Lemon

Had my biggest month last month since restart at nl5
some $1400 or sth across the limits
All felt great, ignoring results completely doing sports etc. Met a pal from Scotland in Prague, did Spartan Race, loads of good stuff.

I started doing some heavy reading thinking about philosophy and science - I picked up this book

history of science and how different branches were discovered from astronomy physics, geology etc. thinking about all that. Meditating as well quite a bit.
started watching dota2, game of thrones (seen all of em in last 2.5weeks YEEZ )
learned shit ton done math on many hands, crawled forums,skype a lot, started playing zoom (moar volumes, that thing's crazy bad for my slow brain. I beat it pretty well tho 25 and small sample 50)
basically overloaded my brain shit loads, and my concentration started deteriorating, I started caring about results again and couldn't force myself to stop. Plus they closed down sauna over the summer except the weekend so there went a big part of my Monday off.
Soon enough I just kinda imploded one session and had -13BI in 1.5hrs total spewage and my brain told me to stahp.


The next day I went to the gym to buy 10x entry pass, and bough a monthly pass by accident.
I've been 5 times in 6 days since
Also I went to a cafe on Saturday to relax playing some dota.
I've played 47games since then
http://dotabuff.com/players/120361733
didn't play the game for 9 months, yet was given 4k MMR right away so was getting hammered but picked it up since then had some 22-2 viper and 20-0 SF games, no big deal


Oh well random rant over.
I've uninstalled Dota again, and shall bid it goodbye until TI4 which I simply have to watch, it's a HUGE thing 10mil+prize pool is just sick. I sure love the new kid, Excalibur his Tinker and Meepo are out of this world, seeing him rape Alliance with both was awesome.
But as for me playing - I simply can't. It's way too addictive and although it was awesome when I needed a break from poker, I can never do both at the same time unfortunately. I mean 40hrs in 6 days with 10hrs of gym inbetween come on bro


Going forward
Tomorrow I plan on keeping up my gym regime - go at least 4x per week. I focus on sprints and large muscle groups.
And most of all Keep shit simple
I don't have to read duper heavy books that tax my brain so bad (modern physics is a HUGE CLUSTERFUCK for example. Just read some of the stuff. The people must be doing drugs.)
exercise, family, friends, poker.
Spending a ton of time on LP is counter productive too but it's where I shall keep trying to break down my ranges. I played a short sesh only to find out I'm too emotional still (fear mostly) but I realized I don't know what my ranges are in loads of spots nor what I really do with the edges of them - I pretty much click buttons, so instead of learning anything new at all looking at what I do already and tinker with that shall be my focus now. There's no need for new ideas for maybe a few months - just watchign vids to see what other people's ranges are really.


Well thanks for reading guys. If anyone actually has I'd be surprised I had to get it out and get ready for a massive restart - mandatory blog saving ladies follow. I'll be opening Skype tomorrow too so sorry for being AFK

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I have stumbled across a great post by sauce on RiO forums, see it here:
http://www.runitonce.com/pro-training/videos/toy-gaming-part-2/

All written by sauce, I've just added some formatting and notes in red. hope you like


What does it takes to translate theory to practice and play great poker?

I think in order to play great poker it's necessary to make decisions at an instinctive level. I'm not sure if instinctive is the right word, so I'll offer a couple of other descriptions to make myself clearer. Psychologists (at least in the popular Kahneman book which I've read recently

see it here: Maps of bounded rationality - Kahneman my undergraduate dissertation was on the topic

Sometimes split up our cognitive skills into System 1 and System 2, with System 1 being the characteristically automatic and effortless System that we use to read, see, recognize faces, etc. Athletes might say you have to "do it unconsciously" or "know it in your bones" or something. Programmers sometimes call fine grained instinctive decision making "expert knowledge" and they have trouble recreating it. I've sometimes said I try to think about the hand geometrically or spatially, by which I mean my mental representation is more like a picture than like a math problem. I'm sure there's loads of other ways to get at the same point. autopilot, unconscious competence, muscle memory, lots of terms for this all meaning roughly the same thing

My experience has been that what makes a great poker player is an instinct for making good poker decisions. In my own case I've found that directed study can do wonders for clarifying my thoughts about poker, which leads to training better instincts at the table.
It's definitely true though that most pros (even high stakes pros) do very little study, and just playing tons of hands while thinking really hard about decisions trains them to play at a very high level.

On the other hand, there's a lot of people who have played a lot of poker, and most of them haven't succeeded in becoming great players; I guess beyond a certain level some amount of talent is required. My view though is that dedicated study can go a long way, and it's a lot less of a gamble then playing tons of hands and hoping to be talented.

One training idea I've been working with lately is breaking up clusters of skills required at the poker table into categories which I label 'mechanics'.
The idea is that by focusing on the conscious practice and refinement to instinct of one mechanic at a time I'll be able to build up a hierarchy of increasingly complicated skills. So, to take a non poker example for clarification, take driving a car. Driving is a fairly complicated skill, but one basically everybody can get good enough at. When we first drive, we have to attend to everything: the position of the pedals under us, the place the key goes in the ignition, all the various buttons, where the gas tank is, and then all of the driving decisions as well. But after a little bit, the basic mechanic I just described becomes automatic, and it's easier to focus on driving decisions; eventually driving is automatic (in most situations) and we can chat and think of other things while we drive. Sports analogies are good here too.


I think there's a useful analogy with poker, and the mechanics can be broken down as:

1) Basic mechanics
are things like knowing the rules, knowing whose turn it is to act, knowing who is in what position, and knowing how much is being bet and what's in the pot.

2)Intermediate mechanics are things like knowing what pot odds we're getting and giving, and roughly how good our hand is, and making some guesses about what our opponent is holding.
Cariadon pops into mind as a great example of someone who stopped here


3) Advanced mechanics might include things we're talking about here-
-instinctually balancing betting and bluffing ratios for various sizings
-keeping track of our entire distribution at a given decision point
-thinking one or more streets ahead in the game tree
-and gathering probabilistic reads on our opponent to make exploitative responses to their set of strategies.

I find I learn efficiently when I get regular feedback on one or more mechanics I'm working on. So, you might go about translating your conscious, analytic, effortful work on poker theory into an instinctual mechanic by taking five or so hands a day and first writing down in a stream of consciousness your best guess at your range in a given spot. Then you might solve the spots to near equilibrium and see how close or far away you are. I find when I do this repeatedly my instincts improve.

This is all very sketchy advice, and I absolutely don't consider myself an expert (I'm barely a dilettante) in psychology or education or any of the relevant disciplines pertaining to this discussion. I have however spent a ton of time trying to teach myself poker, and hopefully some of the insights I've come to in my own study translate, or are at least food for thought, in helping you to turn theory into practice.

Ben "Sauce" Sulsky

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We've trained for this for some 9 weeks with a pal, It was a 7km run in heavy terrain and mud (at some points waste high) with around ~15 obstacles.
Here's a vid from last event


First training was some 1600m, 4x3 these steps, 3 different variations: + Show Spoiler +

and 24 burpees, with adding difficulty each week.
We ended running 7.2km, 12x3 steps, 120 burpees on last training and one mock 6.4km run with 30 burpees after every 800m (240 burpees in the end). So yeah we didn't train for any obstacles instead opted to wing it with heavy burpee training

I failed 4 oobstacles AKA 120 penalty burpees: Fell off 3 climbing obstacles and missed with Javelin.

I touched the bottom of my powers when I had to do 3xburpees inbetween crawling in mud under barbed wire uphill in a short time but it was nothing the training didn't prepare us for. Also no injury besides some scratches yay! (And there was a lot of injuries, paramedics on site are always busy)



It was great working towards a goal like this and I'm looking for a new challenge.


Last week I've also traveled to meet my pals I used to play floorball with when I was in in the highest Czech league, some 8 years ago.
It was a fun 3+1 (a lot faster than normal floorball I must say) tourney and some top and current national team levels players were there, and I realized how much I suck compared to them. My team mates just couldn't grasp that I'm not gonna be the same before a 7year break as after it and I got chastised quite a bit


I've got a tournament this week in my town again, and after that I plan on taking on summer fitness goalkeeper oriented training.
It won't be as clear cut motivating as the Spartan Race though so I'm trying to find people to work out with. I want to be below 80kg by the end of the summer (87ish now - I've hit a plateau lasting some 3 months now - diet change's needed especially).
Besides my weekly tennis with Grandma Of course :D



Cheers for reading.


P.S. I'm playing poker too btw guys don't think I just run around having fun
I played some 110hrs studied tons last month. I also meditated quite a bit I always do 15-20ish minutes sitting meditation where I just concentrate on concentrating, and if my head's clear enough and I can still concentrate I do another 15-20ish minutes walking meditation where I attack topics from all angles, often poker ones too and came to some cool realizations, but really there's never enough of this so I'll try to put in some hefty meditation volumes next month too.

I have the pokerstrategy vip event at the end of the month - I'll defo post how it went

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Comments (5)

How do you guys like it?


Also I read this book:

in 2 days.
Such a fun read, it was a fast flowing novel such a great de-tilter I'd recommend

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Fun fact: The wife from House of Cards if freaking Princess Buttercup from Princess Bride!
I found out after ep.4

Mind.blown.

Yeah so like I burned out (too many vids, drinking, HU championship, many hrs etc.etc.) hated poker again dumped like 9bi at fiddy.

And went on a massive House of Cards Binge. I've seen all 26hours in 2-3 days. The first episode felt rly confusing and I was like wtf but then I got caught completely by it I even watched the UK season 1


Spacey's so much fun and I can't see anyone better for that role, that double tap at the end gave me chills.
The wife's subplots were kinda meh but tolerable - I was watching agents of shield and for the first time I realized how bad the writing is compared to this. I'd defo recommend this to everyone.


In other news

I've Won the PS HU championship
http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/con...Strategy.com-Heads-Up-Champion_83450/

Visited local Uni , It felt fun to be in class even though it was just erasmus students' presentation on Egypt and Kenya. I even volunteered for Belly Dancing. I was 2nd behind someone who was a whip for too large % of of the audience (they were polish like he was)


Started going to Kwan-Um Zen practice. Some of them are doofuses but it's a great thing for poker.
when they think about "who am I" etc, during meditation I just scheme on how to own, besides the usual clearing my mind stuff Whatever you think about their chanting etc. it does help you forget about poker.



23rd-25th may I have a 3 day 3-1 floorball tourney with my old pals I haven't played with for 4 years.
There is a grindhouse for 5 days in Czech Republic that I have to miss because of this, oh well.



I'm training for Spartan Race June 1st



Getting ready for ps VIP gig - free vintage video games and food all day at a castle June 28



and hopefully I'll get into a goalie camp July 24th-27th


So this should make for a fun summer. Of course Czech Chicks, family stuff (playign tennis with 80y old grandma tomorrow) pools , beer gardens and summer fitness with shitloads of pokering

Started reading Dune but that shit's so confusing at hard to read that I gave up - if it gets better and you stand by this book let me know. I'm reading something on childhood psychology now and how it affects people, pretty fun stuff.

Also I'm still undecided about winter, but I really don't want to stay here unless floorball will go really really well. Most likely destination for a few months seems Thailand.

Thanks for reading people.
It's back to NL16 for me, with 1bi shots at 50 again once I get to 30bi

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Sup guys

I made it to a semi-final of a HUsng tourney and it just got released with a HUsng coach commentary.

needless to say I played like 15husng in my life before this still managed to play decent besides some mandatory spews,Lemon style
Apparently floating a large cr with J8o on KK4 is not standard 50bb deep?

footage is here:
Click here for link

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Comments (2)

Up until now I've been using time between sessions to:
- watching family guy, new girl, movies shitloads of stuff like that
- browsing rofl thread
- time on facebook
- porn
- news portals
- watching dota pro games

I played around 90 hours this month already, 53k hands so far and brain's getting overloaded, I also ran rly bad so I am roughly breakeven for that time so really need to change the load I'm putting my mind under and start using computer more strictly for work only.

So during my maintenance day I decided I will do something pretty awesome between sessions instead
- read books
- sleep
- exercise (love shooting hoops, a public place is 5min by bike)

So far the effects are beyond awesome!
Books force my imagination to work, taking focus off poker unlike films and calm my mind etc.

last week I read these bad boys:




This week these two are on my plate:





I very much look towards recommendations.
In the past I only read text books, and books by thaleb, stumbling on happiness, economics etc. but that's not what I'm after
- I want books that are written in a way of a story, engage my imagination to the max and if they make me positively think all the better.

The instant millionaire had all of these but was super short. Carnegie is awesome, it's self development but told in a way of stories.
And Clarke is just awesome sci-fi, really engaging but positive with grand messages - development of humans our relationship to the whole universe good sci-fi that makes you think. Childhood's end was just sick good for that - the book's about utopian society where menial work doesn't exist and last chapters about what would you do if you were the last human on earth with years to spare.


I also look for fun short books that I could read between sessions and get the sense of accomplishment "fuck yeah finished a book" in short period of time. Borrowed some Hemingway so that should be fun.


Baring that in mind, what books would you recommend and what books would you read if you were to lose TV, Shows, skype and the internet forever right now?

No boobies today btw, didn't fap in a week and it seems to be good - I even had morning wood for no reason for the first time since a very long time :D I sure as hell ain't gonna stop fapping but aim is to use my imagination instead of porn.
EDIT: Books, fap without porn - seems like I'm attempting to turn back time and live like people did ages ago.

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Comments (15)

Cashed out, started huge volumes and long sessions => spewed alot.
its good tho, i defo need to put in huge volumes now. floorball season's over and I decided Im gonna break free of the slow BR increases after cashouts and make the next few months rly count
I was hesitant to post these it's rly bad for my ego, but what I find is best is to abandon ego in poker, just accept that you make mistakes make them public so you are more motivated to fix em.

All hands were this week. I still made money so if I avoid even half these in the future ima crush :D




VS REGS
R1: ewwww
FLOP: guy raises >60% bvb cbets too much - overcards to 7x 6x, pairs 8backdoor straight outs 8 gutter outs think I can't be folding this. I flat pretty much all my range on this board bvb - should I look to raise?
TURN:
Ok this is so weird/didn't make much sense to me. I thought 4x 8x can do this some, and maybe some sets 89? I just got confused really thought I can take it down enough on the river to make it a call he gives me 3.1:1 afterall.
vs that range i'm not so sure how I should play my strong hands:
Defo flat 89, 48s I 3b 48s tho). what do I do with sets and 2 pair hands, just flat and let 4x 8x draw making them super high ev for him to check raise?
RIVER
4X is in his range for sure but with blocking the 89 and that sizing that can be 2 pairs etc. I assumed I can shove profitably.
LOL

R2:
PRE: I have a position on the reg and expect to take it down post, the hand will go 3way a lot still 1.80:1, I'll need to realize more equity than I have postflop (27% compared to 36%) with being oop on the fish - it's close there.
FLOP think this is too wide
if the fish were folded out the float is fine of course I can bluff at spades have backdoor diamonds. But with his cbetting into 2ppl one of them fish I can just lay this down
TURN+RVR
yeah not sure here. I mean i't better not to have a spade draw as weak regs will check call some themselves here when I decide to bet shove. I just expect regs to be imbalanced heqar, check a weak range so I went aggressively after it.
Problem was that this was the A8s hand in spews so he turbosnap called - I rly didn't read the dynamic well, had an aggro image and shoved a draw hand prior at the table... should defo fold flop with that image.

+ Show Spoiler +

R3:
Okay I did the best to get vcalue out of air.
In the hand I strongly felt like the river is never a bluff though with the line he took... still the odds, top of my range he reps fekall besides sets...
+ Show Spoiler +

R4
need to look at this one later thought he squeezed too much. What's minumum 3b% for the shove to be +ev?
+ Show Spoiler +

R5
need to look at river play
+ Show Spoiler +

HANDS V FISH/Multiway
F1
90 90 pfr VPIP aggrofish

FLOP: it's basically an isolation raise here, super hard for me to be bluffing vs the reg my raising range will still be strong sets, JTss+, can do this with KJ as well vs the fish I assume? I want to be bluffing vs the reg make him fold out most of his made hands but get value from the fish.
TURN: one of the things I do a lot - just auto make a play based on stats.
plan was to call twice as he can have 46 worse jacks flush draws pairs etc. vs that range my read should be a lot stronger that 30pf hands - most of these hands should logically check the turn but will call turn bet alot. If he's truly an aggrotard the line's still good tho
river was a snap I doubt I'd do anything else
+ Show Spoiler +

F2
I mean this is fine, just the sizing's off - I was snapacting/tilted and was using stars helper for the first time just clicked the button
+ Show Spoiler +

F3+
+ Show Spoiler +

F4
meh this is close/kinda like it
+ Show Spoiler +

SPEWS
S1: 90VPIP, aggro, calls junk to 3bets
he had a sizing tell though.
This was the typical fish thought process that I took: I'm way ahead of his pf range as he raises strong hands, he has air vast majority of time...and I got attached to it too much.
+ Show Spoiler +

S2: I was semi tilted at this point lost like 4 pots in a row at this table - I shoved because I could. think raising smaller getting him to spazz/call with e.g. AK is better
+ Show Spoiler +

S3: Oh I remember this hand I was super tired/end of the day.
Guy opens too much UTG doesn't fold to 3bets. I knew in the hand the river is a fold as everything got there.
FLOP&TURN: I auto- assumed his range has a lot of junk/random shit in it along with some AQ TJ, would you be raising here?
RIVER
TJ has a pair, unlikely to do this
KT Got there
QJ got there
Backdoor spades got there - I block Qs thought that's why I decided to call in the end. It's a bad call right?
+ Show Spoiler +

S4: What the actual fuck?
Up until now I was getting tilted by aggro fish and button clicking regs HU
in HU when im getting run over/hit a run of bad cards I started clicking buttons and FPSing with weak hands.
From now on I will strictly control my plays HU based on my ranges and control my play that way.
Fuck if I know why I played it this way
+ Show Spoiler +

same hand vs this aggrotard fish:
Plan was to snap his bet, didn't expect AI at all but brain already had the instruction to call
+ Show Spoiler +

S5:
Same thing, up until now I was tilted and when I lost pots I played back with weak hands.
Vs this guy without and A blocker this is never autoprofit preflop as he 3bets tight like 6%.
FLOP: fuck if I know what he's doing.
Best play for my range is to just check most Qx hands and bet KK+ and bluffs that are +ev.
His raise makes no sense tho , I block Qx his range seemed draw heavy meh...

+ Show Spoiler +

S6
PRE
ye good spot BUT
I can flat
have position on a fish preflop
3b blocker hands like KXs if I wish
the 3b is +ev but dumb in terms of my range
FLOP
wtf? when I get confused by regs doing this, I call see what happens. but my hand is way too weak
TURN
oh boy. I mean I was thinking about what I do vs his actions, last thing I expected is his shove and snaptiltcalled even tho I dont have the odds here I mean it's not a huge loss EV wise but still a -ev play

+ Show Spoiler +

S7
plain and simple: if I choose this hand, it's only cause I can turn autoprofit on flop and should just give up turn, so many better hands I have to do this with ewwww
+ Show Spoiler +

S8
HUGE Spew
strightforward nitreg
his hand is face up
I knew it in the hand
stacked of cause fuck him/tilted
fuck shit fuck
+ Show Spoiler +

S9
It was actually though out, me trying to play exploitively - he 3b a few time, the dynamic just felt right for him to bluff light and he stacks off with narrow range.
Just shows how regulating my range is really necessary, even if it's a rly good spot and I believe that I should limit myself to hands like A2s-A5s that hava blocker and decent equity
+ Show Spoiler +

S10
aggrotilt - all streets just too light, need to pick a stronger range
+ Show Spoiler +

S11
oh boy oh boy
I need to get this HU vs aggrotards under control
all I will do is play strong ranges, pick them nd don't deviate from them just cause im getting run over
+ Show Spoiler +

S12
the whaaa?
I snapcalled rvr didnt make much sense for him to have a hand thoight it'll be a binch of random broadways oh well.
Obv sucky preflop hand selection - I will simply control my range more vs bad players
+ Show Spoiler +

S13
Need to look at turn bet range closer
guy calls 17% pre
+ Show Spoiler +

YOU ONLY DESERVE THESE IF YOU REPLY ON HANDS (nsfw):
+ Show Spoiler +

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Comments (21)

What a challenging month this was!
It was so tough that I forgot how to divide paragraphs, so let's use, you know it:boobs!
*NOTE: Stuff in spoilers definitely NSFW*


You know what they say - if you don't face challenges, you never improve.
Winter hit, it was real depressing im not used to this. I got a cold and troubles with my back came back, my tooth got infected and after the cold ended a nasty sinus infection came (EWWW)
that tilted my sleep regime, it was around 4am to 12 at one point. Had to stop weightlifting because it was making me worse in goals and didn't manage to come back to a new routine (have to do high reps low weight, flexibility and balance stuff - way more boring that standard bro stuff). My landlord kept working on the bathroom waking me up at 8am with a drill and had a really bad internet connection at the start of the month. Added to that was a couple -12BI sessions in the month, and a getting raped by super bad regs HU (I lost like 8BI to this -7bb/100 fishreg). And voila - challenging fun stuff was ready to be handled :D

My mental game got so weak at one point I started throwing my mouse and broke it, punched a water bottle a few times and neighbors must have thought there's a retarded grizzly bear in the building as I was shouting in disbelief during a few sessions. So yeah the most challenging month so far pretty much.


All things considered, I love how I handled it and it made me much stronger. Near the end of it when I knew I just cannot lose because withdrawal's coming I did everything to bounce back.
Power walks to nature during the morning, hot baths during the day, I listened to hours of hypnosis by Paul McKenna (positivity - good stuff before sleep), revisited the 7hour seminar by Zig Ziglar on how to stay motivated, came to trainings 40 minutes early to do warmup, stretching and my tai-chi/yoga routine, forced myself to sleep around 1AM even lying in bed for 30 minutes before I fell asleep, went to Sauna twice, started using tomighty to limit my sessions to 1 hour, used the rule that after every suckout stack off I have to close my eyes and do mindful breathing 1-10.

I also set a day without poker - Every Monday after weekend push I set up a to-do list of chores and stuff I need to do, and during one Monday I booked 3 doctors, set up a new bank account did shopping for a week, dealt with my health isnsurance, cleaned my room did laundry etc. etc. so I can focus on grind for the rest of the week - something I will keep doing and definitely recommend.

This weekend I was still really on the edge, but especially morning walk and timing sessions with mindful breathing after every suckout made ma manage to drop 5BI in 500 hands and still come back on top without going crazy and managed 7.2hr grind:
+ Show Spoiler +

February graph:
Its around $1k including rakeback in roughly 112 hrs
+ Show Spoiler +

mostly micros, I made money at NL50 again but with the issues I had I rly wasnt fit to grind it a ton.

I also learned quite a bit - worked on PF ranges vs good aggro regs using Janda's book, Pokerstrategy and watching vids (got access to rio, ivey poker cr dtb, pokerstrategy), discovered that equilab has the same feature as flopzilla (hand strenght distribution on boards for ranges) and started playing with that too. I'm still looking into the whole range control/balance/exploitive/practical application thing and think I have a good grasp of it but March will be all about actually putting in work in practice and breaking down ranges for postflop as well - I started it in February started putting a group together but when I started tilting and throwing my mouse I had to use all my powers to stabilize my mental game and counter the challenges being thrown at me and push my C instead of A game






March
Tomorrow I go for a health check up for the first time in about 7 years with a list of stuff I need to deal with, will finally get new contact lenses (been wearing 1 month ones for a year now :D) and on 23rd I finally get to go to a dentist - I've been on painkillers for much of February because my tooth has an infected hole in it and hurts as hell. The spring is here so I am finally starting to like this country again. Floorball season ends next week so I will start focusing on physical fitness again as required for poker. Will need to take a hard look at floorball as doing gym stuff for it is less fun that popping bicep curls an pumping bench so im less likely to stick to it.

And as said already - from preflop I'll start looking at postflop and narrowing down ranges v ranges to know what I'm doing and why better. E.G. Gogol's nose video shows you how great it is to know your range how it looks like, amount of combinations in villain's range etc.
Equilab's really good in doing one tree and showing you what different ranges flop but CRev will be a must, just need to scramble moneyz for it and make sure Ill actually put in the work and it'll add to my ev.



Thanks for reading LP!

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