ModernGrinder

@31:00 - We're quicker to fight in the US than the UK because we are, across the board, better at it than you are.

In all seriousness: Great video. Provides a lot of food for thought when it comes to self reflection and introspection. Appreciated.

Luke Johnson I apologize for the confusion. I meant bottom left table @ ~30:00, hero had QQ, shoved turn, got looked up by AA.

I haven't been able to post as much this month as in the past few due to a couple of factors but I'm still here and studying all tiers of content. I found this video and it's comments incredibly coherent and enjoyable. I still don't play stakes this high yet but it's nice to look ahead and even hear your thoughts on playing certain hands in spots because you're going to play them there all the time eventually anyway. So, sprinkle them in with some weighting at say 50nl when you know they're an RFI @ 200nl. And I like the little checklist of reminders open on the side. I might start implementing more of this kind of +EV mental game stuff, myself.

edit: @ ~30:00 Dude. You got worked there AA vs KK post lol. I mean, it happens but yeah...it most definitely did happen.

You know...I can't help but notice that we're consistently competing for the 5th spot on the monthly leaderboards. To be fair here: You have tons of posts like this that receive multiple likes. Are one liners like this really worth all the points they give you each month? If someone sees this (like an admin) can they please at least just look at this? I feel it's unfair to other posters, as well. Not just me. And with BlankyLion - it's every month. Look at their posting history. TONS of pointless posts like this garnering points that eventually give them a free month of elite. Like, every month.

Thank you, my friend. Do you really feel it's worth it to me to spend the time on a relatively dated book, though? I mean, I've read paragraphs of it before and it's not anything that I don't (or anyone else really) know. It's not a matter of not understanding something - it's a matter of not being able to apply it. But, if you really think it's worth my time, I'll go ahead and give it a read.

https://www.acrpoker.eu/blog/poker-strategy/why-speed-will-kill-your-poker-game/?utmsource=banneradmin&utmmedium=crm&utm_campaign=blog

This article actually helped a bit. I've had a few great sessions in a row now. Sitting back, actually contemplating all prior actions, and making sound decisions based on nothing but what we feel is +EV. Played 25nl on one network and 20nl on the other. Understanding how small a sample size one night, or week, or even a month is.

I like this format with multiple tables of rush n' cash. You get a lot of hands in quickly and successfully keep your dialogue and teaching up to speed with the action.

@ 30:15 on table 2 - Why is AKo from the BB a shove vs CO? Simply because he played A9s all in earlier? What if he hadn't have done this? How would you play AK here against an unknown?

@ 45:00 That's an absolutely gross hand. I guess we can throw that into the negative variance bucket.

Man...the video quality on some of these is perfect. And live poker? Also perfect as many players - at any given time - are in need of information that can help them transition.

PIO, Monker, Odds Oracle, you use them all, huh? I like it. It's good to see what's out there. Especially for what you're doing here in showing us how to find the appropriate amount of bluffs in different spots.

Had a nice little hour long session where I picked up about $20 in a 25nl pool. Felt good and like how my play is developing. When I take a beat or have that feeling to punt when I know I absolutely shouldn't...that's what's going to make the difference moving forward. For now. Those kinds of decisions. I have to just remove emotions and judge the hand as it plays out. Of course, this is far easier said than done but before I actually start clicking the mouse and making actions, I need to first remind myself of what it's going to feel like to have to end another session after punting 2-3 BI's and how far it's going to set me back.

I've been analyzing this more. A lot of it stems back to how I learned the game. Online, with no options but WPN micros, back in 2013. Further, I had a very small bankroll for even that. It was a terrible time in my life, indeed. Yes - there have been multiple "speedbumps" if we want to put it mildly. Having to play scared against better players who understood the game just destroyed me and established terrible habits, most of which are purely psychological.

A lot of it also stems from my childhood and things that happened into my 20's. Losing multiple of the closest people to me by 21 left me really alone outside of my parents. I developed terrible FOMO and had to begin adjusting to the world around me by myself. I started getting more scared of being broke and more ambitious. I started becoming more like my father.

Eventually, financial ruin struck my family and I watched them lose everything. I mean, everything. Me, too. I had to give them everything I had in order to attempt to save the situation that eventually occurred anyway. Shortly after this, broke, is when I started playing poker online. Being in a relationship with a girl who didn't understand poker and wanted to know how much I made every day was just...maddening, of course. Since then, I've been pretty much the way I am now. I have a better theoretical understanding and intuition now than ever, but you know that all goes out the window once you're playing on emotion. Regardless, the same pattern has repeated over and over and I'm afraid to commit to the game right now as a result. I've been wondering if I'm better off simply putting all of this effort into something else.

But when I don't play...I start to want to. I start to think about the game, the strategy, the sites, etc. I think about how I have enough money to start playing live now and how the money is starting to matter at this point. I can stay away, though and I have no history of compulsive gambling outside of my poker punts. I never play anything but poker. Not a penny on anything else.

It's the weekend again and I still have bonus + rakeback to grind on WPN. Let me try to clear my head from the day and get in the right frame of mind so I can put some hands in. I need to break this pattern and start being more responsible about my progress. I was watching WPT on TV late last night and saw 22-26 year old men and women playing for massive pots. Tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars involved. It made me feel like a total jerkoff. So, if I'm going to continue playing, there really isn't any more room or time for my self destructive bullshit.

I've been working on this. I think a lot of our tilt combines different factors but I guess it would most likely fall into the entitlement category. Especially as I study and learn more, I have higher expectations and when something gets in the way of those expectations, I begin to play more on emotion which is obviously a disaster. Losing small #'s leads to chasing and playing hands entirely differently than I normally would. Trying to hit a homerun with every hand and "get it back". Within a matter of minutes my play can go from A+ to F. It greatly interferes with me being able to put in the kind of volume that I need to at this point.

This is another hot video by Max. Cbetting theory seems to always be adjusting and with the advent of AI solvers like Wizard, it's nice to revisit things. Personally, I've still never really felt that I had a good handle on frequency and sizing so I was glad to see this show up in the list of new videos. Much more checking oop with a balanced range these days. I'm looking forward to what's next...

@ 11:50 You give some nice heuristics in this video, especially when it comes to paired boards. Splitting our strategy between low paired and high paired boards and explaining why were extremely helpful for me.

@ 27:50 I like the emphasis on the reduced value of 2p on super wet boards.

@ 39:20 Solvers seem to like checking IP with K high showdown value here.

I wrote a few other notes here without hitting update comment before. I'm going to have to renew my Wizard Elite at this point. Last I had one, node locking and AI customization weren't included.

@18:45 This is a really good point. Everyone preaches not being results oriented and then the overwhelming majority of their discussion with others turns out to be about results. So counterproductive.

@23:20 See, this is part of the problem with me. I was pushed hard, at an early age, to be emotional and show my emotions. No doubt, this wound up laying the foundation for a lot of trouble in my life as I got older. Especially in poker. Once emotion takes over, it does matter how intelligent you are: It's whitewashed and you're basically back to primitive decision making.

Chris Pimmer I really do appreciate your words. I'm not married, I have no kids, no debt...nothing like that. I have my old man in the nursing home and then my mother, thankfully. Everyone else is either estranged or long gone at this point. So, you're right: I go from rock bottom to "decent or ok" but honestly - it's not bad today. I have my freedom to do what I want, a few bucks in my pocket, a good hobby here, and probably quite a bit of time left on my hands in life. Who knows...maybe I'll find a way to get great at this or something else.

Over the years, I've often been encouraged to write a book about some of my experiences. It might just be time for that, too. But I really want to work on my poker game and theoretical understanding of such at the moment.

Chris Pimmer To answer your question: Past experience. I had, many times, took my ambition and motivation and exhausted it on total changes seemingly overnight. Obviously, these attempts failed and left me even more tired and frustrated than before. This time, considering all that I'm going through, I really had to spend the time it takes to change things brick by brick. I knew I had no more room for error and that it was time to do life right...even in the face of horrible occurrences. They happen.

I stopped drinking, too. It's like 10 months now. In the past, that's how I'd deal with the worst of my emotions. I just couldn't make the U turn you mention. No matter how hard I tried. In this case, at this age, I had no choice but to face things sober, raw, and directly. And I'm building the foundation well this time so that whatever future structure I place on top, holds firm and keeps me well balanced.

This video is targeting a player like me precisely. I'm 41 and have been playing on and off for 10 years. Now, there are a lot of factors in life that were going on around me that were completely outside of my control and in retrospect, made progressing at this game long term nigh impossible. I just had absolute chaos in my world. And then, I had an unspeakably bad past year. Lost people, pets, a place to live, etc. Removing that entirely: I've made a ton of mistakes in poker. Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of losing money, a terrible pattern of "quitting" for periods of time after bad sessions. My emotional foundation was nonexistent. Especially over the past year, out of necessity, I've slowly chipped away at everything in my life from the ground up instead of trying to take on change in one huge bite, as you discuss in the video. When you add up all of the little changes over time, you do see how big of an accomplishment it is and start noticing that you've developed actual good habits. They're just a natural part of your behavior now. Regardless of if I do good or bad at the tables, the stability and progress in my own life outside of poker can remain static if I just stay disciplined.

I'm about to start putting in a lot of volume over the holidays. I've been studying a lot (especially here on RIO) and learning how to use solvers on a more advanced level. I'll continue to study alongside my play and be focused on my own (and other's) hand histories. I may even pick up the Elite to GTOWizard so I can upload hands for analysis. That's like...invaluable to me.

Thank you again for these videos and keep them coming, please!

Frankie Carson https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=58354601&postcount=13920

Frankie Carson
I totally get it. I and others have asked about this from the developer of GTO+ and he just basically passes it off as unnecessary and what happens preflop doesn't matter once the flop comes down in a GTO sim. Obviously, if both GTOWizard and PIO 3 allow all that they do preflop, that's clearly the best combo on the market. It's just pricey. $549 for PIO 3 Edge and $129/mo for GTOW Elite.

Francesco Lacriola

Thank you for this. I'm going to spend a little time remembering what it was like playing like 2nl and 5nl when I had almost no money at one point. I would fight for every single blind because I had to. Here, I'll begin applying that same attitude while properly rolled for 25nl and 50nl. Scrape for every inch.

Paul Gough I've stopped and took stock of where I am twice in the past three months now. As I get back to hopefully being able to do this fulltime, I've been more responsible with my life and money than ever before. I start December overly rolled for the stakes I'm currently able to handle and the option open to buy into a live 1/2 whenever I feel ready ready for it. No extreme rush. I'm going to continue to study on here, work on my game, and myself as a person.

Peter has already coined this term on some of his youtube content. True EV.

The thing I never have been able to fully wrap my head around is why do we open so wide from the SB? Why is it so important that we grab that 1 BB, or at least attempt to?

As an aside: I think GTOWizard could do a lot better when it comes to the depth of the trainer, as well as it's interface. This is really barebones compared to a lot of the competition out there, especially when you consider the $129/USD per month that the full sub costs.

Good thread. I agree that there's a huge lack of awareness on this issue and that's PIO's fault, basically. Whatever features they have that trump the competition, should be touted heavily. As it is now, their site is extremely barebones compared to something like GTOWizard.

As I've asked in a video discussion thread earlier: Can you input preflop ranges, sizings, frequencies, etc with PIO 3?

You can tell PIO what the preflop actions and sizings were before beginning to construct the postflop tree?

As for the video itself: You explained some complicated subject material in an easily digestible way. I got a lot out of this and will be looking into some more of your videos.

This was a very timely video for me to watch as I've had a couple of blow up sessions at 50nl and 25nl and as a result, have stayed away from playing and have just taken care of myself and studied for several days now. You remind me of a lot of things here such as taking the rake into consideration, how to apply our understanding of blockers and unblockers, as well as river bluffing.

All of your videos here on RIO have been great so far. The content is always appreciated.

I have taken a few days off from playing or studying and feel refreshed. Of course, I'm upset at myself for letting my mental game slip to such an extent but the increased #'s of 25nl and 50nl from what I was playing prior (10nl and 20nl) were just too much for me. A couple of bad nights scared me away due to how quickly you could be down $100-200+ and how large and volatile overall swings could be through volume.

I was also playing 50nl and one site and 25nl on the other which I don't think helped matters. I was spewing at 25 in a lot of spots because the pots seemed small after 50nl volume. I'll have to either turn on and get used to using big blinds instead of $ or figure something else out so that I'm especially attentive to the pot and stack sizes at different stakes.

I'm going to piece myself back together here, study a bit, and work my way back to the tables again.

That's the #1 thing that holds me back from advancing deeper into the game: Tilt. I have so many bad habits built up over the years, and my life has been beyond emotionally taxing (and is atm, too) so when I sit down to the tables it manifests itself. It's amazing how I can play a solid, profitable game for weeks straight and then one little thing starts an avalanche that just totally drains any profits I've made, destroys me psychologically, and forces me to get away from the game for a bit. It's always held me back and I still haven't been able to find a solution.

The one positive to this, and maybe it's even more valuable than money in some cases, is that my mental game away from poker is drastically improved. Drastically. I handle stress and manage my emotions infinitely better than I did ten years ago before I started playing this game. I mean, I'm not even like the same person and although poker isn't entirely responsible for that...it's definitely partially responsible.

I just can't keep it together at the tables every time I start climbing stakes.

Chris Pimmer
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

Chris Pimmer Thanks for writing me back here. This is also a great reminder for me to keep an eye on my timebanks. That last session, I knew they were low and I just didn't have the discipline to stop slightly down. I had to push it and ...three BI's later I finally pushed back for the day.