75% pot hoping for a creative check/raise. I think a lot of people in my shoes would check back the turn with this hand since it blocks so much value and he will likely spazz most of his range on river. The 33% sizing is really cool though, because I believe he knows that I would not take that sizing with a lone queen so it really makes my hand either suspiciously weak or suspiciously strong. I was hoping for him to x/r turn, but he just called instead. On the river it is tempting to size up with the flush coming in and I should never bet less than 1/2 pot on river in theory, but I really wanted to induce a raise, because I think he has a lot of weak hands and my hand doesn't really even look that strong either. It was tempting to size up, but I really wanted to go for his stack with a tiny bet. Once he x/r river the sizing was so small that I was very confident that he had nothing so the only way to induce an all-in is to raise to a size where it can look reasonable to fold to a 4bet jam while still having the 3bet sizing be big enough that a 4bet jam bluff would be worth it.

I made the mistake of letting my bankroll grow too big on the poker site that I've been playing. I made a big 17k withdrawal and it has taken over 72 hours for them to review it and I'm getting extremely anxious about it. I'm kind of like a jealous girlfriend except with money. She suspects you're cheating on her and every second that goes by without words of consolation lets that suspicious grow to unreasonable levels. I'm the same way, but with my money on a poker site and worried they're going to run off with my money. Every second that passes the feeling gets worse and worse.

On the bright side I've made more money in a single month than I ever have in my entire life. On the downside, I have to actually see the money go into my bank account for me to be able to relax.

Did I read that right? 30k in a month at nl50-100? Youd need like 300k hands if not more

Dang grats, 30k in a month is like 100k hands at 30bb/100!

I should have mentioned that I built up a LOT of bonus points in the months prior until I reached level 7 and that is a big factor in this super profitable month. It is a very good feeling. I do kind of want the money in my bank account though. It has been under review for like 5 days now and I'm super impatient. I wish I had made weekly withdrawals instead of waiting for the end of the month, because now the money is a significant size and it makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I've been playing some more lately and have been running/playing well lately. I've hopped back into 200NL tables and feeling good about my game. I've been thinking of a concept about understanding your personal game tree. You can build a simple game tree with single bet sizes on all streets and have that not change too much in accordance to the board and your hand class. You can also build a complex game tree with many bet sizes where your opponents might have a harder time figuring out what you have. The benefits of the first strategy is your strategy is a lot easier to implement, but it can be quite predictable for your opponents. It isn't necessarily easier to play against, but you might not be taking full advantage of certain exploits. The complex game tree strategy can be hard to know what you're doing and it can exploit your opponents greatly and be extremely profitable, but if they figure you out you can kind of be in a situation where you feel like you're constantly f*cking yourself and don't know how to get out of it, because you are giving off bet sizing tells everywhere.

This got me to thinking about a hybrid strategy. Observe these drawings in MS paint of game trees:

Simple Game Tree

Complex Game Tree

Hybrid Game Tree

The green branches represent lines that you know well. They are for the most part balanced or pseudo GTO. The red branches represent lines that you've kind of discovered out of curiosity and don't really understand the theory behind it or have it balanced. Ideally it would be nice to have a big green tree with many many branches, but we only have a finite amount of time so I've been focusing on making my game tree like the Hybrid Game Tree. To my opponents they are unable to see the colors so the trees appear like this to them:

Simple Tree

Complex Tree & Hybrid Tree

By building my strategy to be like the Hybrid Game Tree, my strategy can look to be more complex than it really is while not really being that complex. My Hybrid Game Tree looks similar to the Complex Game Tree from my opponent's perspective. If my opponent is better than me or begins to see the color of my branches then I can revert my strategy to the Simple Game Tree which will likely not be the greatest in terms of EV, but I also won't be getting ripped apart either. I feel like I've always had a bit of a Hybrid Game Tree to some extent and I'm sure most people playing poker have this to some degree, but to make it a conscious decision is another matter.

At the end of the day I can split sizes on all streets and my opponent will be none the wiser. If they are hyper focused on me they may develop pattern recognition and destroy my red branches, but I also don't have to split sizes if I don't want to. The general approach to poker that is taught is to have a single size preflop, single size on flop, single size on turn, and then a small and big size on the river. I think this approach is great for building up a Simple Tree, but if you deviate from this I think there is a lot of EV to capture. Splitting to other sizes will also affect the EV of the other sizes as well since a hand of certain strength in one size will affect the strength of the other.

I believe this is why sometimes fish can actually throw an experienced player off a bit, because certain non-passive fish tend to go full out Complex Tree and this can actually work in their favor because they have all these weird ass bet sizes where they donk turn for 1.5x pot or donk river for 1/8 pot. The thing is though, that if you pay really close attention and you figure out what makes them tick then you can adjust and absolutely annihilate them. Even experienced players will use the Complex Tree and it can be tough to play against although I find this player type to be less common.

When players use a Complex Tree bet sizing tells become extremely important. With the Simple Tree bet sizing tells don't matter so much, because that might be the only size they are using.

Range betting and checking is also something a Simple Tree player will use. I love range betting and checking because it makes my tree so much easier to play, but I've been experimenting with adding some complexity into my game to build a Hybrid Tree and I'm loving it a lot.

Here are a couple hands to demonstrate:

Hand #1
PokerStars - $1 NL - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 158.19 BB
BTN: 363.87 BB
SB: 100.5 BB
BB: 386.5 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) CO has 6♥ K♥

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BTN has K♦ A♣

CO calls 1 BB, BTN raises to 4 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 3 BB

Flop: (9.5 BB, 2 players) 5♥ Q♠ 7♥
CO checks, BTN bets 2.97 BB, CO raises to 5.94 BB, BTN raises to 16.38 BB, CO calls 10.44 BB

Turn: (42.26 BB, 2 players) 2♦
CO checks, BTN bets 30.57 BB, CO calls 30.57 BB

River: (103.4 BB, 2 players) J♠
CO checks, BTN checks

In this hand I isolated a limper to the 4bb size which follows my simple tree since it is pretty much the only size I use here.

On flop I range bet 1/3. (I used to do 1/2 here, but I have since changed my strategy to 1/3. 1/2 is more a unique strategy and thought people might play worse against it, but I'm feeling like 1/3 actually plays better, because I'm really not getting check/raised enough by recreational players and I feel more comfortable dealing with check/raises in general) In this particular instance my opponent had been check/raising way too much which actually is probably good against me in a vacuum. However, I decided to make an exploitative 3bet with AKo combos not containing a heart. I am now entering a red branch in my game tree. The idea behind this line is I expect this player to perceive the 3bet as a very strong made hand. I suspect he will either 4bet jam with made hands, fold some middling/strongish hands and call with mostly draws.

On the turn I fire again, because I really want to get value from the draws and bluff out some hands that might have gotten sticky like QJ or QT. AK also blocks AQ and KQ which is nice.

River I check back and hope the jack doesn't help him.

This line is a great line versus a specific type of player and it is something that I've been using for years that would even get scoffed at sometimes by other players, but I really love the line a lot. If I'm wrong about my read though it can backfire badly. This sort of thing happens quite a bit in poker where you can take a line that looks really strong to shift the opponent's range in a way so that it benefits a specific hand class in your range. For example, overbetting a small flush draw on a paired turn to get folds from larger flush draws but still get called by trips. After all, trips can turn into boats, but higher flush draws can be drawing dead.

Interesting to note, when I'm playing against a player that I deem as a calling station I can accidently do this sort of thing to myself and then I start getting exploited. If I just stop bluffing them then my checking range becomes overly weak and then they start attacking that so I also have to include strong hands in the checking range even though that seems counterintuitive since they don't like to fold enough.

Hand #2
PokerStars - $1 NL - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 121.86 BB
Hero (SB): 305.63 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K♦ 3♠

Hero raises to 2.25 BB, BB calls 1.25 BB

Flop: (4.5 BB, 2 players) J♣ Q♣ T♦
BB checks, Hero bets 1.07 BB, BB calls 1.07 BB

Turn: (6.64 BB, 2 players) A♠
BB checks, Hero bets 2.08 BB, BB raises to 14.92 BB, Hero calls 12.84 BB

River: (36.48 BB, 2 players) J♥
BB checks, Hero bets 287.39 BB and is all-in, fold

In this hand I bet 1/4 on flop. Not sure what is the GTO size, but 1/4 is what I do for my Simple Tree. On turns where there are 4 cards to a str8 I like to do 1/3 sometimes as I find I get a lot of overfolds. I also get the benefit of sometimes getting a large check/raise for over 100% pot. I expect in theory that there should be some two pair combos in range, but in practice I find that a lot of players don't really have those hands in range. Versus these players I like to flat my entire continuing range and include no 3bets. At this point, I expect him to have Kx for the straight very often. I think some players will have the flush draw once in a blue moon, but I also expect it to be under represented.

Once the river pairs the jack, I'm feeling pretty pleased. If I remember correctly, I think he also checked river rather quickly which I think makes full houses less likely than they already are. In this spot I can go all-in to bluff him off a chop and bet somewhere from 3/4 to pot for value with houses which I think will get crying calls from some straights. I could try and play a more balanced approach where I jam a certain number of value combos to be safe, but I don't really feel like it is necessary when I have a high degree of confidence in my exploit.

I don't feel like my heads up game is all that great from a theoretical perspective, but I do believe that some of my exploitative lines do make up for it. The greater the degree of the exploit and being correct the less sound my theoretical game actually needs to be. I watched a YouTube video from the CoinPoker channel and I listened to a high stakes guy named seallama talk about how he had 3 sizings on a certain board texture, I think it was on a river. In my head I was thinking it is unlikely that a human person would be balanced in all those lines. I imagine that he is using 3 sizes that might be hard exploits.

Here is my HU graph for BetRivers for all stakes since I've started playing there

Here is my graph for the previous 30 days at all stakes

Another thing that I've decided to do is go to the WSOP for the Main Event. I've wanted to go for several years, but this time I really think this will be the year. I've already booked a stay at the HorseShoe in Vegas and I'll have to look into getting plane flights setup pretty soon. I'm honestly a bit nervous about it, because I've never really traveled long distances like this alone.

Good luck! Time to splurge a bit in vegas with the 30k winnings 😀

Have you changed your playing style to be more tight at some point? You had a redline for a long time goin uplines, but at some point it started going straight down. I also think your results were better when you played clearly more exploitative poker. GlMan

There could be a lot of factors to determine the reason for this. More passive lines from me, the pool getting tougher, playing a greater volume of games with higher stakes. I would say my game has gotten more aggressive over time and not passive. Although, sometimes more aggressive lines can open the door for more spots to be overfolded. For example, If I choose to not make a thin 2bet on the river, I never have to risk getting 3bet jammed on and having to fold lowering the red line. Earlier me would pretty much never bluff the flop as the in position 3bet caller when it was checked to me. I throw out a lot more 1/3 bets to take it down, but that can also open up the door to losing a larger pot later on if I get check/raised or they go all-in on the river. There are so many different lines and I can't really pinpoint exactly what the cause is.

I'm not too concerned about redline as I am about the green line since green line is more important. The redline is a curious thing to me though. There are a lot of spots where you can go for thin value where not too many hands beat you, but also not a lot of worse hands can call. These spots you can take the passive line and increase your blue line or take the aggressive route and increase your red line, but neither one matters a whole lot to your green line.

Sometimes I fight battles that maybe I shouldn't where I could just fold earlier in the street, so the aggression might actually work against me in some cases. It isn't so easy being able to tell so I'm just trying to focus on playing my best and hoping for the best.

This inspired to me to create some graphs with some filters showing unraised, single raised, 3bet, 4bet, and 5bet pots. Here they are:

Unraised:

Single Raised:

3bet:

4bet:

5bet:

Interesting to note that the 4bet pots I'm actually positive in blue line and red line. I think this is because players will often 3bet too wide and not know what to do with their junk. They either have to defend and lose money or fold and lose money. The downside to this is that when I get 5bet I'm usually behind. I also might be 5bet bluffing A5s and A4s a bit too much so maybe I ought to reign that in a bit. With the anonymous feature, sometimes I find myself 5betting against overly tight 4bet ranges, but it can be hard to know. I'm not sure if the 5bet graph is something I should actively work on fixing or if it is the byproduct of having such a profitable 4bet graph. Same thing with the Unraised Graph. I should maybe further split the graph into BB and SB since the only time I really enter an unraised pot is if I was already in the BB or if I have a juicy hand in the SB. For the other positions it can happen, but they are a lot more rare.

Sometimes I wonder if my bluffs are getting a bit reckless, but they do seem to get through quite a lot. I think a big part of improving is to **** around and find out. Here are a few bluffs:

Hand #1

PokerStars - $1 NL - Holdem - 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 100 BB
SB: 118.56 BB
BB: 160.98 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) SB has A♦ 9♦

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BTN has 8♣ 6♣

BTN raises to 2.5 BB, SB raises to 10 BB, BB calls 9 BB, BTN calls 7.5 BB

Flop: (30 BB, 3 players) 5♦ J♣ 2♣
SB bets 9.41 BB, BB calls 9.41 BB, BTN calls 9.41 BB

Turn: (58.23 BB, 3 players) 7♦
SB bets 99.15 BB and is all-in, fold, BTN calls 80.59 BB and is all-in

River: (219.41 BB, 2 players) J♠

The turn bluff on this one is a bit ambitious, but I do feel like these players in particular just had too wide of ranges so I just jammed the turn. I think when players just don't fold their suited things preflop enough these kind of lines can be good with a nut flush draw on occasion, because you can fold out some weak pairs and get called by weaker combo draws. I also am really never drawing dead which is kind of nice if I happen to be up against a strong hand. I think it is reasonable for me to jam with over pairs as well here since both their ranges are wide enough. These guys seemed pretty loose to me.

Hand #2

PokerStars - $1 NL - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (CO): 170.35 BB
BTN: 79.27 BB
SB: 105.21 BB
BB: 149.26 BB
UTG: 184.95 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 5♥ A♥

UTG raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 7 BB, fold, fold, fold, UTG calls 5 BB

Flop: (15.5 BB, 2 players) 6♦ T♥ 6♠
UTG checks, Hero bets 4.85 BB, UTG calls 4.85 BB

Turn: (25.2 BB, 2 players) 7♥
UTG checks, Hero bets 22 BB, UTG calls 22 BB

River: (69.2 BB, 2 players) 6♣
UTG checks, Hero bets 136.5 BB and is all-in, fold

This hand was played against a reg type player. I find when I'm playing deep stacked poker it can be kind of card to get the full stack when I jam river here with AA or KK. I feel like regs sometimes assume you're not going to bluff them off a fullhouse. Since I block Ah6h, 6h5h, and maybe some slow played AA this seems like a decent candidate. I think if I had 88, 99, JJ, or QQ in opponent's spot it could be tempting to throw it away, because most of the pool probably is under bluffing here. With a value hand, I might exploitatively sized down to get more calls. I probably would have done so in this spot versus this specific player.

Hand #3

PokerStars - $2 NL - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 130.09 BB
UTG: 126.03 BB
MP: 120.29 BB
CO: 100 BB
Hero (BTN): 221.93 BB
SB: 105.48 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A♥ 7♥

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.5 BB, SB calls 2 BB, BB calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (7.5 BB, 3 players) A♦ 9♣ 7♦
SB checks, BB bets 2.41 BB, Hero calls 2.41 BB, SB calls 2.41 BB

Turn: (14.73 BB, 3 players) 9♥
SB checks, BB bets 10.61 BB, Hero calls 10.61 BB, fold

River: (35.94 BB, 2 players) T♦
BB bets 11.68 BB, Hero raises to 206.42 BB and is all-in, fold

This one might have been a little reckless, I do have the counterfeited two pair though so that actually blocks a lot of boats so it seems like a really good candidate. The smaller size on river kind of gave me more confidence in the line, but I already had some ideas of something like this on the turn going into the river. I do feel a bit reluctant taking these lines against frequent donk bettors, because sometimes they hero with the most random stuff that beats me and tilts me to no end. I do think it is possible to fold out 9x though as well as complete garbage.

Hand #4

PokerStars - $1 NL - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 121.99 BB
BTN: 110.38 BB
SB: 206.95 BB
BB: 73.24 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) SB has Q♥ Q♠

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) UTG has 7♠ K♠

UTG raises to 2 BB, MP calls 2 BB, CO calls 2 BB, fold, SB raises to 12 BB, BB calls 11 BB, UTG calls 10 BB, MP calls 10 BB, CO calls 10 BB

Flop: (60 BB, 5 players) T♥ 3♠ A♠
SB bets 5.7 BB, fold, UTG calls 5.7 BB, fold, fold

Turn: (71.4 BB, 2 players) A♣
SB checks, UTG checks

River: (71.4 BB, 2 players) A♦
SB bets 6.8 BB, UTG raises to 82.3 BB and is all-in, SB calls 75.5 BB

This hand was a fun one, because immediately going to the flop I'm kind of playing a guessing game, because it is 5 ways with a mediocre hand versus some looser players and I don't really know what to do. I opted for a 1/10 bet which I don't do all that often, but it felt okay at the time with so many players with this board texture. River is tough, because I was hoping to get value from a smaller house, but when he jams I have to think about how often he's betting the turn with an ace. Also, with the flop going 5 ways people are bit more reluctant to bluff. However with fish, sometimes they overlook the number of players seeing a flop and do it anyway. I know fishier players love to trap with 3 of a kind more often so that also works against me. Also, me having the ace isn't that crazy of a possibility either from his perspective. Fortunately I was able to find the call this time and be right.

Hand #5

PokerStars - $0.50 NL - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 128.48 BB
BB: 112.16 BB
UTG: 102.7 BB
CO: 91 BB
BTN: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) SB has K♣ A♥

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BB has Q♣ Q♦

UTG calls 1 BB, fold, fold, SB raises to 7 BB, BB calls 6 BB, fold

Flop: (15 BB, 2 players) 9♥ Q♥ 3♥
SB bets 3.84 BB, BB calls 3.84 BB

Turn: (22.68 BB, 2 players) 7♠
SB checks, BB bets 16.12 BB, SB calls 16.12 BB

River: (54.92 BB, 2 players) Q♠
SB checks, BB bets 85.2 BB and is all-in, SB calls 85.2 BB

I opted not to 3bet on this one since I felt the opponent's range was abnormally tight. River I decided to jam, because I find the players with the tight ranges pre will sometimes get married to their hands post flop so I thought jamming might get called w/ a pocket pair containing a heart, a flush or sometimes a premium with no heart that just can't let go. I was very pleased to see the hero call with the ace high. I share this one, because I think it is cool how sometimes with quads you want to go small and induce the bluff, but other times you go for it all and it is always situationally dependent.

WSOP Main Event is coming up in a week and I'm nervous/excited! I've realized that I'm kind of ass at tournaments in a way because I don't really know the theory all that well. I've created 42 preflop charts for myself to memorize in the next week. Hopefully I will succeed, but it is quite a lot of stuff to remember. Fortunately I have some weird mnemonic techniques that might help me get them in time. I have 14 charts for each blind level: 5bb stacks, 10bb stacks, and 15bb stacks. For 20bb and higher I'm just gonna have to do a bit more guess work, but I think for these lower blind levels it would be kind of embarrassing if I made the final table and I end up folding A8o in SB to a BU open at 15bbs or something silly like that.

As for ICM, I probably should know it better to increase my winrate, but I also lowkey kinda don't wanna know it that well, because the probability of winning the whole thing goes up when you put ICM to the side.

Today I was able to memorize all 14 of the 5bb level, but hopefully I'll be able to retain it. I have been using a program I built on GameMaker 8.0 to test my knowledge. I need to average around 6 charts a day before July 3rd. Although 5bb is easy though, because you're either all-in or folding. 10bb, I do have some calls vs. 2x opens in SB and BB. the 15bb charts are quite elaborate, because there is limping, opening, and jamming going on so it will be a lot harder to get the information in my brain.

For each chart I remember a series of characters/numbers, the rough floor for lowest suited hands and offsuit hands, followed by single hand deviations. For example, BB v HJ at 5bbs I have "2222438, suited 6s, offsuit 9s, J5s, 75 stairs, 54 stairs" So the first 2 means pocket pairs 22+. The 2nd and 3rd 2 represent A2s+, A2o+. The 4th and 5th numbers represent K2s+, K4o+ respectively. 38 represents Q3s+, Q8o+. suited 6s means all suited hands where the lowest card is a 6. offsuit 9s means all offsuit hands where the lowest card is a 9. J5s is a single hand deviation. 75 stairs means suited gappers that hand and higher (75s, 86s, 97s etc...) 54 stairs means suited connectors 54s and higher (54s, 65s, 76s etc...). I think stairs, because the numbers climb like stair steps on the hand chart and it is a really common pattern with specific hand classes.

For other charts I use a method to remember hands not played rather than played. A good example is SB jams at 5bbs. I think of "82s-, 95o box-, T2o" So 82s and worse I fold, 95o to 92o & 95o to 65o and anything inside that box is folded also T2o is folded as well. A lot easier to remember that than focusing on the jams.

Each chart is different in the most efficient way to memorize it and figuring out the best way is a bit of a puzzle at times. I'm a bit concerned the 15bb charts might be a bit taxing, but I think I'll find a way to work it out in the end. Time will tell.

Anyway here are some hands that I check/raised on the River at 200NL, because why not. I'm in a Pokering mood:

Hand #1

PokerStars - $2 NL - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 118.82 BB
SB: 276.24 BB
Hero (BB): 116.55 BB
UTG: 125.86 BB
MP: 102.11 BB
CO: 140.9 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

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

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 1.5 BB

Flop: (5.5 BB, 2 players) 5♣ T♠ 9♥
Hero checks, BTN bets 3.39 BB, Hero calls 3.39 BB

Turn: (12.27 BB, 2 players) J♦
Hero checks, BTN bets 13.95 BB, Hero calls 13.95 BB

River: (40.17 BB, 2 players) 7♣
Hero checks, BTN bets 25.14 BB, Hero raises to 96.71 BB and is all-in, fold

Folding flop isn't crazy, but I've been making these calls a bit more now, because I think with two overs and a gutshot it makes sense. The turn overbet is a bit alarming, but I'm probably higher up in my range and I don't have tons of Jx in my range. The 3 straight cards is a bit alarming because there are a lot more 2 pair and str8 combos out there. On river he sizes down on the 7 which feels like it will be a str8, a set, or a bluff. Most of the str8s will be 8x and I do block the KQ so I felt like it would kind of suck to get raised here. 8x probably calls here, but I could see players maybe making some nitty folds with that sometimes. Even if those don't fold, I still likely get folds from the sets and bluffs so that is nice.

Hand # 2

PokerStars - $2 NL - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 403.29 BB
SB: 110.13 BB
BB: 100 BB
UTG: 101.82 BB
MP: 106.03 BB
CO: 101.5 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BB has J♥ T♣

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) UTG has A♥ T♥

UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop: (4.5 BB, 2 players) K♣ Q♦ 8♠
BB checks, UTG bets 1.42 BB, BB calls 1.42 BB

Turn: (7.34 BB, 2 players) 7♣
BB checks, UTG bets 8.63 BB, BB calls 8.63 BB

River: (24.6 BB, 2 players) J♦
BB checks, UTG bets 36.6 BB, BB raises to 87.95 BB and is all-in, UTG calls 51.35 BB

The turn slight overbet is daunting, but I also had plans to lead river 1/4 pot on certain runouts. On the river I pick up a bit of showdown and hope he checks back. After facing the large overbet, I thought well I block AT and T9 which are the hands that like that sizing the best and I also block rivered two pairs. Although in hindsight, two pair might be a hand I want him to have, because he could fold to the x/r. Unfortunately this ambitious bluff did not work since he had the nuts.

Hand #3
PokerStars - $2 NL - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 129.46 BB
UTG: 125.9 BB
Hero (CO): 123.5 BB
BTN: 116.17 BB
SB: 103.66 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

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

fold, Hero raises to 2.25 BB, BTN calls 2.25 BB, fold, fold

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) K♦ 2♣ Q♠
Hero bets 1.42 BB, BTN calls 1.42 BB

Turn: (8.84 BB, 2 players) J♦
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: (8.84 BB, 2 players) 3♥
Hero checks, BTN bets 5.53 BB, Hero raises to 20.11 BB, fold

On this one I'm actually probably a little too capped on the river, I probably don't check twice with enough traps. He might not know that though so I just decided to go for the river check/raise. If I don't get looked up in these lines then I can front load my value hands elsewhere. If I'm in his shoes with a mediocre king or queen I'm not really feeling super stoked about getting check/raised on this river so I wouldn't be surprised if most players over fold here.

Hand #4

PokerStars - $2 NL - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 163.29 BB
Hero (BB): 128.29 BB
UTG: 114.58 BB
MP: 104.35 BB
CO: 100 BB
BTN: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB, CO posts penalty blind 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has T♦ J♠

fold, fold, CO checks, fold, fold, Hero checks

Flop: (2.5 BB, 2 players) 9♥ A♦ T♠
Hero checks, CO bets 1.58 BB, Hero calls 1.58 BB

Turn: (5.66 BB, 2 players) 5♣
Hero checks, CO bets 1.79 BB, Hero calls 1.79 BB

River: (9.23 BB, 2 players) 9♦
Hero checks, CO bets 5.83 BB, Hero raises to 21.12 BB, fold

This guy didn't wait for the BB and didn't raise preflop so his range is actually worse than ATC. He bets small on turn, but sizes up on river. He could have a 9, but I think most players check that back on turn. Maybe a call on the river might be better, but just in case he has strong Tx or weak Ax I decided to go for a x/r and get some folds.

Trying hard to bring that 200NL graph up again. That massive losing streak really hurt the graph, but I'm trying to put in enough volume to get it healthy again:

I'll probably go easier playing this week since I want to get my tourney charts memorized and I'll also go to the local casino a night or two to get a bit of experience playing live poker again before heading to Vegas on July 3rd.