Reality check, Agression, balls, swingsby LikeASet, October 10
Last night playing at my local card room, 2/5 most people at the table sitting 1500+ deep, floorman gets called in next to take the new open seat at the table. Friendly guy, bald white middle aged father looking like the typical run of the mill middle class dad, wearing a mickey mouse sweater. Played with him several times before but the thing was he was always playing with house money because he would play during his shifts if the game was close to breaking. At first when this guy sat down he bought in for 500$ about 3 times i think and ran into 3 bad beats then something is this guy switched. He started iso'ing big, squeezing pretty often (like 240 preflop when like people call 30-40 preflop), making bottom pair calls (vs fish which ended up being good), big turn raises, etc. and he must have swung back up like 3-4k. While he was playing pretty agrro I started to feel like there was the fish, and then I became more like a baby shark, and then there this killer whale. There was a huge dynamic between the floor man and this one recreational fish and one reg fish who were all ateast 1.5k deep.
Somethings I learned, got reinforeced that night. Floor men aren't what they seem. Don't play so big that you started playing bad.. Shiet I kept spewing at my half ass attempts to bluff when the villains were close to folding but my bet sizes were on the pussy side relative to the pot.
Playing live games around 1k stacks effective is around my comfort zone. Once it starts to reach 1.5-2k stacks effective I start to become like a little girly and wet my panties. I think recently the highest bet I did as a pure bluff was only about 500-600. When someone makes it like 200 or something on the turn I doubt I'll have the balls to make it 700 without it being some sort of strong semi-bluff.
Ended up grinding up about 1700, then donking off like 1300 because I was being an idiot and playing for way too long being all tired and tilty.
Then to cap it all off I went to the 1k minimum buy-in 5/10 PLO game and played 6 handed, cuz I wasn't giving a shit about anything at the moment. Luckly nothing bad happened I just made like 300 bucks at the plo table, it was super late at night and we were all laughing at eachother cuz we were all playing like nit babies limping double suited aces and kings preflop.
Lol another side story a fellow reg at the casino who recently decided to grind plo exclusively was down about 50 bucks before plo broke. I then rail birded him as he went to the black jack table to get unstuck and he was eventually making 2500$ bets lol. Eventually he went to being down 50 to 4k lol. He's a degen but he'll be alright cuz he's an above average grinder that's skilled enough to play in the 5/10 games nl and plo,
So wanted to throw this clip up for you guys. And let you guys see me fail lol. I was supposed to do a set of 10 with 200. Instead I accidentally had put on an extra 10lb plate on the left side. So it turned out it was an off balance 210. When I unracked the weight I felt it pull to the left but since this bar had no knurling on the middle I thought I was just off center. (even though it felt right since I had positioned my hands first to gauge the middle. But instead of checking I just corrected for the imbalance and continued. Anyway since getting to watch the video. I found a big problem with my squat. I am letting my elbows drift too far back with this new hand positioning. I brought my grip in tighter recently and havent had a lot of time to play with it. So didn't realize my elbows were drifting so far back. Making it harder on myself to stay tight and upright. Because my lats arent as engaged. Will have to fit but all in all. It's important to pick your technique apart constantly and see where you can improve.
EDIT: here's another video shot with my cellphone. I used the same stance as last time and same setup (btw my belt isnt actually on : P i was about to get to my heavier weights and it occurred to me to just do a set pausing at the bottom so i never latched it.)
Good Discipline + Life Entryby Nitewin, October 06
Proud of a non-shove I made. Button and I (SB) were about 2x deep. BB was 1x. HH does not show it. Normally in a spot like this, I'm very inclined to shove and take down the pot pre or flip with a dead $40 in the pot but that's definitely the high variance route. This time I sensed danger and got out pretty cheap. In tourneys, this is usually how I lose too.
Broke up with girlfriend once again, probably not getting back together this time unless she really apologizes and cuts the nonsense out of the relationship. She only 22 and hasn't really had her slut partying phase yet so I get it. But cheating, lying, and playing dumb/being nonsensical is a deal breaker for me.
Back to square 1. Home living with parents, grinding poker, gonna save a bit and probably go sublet in different cities and see where life takes me.
Video up! The A's for your Q's.by DooMeR, October 05
Before I forget. If you like the video. Give it a like .
I really liked the questions. Definitely a lot of them I wouldn't have thought to make a video about. So it's nice to know I can cover topics that are closer to what you guys actually want to know. A lot of times some questions can be answered really quickly and wouldn't warrant a whole 10 minutes. So I would just naturally skip over them and not bother. But in this format I can dial it in to specifics of what someone might be struggling with, and hopefully point them in the right direction. If you guys have more questions ask away. And tell me what you guys thought. Btw. It's raining outside so the apartment was a bit dark ;P.
getting hero called liveby traxamillion, October 05
playing 1-1-2 with a bunch of fish one of whom is nice enough to kill it to 2/4 almost every hand. I'm playing relatively tight/solid pre haven't showed anything out of line in 3-4 hours.
Fish who kills it is button this hand so he is not allowed and the blinds remain 1-1-2.
Me SB $400
Old Azn $250
Young white fish kid who 3bet/called off 60bb with 72o (yea) $200 or so
Young opens 4, Azn calls 4, I raise to 24 in the SB.
Flop Ax5c3c (pot $66)
I lead 25, young folds, Azn snaps (no raise consideration or anything I already have his range narrowed very heavily to shitty aces. In a previous hand he was the PFR and bet flop 4 ways IP, I was the only caller on 942ccc, turn comes a red king I check he bets 65 (near pot) I check shove putting him in for 90 more and he folds.
Turn As5c3c10d ($116)
I lead 50 and he again calls very quickly; I expect him to peel this bet way wider than he should but to generally have to fold on most rivers.
River As5c3c10d5d ($216)
I shove 150 and he goes into the tank for 4-5 minutes which is forever in this game but I don't like calling the clock on my opponent when in the hand with him; I generally just sit stone and don't give off anything. He finally flicks in a chip for the call which is somewhat annoying because i probably could have used a little chat on the river to get him to lay it down; call out his hand or something but I never know if that is going to backfire. He flips up the A7o to rake the pot of course.
Standard I suppose but what is tilting is that he caught me with literally my one bluff there. This game is so soft with a bad rake structure that drops 2 pre without a flop and 4 more after on any flop that I play in a way that is on the tighter side pre as light defense and steals often make no sense. From the small blind there my 3betting range (kinda like raising limps in this game as it is 4 to go pre but still technically a 3bet) is A10s/AJ/AQ/AQ/99+/KQ. Especially with the BB at the time I call everything else even up to QJ/KJs (or if i raise them I don't throw them in and overbluff the runout). Just trying to smash good top pairs to valuetown fish otherwise play a smaller pot OOP. I'm not even always cbetting KQ; sometimes just giving up but for the sake of argument assume I bluff them all (even KQcc which I may not actually want to barrel turn). Well that leaves me 16 bluffs, I do ship all good aces so assuming he has an ace that still leaves me with 27(aj-ak)+6(a10)+1(AA). I don't c/c river vs this station so u can't discount either. 15:34 is about the right ratio for that river jam.
everytime i run a big bluff in these low stakes games I am reminded how bad I am
Alright so I've been struggling for video ideas today. And was thinking I should just do a Q&A with any questions you guys might have. What im going to do is collect some questions here. If you have questions about exercises, programming, or any sort of workout related question. I'll be answering it in a video. And what I'll do is try and blast through as many as I can while still giving a (hopefully) good answer. And then if anyone has any further questions about something. Or thinks I need to go more indepth into something. Hopefully having a big range of topics and some answers will lead to more questions. Thus giving me more topics . Hell. Even if you dont have a question. But just want another opinion on something let me know. I'll try and give something like a minute to each question/comment. And make it around a 10 min video. Lets see how this works out.
Oh and if for any reason someone wants to ask a question anonymously. Thats fine too just PM me. I'll include it in the video but without your ID.
I’m pretty sure that every one of you had to go through periods of emotional burnout. The sense of dissatisfaction with your efficiency, concentration problems, lack of motivation to do your work. While it is not exactly a pleasurable and desirable condition, if it’s approached from the proper angle, such upset mental state may allow us to look back and observe which decisions have driven us to the wall.
The conclusion of my in-depth analysis is that my will to play and motivation have begun to noticeably suffer around the 2nd half of July (this blog is an attempt to boost it, somewhat). The state I was in had been partially concealed by taking a 2-week-long vacation. I managed to recharge my inner batteries, but in August my A-game already started to appear far more rarely than I had hoped for.
Work - Life – Balance
In my opinion, keeping right balance between playing poker and other areas of life is essential, especially if someone considers poker a career path rather than a hobby, or only an additional source of income. In his podcasts, Jared Tendler points out time and time again that the majority of poker players don’t even realize how much mental energy is required to play this game. I’ve experienced it firsthand numerous times, and I recognize now how important it is to routinely take the time off.
My current work system looks as follows: I take 4-5 days off at the end of each month and then also an 8 to 12-day-long vacation every quarter. In addition to that, I don’t play 2-3 days a week, and I spend that time on improving my mindset, working on the tactical side of the game and also I do all sorts of non-poker activities. The period of complete breakaway from poker is necessary for the mind to recover before the another cycle of regular grind.
The ultimate goal, however, should be the pursuit of the utmost satisfaction resulting from doing your work day by day. In the end we spend 1/3 of our lives working or thinking about it, which is why we should seek to make this time as enjoyable as possible.
` If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable.` Donald Trump
Keeping it Real
Another important skill is setting realistic objectives for yourself. In the past, after a particularly good month I sometimes found myself counting all those ‘hundreds-thousands-millions’ of Buy-ins I won, only to overhaul my goals (and dreams () later and deal with frustration during the revision period.
I acknowledged that wanting too much too soon usually led to discouragement. I failed to see progress, despite the fact that it was happening all along. Instead of taking joy in improving my skills on day-to-day basis, I was blinded by some distant targets and overblown ambition.
Why?
I believe this is the question each of us has to ask themselves in the first place. Why exactly do I work in this peculiar field? What is the driving force behind my actions? What are my life expectations or my goals, and how will achieving them eventually affect my life?
As a person deeply fascinated with the personal growth, I’m familiar with works of the majority of the most influential people in this area of study. I’ve learned a great number of curious patterns and metaphors which definitely enriched my life. The person whose work has had possibly the biggest impact on me was Tony Robbins. When I read his body of work, or above-all watch seminars and presentations, I can see the man who really practices what he preaches.
‘I'm the ‘why’ guy. I want to know why you do what you do. What is your motive for action? What is it that drives you in your life today? Not 10 years ago. Are you running the same pattern? Because I believe that the invisible force of internal drive, activated, is the most important thing. I'm here because I believe emotion is the force of life. ‘ T. Robbins
The picture
It`s hopefully the last time this year I`m posting my graph. Last month I managed not to check my winnigs for the entire month, and it had a great impact on my mental game.
To sum it up, if we treat experience in a proper fashion, we might be able to reach conclusions which can allow us to become more efficient at work, and make us feel more fulfilled as human beings in the end.
‘It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.’
‘Invictus’ William Ernest Henley
On September 30 2015 15:05 RaSZi wrote:
How is this just assume ddouble AA?
You don't think this is double AA a huge amount of the time if this is two .5/1 regs? And even if it's 2 randos, one of them probably has AA and the other guy likely has a really stupid hand which either fucks us or helps us about an equal amount of the time.
I think it should be OK between the deep stack possibly 4b folding, good equity in the main pot and fine equity in sidepot... But I'll be honest and say I haven't done much work on spots like these with different stacksizes involved <_<
EDIT:
I'm honestly not sure how to calc this, since we need to know how often we'll win the sidepot when we lose the mainpot, right? And I dont know a way of finding this out... I've got things setup to calc ev of multiway semi-bluffs which is similar to this spot but not identical...
If we do it really, really basic... Giving the 100bb stack a range of AA,KK$ds and double suited 5-span connected hands (this is fairly loose but it's an assumption that hurts us so I don't think that's a bad thing), which leaves him with AA a bit under 1/3 of the time (29% but for simplicity)... Meaning on average our equity in the sidepot vs deepstack is 47% and 34.6 in the main.
But I feel like this is a gross oversimplification and if anyone wants to share how to properly calc the EV of this (multiway, varying stacksizes, how often we win mainpot but lose sidepot etc) I'd be grateful.
i'm looking for something that i can use to scrape posts on another forum that fall within certain parameters i set. anyone have any recommendations for this? if not i think i could build it myself in Python, but i'm not that good at programming and just looking to save some time.
Need $160 stars - Paying Paypalby SoC, September 26
Morning All,
Hit my deposit limit on stars and playing the $700 + $215 Wcoops today - Need $160 and can pay paypal - Or I can ship stars $$ tomorrow evening at 5pm as can deposit again then. (Will ship from cashes if I get >$160 in cashes)
The Way of the Peaceful Grinder by makan18, September 25
Being a professional poker player is a career path, a life path even. The road towards being successful in poker, is not much different than a path to success in other areas of life. You need to gain theoretical knowledge, and most importantly put your knowledge into action every day, ceaselessly trying to do your best. Honestly, the knowledge without application is not worth much.
I`ve been in the poker industry for 8 years, however I started to treat it as a career path just 3 years ago. Reading Dusty ‘Leatherass’ Schmidt’s ‘Treat Your Poker Like a Business’ has been a major influence on me. After going through it, I realized that in terms of professional approach I’m light years away from the best in the field. I’ve been trying to improve the efficiency of my performance ever since.
What and who this blog is about.
Two things I’m obsessed with the most are healthy lifestyle and mind growth. My site will dedicate a fair amount of space for the topics of diet and the broadly-defined mindset development.
What can you expect? Plenty of citations, be it quotes from the great thinkers of the classicism, or some memorable cinema characters.
Information about efficiency-enhancing strategies, boosting your emotion control both at the poker table and in everyday life, or an oatmeal with apple mousse recipe
Moreover, there will be a ton of curious TED presentations, facts regarding investing capital, and the coverage of business training courses which I am planning to participate in.
Obviously there will be a huge number of poker-related articles as well.
Scorecard
The last 3 months was quite pleasant for me. I`ve changed a lot in my strategy and improved my mindset profoundly compared to the first few month of 2015. (the graph is from NL200-NL1k)
I like to call the place I’m heading to the pinnacle. In my personal dictionary this term symbolizes achieving the maximum of one’s potential. In poker it means being as good as possible, whether in terms of tactical, or mindset capacity. In everyday life it represents the growth in areas which I hold in the highest regard, such as interpersonal relations, physical development and language learning. I strongly feel that life is a never-ending process of self-improvement, and the greatest strength is an ability to consciously experience the present moment.
‘The Journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.’ 'Peaceful warrior'
Finally, I’d like to thank you, dear reader, for the time spent on reading my reflections. I hope it is just the beginning of a long-term relation, which will prove advantageous for both sides. Our journey starts here and now!
‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.’ - Lao Tzu
Wasn't going to say anything but fuck it, I'm happy and want to share/brag about it. I received my Purple belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu yesterday at the Charles Gracie Academy in Redding Ca, under my head coach Carlos Zapata. It's been a long road and it's only getting started.
Hello degens. Wanna keep this short and sweet. I recently have been making a lot of progress again after spending 3 months cutting weight. And have started my youtube channel up again. I'm going to commit to 1 video a week. Probably on thursdays. And probably fit one spontaneous one in addition to that somewhere randomly each week. I have 2. YES TWO!! brand spanking new videos up. And now that I have a computer that can actually edit video without freezing on every frame. I should be upping the quality of all of them. So check them out. Make sure to like and subscribe IFFF you like them and want to see more. ALSO! very important if anyone has any questions regarding fitness or possibly dieting. Go ahead and ask. If the question can be beneficial to a lot of people. I might make a video on it. Or at the very least I will answer them. Also know that I dont know everything obviously being mostly just an intermediate at this point. But thats the beauty of it. If I don't think I have a good solid answer for you. I will investigate it and let you know what I find out. So it would help me out and let me broaden my knowledge base quite a bit. Anyway tell me what you fuckers think .
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. Hell. Even if you dont have a question. But just want another opinion on something let me know. I'll try and give something like a minute to each question/comment. And make it around a 10 min video. Lets see how this works out.
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