Ryan

thats fair

A few hands of Online+Live

Sunday Debrief

this last week was a bit mentally stressful and required me to face some feelings of frustration and confidence.

The game quality the first 3 days of my schedule were pretty atrocious on average, just very low amount of games running and pretty reg heavy/lacking vip's. I have been primarily focused on 200NL online games generally, but Wed/Thursday and part of Friday I was forced to play some 100nl just to fill action/game select, and even the 100nl games were often 5 regs and a tight rec, very very unideal. It made me really consider going to the live poker room that is only a 10 minutes drive from home.

ultimately i decided to stick it out because over the past couple months, the games can turn relatively quickly and sometimes you just have to sit through some down times. this week that wasn't so much of the case, and i was left battling in some pretty tight/tough games.(until Saturday, where the games picked up and was able to sun run to a degree and get into some spots with a couple vip's)

i stuck it out in the online games because i enjoy online cash much more than live. I enjoy working on my strategy and developing a more holistic approach to the game, whereas in live alot of the time its more about tactics. the tougher players really force you to focus more on the fundamentals and look at the bigger picture more often, rather than just "got good hand, time to pump money into the pot".

for myself, i also feel like i need to mentally prepare myself for live to a degree. online and live are both poker, but the pace and flow are drastically different. whereas online you need to be super dialed in and prepared to make decision after decision, live you need to be prepared to sit for long periods, be very patient, and stay alert amidst lots of down time. so going into this week i was mentally and emotionally preparing for the online grind, so wanted to just stick that out, for better or worse.

Live poker
however, this week did kind of make me reflect a bit on my routines and poker schedule in general.

game selection is undoubtedly a very valuable consideration when trying to maximize profits.

and it seems like almost any live lineup is going to be considerably soft, and often showcase multiple VIP's.

So i think it would be wise to consider mixing in a bit more live volume than I currently am. (which over the past couple months, has been likely less than 10% of volume total). it also does align with my longer term aims in poker of being able to play in 5-10+( i think at least)

emotionally I feel alot of resistance to this. but i think part of it is just getting into the habit of it again, because i have played a decent amount of live in my career.

will see on this generally speaking. one thing i have observed is that i am much more consistent and see less burnout when focusing on online than live. but part of that i believe is routine based.

When playing online, I am much more disciplined to take breaks, split my sessions into 2 parts, stay more active, eat healthier, etc whereas in live, in the past, i think a mental leak of mine was to start slacking in areas of my life just to increase the length of my sessions a bit.

and one thing i have learned about myself, is that I thrive off structure and planning, and tend to fall into depressive and anxious episodes when I am not

so if anything, if/when i increase the dial on live, itll be important that I remain true to my systems and not lose focus of the things outside the game that make me happy and fulfilled.

online poker

ignition/bovada has always been my bread and butter when it comes to online, for almost a decade. the games are undoubtedly the softest around on average. but earlier this year i made the switch to global. which optimally is not a great decision, but i do have my reasons.

part of my decision to do so, was to gain experience playing against people with history. when on ignition, since there is no history other than maybe a couple hundred hands at a time, alot of decisions are just best made against a population of probabilities, where maybe sometimes its punting against some people, but on average is doing well against population. you just dont know so you have to do what is best on average.

and that sort of thinking affects your own strategy, because you can leverage the perception of the population to your advantage in certain situations(overfolding massive or overbluffing massive, and you dont reap the downside since they dont know who you are). but it also creates a very exploitative framework of thinking in some spots, and i really noticed this in the first month or so of playing on global, where certain lines i would take would just get bluff caught much lighter than i was used to. my typical game needed to be a bit more refined, and I couldnt just use the fact of anonymity to my advantage in vacuum situations. at some point, i want to allow myself to play a bit more live, at the 1k+ level, so i see this as an opportunity in a way to improve myself as a player overall. it does remain to be seen however, because i may decide just to focus on scaling the online stakes. currently i am at the precipice of having a similar hourly that I can have at live 2-5, however it may be difficult to overcome what is possible at live 5-10. (i do not multitable very well, so usually am maxing at 3 games of 6-max. i think im less of a volume guy, and more of a attempt to play well and game select well guy. which may well suit me better for the live environment where decisions are less frequent but have high impact)

there are also advantages of the global platform, such as actually being able to game select a bit more aggressively once you get to know the player pool, which on ignition is much more limited. so there are definitely pros and cons.

a major downside of the global platform however I was mulling over this week is the fact you cannot download hands and build a database. that is a real handicap for analyzing your own game. however, it does seem like the game quality is likely better than ACR, given ACR is a platform open to the euros, meaning many many more regs. plus the reputation they have from a few years ago still dissuades me to a large degree. I would almost certainly choose iggy over ACR if i was to go on a second network.

closing

i think thats largely all i wanted to say.

here is a hand I got owned in from this week.

200NL

so my thought process after the turn basically narrowed in on me holding a diamond blocker, which made me think that we may want to mix in some checks in a spot like this, so i decided to check AA specifically holding a diamond 50% of the time. Then on the turn, facing the bet, i figured we would want to raise relatively often, so decided id raise 75% and call 25% of the time.

after reviewing sims on this spot, it seems like the blockers here are largely irrelevant when the ranges get this polarized, and the main emphasis is on applying alot of pressure to his very very condensed range of PP's. the flush considerations are just not that relevant because in this tight config, many of them, at least theoretically, fold preflop. so we are incentivized to get value with the nuts almost always, and balance that out with some of our bluffs that have decent good blocking properties

and then in practice if some regs are playing this passive, like fuck, we really get owned by playing this spot poorly. i mean i think most regs would at least bet/jam river with KK, especially holding the diamond in hand, but clearly this reg was much more passive than i gave credit for. (maybe he bluffs to much here, but i highly highly doubt it)

its hard not to feel a bit of fomo from almost certainly missing out on a deepstack win, but ultimately we will make mistakes and focus on the wrong thing sometimes. important thing is to reflect and review on that went awry in your thought process. I identified and prioritized irrelevant aspects of this hand in the moment, and got punished for it. the actual relevant aspects of this hand wouldve been recognizing the range construction for villain is mostly high pairs, and very very minimal suited hands, along side some AK. and against that range, we want to build a polarized aggressive betting strat. kind of like in a 3bp in tight configs, where we start to bet big on flop and choose a more polarized array of hands, and start to check more of the stuff in the middle. the hope is it will be a learning experience for future situations that I can apply and do better in the future.

until next time

upgraded to a 2 monitor set up about a year ago, and even still realized more space would make process way more seamless. decided to upgrade to a 35in+ side screen monitor. think this is so worth the investment

Wanted to share a few updates with where I am at

Earlier this year I took about 6 weeks away from the game and was at a point where I was unsure if I wanted to continue playing. Went to Costa Rica with some friends for a bachelor party and had a blast. Beautiful country.

During that 6-weeks I was pretty convinced I may not play another hand of poker, or at least for a long time.

What I realized in my time away from the game, is my priorities and values had shifted quite alot since first getting into the game. I started playing and learning poker around 2013 when I was 22 years old, and I hadn't really updated my roadmap much since then.

Initially, I got into poker because of the freedom offered, not having to work for someone else(or work in general), not having responsibilities, and ability to fuck off when I wanted to, and probably other things that do not come to mind.

I remember I had a saying in my 20's, coffee, wine and women. I thought that's all I needed to be happy. I had a mentality for survival and not thriving. So all my focus was really on just making money in the easiest ways possible, and once I hit a threshold that was enough to get me by, and maybe save a little, I lost motivation.

During my time away, I realized I needed to update my roadmap, values, and priorities based on the new information I had gained through life over the past decade.

Something that drives me is having a sense of progression. It's really hard for me to just sit and grind at the same stakes if I don't have plans to move past them. Because to me, if I am planning to do that indefinitely, I am just trading time for money, and tbh, if the plan is to stagnate at 100/200 online or 500 live, there's a million better ways to spend your days IMO. But that's just my perspective. Strategy and competence also drive me. I really want to understand.

Some things that have held me back I think is being to focused on my WR and hourly. Mostly choosing the highest short term EV decision regarding game selection and risk taking. This led me to play a lot of full ring online because of soft games, and periods of playing exclusively live, because again of soft games. But always I would get burnt out. It felt depressing to only focus on trying to maximize EV. It got boring, and I think that's part of the reason I was not enjoying the game. My world view was being filtered way to much through a financial lens, largely based on fear and maintaining what I had.

So I decided to try an experiment. Maybe I could organize my decisions more in line with my values, and make decisions based on achieving, curiosity, and understanding.

At a certain point when I had enough savings, I stopped segregating my BR, and just viewed it as a given I am a winning player, and had enough buy ins to not stress for the stakes I was playing, and my hourly is all that mattered now. This was reinforcing survival mentality and keeping me stuck there.

I decided to create an entirely separate account for BR purposes, with the following plan.

Money earned through poker goes into that account at the beginning of each month, and also that account pays me every month a small amount.

This creates a bit of pressure to grow the balance given it's being "raked" monthly. But it also creates a layer of separation, where I can visibly see the balance and make better decisions. The plan also involves taking appropriate risk and shot taking.

For example, through my experiences playing online and live, I am confident that on average, live games are generally much lower variance as long as the game is filled with weak players.

This means, if you have the skill edge and a BR, that you can take on a bit extra risk to exponentially increase the stakes you play, so long the game is good of course. Worst case is you lose a couple BI's and you move back down and continue what you were already doing.

I think this becomes easier to handle mentally when you have the BR in clear view and aren't as focused on your earn day to day or hour by hour.

I haven't quite had the situation come up yet in the live sphere to play any higher than 2-5, but I see it in the future.

Over the past couple months I have been more focused on online 6-max and getting myself to be able to play stakes between 200-500 consistently, with the end aim being to mainly game select between 200-500, since they are the stakes that run most often, and then maybe hop into 5-10 or 10-20 on occasion if the game is good. At that point I will likely shift a bit of focus to getting more comfortable in the live games again, because long term I think being able to play bigger and bigger live is where there is more opportunity.

But I want to play a significant amount of my volume online. probably at least 50% or so. Since switching to mainly 6-max(I played mostly FR games because they are softer on average), I realized that actually playing poker is what makes playing poker fun, as silly as that may sound. I do not think I would want to play live poker full time unless the stakes were higher than 2-5, because sitting in a live game trying to hit sets and listen to people complain is just suffering. The games are obviously amazing, but it's not enjoyable and if I can earn a similar amount online, while also being challenged and learn more, then why not, it's a better scenario long term to put in the volume online, where the skill set will really scale in bigger games.

Long term however, of course to play bigger and in softer games, you have to play some live. And it's of course not all bad either. It's just a different skill set that I need to get better at.

So I have run out of things to share for now.

If anyone is playing at the 200+ level, and is active in study, and ambitious to move up and learn together, shoot me a message and I'll send you an invite to my private discord. I post hands in my discord group daily(probably way to many lol), and we have a study day every week routinely, with sporadic studies here and there.

Until next time

edit:

oh, there is one more thing. I've learned to prioritize rest and recovery, it's really important.

one
yeah i wouldnt call this preflop, and decided to put into 3b range. maybe it is to much to pure 3b it though and can be mixed

two
i dont know if i would have bluffs here tbh. but if this villain is finding folds, then i think some high equity combo bluffs that block T9 could make sense

four
that is surprising. do you know why it is range checking?

five
i dont typically OB these flops, but I kinda get that these can be done that way. i usually am only OB AQx/AKx flops, and stick the 75%/X on other boards that call for big bets. not saying its the best approach, just that its what i currently do

Some Hand Histories

one
https://pokerbankrolltracker.net/replayer/128884

What do you think is best way to construct range in spots like this? (i just rolled for a 50% FQ with this combo)

two
https://pokerbankrolltracker.net/replayer/128887

not entirely sure about turn strat when facing the raise. it seems like his raise range should be very linear and equity driven, so i decided against a small reraise and went for a jam. basically thinking we want to be very polar when we decide to put more BB's in the middle. if his range was more polar then maybe 2.5x reraise would make sense.

three
https://pokerbankrolltracker.net/replayer/128891

four

https://pokerbankrolltracker.net/replayer/128893

five

https://pokerbankrolltracker.net/replayer/128896

nomindpeace
id say the 2-5 games feel similar to 50nl on ignition - our pool do have quite a few pros in it, so sometimes the dynamics are comparable with 4-6 decent regs in a game(usually im looking to table transfer at this point). and then there are a few that are quite competent and grind online themselves or player bigger

one things ive learned, is that the current state of 200bb 2-5 plays very similar to 100bb stacks online, its almost like playing 5-10 online i guess. because opens are like 4-5x typically, when you get into 3bps, the spr is lowered to the point that you are essentially playing 100bb again. same with srp's, its almost as if you are 100bb and facing 2-2.5x, aside from obviously having worst direct odds for cold calling in general. kind of a side tangent, but something i realized lately

played online yesterday and this morning after having played 95% live over the past 6+ weeks

and its been really nice

it definitely exposed some flaws in my thinking patterns, and also kind of got things moving in the correct direction again

it can be challenging to maintain a healthy perspective with how live games function - things move very slow. results can be discouraging short term, and you have a lot of downtime to question your decisions

you're also surrounded by a community of people who think very short term, and results orientated - it definitely can affect your own mind and perception on things

and because so often you are faced with inexperienced fish, much of your decision making, rightly so, becomes more exploitative, because they play in such a way that their range is relatively face up, giving you many exploitative opportunities to do things for short term, tactical gain

it seems, eventually however for myself, it can at times become difficult to see things from a theoretical perspective

when the majority of your decisions are geared towards very weak amateurs, it can at times be hard to transition and see clearly what theory even looks like, because you are so often trying to come to a solution against their range and tendencies

getting in some reps online over the past couple days has started to help things begin to click a little better, and given a bit of clarity on a couple hands i played live over the past few weeks

its definitely been a good move to move the bulk of my volume to live, but it's definitely presented its own challenges

all being said, i like having access to online games, which allow me to practice my strategy against a stronger field, and also play in an environment that lets me "fast forward" to the future in a sense, and see the long term happen more rapidly

RunItTw1ce

So, fortunately, there is a lot to choose from in terms of games in Fl. I can find a quality 2-5 game as early as 7am most days(probably even 24/7 tbh), and by noon, there is usually 3+ games running to choose from. by 4pm, there is often 5-7+ games running. Fortunately, for the time being, having a day time schedule works well for live poker, here at least.

And you are probably right about maxing out tables might net a higher ROI. TBH, I never really played more than 5 games at a time, and I have always played a fair amount of FR because the games are softer on average. I've always felt intimidated by playing to many tables. I do get easily overwhelmed. And to be completely transparent, my W/R is only this high because I game select pretty hard. Imagine if I wasn't game selecting very actively, it would most certainly be lower.

I have always been more a quality>quantity mentality, and have concern that my game would deteriorate to much if I tried to mass table. I also do not have the best mental game, so I think there are limits for myself in this direction anyway, where it would lead to to much burnout and self doubt. That being said, I think given my specific situation and the circumstances around the games I have access to, live poker is a good move for me. You may be right that in theory one could probably earn more mass tabling online though. I'm just skeptical I have the aptitude for this if I am being honest

And as for 1k nl live. Yeah, I do think I can beat the games, especially with a bit of time spent there. I do not have the BR at the moment for that, but maybe in the future.

However, the 1knl games can be very fucking reggy at the same time, and often it pulls all the best regs from the 500nl games, so its pretty appealing to just play the 2-5 games and stay out of the reg infested 1k pool. But maybe when I have the BR, and when a good game pops up, i will be willing to hop in

--

seems like youve moved to playing more live?

Hero BB w KQs

good points, def tightening up makes sense, and highly favoring suited combos - i expect to get more calls from a live reg being this deep than a online reg or a solve for sure, especially with the deepstack fish behind

150 "makes sense" to me, but i expect this to get called a ton if im being honest

maybe the point of "indifference" it something like 175-200, which is pretty massive. not sure if we actually want to be squeezing this combo a bunch if we actually have to use those kinds of sizings. it opens up reg to really wreck us with 4bets(not sure if its actually happening though), but also pretty good to play with the fun players

i ended up nitting pretty hard and calling - prob not the worst, and maybe makes sense if our squeeze needs to be so big - but also pretty great high equity combo for playing deep

Been a bit since last post

made decision a few weeks ago to all but completely cut out online poker

i really enjoy online and the strategy development aspect, and just being forced to play as sharp as possible

but i felt like i hit a ceiling for online

im really happy i went into the rabbit hole over the past year and successfully broke into the 200nl pool (something prior i felt intimidated by)

and im really surprised by my results

through a combination of game selection, and solid play, i was able to stabilize around a 10bb/100 wr at 200nl

i had aspirations to break into 500nl as well, but from the small sample I derived, the daytime games just didnt seem very appealing, and from communication with a close friend who played them a bit, they seemed to be a bit inconsistent as far as running in the daytime(fullring at least, which is where i put in a large amount of my volume/focus)

at this point i was presented with a fork in the road if i wanted to keep progressing

the hours i was playing were 10am-5/6pm, which are probably some of the absolute worst hours for online poker, but i value my life outside poker to a high degree, so i just lived with it

i could change my sleep/wake routines

i tried this, and contemplated a schedule of waking around 11am-12pm, going through "morning" routine, and then starting game late afternoon and playing until midnight or just past

a problem with this, is i condense the bulk of my playtime between Wednesday and Saturday, and leave the other days to do poker adjacent activities like deeper study sessions, or things related to the business i help run, so on the non poker days, it would interfere with my normal routines and schedules

regardless, i decided to do a test run just to "feel" it out

forcing myself to stay up pretty late for a few days, sleeping in, and getting black out curtains

i quickly observed my mental state and clarity

i felt groggy, off kilter, and was really really tired by 10 or 11 pm

of course there is a transition period and i probably could have adjusted in a week or two's time

this i knew, but the implications outside of this were just to apparent

i generally like finishing poker around 6-7pm, so i can have the evenings to spend with friends

i have responsibilities and opportunities outside of the game that I value and benefit from, that this schedule would not synergize well with

i decided it just didnt make sense

i then considered maybe i could play more volume of 6-max, but then remembered how much reg heavier those games can be. they can be great, but they can also be inconsistent, and more regs in the pool leads to way more variance - i had biggest swings i had ever experienced in poker over past 5 months or so when i was grinding 200nl day in day out - it def gave me a deeper appreciation/understanding for that aspect of the game

all this being considered, i turned my focus to live games. i realized that a big part of my process, and something i deem very important, is game selection. and when grinding online, i am/was actively game selecting and getting out of low profit games and searching for better ones - to the point i realized, "damn, there is a lot of mental energy being exhausted in remaining cognizant of the current state of each game and if its time to leave and find a better one", something along those lines

i had a shift in thinking, where i was like, live poker is like the ultimate form of game selection

i had mixed feelings about this, because live has its own set of challenges

having to actually be around people day in and out and the circumstances that arise with that

how to stay focused when the games are so slow

how to continue learning and improving

but i also believe that i can do all these things, it would just take some time

so i mentally told myself that i had reached my limit for online given what i am willing to sacrifice, and that i could be content with the progress i had made and things i had learned

i also realized that no matter what form of poker you are in, there will be ways to improve. online i made plenty of mistakes, and that creates area for review and sharpening. in live i will make mistakes, and have room for improvement

i cleared my accounts entirely on bovada, and really made the commitment to play live - i did leave a small amount on global, with the mental disclaimer that it would only serve as a practice tool and would no longer be played for financial incentive. whatever money i earned through playing on there is just a consequence of practicing, and would not be counted towards hours played each week - more of a study time

id rate my performance so far a 6/10

the biggest thing i became very aware of over the past week is my focus at the table

when playing online, you stay dialed in because you have 4 games running, so your mind just focuses on the task at hand. you have your documents to take notes for hand review, but other than that, you just move on to the next hand for better or worse

playing live, my demons came out

you have time to sit there and contemplate, to dwell on if you couldve taken a better line, to check out the cute cocktail waitress, family matters, infinite distractions

and there were just so many hands that in retrospect, i played very suboptimal

so thats been the current focus, to relearn how to focus in the absence of tasks to keep oneself occupied

and there really is things to pay attention to

each hand that plays out while you are not in the hand offers information

bet sizing tells, is villain capable of bluffing and for how much, passive/aggression tendencies, physical demeanor, etc etc

how i am breathing. am i hydrated. taking systematic breaks to stretch and refocus

anyways, ive run out of things to stream of conscious on for the moment

live poker is where i be for the moment

see you next time

Good luck buddy - one of your best assets is the amount of volume you put in

![enter image description here][1]

Spent the last week refocusing online after splitting volume between live and online the last couple months

Planned to shot take 500NL online this Saturday, and did so, for about 20 minutes, and then bowed out. The games were very unappealing. Mostly regs, with just one or two short stacked nits

I think for now I am going to work on increasing my volume a bit by adding on additional tables/sites and game selecting 200NL

Definitely felt a bit rusty and less confident this week - does anyone else struggle to stay sharp when playing live poker?

Had a nice run Friday, playing 534bb eff

I am the last person desiring to post chip porn, think it's the wrong thing to focus on

Last year I played almost exclusively online, and was very torn about my future in poker (burnout related)

I linked up with some good people in discord and they really helped reshape my understanding in poker, and helped me appreciate what drives me

And then I read a post from Demondoink on here about moving up stakes, and had a paradigm shift on my perception of risk

Started putting that into practice more in the last 6 months, and now I am playing bigger, more consistently, and beating the games for more than I thought I was capable of

I am grateful, because for the first time I actually feel sustained motivation to play the game, and see much opportunity for the future, with consistent focused work+effort

It's really important to open yourself up to motivated, ambitious, and intelligent people in your space - they can help unlock aspects of reality you are not even aware of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhteUu2Cn_k

Song
Marathon

Connor Price & 4Korners

Upstuck

Yesterday playing live 2-5

30 minutes in, a Recreational player raises from EP to 3bb
Hero calls TT in HJ playing 108bb eff
Bttn fish overcalls

Flop T83r
EP fish cbets $15
We call, Button calls

Turn Kd
EP bets $45, we raise to $140, Bttn folds, EP calls

Riv 4x
EP checks, we jam $360-370ish, EP calls, shows 33, we win set over set

--
The first thing that enters my mind, "damn, I just left $500 on the table" - I think about the previous session or two where I left a fish with a few hundred as well

Over the past month or more, I've been increasing my volume at the live tables

I've also been buying in shorter, at 100bb

The reason I decided to not buy in deeper, is risk mitigation, and to get myself more comfortable in the environment

To allow myself to feel more comfortable while transitioning to the player pool and different metagame dynamics

Partly because of bankroll management to a degree, but also partly because I am a bit risk averse by nature (something I have to consistently work on and reframe)

It's much easier to swallow a 2k loss in a day, than a 4k loss in a day

It was the right decision for me at the time. It's easy to think that it has cost me financially, and in theory it probably has, but in practice, maybe its not the full view

In practice, buying in shorter has allowed me to feel more emotionally stable while I put in volume and get more comfortable in the games - honestly, if I had been buying in deeper from the beginning, I am not confident I would have put in half of the volume I have over the last 6 weeks - so all the stacks I have won, might still be theoretical

In the past two weeks alone, I have had multiple all in situations where I left fish with money - it's easy to fixate on that point and feel as if I am missing out - and technically I am - but in the long term, it is worth it - the point isn't to maximize in the short term, but to maximize in the long term. And part of the long term, is getting myself to a point where I can arrive, and be in the games, present and ready to perform, consistently

And to be totally realistic, I have run pretty well in the past 6 weeks playing live - and things could have easily went the other way on some days. I could have had much more painful days, with the deeper buy ins, which may have took to much an emotional toll, affected my mental state/game, and hurt my volume

It's okay to work within your constraints

Throughout the day, I did have the feeling of "Upstuckness"

I tried to breathe and let it go, and at times I briefly did, but it did linger

But it's not the whole picture

I knew up front what I was doing by buying in shorter. I knew/know I am making a financial sacrifice in the short term

The fuller picture however, incorporates the benefits

The benefits of working with myself and understanding where I am weak, and giving myself opportunity and time to strengthen there

In due time

My plan is to keep moving - it's about that time I start pushing my comfort zone, buying in deeper, exposing myself to more risk, and upside as well - upside is important here - it's okay that I move slower than someone else - self understanding is important, and what will allow me to keep moving at the pace that is right for me

I think a major mistake I made for most of my career is being to focused on the downside of things

But now when fear enters my mind, or doubt, I tell myself "good things can happen to" and it works

Reflections on Live and Online Poker

Part of reason we can raise bigger and still play more hands in live that have good playability is we often win back much of the dead money we create because we do not get 3b off equity pre or post as much - as games become more “good aggressive”, we have to tighten up and raise smaller

yeah - it seems to do something good for the body and mind

Monday fasting

4 weeks ago I made the decision to not eat on Monday's until further notice

It seemed like a good idea, as a "forced reset" each week

I find that going a day or two without food has an effect on my emotional well-being, for whatever reason

Possibly because I am such a glutton for good food, it brings me back to baseline - makes me appreciate food and forces me to look at things differently. Around food, but also around my values, relationships with people and my environment. It also forces me to slow down

I purposely chose Monday because it's a non poker day for me, so feeling hunger will not really affect my typical daily tasks on those days

I'm liking it, and think there are benefits(even if not all understood) - so today I fast, to slow down

In the last couple weeks, decided to stop looking at hole cards of opponents(even though I have option to look) - think it easily leads to results orientated thinking

Noticed often how my mind would anticipate being able to see if I made a "good fold" or got bluffed. But I think it's just the wrong thing to focus on in the anonymous games, and it burns/fills up precious mental energy

So new approach, is to take note of any spots I am unsure about, and then compare it to a theoretical framework. And also run filters using database to filter for specific nodes to see where and when it is wise to deviate from the theoretical framework based on multiple instances, rather than just the one

Ideally, would be great to combine database with a few guys to get bigger samples that we can all benefit from

Think folding is reasonable and preferred line on iggy - utg 4b range is super tight typically, and because it's anon, its easy to make mistakes postflop. We don't really know how capable he will be of bluffing stacks in the low SPR situation, so think its easy to have reverse implied odds to a degree, or to even make bad folds (this could be corrected with mass data i guess, but unless you have that for this super specific spot, good luck)

Frankie Carson makes a good point, and think this is a good line vs someone who won't bluff off much(meaning you have more clarity what their actions mean), or if you know someone can bluff off so you can more confidently call down

When I play, I often have a thought pad to write down things that pop into mind

here are a couple from this week so far (take with a grain of salt - often these are fueled by "the zone", caffeine, and probably some adrenaline

Mistake ive been making is being to focused on my own strategy rather than on what my opponents strat/range likely is and then adjusting and developing strategy around that

Refocus on strategy implementation and looking at filters in database as source of deviation rather than whether or not someone bluffed you in an individual spot. Its an anonymous site, so one off instances are useless long term because you dont know who you are against

oh okayy lol

I saw first photo showing 16/100 and was like fuck

Impressive results

I recently moved up to 200nl pool on iggy a couple months ago - pretty incredible you are hitting 16bb/100!!

What is allowing you to reach those kind of results?