Giorgio

Hey,

Let me start by telling my story and goals in poker.

I’m a 36 years old guy from Belgium grinding on Pokerstars 5NL zoom. My goal is to beat 5NLz at first by a decent win rate, something like 15bb/100. What is not working well for the moment.

From past October (2015) until now I just played something like 198k hands in mixed games like 2NLz, 5NLz and some 10NLz / normal tables.

My game wasn’t going well, I’m too optimistic from nature and always hope to get there while hunting for a flush or so, or can’t believe my 2 pairs are obvious busted by his draw.

Last year I got a coach and also joined his Skype group, but after the last session with him mid February I concluded for myself that some issues only could be fixed by myself like making bogus river calls, taking time to think during play, not making hero river calls and that having a new session would not do any good.

To work on that, and cut losses, I went down to 2NL. There I worked on my game with focus on 3betting, cbetting, blind defense, red line, not playing marginal hands and not tilting or at least identifying when it starts. After all these months i think my progress is good, but i still need help because i'm only a break even player for the moment.

In June 2NLz was removed for Belgian players so went back to 5NL and can now show the graph below. I also contact my coach again to restart the coaching.

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I will try to post an update every one or 2 days and get a lot of hands in the review section. All comment is welcome.

Last Post 8 years ago by

Giorgio

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Just had a stupid session where i almost lost 4BI. To my feeling i did everything OK, but no hand seems to stand up. Once of those day's i think.

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One of the hands i went all in preflop: JJ All in
Is this spewy???

If a stupid session is losing 4 buy ins then count yourself lucky!

Jacks look fine when he just rips it vs a squeeze!

Yeah, today i first was at the right side of luck and up to +14.19 and after that everything went down hill, ending up at -7.77.

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the hands where it all went wrong are:

the first: QQ called vs raise
10 min later: 5nlz calling raise with 2 pairs
and 4 minutes later:

Villan had 27/16/oo

Hand Conversion Powered by WeakTight Poker Hand History Converter
$0.02/$0.05Zoom No Limit Holdem PokerStars
6 Players

Blinds $0.02/$0.056
UTG Mackle12 $5
UTG+1 Tigor ;D $7.26
COHero $11.50
D blablub11 $3.96
SB Cruzivey $8.63
BB Chaca273 $4.92

Preflop
6$0.07Hero is COAK
1 fold, Tigor ;D raises to $0.15, Hero raises to $0.40, blablub11 calls $0.40, 2 folds, Tigor ;D calls $0.25

Flop
3$1.277AK
Tigor ;D checks, Hero checks, blablub11 checks

Turn
3$1.279
Tigor ;D checks, Hero bets$0.61, blablub11 raises to $1.51, Tigor folds, Hero raises to $2.45, blablub11 goes all-in $3.56, Hero calls$1.11

River
2$8.39, 1 all-in 6

Final Pot $8.39
blablub11 shows three of a kind, Nines 99 Hero shows two pair, Aces and Kings AK
blablub11 wins $8.04 (net +$4.08)
Hero collects$0.00 (net -$3.96)

Tigor ;D lost $0.40

And then i stopped for the day

AK bet flop, try to rarely slow play at microstates, fish and regs struggle with calling down light so exploit that, don't slow play and miss value.

Didn’t update the stats for a couple of days as they don’t really have any value. I did try some things out, like more cbetting and raising a flop cbet.

I did however have 2 coaching sessions, one one Wednesday with a coach called Akroma and on Thursday with coach Regitime.

Akroma did mention some things I was working on, but still struggle with
- More cbetting on flop, now I only have like 45 a 50% cbet
- Betting sizes. Like 50% when you have nothing and 70% when you have a good change on improving or already are having the winning hand
But the problem with betting large in the micro’s is, is that you get super many folds, and I feel like you are not extracting enough money with good hands.

Regitime did have another approach and we looked at PT and the winnings/stats. Directly it became clear that the advancements I made earlier past month on playing from the blinds were lost and all!! My losses came from the blinds play.

So for the next 20k hands, my focus will lay on a better blinds play and looking for the correct spots to cbet flop so my bb/100 becomes positive.

Yesterday was one of those sessions where every hand you have almost got sucked out. You have JK with JJ on board, and he has JA. And so on...

I tried to keep the points where I need to work on, on focus and did the correct cbets and fold, but nothing worked. Did stop when I hitted stop loss of 2BI. No need to continue with the game, all will be better tomorrow

This is my graph so far. Think the red line drop is because I didn’t get very good cards much and folded a lot.

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Some of my hands that need a further look into:
5nlz-AA-was-the-river-bet-spewy ??
5nlz-qq-vs-short-stacker
5nlz-AA-was-the-flop-raise-spewy ?
5nlz-KK-would-you-have-called??

Wonder if i'm playing to aggro in the non blind positions.

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i'm making the normal cbets, small when i have nothing, big for value, but get a ton of folds.

Poker can be a struggle at times but you have to ride the variance wave and hopefully come out alive!

One tip I would give is to take plenty of notes on players. It's something a lot of people neglect at the micros / speed poker, but for me it's really important for gaining an edge. You don't need to go crazy but just get some key information on how the villains act during key moments. EG their ranges and how they play in 3Bet / Squeezed pots etc. Our HUD tells us some of this (which you should be using if you can) but sometimes having clear notes regarding our opponents tendencies can be much more effective.

If you are a regular player it doesn't take long to build up a good set of notes for all the villain regs. Then we can beat them at their own game! I also think that doing this get's you into a great mindset for poker and really helps to stop the dreaded autopilot, which is an easy mode to fall into in the Zoom games. Really think about each hand and the best way of approaching it.

Also do plenty of work off the table. Find good, up to date training videos which are relevant for the games and stakes that you play.

Good luck!

I do try to make plenty of notes, but it is a never ending story, because the fish with the notes don't last long and don't reload there BR that often.

Well yeah but you don't really need notes on the fish, because well, they are fish. We should be easily beating them. But there's plenty of 20/18 regs who you will come across time and time again. It's these people you need to get one up on otherwise you will be break even / small loss against them in the long run.

Love it when the talk dirty

Let me make an update. The last session i had with my coach, it came apparent that all my losses came from the blinds. We agreed to make some changes to my game play from the small an big blinds and follow that up for 20k hands.

I needed some time to adjust, because i must say, i did hear him, but things did not directly set.

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if we zoom into just this month, you see a small win rate of 2bb/100, but i like that. Hopefully i can keep this up or make it even better. I think a lot of issues now come from the river, where i still make to many hero calls.

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Good luck dude.
Let us know how the changes to your blind play come out.

What changes are you making in the blinds?

I have seen some very weird stuff lately. First there was everybody opening to 2bb (10c) in stead of the 15c. That has almost dissapeared now, but i see a new phenomon now. Siberians 3betting to 63c, from every position inn stead of the 45c and when called raising to 1.2$. Very strange.

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