Judahbhur

Studying, Studying, Studying
I haven't played all that much this week, but that hasn't stopped it from being productive. A lot of quality work has gotten done away from the tables, from the trainer to studying BTN vs BB and my own database. I think my game has grown a ton, and I'm starting to see specific spots where I know my understanding has improved. While it turns out I bit off a bit more than I could chew when it came to goals last week (link to last week), I'm pretty happy with what I was able to get done.

Database Review
One of my big goals last week was to do a review of my current PT4 database, and honestly, it was the highlight of my week. I felt like it was super instructive, and I was able to come away with some data to back up suspicions I've had about leaks in my game. There were also a few numbers I was just really surprised to see.

Perhaps what jumped out most was my C-bet percentage. It turns out that over the sample I was only C-betting flops 55 percent of the time. It seems pretty agreed upon that this falls quite squarely on the low end of what's reasonable, but I certainly haven't felt like I'm playing a C-bet light game.

I think this can in part be attributed to the fact that 50NL has more multi-way pots than normal. Even still, I wanna see this number get higher in the future. My VPIP number also jumped out, coming in at a smooth 21 percent. It did reassure me that I'm not playing too loose pre-flop, though maybe I'm playing a shade too tight.

While my VPIP seemed low, by 3 bet seemed high at just over 10 percent. This factors into the biggest leak I found in my game: I'm playing medium pocket pairs miserably.

Over a 175-hand sample (tiny, I know) with 7s, 8s, 9s, and 10s I've lost over 715 big blinds. I couldn't believe it either. In an attempt to figure out what was going on, I started checking the lines I took with a solver. A ton of them were terrible, and there was a common theme: I was over three betting dramatically. This isn't great in itself but what I think exacerbated the problem is the fact that the pool dramatically overcalls facing three bets.

Some of the research I've done on the pool suggests that people simply don't fold preflop in these games, which I think makes sense considering the more recreational player pool. People don't have the discipline to fold marginal hands pre-flop, meaning my 3 bet bluffs with 7s could be incredibly costly. Making matters worse I also found a good number of hands where I incorrectly called 4 bets preflop, a mistake made worse by the fact that I don't think people find enough 4 bet bluffs either.

I'm really looking forward to incorporating these adjustments this week, and can't wait to look at my database again with a bigger sample. I hope to see some happier numbers. If people have certain ways they like to filter their database, or things they think are helpful to look out for, I'd love to hear them.
Next Week
I haven't been playing as much as I should the past two weeks, and despite what should be another busy week I really wanna change that. This week I'm going to buckle down and grind. Playing around with PT4 has shown me that database analysis can be incredibly helpful, and I really wished I had a bigger sample to work with. The 8,000-something hands I've got is really just too small, so I wanna do what I can to bolster it.
Goals
-Study an hour each day
-Play 10,000 hands

In my granted limited experience trying to pursue poker seriously, spend a lot of time studying, especially with a solver. Also, read The Mental Game of Poker. Can be very helpful, if obvious at times.

Especially if you're playing live cash games at less than prestigious casinos, make an effort to pay attention to who you're playing with. Don't look at your phone, don't daydream. You'll realize that the player talent, at least in my experience, at these games varies epically. If you do a good job of getting into pots with the weak players, your win rate goes through the roof. In order to do that, you first need to identify them.

Heads Up
On my way to the library today I thought I haven't played that much this week, and nothing narratively interesting has really happened. I guess this week will be a shorter post and I'll talk about some studying stuff. After spending the morning looking at BTN vs. BB SRP ranges, I got the itch to grind a little before getting back to work. So, I walked up to a different floor of the library (I've always believed in switching physical location when switching between types of tasks) sat down for a quick session, and, well, something narratively interesting happened. 

It all started, as many great poker stories do when I got dealt Aces. The under-the-gun player opened, I 3 bet, he called. Flop came Q72 rainbow, he checked I bet he raised I called. I think the turn came a 4 and he jammed for what made a hefty over bet, a weird line for sure, but I didn't think twice about snapping off the call. I don't think I should ever fold AA in this spot (the solver agrees, and confirms my thought that no one should ever play this line). He turns over Q7o, I shrug, send him over my stack, and put another 50 on the table. The reason I mention this hand is that 1. It led me to make a mental note that this may be a weak player (a friend) and 2. It is part of what led to him being well over 300 BBs deep. 

A few minutes later I got dealt A3s on the button. The player in the HJ opens and our friend, who's now in the CO, elects to call. I know the solver-approved way to play this spot is to mostly fold but my friend's bumbling appearance in the action made me think call would actually be profitable. So I do, and the player in the BB defends. The flop comes 333 and across three streets I manage to massage almost all the money at the table towards my stack. This process included two players other than myself going all in, including my friend who showed up at the river with pocket Kings. 

After the hand players flew off the table leaving me heads up with the friend. Normally, if a table falls below 4 players I leave it and find a new one but as I was about to close out a thought ran through my mind. 

This guy can't be good. He cold-called with Kings in the cutoff and he may be super tilted right now. I know I'm not a great heads-up player but I have studied it a bit, there's no way he has at all. We're also both super deep now. I wonder if he'll stay and play a few hands with me. 

Oh boy, did he. We played heads-up for a little over half an hour, and it honestly may have been some of the most entertaining poker I've ever played. My initial suspicion proved correct, this guy was terrible. He didn't react to bet sizing, capped his range preflop, and overcalled to an epic degree. As the hands raced by I felt like I was figuring out a puzzle. I was asking questions, observing his reactions, and adjusting my play accordingly. I played the most exploitative strategy of my life, jacking up my bet sizing with the upper part of my range and over-folding in every marginal spot (I quickly realized he never bluffs). I don't really remember what happened at the other 3 tables but within about 30 minutes I had ran him for his entire stack. 

I guess the lesson here is that when I'm playing at my most focused I do a much better job of realizing who I'm playing with. I've heard a bunch of Pros talk about how the EV in poker comes from the friends, and today really reminded me of that. If I’d been checking my phone or something I may not have realized that playing heads up with this guy could be incredibly profitable. You never know where good action is going to come from.

In terms of the week as a whole, I didn't get to play much. This was kinda expected, and I fear that next week I won't have much time to play either. School starting and a busy time at work is a brutal combo. I was sorta half hoping my Sunday would open up and I'd get a chance to buy myself into a big local tournament as a reward for a difficult week, but unfortunately, that wasn't in the cards.

My time tracking system informs me I was only able to log a little over seven hours of study last week. Not exactly what I was hoping, but at least better than nothing. The studying is going pretty well, and I definitely feel like I'm progressing just not as fast as I'd like. This week, I wanna try and analyze my admittedly small database and see if there are any particular things it's screaming at me to work on.

That being said, my goals this week are:

-Study for at least 10 hours including
-A review of my database
-50 post-flop flashcards made (they're much harder to make than preflop ones)
-Lots of work on the Wizard trainer
-2 comprehensive spot reports (BTN vs. BB SRP and another one)

Down Swings
Well, this isn't exactly what I'd be hoping to title this week's update. During the past week, I've been on the worst run of my admittedly brief poker career. A run so bad and so quick I can't come up with a metaphor for it despite the fact I've been trying to for the better part of a day. But we're not there yet. 

The week started off pretty solid. I've been busy at work but I was still spending a good amount of time studying. I've spent a ton of time working on my preflop understanding to quite good results. While three weeks ago I just kind of assumed I played preflop almost like a solver would and left it at that, I now know that in the vast majority of simple spots I am. I've started learning what frequencies I should approach borderline hands with and randomizing, which I think is a good development in my game. I've discovered I’ve been undervaluing suited kings, over three betting from the BB, and overvaluing off-suit wheel aces. I definitely wanna keep up with the flashcards this week and use more of GTO Wizard's trainer. I've found it really helpful. 

The biggest victory of this week, unquestionably, was the fact that I've managed to jerry-rig a way for PokerTracker to actually accurately track my results. Despite my best efforts, importing the hands live seems like it just won't work. Maybe once PT4 updates that'll be a possibility, but the support team has confirmed to me that the current version of the software just won't be able to grab Ignition hands in real-time with a 100 percent hit rate. However, I did discover that Ignition makes it pretty easy to download the raw hand history files (if you know where to look). 

My plan was to try importing the files straight into PT4 to see if it could record them all. I'll spare you the incredibly boring story which consists of me yelling at a computer screen, a friend making the astute observation that the thing about poker that causes me to tilt is the software, not the game, and a professional engineer spending half an hour clicking through my file structure, but ultimately I managed to open Ignition, download the raw files, and import them successfully. The only loss in this saga was in making this system work I accidentally deleted the hand history files of every hand I had played up until that point, so my database is now starting over from zero. But taking into account the literal double-digit number of hours I've spent trying to fix this, I will so take it. 

While I wish the fact I can now get accurate poker tracker graphs was the headline of the week, the 16 buy-in downswing kind of has to be. I played one long session Thursday and despite it being profitable I wasn't too happy with how I played. I thought I was too aggressive and benefited from some incredibly soft opponents. 

With a good amount of free time opening up on the weekend, I dug in and sat down to play some long sessions. Looking back, while definitely not mistake-free, I think I played some really solid poker. I incorporated what I've learned about pre-flop as well as a bunch of post-flop concepts I've been studying. I think I played a lot closer to GTO than I have been. The only problem was I could not win a pot.

Every time I was all in preflop, I lost. Queens lost to Jacks. Jacks lost to Queens. Aces lost to Ace five suited. Ace King suited lost to Kings, I think twice. It was brutal. Almost every time I made the second or third nuts, all the money went in and my opponent had the one hand better. The second nut boat got beaten by the nut boat. Nut flush gets beaten by a boat. 

It felt like there was nothing I could do. I wasn't tilting, I didn't think I was playing badly or differently, but nonetheless, money was flying out of my account. A bankroll I had been proud to build almost entirely evaporated. A few days removed now it certainly still stings, but honestly not too bad. I feel more excited to play than ever, and my drive to study has gone nowhere. There's something in me that's convinced I'll keep learning and become better than ever. 

This week I have a lot going on with the start of school and some unfortunate circumstances have led to my having to couch surf for the week (If you take anything from this post, please dear god let it be that bed bugs are no joke and exterminators take a while to schedule). That being said, I don't want to set any specific volume goals. I do however want to make sure I spend a lot of time studying in ways that matter.

So, I have one simple goal: 

-Log 10 hours of quality study time

I also realize last week I wrote I wanted to avoid posting the update late Monday night. Well, I guess I succeeded in that I've gotten this up Tuesday afternoon. Shoot. Next week, I'll do better, for realzies this time.

First Week

Well. It's been quite the week. I played my biggest online pot ever, played my first ever 1,000 hand day, made my first flashcards, and then too often forgot exactly what was on said flashcards. I interacted with Poker Tracker support more often than my own family (sad but I think literally true) and discovered I know basically every word to Ship Wrek's entire discography (granted, being EDM music there aren't many). Some buddies also wanted to go to the casino a couple of times this week so I managed to play two live sessions as well.

I accomplished some but not all of my goals and definitely hope to do better next week. I was on a great pace by Thursday but the weekend turned out to be busier than expected so I didn't get everything done. I just barely made my volume goal and didn't get to study as much as I hoped.

One of the biggest things I've learned this week is my preflop knowledge isn't nearly as good as I thought it was. I sorta assumed that because preflop is simpler than a lot of other parts of the game and I had studied it somewhat I basically had no room to improve. This, of course, was hilariously wrong (I mean who knew that when you three bet with Jacks in a blind and get 4 bet from late position solver likes to pure shove???) I think I've been calling three bets far too often, opening hands I really shouldn't (A2o) and folding hands I really shouldn't (KJo).

Another thing is I haven't been totally happy with my level of focus during my sessions. Especially during longer pushes I've noticed myself making a decision too quickly or missing an important thing like my opponent's stack size. Even worse, I live with a bunch of friends lots of whom play and will sometimes come and watch parts of my sessions. While I really enjoy the company, I did have an entire hour-long conversation today about a friend's job and family while playing four tables. I'm sure that didn't translate into my best poker.

On the study side, I didn't watch as many RIO videos as I'd hoped but I crushed it on the flashcards. I find them an incredibly useful way to improve and wanna increase the amount of time I spend making and reviewing them this week. The highlight of my week came when I encountered a weird spot but realized I had seen something incredibly similar in my flashcards, was able to make the right play, and got paid off by stacking someone. It was an amazing feeling because without reviewing the similar spot I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to come to the right decision. It really made me feel like I was improving.

The other dominant poker narrative in my life this week was my battle with PT4, which for the sake of conciseness I'll spare you the gory details of (I honestly may make an entire separate post about it). Long story short, PT4 only tracks 90-something percent of the hands I play, which has led to some pretty epic disparities in what it thinks happened during my sessions and what my bank account knows happened. Despite my best efforts, and a lot of help from the nice people at Poker Tracker, there doesn't seem to be much I can do. So sadly I don't have cool graphs to post here. What I'm gonna do about this in the long term I still haven't fully decided.

This week I wanna really drill the flashcard study and focus more on shoring up my preflop game. I think focused study time should be my number one priority so my goals are as follows.

-Play 5000 hands
-Create and study 100 flashcards
-Write in my session log each day
-Watch 3 RIO videos while taking notes
-Respond intelligently to 5 RIO threads
-Update this thread next Monday (and maybe don't wait until almost midnight to do it)

Also, for those curious about how the bankrolls holding up, I have been keeping track.

Results
Online: +220.45
Live: +223

Thanks dude, appreciate it

When I'm drilling in GTO Wizard and get a spot wrong I'll take a screenshot of the spot and the solution and make them the front and back of a flashcard. I then can go through spots I've missed. Freenachos has made some really great videos explaining how to use flashcards, I got the idea from him

Thank you! Your videos have been a big help

I ran the spot and I think on these boards you could simplify to a range check and not lose too much EV. If you are going to c bet, the solver likes smaller sizing with AQo. Not sure why, but If I were to guess it probably has something to do with the fact it wants to bet all your top pair small (except for AK).

As played, when you block the nut flush draws the solver likes to pure check the turn with AQo. When you don't, you can incorporate some jams.

At 9:03 on the top right table would you ever consider check raising? The flop hits your range and it doesn't seem like the turn is a good card for him to bet for value.

Great video. Glad to see you here