NL100 or I quit poker

It's just incredible how after having my best day ever, I have the worst, f-word this game.

My shot at NL5 was shit, broke even for 10k hands, shot at NL10 was horrible, quickly had a -8BI downswing, and now obviously I lost at NL16 as well, why would it go well after all?

On the plus side, there are still many horrible regs, I find is so puzzling. At least that means that there's no reason for me to move down. Got dealt 91 pocket pairs today, flopped 4 sets. Last set was TT on Txx rainbow, in a squeezed pot, I lost vs T4s.

I was quite tilted halfway through the session, I was having some hot flashes and some tingling in my body, and it must have affected my game because my redline started to drop so much after that that it can't be only because of variance (or can it?) but I can't point specifically what I am doing wrong. It's like, when I am on tilt I am doing more stuff that is wrong, but what is it? Also, my NL10 graph shows a redline that's plunging very deep (losing over -15bb/100) but I had a EV9.5bb/100 winrate on the sample, so it's not that my redline goes down when I'm on tilt, the story is more complicated. That being said, I don't think it's only variance that today I lost ~400BB at NSD in 800 hands.

It's pretty clear to me that I am tilted by variance and losing to regs that I think are complete trash. If I would be playing NL1000, my default approach to losing to regs who I think did something weird would be to think that they know something I don't, and that's not the case now, however reading the Mental Game of Poker did not help, but I am probably not taking enough action.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, I am capable of playing well/having a breakeven readline when playing my A-Game, my standard game is OK but redline drops more, and C-Game/tilt is the last 800 hands of today, but it's a subtle kind of tilt because it's not like I do cliché tilted stuff, in fact, I was so far mostly thinking that my A- and C-Game are pretty close to each other but I am probably be very wrong. Or maybe when I had a breakeven redline it's because I was just running super good, either because I had good hands or villains were at the bottom of their range. I have no clue basically ♦

For sure I need to do some studying, I'll create and save some reports in PT4 to look at what could be wrong, and myabe I should strongly reconsider playing for over 1k for the time being

Et voilà, that's it for the toxic post

Originally posted by Swish29
It's just incredible how after having my best day ever, I have the worst, f-word this game.

This is fairly common, I think.
It is a form of a mental-game misplay, where it seems that your rungood will continue.

I’m also trying to beat NL2 right now.

Holy shit that sounds intense! Good luck with that, never had a 10BI+ losing session and my biggest downswing over these 100k hands was 16BI, and I never shot higher limites when on tilt

on red line and tilt...
i'm not sure that an even red line is the way to go in these limits. the regs that i see with non-negative redline are all calling stations, and the other regs that i regard as the best ones all have slightly declining redline in the "larger" samples.
maintaining an even red line seems to be, for the most part, a side effect of running hot.

however, you're probably also right. if you check all hands of your C-game, it's likely that you'll find a fair number of small mistakes in small pots.

Originally posted by Surrrrr
And you may think Iam degen

don't fool yourself, yes that's degen. try adding a stakes restriction if you have to, many networks support it.

Originally posted by Tomaloc
on red line and tilt...
i'm not sure that an even red line is the way to go in these limits. the regs that i see with non-negative redline are all calling stations, and the other regs that i regard as the best ones all have slightly declining redline in the "larger" samples.
maintaining an even red line seems to be, for the most part, a side effect of running hot.

however, you're probably also right. if you check all hands of your C-game, it's likely that you'll find a fair number of small mistakes in small pots.

Yes the truth is prob somewhere in between, this is my NL10 graph for instance:

On one hand it is probably correct to have a redline that goes down at NL10, but that's quite extreme.

On this sample at NL10, I played 32/23, 37% of fold to 3bet, but I fold too much to cbets flop/turn/river (also in 3bet pots), check/fold too many flops as PFR, and check back fold / fold turn too much to probe as well. So I should likely defend my BB less, open less, cc less, & fold more to 3bets. I think it's pretty clear from this blog that I ooze douchebaggery* and that I think I'm better than most regs, so I'm playing like a lagtard that thinks he can destroy everyone, and as a consequence I have super wide ranges preflop, which makes me put money into pots with weak hands that rarely get to see a showdown.

*but it only shows when I play poker, in real life I'm a nice guy (nice without expecting something in return)

Well, looks like I'm quitting poker, at least temporarily.

PS is forcing its shit Aurora engine on players, I can't disable it anymore.

It's the only site on which I can play, I could try PP but then I would have to register in Czech Republic (I'm a foreigner here), because I need some number etc. and I could never be bothered to do it before.

I have a laptop that I bought in mid 2018, can you believe it? Sure it was a random laptop, some i5 8th and 8Gb of Ram but that's still unbelievable.

Edit: I have a GE Force MX150, that seems to be the problem. I tried playing again with lowest settings everywhere and it crashed after a minute, and I had a 100% peak in activity in the GPU usage

Originally posted by Swish29
Well, looks like I'm quitting poker, at least temporarily.

PS is forcing its shit Aurora engine on players, I can't disable it anymore.

It's the only site on which I can play, I could try PP but then I would have to register in Czech Republic (I'm a foreigner here), because I need some number etc. and I could never be bothered to do it before.

I have a laptop that I bought in mid 2018, can you believe it? Sure it was a random laptop, some i5 8th and 8Gb of Ram but that's still unbelievable.

Edit: I have a GE Force MX150, that seems to be the problem. I tried playing again with lowest settings everywhere and it crashed after a minute, and I had a 100% peak in activity in the GPU usage

Have you tried to update de Nvidia driver? Maybe with a newer driver the system stops to crash.

I updated Nvidia Driver, PS, and tweaked some GPU settings and it seems to work. Probably a blessing from the God of my mentally challenged friends, so that I conveniently dump them my money:

1st hand is on the 22$ Mini EPT, rest is NL16 going badly:

PokerStars - 400/800 Ante 100 NL (8 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 68,263
UTG: 22,200
Hero (UTG+1): 21,108
MP: 62,048
MP+1: 32,839
CO: 34,119
BTN: 43,672
SB: 35,023

8 players post ante of 100, SB posts SB 400, BB posts BB 800

Pre Flop: (pot: 2,000) Hero has J♦ J♣

fold, Hero raises to 1,680, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 880

Flop: (4,560, 2 players) 6♥ T♠ T♣
BB checks, Hero bets 1,505, BB raises to 3,776, Hero raises to 7,773, BB calls 3,997

Turn: (20,106, 2 players) 5♣
BB bets 16,085, Hero calls 11,555 and is all-in

River: (43,216, 2 players) 7♥

BB shows 3♣ 4♣ (Straight, Seven High)
(Pre 20%, Flop 7%, Turn 32%)
Hero shows J♦ J♣ (Two Pair, Jacks and Tens)
(Pre 80%, Flop 93%, Turn 68%)
BB wins 43,216

PokerStars - $0.16 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: $16.55
Hero (MP): $21.90
CO: $20.40
BTN: $18.31
SB: $15.26
BB: $34.15

SB posts SB $0.08, BB posts BB $0.16

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.24) Hero has Q♠ Q♣

fold, Hero raises to $0.40, fold, BTN calls $0.40, SB raises to $15.26 and is all-in, fold, Hero raises to $21.90 and is all-in, fold

Flop: ($31.08, 2 players) J♦ 9♠ T♠

Turn: ($31.08, 2 players) 9♥

River: ($31.08, 2 players) 7♣

SB cashed out $24.08 for a fee of $0.24

SB shows K♠ K♥ (Two Pair, Kings and Nines)
(Pre 82%, Flop 77%, Turn 86%)
Hero shows Q♠ Q♣ (Two Pair, Queens and Nines)
(Pre 18%, Flop 23%, Turn 14%)

PokerStars - $0.16 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: $11.16
SB: $16.00
Hero (BB): $21.98
UTG: $16.00
MP: $26.04
CO: $16.00

SB posts SB $0.08, Hero posts BB $0.16

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.24) Hero has J♣ 4♠

fold, fold, fold, BTN calls $0.16, fold, Hero checks

Flop: ($0.40, 2 players) J♥ 7♥ 8♣
Hero bets $0.19, BTN calls $0.19

Turn: ($0.78, 2 players) 4♣
Hero checks, BTN bets $0.74, Hero raises to $2.41, BTN raises to $10.81 and is all-in, Hero calls $8.40

River: ($22.40, 2 players) 9♣

Hero shows J♣ 4♠ (Two Pair, Jacks and Fours)
(Pre 31%, Flop 4%, Turn 5%)
BTN shows 8♦ J♦ (Two Pair, Jacks and Eights)
(Pre 69%, Flop 96%, Turn 95%)
BTN wins $21.39
Rake paid $1.01

PokerStars - $0.16 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: $16.58
Hero (UTG): $23.34
CO: $20.03
BTN: $17.90
SB: $17.32

SB posts SB $0.08, BB posts BB $0.16

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.24) Hero has Q♦ K♦

Hero raises to $0.40, fold, fold, fold, BB calls $0.24

Flop: ($0.88, 2 players) 6♦ 5♦ 3♦
BB checks, Hero bets $0.56, BB raises to $1.87, Hero calls $1.31

Turn: ($4.62, 2 players) 8♣
BB bets $4.41, Hero raises to $20.95, BB calls $9.90 and is all-in

River: ($33.24, 2 players) 9♥
Players agreed to run it twice.

River #2: ($33.24, 2 players) 5♣

BB shows 3♥ 3♣ (Three of a Kind, Threes)
Board #1 (Pre 49%, Flop 35%, Turn 23%)
(Full House, Threes full of Fives)
Board #2 (Pre 49%, Flop 35%, Turn 23%)

Hero shows Q♦ K♦ (Flush, King High)
Board #1 (Pre 51%, Flop 65%, Turn 77%)
(Flush, King High)
Board #2 (Pre 51%, Flop 65%, Turn 77%)

BB wins $15.87
Rake paid $1.50
Hero wins $15.87

Edit:

How convenient! This idiot went for a horrible cbet sizing but the other 2 players have 2p vs his set, so exhausting

PokerStars - $0.16 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: $20.98
Hero (BTN): $16.30
SB: $16.00
BB: $16.00
UTG: $21.38

SB posts SB $0.08, BB posts BB $0.16

Pre Flop: (pot: $0.24) Hero has 9♣ T♦

fold, fold, Hero raises to $0.40, SB raises to $1.44, BB calls $1.28, Hero calls $1.04

Flop: ($4.32, 3 players) T♣ 7♠ 9♠
SB bets $1.36, BB raises to $4.79, Hero raises to $14.86 and is all-in, SB calls $13.20 and is all-in, BB calls $9.77 and is all-in

Turn: ($48.00, 3 players) 7♥

River: ($48.00, 3 players) 3♥

SB shows 7♦ 7♣ (Four of a Kind, Sevens)

BB shows T♥ 9♥ (Two Pair, Tens and Nines)

Hero shows 9♣ T♦ (Two Pair, Tens and Nines)

SB wins $46.50
Rake paid $1.50

Fuck this game

Also flopping very little sets and winning next to nothing with them

Originally posted by Swish29
I updated Nvidia Driver, PS, and tweaked some GPU settings and it seems to work. Probably a blessing from the God of my mentally challenged friends, so that I conveniently dump them my money:

Good news -- at least regarding the computer performance.

Best of luck on the rest of it...
VS

I am so fucking tired of this shit honestly, had a +10BI day at NL10 followed by a -10BI swing at NL16, lost over 1/3 of my roll to complete idiots

It's just ridiculous, I flopped 14 sets out of 184 pocket pairs with rate at NL16, with sets my winrate is 185bb/100, at NL10 it was 1947bb/100 in EV

This game is so fucking toxic to me, I am thinking of quitting again, I feel quite hopeless. All the books I read didn't help, 8+ hours of coaching with Jared Tendler didn't help (at least for poker, but I got some serious life coaching), and now I absolutely cannot afford to try my luck with another coach. Honestly, if a coach could help me solve my tilt issues I would gladly burn 1k USD for that but past coaching experiences make me skeptical.

Looks like it can go 2 ways, either I move up where most regulars are not mentally challenged and losing to them does not drive me insane, or I quit before that

Are you working out ?

Yes, usually every 2 days, I have some equipment at home and I am doing calisthenics type of stuff. I have been consistent at it only recently and I managed to do my 1st chin-up ever in June, now I can do 7 consecutively. Not sure how to workout legs at home though, but I'll buy a weighted vest soon (that goes up to 40kg). Recently I have had issues with pull-ups, I start to have pain in my shoulder after the 4th series, I probably have wrong execution (and I am still using an elastic band for pull-ups, it's a very weak one and I did not have that issue with the stronger ones)

I ordered "Dailyness" from Tommy Angelo, it should help me meditate consistently, that should help in general.

Good stuff, keep it up. Try to do some cardio too, perfectly would be before session.

Originally posted by Surrrrr
Good stuff, keep it up. Try to do some cardio too, perfectly would be before session.

I actually never heard that and heard the opposite many times.

If that works for you, great, every body is different, and you prob have different goals, but I would like to become stronger so it won't really work for me

I cannot really understand how is possible to win the way you are playing and with 33/23 stats, but it is your money after all:). It is so easy to play vs someone like you! You are over defending, over playing and over bluffing as hell with wide ranges, you cannot defend theoretically!:)
The players are so bad, that you don't even need to bluff in order to beat NL10 with ABC poker and solid tight preflop ranges like 22/18/8:)

Yeah tighten ranges and start to actually folding to 3bets more. Opponents should 3bet you with top heavy ranges as 36% fold to 3bet is absurdly low imo. Especially considering how loose you play in first place. I would imagine population to not be 3betting as wide as they should theoretically anyway so we could be probably overfolding from that view.

Also hands you posted above are eye catching. Maybe done having reads to support lines. But in mtt 3betting JJ on TT6? Villain x-r on flop should be trips or 66 for value.

J4o hand hitting two pairs on pretty dangerous board. X-r turn seems pretty optimistic without strong read that villain overplay hands a lot. SPR is really high in it on turn.

T9o facing 3bet and cold call. Should we be involved in postflop or fold preflop?

So tighten preflop and you will find postflop lot easier. Perhaps that red line start to get lot better also...

Yeah you have valid points.

The JJ hand: I had a read that villain was playing back a lot, my hand dislikes every turn except 5-, T and J so I 3bet expecting villain to 4b or playback a lot. I think he could do that with 6x for protection, and shove his 48 gutshots + 6x.

The J4o: I would have folded to a snap 3bet shove because I was worried about the 32 combos of straights villain has, because he tanked I thought they were in his range less frequently.

T9o: I don't regret the call pf, I expect people on play face up in MW pots, especially when a cold call represents a very good hand. I should have folded the flop, expecting the cold caller to have a set most of the time and not a lot of combo draws, this was a mistake.

vengeance77: Yes, I also don't understand. It's showing how bad the regs are at my games if they let me get away with being so loose. As a consequence, because I think they are bad, I play looser, and because I still win I keep on doing it. It most likely won't last long.

If you have decent hand sample I would filter some of those border line hands and see how you are doing with them. Real question is if you would make more profit by being tighter.

T9o: Well if you get one of best flops possible after making that preflop call you should be playing for stacks.

I have ~100k hands.

I will check my RFI with ranges that are outside recommended RFI ranges and see my winrate with these. I will use the video "Preflop Powerup - Raise First In Strategies (1)" for reference.

w34z3l's RFI % | my RFI % -> How much more I open

EP: 13.9 | 20.1 -> x1.45
MP: 18.6 | 23 -> x1.24
CO: 26.7 | 31.9 -> x1.19
BT: 47.5 | 54.7 -> x1.15
SB: 36.7 | 59.9 -> x1.63

Here is my winrate with what's not in the recommended ranges:

EP:

MP:

CO:

BT:

SB:

It's hard for me to draw a clear conclusion with this data, I also played 7k hands at NL16 and didn't run good.

If we dismiss the NL16 data, I guess I could tighten up in EP/CO, and do a finer analysis in SB, because folding is -25bb/100, I may make more money / lose less by raising more, but maybe that would be pushing it.

Also, whatever I do, it seems reasonable to think that I could open wider that the standard ranges, just maybe not as wide as what I do. It will probably be more and more difficult to open wider, regs will have a larger sample and adjust, and I will move up where regs are better.

Why do I have an overall negative winrate in EP, but not in MP? My ranges are not that much wider in MP, but they are in EP. Is it that people tend to respect more EP's opens? Variance? Seems weird that in MP it went well at NL5 but not NL10.

The most reasonable thing to do I guess would be to drop the bottom of my opening ranges, i.e. in EP, instead of opening 20.1% I should aim at 18% or whatever, still much higher than the recommended 13.9%. I sound like a retard to me when I say this, while it makes sense to want to have minimum defense frequencies and say things like "I will try to fold not more than 50% to 3bets", saying "I will try to open 18% in EP" is not the same, we don't know for sure what are profitable opens etc. we just have approximations from solvers and that's it. Moreover, if I drop the bottom of my range, the top of my range will make less money.

What I could do is open 100% of the recommended range and be more mindful with the rest, and have a good reason to open otherwise (i.e. 1 or 2 recs in the blinds if I have 22 in EP, not an aggressive guy OTB if I open CO etc.)