Hacking my way as a live pro in 2014

[hackmeplz]

First session of 2014, gonna be a good one I can see:

 

[hackmeplz]

lol how do I resize that?

 

[vinylspiros]

First hand of 2014:

Pre Flop: ($3.00) Hero is BB with 4♣ 8♦
2 folds, CO raises to $4, 3 folds

Final Pot: $5.00
CO wins $5.00

LOL

 

[Blobweird123]

lol how do I resize that?

Save as jpeg, not png.

 

[Pokertron3000]

Gl Zach, will follow the thread and hopefully learn a thing or three.

 

[LD1977]

lol how do I resize that?

I am using a small free tool called Irfan View, it is great for picture manipulation (you can edit, resize, reduce DPI as needed).

 

[hackmeplz]

[x] on pace for sne in 2014
[x] on pace to lose a million dollars in 2014

 

[redwards92]

Are you strictly playing zoom or do you mix in reg tables ?

 

[WVHillbilly]

[x] on pace for sne in 2014
[x] on pace to lose a million dollars in 2014

Ouch.

 

[vinylspiros]

Are you strictly playing zoom or do you mix in reg tables ?

IMO,after having played a few hundred thousand hands on zoom,there is no turning back. Wonder what OP thinks about that.

 

[baudib1]

I played against Hackmeplz and managed to avoid monkey spewing too much.

 

[vitvit111]

how much money is for SNE?

 

[hackmeplz]

Well that was fast. While I haven't given up or anything, I'm sort of taking a step back and re-evaluating my game. I'll probably post a graph when I'm on my desktop again, but I'm stuck ~5k (3k below ev). I'm like a day behind pace for sne but I've realized that putting in 8k hand days when I'm in a bad mindset is not the best way for me to maximize my earnings. While I'm definitely still in the hunt for sne, the last week has been pretty humbling and sometimes I seriously feel like I'm just clicking random buttons. I've had sessions where I knew I was playing badly so I kept grinding just for the vpps and those have typically been the bad ones. If I can start winning/feeling better about my game maybe I'll be able to put in big volume days. But for now I'm going to make sure that every session I'm playing it will be my A game, and if this means I don't get sne, it's just not worth throwing away money to get some of my rake back by the end of the year. Hopefully I can turn things around and get back on sne pace, but for now that's a secondary goal.

Also I think I'll probably record my next session and post it here. Talking through my thoughts out loud may be what I need to make sure I'm thinking about the game well, and hopefully people will watch/comment on it which will further help me.

 

[loafes]

^be good to watch, and as you say might well be a benefit to hear your own thought process.


Also I take it you've already opted in to the JumpStart promotion? 1000 extra VPPs just for typing in a word.

 

[RamdeeBen]

As much as I want to see you achieve SNE it's for sure a more sensible idea to look at your game rather than endlessly grinding out VPP's especially if you're feeling like you're just clicking buttons and not even in the right frame of mind. I've heard of horror stories of people chasing SNE and ended up busting or moving down to the point where it's just not possible anymore and then have to grind back up to the stakes they was playing.

GL Zach.

 

[Cafeman]

Also I think I'll probably record my next session and post it here. Talking through my thoughts out loud may be what

Yes, do this!

Also, while I am not in the same boat, I know what it feels like to be grinding for VPPs and sitting there playing badly and knowing I'm playing badly but still carrying on. Like a lot of problems, the first step is identifying it, and you're already there by the sounds of it.

Looking forward to seeing your vid.

 

[Debi]

Well that was fast. While I haven't given up or anything, I'm sort of taking a step back and re-evaluating my game. I'll probably post a graph when I'm on my desktop again, but I'm stuck ~5k (3k below ev). I'm like a day behind pace for sne but I've realized that putting in 8k hand days when I'm in a bad mindset is not the best way for me to maximize my earnings. While I'm definitely still in the hunt for sne, the last week has been pretty humbling and sometimes I seriously feel like I'm just clicking random buttons. I've had sessions where I knew I was playing badly so I kept grinding just for the vpps and those have typically been the bad ones. If I can start winning/feeling better about my game maybe I'll be able to put in big volume days. But for now I'm going to make sure that every session I'm playing it will be my A game, and if this means I don't get sne, it's just not worth throwing away money to get some of my rake back by the end of the year. Hopefully I can turn things around and get back on sne pace, but for now that's a secondary goal.

Also I think I'll probably record my next session and post it here. Talking through my thoughts out loud may be what I need to make sure I'm thinking about the game well, and hopefully people will watch/comment on it which will further help me.

Your head is in the right place and good that you get here mentally this quickly.

 

[Matt Vaughan]

Omg, please record and post vid. Actually don't post it, just send it to me

 

[LuckyChippy]

I'll be reading, it might motivate me a little. It's a much better decision to step back if you're feeling like this rather than just ploughing on. Best of luck!

Also, if a picture is a crazy size just right click view image in a new tab and you can see it properly.

 

[baudib1]

Hack:
Don't know how much of this would be asking too much or is personal or w/e. But I am pretty sure we would all love to follow your process in re-evaluating your game. What kind of things are you looking at, and where are you having problems? Is it specific spots vs. certain types of players or is it solely problems with the mental game (from your post, this sounds like it could be, even players as experienced and accomplished as yourself could be having problems in this area, i.e. playing too much while on your C game, etc.)

I'm sure you'll work your way through it, good luck.

 

[Matt Vaughan]

+1 to baud's post.

 

[hackmeplz]

Hack:
Don't know how much of this would be asking too much or is personal or w/e. But I am pretty sure we would all love to follow your process in re-evaluating your game. What kind of things are you looking at, and where are you having problems? Is it specific spots vs. certain types of players or is it solely problems with the mental game (from your post, this sounds like it could be, even players as experienced and accomplished as yourself could be having problems in this area, i.e. playing too much while on your C game, etc.)

I'm sure you'll work your way through it, good luck.

ok so I know this may not be a common view in the poker world, but I think the whole talk of A game, B game, C game, etc. is super overblown. I get that I'm going to make some mistakes, but for the most part I'm going to make what I feel is the best play every time. What I think is the best play in a certain spot is not going to change from session to session without working on my game. So I don't think it's that I'm on my "C game" or anything, I'm just not happy with my game in general.

The biggest spots I'm struggling with are the small pot hands that come up super-often which might be the most important spots. I think the spots I'm messing up the most are essentially river spots where one of us has a range of almost exclusively bluff-catchers. I constantly find myself in spots where I have no clue the frequency of people bluffing various runouts and similarly no clue the frequency of which I'm being called down on various runouts. I'm not playing exploitative and I also know I'm nowhere close to balanced and I'm sure some of the better players are exploiting me.

I ended up taking yesterday completely off, as I hadn't yet had one of those this year yet. I'll try to make a video today.

 

[baudib1]

I constantly find myself in spots where I have no clue the frequency of people bluffing various runouts and similarly no clue the frequency of which I'm being called down on various runouts. I'm not playing exploitative and I also know I'm nowhere close to balanced and I'm sure some of the better players are exploiting me.

This seems like it's definitely a spot where you can study GTO strat to at least figure out how much of your range you need to call with or bluff with.

 

[itsmebobd]

Seems all the cool kids have a thread so gonna make this one instead of cluttering the monthly thread all the time. I'm taking it easy really working on my game/just trying to make supernova this year (25k vpps away so should be ez) and then next year will be looking to make a supernova elite run. I'll be posting interesting hands, probably some music, probably some random drunk posts. I'm still unsure of if I'll be posting my $ won or not. Will definitely be updating my vpp count next year.

Sorta on that note, most of you know who I am, I don't really want this searchable to my non-poker friends. Don't really care if you wanna call me Zach or something but please refrain from typing my Stars screen name anywhere in this thread.

Anyway, gonna start the year at 200nl zoom I think. I've been having solid success there and it seems to be relatively low-variance income, and even with a small winrate sne is in the 150-200k range for the year (it's like 108k I think in itself and then every bb/100 is another 50k). But honestly it's just gonna depend on how well I'm doing and how I'm feeling about my game as to whether I play higher regularly.

But at 200nl sne is a ton of hands. It's ~2.5 million hands for the year which is over 200k/month. I've done some work and I think my best approach is going to be like this: I'm going to play ~25 days/month, this gives me some days off or if I fall behind can just use those days as buffers. I'm also planning on making myself a schedule and sticking to it. At 25 days/month I'll need to play roughly 8.5k hands/day that I play. I get around 1k hands/hour so this means that the days I'm working I need to play a bit over 8 hours. I realize that poker is more demanding than most jobs but there are a ton of people who work that long (and usually more with commute). I'm a full-time poker pro, it shouldn't be that hard to put in full-time hours. I figure something like 3 sessions ~3k hands each should be good. Make sure to mix exercise in and make sure to eat healthy meals.

Gonna be a challenge but I'm excited.

Holy Crap! lol . Good luck to you, maybe one day i'll be playing with ya. Also, I remember WAY back in the day I took some $ off you on full tilt. Like 2 or 300, got lucky as shit. I think it was a 1/2 or the one time I played 5-10 with Don Cheadle and David Benyamine ... Anyhow, good luck

 

[hackmeplz]

This seems like it's definitely a spot where you can study GTO strat to at least figure out how much of your range you need to call with or bluff with.

1. this is definitely easier said than done, as I need to see not only what kind of range I show up here with but also the range villains show up here with. You can't just solve for gto for a river spot without either solving it for earlier streets (obviously impossible) or making certain assumptions regarding earlier streets.

2. I think there are a lot of villains who are super unbalanced in these spots, so if I'm going to do the work to understand the exact ranges villains show up with, I may as well go the extra mile and understand the exact actions they take with various portions of their ranges as well.