Onkleb

Congratulations on great year and baby! Hope you have great 2022 as well! (:

Thanks for the great podcast! (: Much needed reminder on what is relevant.

I only got banned from one skin so i can play on other GG skin if i want to do so. I didnt break any rules, but apparently skin has right to choose their customers, just if they let you know 14 days in advance. But i got my money back and did alright there so no hard feelings really.

Doing fine thanks. (:

I got banned from one GG skin so i decided to get back on stars. But im happy to be back and start to work with my game again after playing on really soft games.

Thanks! (:

No one answer again. For common spots your own database (~ 500k hands) is enough, for more complex one you need tens of millions.

Depends so much on given spot. But when you nodelock one specific node you dont consider that pool will play suboptimally on other nodes as well. So you dont have to go 100% on every spot because other parts of your range will get profitable spots on later nodes as well. But there is spots where i go for 100% plays just to simplify my strategy and keep the gametree smaller.

I think its important to have somewhat reasonable strategy vs better regs that dont leak as much as pools average.

Id assume its not as important to be balanced in 6max is it is in HU. In 6max, especially in bigger pools people dont seem to pay that much attention to individual players. So you will get away with really imbalanced strategies.

Thanks ! (:

From my experience pool doesnt care how you play, they are more worried about its own strategy. Also pool is quite lazy so it doesnt take the time to come up with perfect counter vs one particular player. So most guys dont adjust at all, most guys that adjust do it very poorly. And some guys adjust very well and crush but thats totally fine.

For readjusting notetaking is pretty much the only way. Once you notice who is adjusting and how you can decide if you want play more balanced strategy or counter hes exploit.

Yes thats exactly why people find static GTO so appealing. You dont feel so much pain from your decisions since you have something else to blame than yourself. So you can make horrible bluffcatches because PIO and awful bluffs because low frequency. And since almost every spot / hand is a mix in GTO you can basically play however you want and get away with it mentally.

Thank you sir.

Such a broad topic that its impossible to give one solid answer.

But for me its challenging my thought process constantly. Finding out if your assumptions about certain situation are true or not. You can do that by doing MDA, using PIO or talking with other good players. Preferably mixing all of them.

For my opponents its figuring out how the see the game and coming up with best exploits vs that profile. Maybe they are scared and see ghosts everywhere. Or maybe they are pseudogtopiolovers that know some parts of the game tree but instantly fall apart when you deviate from those.

Thank you!
Im 95% sure that this was my last journal here. Ive been really struggling to get anything written out. Almost every post is just a graph and few random sentences. Also way too many people know my blog + stars screenname which is something i didnt want to happen. It didnt matter at 200z but if im aiming to 1k+ i think its just a bit too much free info to give away. Especially when you play strategy that can be exploited 50bb/100 pretty easily.

Paul Atwal Thanks man! See you over the chessboard. (:

radiosick good to hear that someone can relate :D And its not like i meant that poker is somehow easy. Theres always a huge challenge to play better, create more accurate exploits vs every player etc etc. And when you add whole mental game / health into a mix the challenge feels overwhelming time to time.

2020

What a crazy year indeed. Main goal for 2020 was move up to 500z and achieve positive winrate. But more important was to try out if I could manage playing on higher stakes, not necessary even winning.

And then came lockdowns, games were booming and I started immediately crushing at 500z. I didn’t do anything special, just played my blueprint strategy and all went great. I managed to play on really great pools, 4-5 handed w plenty of fish. That went on until summer, then I started reduce volume and enjoy summer. In Autumn I started to push only nl500, which meant adding regtables as well. Games weren’t running that well anymore, so I tested full regtables on untracked sites. That transition has been way smoother than I imagined, and somehow started winning there as well.

All in all, it’s safe to say I ran extremely hot whole year. Of course its really tough to objectively assess how good or bad you run, but 13bb/100 wr at 500z can tell you something.

Maybe that why I don’t feel as proud for my results that I probably should. It feels more like I just got lucky rather than hard work pays off kind of way. Sure I did ok amount of regular studying. And ive been fortunate enough to work with extremely good players, so I don’t have to grind countless hours on pio just to figure out how some spot should work. But still I didn’t put nowhere near as much study hours than most guys I know do.

Or maybe I just don’t give enough credit for the work I put on my mental game, because its so different than putting hours on pio. With mental game I mean all that’s involved on it, everything that gives me the best chance of playing my A-game and minimizes the odds of C-game. That means sleeping well, good diet and enough exercise. Finding out your biases in game, and trying to figure out what are your opponents ones. Having a good balance so that you don’t burn out and lose interest on game. Could that working on that stuff is where I might gain my edge, rather than staring piocharts all day and having rng with million numbers.

So actually when writing this out I feel more satisfied on this year. I managed to move up, keep my head together whole year and make 3x profit compared to last year. And I handled last minute downswing pretty well, kind of. Yes I understand that luck and corona played a big part here, but I can still take some credit to myself.

Again pretty unorganized text, but I hope you get something out of it.

Merry Christmas and better next year!

Toni

And heres yearly results

GRAPH STAKES

Also around +60k$ on untracked sites, so over 200k$ year. Pretty crazy stuff given almost half of my volume was on nl200 still.

I will reflect more on this year later. Just wanted to share my results now as promised.

Ok time for last month wrap-up.

December was toughest month in a long while. First 15k hands and i was down +20 buyins. I just ran awful, lots of coolers and just couldnt win a single hand. Fortunately i managed to play decently and catch some better run, so month ended up around +5k $.

Hard to give one answer really.

In big picture i dont think there has been big changes. Fish and weak regs play pretty much the same. Also i have moved up from 100z to 500/1k so pretty hard to compare if pools have become better.

sirin postmalone

Was mostly joking. But i do think it would take day or two to get used to way 500z plays out.

Yea games just play so differently that its really tough for me to mix them up. Especially if i need to battle tough 500z pools

November: Exactly like October.

Whole volume on untracked sites and around 26k$ profit. Most volume at nl500 and little at 1k. Im slowly getting better feel how those games play and can adjust accordingly. Mixing stars and untracked is impossible to me, especially in same session. But im fine with playing only those sites for now. And i probably cant beat 500z right now so better not go there and embarrass myself. :D

On December plan is to play 3 weeks and take long break during Christmas and new year. Hope i can keep sunrun going so that yearly graph looks nice. But well see.

Been preaching about MDA almost 3 years here, so yea i think its totally useless...

I dont know how those CFP teach you, so cant answer that. All i know that they have deep understanding on MDA.

Thanks man! (:

I started with doing all that stuff myself with little help. Which in hindsight was really inefficient way. But then i was lucky enough to stumble across few guys that played same stakes and had done way better MDA works. So we started studying together and they helped me a lot w that stuff.

Probably quickest way to learn is to get on contact w someone who has done MDA or join CFP that does it. For example Poker detox or BrPC.

Id rather not share where im playing now. (:

Main reason is that nl500+ games dont really run at stars on my playing hours. So i thought it would be better to test out different sites rather than change my whole daily rhythm.

Its end of 2020 soon, i hope that i can post some nice yearly graphs... (:

youseffahmed I hope this makes your day, losing month at stars.

Played almost whole month on untracked sites and 26k$ there, at least according to my book keeping.

Weirdly enough it was quite easy to go from playing almost exclusively zoom to 100% reg tables. Sure volume wasnt amazing (40k hands) compared to zoom but im still quite pleased overall. Those games play totally different compared to 500z, so its really tough to mix them on same session.

Plan for next months is to play those sites and occasionally jump to 500z just to keep my game sharp. So that means that i have even less to post here, since no graphs or anything.

youseffahmed

Cant promise you that... But when i do i assure that you are the first one to get noticed. :D

Yea its hard to notice any progress in day to day grind. Also its really hard to separate what is real progress and what is just variance. But like you said, now im able to play 5-10x bigger games than i used to around 2 years ago. And i do feel that my mental game is stronger all around. But thats one example where im not sure if i have made genuine progress or is it just that i havent experienced long, mentally taxing stretches this year.

September: STAKES GRAPH

Fine month overall. Managed to play mostly nl500, even though pools were pretty horrible time to time. I even tested out some untracked sites and around 6-7k $ there. Volume was a bit lower than usually, mainly because of less zoom and more regtables. Still having difficulties concentrating while constantly opening tables, checking lobbies etc. But im quite sure this will get easier with time.

postmalone

Hey, seems you're really crushing these games, I was reading back through your first ever blog, you said there were big mental blocks holding u back from eventually moving up to 200nl, could you give any insight into how you overcame these, and how your mental game is now? GL

Great question!

You are right that i was stuck at nl100 for very very long time. I remember correctly I started playing nl100 around 2008-09, maybe even earlier. Started making descent money for student that plays poker part time, around 2-3k per month. So I was clearly winning and did something right, so why I didn’t aggressively try to move up and make way more money? Mental game, more specifically risk aversion and fear of failure.

For me losing has always felt extremely bad, compared to how good winning feels. I know its completely natural for people to feel that way, but im pretty sure I was extreme case of that. So every time I tried to move up all was fine until I made mistakes and had couple of clearly losing sessions. After those I really blamed myself, saying stuff like “you aren’t good enough to beat these games”, “now you blew the month”, “you cant win at poker anymore” etc etc. So I dropped back to my comfort zone playing lower and poker was enjoyable again. Then I grinded back up, took a new shot, made mistakes, had losing sessions and felt utterly miserable because of that. And that cycle continued until I stopped taking shots. So id rather play lower stakes and win less, but at the same time have less variance and smaller monetary swings. And feel way better because of that.

This all seems so irrational when looking back at this, but thats what mental game usually is. Irrational but still makes complete sense in your head, especially in heat of the moment. So I never truly understood variance and especially how to cope with it.

So what changed? First was 2016, when I had really bad year results wise. I was pretty shattered because it was first time In a long time when I wasnt sure if I can make it in poker. And for me making it was low but mostly variance free winnings. Also I was finishing my studies then, so I had to decide whether to really go all out in poker, or quit and go to a real job. After reflecting I decided that I will give this game one last shot and if that goes wrong its fine, at least I tried.

2017 I rebuild my technical game from ground up. I somehow stumbled to Nick Howards stream and fully committed to his methodology. His way of approaching the game was revolutionary for me, both technically and mentally. I immediately started crushing and with his approach there was way less mental pressure while playing. So big shout out to Nick and Poker Detox, without them im pretty sure I wouldn’t be here right now.

So finally to answer your question, how did I get over these mental blocks that kept me from moving up? First, I did lot of writing and reflecting about the problems I mentioned which helped tremendously. Breaking down those blocks really clarified why I feel the way I feel and how I can make things better. Book The mental game of poker has really great tools how to do this, highly suggest checking that out. Second thing that helped was turning “pro”, so playing poker full time. That made me take way more responsibility and now there were less excuses to blame. That made me realize that moving up was necessary if I wanted to keep playing fulltime. Last was making moving up my main goal and priority. Earlier I didn’t have real goal for moving up, so it was easy to just give up. Now when its was biggest goal for the year and I had accepted that failing would be totally fine, it was actually pretty straight forward.

Now, how is my mental game and are all those problems long gone? Id love to say perfect and gone, but I really doubt it. I still see myself fixating on short term results and I have to constantly aware of that. What comes to feeling miserable when losing, hard to say because of godrun + coronagames. I think its way better than let’s say 2-3 years ago, but that will be tested when I experience my next big downswing or breakeven stretch. But now when I looked way back its extremely pleasant to see that I have really come a long way what comes to these issues.

Ok this became a wall of text and not sure if i answered to your questions. :D

Thanks for the kind words! (:

A little late, but time for monthly recap

GRAPH STAKES

Not sure if this qualifies as a winning month but lets pretend it does. Took half month off so considering that pretty descent volume. Im really trying to force myself to play nl500+ and not be lazy and open 200z pool every time tables are a bit bad. This month i did hardly any table/pool selecting, so every time there was nl500 game running on my hours i was in. Probably a bit -EV in the short term but really +EV in long run. Ive actually been enjoying the challenge playing vs really good opponents and 3-4 handed games.

Next month is first full poker month after a while. Goal is to play as little 200z as possible, while getting descent volume on my hours. Been trying to map out different sites to play on, but everything about those is so confusing and shady. But probably still have to take a risk and test them out, well see.

Good luck at tables. (:

You can go as simple or complex as you want. I personally keep it pretty simple. In game usually you have pretty limited info, so complex models dont really benefit you so much .

I think nodelock is useful for understanding how quickly equilibrium changes when one side doesnt play theoretically optimal. But i agree that it can get really complicated and assumptive when you start to lock multiple street or model different runouts.

Not really. :( Im not really into sharing hands, i like to keep my posts more on macro level. Also funny hands i mark in game are all usually the same, regs checking back third nuts or just flatcalling w absolute nuts and something else on those lines. So pretty standard stuff.