Demondoink

Day 14:

Finally, we had a day of run good! it's been quite frustrating since i completed the last challenge as i have just not been running well at all (including that poor final session). obviously downswings happen and there is nothing you can really do about them except from play as well as possible and keep grinding through it, but they are still annoying nonetheless. i have just kept on learning and adding new things to my game, and hopefully once i catch some heat this will be shown in my results.

in terms of the games on Tuesday night, they weren't even good. it was, i think, the second session in a row where i've been playing regular tables without any fish at them. i think this could be to do with WCOOP finishing recently, so perhaps they decided to gamble in some tournaments instead and are now taking some time off. regardless, it's fun to battle with very good players and test out some new moves. there are definitely some line ups at $2k that are not very appealing to play in, but other times you can get a reasonably good table, even when it's just regs. fortunately i ran very hot during this session, and won a decent bit. it was nice making some hands again and getting paid, but it was equally as positive to see some mistakes from regulars come directly from things that i have studied. it's actually pretty insane though, as i had a fairly big winning session, but literally only stacked a guy for 100bb's once (when i won QQ vs AKo twice). i guess i won a lot of medium sized pots, but this is also what happens when you play stakes 2x and 4x your lowest one, you can win a few 50bb pots there and it trumps stacking a guy at 500z.

i actually only played 1.5k hands, just because the games weren't amazing and i was happy to take the win and move on. obviously my EV during this session is nothing like what i won, so even if i was running hot and won a bit, it's still important to remember that you make money from weaker players and that variance fluctuates. so a low EV game is still a low EV game, regardless of how you are running.

going to get some study in and review some hands from yesterdays session, then get on the grind later this evening!

GG.

Tuesday's session

stacking a rec

i feel like in the 54o spot i always have bluffs on the river when betting (despite the fact that i am randomising) so it was nice to have a value hand in this bvb situation and to get paid in full. i actually randomised defending pre as well, as this hand mixes (though should prob just defend always vs weaker players who make too many mistakes post). so thank you RNG!

Day 11:

On Saturday i took the day off (as i usually do) and went to visit my friends in another city. i have been friends with these guys since High School, but i do not see them very often never mind all of us getting together for a night out. we just chilled at my friends flat (everyone was drinking except from me haha) and then went out to a club. the first place you had to jump through about 100 hoops to get in; sign up via some code, enter all your details and email address etc and then buy some pass to skip the queue. then the guy insisted on people to wear a mask for like 5m as you walked in to the club lol. i was like fuck this, lets go somewhere else. sober clubbing is dry at the best of times, but when you have to do a million things in order to even get in to one of these places nowadays, i don't see the point. we got in to another place without having to sign up or any of that other rubbish, but it wasn't that great. at this point i'm basically over clubs, but i just go out to them because my friends want to.

Day 12:

on Sunday i got the train back to Edinburgh in the early afternoon, as i wanted to play poker later that evening. before getting on me and my friend went to get a smoothie from this place i used to go to all of the time, and it was really nice tbh. i haven't had a proper smoothie in ages, but they are so refreshing. i have been meaning to buy a blender so that i can start making them again, as it's also an easy way to get in calories (as i could do with putting back on some weight again). so buying one is on the to do list for this week.

in terms of poker i played for a few hours later on in the evening, and i think that i played reasonably well (despite getting less sleep than i usually do as i was crashing on a sofa haha). i ended up playing one table of $2k for quite a while, but it was with all regulars so obviously my WR in these games is going to be either very small or breakeven, but sometimes it's good to challenge yourself and i wanted to play some higher stakes as well. at the moment i would say that the best opponent that i play with in these games is fairly easily Tutti, but i guess this is understandable given the fact that he has recently been battling Stefan at the highest stakes. he uses large sizing's in polarised spots, and is very good at finding raises on latter streets as well. despite this i actually won at $2k, but then lost at 500z haha. i feel like you probably end up playing worse at 500z once you start playing more high stakes, as it's hard to adjust to a different standard of regular across different tables. even though 500z is obviously a tough stake, there is a pretty big difference between a $2k regular and a 500z regular. however, you can't just grind the same stake forever so if a slightly lower WR at my lowest stake is the price of moving up, but enables me to have success at higher stakes, then so be it.

Day 13:

on Monday i had a coaching call, which actually went really well and i learned new things too. the good thing about coaching is that if you use PIO effectively, you will be able to learn new things when you are teaching your student as well. it's also good when the guy you are coaching is enthusiastic about learning, as this is somewhat infectious and can easily boost your positivity around studying as well. i then had organised a game of 5 a side football for 8pm, which was my first game in around 2-3 years. i used to play 2-3 times per week in my early twenties, but since i moved to Edinburgh i didn't know that many people and thus didn't really know any games to get involved in. it was really fun to get back to playing again, and we are going to make it a weekly thing from now on. it was like a 30+ minute walk back though (we also walked there) so when i arrived back at around 10pm i just kind of lay around for a couple of hours and then made food. so i didn't play poker, which was somewhat lazy on my part, but in fairness i had still been fairly productive during the day. my volume is pretty poor atm, so i definitely need to step that up or else my hands for the year will be on the low end of the spectrum.

i'm definitely playing today, so going to get in a little study before i have another coaching call later this afternoon (followed my a study call later on). so there is lots of poker, and poker discussion on the horizon today!

LETS GOOOOOOOOOOO!

Sunday's session

RunItTw1ce well tbh we are all dealing with mental issues (i don't necessarily mean severe ones, but we all have our leaks) so i wouldn't feel too bad about it. i have my own as well, but its just a constant process of improving so that they start to fade in to insignificance.

we just have to be disciplined so that when our brains tell us not to do something, we ignore it and do it anyways. only then can we start to realise our full potential without being cock blocked by our own fears haha.

RunItTw1ce

I do not think the cold showers are for me

My focus definitely improved when I was doing them

this seems a bit contradictory, no? it doesn't matter if you enjoy them or not, it's whether you get a benefit out of it. if anything the whole point is to NOT enjoy them, so that you are able to develop the mental discipline and strength to have one even when you don't want to do it. you were also seeing mental benefits from it, so it feels very strange to dismiss them and to me it seems as if your brain is self sabotaging you in order to avoid this discomfort.

remember, though, you only have to do 30 seconds or so at the end of your proper shower. you don't have to jump in to freezing water and attempt to wash yourself in it.

it's the same with the meditation. your brain will probably come up with all of these thoughts about why it's a waste of time etc, but that's literally why you should be doing it- when you get lots of random uncontrollable thoughts in your mind.

just either use the 'calm' app or you can get plenty free 10 minute videos on their Youtube page as well. i began with Headspace, but personally i would say that Calm is the better app.

your heart beating faster just means you are alive! so long as you aren't tilting, i wouldn't say that it's a bad thing that you start to feel a little nerves when grinding higher stakes than you usually play online. you probably feel less nervous live because the standard is closer to $25NL than $200NL.

you can only control anxiety to a certain extent through meditation, exercise and exposure. sometimes you are just going to get anxious trying something new, or doing something you don't particularly like, whether you like it or not. the way to overcome this is to keep up a consistent meditation practice (so that you can recognise these negative thoughts are just random thoughts and not your identity) and expose yourself to this uncomfortable feeling. through consistent exposure, the anxiety starts to decrease until it becomes 'normal' for you and just another daily activity.

the biggest mistake people make when moving up is overestimating the skills of their opponents. unless they are playing high stakes, they are all going to have fairly sizeable leaks. so at $50NL these leaks are going to be pretty massive, and you will see this trend continue until you get to like 10-20x those stakes.

play your own game, study and don't fear you opponents, then you should do well :)

HeavyMask not read your blog for a while, and it's very sad to hear such a depressing latest entry. it seems amazing to me that they are unable to locate the source of the pain in your back, surely professional doctors would be able to figure out what is going on? it is obviously coming from somewhere, but for him to not be able to figure that out and then say you are not going to get better, perhaps says more about their lack of skill than anything else.

i have no idea, obviously. but if a coach watched you playing poker, even if he couldn't figure out what you were doing wrong, one of the next coaches you hired would eventually figure it out. so it must be a very unique condition that makes it so difficult to locate and then cure.

anyways, i wish you nothing but luck and hopefully one of these days they figure it out and you can live a pain free life!

GL on and off the tables :)

sorry for the slow reply i was away all of yesterday. just replied to you there!

jscott26 it happened with that German guy last year, but he was actually a relatively well known player and i think was even sponsored by GG. he went from $200NL up to like $20kNL in the space of a few months haha. so it has definitely happened before, and there is nothing to stop some random guy who has nothing to lose and is after a quick buck.

yes i am going to email them. apparently he was playing $5k 3h with Limitless and some other reg, and this is a guy that i have literally NEVER seen before.

thanks a lot, appreciate the kind words!

thanks a lot mate, glad that you enjoyed it and thanks for sticking around :)

hero call gone right

hero call gone wrong

first hand my intuition was screaming for me to call for some reason, so i tend to trust it (this is a clear fold in equilibrium fwiw as i also block some of the bluffing range like AQ with a club).

the second hand i was bluffing on the river, but then he jammed and he has more AQo with a heart combos relative to flushes. so this is an extremely rare scenario when i bluff otr and then call off vs a jam haha. he had the nuts, but that didn't prove anything as he is obv gonna have flushes too. if he jammed a hand like top pair, then my call would be truly atrocious :D

Day 10:

meh, i don't think i played very well during this session tbh. for the most part i attempt to play somewhat GTO, but other times i will just make a hugely exploitative random play with a combo that is never supposed to be in that particular range. usually i keep this to a minimum, but tonight i felt like i kept making these random vacuum plays without any really reason of why i was doing so. i guess maybe i am a little frustrated because i can't seem to win at the moment, and i am pushing things too hard in order to turn it around. probably when i show down certain combos vs other regs they are like wtf is this guy doing haha, but then if you simmed lots of my other plays they would be very close to what PIO would do. this is probably just a form of soft tilt, so i will just make sure to prepare properly for my next session and keep the spew to a minimum.

when in doubt, stick to GTO!

this session was kind of a crazy one tbh. i started off playing $2k, and perhaps it wasn't the wisest idea but i asked one of the regs where he had come from, as i have literally never played a hand with him before and now is open sitting $5k tables. in order to get to this level it literally takes YEARS of practice, slowly progressing up through the stakes whilst learning the game. so when a regular comes from nowhere and is suddenly playing high stakes, i am always very suspicious. a friend highlighted some questionable things he had noticed in this guys graph, so i questioned him. obviously i am not saying that this is necessarily the best idea, but if the guy is legit then he will have no issues with my concerns as it should be a compliment to him playing very well. who knows if he is using RTA or not. realistically there is probably quite a high probability that he is, as the chance of a guy coming from nowhere to $5kNL is close to impossible imo. the only way would be to play on other sites or something, but even then the standard over there is much lower relative to Stars, so you would still notice a difference. perhaps i could be way off here, but probably not. how come he has never played a hand of 500z before (at least in my DB)? i've never even seen him in a tournament before, either.

in terms of poker, this session was insane in the fact that i don't think i've ever face a 4bet more often than i did during this one. it seemed like every time i 3bet either the original raiser would 4bet, or someone else would open 4bet. i would then have a hand like KK and face a 5bet when deep stacked, just constant disgusting spots haha. i probably made a couple of questionable stack offs pre, but when it feels like you are being 4bet almost every single hand, then it seems natural that you would start to adjust with more 5bet jamming. perhaps it was just negative variance on my part, though, constantly running in to big pairs etc and my adjustments were thus un-necessary.

so yeah, was quite the session. i also lost a 400bb pot at $2k, which wasn't very fun haha. i 3bet TT from the bb vs btn and faced a 4bet, so randomised a low frequency 5bet click back. in my sims they don't like to play call/jam, because you just get in to a nuts vs air situation and allow him to realise too much equity with his bluffs (which tend to be Axs). so even though it seems like a kind of weird hand to 5bet (which it is) i think it is good at some frequency in order to prevent the button from going ham vs my 3bets and then just putting me to the sword post flop. at least this way i force him to indifference with these suited Ax pre and then he has to be on the defensive instead. anyways i blocked a low, paired flop and then he just jammed and had KK (there was a FD on board). honestly i probably could have found a fold as these flop jams are so imbalanced towards scared value that don't wanna play a turn.

just gotta forget about this session and move on. i will be taking tomorrow off as i am going out with a couple of friends tomorrow night. probably get back on the grind on Sunday though, unless i decide to visit my parents for a night. if the 'reg' in question is legit and is reading this, i apologise for any misunderstandings. but if you are using RTA then you are a pos and i hope you get caught asap! we could then play together when you don't have your software :)

GG.

Friday's session

Day 9:

On Wednesday i was having one of those days where i really lacked motivation. after coming back from a two hour dog walk, i basically just lay around doing very little for a few hours. my mood then started to deteriorate and i just wasn't in the mood to do anything productive. however, in times like this (when you lack motivation) then your discipline is going to be the key to getting your day heading back in the right direction. discipline and knowing that when you start to do productive activities, it puts you in a better mood. so with that in mind i done some yoga etc in order to improve my mood and get me in to a better headspace for my poker session. i watched the second half of the Liverpool v Milan game as well, which was a good game with lots of goals in it.

after the football i got on the grind, fresh in my mind was the hand that i bitched out on the day before when i had a clear river bluff, so i didn't fail to pull the trigger today. i bluffed off 250 bb's and got snap called on the river by two pair at 500z, and then i also x jammed on the river as a bluff, but thankfully that one got through. the 250bb hand i was very happy about though, as it was a very weird combo to bluff with and it turned out in PIO that it was basically just pure bluffing across all three streets. so despite getting called, it was a net win imo. i actually thought i was winning for the session when i quit, but it turns out that i actually lost a bit, which is unfortunate. i guess you could say i am on a little bit of a downswing recently, which happen of course but it's always frustrating when they do materialise. on another day i bluff jam 200bb on the river and he has a hand that is a fold vs a call and then i win for the session, so sometimes it's small margins that can decide the results of your sessions. i know that some people don't like to check their results, but personally i do as i always like to review my play and see if i am leaking in any particular areas.

Day 10:

Thursday rolled around and Rangers had a big game in the evening vs Lyon in the Europa League. we have not been playing well at all this season, getting knocked out in the Champions League qualifiers to a pretty average Malmo side, and scraping in to the EL group stages vs very poor opposition. we also lost in the league after going unbeaten for the entirety of last season, so it has been a very underwhelming start to the season. i think that we didn't recruit very well in the Summer. we retained our better players, but the problem is that the team seems a little stale at the moment, and our new signings haven't really added any additional quality to the side. fortunately the other two teams in our group aren't as good as Lyon, but if we don't drastically improve then we probably won't even get out of the group.

i was planning to play poker afterwards, but i just really wasn't in the mood and so decided to forgo playing. there wasn't really any great excuse or reason for not doing so. usually if i am on the fence i will just force myself to play, but if i really don't want to i will just listen to myself and take the night off, as i would probably make too many mistakes that would then tilt the shit out of me as i would be questioning why i didn't just take it off. on a positive note, i got in some decent study and reviewed some hands from my previous session. i also got in another two hour dog walk, before having to relinquish him in the afternoon when my parents came around to pick him up.

i'm definitely playing tonight, and hopefully get in some higher stakes action as most of my volume on Wednesday was at 500z cos other games weren't running.

GG.

Wednesday's session

Day 8:

we got back to the cash streets, and it did feel good! on Tuesday it was time to put to bed the nonsense that is tournaments and get back to the REAL POKER. no more 10 bb open jamming and no more defending J5o vs an ep open (when they min raise you can almost defend any two cards with antes, and no rake involved). i got back to the gym as well, doing chest and shoulders and getting in a pretty decent workout. post gym i had to rush back as i had a Skype study call afterwards, so i stopped off at this Chinese place on the way home and picked myself up some noodles with Tofu etc. it was pretty decent, and i need to keep eating because i've lost some weight since being sick (weight that i couldn't afford to lose, as i already very skinny as it is haha). it was actually a pretty healthy 'takeaway' though, i think it would be a little silly to eat a McDonalds after a workout, you wanna at least get some healthy nutrients in to you haha (though i am no dietician, so perhaps it is indeed optimal to have a Big Mac after the gym).

i felt like it was a very beneficial study call, as we covered some topics/lines etc that i either wasn't really aware of or do not usually study myself. when studying it's easy to review large pots, whether that be 3bet pots or 4bet pots, but sometimes its the nitty gritty stuff that is somewhat boring and tedious to study, that gives you an edge vs your opponents, whilst providing you with clarity in the process. this is something that i strive for, my aim when i study is to be able to fully understand the concept and form some fort of heuristic in my mind so that i have great clarity in game, and thus i can shift my concentration and focus to large decisions that really require my full attention. there is nothing more satisfying than arriving in a spot that you have studied and you pretty much know exactly what to do with your range, your exact combo, what sizing to use etc and then you can just execute it whilst your opponent comes up with some weird sizing or combo selection. this was the case in one hand last night, where he bet/called a hand on the river that (at least as far as i am aware) wasn't even a river value bet.

in terms of the session, i ended up winning a little and was pretty happy with how i played (bar one hand when i had a clear as day river bluff, but i was unsure which sizing to use and i ended up tanking for too long otr and then instead of choosing between jam/block i checked). it was near the end of my session, so i kind of bitched out and deviated for no reason other than fear. i almost never do that, so i am holding myself accountable in this instance. he also had a clear folding combo, so that is $1000 i would have won if i had just jammed haha (obv poker doesn't work like this, but in this instance it's a good reminder of why you need to bluff, even when you don't feel like it sometimes). apart from that, though, my play was very good imo. the plan is to just keep studying, learning from PIO and then try to play as well as i possibly can when i do hop on the tables. $25/50 is calling my name...

GG.

Tuesday's cash session

Day 7:

ENOUGH MESSING AROUND WITH TOURNAMENTS, BACK TO THE CASH GRIND!

yesterday i played out a couple of Day 2's that i made, but didn't bother to register for anything else because i wasn't really in the mood to play after two fairly long grinds on the previous two days. needless to say, i didn't bink anything, but i cashed in them both. i have had fun playing tournaments for the past week or so, though in reality i am still probably down money. it was fun to play in my first $5k, though, and i know that i am +EV at this level even if i spend minimal time studying tournaments. obviously i am not saying i am winning in the tougher online tournaments, but as a high stakes cash game player if you have good fundamentals then they are fairly easily passed over to mtt's. there are lots of little adjustments i was making to exploit my opponents whilst playing, as most of them share similar tendencies and over aggression in certain spots relative to others. it's pretty simple to just tweak a flop range to exploit your opponents if they tend to be too aggressive on one line, but not on the other. obviously i didn't actually get any big scores, but realistically all we can do is attempt to achieve the highest WR in bb/100 and then hope that we run hot when it matters. something like ROI is completely useless in terms of judging your WR, because if you randomly bink a 10,000 player tournament then that is going to mess up your ROI. conversely if you run poorly deep in tournaments over a long stretch, then you may be break even or even losing. that is why volume is so important in tournaments, to reduce the variance as much as possible and hopefully realise some of your true WR.

anyways, the plan is to get back on the cash grind tonight. i have a couple of poker Skype calls today, so hopefully that will help me get back in to the cash game mindset as well. my parents dog is currently staying with me for a few days, so i am about to go and take him on a walk just now.

GG, back to the cash grind.

JoeAdams1 thanks man. tbh i have only done his breathing work once or twice, but i was able to hold my breath for like 2 mins 30 or something the first time i done it, which was pretty nuts haha. so it definitely works. i just tend to do basic meditation instead, but i should probably go back to trying his stuff again.

JJisnoob cheers mate! that's a good question, and not something that i have actually thought about much tbh. you are probably correct, as you are able to notice these impulses and then kinda explore them instead of simply reacting to them. though in reality i was never a massive drinker before, i would binge drink when i did go out, but i didn't even like alcohol that much and wouldn't drink one beer on a week night, for example. it was basically drinking to get smashed, or not drinking at all haha.

i would say that meditation makes you more aware of everything you are doing, whether these are conscious or subconscious decisions. like if you have inhibiting thoughts, for example, before you would not even notice them, but they would already be dictating your life. then once you start meditation, you notice these thoughts and start to question them. why am i not good enough? why am i nervous? why do i lack confidence in this area of my life? so then you can begin to rewire your brain and not simply go through the motions of life being controlled by your negative thought patterns.

thanks a lot man! back on the cash game grind again tonight, so hopefully i start to run hot over there again!

zache86 yeah man i agree. if we lost that match our qualification hopes probably would have been over. there was a possibility that if we had drawn it we could still get through, but realistically we needed the win in order to put us in pole position to qualify for the play offs. however, we have a bit of a history of putting ourselves in with a good chance of qualifying, and then bottling it. so this next game with Israel is make or break. the good thing is that we also play Denmark in the last game at home. as they will have already qualified as group winners, perhaps they will play a weakened team. so basically just don't lose to Israel and we should go through, with a win pretty much a guarantee.

exactly. it's almost like these governments were waiting for something like this to happen, in order to go for a massive power grab over their populations liberties and freedoms. i've been reading about this in my book, and they are saying that apparently the same thing happened after 9/11, with new laws introduced here in the UK that allowed you to hold someone in custody for >24 hours if they were a suspected terrorist (but hadn't been charged, usually it's 24 hours before you need to charge or release them). then in America they started to monitor people much more in the name of terror prevention. as Winston Churchill said 'never let a good crisis go to waste'. so basically when the public are gripped by fear, they are more malleable and able to be controlled and manipulated, hence why it's a good time to introduce restrictive measures and controls but not be met with opposition.

that is shocking, but these politicians simply do not care about the average person. whilst they are in lockdown in their mansions, with their personal chefs etc the average person is in a cramped apartment, struggling to pay their bills and buy food. so that's the problem when you become detached from reality, a lockdown for a wealthy person is completely different to a lockdown for a poor person. but as they do not live that life, they cannot comprehend (or even care) what it is like for those people.

haha yeah man mtt's can be very annoying, but i enjoyed the different challenges of trying to play a form of poker that i am not used to, vs opponents that are much weaker than i usually play against. so you are able to play a much more exploitative form of poker, which yields a higher EV overall. i still probably lost money whilst playing them, but regardless it was cool to play a $5k for the first time, and go relatively deep in another $1k after cashing in the $1k ME in SCOOP earlier this year as well. so a big score is coming, sooner or later :)

Day 5:

On Saturday it was my Day 2 in the $1k, and it didn't last very long haha. tournaments are a constant stream of disappointment, so the key is to have absolutely ZERO expectations and then you will not be disappointed. this can sound stupid, but as soon as you think 'i am chip leading this tournament, that $50k up top would look really nice in my Stars account' then 15 minutes you are busto. you basically have to be emotionless and ignore the variance, just keep playing good poker and hope that eventually you will run hot enough to bink something. in the past i was culpable of getting too annoyed when i would bust a deep run, but that was my fault because i had started to become attached to the idea of winning it, or getting to the FT. when you are prepared to lose at any moment in a tournament, then this is a much healthier approach and will not lead to frustration when the exit inevitably comes.

i think it was like 30 mins or so in to my Day 2, that i called some random guy's xr and triple off down with flopped pair and rivered 2 pair. i will link the hand in here. the only questionable node was the turn, but he bet so small, i unblocked all bluffs and blocked lots of his flopped value combos. i also rolled medium so didn't think i got to fold my combo >50% of the time. perhaps these guys are just never bluffing this line, especially deep in a 1k, but i dont know this for sure and it seemed like there could be plenty natural bluffs for him to have.

i made a FT on another site, that had $7.5k up top. i was kinda crushing it, gaining chips and like 3/7 or so, but then i got shafted in one pot and got 5th place for $2.4k. i'm not sure if i was up on the day or not, probably at worst break even, but could have been up a little.

Day 6:

Sunday rolled around, and it was seemingly one of the biggest MTT days of the year, with the WCOOP mains running as well as a bunch of other big tournaments. i started my session and was crushing, building lots of big stacks and running pretty hot. however, the thing is that you need to run well AT THE END of a tournament. so whilst its obviously great building big stacks in the early/mid stages, it literally means nothing unless you make FT's and get some wins. the money in tournaments is all towards the top, which is why its so important to run hot whenever you get deep in them.

it was actually insane, because i managed to get in to the $5k main event... for $22!!!!!!! there was some random $22 satellite running, so i hopped in. there were like 900 odd entrants and just the 5 places paid, and i managed to bink a spot hahah. i've won many satellites in my days, but never anything like this haha. it was also the first time that i have played a $5k, which is cool. i think i've played a couple of $2ks, and obviously a bunch of $1ks, but had never got in to a $5k before (and i am not prepared to buy direct in to a tournament that is higher than i will buy in to at cash atm). unfortunately i 4bet jammed JJ in to AKs and lost, so no deep run but it was cool to get in to it nonetheless. all of my deep stacks seemed to evaporate, which is what can easily happen as i alluded to. i was gonna end my session early but i had a massive stack in the $55 main (i bluffed off my stack in the $530 ME and cba re-entering) so i regged a few other tournies. ended up going deep in the $109 7max turbo thing, getting a bunch of bounties, but lost quite a few all ins towards the end and then busted in roughly 200th place. i think i cashed for around $750 or so.

i made Day 2 in the $55 ME with >160 bigs, and i qualified for the $22 Phase earlier this week, which also resumes tomorrow night. i might buy in last minute to the $530 main, but i won't be doing the same in the $5k haha. i have had a lot of fun playing tournaments in the past week or so, and i feel like i am kinda annihilating the field, but not running quite hot enough to get a decent score. my WR this year is just under 17bb/100 EV at mtt's on Stars, but i am DOWN money. go figure. that's what i don't like about tournaments, you don't really get rewarded for your good play like you do in cash games, as its more important to win a few all ins late in a tournament than out play your opponents in more meaningless spots. of course, over the long run this should even out, but i dont play tournaments often enough for this variance to iron out. i think i am down in the past 3 years on Stars at mtt's, despite playing better poker than i did in the period before then when i was winning. all you can really do is play good poker and hope to run well when it matters. i am doing the former, so hopefully i will be rewarded with the latter in the not too distant future :)

anyways, kinda rambling a little now. i'm not complaining, i'm just pointing out that there is no justice in tournaments haha. which is basically why i play cash games instead :D though let's be honest, there is nothing more fun in poker than a deep tournament run. gets those degen juices flowing!

i am supposed to be playing 5 a side tomorrow evening at 7pm which i have organised, but the problem is i have these 2 tournaments. i feel like a dick for pulling out of my own game, but i kinda forgot that it was the final WCOOP weekend and i'd likely be playing some Day 2s. so unfortunately it seems like my wait for a game of 5s will have to go on. i'm not sure if i'll reg a full schedule tomorrow or not, but will just see how i feel.

GG.

btw completely ignore the PT4 net $ won, i don't think it seems to track satellites or bounties so that's a bit of a problem when you win some satellites and play lots of bounty tournaments haha.

Saturday/Sunday mtt sessions

$22 satellite victory

$1k bust out hand

$1k bust out hand. PIO vs river jam

Day 4:

i didn't play on Friday as i'm still kinda recovering from being ill and i had played for 7 hours the previous day, so i guess that took it out of me a little. also, i don't think there were even any WCOOP tournaments on yesterday as it's apparently a day off or something. at the moment i am just focusing on tournaments as i believe there are only a couple days left of this series, so it makes sense to focus on that and then switch back to cash games next week. sometimes i do play mtt's followed by cash games on the same day, but it's probably not a great idea because i am not going in to the cash game session fresh, and thus won't be able to play my best poker. i tried to almost force feed myself yesterday because i have lost weight since being under the weather, and at one point almost made myself sick trying to finish my dinner at 1am lol. turns out it was a waste of time because i just weighed the same as i did the day before, when i stepped on the scales this morning :D

today i have my Day 2 in the $1k Thrill, so hopefully i can run deep in that and get a decent score. i am likely going to grind a full schedule today, so there will be no sober night clubbing for me like a done last Saturday (it was not very fun haha). drinking alcohol whilst clubbing is 100% much more enjoyable than going out sober, but to me there are too many -EV consequences from doing so that force me to ignore that urge. when i was in London a few weeks ago i was so close to ordering a beer, but i relented. life is definitely at it's most enjoyable when you are living in the moment, which is why so many people drink, take drugs etc to shut off all of our negative thoughts and emotions, at least temporarily. but for me i want to try and do this without the aid of other substances, though perhaps this is unrealistic and we should accept that our mood will always fluctuate on a daily basis regardless of how healthy or spiritualistic we are. i was listening to Russell Brand interviewing Wim Hof last night, and Wim talked about how he was able to access his reptilian brain in order to bring about a sense of Euphoria to himself. so apparently you do not need drugs to get this high :P

also, i have maintained my chess playing, and i almost on level 400. that's probably nothing to brag about, but at least now i feel like i have some kind of clue about strategy. i signed up for a membership on Chess.com and now use the 'solver' to analyse my game after i play. so it's pretty cool and its a really interesting and complicated game.

okay, best get in a little study then go off and have a cold shower before i begin at 6pm. wish me luck!

thanks a lot mate, i am glad you enjoyed it so much! i respect your game a lot, so GL and see you at the tables!

I apologise if sometimes if i go off on completely unrelated tangents to do with Politics, or Philosophy etc as i realise that this is a poker thread, predominantly. however, i also have an opinion on these topics and it can become a little boring and tedious simply talking about poker each day for 3-4 months at a time haha. i just wanted to make it clear that EVERYONE is welcome here and that you do not have to share the same opinions as me in these regards to be able to interact in the thread. obviously i don't know all the answers but as a poker player i just always like to question things and think for myself. i am sure sometimes that my thinking and logic is somewhat flawed, which is why i am always open to a discussion.

i just wanted to make that clear as i feel like i came in strong with my initial entry haha. but i am sure that the vast majority of the people in here have read my previous thread so are probably aware of my scepticism of people in power.

if you haven't read my previous thread, here it is:
100k challenge #1

Day 3:

okay, so back to poker and the daily life grind. yesterday i woke up feeling much better than i had felt the previous day. in a strange way i think it is important to feel sick (obviously i don't mean severely sick, though it has been reported in these people as well) so that you fully appreciate when you are feeling back to 'normal' and full health. otherwise, you just take it for granted. it's the same with the weather, in Scotland our weather is often mediocre at best, so when we get a day like the other day when it is early to mid 20C in September, you are quite happy. where as in a place like Los Angeles that apparently gets 284 sunny days per year, so will probably just come to expect good weather as an inevitable daily occurrence.

i didn't go back to the gym or go on a run, but i got in a much needed stretch. yoga is a good intermediate form of exercise that is not too taxing (though it's still not as easy as it looks) but still boosts your mood and puts you in to a good mindset for your poker session. my hamstrings were particularly tight, so i need to get back in to a more consistent daily yoga routine. i think as i begin to approach 30 it is important to use stretching as a form of injury prevention, as we can not remain in our early 20s forever haha.

i wanted to get in some poker study before my session, but kind of just ran out of time and i noticed that there were a bunch of good tournaments already in later reg, so i simply ignored my study and started playing. obviously its very important to study, but we don't make any money unless we actually play poker. so sometimes you have to sacrifice one or the other. on a day where the games are slow, or i don't feel much like playing, i can make up for that lost study time. just like when a whale is sitting at my cash game table, i will stay awake for the entire night if i have to until the game breaks haha.

so i decided to play tournaments as i have recently regained the urge to play them, coupled with the fact that it is currently WCOOP and thus the prize pools are vastly inflated compared to normal. i think i started my session at 7pm, and played through until 2am. one of the downsides of playing mtt's is that you do end up playing for much longer, however the mental energy you need to expend whilst playing is so much lower compared to cash games, as most of your play is short stacked and thus relatively straightforward. playing 4 tables of zoom with constant post flop decisions is so much more mentally draining. i felt like i was playing really well, but i was literally losing every single all in (which happen a lot in tournaments with constant pre flop all ins). you are going to be struggling unless you win your all ins in tournaments haha. at one point during yesterdays session i was running 400bb's below EV. however, as poorly as the session was going, i was still playing well and i finally got a break when i managed to satellite in to the $1k Thursday Thrill for $55. i was considering buying in directly, but decided against it because i wanted to reduce variance a little after my recent slump. the only issue with satelliting in to a PKO is that you miss out on all of the early bounty opportunities, which is quite a big deal in this format. however, beggars can't be choosers and i was more than happy to take my chances at this discount price. i managed to win A9o vs JJ in my first all in, and later on stacked KQ with AK on J8xK7 in a 3bet pot after i x back the flop and bink ott. from then on i had a big stack for basically the rest of the day, though frustratingly couldn't pick up many other bounties as i was at one table where we all had like 100 bigs, and then towards the end of the day lost a couple all ins where i called off with crappy hands to gamble for the bounties haha. regardless, i ended the day with just over 40bb's and i am 26/73 going in to Day 2 on Saturday. so lets hope for the win! i think it will be roughly $100k for first including bounties.

i didn't play any cash obviously, but might play some tonight if the mtt's are dry. i will switch my focus back to cash games as soon as WCOOP ends, but atm i am quite enjoying playing them (though we will see how long that lasts for haha).

GG!

MTT grind

$1k Day 1 standings/payouts

daily bluff

hahah :D

thanks bud! :)

cheers mate, lets gooo!!!

cheers man, glad that you have enjoyed the previous thread!

tyty mate, lets goooooo!!

Day 1:

on Tuesday it was time to get back on the grind, and in to a consistent poker routine again! i went to the gym before the football and got in a chest/shoulders workout. nowadays i try to vary my workouts as in the past i was literally going and doing the same exercises every time i done a specific body part. i think this can easily lead to a plateau as your body becomes accustomed to your workouts. it is also more exciting trying new things as it keeps life fresh and more interesting. i always use the analogy when people do the same things day after day, that you wouldn't buy a video game and play level 1 over and over, would you? you would progress on to level 2, and then level 3 etc. so why do us humans seek to stick within our comfort zones and within our daily/weekly routines? of course, i still do this to a large extent as well but i am conscious not to merely go through the motions and do things on auto pilot. doing one or two small things differently a day can keep you on your toes and make each day more exciting.

after the gym i watched the Scotland game, and somehow we managed to win! apparently this victory was the 4th most unlikely of the entire World Cup qualifying campaigns (according to Opta Stats) as we were ranked 27 places below them. however, having played them previously i was not overly impressed and they also recently lost to Israel 5-2. so whilst it was still a surprise, we have good players and when they play as a team we can beat good teams. now if we beat Israel at home in our next game, we are almost guaranteed 2nd place and a play-off spot, which would be great and allow us to potentially qualify for 2 major tournaments in a row having now been in one since 1998 before this year.

in terms of poker, i started my session after the football at around 10pm. i was roughly break even for most of the session, but towards the end my session took a massive nosedive and i lost a bunch. since i have come back from travelling i think i am down like $10k or so, and most of that is probably at 500z haha. it's kinda ironic because i had a really good WR at 500z during the previous challenge, and now my winnings there seem to be getting decimated haha. i think i am maybe not adjusting the best atm to other 500z regs, who are much more exploitable than 1k or 2k regs. vs the higher stakes regs most of them don't have huge leaks in their strategies and are bluffing in most spots (or at least capable of doing so) where as you can look at some 500z regs HUD stats and just see pretty gaping leaks. i look at them though, and i ignore them and just go according to GTO, so that's extremely dumb on my part. sometimes it can just be difficult playing one way vs certain players and another vs other players when you are mixing stakes, but it's something that i need to get used to until i cut 500z from my schedule. i think i made some pretty good bluffs during the session, with some working out and others not. i kinda need to make hands when i play though, as i get looked up more than other regs due to my readiness to bluff haha. so hopefully my blue line spikes in this evenings session :)

Day 2:

unfortunately during the previous day i started to get a dry cough, and i woke up on Wednesday feeling like crap, completely drained and not even able to pluck up the courage to stand and wash my dishes haha. it was an amazing day though, so i went down to the park and sun bathed for 2 hours, also getting in some reading. i recently bought the book 'a state of fear' which is about how the UK government manipulated and controlled the British public through during the pandemic. so far it's very interesting and i would definitely recommend buying it. by no means am i saying the Corona isn't bad, but there is no doubt in my mind that these governments attempted to control us through fearmongering etc. as poker players we have to think objectively, so i am not going to merely believe random things i am told by untrustworthy news agencies that have ulterior motives than simply relaying the truth. however, if you question things like this you just get labelled a conspiracy theorist in order to silence your questions and make you sound crazy haha. if someone disagrees with one of my poker hands, should i label them a conspiracy theorist as well? :D

anyways, needless to say that i didn't play poker on Wednesday, which is unfortunate as i was keen to get back in to a consistent grind routine. on a positive note though, i feel much better today and i am 100% playing tonight. i am considering playing the $1k thrill tonight, as those fields are always very soft. i'll just see how i feel later on tonight, but i am definitely gonna be hopping in a few mtt's this evening.

GG. today is a new day! 8)

1st session

finding bluffs

yeah they are a better team than us, however our manager still does not play to our strengths and we are more like a team of individuals instead of a team of collectives. Austria are pretty poor atm too (they lost 5-2 to Israel last week) but the issue is we don't really score any goals, so it's hard to see where they are going to come from even when we do play a team badly out of form.

can you lend us Messi please? :D