Sp(r)in(ts) & Go(als) - SmartSpinning

Good luck and nice work in 2014

Thanks scottc.

Small recap of past few days.
After coming back home from New Years celebration, next day realized that i had a sore throat, and wasn't feeling too good overall, so ended up playing only 60 games, next day and yesterday 120 games each, 300 games total so far. I felt a bit rusty poker wise, found myself in spots where i didn't know what is the best play, and that is not a good things while playing 30 tables. After last nights session put in some work ~2h reviewing hh and did some database analyse, filtered out specific situations that i thought needed some work.

Today did 1.5h study session with a friend and wrote this blog, soon will start my grind.

Good luck!

Will be hoping to avoid you alot ♦

Good luck with that, it should not be that hard just don't play 180s between 16:30 - 22:00 CET. ♦

Just ended my session, happy about volume - 170 games, felt focused and in the zone for most of the grind, managed to do some meditation before the grind, but that wasn't an easy task, mind was all over the place today, will try to do it before each session. Got a bit frustrated at times, just seemed like i lost all the flips at f2t or fts, but well you can't win them all.

So far 1734 vpps this year.

Day 5

2h hh review in the morning, most productive review this year, saw some miss clicks and some silly mistakes in yesterdays game - means i need to concentrate more while playing , found few other leaks, one of them, being a bit too loose at final table. Seems like i hit the jackpot and discovered some really profitable spots where i can mr/f more, but that area def needs more work. Will need to filter out just these spots in PT to see my opponents tendencies in these spots.

Decided to make todays grind shorter - only 46 games. 1852 VPPs

Day 6

Decided to take a day off, didn't sleep enough, still fighting the cold. Managed to get in 2h study session in the morning, watched few tv series, through the day drank ~ 3l hot herbal tea, that really helped and i was able to get a good nights sleep.

Day 7

Feeling way better today, i will start my session soon, prob a bit shorter than normal, but that seems to be the best option as i am not sure for how long i can maintain my A game.

Update: Managed to put in ~110 games.

Day 8 & 9

Took both days off, decided it would be the best to take a break while i was still fighting with that flu, these past few days have been quite hard, wanted to do way more than i could handle, over reached a bit, in total i did ~8h studying that seems quite good, but it wasn't as productive as i would like, as 1/2 of it was done while feeling just terrible.

In these past 2 days i did watch ~5 movies, some good some bad, i will try and write short summaries about them here when i have time, goal behind it is to improve my writing skills as this is not my first language, so its still quite hard to express myself fully the way i would want, that is one of the reasons why this blog is not much fun to read atm, hopefully in the future it will get better, not that i care much ♦ as i am quite selfish and i am doing this for myself, but who knows maybe somebody can get something out of this too.

There will be few other challenges for myself that i want to get done, but as i am not fully recovered and there is no real progress done, i will just post it a bit later.

Day 10

Biggest grind of the year so far, i did manage to put in 209 games last night, so it brings yearly VPP score to 3092.

Day 11

2.5h hh review session today, looked at last nights plays, nothing special comes in mind about it, mostly just checked if i have played okey, needed a bit of reassurance that most of the bad results this year comes from variance that isn't on my side atm, at these times seems like best medicine is studying hard and just putting in the volume, that is all i can influence, so results and graphs don't matter that much.

Day 12 & 13

Took both days off, watched some movies, and played a lot of Hearthstone, prob a bit too much, could have used that time a bit efficient , but i needed some cool down from the bad start of the year result wise at 180s.

I have decided that it is time to revel another 2 of my goals that i set at the beginning of the year.

Quit smoking
Lose 10kg of weight by 1st of June

I cant say i am too overweight, i just don't do enough exercise, it was okey in the summer when i did workout and run 2-4x a week, felt pretty good all the time, than came the Autumn and it started to rain a lot and it was very easy to find excuses. In last 4 months i gained ~8kg, don't know the exact number but that is still way more than i would like.

Quitting smoking came with losing weight, it just made the most sense, i wanted to do it a while ago. I am not a heavy smoker anymore, 1 year a go i did smoke 2 packs in 3 days, that was my usual rate. 6 months ago i slowly cut down on that to 3-7 cigs a day, depending on my mood. It has been 9 days since i smoked my last cig, atm it feels quite easy, there have been some temptation but nothing i can't handle, i guess the hardest part will be not to smoke at the partys to break this habit.

So i did my first workout today, goal is to do 3 workouts a week and at least 1 other activity (swimming, running, skating, skiing or something like that), once it will be warmer here, i will start to run or cycle frequently and prob will try to prepare myself for some competition (10km or half marathon). I cant say it for sure, as these small goals can change a bit.

To make it a bit interesting for myself i challenged a friend of mine to lose 10kg too, he told me that he is in for it, but it is not official as we have not agreed about the details. To maximize the value of this challenge we will need to donate x amount to a charity of our choice if we fail, there might be some changes here, to add some fixed amount to be donated either way if we fail or achieve it. After the 1st of June, there will be several check ins to see if each of us are still doing the work to maintain the form we have achieved, there should be some kind of penalties if we have felt back in our old habits and failed.

Just wanted to get this out there to make myself accountable. If you have read this and you have some cool ideas about these challenges that i could implement them, post here.

It has been a week since my last post. Will start with current goal updates.

SN - 4.5% done
Current weight ~91.5kg target 84kg.
16 days without smoking.

I am a bit behind my SN schedule , but it wasn't all my fault, as i wasn't able to multi table properly because of PT bug. However, I did put in some volume, mostly grinding ~10 tables without hud. Interesting and a bit refreshing experience, i had totally forgotten how it was to play without HUD, thought it would be almost impossible, but actually it wasn't as bad. I saw how much i overvalue my HUD. That is the reason why i decided to get rid of some useless stats from my HUD.

Found some big leaks in my game, biggest ones - shoving too wide from early pos and too tight from late. I noticed that i give too much respect to other regs, that results in a lot of missed opportunities. So i started from the beginning, focused on my push/fold game, with and without ante. Did a lot of work with my database and filters, getting better with it, seems like i got some pretty interesting results, but i will need to check them again, if i didn't make a mistake with filters. Prob will share my findings in upcoming weeks if anyone will be interested.

I am really happy about setting this goal to get in shape and improve my health overall. So far everything is going great, 4 work outs done. Today i started my running season, i thought i will start it only in March, when it will get warmer. It was -5 degrees snow and ice everywhere, but i still managed not to fall on my ass, it was 1-1.5km lap prob. Didn't want to push myself too hard as it was the first time i have ever run in these conditions.

Another week has gone by. It's time for another update.

SN - 6.1% done
Current weight ~91.5kg target 84kg.
22 days without smoking.

Volume wise it could be better, but atm i am playing only ~20 tables so it is not likely i will get in 200+ games a day, however i did manage to get 146 games last Thursday. Result wise it has been BE or a small profit, dont know exactly. My mindset has changed a lot since i started this blog. I came here with that big ass reg attitude, that i am one of the best regs out there, but now i feel like i was just pretending to be better than i was and it is hard to see through your own shit layer you have built up.

I start to see some positive signs in my game developing, but need some sample size to know for sure if i am going in right direction. I believe it was total of 15h of studying last week, hitting the books pretty hard. Wrote a piece here how to explore your own database https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=1986951#post1986951 I am filtering diff stuff there, i try to check on daily bases if i have made any mistakes in my push/fold game, filtering these hands out and then exporting them and importing in HRC to use the quick analyze option, really great feature, but you need to understand when you can use it and when you need to put your own stats in to have reliable answers. After this i realized that i have quite a lot of mistakes, as i mentioned in last weeks post i am too tight from late pos and too loose from ep. I am overvaluing Ax hands from utg, and undervaluing Q9s, K9s, J9s etc. I think it has been there for a long time, i remember that few years back i thought if i managed to get it in good, that was all i was able to do and that why it was the best play, i didn't know much about equity and about ranges back than, i am still a bit reluctant sometimes, but i am working on this atm, these spots are easy to calculate so math behind it is 100% right.

That lead me to small side project i made my own push/fold charts from HRC 7-12bb eff.

It's really great way to learn these ranges. I decided to not go below 7bb as i feel that if i know these then it shouldn't be that hard to adjust correctly. Over 12bb just feels a bit unnecessary because exploitable approach is more profitable. In near future i will try to create a bit more balanced opening ranges, where i will have mr/c mr/f and just shove.

Found out about some really great twitch streams out there, few of those for micro/low stakes grinders are the best value to learn, guys are streaming for 6+h every day and explaining their thought processes very well for you and they answers your questions on the spot as well. I recommend to check them out.

I have fulfilled my last weeks training plan, did 2 runs and 3 workouts, start to feel really good and i can see some muscle developing, so all good there, haven't smoked for 22 days now, so if you read this and you are still smoking- quit it, it's all in your head, if you were able to get rid of your tilt problem than you will be able to quit.

Cheers.

Its been more than a year since i posted here. Nice to look back at it and see how i viewed everything back than. Quite a lot has changed.
This blog was a success, even if it lasted only for few weeks. I did set some great goals and more importantly i made them public, just so i cant back down later on.

Biggest achievements of last year : Currently it has been 405 days since i last smoked. (The total number of days between Thursday, January 1st, 2015 and Wednesday, February 10th, 2016 is 405 days.) Looking back at this time i feel really happy about it, that i have succeeded. For my surprise it has been surprisingly easy. So for anyone who looks for a way to quit, just do it, its hard but probably its way easier than you think and its def worth it, if you want to improve your success rate make it as public as possible and search for a different way to deal with your stress and emotions.

To cut it short, my goal for last year was to lose 10kg in 5 months. I did it in 6, but than i realized that i was only half way there, while doing exercises 2-3x times a week, i also made several improvements in my diet, that helped me lose extra 6kg, so overall last year i did lose 16kg of my body fat and i am currently at 78kg, just going for 30 min run and than doing several exercises on a mat. Now i can see and feel some nice muscle on my body, nothing too impressive, but quite okey for my standards. It has been a long road, its still fresh in my mind how i struggled with that 1.5km lap in the beginning, now its almost an addiction, but its a good addiction, comparing how i did thing back than and now, it like a night and day. But you have to start somewhere and make those mistakes and slowly finding better solutions for everything.

That will be it for now. Idea is to start writing again, at least get some other goals out there for future, and maybe a little recap of past year.

Getting back to poker related stuff. Now i am am playing Spins since late September, started in 7s and now i am playing 15s, overall graph in spoiler. Had to switch because 180s were almost dead and i was struggling to keep up with the best regs.
It has been very interesting journey so far, first few months were miserable, i had no clue what i was doing and what i was suppose to do. I switched from 180s were your VPIP is around 25-30. In spins you have to play 60+. It just forces you to be in so many difficult spots that leads to a lot of mistakes. I had to ask a lot of questions that i didnt know even existed, but all this has helped me to become a better poker player. There is still long way to go to reach the top, but i am willing to fight.
Overall graph
Todays session
So a bit about todays session, i did play 60 games with cev of 3, this was my second day playing 3 tables, it seemed quite okey at the beginning, but later on i did get a bit overwhelmed with action and was not able think through every decision that lead to making extra mistakes post flop. What i have observed is that i have started to play tighter in certain situation, to avoid difficult decisions on later streets, tomorrow i will check what did happen with that red line.

Today was my day off from grinding. So i did spend ~2h studying, took closer look at 3handed BB play from last 3 days, there were fewer mistakes than i expected, so seems like i am covered in that area for now. After that i switched my focus on HU SB play, that has been one of the most problematic parts of my game. Before i started i knew that, because i started 3 tabling i was folding too much, vpip from SB only ~75% should be 90%+, but in reality it wasn't that bad because of the opponents i was facing. Few of them had super high iso % so not much i was able to do when the stacks drops down to 10-15bb.
Biggest problem was mu post flop lines, i was cbeting too much, my opponents dont know where fold button is, so i end up putting myself in a lot of difficult and weird spots on turn and river with weak showdown hands. Because thay are not folding flops to my cbets its way better to check back more and bet every turn card if checked to you, as it seems they are starting to be more honest there.

Tomorrow the plan is to warm up with looking at 3h SB play as its one of the hardest positions.

After studying i did 15 min. meditation and than went for a run. It was only +2 degrees outside + wind and a bit of rain as we have a "winter" in Latvia atm. Rest of the day spent watching biathlon and LCS.

Good luck!

Thanks Kerieone.

Started my day with watching that 3h SB play, saw few too fancy plays and way too much cbeting as i was expecting it before.
First 2 sessions of the day was 3tabling, beginning was really great, at the end of the 2nd my focus started to slip a bit and i decided to end my 2nd session after 45 games. For the 3rd session i decided to play only 2 tables, as graph shows my play got better, but at the same time red line started to drop again, as i was trying to outplay my opponents too much prob, will see that tomorrow when i will watch todays hands before starting my session. Liked the volume today 72 games is quite solid for now. I was thinking about doing my 4th session but than my power went out for whole area around me for 2h. Luckily my laptops battery can last 3+h.

Quite unfortunate weekend, my internet went out on Saturday so i was forced to take 2 days off, got it back only today. I am disappointed with my play today, even if it there were many set ups, i still dropped the ball way too many times in easy situations same as before, seems that my approach to the game has changed in the wrong way in the last 2 weeks. Will need to look back and see what i am doing now and what i did before, maybe it will help to get back on the horse.

Short session today, had doctors appointment in afternoon, to get new glasses. Spin session felt a bit better than yesterdays, noticed that i was too passive vs non regs post flop. One of the leaks that i noticed was not asking myself enough questions. I am trying to play my default strategy vs every opponent, but thats not always the best thing to do, because i have so much information available and i am not using it correctly to identify their weaknesses, that i could exploit. I need to maintain the focus while i play for whole session, not just for short periods of time.

I did go back and watch some HU hyper videos, most of them were about relentless aggression, where i noticed the difference how i am playing vs those guys that mr 80% of hands, i am just too tight, example, i am BB 15bb eff and my opp is oppening 70% from SB, in general i would have 3bet shove maybe 25% call extra 10% with bottom suited stuff and folded the rest, but according to nash i should shove 45%, so i am loosing a lot of $$ versus those guys, even if calling is better than folding i imagine that i am probably folding to too many cbets anyway.

That just shows how much i still have to learn, have to put in the time and work with HRC in near future to improve my 10-18bb play. I will to create and put on paper different ranges for my opponents, what is really in my opponents 30% mr range when he also has 18% OS and 20% limp for example.

Pretty interesting day, first time in a while i feel good about my play and the progress, definitely way better than yesterday, did a bit of a work with HRC in the morning, and i was on to the good start, but wasnt super confident about that relentless aggression from SB, but after the 2nd session i checked recently played hands and i put my mind at ease a bit, seeing that i played quite well.

So i continued with relentless aggression, even if that is not quite sustainable as my VPIP/PRF for today is 92/73, i had to be careful vs calling stations and some regs, but overall i was surprised how much they did fold to my mr and cbets.

At the end there were few unfortunate but lucky spots that did ruin that graph a bit.

HU SB graph:

Overall graph:

Oldschool "How much is the fish?"