Afternoon session review: (2h as planned)

another good session is behind me. results: 26,4BB/100 up after 555 hands.

After reviewing more and more hands I came to the following conclusions. These are only for my mates at bet365 4NL.

I am playing totally unbalanced as I am up against the fishiest fish you can imagine. There is sooo little fold equity that bluffing and semibluffing is not the option of choice. Therefore I am extremly underbluffing against most opponents I taged as fish. On the other hand the regs running around are very tight and can be bluffed profitably. I think I finally start to understand what my books meant when they talked about "adjusting to the opponents"

-) My range against fish tightened. As I get called down alot I only open 16/12.
-) I reduced Cbets to 45% on the flop. Fold equity is not existent, therefore i only bet extremly dry A&K high boards and combodraws light.
-) This session I 3bet only once. My opponents run stats like 50/2 and therefore I have to give their preflop raises lots of respect and frankly have very little opportunities to 3bet.

Right now i am pretty confident, that preflop i play very solid. unfortonatly lots of postflop situations arise where i actually have absolutly no idea what to do. therefore my fokus in the next days will be heavily weighted towards postflop game! (combos, blockers,...)

What a disastrous afternoon session.

I was not only carddead, i actually was valuedead. additionally to not getting hands (QQ+ and AQ+ all below expected amount) when i had something nice i got wrecked... 3 buy ins down after 670 hands...

analyzing my most important hands i maybe could have saved 1 BI as i did not play 2 hands correctly (too optimistic calling)

as there was nearly nothing to play with i could not really do something for my red line.

on the plus site: No tilting from my part. I played correctly and stopped as planned.

areas to improve
-)how to play sets
-)how to play overpairs

in both cases focus in on recognizing when i am beat.

strange day... variance can be funny...

the evening session nearly made up for the disastrous afternoon. over all I am at -1BB/100

I tried to push more against my tight regs, which worked quite fine.
I find it sooo frustrating to play against my stupid fish as they sucked out on me alot.

hand of the evening to discuss is a completly butchered AA against 2 regs. I was so afraid on getting sucked out again that I overplayed it. I got my reasons at the time (I was soooo afraid of flushes and JJ-KK - which i gave my villains - get ther) , but right now i dont see why i played it this way... grml

I wasn't in love with the first call pre, but guess you know your villains. I would have just raised it there, but as played it worked out nice. IDK, based on how your villains play pre with all this limp re raise call call stuff, I think I would just make your preflop reraise slightly bigger. Doesn't look like they ever fold. Your games are good. Anyway, if you made it slightly bigger then you would basically be at an SPR of close to 1 and jamming the flop or calling a jam, would just be what you have to do. Just not sure if these guys actually start folding to the bigger raise. It doesn't seem like it, so just make like 1.75 or 2 and then you have your SPR closer to 1 and its not that big of an overbet on the flop.

As played I think you have to raise the flop. With the SPR the way it is it is kind of awkward. Not sure you can just flat here and give them such a cheap turn. Looks like they are trying to buy a cheap draw basically. Guess you could raise small and jam any safe turn, but not sure that is best. Doubt you are ever folding, so to me just seems like GII here and if they fold then so be it. You got some protection and won a decent pot. Not sure really what is best, but really don't think it is that bad

Like think about it, what are you going to do? Call the turn bet. Then what happens when 5 6 9 T J diamond hit. Are you really going to XF. SPR already at < 1.5. Sure they can have some sets, but they can have a lot of other stuff as well, the way these guys play.

@fawltyfelix thanks for your reply!!

my afternoon was very bad. not because the result sucked... 2€ down... but because i played very bad.

the first half of the session I played brilliantly. smart agressive. about halftime I tried a big bluff in a completly stupid spot. a few hands later i lost a flip (overpairs to flushdraw) and i was back in the doghouse. I lost all agression, made few 3bets, no Cbets... and from 5.5 € up to 2 down.

very annoyed with myself.

tonight i skip the session and work on some mental topics...

lets hope that tomorrow i find back to my game

Dislike the preflop play, I think it's 'playing poker' too much, especially versus a limp and an iso raise. I'd make it huge, like 1.20 at least given the stack depth, I'd likely go for around 1.20 and if they fold then meh, whatever. If the limper plays limp/reraise then it's easy game and I'm shipping it all there and then.
With hero holding the Ad I'm less worried about flush draws so I'd make it nearly pot size on the flop and ship just about any turn that didn't complete the straight even if it was an overbet - I like overbets when we're deep, they're fun.

Disclaimer: I play nl5 and am a bit overaggressive postflop sometimes. Beers help

Run better tomorrow and have fun.

@Pwll thanks for your reply. I agree: postflop is definitifly not standard. my reasoning was that behind me there was a huge fish who i wanted in the pot and more importantly a very avid 3bettor. In a vacuum this is absolutley a 3bet.

recap of todays afternoon session:

It was the first time that actually nothing happened. I started good and endet the session with a nice 5,75 BB/100 up which means that i recovered my stupid -2 from yesterday.
playtime was a bit more than i planned (+25min) but i wanted to test my concentration as playing was kind of boring today. for about 300 hands i did not see a showdown.

plus side: I got my head under controll after yesterdays bad run. I even had a nice red line (-1€ over 750 hands)

regarding the red line: I accepted that at least hear in the micros it is not the most profitable plan to aim for a positive red line, especially as I try to select my tables carefully.

So I want to flatten my red line as much as possible. Additionally i set a ratio of 2,5:1 between blue and read. This means, that for every € I lose in non showdown i want to make 2,5€ in showdown winnings.

YESYESYES

had a good evening session. finally i am above 0

I am particularly happy with the session, as I suffered a bad beat in the beginning (AA again) and was a bit carddead in the next half hour or so... but i did not freak out!!!!!

As I was not so lucky regarding my cards, the red line is abysmal... positiv: blue is strong and i nearly managed a 2:1 ratio

evening was 22BB/100 after 1000 hands. I played longer as the tables were so soft and managed to finish on the highest score

Regarding the last 7000 hands (after my lowest point) I have a solid 13BB/100. I know this sample is somewhat small, but it is also the time I changed my playstyle and started to dedicate more time to analysing my own hands and situations, as well as taking the pokervip courses

Crushing it.

Afternoon session:

400 hands, up 72,44BB/100

It startet out great, after 220 Hands I was up 17€. Everybody seemed to have a huge urge to donate to me... unfortunatly I found my master and gave back 6 €. I think the cooler-situation leveled out over the session, the rest was just very poor play by my opponents.

Blue to Red ratio: 3:1 which is also nice.

over all i am up 2 BB/100 which is great as well!

Have a nice weekend and cu on monday!

Hope you guys had a nice weekend!

had a very late afternoonsession (or an early evening session....) therefore today only one session played.

2 hours: 595 hands for 17,86BB/100

could be double but I got called down on a big bluff. In hindsight it was not the best spot to bluff. secondly my "setplay" sucked as always... but i recovered quickly and ended the session on the peak result.

As the red line was just a couple of BB negative the ratio is a whooping 14:1

overall i find myself at +2,5BB/100 after 18000 hands!

BB -21BB/100 is quite OK I guess
SB is positive which i really do like (although only for ,5BB) UO PFR 40%
EP is +-0 (UO PFR14%)
CO is +8BB/100 (UO PFR 21%)
B +35/100(UO PFR 31%)
so here is all more or less OK. Id like EP to be positive as well but i can live with that

Unfortunatly I find MP at -11BB (UO PFR 16%) and i thought, that i have a bigger leak here... but i just had to analyze the top 8 Hands to find out that all my coolers, suckouts and bed beats happen in MP.
Adittionally after about 100 sets I am up only 1 buy in (bit more than 125 BB) Combining those to spots maybe i should stop playing pocket pairs in MP

Interesting session today.

3 hours, 836 hands +15,22 BB/100
Blue-Red-Ratio exactly 2:1

I develop something that helps me a lot to prevent tilt. I am very confident that I can beat 4NL on Bet365 and therefore do not get crazy when I hit a rough patch. I was up by 4€ only to find myself at -2€ 150 hands later. nothing big happened, I just lost every showdown and had close to no opportunity to steal, 3bet or cbet. so blue and red plummeted dramatically.

The good thing about this situation was, that I stayed calm as I can expect that some moron will willingly donate his stack in the forseeable future. Although I had to work hard for it (hand below) it happened and i managed to finish another highly profitable session.

Overall I am at 3BB/100 after nealy 19000 hands.



I only called him down because he was playing overly aggressive. against an average player i would give him the trips anytime.

Today I decided to go back to BWIN and try if my adopted style works there as well..

and yes it does. Even better. I was very agressive and endet up with a red line above my blue one (B:R=2,5:3,5)

second half of the session was a bit tougher and I was not at the top of my game anymore.

2h, 780 hands (Bwin is so much faster than Bet365) and 30BB/100 up. peak was nearly 5€ more but I think i can live with this

The next sessions will be at bet365 as i want to clear my deposit bonus.

Nice afternoon at Bet365

Hard Facts:
95 minutes; 551 hands 45,33BB/100 up; Ratio: 10:1

The fist 70 Hands were pure pokerhell and I found myselfe down 7€. Mostly because once again my AA got cracked, this time by kings. I actually manage to have negative AA. OK I only have 6 datapoints, but nevertheless i am at -6. which means I am 15 below EV... anyway

as mentioned before I am so confident with my game at the moment that I do not tilt. I kept 3betting, I kept C-betting the flop and about 100 hands later I was break even. From there on it was a nice and smooth ride.

I started on Bet365 on the 11th of August. Now exactly 20 days later I more than doubled my deposit. Overall I played 19.466 hands and have a winrate of 4,25BB/100 (rest is deposit bonus. not includet rake back) The nicest thought here for me is that at one i was point down to 4 buy ins (20€) at Bet365 and recovered from this lowest point! I hope I can keep this level and maybe step up to 10 NL within the next one or two month.

The following hand is for all new players who stumble apon this thread and might wonder what improving in Poker means. This is a hand is an example of how thinking in ranges can improve your winrate drastically



in my very early days I would not have bet the river. depending on my mood (my tilt means i am not playing agressivly enough) I might even have foldet or most probably just called.

My thoughtprocess back then was very one dimentional: I have a strong hand, but not the nuts so he has many stronger hands. betting 1 EUR (2/3 Pot) is not a bluff so he is strong. and therefore he has K4 or 22 or 99 for sure

Why did I arrive on the river with this hand? Well Villain was extremly agressive and the minraise on the flop did not scare me. picking up the NFD on the river the call was very easy. I was close to direct odds and there are surly some implied odds against villain like this

when you think in ranges you easily see that he can not have many of the above mentioned hands on the river. K4 is a possibility, but i guess only suited. Villain has FtS of 40 so he can fold at least the worst hands. All the other stats indicate that villain is an aggrofish that cannot let go of any hand. he cannot have 99 and 22 because he would not reraise with those hands on the flop. so we have lots of Kx hands and 4x hands that we beat now. we only lose to 1 combo of K4s and 2 combos of 42s (94 is not in his range). we beat a gazillion combos of Kx and 4x.

So our hand is winning almost always. But does the reraise make sense? We only get called if we are beat. obviously not against this type of player. A competent reg would immediatly guess that i have a flush and therefor fold at least his weak 4x hands.

so after all we have soooo much to gain and so little to lose by shoving river.

Saturday afternoon session.

Facts:
2 h, 537 hands, +20,3BB/100 Ratio: 2.1:1

unfortunatly i lost a bigger pot with the last hand... but i guess i can be very happy with the result. especially as I ran (as always) below EV. The start of the session was rather rough. I guess thats the reason why my red line is close to -4€.

Interestingly the session was the complete opposite of yesterdays. My good profit comes from 1 big pot. discounting this 1 hand it would have been a break even session. As this hand was the only really important thing in this session and the reasoning why I played how I played is simillar to the hand above in upload it below.

I am of for the weekend! Good hands my friends!

Monday Evening session. I did not play in the afternoon so the evening was a bit longer

Facts:

3 hours, 949 Hands, +15,8BB/100

I hit a very very rough patch in the middle of the session. Over about 500 hands I lost 200 BB in non showdown winnings. I will investigate this tomorrow, right now I do not have the feeling that i played bad. I noticed that for a longer period I had no cards to do something, but that should not account for all my losses.

Because of that bad phase the Blue-Red-Ratio is only 1,5:1

I get more and more comfortable to call down, even if there is very high agression and Villain is betting pot-size or more. As villain bet more than pot on the flop i was sure that he did not have the flush...

short afternoon session as i have lots of work to do in my professional life..

Facts: 1 hour 20 minutes, 409 hands, 59,6BB/100 positiv red line

obviously I got payed out in my strong hands, but also managed to stay away from difficult spots.


I always mention that my play improved a lot in the last weeks. The 3 areas where I improved alot are:

-) mental game: after suck-outs or coolers I do not lose my head. I have enough confidence in myself that I beat 4NL on Bet365 in order to recover from my losses so there is no need for tilt

-) overbets on the river: In order to get max value put your fishes to the test. With their made hands fish cannot find the fold button. Additionally fish and regs realize that your overbet (or shove) on the river could imply a bluff. I had to learn this the hard way as I lost lots of € at bet365 because I got relentlessly called down.

-) calling down villain: my red-line is rather weak. On the one hand i won to few pots this way. The bigger problem was, that I got cold feet on the river way to often and foldet lots of hands after puting in a significant amount of money in the pot. You find agressive villains also in the micros and they try to bluff you off the hand with air lots of the time. After I understood concepts like "being at the top of my range" I called down more and more villains and this boosted my winrate alot. Additionally I am more disciplined and stopped chasing FDs or OeSD so i do not invest less money in pots whith speculative hands.

Todays session:

I played for nearly 2,5 hours.-->734 hands. 20,6BB/100 and Red very positiv

I lost the 2 biggest pots of the session. biggest was a bluff i tried that failed (although i guess that his call - although catching my bluff - was very very bad. you can discuss this hand in the HH rewiev section)
and an unlucky AQ against AK against a shortstack agressor (I play lots against him and saw him go AI preflop with ATo and any suited A, so the call was good)

I am very very unhappy with one particular hand that I played. It cost me 2 € and should remind me of my days as a very very bad player. I had TPTK (7) on paired board with 3 hearts and I could not let go.... Villain showed QQ. The only thing I would beat was complete air...

But following this incident I found my discipline again and played very good poker (at least for NL4)