So I've been pretty busy and stressed out with some life stuff, but it didn't stop me from putting in the volume. I've had a steady increase, going through the usual swings one would face in any HUSNG format.
During the couple days, I have realized my aggression from the SB defending, was probably a tad bit higher than I want. I think its because I am still not comfortable nor familiar with the new strategy like I am betting. I devoted my time into fixing this with studying and picking spots where I would want to play a more exploitative style vs my new strategy.
Week Result:
Other than the problem I encountered, my non-showdown winnings have been steadily increasing as well which brings a new dynamic to the tables vs villains that I play frequently.
Overall Result:
I've reached a new peek this week which is obviously a good thing. Graphs looks very pretty and I'm steadily climbing.
Shout out to Vaniaubanii14,
I had an extremely rough day Friday, was down by probably 10 or 11 BIs. Then Vaniaubanii14 came along and he kept playing me. We had a really really long session, at the end of the day I think I stuck him for about 12 buy-ins, even though I didn't win all of it, he brought my winrate up to about even which was really needed for my confidence that day.
So first, I want to say that all in all, I am not perfect.
What I meant by that, is upon taking this challenge I considered a lot of things but time management was one of those things, I didn't put much consideration into. With that being said, posting these blogs on a daily basis when I play is something more time consuming than I imagine it would be. To counter this, I will start posting weekly.
This has some merits to it though:
*It will give time for everyone to enjoy the post more and not be cluttered with all kind's of post
*It will allow me to post more news, and other poker related topics as I choose
Other than that, after Study Session #10, I will be stop using Weak Tight to post my hands or at least until they can actually fix those bugs they have. It's pretty annoying to have those bugs such as the Ks keep popping up randomly in my hand history when it's nothing wrong with my hand history, and then there are other bugs I encounter that you don't see. I have emailed them a few times, but the responses have been slow and the problems are just really annoying me.
So during this study session, I ran into a trivia that I will be posting on Red Chip Forums to see if I can get some feedback on. I'll actually post that hand up first for anybody redirected here because I am really curious in finding a solution to it.
Comment: So I'm back in a spot where I am noticing my range will have less than the optimal continuing %. For me, this means I would have a higher checking frequency than normal. My problem came with if I should be falling back into a more exploitative route where once I check, it's obvious I don't have nothing good at all since I can't really split my range. Having a higher frequency would mean I should give up more? It puts me in tough spots on the river where my range is Capped really hard.
So I am really thinking about this spot, and my only thing I can think of is to check my entire range here, allowing me to have the right calling range, raising range and river range where I don't get exploited. However, there are 2 problems to this:
1. OOP I may have to face 2 bets rather than just 1 &
2. I give up value.
Comment: So this hand taught me the importance of playing my bottom pairs optimally.
The problem that made me think alot is the river play. It's a spot where I think I have to live with the fact that I am going to be extremely weak when I check here. I am not willing to put strong combos in that range and risk losing value, but at the same time, what happens when I encounter a better player who may pick up on this and start checking back to do some overbetting, etc.?
Conclusion: My main focus right now is those spots like the AQo where I could find myself Capped really hard. Having spots where I am capped is more problematic in the long run and If I am going to compete at the higher limits, I need to have something close to unexploitable. However, for the players at higher limits that do not notice this, I can really exploit alot of players on the flip side of it. That's probably more valuable than fixing my range, which still is important.
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Results (Overall Results):
Aggressor: Not Sure but will put under mistake since I have no clear Correct Play. (20%)
Defend: Mistake (25%)
Raised: Correct (44.44%) Total Percentage (Total Hands): 29.63% (27)
So a few days ago, Poker Strategy sent me an email, offering me free money to play on Party Poker. I've hooked up the account which will be tracked on Poker Strategy with all their benefits. I checked out the Party Poker software and games, and they don't really have Red Speed HUSNG, but they do have Turbo format which isn't bad either. I've thought about it, but how I see it, it's less traffic but better software and reward and loyalty system.
So as of right now, how I see it, if I take up a side challenge with Party Poker, I might consider something like fast forward Cash games they have, probably look at keeping some kind of record on Red Chip Poker Forums. As of right now, I'm still undecided about what I want to do but I feel like it's a good chance to earn a few bucks and take advantage of Poker Strategy benefits which is a huge consideration in how I am thinking about it. However, because of the lack of traffic and no Reg Speed HUSNGs, I am less incline to make it my new home.
I've look into HU Cash as well, it starts at 50NL which I might think about, but I'll probably need to consider investing into Pro Poker Hud's HU Cash HUD, but If I do play 50NL Cash, I'll probably be more committed into making Party Poker my primary poker destination and I'm not sure if I want to make that move yet without better information.
I'll still think about it to the extent what I want to do and accomplish because I think the perks of it is really good even if it is small volume.
Well, looks like the win streak continues. So far, I've been increasing my ROI slowly back to the goal. I hit my goal ROI of 8% with today's win but I still would like to obtain that 10%. Either way, I am more than happy of my progression.
So let's look at Today's Result:
The scary part is I still I am far from perfecting this style but the results has been really amazing so far. So I'm really excited to see how far I can go with this.
Overall Results:
So looks like the graphs are really getting there. Probably should be aiming to play at the next level soon but what's the rush, right?
So today turned to be a next good day. I noticed something so far for the year. I only had 2 losing days so far since the new year and HUSNG suppose to be a very swingy game. I feel good about that. It shows what hard work can accomplish.
Anyway let's look at the results.
Today's Result:
Chip graph looks good, results look good, what more can I say? Keeping my redline positive is getting easier and easier, all thanks to the unexploitative game style I been doing. I'm pretty thankful for Red Chip for that though.
Overall Results:
Nothing more to say but I'm getting my win-rate up there. I'm at 7% ROI now which is massive for me and I'm just working to get that 10% ROI.
So I must admit there was a lot to learn in my study session. I had to make some few adjustments here and there but its apart of the process. Let's get into it.
Comment: Here is a classic spot where putting my ranges real-time is probably extremely hard + I never really worked out a situation like this where the board is double paired. Only thing i knew is I'm never folding. I think I could of guessed that A-high is probably going to be a value bet, however I think I was more scared of being wrong than being right at the time, especially holding a weaker Ax.
Comment: The 3, 4, 5 situation causes things to change a bit. I decided to start thinking about which BD- Straight draws I want to use so I don't confuse myself during real time, and I decided to focus on BD-Straights revolving around Tx. Now unlike the other board, I still needed a few more bluffs, and its hard to decide which I will be using on a board to board basis, but logically I think using BD-straights revolving 5x that blocks straights to Tx (Eg. J6) is a way to think about it, but In this case I want to utilize my Ax hands since they have better equity with BDs to the wheel.
When raised, I think it's important to realize that I shouldn't always be raising with a ton of my Tx here. I already naturally raise majority of them because of the dynamics of the game, which have to change. With the adjustment of my bluffing range, my raising range here is much better than before. Here I will take the top tier side of the BD-Straight draws revolving around Tx that has heart blockers and raise here. I struggle with the different sizing but one thing I do know, when the min-raise hits, my borderline hands become some A-high. Just have to work on my game with other raise sizing.
The last thing I noticed is my range on the river looks so much better now. I have good hands to value bet, good hands to call a bet with, and my bluffing range here is probably the best it ever been. Bluffing miss draws and my Top tier A-high.
Comment: I noticed that I have been betting too much BD-Straight draws in my real time game and it's hard to tell what BD-Straight draws I should be bluffing. So I decided to only bet Top Tier BD-Straightdraws on FD - no paired flop texture. Also I have been thinking about my value range when a 3, 4 or 5 comes up, usually the adjustment would to bet the overcards, but here where there are no overcards just undercards, I think I rather settle for having less value combos, which could be an edge for villains if they ever realizes it but I doubt 99% of them will ever realize it.
On the Turn, this is a spot where I am naturally getting more thin value bets in, this is something I upgraded since naturally to "correctly" call they would have to call much wider. However, when the board pairs, this is where I have more trouble defining my bluffs and continuing range because it's much harder to connect and usually this means we have to venture down the "high card" rank, which I have the greatest problems defining these in my ranges. So what I decided to do is use the middle tier BD-Straight draw range from the flop to help balance this spot.
The River shocked me the most, I Didn't realize how thin I should be value betting here. Thinking about in an exploitative mindset, I guess it makes sense, since Tx and Ax should be betting the turn. Thinking about the "correct" calling range, he should have a ton of combos here as well. I'll admit from an exploitative point of view this may be a bit too thin, but if I am going to get better I probably need to take these spots.
Conclusion: I want to make sure I am not bluffing too much because I changed the sizing of my bets to a larger size which started to made a big difference in my results lately and I want to make sure my ranges are getting better and better.
So today actually went good. The good news is that we are finally pushing the Red Line into the green. That is huge, because when I first became a winning player, my red line would always go straight down, opposite from my blue line. As i got better and develop my "aggressive" nature, my red line would be negative but it would go down in a huge huge slow process as my blue line climb. Even my last year result was the same. However, upon diving into a more mathematical approach my red line has actually been extremely stable and by tweaking around my game I think I may have finally put all the pieces together to have a really winning aggressive style.
Let's get into it.
Today's Result:
As you can see, I ran pretty good and was able to perform at a really high level. I'm surprised that I won close to 6K in chips. That itself is about 4 games worth of chips I won just from the folds I was getting. That's huge! If I can at least keep up this kind of results during bad runs then my downswings can be a thousand times better.
Overall Results:
So my chip graph is coming alot really well. My results for the year is at a new peak. That's obviously well. Winrate is sitting at 6% ROI, and I still feel like I am a long way from in my game and in this style. Seeing this makes me proud to know that my style is working and makes me want to keep working hard.
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Learn more about my poker goals here: Introduction
Comment: Here I wanted to double check my hand as it would play out when I'm mostly checking, to make sure I have enough combos that can continue pretty well.
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Comment: This hand was played in an exploitative manner as you seen and will be marked as a mistake but I wanted to verify how wide I would be continuing on this board texture and double check my ranges because I felt so unsure about what continues.
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Comment: I figured my continuing range will be much wider here, once again I was unsure what continues and decided to check it out.
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Conclusion: I purposely stayed away from any long explanation because I wanted to see what you guys may think but I want to keep looking at spots that give me trouble visualizing my range real time. I'm starting to see where checking back some hands has been really helpful in terms of getting chips and I want to really make sure my ranges are built perfect as possible. I'm also doing very small changes in my range building allowing slightly weaker hands than usual to move in the value tab because based on % and # of combos, one should be continuing so wide. By doing this, this allows me to play around with my stronger combos a bit having them fit in checking ranges in different spots, especially when defending.
Today was quite a day. The variance was probably was much more cruel than yesterday. I've put in so much to try play well and although I did, the result part of the game just took a toll on me. It's hard to not be "result oriented" but I did my very best. I think there were more than a few spots where tilt got the best of me, I won't lie about them but I always managed to get myself back into the right direction which is really important for me.
Now onto the results.
Today's Result:
Overall despite going through my little tilt, I still played really well as supported by my chip graph. I am proud that I am picking spots much more better from a mathematically point of view because it is really starting to show in my results, which could be a big improvement from my exploitative style. However, in the result world, although I am up for the day, you could clearly see, I struggled to keep up with my EV. I really despised sucking out and I knew I had a problem when I entered a match where for this 1 match, I literally did not lose a single showdown hand and still tilted because I didn't want to see suckouts. It didn't matter how I got it in and I did got it in bad more than enough, I literally did not lose a single showdown hand. It was ridiculous, and being already tilted as I was I still resented it, I think I even wanted to give the guy back his buy-in but talked to myself out of it by telling myself I deserve to at least run like God once with how bad I've been running today. Overall, I still managed to keep it together.
For anybody who may wonder, when I tilt, I don't make much more calling mistakes, etc. I just don't have that "thinking" cap on fully where I am more automated towards my default strategy. So it's easy and hard for me to go through the motion without devastating my winrate & bankroll by far but I just prefer to have my thinking cap at all times so I don't overlook details I shouldn't.
Overall Results:
I'm starting to really love my chip graph. That red line probably has been more stable than it ever did and before it wasn't that bad either since it usually would decline at a really really slow pace. So just the fact that I am generating enough folds to be break-even I feel like I am doing something right and I look forward to seeing that I continue to do so. However, my results are still stuck around that 4% ROI and while it isn't bad, I really want to be able to increase it so I can feel much prepared for playing higher levels.
Today, I must admit, I learned a lot from my studies. This usually should be a good thing but I feel like it may be a bad thing this time, because I learn so much matter in fact that there might be too much adjusting to remember while I am on the table, which might lead to more hesitation plays and screw ups. With so much information I think I will need to take a day off in the upcoming future to go over a number of hands. I'll let you guys know when I do so, and it will be recorded, however that is alot of hands to post, I'll probably just stick with posting 3 hands that day out of the number of hands I look at.
Comment: This hand took me an extremely long time to analysis because I basically had started over like 3 times trying to figure out how to best play my range here. My biggest discovery was actually the continuation range on the whole which was way tighter than I previously assumed. My biggest headache with this was realizing that my initial plan doesn't allow for 8x & gutshots to continue. So I spent nearly an hour making decisions on which I am cutting out the loop. I even decided that maybe I should cut off my backdoor equity in my flop range and use gutshot for bluffing, but to me bluffing the flop with those club blockers are far more important than straight blockers. I end up changing my mind there and kept the backdoor draws in but still had my original problem. After a long mental debate I decided to go with gutshots over 8x because of 2 reasons: 1. I don't want to put myself in complete marginal spots and 2. If I improve with an 8x it still never the nuts vs the gutshots and the gutshots at times would have additional pairing outs combine with the fact that in the face of contiuation bets, it's easy to put these in raise or fold range over 8x which will go into a call or fold range majority of the time. The bigger issue though is that I must be aware of my continuation range, because I will lose alot of money if I incorrectly assume what is correct.
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Comment: Besides with the obvious mistake of not betting that river for value, I wanted to look at more dry texture boards to see how my range is shaped. One of the things I picked up that is starting to come more known easily is how my range changes on a 4, 3 or 2 card that is mix in with the flop. Usually these 3 cards will have less combos of pairs in my range so that mean my value range will lack in some combos, which could easily be made up by adding two pair, overcards, etc. This also means that my checking range will be weaker in general and I have to be aware of that.
Comment: This hand I found interesting because honestly looking at it and the stack sizes, etc. Everything felt more automatic with no thoughts rather than thinking about the proper strategy. However, even if I did thought about it, I still would probably make a mistake thinking I can shove alot more value hands than I think I can. I need to be a lot more careful in these spots and really understand how I am shaping my range.
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Conclusion: Alot of the information I learned was formed around range construction mistakes. It's much easier to construct a range off the table but putting into use on the tables is a whole different monster and I'm finding myself thinking in game that I am pretty close to what I should be doing and still far off. Not saying I don't believe I am getting better but I think I may have been a bit more delusional as to how far I have gotten with my unexploitative style and even my results are proving this. Therefore I will be looking into taking a day off sometime and really just review a ton of hands and try find some more patterns and add more memorization to my game to help me on the tables.
