A recreational's journey escaping mediocrity

Thank you both for your comments and sorry never acknowledged your help before. I took note and I'm planning to implement a more structure learning process

2023 results
I probably have the worst looking graph out of people tracking hands but I guess at least I ended the year on the positive EV wise

2024

had to take a long break due to holidays and real job but back in for 2024. I refuse to quit until I go bust or get to play the WSOP ME. I'm clearly not poker gifted so need to be mentally strong to be successful, for that I'm reading the mental game of poker and trying to play only when fully focused, and pushing to devote at least 1-hour a day for poker.

Current stars bankroll stands at $438 plus some $50 on tickets. I will be playing the z10 pool for the foreseeable future until I'm confident I can beat it, and drop to z5 pool if I drop to $200

I commit to go back to weekly updates with results and actions I took with regards to studying.
Volume wise I aim for 200k hands in 2024

2024 YTD
Somewhat nice start

Week 2 update

I have decided to stop looking/posting results. I think Im extremely results oriented and suffer both winners and losers tilt when I do so. If Im winning I somehow feel entitled to what I have earned and start playing cautiously rather than focusing on best play. When I lose, in particular on the redline which I am somehow obsessed with, I start thinking I suck, changing my game completely etc. I can go from bluffcatching everything to folding everything just based on the weeks graph which is nonsensical. Im removing all indication to $ won, Bb/100 etc from PT4 and only use it to review tagged hands.
Separately I use H2N to analyse my game and pool, based on an already existing 120k hands on the stake. I want to focus on knowledge and not results.

I will check and post results before going on Easter holidays for 2 weeks. In the meantime I will just write things I think I have learned, explored during the week plus some random poker thoughts and maybe some hands.

This week I played 5k hands or so, and studied some 5 hours. It was tough, had plenty of close decisions. This game honestly frustrates me sometimes, it feels when I do call I'm beat but at the same time in other spots where I do "hero folds" I feel **** about it and think I'm a nit and I'm being outsmarted and being run over because of perceived capped ranges. I think I might be giving average z10 regulars too much credit when in reality they probably suck at poker just like me.

thought process dump below, hopefully to build from in coming weeks:

Random thoughts/areas I studied
Position and bluffing nodes Its baffling it never occurred to me/paid attention that EP betting lines in general will naturally be more underbluffed than late position betting lines, so I should probably call more if facing a late position players bet OTR and viceversa. I played poker for the first time in 2007 so it has just taken me 17 years to realize opening ranges might affect what you get to the river with? Shocking

GTO thoughtsI don't think I need to focus too much on GTO play in these stakes and rather focus on what my competitors are doing. At the same time, I want to have a somewhat baseline strategy so learning heuristics to identify where to deviate from seems like a logical 1st step, default strategy so plan to do some GTO drills etc.

Preflop I am expanding from GTO ranges. I think this is too complex topic for me to see if it is worth or not yet, so will just follow my logic.
- Rake is high so I shouldn't be playing to loose. But I'm currenty 25/21 seems like some margin to 27-28/22/23 or something. I have action profit positive on marginal OR hands so looks somewhat OK to expand
- I should expand vs nits not defending enough. If there's a 15/12 on BB with fold to steal 90% is a crime not to open close to everything on BTN and SB
- Play more pots vs RECS, in particular CC on button if recs ORs or on blinds if there's no aggressive regs in blinds. If passive reg then is OK as theres little squeeze/cold 4bet. However if recs open I might want to 3bet small instead of CC to ISO as well

River thoughts - nonsenseRealized how flawed my river thinking process is and how my brain paints a different reality depending on my card holdings. Example: I get to the river with a middling value hand candidate to bet, lets say TP no kicker or 2nd pair TK. In many cases I would check behind thinking "there's no way I get called with worse". Same situation but I get to the river with no SD value hand, pure average bluff. I would immediately think: I should just give up as he's not gonna fold anything that beats me. When I think about it's absurd, villain can't at the same time miss bluffcatchers and bluffcatch too much. based on what I have seen the following is true
- Reg Villains don't bet enough value hands but bluff more than I thought (32% weak on river B)
- Recs bluff a lot on river. Should bluffcatch often
- I don't bluff a lot, 25% weak river. I'm very honest in this game.
- I miss value bets, but less than villains. I sometimes bet 2nd pair and worse for value, villains hardly ever do this other than recs with random merge ranges.

Flop thoughts

Pool/regs betsizings are not balanced. Bet big = disproportionately more value, bet small = same but more air. I think I intuitively always guessed so
my X-R is out of tune. I X-R way more than GTO, think this might still be good as action profit is positive (need to understand how to compare this to call EV though) and villains fold a lot in particular when B33 on flop.
However, I think I might be doing it wrongly.
- What is the adjustment when people abuse range B33 and under defend vs X-R? I X-R way more often, but is my range construction right? I tend to put a lot of trashy hands here like BDFD etc and not so much value,. Think the adjustment might just be to X-R more value yet more vulnerable hands instead of air. Need to investigate things here but can't run a solver in my computer and cant afford GTOWizard nodelocked.

General thoughts
I think Im too obsessed with balance and slowplay. Not sure checking back strong top pairs and value hands is the best strategy vs passive players as they will not put enough money/attack my perceived capped range. I would say I overestimate villains again in most cases nobody would realize. This looks like a good strategy vs aggressive recs and regs alike
Same applies to sizing, bluff to value ratio doesn't seem that important and most ppl will not pick up if I put all my bluffs on 2/3s or my pot bets are always value. Just focus on max perceived ROI and dont care about balance

Its hard to do specific MDA work with my hand sample of 120k hands. Can't filter by positional play or board, textures etc. need to be generalistic like IP vs BB in 3bet pots and if anything combine CO vs BTN and EP together. SRP data seems enough to draw conclussions on the other hand.
At the same time its hard to know whats underbluffer or overbluffed with GTO data stats, not sure how to obtain this info or even afford it if I found something, so just complementing my library with forum digging etc

Attacking X ranges work. People are too face up and barely put value on checking ranges. Need to be more aggressive
In general aggression means good hand, unless a rec/reg psycho. I have many overfolds this week, I guess I will never know if I was right, but if Im facing a B-B-AI line it tends to be the nuts, same with overbets.

2/3 seems like the sweet spot for bluffs, maximizing alpha and ROI. However, in some cases, I can do 1/3 or even 20%, like 4-flush runouts where people never call without a flush I reckon, seems to work well on 4B pots too when betting 20% or 25%- Think this is a thing in GTO but not sure. People automatically assume you have the nuts and are taking them for a "ride" being nice with small bets.

Should pay more attention to timing tells. Snap actions tend to be associated with easy decisions or strong range, particularly preflop. Opposite somehow true but careful with regs tanking with AA etc.
Postflop seems it depends, could be an easy decision so nuts kind of discounted, also checks feel it mean weaker holdings. another incentive to attack checks

SB vs BTN 3bet pot
Started to delve into GTO play in 3B pots in particular SB vs BTN as PFC. As PFR feels easier as to just cbet 1/3 and go from there. Some things I realized:
- SB can overbet shove in some scenarios but not very often, dont think it is very applicable in z10 anyway
- bet 1/3 mostly but also mix a lot of 2/3. Think pool is heavily weighted towards 1/3, need to check betting size range construction, is 2/3 value heavy also in 3b pots or are they balanced?
vs 1/3 raise some 12% of time. Interestly there's little raise vs 2/3s and mostly calldowns. Not sure how I compare here
- when raising, sizing is mostly 3x roughly so relatively small. little large raises. There's some AI raises too, perhaps worth exploring after I get the raising frequencies somewhat right. Think I have a good idea with the hands I tend to raise. Note: need to bluff some underpairs apparently

week ahead study
Pick some other spot to do GTO drills
expand on open questions from this week (X-R flops range construction, 3bet pot pool sizings and tells)
Dump thoughts on poker diary
5k-7k hands
dont check results. remove $/winrate data from trackers

Week 3 update

had too much work this week so couldn't find the time to study poker, tried to at least play a bit and after today's session would be at 7k hands for the week

volume OK
no study - bad
results - Still not looking
gameplay - I feel I'm playing better and I'm confident I'll be established at z25 towards the end of the year
mental game & motivation - good. yesterday's session was a shitshow, prob lost 6-7 buy-ins on flips

Hey nice blog. Keep it up