dwbh buttons down and learns to crush low stakes

[bspahn]

so here's my blog
ive been a poker player for a while, professional "gambler" for just over 4 years. i spend most of the first two years bonus hunting blackjack bonuses and then got into sports betting where I bonus hunted a ton as well. I started playing poker online Dec 04 but didn't really know what I was doing (tried to play tight, play top 3% of hands plus set mining) so I made a tiny profit over time plus a lot of crypto bonuses/rakeback.

about 1.5 years ago I hit rock bottom, looked for work (i'm an engineer) but got absolutely nowhere after a month. Went to Hawaii had an amazing time, came back and started to work hard at poker, learning, watching videos etc. Played 25c/50c for 3 months, moved up to 50c/1$ for 5 months and 1/2 since.

My biggest asset was always table selection, earning money from fish.

This is my career so now I've decided this isn't good enough. Either I do something else or I try to get as good at poker as I possibly can. I'm moving down to 100nl and will spend as long as it takes until I feel that I can actually crush these stakes. I will be 4 tabling and experimenting a lot.

I'm also reading ed miller's book (SSNLHE) and I'm really enjoying it.

Today I tried to focus on two things: stealing blinds and using steal equity with drawing hands (suited connectors etc)

The session was bad, lost 4 1/2 buyins, however I feel positive about some things. The blind stealing went very well (i opened near 100% of buttons when SB & BB were 80% or higher fold to steal)
and it's the first session where my redline was in fact positive.

Some bluffs went bad because I hit the very top of their range multiple times, every time I had 33% + equity I missed, and I ran QQ into KK twice plus lost QQ vs AKo pre.

It was fun though and I really enjoyed trying some stuff that I would normally be much more passive about.

I was playing roughly 26/22/3.9 and 3bet 8.6% which is high for me but it's an experiment. Almost all of my opponents were very passive against me and I think this is a big part of what the book focuses on: if we maintain control of the pots and apply pressure, we can put ourselves in many spots where our opponents will make mistakes.

I just have to really learn which opponents have the tendencies to keep calling or not, and how thin I can make vale bets etc.

will try and post on a weekly basis. cheers!

[bjsaust]

First for good luck!!

I think the point in SSNLHE about hands having steal equity and showdown equity, and knowing which hands make their profit from which and playing them accordingly is great. Probably the best part of the book. I know I used to do stuff like raise SCs and then give up a bunch if they missed. Well if I'm just going to give up on them, when most of their profit comes from stealing, I might as well not play them. When you bare that stuff in mind, it really helps focus you in on how you should play different hands.

[bspahn]

ty bjaust

BR: 8000 ish
today I played 658 hands. more experimenting. read a bit more in the SSNL book and like some of the analysis about Ax hands and Axx flops as well as how to view turn Ace cards

i went a bit crazy aggro lagg today. played 29/24/5.8 with 3bet 6.5% (if i'm playing this style my 3bet should be much higher though)

i'm amazed how much nittier most regs are at 100nl than 200nl, I keep getting into rough spots that seem "standard" at 200nl but obv not here.

Preflop for instance it seems these guys stack off with nothing but KK/AA and my QQ/AK type hands are absolutely getting destroyed.

Had some interesting spots where I barreled str8 & flush semibluff on turn, but as yesterday not a single one came through on the river. Despite trying not to barrel quite as much as yesterday I still bet way too much, including 43% river frequency.

I'm going to tone it down just a bit because i'm getting no respect and well frankly it's so bloody hard to get a great hand I can value bet for three streets that they mostly end up being bluffs. That's not good balance. I have figure out how to hit big hands, not sure what the secret is!

People have made some pretty big mistakes though which is good to see. I really like 4 tabling, I think i'm going to stick with it for a long time. Had AA 3x but got all folds pre, and twice had it in BB and everyone folded to me. Two sets in the day and neither paid.

Lastly I ended up saying fuck it with QQ preflop (yea i know standard right BTN vs SB) but of course he had AA (smelled like it since he MIN 5bet pre) but I didn't give a shit anymore and stacked off pre to turn a Q and take em! I'll take a bit of luck when i'm never hitting any of these big combodraws

Redline didnt look very good, but thats' mostly beecause i was in a couple big hands where I ultimately just had to fold. One i bet a set on the river but the flop had 3 hearts on it and I suspect the fish slow played the nuts the entire way and I had to fold to his river CR-shove.

I'm very happy with stealing blinds though, today again I was at 52.5%, I'm generally trying to table select where there's a fish to my right somewhere AND at least one of not two nitty regs in the blinds that I can just smoke with steals mostly from the BTN and SB.

I was playing roughly 26/22/3.9 and 3bet 8.6%

so basically you tried to play like me
j/k you'd have to take 2% off of each number

anyway nice op, gl

[bspahn]

played for 36 minutes today
about 165 hands
up 62 and content.

actually made a nice hand on the river when barreled the turn pair&gutshot&FD but didnt get paid on my river flush

stacked a fish w QQ when he flatted a squeeze w KTo on a J94sss board with the Ks and gutshot luckily he missed.

played a much more reasonable 22/20 or so style, red/blue/green lines all in the positive w00t

tomorrow i play in the monthly vip freeroll 10k and 25k tourneys which could be interesting.

[bspahn]

played three freerolls on the weekend for vip players and cashed for a total of $204 !! woohoo.

[bspahn]

happy with my session today. got some nice cards too

not too laggy which is definitely easier and makes me not want to bluff everywhere (unbalanced)

played 21.5/19.2/3.4 and 3bet 8.6%
steal 43.7%

839 hands
made + $367

here i got lucky, well sorta (suck/resuck) I suppose I can check back this turn (as the Q can scare him with a low of his low pairs) but I also thought top pair would still easily call and medium pairs plus a bunch of pair&straight draws. when he calls I would check back river.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
6 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG Hero ($105.00)
UTG+1 SimpleManiac ($154.80)
CO Guiller84 ($142.50)
BTN Callecarlos ($103.00)
SB cagallette38 ($120.90)
BB durden17 ($131.75)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 6 players) Hero is UTG
Hero raises to $3.50, 3 folds, cagallette38 calls $3, 1 fold

Flop: ($8, 2 players)
cagallette38 bets $8, Hero calls $8

Turn: ($24, 2 players)
cagallette38 checks, Hero bets $15, cagallette38 calls $15

River: ($54, 2 players)
cagallette38 bets $54, Hero raises to $78.50, cagallette38 calls $24.50

Final Pot: $211
cagallette38 shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $208 ( won +$103 )
cagallette38 lost -$105


and this next guy was a reg but he didnt seem happy as i just stacked him with QQ vs AK and i was 3betting him a lot.

turn makes this pretty easy to play for me.

$0.5/$1 No Limit Holdem
5 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG Hero ($241.15)
CO eastjinx ($128.00)
BTN pourman ($75.75)
SB Pheme ($99.20)
BB matpio ($98.50)

Pre-flop: ($1.50, 5 players) Hero is UTG
Hero raises to $3.50, 3 folds, matpio raises to $11, Hero calls $7.50

Flop: ($22.50, 2 players)
matpio bets $15, Hero calls $15

Turn: ($52.50, 2 players)
matpio bets $35, Hero calls $35

River: ($122.50, 2 players)
matpio bets $37.50, Hero calls $37.50

Final Pot: $197.50
matpio shows:
Hero shows:

Hero wins $195.50 ( won +$97 )
matpio lost -$98.50

[bspahn]

put in like 1.7k hands today.
made couple mistakes but ended up winning one huge hand at a DEEP table where i stacked KK w my AA 300bb deep for a $600 pot. He wasn't amused.

adjusting my game vs fish a bit and going to tone my aggression down vs them overall and exploit them much more on the value side.

will tone down my preflop range as well a bit maybe settle in around 21/19 or something.

bankroll lookin a bit better too, will need to take some moneyz out soon.
br at 8.9k

[bspahn]

good start to august. i'm stil mostly 4 tabling but I added 1/2 tables if they look decent.
i'm focusing on a few things:

1) make sure FISH are 1 or 2 spots to my RIGHT
2) generally play with NITTY regs to my LEFT, leave if LAGG or otherwise aggro guys (high 3bet, floaters etc) on my LEFT
3) player shorter sessions (3 hours or less)
4) bet more often than check/calling
5) attempt to think of their ranges as I'm playing as well as what my hand LOOKS like to them (if they're regs)

i wish all my sessions looked like this from today:

[bspahn]

Well had a bit of a hickup today where i had a 650 hand stretch where shit went wrong and it affected my play. I came back and did well a couple hours later though which feels great.

August is pretty happy times so far, in part beacuse it started with this hand early on - one main reason why i'm quite a bit above EV at 1/2.

$1/$2 No Limit Holdem
7 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG+1 jeje130014 ($211.45)
MP kisflopo ($202.00)
CO julien00 ($127.55)
BTN LENRICKO77 ($51.68)
SB Hero ($199.00)
BB gion79 ($67.50)

Pre-flop: ($3, 7 players) Hero is SB
jeje130014 calls $2, kisflopo raises to $8, julien00 calls $8, 1 fold, Hero calls $7, 1 fold, jeje130014 calls $6

Flop: ($34, 5 players)
Hero checks, jeje130014 checks, kisflopo bets $26, 1 fold, Hero raises to $68, jeje130014 raises to $203.45, kisflopo calls $168, Hero calls $123

Turn: ($622.45, 4 players)

River: ($622.45, 4 players)

Final Pot: $622.45
Hero shows:
jeje130014 shows:
kisflopo shows:

Hero wins $604.02 ( won +$405.02 )
jeje130014 wins $9.45 ( lost -$202 )
kisflopo wins $5.98 ( lost -$196.02 )
julien00 lost -$8


but still, I really like mostly 4 tabling now and just practicing simple and effective table selection and picking my spots differently with each opponent.

Happy chart follows:

[bspahn]

had my best day ever in my poker career!
woohoo

almost all 1/2 with a small loss at 2/4 of 130 or so included.

[oskar]

whoa

[bspahn]

well it's been a while.
recently i've been trying to work on my post flop play, picking spots where I think opponents are more likely to have a weaker holding where they can't stand heat, and either barreling more in those spots or throwing in some check-raises, generally fighting more for pots, in raised and 3bet pots.

i think this is the first week in my ENTIRE poker career where my non-showdown was at least neutral or positive. sure some say it's overrated however not folding as much and applying more pressure to my opponents has resulted in this, i'm excited about learning a lot more and experimenting more with different lines that are on the more aggro side..

i ran horribly as seen by the 'ev' line, however it's still a great week overall!

this is ALL 6-max 1/2 across a couple different sites.

[bspahn]

just put in my new setup, itll take some time to get used to it but it's pretty sweet.

i sit in a Stressless chair (by ekornes)

dual 37" LG HDTVs running DVI to HDMI and using "justscan" function which displays 1:1 pixel by pixel from the PC and is very sharp.



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[Donachello]

Ridiculously sick. Now you just gotta make sure those TVs pay for themselves

[EasyPoker]

Baller setup

[kmind]

That's sick man. What site do you play on again?

It's pretty cool watching you start that thread about being really frustrated to being a big winner.