cant5t0p

Sup guys bit of an update! Been working a ton the past couple of days, it rained a ton the past days so I just stayed home and grinded/studied. I did a poor job of tracking the past week (March 30-April6) but it was something around 20 hours of play, and about ~30 hours of study. I picked up Janda for Advanced NLHE games, Would not recommend it unless you have an ok idea of of equilibrium in most standard spots, and thats because he has a lot of opinions about the game, (i dont think theyre bad or anything) they just are just not correct in theory so I think its important to understand that. Its also necessary to be able to fact check whatever is being written. Besides that have been going nuts running sims haha

This is legit one of my favorite things. Morning brew and some study. After ditching Janda I went back and started watching all of Sauce's videos on game theory, and some of his earliest videos as well. It is so sick to see how advanced he was when he first joined RIO, I think its knowledge your average 1k player would have nowadays, but I can't fucking imagine how much edge he had. Anyways, Sauce led me on back to Mathematics of poker. When I first gave the book a go my math skills were pretty meh so it didnt work out, and now I am understanding the book a lot better. This book really is worth a go, and also doing all the toy games and thinking deeply about them is a must. Another thing to do is to model the toy games and switch things around all over the place because I think it will really help you understand the strategy, and by that I mean understanding the pillars of the strategy, like what supports the equilibrium, and what would make it "collapse". Reviewing this stuff has made a ton of things click, also I think Sauce's comments in the comments section of the video are insane value.

It was interesting to see Daniel tweet this because I was also thinking the same thing around the same time, something along the lines of "if i knew this stuff 2 years ago" lol... Its insane how the chart kinda nails the green line.

If I have learned anything the past week is that I am not a good poker player ye haha. Had a coaching session maybe 2 days ago with a friend and it was just sad hahah or not sad but bittersweet. on one hand I'm finding out about a bunch of things to work on, and on the other its like damn my game is weak lmfao its kinda interesting because of all the spots BVB SRP is one of the spots I am actually playing well. and it makes sense because I have put in a ton of work for this spot, but also neglected many other spots. I think that becoming aware of all these leaks only makes me want to work harder. overall I am pretty happy and excited in general. I dont think I have felt so excited to wake up and get to work in a while.. I am very confident I will improve a ton in the next few months. I believe in myself :)

Here are some notes from the High Performance Habits book:

1 sick set
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkoAlBFfSpc&t=902s

Also, one of my favorite things to do is share music, so why not here. I think the intro to this song really hit me

"Live life to the fucking fullest ya know what i mean"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUmAM6EnZR4&t=322s

Hey man nice to see you! This is Montenegro on the coast, dm me if u want more info :)

"so whilst this can make us a little overwhelmed or disillusioned, ultimately i think it's a good thing as we have so much potential room for improvement and growth." yes exactly, this always really hits me so hard, especially in instances where I take x action, but would have taken a different one if i had known villain plays his range like x haha damn... I guess we are all dealing with this.

"If you figure out how to get your significant other off lmk!" haha damn she is the one that got me to get off socials actually. pretty lucky to have her :)

Fuck yeah man, imo just do it!! If I look back at the last 2 years, its been fucking insane. I was supposed to be away from home for 1 month and ended up staying in Europe, I think I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. It's worth it alone for the people you will meet. Getting an inside look into other cultures is priceless. Imo the best thing is really just getting thrown into the fire and having to figure it out.

I think in regards to the fear, this is one of my favorite topics, fear is really silly yet it is really real, but for the most part its all in our heads, its pretty sick. But I think putting yourself in a spot where you can identify all your fears and confronting them is the way :)

Sup guys! In my attempt at some consistency here's an update.

Right after the last update, I was feeling pretty pumped and motivated to grind. I checked the lobby and I saw Jericho and lacko opening a 500 table, and I thought lfg, obv dumb in a money making sense, because this would be a pretty tough table for 500 lol, but smart in a lets learn kinda way. Anyways things didnt go as planned, and ended up snap quitting after getting stacked for a 2nd time in like 20 hands lol However, I am learning quite a bit from the last hand I got stacked in, so i guess we got what we wanted in a way.

I have been learning a lot about myself in the past days, I guess tough times do this to you, it sorta makes you consider and think about what you're doing in a deeper way. Realized naturally I am not the most organized person, and this is reflected everywhere, even in the details of my poker strat. I realized my whole approach to the game is a bit too disorganized and this will eventually cause problems. Also realized that I have an insane ego, even after reading "A New Earth" about 3 times lol, I am convinced as humans we will never get rid of the ego, but we can aim to diminish it's influence over us. A good example of something I realized while speaking with my gf over the weekend is that I am really good at giving others credit for doing x things well. I think thinking like this can easily get in the way of learning from others, like realistically I am skeptical about learning much from the people at my stake but you never know.... Anyhow I think its just the whole way the ego wants to make you better than everyone else. "im amazing, others are shit" etc.

So what have I been up to. I played about 40 hours of poker this week and studied about 20 hours. A lot of my attention was put into finishing up a template for turn aggregate reports, I know it sounds lame but I was thinking about poker really hard, and came to some conclusions. Kinda abstractly, all we are ever doing in poker (before the river) is getting our shit together for the "big moment" which is the river, playing for all the marbles. and basically all we are ever doing is based on the context of the situation. You start the hand with x range, villain has x range, you get x flop, and now thats sorta like the first filter, this is the best indicator for what range you want to arrive to the river with etc. So then we start to take actions based on this. I realized some parts of range that I put into certain lines dont make sense in some spots. I think its sorta like a snowball effect. In most instances early in the hand you can get away with putting x part of range into x line. But it starts to really cost you EV once you hit the Turn. The turn imo is a really important street because this is the street where you almost directly decide what range will reach the river and in what way. You make a wrong choice and all of a sudden you find yourself in a node that really sucks for your part of range. Tbh I'm really determined to reach a point where I am playing really precise and polished poker, so I am going to put a lot of emphasis on small things like this. I dont think you will ever reach a point in poker where you can comfortably say you know exactly what you are doing/what is going on in a spot, just too many variables everywhere, this is what kinda fucks with me sometimes. Not having the best idea/assumptions about what people are doing with their ranges. GTO principles I think can only take you so far if you can't plug in all the variables to the situation, but I think that's the beauty of poker, we will never really 100% know what the other guy is thinking/doing. anyhow... I worked a lot on the sheet and its been really nice because ever since I have been able to spot a lot of trends regarding what you do on turns with certain flop groups after x turn hits etc. and I am also understanding the frequencies really well, which I think is a really important step in understanding potential exploits in other peoples games. Overall I think I am understanding a lot of concepts a lot better now. Which is something I realize a lot of other players are not doing well. I think most people really really don't understand this game, myself included. Overall I think a lot of people are on autopilot and not really questioning why they are taking x lines, or really questioning the sizes they are using enough, or really understanding indifference. I'm excited because I know there are a lot of spots where this applies to myself. So really working hard to spot all the possible inconsistencies with my game and my thought process. I think the amount of growth possible is infinite at this point lol...

Things I changed recently.

1) Totally off of social media. I actually really like it because of the memes, but I am spending way too much time on it imo and not really getting much out of it either/ I think its kinda toxic how its set up in a way.

2) Starting listening to the "cant hurt me" by David Goggins audiobook and its pretty fucking sick. I will consider sharing what I wrote for the first exercise in the book, which has you write down some of your beliefs and excuses why you cant do "something". Whose gunna carry the boat!!!

3) started reading High Performance habits by Brendon Burchard.

Heres a pic of my set up and view from my balcony. peace out guys

You are right! Sometimes I feel like I want to share and some other times I do not feel that at all. The past couple of months I've been more on the side of not sharing and closing myself off, but I can try harder. Ok so update from the last 3 weeks. I think I picked up some bad habits from live poker, there are some spots where I started to merge my ranges. and I guess this works for live poker and it will go unpunished live but online vs better opponents it won't.

In the past weeks there has been a lingering thought of disappointment with where I am at in my career. I think I get too results oriented in the short term. A pretty sick cycle starts where
1 -> I am not getting good results
2-> I start to put in a lot of work
3-> I continue to run bad
4-> I start to contemplate on my results etc and start to feel bad.

The main mental game leaks I experience are.
1) Seriously thinking I won't ever win anything significant in this game. My whole time in poker has been rather turbulent, haven't really had any sick upswings or lucky mtt binks or anything of the sorts, just been grinding literally.
2) Focusing too much on other regs and how they are doing. Kinda the reason why I stopped reading vlogs or anything.
3) Not taking enough ownership for myself and my actions. I can make a million excuses as to why I am not where I want to be. But tbh I am the only reason I am not where I want to be. That may sound sad, but lately that has been giving me a sick push to be better. Deep down I know I haven't done everything possible to be elite at this game.
4) I feel like I literally run the worst and tbh i dont know if this is true but it is irrelevant if were talking about things we can control.
5) Too reliant on some kind of coaching for improvement, Like I dont think coaching is bad but I think that really just sitting down and thinking deeply about spots and coming up with a plan is the way to go, and of course bouncing ideas around with other people.

but fuck whatever story I have to tell myself about being an unlucky mofo or w.e it is. I am committed to working on what I can control. and there is a ton to work on. Kinda going back to point #5 from the list of leaks. I think I haven't actually sat down and just thought deeply about the game and about different lines and haven't really considered what to do with my ranges in different spots. Too much has been some kind of freestyle/ imitating sims. And thats a realization i had as well, people are so bad at low/mid stakes that you can almost employ any strategy and it'll work out for you. So you can do X thing and never really question it because it "works". I think you can get away with "trying" to play some sort of equilibrium (literally no one is playing gto). but i think its best if you sit and really think about which lines make the most sense vs the opponents you are facing, and the answer won't be the same for every opponent. Anyways, In the middle of doing this I realize there are a lot of deficiencies in my game. The main one is preflop. So I started to work hard on understanding preflop ranges and also running some nodelocks based off of population data. I think there is a lot of edge to be gained in this regard especially if most players are preflop chart monkeys. there is also quite the learning curve for being able to run your own preflop stuff+ not just any pc can run it etc... anyhow, from what I am seeing there are a lot of mistakes even up to highstakes players based off of the data that I am seeing, which kinda tells you a ton.

It is overwhelming the amount of work to be done to be competent at 6max. It really is infinite. With that being said I am not touching mtts for a while. For sure not the right moment for me to transition, and deep down it doesn't feel like the play. I started to play cash games with the goal in mind of battling at high stakes and I'm not going to abandon that because the road is tough af.

Last month I started to track the hours I spend on different tasks and so far its looking like this.

To wrap it up, I'm excited to work hard on my game and see what happens, I know there is a lot of room for growth.

and here are like the last 100k hands across stars,acr and one other site which i probably shouldnt mention haha.

"If regs see you getting out of line with fish there isn’t much they can do about it, since they aren’t in the hand with you."

Not sure at lower stakes but I think for the most part regs understand or are aware that when other regs are in hands with recs, they are not exactly going to be playing optimal, and I dont think theres that much explo stuff going on, besides some preflop stuff.

In the case where you have some secret against regs, what do you do? Can you slightly exploit them to where they don’t notice? Can you exploit them with some strategy then move back when they adjust? How do you know they have adjusted?

When you figure something out in a regs game, I usually go max exploit vs them

1) They often are unaware and dont realize whats going on
2) When they become aware, if at all. You should notice it pretty clearly, and you can make the next move and adjust, and then they have to figure out whats going on, so you always have the upper hand imo
3) dont worry too much about what may or may not happen, fuck you in poker will go a long way. If they find you out then w,e :)

Sup guys!

Time fucking flies and I have not posted shit haha. The past couple of weeks have been a bit hectic. Let's pick up where we left off. Cyprus was pretty sick imo, did not play a lot of cash, only two sessions. The first was really swingy and it took me a bit to adapt to the game and also the game was 5/10 15 ante haha. So I started to widen up ranges basically everywhere. The thing with doing that is that you most likely experience more variance this way + all the recs are aggressive there as well. I for sure made a couple of mistakes that I would not make now. It was a blast though playing there. It was not exactly a robotic game and every spot was for the most part interesting. I think I have a knack for live poker. My people skills I think are excellent, and I am good at making friends with almost anyone. I think I may do a bit too much talking at times + a bit too much banter. But for the most part I am really comfortable at the table. You see some guys shaking in big spots or giving off huge tells which is pretty sick. For the most part i am doing deep breaths just so that if I get into big spots I continue to take long deep breaths to remain calm. Another thing I noticed is that I am not afraid to pull the trigger with big bluffs. I think most online guys that transition to live poker can relate to how different and weird bluffing in real life is. It's pretty sick to have another human being stare you down/talk to you, and not only do you have to stay calm but you also have to constantly think about the correct things to say or what body language to have to get the outcome you want. Overall I think there is a ton of work to be done for live poker. I am confident I am giving off a ton of tells, on the other side I am good at observing peoples tells along with micro expressions, still figuring it out. I found that some seasoned live pros are really good at this as well and at times also give fake tells.

In regards to tournaments. Things didnt exactly go as planned haha. Shipped a $500 satellite into the main event there, and then busted the main event 11ish shy of the money AK vs AA. That felt pretty bad haha. In general it was a good trip, met a ton of people and had a lot of fun overall. Final conclusions, I suck at tournaments haha, good conclusion other people suck more than me. but in comparison to some real killers I am a level 1 bitch. We got heart tho. I know it'll take a lot of work to get decent at tournaments.
Some cyprus pics

In! Really diggin the blog, hmu if you ever wanna chat with the polar opposite of yourself:) Its really interesting that you are coming up with some solver conclusions so fast! I think like you said the river is the most drastic street where some modifications to a players range will change things a bit, this also occurs on the turn fwiw. The next step in this is breaking down the different lines that occur and trying to understand which ones will just be naturally overbluffed/underbluffed. In my opinion solvers are nice and all, but what I would focus on as a new player is knowing preflop ranges inside out, this might be the best thing you can do for your game! Second is doing Mass database analysis on the pool to really understand what kind of range construction people are making preflop. Its all connected, you cant make proper river decisions without having a decent idea of how their range evolved from pre to the river etc... I think you would enjoy reading Will Tipton's books, #1 is rather simple but still good and #2 is pretty interesting!
Best wishes!

Sup guys. Been dealing with a lot of emotions lately, mainly not so good ones, the grind isn't going so well. Its kinda sick, I oscillate between being really grateful/thankful for everything to being really negative in game once badbeats happen, and then I snap out of it haha, main bad thing is not really enjoying playing because of this. But in the end this is something I need to figure out. Not sure how often to post results or if at all, but for now will do it weekly for more accountability.

Has not been as nice as it looks lol, most of the pretty graph is from destroying the 200 fast pool. and then getting pretty unlucky at 400 and 600. but ill take it :)

Had an interesting hand today vs a reg I dont know. I wrote in chat "bluff" and he said never bluffing here lol. Anyhow promised him a ss so I'll leave it here in case anyone knows him :* The hand is kinda fucked but there was somewhat a dynamic going on. starting with him sucking out on me. I wrote in chat "wtf was that" and he said "the better play won" hahaha that kinda got to me lol.
Started with this

Forgot how nice it feels to have someone quit you

Thanks man! Appreciate it! :)

Thanks dude! :) SN is same as rio name haha I am trying to settle somewhere but my gf from Germany and Im from the other side of the world haha so kinda tough

Totally can identify with you here haha. I think in my case my human brain has trouble dealing with the swings of the game. Can def relate to jumping back into the 200z pool cause the swings are more manageable haha. I think pushing through the pain of the swings is the way to go. Don't really see any other way around it :/

In! GL!

This AK pretty nice call imo, whats the worst combo you think the avg/good reg is jamming here for value?

Good stuff man. I think you shouldn't shy away from sharing losses, like even documenting a downswing if it happens is whatever. I think it's sooo soo much better for the transparency of just how tough this game can be sometimes. Losing is a part of the game, it is what it is.

updates plzzz

bump

Lets fucking go bro, just keep pushing :) I can feel the pain and struggles too haha, kinda getting rekt at every 1k shot I take, but to be fair I am still not an amazing player so can't be too hard on myself lol. best wishes mate

Coming from a low performer... I appreciate your posts. your insights +suaces+my coach's are helping me see the way. Can totally agree on what you said, focusing way too much on minute ev differences, or spots where its very likely 0ev/ we just got unlucky. I don't know where this feeling of having to "tear my whole game apart" every time something goes wrong comes from, but it's definitely a thing, and I am getting to the bottom of it. I think focusing more on fundamentals and the most frequent spots + focusing really hard on your leaks is the way to go. Thanks for your posts. Namaste.

Really glad I ran into this series, been going through one of these sick swings you mentioned, the part where you just play and get rekt and theres no feedback is fckin sick.... Anyways I think having a better idea of what variance can do helps to continue with the grind. Cheers.

Amazing story time!

Loved this video!

Awesome video! :)

LFG buddy!! Excited for the next graph!!