From Delta Boötis to Gamma Crateris | CheckRais3r 2018 - 2019 Poker Journal

Thanks zache!

Kalupso 7 years, 2 months ago

Nice results! I watched your last session review video a couple of days ago and it really showed that you have improved a lot working with PIO.

Good luck with your goals.

Thanks Kalupso, I definately have put a lot of hours working with PIO during last year.

TJSuited 7 years, 2 months ago

I'm calling it first. He will be one of, if not the best HUNL player in Gamma Crateris.

Haha thank you very much TJ. I'll do my best!

Phil Galfond 7 years, 2 months ago

Nice! Good luck, Nuno. Looking forward to following along!

Thanks Phil, it’s a pleasure to have you on board!

Antonio Miranda 7 years, 2 months ago

great idea to open the blog!
I am quite sure that you will achieve your goals, I am fortunate to see in first person how much you have improved, worked and loved the game.
You deserve all the success!

Gonna be a great blog GL!

Gracias amigo. I’m also very fortunate to have you as a study partner and more important, as a friend. Gl to you as well!

fefe.p 7 years, 2 months ago

Very nice results nuno, enjoy your videos. Do you play on other sites than stars?
Good luck in 2018, hoping for some exciting content from you

Thanks fefe. Glad you enjoy my content.

No, I only play on stars, enough traffic there for me. Getting HU action on non zoom tables nowadays seems barely impossible.

Quite hard to bluff properly in this specific runout, my hand seems like a pretty good candidate to do so

9/1/2018

Hi guys, played a decent amount last week but not many interesting hands. Yesterday battled a few hours vs a swedish reg and played some cool ones:

Hard to find bluffs on his shoes here as well, pretty sure my hand still a fold

Run it Once feature being expensive for him :P

Good call by him, pretty standard hand

Will post more interesting spots this week, gl all!

Morning reflexion:

Today I woke up early in the day, it’s something I really like to do but pretty much never did it on a regular basis. This year that is going to change, I feel way better than normally during the day when I do it and I can also maximize the value of my time this way.

Professional poker players and specially me, at a young age, should be very thankful and happy to have found something we love to do and that allows us to make a living out of it. I imagine myslef waking up at 7:30AM every day having a job that I don’t like and spending most of my day on it. That would make really hard to be happy and enjoy the rest of my time. I’m not saying that poker is the best job in the world or something like that but, being able to work on what I love and enjoy it every day, it’s something I should definitely value more.

Hope this helps you guys to realize how lucky we are overall as poker players.

Good luck all!

Taunto_88 7 years, 2 months ago

Subscribed. Very interested in your journey.
What tips can you give a 100-200nl 6max cash game player who wants to dabble in the HU games from time to time. I dont plan on hoping in the 100 or 200HUNL games as i am a sort of a noob when it comes to the HU meta game and all. Any good books to read? articles? Obviously your RIO videos ;). Do you think playing low HUNL Cash tables are a good way to start or is it best to start with HUNL SNG tables?

Hi Taunto, thx for the sub.

I don't think there are any good poker books out there other than Applications of no limit holdem. In my opinion, the best way to learn is to watch videos from good HU players and work with PIO solver as much as you can.

I think that cash game tables are best since you practice deepstack play while on SNGHU you play different stack sizes all the time.

Gl!

Jeff_ 7 years, 2 months ago

very nice results. Good luck on your journey )

Thanks Jeff!

21/1/2018

Hey folks, been very busy lately and that’s the reason why I couldn’t update earlier, apologies. I have played a decent amount of hands this two weeks and also studied quite a lot. I took the weekend off as well and I’m about to start putting some decent volume from monday + try a few new things that I’m looking to implement in my game.

Will update in a few days and post some cool hands too.

Good luck!

26/1/2018

Sorry guys I’ve continued being super busy since last update. From next week I’ll have more time and I’ll check and share my January results with you guys as well.

This week was pretty good, I played a decent amount and was able to mantain concentration and display my A/B game on almost all my sessions. I also studied a lot and learned a few useful things.

Will post some interesting hands later today.

Good luck.

Turning the bottom of my flop calling range into a bluff

Some cool hands as promised:

Weird river spot vs highstakes 6max reg

Tough one!

I think this is one of the weakest bluffcatchers in my range vs his river size, flush blocker should work way better

Probably a mix strategy with my particular combo, worked this time

I liked my play here especially because I expected him to overbluff a little bit. I reviewed it and AQo seems to be a relatively high frequency call GTO wise

Getting very lucky on the river

Hope you guys enjoy it. On a side note, a friend suggested that I can do a "Hand of the month" review and I think it's a great idea, that way I'd be able to do a way deeper analysys with PIO screenshots and such. I've already selected the hand for January so I'm planning on posting that, along with my monthly results, next Wednesday.

Good luck and thanks for reading!

sauloCosta10 7 years, 1 month ago

How much of your game is trying to mimic GTO strat compared to exploitative play? Seems like you are very theory oriented, which is counter intuitive to me since I would expect HU to be the best format to maximally exploit someone and essentialy not care about mixed strategies. Interested to hear from you on this subject as a 6-max reg who enjoys HU play a lot.

Hey Saulo, thanks for the comment.

I’m very theory oriented indeed, I basically try to mimic GTO play as a default gameplan and then I deviate from it against opponents that I think are exploitable in some specific situations.

I realized with time that the best way for me to become good at exploiting people is to learn GTO theory to understand how and when to deviate properly from it.

sauloCosta10 7 years, 1 month ago

I think I didn't express myself correclty.

Yes, learning GTO is most likely the best way to become good at exploiting people. However, it seems like in all of the hands above you were only thinking about the equillibrium strat since you didn't even mention the possibility of playing exploitatively, with the exception of AQ hand.

For example, the K9o hand would be a very easy fold in a 6-max table vs most player profiles given that its a very underbluffed line. Obviously can't compare HU to 6-max that way, but all I'm saying is that I felt like you could shift those mixed strats one way or the other with relatively easy to get information on the players you are playing against, that's why I felt like you were maybe not caring about exploitative play too much

sauloCosta10 7 years, 1 month ago

Fun hands and cool blog btw. Some time ago I read that it wasn't worth playing low stakes zoom HU on stars due to rake. Is that true at all?

Oh, my bad. Of course I’m shifting some of the mixed strategies one way or the other depending on opponent profiles most of the time, I just don’t go deep on that topic because obvious reasons and also because I think it’s not as entertaining and interesting to read as the GTO reasonings I try to explain on every hand I post.

Thanks, glad you like it.

I don’t know about 50NL but I think from 100NL it’s very beatable even with the very high bb/100 rake since most regs aren’t trying too hard at all.

Click to see larger image

31/1/2018 - MONTHLY UPDATE

Hi guys! January it’s over and I just checked my results:

I'm specially happy with my game level this month, I played quite well and put a decent volume of play. I think my objective of playing 25k hands/month it's going to be a bit too much with all the study and coaching I'm doing so I'm gonna focus on try to play at least 20k and keep bringing my A game to the tables most of the time.

I'm also very satisfied about my life habits. I'm waking up significantly earlier than I used to, I'm swimming around 30 minutes weekday and I'm reading more frequently as well. I'd like to start meditating too and I think I'm going to try doing it from February.
Poker wise, as I said, I'm super happy as well for how much I'm improving and how confident I feel on my game in most spots.

Another thing that I'd like to share with you guys is that I've been thinking on start playing some 1000NL regularly since most regs do not battle at 500NL and I really love reg battling, mostly because it's fun and entertaining and also because the competition and the value of practicing and learning by applying concepts against good players so, from next month I’ll probably try to establish as a 1000NL reg as well.

That's gonna be it for this update. I will post the hand of the month later today in which I'll try to give my insights on, with the help of PIO. I'm super pumped to start the new month and crush the tables!
Thanks as always for reading and good luck!

Simplified flop strategy | Total EV

HAND OF THE MONTH

Hi again. As promised, just wanted to share with you guys the most interesting hand I think I played this January.

Here it is

This was one of the few hands I played lifetime against yurasov1990, he is a Belarusian highstakes 6max reg and I expected him to play very well overall even though he's not a HU player.

First I'd like to do my own review of the hand and then I'll go over it on PIO and compare my reasoning with the GTO way of playing in my position.

I think flop play it's pretty standard on both parts. He decides to use a small size on a flop which should be pretty good for his range and I have a very easy call with my hand.
On the turn it gets interesting because my combo seemed very near to the bottom of my calling range vs the size he chose, specially because he doesn't have a ton of natural bluffs available on this board.
The river it's a card in which I expected him to be checking at a very high frequency, mostly because his value range became much narrow.
Finding natural bluffs other than KJ combos after he checks it's quite hard in my opinion so I thought that I was supposed to bluff some paired hands and this Q8 combo seemed, as I said, one of my weakest calling hands on the turn so I used it to bluffshove.

GTO wise his flop betsize seems to be a slight mistake. PIO plays an overbet or check strategy on that board to maximize EV, although, a blockbet or check strategy only loses 3 points of EV overall for OOP strategy so it doesn't matter that much.

GTO flop strategy | Total EV

After he cbets for a small size my hand is a pure call.
The turn it's close but still a call, my particular combo keeps calling all the time but has only 5 points of EV while a hand like Q4cc, for example, has around 70. Note also that KJo it's a turn fold so I was wrong on getting to the river with KJ combos other than KJdd.

And on the river it seems like I have a bluff with most of my Qx hands.

River

I think in play I didn't realize how many value hands I have on the river and how wide that allows me to bluff so that's mainly why I wasn't 100% sure of my play.

Hope you guys liked it and have a good start of the month!

zache86 7 years, 1 month ago

Nice hand Nuno,

i think it was kind of intuitive that the flop had to be sized up because of the nature of the board (really wet and equities shifting a lot), but imo you are polarizing your range too much.Mainly because of the sizing strategy you choose(gto version).
Otherwise i'm seeing more and more pot bets on 3B pots OOP....so it may be something to consider on certain spots

If i didn't mess up with something, on the simplified version your input is 1/4pot and shoving...that's why we get to bet more parts of the range for a smaller size.

Correct me if i'm wrong,but on this kind of spots i tend to bet between 45% and 65%...larger than the 33% "protection bet" but less than a sizing that faces up our range a bit too much with TP,FD+str8 draws.

Nice hand and good luck on the tables

Hi Zache, thanks for the comment.

On GTO version I gave the solver the option to bet smaller sizes as well and seems like using the bigger size it's clearly the way to maximize our EV on this particular board texture so I think using an overbet or check strategy should be best, in any case, on other similar spots, using a ~ 50% size works fine as you said.

9/2/2018

Hey guys!

I haven’t been playing that much this week because I had some other non poker related things to do, although, I’ve played some 1KNL and I’m planning on get back into the hard grind from Monday.

Will probably put a session tonight and post some hands afterwards as well.

Good luck.

Balancing my check shoving range

Hi again. Played a long 500Z session yesterday and ended up way too tired to post any hands.

As I already said, I didn’t put a good volume this week but my game quality was decent. I’m taking the weekend off to relax and I’ll be back on Monday to try to crush the tables.

Here are some of the bigger/most interesting pots I’ve played this week:

Close one

Interesting one, will put it on PIO later

Pretty standard I think

Not sure about this one but I believe it’s fine

Reasonable bluffcatcher, very good blockers against my value range

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for reading!

zache86 7 years, 1 month ago

Hi Nuno,
loved the "close one" ...i had a similar hand this week (6max) where i hero called with A high on a board like this and villain showed me the same hand for top full house.

Looking forward to see that sim on the 3 barrel bluff with blocker to the nuts...if pio suggests overbets on T and R,just one street (if that's the case on wich one) or what..

Keep crushing and good luck on the tables

Thanks for the support Zache. Yeah, apparently they have it sometimes :P

I’ll take a look on PIO tomorrow and post the results here so we can learn from it.

Good luck to you as well buddy!

Hi all.

I modeled the hand on PIO and seems like the line I took it's fine. My particular combo it's mixing between normal size and shove on the river. Interesting to see that it also checks quite a lot on the flop which I'm sure I wouldn't have done at the correct frequency at the time I played the hand.

Flop

River

Good luck and have a good week!

zache86 7 years, 1 month ago

As you said, interesting to see that river is a mix between overbetting/shove and normal size as that was my main doubt (i thought the overbet choice was slightly better)

Having said this, i was very suspicius about the flop strategy and did the sim myself and came to different results.

Before showing my results (they can be a bit off as i haven't played hu in a while,but can't be thaaat far) i think it is a board where villain shouldn't have a very strong range because he doesn't have the offsuit combos of 83 and 63(this combo a little % i guess depending on opponent) and 88 has to be a 3b preflop the mayority of the time.
To sum up i thought hero should have been betting this board a large % of the time and for a decent size and for our particular combo almost a 100% fcbet favouring the 'bigger size' combos with diamond.

Do you know why is it that we have this huge difference on results?

Did you put a ch/r range for oop on streets?

Hope you see this as constructive feedback and not as criticism as i'm open for corrections on my side (maybe mistakes on my ranges).

Ranges: IP,OR 85% aprox ; OOP call OR 65% aprox

Hey Zache. Of course I see it as constructive feedback and I appreciate it a lot! Never would see something like that as criticism so don't worry hehe.

It's crazy the difference between both sims. I did imput a x/r range for OOP on all streets. I always do, that may be the problem on your end. My ranges are a bit tighter too, 80% for IP and 58% for OOP.

zache86 7 years, 1 month ago

Great, because not every coach on the site reacts the same way when you point out something about their posts/videos (at least this was my expericence, of course not everyone included)

Yeah,i also gave oop a ch/r range on each street...i really don't know what the difference might be.
I did the sim again, with tighter ranges and i still get hero to bet arround 65% (again also preferring larger size) and checking 35%.

Yeah well. I'm always open to discuss things so don't hesitate when pointing something out from now on either!

These are my parameters. Solved to 0.1% of the pot. I think the problem in your sim is probably the lack of raise sizes for IP player. Could be that?

zache86 7 years, 1 month ago

Oh i see,

i clearly did not add many branches on my tree......i tend to simplify my modeling in order to check out my doubts on a certain spot. I guess it's a bad habit because some of the answers become less accurate (although the general idea gets there). On this case my prior concern was the sizing for the river, whose range wouldn't be as precise as on your sim.

I understand the difference now, i was starting to feel clueless.

Having said this, you didn't input a donking range for oop :P
(you pc must be exploding while simming haha)

Thank you Nuno!

Glad to have helped! I always like to do them as precise as I can and that’s why I didn’t add a donking range for OOP. Most people that I play against do not have it on their game so I think it’s better to not imput it in order to get a more accurate result.

16/2/2018 - WEEKLY UPDATE

Hi all. This week wasn’t the most productive one because I had some non poker related stuff to attend. I also suffer from anxiety quite often and that it’s something that doesn’t help either when it comes to play my best every day.

I still managed to play some hands, started on Monday playing a good A game session and then played mostly B game the rest of the days.

From this Monday I'm planning on start applying my new schedule that's going to consist on playing 3 sessions of 1h every day, which hopefully it’s going to translate on ~ 20k monthly hands, that I’m going to conform with by now because I’m also putting another 2 daily hours of study in order to keep improving every day.

I’m gonna focus more on mantaining my A game on all the sessions I play and gonna keep track on that, in order to have a better mindset and become a better poker player in the mental aspect of the game as well.

This is gonna be it. Would update again on Monday morning to tell you guys a bit more about my start to the week.

Good luck!

Hey guys!

My new schedule started today. I woke up at 9:00AM, then played a good 2h session. I know I said I would play 1h sessions but this morning I felt great and I had the opportunity to play against another reg that also enjoys battling so I made an exception.

I ended up very happy with my play and volume. I’m looking to keep this game quality during the rest of the week and try put as much hands as I can.

Good luck all and thanks for reading.

Hi guys.

Wanted to update how the first week with my new schedule for those of you that are interested on it.

I’m quite happy with how I organized myself even tho I had some days that I just couldn’t grind as many hands as I wanted mostly because I didn’t have enough action at the time I sat at the tables.
Other than that, I woke up quite early almost every day and played a morning session which I enjoy a lot.
I also studied around 10hours this week and learned very useful things that already helped me on the situations I was most unsure about while playing.

I took the weekend off the tables as I use to do and I’m ready to get back on the grind from tomorrow morning.

Will post some hands during this week to keep you entertained!

Good luck all!

pokervibes 7 years, 1 month ago

Good blog, following.
Thanks for "Applications of poker" hint

Thanks for the follow man. Welcome on board!

Hey lads.

I caught a cold during the weekend so I would probably have to take the day off from the tables. I’ll try to study if I feel better later today.

Hopefully I’ll be able to grind normally from tomorrow or so.

Good luck guys.

Hey.

Today I starting feeling better and decided to put a session in. Most of the time I just 2 tabled a swedish reg and ended up doing very well.

Tomorrow I’ll post the monthly results as well as the most interesting hand of the month.

Gl!

Click to see larger image

28/2/2018 - MONTHLY UPDATE

Hi all. I just checked my February results:

Quite disappointed with my volume but I don't think it was that bad given that I had many days I couldn't play because things I had to take care of.
Other than that I'm fairly happy with my game, I won money at 500NL but lost it a 1000NL mostly because of coolers and bad run so that's no problem. I'm really looking forward to crush March! I'm going to focus on play my best and I'll try to put a good volume of hands as well.

That's it! Tomorrow I'll post the hand of the month since I'm heading to bed now to wake up early tomorrow and start my daily routine.

Good luck on March boys!

Hey readers.

Just wanted to say that I may close this Poker Journal. When I started it, it was with the idea of having a place to share my approach to poker because I thought the interaction with the RIO members would be very cool but seems that I wasn't right about that.

I'm not blaming any of you, It's just that I had higher expectations about that topic which I find very important when opening a blog, if not, writing here just feels like writing for myself. Interaction was my main goal when doing this and I feel like it's not working at all so I'm gonna think about it but I might decide to end it here.

Thanks all for reading and good luck!

zache86 7 years ago

Sorry to hear that Nuno. I guess I was one of the few ones following the blog (at least giving feedback).
Imo, you should do what's best for you...I've followed some blogs and sooner or later they all end up closing at some point.

Some of them due to lazyness, others because they have already achieved their goals and some of them because it interfeers with putting volume on the tables.

I like/d yours because you point/ed out interesting hands and not just results once a month as many other blogs.

You have my support wathever you do

Gl at the tables!

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Thank you vey much Zache. You definately have been the best follower by far (as well as the first one who posted!) I appreciate your support a lot man, I really do.

I'd love to continue posting here, just looking for a few more interactions.

Thank you very much again Zache, good luck to you as well.

Bruno 7 years ago

Sorry to hear that. I really like this journal. Would be very nice see a player moving up from midstakes to highstakes and see how is your approach with poker and life in general.
Maybe doesn't have much interaction because is NL500 and only few players feels comfortable to discuss hands with you.

Thanks Bruno.

I think the problem it’s a mix between what you said and also that I play HU rather than 6max (which has more players)

Appreciate your support as well. I think I’m going to give it a shot and continue with the blog opened and see how it goes.

Bruno 7 years ago

Nice! I will try participate more but I don't have lots of interesting thoughts because I just play NL5-NL10 6max and I don't have PioSolver.

Gl

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Thanks man. It doesn’t matter what stakes you play. I’m also here to answer questions and try to give something to the community of RIO, that’s the main reason I decided to write my blog here so, fell free to ask some stuff from time to time!

Jeff_ 7 years ago

I read your blog Nuno, but I'm not headsup player. Mostly here to look some hands, and get some information to improve my 6max game :))
As well heads up always looks like a lot of fun

BioRio0101 7 years ago

Hey man also a silent follower here just playing much lower and 6max. You are writing a pretty cool blog with interesting insights and great hand analysis. So pls don't stop :) <3

Thank you very much guys, you have no idea how happy reading this makes me feel.

I had no idea about the sneaky 6 max readers in here :P So I’d definitely will continue with the blog and try to share more thoughts with you guys.

Thank you all and good luck!

ULpiano 7 years ago

Another silent reader Nuno! Keep up the good work!

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Thanks man!

EluSiVeMark 7 years ago

Glad to hear you are continuing :) GL with your goals and poker.
I like your vids btw.

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Appreciate the kind words Mark, good luck to you as well!

fefe.p 7 years ago

+1 that enjoy the updates alot. Personaly, i think 2+2 is better for a PGC format, and you would get greater feefback there imo. If i may suggest something, I would love to see some more graphs in here. I will try to be more participative in the future, and gl always!

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Thanks fefe. I decided to do it here to contribute in my own way with the RIO community and also because I like this place more than 2+2, thanks for the suggestion tho!

kalciis 7 years ago

glgl!

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Thanks!

closertotilt 7 years ago

This has been a fun and interesting read so definitely continue on with the journal! gl

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Thanks man, will do. An update it’s coming later today btw. Stay tuned!

Eldora 7 years ago

What just happened here is pretty amazing - I've followed your blog as well since the beginning. You creating a blog, Nuno, sharing not only technical knowledge but honest feelings and thoughts really made me feel home and proud of being part of the RIO community. You let us take part in how living the dream of a professional poker player feels with all its ups and downs and your passion.

The RIO pros actively enjoying to interfere with the community is, I believe, something really outstanding we can all be proud to have here. No matter if it's just answering questions below the videos, showing up in a HH discussion in the forums or even creating a dedicated blog. We all should remember how cool it is to have the pros around everywhere and value how unique this is especially compared to other passions where pros always will remain mostly untouchable.

And possibly we should all take a step back from being afraid of their aura but learn from this story here that they love it just as much to feel taken right into the middle of the community instead of only being the stars above (this gets way too poetic right now). Everyone should not have second thoughts before asking a "probably trivial question" or throw a friendly comment or joke at Pros just as well as at other members. I bet each pro prefers having very basic discussions on their video content instead of seeing no reaction at all. Many members make this community live and I see a lot of cool things each day in the forums which makes me feel so comfortable traveling the site. But I believe many more (especially new ones) think about doing so before shying away.

In times were poker needs its communiy more than ever but anonymity seems to increase everywhere let's make the RIO poker community (and all poker communities) shine even brighter as a place where you feel you have friends...
- family.

So Nuno - keep it up!

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Woah thank you very much Eldora!

I definately agree with you on all of that. RIO it's a community and we should try to help each other in the best way we can.

Sorry for the delayed update guys, had a very busy day yesterday and didn't have time to do it.

The other day the guy that won the Poker Masters thing (Steffen Sontheimer) sat me and we battled for around 30min. Here it's the only interesting hand we played for your entertaining!

Setting the trap

It was cool to play him, I think he's a good 6 Max reg, he used to be one of the best 500Z regs a few years ago AFAIK. His HU game seemed a bit rusty which it's completely normal given that HU it's quite different from MTT's or 6 Max that are his usual games.

Good luck all and thanks for reading!

Kalupso 7 years ago

Interesting hand selection for the call. I guess he is going for the turned set and 2pair blockers and a spade.

Does limping add EV in PIO sims for 2.5/5$ zoom rake or is more for exploitative reasons?

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Hey Kalupso.

Yeah exactly, agree with your analysis. 3x + spade it’s quite a good blufcatcher for the range I’m representing.

As far as I know, the EV of a limping + opening strategy and the EV of a just opening strategy it’s always very close on HUNL. With the Z500 rake, using the limp adds a very small amount of EV to our srategy but most players tend to adjust incorrectly against it so it ends up translating into much more EV that we can gain if we implement the strategy in the correct way.

zache86 7 years ago

Nice to have news from you buddy!

About the hand you posted i have to say i don't like the way he played his hand at all. Flop is a high % cbet and if not (some lower pp) he should either fold T or turn his hand into a bluff at some point (specially holding one spade)

Btw, nice to see you are experimenting with some limping on your strategy (at least it's the first one you posted). I guess he has a high 3b %.

See you and gl at the tables!

Hey Zache, thanks for the comment mate.

Yeah I don't like his line that much either. I think he's supposed to bet often on that board given his huge range advantage. His hand may be too weak to bet tho but his call down seems a bit too loose even tho he has good blockers vs my perceived value range after I check back the flop.

I think my hand it's okay. I believe I'm supposed to check at a very high frequency that flop due to the nature of my preflop range. On the turn I'm not betting any hands for protection so the overbet makes sense. On the river I think I should have some shoves, some overbets and some normal size bets and decided to put this combo into my normal size which I think it's completely fine.

Yeah been limping for a few months now. It's just part of my overall strategy, not an adjust against high % 3bettors. It's been working quite well for me. BTW you're right, this is the first limped pot I posted haha, I guess I'll post a few more if you guys find the limp strategy interesting to see.

zache86 7 years ago

I agree with your analysis.

I think adding limps to our overall strategy is always a good way to induce mistakes from our opponents because if we have it well designed and value combos are mixes from time to time we will add a lot of EV to our strategy.

This concept is also applicable to those playing 6m, you 'll skyrocket your winrate if you start limping your sb as part of your strat.

Bruno 7 years ago

On the turn I'm not betting any hands for protection so the overbet makes sense

Interesting. Is this one of the first things that I should think when I want make a overbet turn? Is the reason to do this maximize the EV of my value range and increase my bluff range as well?

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Yes. Generally, when you’re not interested on betting any hands for protection on a specific spot, overbetting makes sense since the range you’re representing it’s very strong.

The reason for it it’s that your opponent it’s somewhat capped so you maximize the EV of your range by betting larger than usual and you complicate the defense strategy.

fefe.p 7 years ago

Limping becomes very atractive when villains have a though time defending vs it. I would love to see a video with more insghts from this strategy

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Yeah, agree. I’m not producing RIO content atm, they’re just releasing videos that I’ve done few months ago. If I end up making more videos will make one covering that topic since I also think it’s an important weapon you guys can add to your arsenals.

Hey guys I’m back!

The last week wasn’t a very good one. Anxiety hit me pretty hard most of the days and I couldn’t play my best game because of it. I also failed with my schedule which I think it’s really important for me so I won’t fail again.

Long term goals:

Wake up at 9:00AM every weekday
Start meditating every day
Play A game most (if not all) of my sessions
Update the blog with some hands, thoughts or anything else at least 3 times a week (will accomplish this one, I promise :P)
Be a more organized person in all the aspects
Spend more time with my girlfriend

These are the main things I wanna take care of. I’d be able to play around 1.2k hands a day if I wake up early and I organize my time in the right way.

Sometimes it’s hard to handle this job, In my case it’s not because of downswings, I don’t mind losing if I played correctly and felt good at the tables but I really hate when I’m not able to mantain concentration and play my A game even for a short period of time so I’d try to focus on that, meditation should be very helpful for it as well.

Good luck guys!

SPrince 7 years ago

I check out this thread as well from time to time just too lazy to log in and comment since i don't watch that many training videos lately.

Regarding organization i had the same challenge as you for a long time, would just wake up (whenever) and play or go to the gym and play disregarding everything else.Lately i'v became way more organized and these are some of the things that helped.

Go to bed earlier and at the same time every day whenever possible and my body then became like an alarm clock all by itself, waking me up at almost the same time everyday.Even when i go to bed later on the weekends, i still wake up earlier and feel rested even with 5-7 hours of sleep.
Preparation/Finishing all of my daily tasks (like training, stretching, meditation, grocery and food preparation for the whole day etc), before i start playing.I feel much better and confident when i sit down to play like that, compared to knowing i have no clue what i'm gonna eat for lunch and dinner, or having some other unfinished things in the back of my mind.
Taking small breaks every 1-2 hours.It's just the nuts for the mind and the body to give them a refreshment boost or a restart if you will from time to time to keep them fresh and since you have the luxury to do so playing heads up i would suggest to implement it if you're not already.

Those are just some off the top that i think improved not only my game but the quality of life in general.

Gl

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Those are very good suggestions. Thank you very much man, appreciate it a lot. Best of luck to you as well!

Hey guys! Quick update.

Today I started with my schedule. Woke up at 9:30AM and was able to put 3 sessions during the day along with 1.5h of study.

I felt great at the tables, I was way more focused than last week and anxiety wasn’t that big of a problem. I think having this new schedule it’s very good for me in all ways so I’m gonna keep maintaining it.

That’s it folks, I’m super tired right now and heading to bed. Tomorrow will post some hands that I played today vs another 6max highstakes reg, stay tunned and good luck!

TJSuited 7 years ago

Looking forward to those hands! Waking up early always feels so great. Get so much done in the day. Do you have any recommendations for retaining what you study? I feel I learn SO much in these hours I'm putting in that I don't remember somethings. Maybe I should cut the study sessions shorter and put more review time?

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Hey TJ!

I don't do it as often as I should right now but what used to help me a lot was to write down every thing that I learned every day and have those organized on a word document to read it before every session.

Regarding the second question I think both things are pretty much equally important so you can try to do 50/50 every day you work on your game.

Jeff_ 7 years ago

We need those hands, haha

Close turn call gets rewarded OTR

Hi all!

Just finished my last session of the day. Was only able to put around 800 hands today but I'm very happy with my game.

As promised:

Action post limping

Smart lead

Hope you guys enjoy those. I loved to play FmyLife, he used to play nosebleeds when I started railing the PokerStars games a long time ago and always was inspired by him.

When I play a highstakes reg I always get the same sensation, it's something I find very hard to put on words but it's like feeling that they are always in control of the hand no matter what, they understand at what point of their range are all the time and they always do very smart and creative things that may be incorrect from a GTO standpoint but they still very hard to counter for a human being and that's part of the reason why they used to crush a few years ago even if they don't crush that much anymore.
Same exact thing I just described above happened last summer when I played mokoma1, a highstakes HU reg that got his game updated using PIO and I think he's still being part of the top HU players on the world because of that.

Good luck all!

zache86 7 years ago

Hi Nuno!

I think hand number 1 and 3 are really interesting

On the first one it's one of those spots where you know you are put to the test for 2x the pot. Lets imagine we are holding a more marginal combo than the one in the actual hand, whats the threshold of our calling range?
7x + ?

It's hard to tell, but it's one of those spots where you are probably going to get exploited...it reminds me of some hands I've seen of oborra making massive overbets on capped ranges.
Although those showdowns where quite random haha... on this hand villain is holding blockers to the calling range (QJ/TJ)

Hand number two is quite interesting too because he leads without a club and with no J or T to block the straight...as you said,not a GTO approach but really effective.

I guess it's a value heavy line but villain is taking advantage that hero has many strong Qx because of the overbet sizing and not so many straights,maybe some flushes of course.
In addition to that villain is holding the blocker to KQ (the most common hand that beats him)

I would like to know hero's range for overbetting the turn,maybe i'm wrong, but I don't see many JT given the board texture and more of a top pair plus such as Q2/Q7/QJ+

Nice to have those interesting HH's again!

See you and good luck at the tables

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Hey Zache!

Yeah I think we have to call some 7x with good unblockers to his bluffing range as well. Agree with you, it's a very hard spot to defend correctly.

Agree with your analysis of the leading river hand. The turn overbetting range it's hard to define because there is a lot of mixing going on with many combos, for value we mainly have strong TP's and some 2 pair hands, we also still have some JT and some flushes at some frequency but we're very Qx heavy still so his lead on that particular river card makes more sense I think.

Glad you liked the hands, will post more this week. Good luck to you as well!

fefe.p 7 years ago

Very interesting hands! H1 seems crazy for 6max players lol. Is the call justified for blocking AA and unblocking most of villains bluffs?
KK makes sense as played, but on H3 what do you expect his bluffing range to look like?
looking foward for your next videos!

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Hey fefe.

Haha yeah I can see that hand seeming crazy for 6Max players lol. Yeah, I think the fact of unblocking all his bluffs and having the absolut top of my range makes this hand a call all the time.

On hand 3 I expect him to bluff the bottom of his turn calling range with a club and/or a straight blocker. Hands like Jc7x or Tc7x should be fine bluffs at some frequency I think.

Jeff_ 7 years ago

H3 Can't understand, why he wants to lead for almost pot size, heads up is indeed fun. And 1st hand is good example of wide ranges, Nuno do you think he should bet AK for value/merged there (turn)?

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Hey.

H1 - The reason of the PSB lead it's because he's completely polarized, his holding it's actually the bottom of his value betting rang.

H3 - I'd say moslty not. My range still very uncapped.

Some fun hands are coming later today guys, stay tunned! :P

Blockers not working as intended

17/3/1018 - WEEKLY UPDATE

Hi again guys!

I’m quite happy with this week. While I wasn’t able to fulfill all the goals I had on mind, I was able to play my A game in most of the sessions I put in and I also enjoyed to play a more exploitative style vs weaker regs and recreational players. I made a few very good exploits because I was concentrated playing and that’s something that used to be much harder for me.

I’m gonna take this weekend to relax, read and organize I few things poker related. For those of you who like graphic novels I reccomend you From Hell by Allan Moore and Eddie Campbell. It’s basically the take of the writer on the myth of Jack the ripper.

From Monday I’m looking to accomplish all the goals I shared with you guys last week and also start organizing everything I learn day by day in a better way.

Hands as promised:

Though spot

Easy river call

Very interesting spot vs unknown reg, I might have to explofold given that it’s pretty hard to bluff properly on his shoes

Enjoy your weekend and good luck folks!

Eldora 7 years ago

cool - enjoy the weekend.
You are so strong in your vids explaining all the different reasonings for PIO actions - so for me it is not a mystery you've become very strong in GTO. It's cool to hear that you feel increasing success in exploitative moves just as well

zache86 7 years ago

Hi Nuno!

Nice to hear you are feeling better overall.

I don't know if you are reading the book or you just finished it (so i won't spoil haha) but you made me remember of the london's jack the ripper walking tour i took last year.
Really interesting story

Now poker stuff:

-Hand number 1, i think it's a fine play by him from time to time...although he is not representing that much on the flop beside sets and some two pair combos as A4s for example. -5c6c shoving turn (?)
On the river the SPR is kind of small so i think we would have had to (cry) call a shove unblocking clubs and some AK that don't want to shove for 250bb. Havind said this,it's interesting the spot villain put us on.

-Hand number 2, sometimes they have it haha.

-Hand number 3, i've played some hu with Kalapoju on z200 nice to see he hasn't changed his barrelling tendencies.

-Hand 4, yeah i agree with you...i think it's an explotative fold given he is never valuebetting less than 2 pair and the only bluff i can see is an ocasional JT (and you block the T) and some backdoor fd.
Question: why not cbetting a big portion of our range on that board on the flop?

Having said this i think it is interesting how your Tc works on this hand...it blocks some 'bluffing continue range' (keep firing flushes) but it also blocks the str8.

Nice post as always!

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Thanks for the kind words Eldora. Appreciate your support.

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Hey Zache.

I’m reading it so no spoiler please haha. Yeah, the story seems very interesting to me as well, that walking tour must have been very cool!

H1 - Not sure at all on the river, I’m guessing maybe AKs, AKo, AA combos + the occasional suited 7x 4bet bluffs would be enough to defend vs perfect balanced shoving range by him but not sure.

H2 - True haha.

H4 - The main reason is the stack depth. On this flop at 100bb we’re supposed to play a quite polarized strategy given that we don’t have many protection bets besides some 9x hands. Playing this deep I like check calling one of the weakest Ax hands in my range in order to protect my checking range.

Thanks man, glad you liked it!

Hey guys quick update.

Haven’t been playing that much this week mainly bc of lack of action but I’ve been studying a lot. I organized a few things and I feel more comfortable than ever with my game.

Stay tuned because I will post some interesting hands tomorrow.

Good luck all!

Eldora 7 years ago

I was wondering before about the characteristic of heads-up poker that at reasonably higher stakes not getting action every now and then is just part of the game. I would be very interested how this works at your everyday schedule at the limits you play right now? So is it most common for you to just sit down when you want to play or are you 90% of the time sitting out and waiting for someone to match you before getting hands in?
E.g. are there times of the day were you can just rely on getting action and at off-times you need to be patient? Or is there no guarantee at whatever time?

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Hey Eldora.

Yeah, sitting sometimes and not getting action it’s very common in HUNL, specially in 200NL+ because the vast majority of poker sites allow regs to opensit the tables and not play a single hand vs a reg in their entire career. That’s the main reason why I play on PokerStars, the fact that HU it’s only zoom nowadays makes bumhunting harder and encourages players to regbattle a bit more. I personally enjoy so much regbattling and I’m constantly trying to start games with regs.

Regarding your second question: There is no guarantee but during nights it’s usually when I get more action.

Good bluffing combo running into the top range of the opponent

24/3/2018 - WEEKLY UPDATE

Hi all.

This was a very productive week. Again, I played very few hands but I put around 10hours of study and I organized very well everything I learned.

I’m very motivated to start putting a lot of hands in, I feel like my game is at the highest level it’s ever been and my confidence level is very high as well so from next week I’m gonna focus on putting at least 1k hands/day and mantain the daily study which I love to do.

Some interesting/cool hands of this week:

Not quite getting there

Pretty std I think

Quite standard but interesting hand. This combo it’s just very near to the top of my range. I may be able to find the explofold against some opponents though

That’s gonna be it folks. Will be back from Monday and I’ll keep you guys updated during the week.

Good luck!

Jeff_ 7 years ago

I think 3rd hand most interesting, because it is not call down like 4th. River size is what I'm curious about, you will valuebet for that size sets? and do you have shoving range?(probably really small, because villian will end up with flush often)
4hand I snap even though I never played HU , too many possible bluffs as bottom of villian range 56,76,57,T9,T7,T6. Blocking heart is too good, and I'm not sure AQ(heart) is valubet in villian POV?

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Hey Jeff.

Yeah I think I’m supposed to have a small % of shoves and my value range for this size it’s going to include some straights and some sets with flush blockers along with some flushes.

Agree with your reasoning on hand 4 and yes. I believe AQ with heart it’s a clear valueshove for him.

fefe.p 7 years ago

about h2: do monotone flops tend to favour IP pleyer, causing us to check a lot? if you do bet, what sizing do you use in this spot?
Nice progress you have made so far btw!

Nuno Alvarez 7 years ago

Hey fefe thanks for the kind words!

Yeah exactly. If you think about how both ranges interact it’s very easy to understand. IP range it’s very weighted towards suited combos while OOP range, even though it contains a lot of suited hands, has also a lot of pairs and a lot of offsuit combos. So basically this causes OOP player to be forced to check at a very high frequency on this boards. The size that OOP should use when betting it’s usually around 1/4th pot.

30/30/2018 - MONTHLY UPDATE

Hey guys I'm back!

Finally put in some hands this week even tho I only played from Monday to Thursday.

Monthly results:

All stakes

Not the volume that I'd like and somewhat expensive 200 hands at 1KNL haha but still a very good month. I'm also really happy with my game. The main thing I'd like to improve mentally it's being able to find motivation when playing weaker regs or fish, most of the time I just can't play my A game because I don't find the situation challenging enough for me. As I said a million times, I'm a very competitive person and the thing I enjoy the most from poker is the competition vs good players and, I swear, if I could, I'd regbattle vs great regs all day everyday.

That's it folks. Will post the hand of the month in a few days so stay tuned for that!

Good luck and thanks for reading as always.

zache86 6 years, 11 months ago

Hi Nuno,

nice results buddy...quite impressive to see the volume of a HU pro, obv you can't play whenever you want and if everyone wants to give you action that would be quite alarming for your game :).
I guess HU players compensate the lack of volume with better winrates overall although variance can play a huge role over small samples.

I'm going on vacations to Playa del Carmen tomorrow so i'll catch up with the blog in about ten days.

See you!

Thanks mate.

Yeah, I wish I was able to play more hands. The lack of motivation it’s the main thing that doesn’t allow me to play as much as I’d like so I’m gonna focus on changing that.

Uh wow that sounds great haha! Enjoy!

fefe.p 6 years, 11 months ago

Nice month!
not rarerly i see the 500z pool dead, quite sad, and must be anoying not to get action whenever you wanna play.
Maybe you could try primed mind (fedor holz app) or something like that. I havent tried the poker stuff myself, but it seems to be nice.
gl in april!

Thanks fefe.

Yeah, sometimes not having action it’s very sad. Thx for the reccomendation, I’ve heard of it but haven’t tried it yet.

solid results, except volume :)

Thanks Jeff, definitely agree haha. Will try to make it change!

Hi guys quick update.

I took the weekend off and I’m looking to get back on the grind from today. Was planning on putting a session this morning but mtg arena changed my plans :P

Gonna put around 3 hours of study today and grind as much as I can. If I have time I’ll post the hand of the month as well, stay tunned and good luck!

HAND OF THE MONTH

Hey guys sorry for the delay. Was planning to post this on Monday but I couldn't find an interesting hand of March that I'd like to share my thoughts on.

So this isn't the most spectacular hand ever but I thought it would be an interesting one to illustrate how the game has evolved in the last few years and how very large bets have become the standard for today's games in order to maximize the EV of our strategy in situations in which our opponent it's somewhat capped and it's going to have a hard time defending his range properly.

Hand

Flop

Preflop it's very standard of course. On the flop I went for the 81% size which seems to be fine on this board texture.

The turn it's interesting. Seems like we're supposed to mix between 76% and overbet which makes sense mainly because that allows us to valuebet quite thin with some 7x and weaker 9x.

River

On the river, for what I have seen on PIO, we tend to have some shoves but not as much as we would have if the board was more connected from the flop. In those ones, we tend to play rivers as check/shove situations.

My combo here seemed really good to me at the time, I thought this 84s 83s hands would be good shoves because they block both straights and even if 34o/34s it's not often on the opponent range, blocking the 3x, 4x bluffcatchers of his range still very valuable and look like that's correct. 83s, 84s (no heart) seem to be the best bluffing combos for the shoving range.

I think it's also important to have on mind that our value range on this river spot still quite wide. We can still shove all sets since opponent it's quite capped.

Hope you guys liked it and please, don't hesitate on commenting on it, I'm up to discuss whatever u want about the hand.

Will be updating tomorrow to tell you guys about some things I've been thinking about this week. Thanks for reading and good luck!

what hands would you exploitative call if you are in villian place vs average regular? (possible bluffcathers)

Hey jeff.

That’s a good and difficult question to answer. It depends on a lot of factors. From a theoretical point of view the calling hands are mostly two pair hands because those unblock very well the bluffing range of the opponent. We’re also supposed to call some pair + straight blocker such as 67o.

In practice, average regs to either overbluff or underbluff very hard in this situation so I’d say we should adjust our calling range depending on the villain. Against some of them we should fold pretty much all non straights and against others we should mix some calls with some one pair hands + unblocker such as K9o.

Jeff_ 6 years, 11 months ago

Thanks, very similar to btn/bb spot in 6 max, except preflop ranges are different

Hey guys quick update that I had planned to do on Saturday but I forgot about.

Last week was quite ok regarding my volume but I’m not comfortable with that and I really need to be more disciplined when it comes to playing even if I don’t enjoy the competition that much so I’m writing down the weekly goals again and this time I’m gonna accomplish all of them 100%

Mantain 2/3h of daily study
Practice mindfullness twice a day
1000 hands/day
Wake up at 9:30 every day
Mantain concentration during sessions

I’m already doing most of those but I really need to put the volume in no matter what so I’ll just do it.

Good luck all and have a nice week!

Jeff_ 6 years, 11 months ago

most easiest thing for me is to wake up early. 9 am quite late tbh, but considering playing night time it is what you suppose to be doing.
Do you have any recommendations how to keep playing normal lower stakes than usual and not lost concentration?

Ha yeah 9AM still quite late but I’m not used to it at all and never done it on a regular basis so i'll start for that.

That’s a very common thing that affects to most players when playing lower. Personally, I don’t get this problem when if I’m facing a good opponent. I think the best way to mantain concentration is to focus on playing your best game and take it as a “practice match” in which you wanna do as good as possible.

Daily update

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 883

Very happy with my day. The study was very good, I learned a couple quite valuable things.
Also played A game most of the time and did very well at the tables.

Solid day. Will update again tomorrow and I’ll post some hands as well.

Good luck boys!

zache86 6 years, 11 months ago

Hey Nuno,
I'm back in the mix...looking forward to see those hands!!

Thanks Zache. Good to see you back!

G G 6 years, 11 months ago

Keep the blog alive as long as possible man. I want to witness U reach high stake. Always liked ur video, and from what I can tell U must be a good genuine person in real life.

Bruno 6 years, 11 months ago

I want to witness U reach high stake.

This would be so cool. It will like when OTB_Redbaron made a thread on 2p2 and start to destroy NL500z , NL1k and NL2k haha

Damn thank you so much guys! These two comments just made my day. I wanna truly thank you for the support, it means the world for me.

Much love <3

Daily update

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 973

Another very good day at the tables, happy with my game as well but I'm completely exhausted. Really need a good sleep after this long day I had. I'm way too tired to post many hands so I'll only post a funny one now and I'll share with you guys the other ones tomorrow morning.

Gotcha!

Thanks for reading and good luck all guys!

zache86 6 years, 11 months ago

Hahaha nice hand...blocker's effect!

Probably one of my better check/call combos on the river

Haha thx, indeed!

Yesterday I battled a reg at 1KNL and here are some of the most interesting hands of the session:

Smart play by him

Good value raise by him, people tend to play really bad this situations

Easy fold vs the range he's repping but still a cool hand

Very interesting one, will review it later on PIO to find out if I'm supposed to have some leads on the river

Good luck all, have a good day!

zache86 6 years, 11 months ago

Hi buddy,

I think jason.mac is a very strong opponent and was some of the "middling top end hu regs" a few years ago...i don't know much about his game nowadays.

"Smart play by him" : i really don't like his bluff as he is only repping Tx maaaaybe 3x... i think his combo works better even as a call than as a bluff. I also don't think hero will be valuebetting a "bad Ax" specially against tricky opponents that may put us on a tough spot.
I guess ranges are really narrow and thats why i don't like it very much...i even see Tx polarizing much more as leaves hero with only 6 combos for value(3 AA,2 ATo and 1 ATs)
I once read "don't try to move your opponent from a range of trips or better" (jungleman ?) and i think it somehow applies here.
I also believe that his blockers to QT and JT don't count THAT much because hero will still have a lot of tens in his range.
I'm curious why you liked villain's line.

"Probably one of my better check/call combos on the river": very nice hand...what do you think about villain's float on the flop to the ch/r? Standard with the backdoors? or a bit out of line? I guess it's fine,but i'd like to hear your thoughts about it.

"Good value raise by him, people tend to play really bad this situations": i agree his raise is very good and people don't do it often enough

"Easy fold vs the range he's repping but still a cool hand" : wow almost 6x pot...wath do you think is the bottom of our calling range? Q9+(i guess no) or even 66+ that of course are bluffcatchers given his line...
Even against skillful players like him, do you think this spot is being underbluffed? Would you approach the spot with the MDF concept?

"Very interesting one, will review it later on PIO to find out if I'm supposed to have some leads on the river" : nice hand, i guess we should have some blocking on the river but interesting to see that range...i'm also curious about the ovebetting range on the flop (2p + ?) i use this line on 6m when i want to maximize FE, play a 2 street game or my hand needs a LOT of protection...i'd like to know if it also applies to hu ranges specially when we unblock Ax.

Very interesting hands as always...see you and gl on the tables!

G G 6 years, 11 months ago

Hey Nuno I don’t play HU, nonetheless i’d like to present my obseravation so that maybe u can point out flaws in my thinking or knowledge inadequacy. Highly appreciated.

First hand on 3TTA3 : if he expect u stabing river a lot vs double check line, i.e. both with air and thin value bet say Ax, then a big check raise is ok blocking AQ AJ preferably with a heart ...Tj Qj I’m not sure blocking trips is all that relevant for him because U probably won’t check back Tx on the turn? Or u do very low frequency xb with Tx acknowledging Ace also hit his float range a lot to protect ur range? When u check back turn I would expect ur range to be show down heavy.

2nd hand: is his flop float too loose or Ok in HU? I agree on river it’s a good x/c unblocking especially Tc Jc Qc.

3rd hand: did u think of 3 betting on river? I agree his value raise is confident and good. Roughly how often does 88 gets 3 bet-ed preflop in HU?

4th hand: Any else hand to call other than 66, 57? What do u think is his bottom value range with this line? What’s his likely bluff combos?

Last hand: leading on river? Feel
like the only bluff combo is AJ. Too may boats.

Hey, thanks both for the comments. Gonna try to give my insights and answer your questions hand by hand.

Hand 1: I don’t think his hand choice is the best one here but I think it still a “smart play” because what he did it’s something creative that’s trying to generate folds from the Ax part of our range.

Hand 2: His flop float it’s close but likely good. The fact that we’re supposed to be raising around 12% of our hands makes IP player to defend a lot of backdoor hands.

Hand 3: Regarding 3betting river this hand isn’t a good one to do it. You generally want more relevant blockers for the range I’m representing, hands like 67, 62s, 72s will be the chosen ones at a low frequency. Also, 88 it’s usually 3betting 100% of the time in HU.

Hand 4: In this kind of spots 100bb deep we tend to call a lot of two pair hands because of unblocker value but playing this deep I expected his range to be extremely polarized so I think that the straight blocker becomes very important. I nave no idea of what the bottom of my calling range is so but I’m guessing 66. About this spot getting underbluffed I’m not sure but I think people tend to either always have it or never have when they shove. Some players tend to think that a shove generates a fold 100% of the time so they always use that size as a bluff.

Hand 5: The flop overbet on 3Bet pots has become a very used weapon in nowadays HU players arsenal. The general idea it’s to use it om boards in which (as Zache said) we wanna play a 2 street game giving a lot of importance to protection. About the river lead I couldn’t review it on PIO because my combo seems to be playing a smaller size on the flop pretty much all the time.

That’s it boys. Will post the daily update in an hour or so.

zache86 6 years, 11 months ago

Thats the reason i was curious about the overbetting range on the flop in a 3b pot (hand 5) in HU game on that board texture...i didn't do the sim but i was curious at the beginning about that spot.
I'm just guessing, but i'd say that range is more likely a two pair + (but using the ace),obv sets and semibluffs with fd + str8 draws.

Daily update 11/3/2018

Sorry guys forgot to update yesterday.

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 489

Decent day at the tables. Played my A game most of the time but I couldn’t get much action during afternoon that’s why I played fewer hands that I’d like to.

I’m missing 655 hands for the 1k/day average I’m aiming to play. Will try to play as much as I can today and will update at night.

Good luck!

Very nice to see you doing daily updates, I play 6-max, but I read your posts every day just for motivating purposes. Maybe I'll start my own blog too!
Keep it up, and GL!

Thanks man, you too. Will follow! Let us know if you finally decide to start it.

Daily update 12/4/2018

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 847

Again, very happy with my game today. Couldn't play my daily 1k hands because of lack of action at night but still a very good day. I learned a few more valuable things that I'm already applying at the tables and I also feel in my best moment ever as a player so I'll keep working hard.

Tomorrow I'll post the weekly recap and will share some hands with you guys as well.

Good luck lads!

Cool dude! Just started my journal today, got inspired from yours, it's called On my way to Triangulum (clearly inspired by your journal name lol), gl us!
Do you play in a lot of sites? Because everytime I check HU zoom action in nl500 it seems to be dead, ofc sometimes somebody show up, but its hard to see any action anyway.

Ha that’s great! I’m following. Gl us indeed!

I just play stars. Yeah, action it’s quite dead sometimes but it’s the only site that offers Zoom.

Daily update 13/4/2018

Again, forgot to upload yesterday.

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 575

Was holding the tables for a lot of time but couldn’t get much action at all. Still had a good day at the tables and played quite well again. I was planning on not playing the weekend but changed my mind so I’ll post the weekly recap as well as some hands tomorrow.

Good luck!

Bluffcatching the top of my range

Weekly update 16/4/2018

Hi all, I didn't update yesterday because I had to do some coaching and didn't have almost any time to play so I finally took the weekend ''off'' and just coached and got legend rank on Hearthstone lol.

So this week was pretty good overall. I studied around 2 hours every single weekday and ended up playing around 3.8k hands which it's not bad given that I was quite busy with coaching and with non poker related stuff as well. I'm planning on keeping the 1k hands/daily mark and try to reach it more consistently.

Some fun/entertaining hands:

River blockbet bluff

Hold!

The biggest overcall from a reg I've seen in a long time

He just loves calling :(

He really does :)

Getting it in good

PIO play getting rewarded

Blockers not blocking enough

This is gonna be it guys, hope you enjoy the fun hands! Will be back on the hard grind from tomorrow and will keep posting the daily updates as long as I can.

Good luck and have a nice week!

Cool! I don't know much about HU studying, but for ex, you study a lot a player that you play a lot? Or only the Pio work? GL!

Hey man.

I mostly do PIO work on pretty much every single postflop situation. Every week my study partner and me select a different branch of the game tree and we dedicate to study that every day.

maqtheknife 6 years, 11 months ago

Hi just wondering how many tables are you playing and roughly how many hands per hour does it take to get 1k hands if you have the action

Hi, I always play 2 tables at a time and I play around 250/300 hands/hour.

''The biggest overcall from a reg I've seen in a long time'' this hand looks not great (villian play), he doesn't need to defend that type of hand, right? that combo doesn't block your bluffing range, but if you value betting straight for that size, I imagine his call is losing.
And hand ''Cooler'' reason behind small check/raise? ( raising more hands for value/bluff?)

No. His call is of course losing. It's true that it doesn't block y bluffing range but against my size he just needs more relevant blockers to the value range I'm representing.

Yeah, exactly. The reason why the smaller check raise size it's good on paired boards it's because it allows you to raise a wider value range as well as a lot of bluffs given that the cbet % for the opponents on this boards are going to be quite high.

zache86 6 years, 11 months ago

Lol i was also stunned by that call...villain must have a read on hero or something like that because he is calling super wide acording to these hh's.
I guess a lot of dynamic going on

Daily update 16/6/2018

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 609

Had some non poker stuff to take care of so I couldn’t play more but still quite happy with my game at the tables. More of the same tomorrow hopefully.

Good luck!

Daily update 17/6/2018

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 294

Sadly I was only able to put a nightly session today. At least my game was pretty good during it. More tomorrow.

Good luck lads.

8 players right now! gl!

Daily update 19/4/2018

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 1360

Hey guys, I didn’t update yesterday because I only played a very short nightly session. Today I put a very good volume in, didn’t play my best because the pools were super soft most of the time and sometimes I couldn’t fully concentrate. Other than that, I’m happy with my day. More of the same tomorrow.

Good luck all!

zache86 6 years, 11 months ago

Hey Nuno,
how's the volume going so far on april?...are we near the 1k hands per day?

Hey Zache and all.

Haven’t checked but I’m afraid we’re not even close :( Had a lot of coaching to do lately and couldn’t play as much as I’d like. I’m also taking a very needed weekend off to start from Monday with full energy!

I will be posting the weekly recap on Sunday as well as some hands for your entertaining.

Good luck!

Weekly update 22/4/2018

Hi guys I'm back!

Took the weekend off to relax, do some coaching and organize the study I've been doing these past few weeks. Haven't been playing that much lately but I think my results were pretty good. This week I'm very motivated to keep studying a lot, put a good volume in and hopefully crush the tables!

Some interesting hands from last week:

Getting lucky vs unknown

Thanks for reading and good luck all.

zache86 6 years, 11 months ago

Ni Nuno,

nice to have those interesting hh's to talk about

"Pretty std I believe": do yo think his fcb is correct? range wise i think it is not a board we have to be betting at a high frequency (given the size he choose)...i'd rather bet medium size (3/4pot) or check although protecion/blocking may be a thing on this board, turn and river are fine imo

"I had it this time": what do you think about his river call? standard ? spewie? i know he blocks 75 but i don't think an A is a card that the 3b caller will bluff on a high frequency

Great post!

Hey Zache.

Hand 3: Yeah, I think his cbet is completely fine. The smaller size tends to be the one capturing the maximum EV for OOP range given that almost any size gets the same amount of folds from IP range.

Hand 5: Haven’t reviewed it but my guess is that it’s not good at all.

Glad you enjoyed the hands bud!

About the "I had It this time" hand. What do you think about his call? I think he called because he blocks your value with the 5, and doesnt blocks any FDs or the misses draws. Would you play your Axs (with a BDFD) the same way? Very interesting hand

Hey man.

Same as above, I don’t think it’s good. The 5 is not relevant enough. I’m not betting that many A high fds on the turn but I’d be shoving them for value on the river as played.

Daily update 23/4/2018

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 547

Hey guys. Today I had a very good day. I did some coaching in the morning, later I had a very good study session with my study partner where we found out a few useful patterns to apply at the tables and finally I had a great day at the tables. I couldn’t play more because of lack of time but I played super focused and my A game all the time on the 2 sessions I put in. I’m really happy about it, I feel that my game is better than it’s ever been and I’m also super motivated to crush the tables. This week it’s going to be epic!

I’ll be back tomorrow for the daily update and maybe a few interesting hands as usual. Good luck lads!

Daily update 24/4/2018

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 547

Hey guys, today I had another good day. I didn’t get to play my 1k hands but I spent and enjoyed most of my day with the girlfriend so I can’t complain. I'm again quite happy with my game and with the study done. I'm super tired as well so I'm heading to bed now but I will post some hands tomorrow morning.

Good luck!

Time to move up, no?

Yeah, I'm already playing good 1KNL pools. Wanna polish a few things in my game before I start playing everyone there.

Daily update 23/4/2018

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 800

Hey guys sorry, I had a very busy day yesterday and couldn't post the daily update. Day was solid, only played two long sessions but my game quality was decent. Today I'm looking to hit the 1000 hands mark. Will update at night and post some hands as well.

Good luck!

Daily update 24/4/2018

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 879

Hi lads, yesterday I ended up too tired to post the daily update again. I had a very good day at the tables, I kept feeling over and over that I'm at the peak of my game and I'm super motivated because of that, It's even helping me to play larger sessions and maintain my A game during them.

Hands as promised:

Lucky river

Good bluff by him went wrong

Very interesting river spot. Reviewed it and my hand choice seems to be correct

Bad turn

Will post the weekly recap tonight or tomorrow morning. Good luck guys!

zache86 6 years, 10 months ago

Hi Nuno,

Cooler (number 3):very nice hand...loved the flop sizing

Very interesting river spot: i'd like to know what's the range we are supposed to raise on the flop given the size villain used...i also think given the odds ,because of the small raise , villain has a lot of A highs on that river.
Maybe i am missing something,id love to hear your thought on this spot...ty in advance

Hey Zache.

Hand 5: Thanks!

Hand 6: We are not supposed to have many raises here, mainly protection raising some PP and some bluffs. He does end up with a lot of Ax OTR yeah but he's supposed to fold most of them against a bet since they are close to the bottom of his range.

Jeff_ 6 years, 10 months ago

1st cooler hand, very well played by villain, great turn and river size.
''Very interesting river spot'' think villain should click back that spot quite frequently or you get too cheap price for 2 cards and blowing his SC type of hand right away.

Hey Jeff.

Hand 2: Agree!

Hand 6: Great point, just reviewed it and looks like your'e right. A lot of clicking back going on for OOP because of that reason. Very good catch!

Weekly update

Hi all. My week was pretty good. I'm really happy of how things are going. I feel like I'm improving a lot of aspects of my game and that's a very good sign. I took the weekend off to relax and also to organize the study I did last week. I couldn't resist today and played for an hour (400 hands) on a quite soft pool, ended very happy with my game as well!

Goals for this week/new month:

Enjoy life, spend more time with my girlfriend
Wake up at 9AM every day
Practice mindfulness before starting the daily grind
Average 1000 hands/day
Maintain 2 hours study every weekday + add 3 extra weekly hours organizing study

Will be back tomorrow night to post the monthly results and the hand of the month. Stay tuned and good luck!

cool! wake up at 9PM, is this right? You play at nightime and sleep at day time?

Sorry, my bad. Meant 9AM. Edited.

zache86 6 years, 10 months ago

Hi Nuno,

where do you live? just to note what do you mean by morning in my country (argentina) so i can raill you sometime...

Germany so CET time!

zache86 6 years, 10 months ago

Really nice country!
I remember i loved neuschwanstein beside all the big cities

oh, now it makes sense hahah, I thought you did that because of the quality of the games on these hours

Ha yeah. I’m not willing to sacrifice a very important part of my life for that. I really enjoy to be able to play in the morning tho, it’s the best part of the day for me.

Monthly update

Hi guys, just checked my results and I wasn't really expecting to have done this well! I ran very good obviously, specially the last week, but I have also put a lot of work and my game improved a lot lately so I can't be happier about that.

Another thing I feel I improved at it's concentration during sessions. Today I played 3 one hour long sessions and was able to maintain a very high level of concentration pretty much all the time. This is, in a very big part, because my understanding of the game got better and I pay more attention to most spots. This will also help me to play longer sessions and more hands which is the main thing I should change, the lack of volume can't happen when I enjoy the game this much and I am in the best moment on my poker career.

This is gonna be it, I'm planning on putting a lot of volume this week and keep studying as much as I can. I already selected the hand of the month as well and will probably post it tomorrow. Stay tuned for that and good luck guys!

zache86 6 years, 10 months ago

Great results Nuno!

Nice to see that 1k nl volume starting to pop up on the monthly recap.
How do you feel about rake impact on HU environment? On a quick glimpse you made ~15k and paid ~5k :(

Sorry guys been very busy lately with studying and grinding and didn't find time to update the Journal.

I'll post the hand of the month later today though.

Hand of the month

Hey guys, as promised here you have the hand of the month

It's not a very spectacular hand but I thought it would be interesting to give my insights on this river spot.

Flop is, obviously, very standard. This is a good board for IP player in which we're supposed to be using a small sizing at a high frequency. My hand seems like a very straight forward valuebet.

Turn is a spot in which we're going to be playing an overbet/check strategy since we don't have any hands that need a lot of protection. My particular combo seemed at the time a very high frequency overbet but I decided to mix a check that time.

On the river, opponent goes for a 65% size that implies he's going to be valuebetting quite thin. My hand, being the top of my turn checking range, seemed like a good candidate to value raise, specially holding the QT blocker.

Flop

Not much to say, standard.

Mistake on my part here, looks like I'm not supposed to mix any checks with my particular combo here.

River (OOP)

He's supposed to have an overbetting range OTR with most of his strongest hands so that makes his checking range more capped than usual.

River IP

Can't review it with my particular combo but seems that a hand like AK is raising all the time so I'd imagine my combo would be a fine raise as well.

Hope you guys liked it and good luck all!

Jeff_ 6 years, 10 months ago

seems like you getting same value by betting turn and river? KT is worse hard you valuebet river if you betting 3 streets and not huge overbetting turn?
Thank you, I'm quite curious about my questions

Sorry I don't understand the question. Can you rephrase it?

Jeff_ 6 years, 10 months ago

if you bet turn, would you value bet river too? (not overbet turn size)

I wouldn’t use a non overbet turn size here. In case I overbet turn with this hand I’d check river.

G G 6 years, 10 months ago

Very Occasionally check back turn with this combo... I like it, particularly against player who probe river a lot. Overbet/check strategy when protection is not much of a concern, is good knowledge point to know.

Weekly Update 6/5/2018

Hey guys, this week was pretty good. My volume was acceptable even though it wasn't that much action and the study was very good as usual. I took the weekend to rest and now I'm heading to bed to wake up early tomorrow and get back at it. Hopefully action would be good given that SCOOP started today. I'm also thinking about firing the 2.1k HU event that starts on 1.5 weeks, we'll see.

Good luck boys and have a good week!

Hey guys quick update.

I played a lot of hands so far this week (2.7k) mostly at 1KNL tho. My game was pretty good but I got coolered in plenty of spots. I’m planning on maybe taking a break from the tables today and keep studying and improving a few things about my game. My motivation still quite high and I feel very comfortable with the 1KNL swings now so I’m happy with that as well.

Good luck boys!

Nice to hear you are doing fine at 1knl! GL

zache86 6 years, 10 months ago

Hi Nuno

Yeah i saw some of them against 'acceleration' ...really bad run!
Nice to hear you can deal with swings when playing higher than usual i think that's a key point to keep your head healthy.

Gl at the tables !

G G 6 years, 10 months ago

GL man ... likewise here.... today get "set-ted" 2 or 3 times and lost all in flips within 1k hands ...big losing day ... but fine. It all just motivates us to get better. One question regarding studying and improving, how do u find topics or "things" U can work on? I don't have a systematic approach ... just playing and randomly take a look at PIO sometimes. So maybe U can shed light on how U improve so fast and become really solid? Thx a million.

Hey man.

That's the attitude! It really surprises me how much people need to work on their mental games, most players are not even able to not watch their graph every day and I find that really easy to do and really helpful as well.

Good question. I usually try to learn spot by spot and I give priority to spots in which I'd be able to extrapolate the things I learn to other parts of the game tree, for example, I'd study first how to play A high textures SRP rather than flop raises in monotone flops 3BP. I reccomend you to start with simple things that you already have a good idea of how to play and then move gradually to more complex situations.

Weekly update

Hey guys, this week was quite crazy. I've played quite a lot of HU and also started learning some 6max because I wanna be able to play some 3/4 handed reg battles while I wait for action on HU. This really seems quite doable, I tried first time at 400NL this Thursday and regs didn't even play me consistenly so I'm planning on add some SH study even though my main focus is going to be HU still.

I'm quite disappointed with how my routine has been. I really need to wake up early in order to maximize tha value of my time. I'm super busy lately with coaching, studying and grinding pretty much every weekday and this would only work if I organize in the proper way.

Goals for this week/month:

Wake up at 9AM every weekday
Practice mindfullness and warm up before starting my first session of the day
Maintain minimum 2 hours of study every day
Read every day
Play 1000 hands a day
Be a more organized person in all aspects
Post daily updates + some thoughts from time to time
Enjoy my free time

This is it folks, hope you guys had a great week and good luck!

14/6/2018 UPDATE

Hey guys I’m back. Crazy day at the tables, played around 2k hands between HU and 6Max. Battled at 400NL and got to play some 3/4 handed as well. My HU game quality wasn’t the best mostly because HU requires a lot of constant attention and I was quite tired, specially during the night session.

The ide is to try to keep putting some 6Max volume while I waif for action on HU. I’ll be back tomorrow with another update, good luck!

15/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 963

Hi guys. Very productive day today, I studied a lot and organized what I've been learning lately. I' really happy with this aspect and I'm planning on putting a lot of study this week. My game quality was also pretty good, specially on my nightly session in which I played my A game for almost the whole 1.5 hours of play. I'm definitely not running good at all, many coolers and beats but I don't like to complain about it, it has to happen and there's no problem at all. I'm not the kind of player that tilts, actually, I never tilt, I just get frustrated sometimes when it seems like nothing woks but other than that I'd say I have a quite strong mental game. Gonna try to not get frustrated this time and keep playing my best despite anything else!

Will be back tomorrow, good luck guys.

have you ever done some mindset training? or a pre-session warm up?

Hey man.

No I didn’t. I do a pre session warm up before my first session of the day. I have a specific warm up session on GTO Trainer and I use it to get in the zone before starting the daily grind.

16/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 0

Hey guys, forgot to upload yesterday. I had a quite busy day and couldn’t find time to play but I put good study in and today I’m planning on trying to play and study some as well. Will upload tonight.

Good luck.

17/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 826

Hi guys. I just finished my last session of the day and I’m insanely happy with my game. Only grinded around 3 hours today divided in 2 sessions but played what I think it was my best game ever. Never felt so confident and happy about pretty much all my decisions. I was in the zone the whole time and did very well at the tables in big part because of that. The study part was also good and helpful as always. I’m quite tired heading to bed now but I’ll post some hands tomorrow morning if I have time and i will try to keep grinding, playing my A game and hopefully enjoying it this much.

Good luck all guys and thanks for reading.

zache86 6 years, 10 months ago

Hi Nuno,
nice to hear you are doing great...looking forward to those hh's !

Do you keep track of your study time or is it kind of "more or less" x time.
I mean, studying a spot when it comes to your mind or you start the month saying to yourself i'll study x amount of hours and play x' amount of hours

Hi Zache.

Yeah will post some of them tonight!

It's more like an estimation. I don't usually have a specific amount of hours I wanna study each month or something like that but I already organized something like this starting next week so I'd be studying very similar spots almost every day. I'm really motivated for this and I feel like it's going to be super helpful for my game.

18/5/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 1201

Hi guys, today I had another good day at the tables, my game was pretty good most of the time even though I was quite tired during my last session. The study was also good, I'm now taking the weekend off the tables to relax and organize the study of this week and the upcoming one. I'm super happy with my game and that's always a good sign, my volume was also pretty acceptable this week but I'll try to improve that as well. Would be back on Sunday to post weekly goals.

Hands as promised:

Wish you guys a good weekend and good luck at the tables!

zache86 6 years, 10 months ago

Hi Nuno!
Mixing it up: really bad timing for a super bluff :(

Blockbetting OTR: interesting hand, i think on villain's shoes i am more inclined to bluff that combo rather than to call

Hey Zache.

You mean the bluff that gone wrong, yeah, bad timing indeed haha.

Yeah, he’s likley supposed to mix some raises with his combo there.

WEEKLY UPDATE

Hey guys I'm back. I took the week off the tables and I'm really looking forward to start the week. I'm very excited to start the new study sessions I have programmed and I feel like it's going to be a very productive week. Last one I put decent volume in but I failed in most of my other goals so I'm gonna try to start with easier stuff this time.

Study 2 hours every day (minimum) and organize the study afterwards
Play an average of 1000 hands/day
Wake up at 9:30 AM every weekday
Practice mindfullness and warm up before starting my first session of the day
Keep posting daily updates

Will be back tomorrow. Good luck lads!

21/5/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 1052

Game quality: B

Hi guys, I ended up way too tired to update yesterday. The day was pretty good, study was very valuable and my game at the tables was decent but not great though. I’m wasn’t able to concentrate too much but I’m gonna try to focus more on that regard.

Good luck guys and thanks for reading.

22/5/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 543

Game quality: B-

Hi guys. Quite okay day at the tables, low volume because I had some non poker related things to take care of. The study was good but my game at the tables wasn’t that much. I wasn’t able to maintain concentration during most of my sessions.

Would be back tomorrow. Good luck!

23/5/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5h

Hands: 635

Game quality: B+

Hi guys. Today there wasn’t much action so I even had to play some 200NL go get some hands in. Played only two sessions and got a decent A - game on the second one which I’m happy about. The study was good as always. Tomorrow I will try to play more and also study a bit longer than usual.

Good luck friends.

24/5/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 492

Game quality: A -

Hi guys. Another low volume day. Not much action, played some 1KNL during afternoon and 500 at night. My game was pretty good specially at night, regbattled for sometime and that got me in the zone. The study was also decent, I worked on exploits which is something I haven’t work that much at but I think it’s very valuable specially when playing weaker opponents or recreational players.

Thanks for reading and good luck.

25/5/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 4 hours

Hands: 1106

Game quality: B

Hey guys. Today I had a very productive day. I put around 4 hours total of study in which is obviously great. I organized very well the study I’ve done this week and that’s something very useful. My day at the tables wasn’t either good or bad. I got to play some 1KNL but mostly 500NL and my game wasn’t the best there mostly because of very weak pools and not much focus on my part.

Taking the weekend off the tables to do some coaching, studying and relaxing. Will be back on Sunday, good luck boys.

sauloCosta10 6 years, 9 months ago

Hey Nuno, im a 6max reg who recently has been enjoying playing HU and might get into it more seriously in the future. I have a question: how the good regs WWSF, WTSD and W$SD stats look like in HU? I would imagine WWSF and WTSD should be pretty high and W$SD on the lower side, but am not sure. Thanks in advance and keep crushing!

Hey Saulo!

To be honest I’m not completely sure how those stats should look like since I don’t use them that much. They are also very player dependant and very sensitive to the different playstyles so I’m not quite sure what they would look like for a GTO bot for example. On a good reg high WWSF and WTSD it’s quite common I think.

Hey guys. Haven’t updated lately because I wasn’t able to play due a strong toothache I’m suffering from since Sunday. I’m feeling a bit better today and would try to put some hands in.

Good luck!

zache86 6 years, 9 months ago

Get well buddy!
I think toothache and earache are some of the worst pains to have

Thank you very much mate!

Couldn't agree more, I've suffered from both in the past and yeah, they are definitely very hard to deal with, specially because they make sleeping almost impossible, at least for me.

MONTHLY UPDATE

Hey guys, I'm back. Been feeling pretty weak lately because of this toothache I'm having but I'm finally feeling a bit better.

Not a bad month, decent volume considering that I also played some 6max and happy with my game overall. Got coolered and run quite bad at 1KNL which is obviously completely fine. The reg level is quite similar to 500NL and I'm doing very well there so I just need to put more hands and run a bit better next time :P. On a side note, I'm really happy with my winrate at 500NL this year. I'm gonna try to focus on maintaining those 10bb/100 as a challenge to keep myself motivated to do my best. Volume, as always is the main thing I need to improve and I'm really going to try to do so.

I'm really excited to start this week, I'm planning on doing a lot of study and hopefully play a lot of hands as well.

Will be back tonight. Good luck guys and thanks for reading!

zache86 6 years, 9 months ago

Hi Nuno,

it's really tough when you move up in stakes and you run this bad...although that can be fixed with more volume, having a good mindset to deal with negative variance imo is a key point to success on new levels.

Your work ethic are out of question so it's just a matter of time buddy

See you!

sauloCosta10 6 years, 9 months ago

You will be crushing 1k in no time man!

Question: how many hands per month is it possible to play in those stakes (assuming reasonable working hours/month)?

Hey Zache, thank you very much for the kind words mate.

To be honest it doesn’t bother me at all. It’s just part of the game. Definitely agree on everything else, I’m quite happy with my mindset so I’ll keep playing my best no matter what the results are.

Thanks Saulo.

I’d say 25/30k is doable if you only use your time to study and play. In my case, I do a lot of coaching and I have a life as well haha so for me, playing 20k hands/month would be a win.

4/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 994

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Good day at the tables. Played only two long sessions, on the first one my game was good and on the second one I was in the zone and felt very comfortable playing as well. The plan is to keep studying and playing a lot. Will update again tonight.

Good luck!

5/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 550

Game quality: B+

Hey guys, another decent day at the tables. Not much volume unfortunately but played quite well and study was pretty good as well.

Good luck all!

6/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2.5 hours

Hands: 300

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Solid day at the tables. Not much action today, I was only able to play one session but ended up quite happy with my game. Played in the zone most of the time and got the feeling of playing close to my best game ever again which is obviously great. More of the same tomorrow.

Good luck.

8/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 929

Game quality: A+

Hey guys I'm back. Forgot to update yesterday but today was a super productive day. Played very very well and had a lot of fun. I battled at 1k vs a reg and felt super zoned the whole match, it was really enjoyable. I'm really focused on poker lately and I keep feeling that I'm playing my best game ever so I'll keep working hard to be the best.

Some hands of the regbattle:

Really interesting one

Will take the weekend off to relax and will be back on the grind on Monday.

Good luck folks, have a great weekend.

zache86 6 years, 9 months ago

Hi Nuno,

Standard: although we reopen the action for an all in raise/all in bluff raise... isn't our combo worth at least a small raise given villain has all the two pairs,sets in his range and that we block AT massively or 200bb deep is better to take the 'passive' line?
Or is it just that worst hands won't call as and his river betting range is mostly sets(?) and bluffs and nut straights?
I guess hero's raising range on the river will have almost 0 bluffs...well i don't know just thinking aloud

Have a nice weekend

Hey Zache.

I'm not quite sure of what's the best option here. I opted for the passive line because I wasn't expecting a lot of sets on his range but that may be a mistake on my part. Deepstack play is always obviously more complex than 100bb game. I'm actually planning on putting a lot of work on my 200bb game in the upcoming weeks.

Hey guys I’m back!

Had a good rest this weekend and I’m about to sleep now to wake up early in the morning and maximize the value of my day.

I’m really pumped to keep playing my best game and also to keep studying and improving a lot as a player. Let’s crush!

Good luck all.

11/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 421

Game quality: A

Hey guys. About to sleep now. The day was pretty good. Study was helpful as always and I didn’t get to play many hands because of lack of action but played mainly 1KNL and ended up very happy with my game. More of the same tomorrow.

Good luck!

Eldora 6 years, 9 months ago

Keep going nuno! It's great to see how well you're doing and steadily improve your game.

I don't want to spam your blog but guys definitely check out the Coach Clash of Nuno and Paul Atwal. It's so much fun to watch and you had a great dynamic going on. It's especially valuable for all of you who play 6max but are interested in learning some HU NL. Great job.

Thanks Eldora!

Definitely agree. Check it out guys!

12/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 600

Game quality: A

Hey guys, another very good day at the tables. Played mostly 1KNL and was in the zone the whole session. I'm once again really happy with my game and very motivated to keep enjoying what I do and keep improving day by day.

I'm heading to bed now to hopefully wake up early tomorrow morning. If I find the time I'll post some hands as well.

Good luck boys and thanks for reading!

13/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 397

Game quality: A+

Hi guys. Super happy about my performance today. Couldn’t play many hands but my last session of the day was super good. I played my best game both at a 500 and a 1K pool, every spot worked on my favour but I also felt super confident about all my decisions and very superior to my opponents. The study part was alos bery good and I learned a few very valuable concepts that I’m gonna start applying this week.

More of the same tomorrow, excited to keep playing my best game. Good luck!

14/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 220

Game quality: B

Hey guys. I didn't get to play a lot yesterday. I held the 1K and 500 pools around 2 hours and only got like 35 hands in unfortunately. Study was good as always.

Today I already played a very good 2 hour session this morning. My game was pretty good and did really well at the tables, actually, it may have been my best session ever, I never check results but obviously I get an idea depending on the amount of money I'm holding at the tables.

Will be back tonight with a new update as well as some hands from this week. Good luck all!

zache86 6 years, 9 months ago

It 'd be interesting to know the results of that session just to satisfy the follower's morbid curiosity :)

Hahaha. Not gonna look at results yet but I might post this particular session when I post the monthly update. Stay tunned!

Hell of a spot 280bb deep

15/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0

Hands: 1244

Game quality: A -

Hey guys! Had a very good day at the tables. Didn't get to study but at least I played a very good amount. My game was pretty good in all the sessions and I ended up happy with my performance overall.

Hands from the week as promised:

Close river spot

Bluffcatching

Really interesting one

As you can see I ran quite well, everything went my way this week. My game was also very good so I'm very happy about it. Now rest until Monday, have a good weekend and good luck guys!

zache86 6 years, 9 months ago

Hi Nuno, nice to see those hh's!

Close river spot: very nice hand, i think from both sides, hero AND villain finding a good opportunity to bluff on the river

Bluffcatching: is it standard to call the 3b with 98o? or is it too far?

Really interesting one: very well played!

Loose play by him:don't know the dinamycs but i guess it's too far him to ch/rF to hero's sizing

Thin value: what do you think about villain's call on the river? is it ok not blocking the barreling/bluffing combos on that board?

Hell of a spot 280bb deep: i loved villain's sizings on this hand

Very interesting hands on this update! Love to hear you are playing well, running well and getting the spews when protecting that checking range

Keep up the good work :)

Hey Zache, glad you enjoyed them!

1 - Agree

2 - Nope, a bit too loose

3 - Thanks

4 - Agree

5 - Too loose IMO

6 - No idea how to play 280bb poker so I won't comment haha

Thanks for the support bud!

zache86 6 years, 9 months ago

No way, it's a pleasure for me
Thanks for keeping the blog...i love the way you aproach the game !

Hey guys. I had a good rest this weekend and now I’m heading to bed to start the week tomorrow waking up early in the day and do some work in the morning. Very excited to keep playing my best game and also to keep studying and improving very consistently.

Good luck boys, have a great week!

18/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 925

Game quality: B+

Hey guys. Another decent day at the tables. My game was decent but not very good. Study was decent. More of the same tomorrow.

Good luck!

19/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 551

Game quality: B

Hey guys. The study today was quite good, I learned a few new interesting things but I didn't get to play my best game at the tables, there wasn't much action either and I wasn't able to concentrate too much so I decided to go for a walk with the girlfriend and start re-reading Maus, a very recommended graphic novel that narrates the experiences of the father of the author, a Polish jew and holocaust survivor.

Good luck guys!

20/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 708

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Today it was a quite productive day. The study was awesome, I learned quite a few valuable concepts lately and I’m also starting to interiorize them. My game at the tables was pretty good, I was able to maintain concentration quite consistently during two of the three sessions I played and performed pretty well.

More of the same tomorrow. Good luck lads!

21/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 821

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Another very productive day. The study was very good and enjoyable. My game at the tables was also very decent, got to play a bunch of 1KNL too and did quite well there. Really enjoying the grind lately and will likely keep playing a good amount because of that.

Good luck all and thanks for reading!

22/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 584

Game quality: B+

Hey guys. The study was good as always but I didn’t get to play my best at the tables due to lack of concentration mostly. Now taking the weekend off to relax and do some offpoker stuff and back at it on Monday.

Good luck all!

26/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 854

Game quality: B+

Hey guys. Today I came back from my weekend break. Study was good as always and got to play a lot of 1KNL. Despite my game wasn’t very good I had a good day. Unfortunately I got the badbeat of the month that was to missclick open stars cashier and see my monthly results before time haha. At least the month seems to be going very well and, anyway, there are only a few days left until July so it’s no big deal.

Good luck all!

Eldora 6 years, 9 months ago

haa! I hate this misclick too when I'm not trying to see results. But it's a whole less worse when the surprise is positive ;)

Haha yeah I guess so. Never happened to me before though!

zache86 6 years, 9 months ago

Do you think checking results affect your overall mindset/play?
How do you study hands or spots without entering a session?

Hey Zache.

I don’t think it affects me that much, specially to my game at the tables, but daily/weekly results have basically 0 importance and sometimes they may make you feel bad or sad during a few days so I rather not check them that often.

I can still review hands without looking at results. I have my own methods on PT4 to do that haha.

26/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 697

Game quality: A

Hey guys, another day in the books. The study was good, I reviewed some hands with my study partner, then we went over a few 3Bet pot spots and we learned a few things. My game at the tables was also pretty good. In the morning I put a short 500NL session and at night I got to play almost exclusively 1KNL, some regbattling and some 6/7 entry pools.

More of the same tomorrow. Good luck!

Eldora 6 years, 8 months ago

Hey nuno it's cool to see how often you can note down an A for you game quality. In your newest series with Paul it's quite obvious too that you feel good about your game and it is fun to watch how you have a solid idea of almost every upcoming spot and even if you're not sure you can derive sth from related situations. Following your vids in conjunction with your blog is a cool experience as it gives background information on your grind.

I just wondered what your study approach recently looks like. Does the study time include reviewing hands of each day? Or is it solely investigating new spots in a more scientific way?

If you would be ready to share I would love to hear about the main topics you study every now and then to get a better idea of what your study approach looks like also with the objective to derive some new ideas for my own studies.

Hey Eldora! Thanks, I’m really glad that you enjoy following my blog and videos.

For me, playing my best game at the tables it’s very important. I know many regs that just focus on playing huge volume no matter what their game looks like. In my opinion, playing fewer hands but maintain higher game quality it’s definitely more valuable and more +EV in the long run.
Another aspect that I value a lot on my daily grind it’s to enjoy what I do. I don’t play poker mainly for the money as many others do. I obviously like money and it allows me to enjoy my life a bit more but the main reason I play poker it’s because I love the game, I love to compete and I love to play against good competition. I know that sounds like a dumb thing to do, specially playing HU, but for me, motivation and competition are two of the main aspects that make me play my best game and perform at my highest level. For example: I’d usually do better playing against, let’s say, a top reg, two good regs and a fish that against a fish and two bad regs. Maintaining concentration on the weaker pool it’s usually super hard for me, and I don’t really enjoy playing there despite the fact that, the amount of money I’d be making on average if I was able to play my best game, would be way higher than on the tougher pool.

My study topics tend to vary depending on the day. What I do the most is PIO work rather than hand reviewing. My study partner and me usually go over different flop textures and try to learn and develop PIO strategy properly in each of them.
I have no problem on sharing what I’m studying every day so I’ll try to talk about it more often. For instance, this week I think we’re going to be focusing on 3Bet pots OOP.

Max Lacerda 6 years, 8 months ago

I think that if you shared just one thing you studied in the day we could have a nice discussion almost on a daily basis!
GL!

Thanks man. Will try to share a bit more the topics I’m studying at least a few times a week!

zache86 6 years, 8 months ago

That would be really interesting, although it opens the door for the lazy ones to get everything digested.
On the other hand every serious player studies and that could lead to very interesting discussions on the thread!

27/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 373

Game quality: A

Hey guys, another good day at the tables. I’m playing mostly 1KNL lately since there tends to be more action there than in the 500 pool. My game was pretty decent, I wasn’t able to put much volume because of lack of action. The study was also good, as I sad, I’m focusing on 3BP OOP this week and already found some useful concepts to apply and to extrapolate to another different spots as well.

Good luck all!

Study time: 2.5 hours

Hands: 511

Game quality: A

Hey guys another great day. I just finished my last session of the day and I’m completely exhausted. My game was very good and the study was super useful today too. I discovered a few more very valuable concepts that I’m already applying at the tables. I may take tomorrow off the tables and organize the study I’ve done this week instead. I’ll post monthly results too, stay tunned!

Good luck guys!

zache86 6 years, 8 months ago

Great! Let's see if that session pops up :P

Haha. Hopefully I won’t disappoint you. You seem to have very high expectations!

29/6/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 853

Game quality: A

Hey guys, another day in the books. Today the study consisted on reviewing some hands with my study partner, it was cool to find that I played pretty well most of them. I also played two regbattles at NL1K, it was quite fun. My game was good, I was focused despite not running very well and that's obviously a good sign.

That's all, will post the monthly results as well as the mid year recap in a few minutes. Good luck!

MONTHLY RESULTS + MID YEAR RECAP

Hi lads. Month is almost over. I just checked my results.

500NL (-505$ missing that got tracked as non zoom)

1KNL

Best session ever PS: Zache <3

Obviously astonishing month in pretty much all aspects except volume. Still quite hard to get to the 20k/monthly hands but I can't complain. Got to play a good amount at 1KNL and did quite well there, I'm definitely looking to play more of that on the upcoming months, at the moment I'm basically mixing between both stakes because there isn't that much traffic at the higher one.
My game was very good and my discipline with study was super good as well. I'm definitely improving a lot and I'm getting a deeper understanding of the game day by day which is just awesome. I'm basically very happy about everything poker related, I feel like all the work I'm putting off the tables is really paying off and I'm very motivated to keep playing my best and keep learning and learning.

Mid year graph

Mid year stake breakdown

Year is also going well. I ran quite bad at 1KNL at first and now I'm starting to recover from it. I don't have any kind of money goals or anything like that. I don't think that's important at all, I'd rather just keep doing my best and results will come by themselves.

That's gonna be it guys, thank you very much for reading and following. I really appreciate it.
Now time to rest until Monday. Good luck boys and have a great weekend!

zache86 6 years, 8 months ago

Hey Nuno,

awesome results buddy!
Almost taking that 1k nl to even after some serious run bad.

Question: what would you say is the ratio between studying and playing you are at the moment (coaching not included)?
Sometimes i find myself in times i'm not grinding too much (like now, world cup is taking everything from me :P) but studying really hard and unless i'm checking a certain spot i often feel "guilty" with my volume

ps: great session, you nailed it !

Hey Zache. Thanks!

At this point I think somewhere around 60% studying 40% playing or maybe even closer to 50/50. Haha yeah, I actually don't like soccer so I don't have that problem right now.
I often have some periods where I can't play that much for some reason but I always try to keep studying every day to stay sharp and ready to get back to the tables at any moment.

2/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 721

Game quality: A

Hey guys, I'm back. The study today consisted on reviewing a session I played last week. Found out a few interesting spots but I think focusing on doing PIO work rather than hand reviewing it's more valuable on the long run. My game at the tables was acceptable but not super good.

More of the same tomorrow, good luck!

Max Lacerda 6 years, 8 months ago

You dont do pio work while hand reviewing? like, you found an interesting spot and decide to solve it

Yeah. I do that sometimes but my study sessions usually consist on studying more general spots with PIO rather than reviewing single hands.

3/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 584

Game quality: B+

Hey guys. Today I wasn’t able to concentrate too much while playing, specially on my last session so I decided to not force me to play and rest instead. The study was very good, we focused on SRP on A high boards and learned a few valuable concepts.
Apart from Poker I finished Maus yesterday and started reading Mindhunter. I loved the first season of the tv show, it’s actually one of my favourites ever, and the novel seems to be pretty good as well.

Now time to rest and get back to the tables tomorrow. Good luck!

Max Lacerda 6 years, 8 months ago

great TV show! GL

4/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 0

Hey guys I’m back. Today I took the day off the tables since I had some non poker stuff to take care of and there wasn’t that much action either way. The study was good, we focused again on A high boards SRP. I’m planning on spending part of each morning to review and write down about tagged hands of the previous day in order to keep learning from my mistakes. I think that would be pretty useful to me and will also help me to warm up for my first session of the day at the same time.

Good luck and thanks for reading folks!

5/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 595

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Today was a good day. I put a morning session in which I played my A+ game which is obviously great. Then had a good study session with my partner and played a B+ session at night as well. I’m quite happy with how things are going and I’m motivated to keep studying and putting a lot of work on my game.

Good luck all.

6/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0

Hands: 1000

Game quality: B

Hey guys. Forgot to upload on Friday. So I basically didn’t get to study with my partner and my game was definitely worse than usual because of that. When I study I usually feel way more comfortable with my decisions and overall more focused on the game while I play.
I also got to play some hands on Saturday and felt much better at the tables than the previous day.

From this Monday I’m planning on changing my daily schedule. I’m gonna wake up at 9:AM every day and just play during morning and night. I wanna be able to enjoy afternoons and there’s pretty much no action during that timeframe so I think it’s a good idea to organize my day this way.

Good luck guys, will be back tomorrow. Enjoy your weekend.

9/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 1306

Game quality: B

Hey guys I’m back. So today was a quite interesting day. I started by playing a morning session in which I ran quite badly and my game wasn’t very good either, mostly because of that. That’s something that doesn’t happen to me very often. Obviously when I run good (by running good I don’t mean only getting good hands all the time but also get the bluffs I run through very often) I usually feel good and that helps to maintain concentration longer and play my best game. When I run bad I should be able to maintain my best game and most of the time, I think I do.

My other two sessions were better specially game wise. Played a solid A game on both and did quite okay at the tables.

The study was short but good. I still getting the feeling that I’m learning new concepts every day and that’s always great news.

That’s all folks, will be back tomorrow. Good luck!

zache86 6 years, 8 months ago

Blockquote I started by playing a morning session in which I ran quite badly and my game wasn’t very good either, mostly because of that. That’s something that doesn’t happen to me very often. Obviously when I run good (by running good I don’t mean only getting good hands all the time but also get the bluffs I run through very often) I usually feel good and that helps to maintain concentration longer and play my best game. When I run bad I should be able to maintain my best game and most of the time, I think I do.

Running good/bad has so many shapes that we still cannot tell...i once read on a book (i think the mental game of poker) that understanding variance is a skill like knowing how to defend the blinds,how to play oop,etc
Sometimes we have a breakeven session and we see we have won every big pot and start thinking that maybe our game was ool...then checking hand per hand maybe every runnout was bad for our range and villain got there lacking bluffs or maybe the other way.
I usually qualify the quality of my game as an overall in my head and then i polish it by marking those hands on the session where some card shifted equities a lot or where i got lucky/unlucky

Whats your process? Because sometimes you mark your game as an 'A' but you say you wheren't very happy with your plays

Great comment Zache.

understanding variance is a skill like knowing how to defend the blinds,how to play oop,etc

Couldn’t agree more with this sentence.

I usually try to rate my game quality on a day depending on how I felt at the tables overall during that day. Sometimes I’d play 3 sessions and my game would be very good on two of them but crappy on the other and that’s why I sometimes classify my game as “A” but I wasn’t very happy with some of my plays. From now on I’m gonna divide the game quality section of my daily update by the number of sessions I played and mark how was my game during each of them. This would hopefully help me to see what’s usually the best time for me to play and to have a more clear understanding of how good/bad my game quality was every day.

10/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 815

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A+ (morning) B+ (night)

Hey guys. I’m completely exhausted today. Played a very good morning battle session, my game was good and I was very concentrated. Then I took a break and did some study after having lunch. We started today with paired boards and found many useful concepts that I’m already applying at the tables.
Later I went for a long walk with my girlfriend and enjoyed it quite a lot. It’s great to spend time with her and it’s something I’m gonna be doing more often for sure.
At night decided to play another session even though I was quite tired and my game was ok but not great, mainly because lack of concentration because of being weary.

Now heading to bed to wake up tomorrow in time to do a coaching session and continue the daily grind. Good luck and thanks for reading!

Nice to have that "game quality" section separated

11/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0

Hands: 778

Sessions: 2

Game quality: B (morning) B+ (night)

Hey guys. Not a great day in any aspects. I didn’t sleep very well and wasn’t very concentrated at all while playing. Not being able to study also helped to not feel in the zone.
On the morning session I felt a bit overwhelmed with poker so I may take tomorrow morning off if I feel the same. Sometimes I just need a small break to regain desire to keep playing if I played quite a lot last few days.

Back tomorrow. Good luck!

I just realized there’s been a long time since I’ve posted some hands. Will select a few interesting ones tomorrow and share them with you guys. Stay tunned.

12/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 950

Sessions: 3

Game quality: A (afternoon) A (evening) A (night)

Hey guys I’m back. Today was a very good day but I’m completely exhausted.
I took the morning off to do some exercise and relax. After having lunch had a great study session with my partner, we continued focusing on paired boards, it was great.
My game at the tables was quite good as well. Had to mix some 200NL during my afternoon session because it was no action at some moments at 500/1K and was quite focused all the time. My two other sessions were very good as well but I was too tired during the last one and had to call it a day even though I was enjoying it a lot. I need to not play when I’m too tired for it even if there’s good action because my own mental and physical state is obviously more important than anything else.

More of the same tomorrow as well as posting some hands as promised. Good luck!

13/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0 hours

Hands: 953

Sessions: 2

Game quality: B (morning) B+ (afternoon)

Hey guys. Another day in the books. My game today wasn’t very good mostly because I’m a bit overwhelmed with poker. I played quite a lot this week and now I really need a break.
I’m taking the weekend off to relax, do some reading and enjoy life.

Will post some hands later today. Good luck folks.

Hi Nuno!
Of course you need to relax and enjoy, but don't forget those hands :P haha
See you buddy

CheckRaiser check raising

Hahaha. There you go!

Battled a lot vs a swedish reg last few days. Some of the most interesting hands:

Close river spot

Bluffcatching

Missing a sweet 3Bet pot calldown with AK high that will post on Sunday haha.

Some other hands vs different regs:

Drawing quite dead

Bluffcatching v.2

Very interesting river spot, I like my bluff

That's all guys, now it's time to enjoy the weekend and relax. Will be back at it on Monday. Good luck all!

Hi Nuno!
Nice to have those hands back

Drawing quite dead: i would have gone with this sizing (for value) with A8+ (obv then adding combo draws and straight draws)...i mostly play 6max so i may be a bit off here but seems a bit too wide to me(the value region). Thoughts?

Keep up the good work

See you

Hey Zache!

I reviewed it a few days ago and my play was correct. When the board is low and quite dynamic we get to include most top pairs into our overbet range even without a good kicker.

16/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 660

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A (morning) B (night)

Hey guys I’m back. Today I was quite hungry to play after taking the weekend off. I did quite well even though I didn’t play my best game. Study was good as always.

Back tomorrow. Good luck!

17/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0

Hands: 0

Hey guys. Today I took the day completely off. Was planning on studying but I didn’t make it in time for that. Had a very enjoyable day with the girlfriend and grinded a lot of Bioshock remastered haha.

Back on the grind from tomorrow. Good luck!

zache86 6 years, 8 months ago

Haha a day off and some video games is sometimes the best medicine to prevent burn outs at work!
Lucky us we can decide

18/7/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2.5 hours

Hands: 338

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A (evening) B+ (late night)

Hey guys. Another day in the books. Not feeling like playing a lot lately but I’ll try my best to maintain volume. Study is always very entertaining so that’s something I have an easier time maintaining.

Good luck guys!

Loosi 6 years, 8 months ago

This post has been flagged as inappropriate

zache86 6 years, 8 months ago

Spam getting everywhere?! You are a pro or it's just your hobbie? :P

Hey guys. Sorry for not posting last few days, I basically didn’t play many hands mostly because I wasn’t really motivated to do it.
Yesterday I had a good study session with another Stars HUNL regular, I enjoyed it quite a lot and it also help me to regain some motivation.

I spent some time today to think what’s the best way to approach my situation and I think I really need to be more disciplined with everything I do. Most days in the last few weeks I didn’t even woke up early in the day as I really need to do. Waking up early it’s the best way to maximize the value of my time and I’m gonna do it from now on. There are also a few things that I’d really like to change in my life in general so I’m gonna write down the goals that I have in mind:

Wake up at 8:30 AM every weekday
Do exercise before my first session every day
Practice meditation/mindfulness before my first session every day
Warm up before my first session every day
Maintain a minimum of 3 hours of study every day
Don’t force myself to play when I’m too tired for it
Spend more time with my girlfriend
Be a more organized person in all aspects
Use my phone a maximum of 1 hour a day (I really hate how much time I spend with it. I even considered to not have one but sadly I need it)
Read every day
Update this journal every day
Enjoy my life and be happy (this is definitely the most important and also the hardest goal of them all)

That’s all folks. Good luck and thank you very much for all the support I get from you. It really helps me to maintain motivation to keep fighting to be the best.

zache86 6 years, 8 months ago

i think that from that list, the ones i have the most trouble with are :
-exercise before session (i only did some the few live tournaments i played...i found it really helpful)
-limited use of the phone (really tough nowadays)

the topic 'read everyday' includes or excludes poker :P? if not that's another one for me

Hey Zache.

I actually love swimming and I've been going to swim every morning for a year so that’s an easy goal hehe. I won’t be able to do another kind of exercise though, I don’t know how there is some people that go to the gym every day, I find it way too boring.

Fuck phones man. I really hate what this damn machine has turned humans into. Going outside and see every person using their phones it’s just beyond sad. I really wish I could live without having one.

I meant reading something not poker related. I like reading and I do it somewhat often but I just wanna do it every day.

-yeah, i do sports like football and tenis every week but not before a session
-i agree, social networks have taken control over everybody's life...i shut it down a few years ago; i don't use facebook anymore, have no instagram and i barely use twitter...i guess having whatsapp is more than enough for me :)
i finished school without a cell phone so it's not that hard for me although people around you will think you are mad haha
-if it's not poker related i missed this one too

MONTHLY UPDATE

Hi all. First of all I'd like to apologize for not updating during last week. I wasn't motivated to play and didn't put much volume at the tables but I studied and coached quite a lot instead and felt great about it.

The month wasn't very good. I didn't get to play a lot because there wasn't much action at all but my game was pretty decent when I played and I'm quite happy about that.

I think that I'm improving a lot lately, been on the lab quite hard last few weeks and I feel really confident with my game. As I said a few weeks ago, I think that I really need to be more organized in order to put more volume in. I wanna focus on playing higher, I wanna compete, and I wanna be the best so I'll work hard for that.

That's it folks. Will be back tomorrow with a daily update as always. Good luck and thanks for reading!

2/8/2018 & 3/8/2018 UPDATE

Hey guys. I didn’t play last two days. I had a lot of coaching to do so I decided to focus on that as well as studying hard and polish my game instead.

Now I’m taking the weekend off and will be back at it from Monday. I wanna keep playing mornings and evenings only and use the rest of my day to enjoy life and do non poker related stuff so that’s gonna be the plan.

Good luck and thanks for reading folks.

WELCOME TO ADHARA

Hey guys. I wanna share with you something I’ve been thinking for some time at this point.

As you guys know, I haven’t been playing as much as I used to do these last two weeks. Lack of motivation it’s the main reason for this. It’s really really hard for me to sit and play my best when I’m facing opponents that are not challenging enough. I’m not saying that I’m the best ever or anything like that but I’m pretty sure I’m quite better theoretically than the average 500/1KNL reg and this is purely because of the work I’ve put off the tables.

I wanna compete, I wanna keep improving and I wanna be the best HUNL player in the world. In favor of that I’m gonna focus on playing mainly 1KNL and only sit at 500NL when there’s a reg that wants to battle or a large pool running.

Will probably start by playing some 500NL this week to warm up and move to 1KNL as soon as I feel good about my game.

Good luck guys and thanks for reading as always. Let’s go!

zache86 6 years, 7 months ago

If it's better for you overall performance so be it!
Qe qill be cheering you up

6/8/2018 UPDATE

Hey guys. I was quite motivated to start today but unfortunately I caught a gastroenteritis last night. I'm feeling better now so maybe I'll be able to get back at it from tomorrow. We'll see.

Good luck!

7/8/2018 & 8/8/2018 UPDATE

Hey guys. Been playing last few days but forgot to update the Journal. I was able to put decent volume mostly at 1KNL and my game was pretty good as well so I'm feeling happy about it.

Will be back tonight with a more detailed update. Good luck guys!

9/8/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 4 hours

Hands: 0

Hey boys. I took the day off the tables since there wasn't much action and I put a lot of study instead. I'm feeling a bit more motivated to play lately so I'm likely gonna be grinding harder than ever before starting next week.

Good luck!

zache86 6 years, 7 months ago

Go go go, nice to hear you feel like grinding again..

hope you get some interesting hands to post for us :)

gl buddy

10/8/2018 UPDATE

Hands: 0

Study time: 2 hours

Hey lads. I couldn’t play today but had a very productive day. Study session with my partner was awesome and I also spent some time studying myself and preparing simulations to work with from next week.

Now I’m talking the weekend to relax and organize study a bit and will be back hard at it from Monday.

Good luck!

13/8/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0

Hands: 1195

Sessions: 3

Game quality: B+ (afternoon), A (evening), B+ (night)

Hi guys, I’m back!

Had a very productive day today. I spent the morning to do some coaching and go for a walk. After having lunch I enjoyed some time with my girlfriend and then played some poker. Got to play mostly 1KNL and my game was pretty good all the time but felt a bit rusty specially during the first session of the day. Then I battled a good reg at 1K, it was a short session but I played my A game. There was no study today but I played a practice session against my study partner instead and it was quite helpful for both of us, we’ll review the most interesting hands some day.

My plan from now is to play as much 1KNL as I can. I’ll focus on that and mainly use 500NL as a stake to practice and play when there’s no action at higher stakes. Can’t wait to keep improving and doing well to start battling at 2KNL soon.

Good luck guys and thanks for reading!

zache86 6 years, 7 months ago

Great to hear that!

Where do you play a "practice session" ? Is it kind of a home game with no money involved or at least at lower stakes?

Thanks Zache.

Yeah we use home games + play money on stars. No timebank unfortunately but good enough to practice hehe.

14/8/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 667

Sessions: 3

Game quality: A, B+, A

Hey guys. Today I had a very productive day as well. Played a decent amount and the study was very good. I had a reg asking me for playing a HU challenge and seems like people got offended for the post I published a few days ago in which I was talking about not finding enough motivation because of the lack of challenging opponents at my stake. Maybe I expressed myself incorrectly. What I meant was that I know that most people I play against it’s not very strong theoretically just because they don’t put the work it requires. I’m not even the best reg at my stake but I’m a very disciplined player and I work a lot on my game. In any case, sorry if anyone felt offended, it clearly wasn’t my intention.

Good luck.

zache86 6 years, 7 months ago

Haters are gonna hate...don't even bother wasting time on them

Apparently your journal is getting famous among regs haha.

Eldora 6 years, 7 months ago

Yeah I agree it's cool that you're sharing your view and attitude towards the game in your blog - I mean that's why we're following along. It's just a rather uncommon thing in poker because usually players are happy facing weaker opposition because of the money on the table. I think in many other sports it's just the most natural thing of the world that you want to play against good and even better players every now and then to be challenged. So it's kind of cool that you're feeling that way and it shows that you're clearly laying your focus on improving and enjoying the game instead of the money only. I can see how some people might misunderstand this at the first read but knowing how you meant it and at least somewhat knowing your character from the videos and this blog I think this definitely has nothing to do with being arrogant.

Completely agree with all you said Eldora. I wish everyone acknowledged what I meant the same way you did. As you said, It’s very uncommon to have this mindset, specially being a HU player, so that’s probably why it’s difficult for other poker players to understand it.

16/8/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0

Hands: 852

Sessions: 3

Game quality: B, A, B+

Hey guys. Yesterday I took the day off so I didn’t update. Today I played a decent amount and ended up quite happy with my overall performance despite I’m not running good lately. My study partner is on vacation and that’s why I haven’t studied either. Tomorrow I’ll do some study and maybe play some hands as well before the weekend.

Good luck all!

Loosi 6 years, 7 months ago

This post has been flagged as inappropriate

20/8/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 943

Sessions: 3

Game quality: B+, A, A

Hey guys I’m back!
Very productive day today. Woke up quite early in the day, played a warm up session at 200NL while there wasn’t action higher and then I played mostly 1KNL but had to mix some 500NL in there in order to play enough hands. I ended up very happy with my game, played very focused most of the time and did pretty well. Study was also very good. I’m testing some new stuff and I’m planning on implementing it this week at the tables. I’m really pumped to keep grinding and playing my best. Let’s go!

Good luck boys and thanks for reading.

21/8/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 768

Game quality: B+, A, A

Hey guys. Today I started the day by playing a very frustrating session in which I couldn’t win a pot and that, for the first time in a very long time, made me feel pretty bad even after I closed the tables and went outside. The reason why this happened wasn’t the money I lost, it was the sensation of not being good enough to beat the games, which can happen very easily if you have one of this sessions in which seems impossible to win. I think that every poker player experiences this kind of feelings from time to time and It’s very important to deal with them correctly and don’t give them as much importance as I did.

After that, I had lunch and did some study and my next two sessions were much better. Now I’m quite tired heading to bed but excited to keep competing and playing my best.

Good luck lads.

22/8/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 757

Sessions: 3

Game quality: B, A, A

Hi guys. Today I had a fine day at the tables. I started by playing quite badly during a morning session, then did some study with my friend, and later I reg battled against an old school reg at 1K. Played quite well and felt very happy about my game. Hopefully I’ll get to play him more often.

Good luck all!

Hey guys I’m back. Did some study this weekend and now I just finished an A game regbattle session at 500NL vs a new regular. Heading to bed now to get out of bed early tomorrow and keep working.

Good luck!

zache86 6 years, 6 months ago

Hey Nuno!
I just came back from a mini holidays...i'm on the rail again !!
That session you had a few days ago seems standard, i don't think it's that bad to quit if you can't keep playing your A game.
As Nick Howard said, sometimes it's important to preserve your mindset although if this behaviour keeps going on volume would be really affected

Welcome back buddy!

27/8/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 470

Sessions: 1

Game quality: B

Hey guys. Today I woke up quite late because yesterday I ended up playing another session since I was hungry to play after the weekend and there was a decent sized reggy pool going. I took the morning off to do some exercise and then I had a very good study session with my friend. We’re working on some cool new stuff we’re both implementing in our game.

More of the same tomorrow. Good luck all!

28/8/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 904

Sessions: 3

Game quality: B, A, B+

Hey guys. Quite happy with my day. Started with a morning session in which I couldn't concentrate very much, then I had an awesome study session, we're learning a lot on the new topic we're covering this week so that's great. At night played a very good but short session vs a good reg and then I ended the day by playing another reg when I was too tired so I couldn't play my best game.

More tomorrow, good luck!

29/8/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 155

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Not a very productive day. I didn’t sleep very well so I decided to not play a lot and took the day pretty much off the tables. Ended up playing an A game short session that went quite well and did some good study with my friend.

Good luck all.

Beautiful_Fold 6 years, 6 months ago

Hello Nuno Great blog, love to read your inputs.
How do you study with PIO ? I only play HUNL ay micro stakes level and I have PIO aswell and I din't really know where to start to study with it.
Take care

Hey man. Thanks, glad you like it.

It depends on the day but I work a lot with Simple GTO Trainer + PIO sims to improve my game in multiple spots at the same time.

MONTHLY UPDATE

Hey guys I'm back. Pretty disappointing month regarding results and volume. Other than that I think my game is at it's peak. I've been doing a lot of work lately and I feel quite confident in a lot of situations I used to have trouble before. I think not following a daily schedule is hurting me a lot and causing me to lose a lot of EV on the games I play. Yesterday I read a tweet from Ben Sulsky (Sauce123) that made me think about something.

Pretty sure I'd be losing at $.50/$1 the first hour I'm awake
— Benjamin Sulsky (@benjamin_sulsky) 26 de agosto de 2016

I definitely identify with him. I tend to play during mornings, usually the first hour / two hours I'm awake and I'm never able to maintain concentration and play my best game despite doing some warm up before I start the session. I definitely need to change this, I need to be more organized and have a better schedule. So once again, I'm gonna write down my goals but this time I'll follow them.

Wake up at 8:30 AM every weekday
Do exercise before my first session every day
Practice meditation / mindfulness before my first session every day
Warm up before my first session every day
Maintain a minimum of 3 hours of study every day
Don’t force myself to play when I’m too tired for it or when I don't feel like playing
Spend more time with my girlfriend (definitely improved on this one since last time)
Become a more organized person in all aspects
Use my phone a maximum of 1 hour a day
Read every day before going to sleep
Update this journal every day

That's all folks. Hope you guys had a good month and wish you th best for the upcoming one. Good luck!

zache86 6 years, 6 months ago

Hi buddy,
not your best month but at least not in red...small samples can be brutal although your wr might be higher everyday judging by you efforts and discipline outside the tables
gl on september!

Thank you very much mate. Good luck to you as well!

3/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 708

Sessions: 3

Game quality: A, A+, A

Hi guys I’m back. Really productive day, I woke up at 10AM (trying to get used to my new sleep schedule) went to the swimming pool as every morning, then warmed up ans started my first session. Felt really good at the tables the whole day, played quite well and enjoyed how much action WCOOP has brought. I was able to play almost exclusively 1KNL which is awesome. Study was pretty good too, we’re starting with some new things this week and already learning plenty of stuff.

Back tomorrow. Good luck all!

4/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2.5 hours

Hands: 337

Sessions: 1

Game quality: B

Hey guys. Didn’t sleep very well last night and I wasn’t able to get out of bed early in the day. I took the morning off and then did some good study with my friend. Only played an evening session in which I was quite tired and not very concentrated at all.

Now heading to bed in necessity of some rest. Good luck!

5/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 398

Sessions: 1

Game quality: B+

Hey guys. Fine day, I did some study with my partner, we reviewed some hands and we did a sweat session together. My game at the tables wasn't the best and I didn't find much time to play either.

More tomorrow, good luck!

Hey guys. Been a bit off last few days. Not much action. Was only able to play a few hands on Thursday and Friday and that’s why I didn’t update.

On the bright side, I’ve been preparing the study for this week and I thought about a new way of studying 3Bet pots that’s gonna be really good. I’m finally gonna approach things on a more organized way and work really hard to try to get to 2KNL before the end of the year.

Back on Monday with a new update. Good luck boys, enjoy your weekend!

heatbeat 6 years, 6 months ago

This post has been flagged as inappropriate

For the Hearthstone fans only

10/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 0

Hey guys I’m back. I had a very productive day today even though I didn’t play at all. Spent the day on organizing the study I’m gonna do doe the next weeks as well as on practicing some specific spots with GTO Trainer. I feel really motivated and ready to put the work and crush the tables. Let’s go!

Good luck all!

11/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0

Hands: 488

Sessions: 3

Game quality: A, A, A

Hey guys. Today I didn’t study but I kept preparing the study I’m gonna be doing next weeks. Almost finished with that. My game at the tables was pretty good even though I wasn’t able to put many hands because I was having a hard time trying to maintain concentration while playing. This happens more often than I’d like and I’ll keep working to end up avoiding it completely.

Good luck!

zache86 6 years, 6 months ago

triple A...very well done !!

Thanks mate, short sessions but still feels good.

12/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0

Hands: 933

Sessions: 2

Game quality: B+, A

Hey guys. I finally put decent volume in. Played a long session on the afternoon in which I wasn't very concentrated and then an evening one in which my game was better. Back to the study + grind combo tomorrow.

Good luck all!

fallenheart 6 years, 6 months ago

This post has been flagged as inappropriate

17/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 1161

Sessions: 4

Game quality: B+, B+, A, A

Hey guys I’m back. Forgot to update the blog last days of the past week because I was quite busy with some offpoker stuff.
Today was a pretty good day. I played a lot of hands and had one of the best study sessions ever with my friend. We’re focusing on SRP spots this week and the way we’re approaching the study it’s going to work out very well.

That’s all folks, more tomorrow. Good luck!

sirin 6 years, 6 months ago

Hey man, cool thread. Just a question about your videos. I'm a six max player who plays HU to start tables. I'm wondering are any of the videos geared towards people with less HU experience, or if you would consider doing a video about HU fundamentals?

I play quite a lot to get tables going but I don't even know the basics! At the moment I open BTN about 65% and 3bet about 20%, does that sound reasonable?

Hey man. Thanks, glad you like it.

Unfortunately, I'm not producing content for RIO anymore :(

Button open % seems quite low. 3Bet % seems okay. I recommend you to do some work with PIO Preflop in order to find out what the best preflop strategy looks like.

Good luck!

18/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 597

Sessions: 3

Game quality: A, A+, A+

Hey guys. Such a great day! Study was really good again and my game at the tables was really on point. I played a couple A+ game sessions which is awesome. I feel like my game is at it’s peak again and I’m super pumped to keep learning, improving and doing my best. Let’s go!

Good luck all.

sirin 6 years, 6 months ago

Ah ok, no worries, GL man!

19/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 292

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Really good day again. Had a great morning session in which I ran and played quite well. Then I had another really good study session and took the rest of the day off to do some non poker related stuff. Tomorrow I’m planning to play a bit more and do quite a lot of study. Might post some hands as well, stay tunned.

Good luck!

zache86 6 years, 6 months ago

It's been a while since you last posted some hh's...looking forward to it !

Max Lacerda 6 years, 6 months ago

You dont think about playing on other sites to pump up your volume?

Not really. I have enough action on stars. I just don’t put that much volume because I focus on quality rather than quantity when it comes to play.

20/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 839

Sessions: 2

Game quality: B, A

Hey guys. Today I started by playing a short morning B game session. Then I had another great study day with my friend on the afternoon and finally played a long nightly A game session.

Some hands coming in a few hours as promised.

Good luck!

Value shove getting called

Hands as promised:

Very difficult river spot

Bluffcatching gone wrong

Hope you guys enjoy it! Good luck.

zache86 6 years, 6 months ago

Hi buddy, nice to have those hh's again !

Some really tough river spots...i guess that being against regulars it's mandatory to call the top of our range (as you did) although against weaker opposition we can make an explo fold as they won't have that much of a bluffing range and they are not going to turn their hand into a bluff almost never.

It's also interesting to see some villains calling Q3s vs 3B only 100bb deep...isn't it too far?

Hey man.

Agree with your first statement. Calling Q3s becomes a pretty good play as long as you know you gonna catch a flush :P

zache86 6 years, 6 months ago

Haha i don't know the exact frequencies of hero/villain but to have Q3s on his c3B range100bb deep you must be 3 betting a ton or he folding to 3B really low

21/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 1220

Sessions: 2

Game quality: B, B+

Hey guys. Good study day, this week was really good study wise, we learnt a few very valuable concepts and we enjoyed it quite a lot. My game at the tables wasn’t very good today, I started the day playing a short session in which I wasn’t very concentrated and at night I played a long one of1.1k hands mostly regbattling at 1KNL which I enjoyed but was a bit too tired for it.

Back next week. Good luck all!

24/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 0

Hey guys. Today was an okay day. Had some non poker related stuff to take care of and didn’t find time to play. At least I did a lot of study and it was pretty good. Back tomorrow!

Good luck all.

25/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 548

Sessions: 1

Game quality: B

Hey guys. Good study day and not super good day at the tables since I wasn’t able to play or enjoy too much my session. Back tomorrow.

Good luck.

26/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 518

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A, A

Hey lads, heading to bed now. I had a really good day. I started by playing a 500NL session in which I did really well and felt very sharp during the whole time playing. Then I had some good study as I’ve been doing last weeks and finally I did some regbattling at 1KNL for an hour in which I ran quite badly and lost a few stacks but I’m super happy with how I played and how good my game is/has been lately.

Back tomorrow! Good luck guys.

27/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 364

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A, A

Hey guys. Really good day. I didn’t get to play a lot but I ended up very happy with my game in both sessions I played. Study was really good again. This last two weeks have been incredibly productive when it comes to that.

Back tomorrow. Good luck all!

28/9/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 392

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Another good day. Only got to play one session but I enjoyed it and played in the zone most of the time. Study was good as well, we reviewed some hands of mine and learnt a few things doing that. Now time to rest until Monday. From next week I’m gonna focus on play mostly during my mornings since there’s been decent action and I enjoy it much more that way.

Good weekend everyone. Good luck!

1/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 1097

Sessions: 3

Game quality: B+, A, B+

Hey guys I’m back. Had a very productive day, played a lot of hands and had a good study session. Started by playing a very long morning session in which I felt quite rusty, specially at the start but ended up quite happy with my game. Then I did some study and played two other short session in which I felt better for the most part.

Forgot to post the September monthly update. Will do that later today.

Good luck lads!

MONTHLY UPDATE

Hey guys. Here are my September results:

Pretty disappointing results given that my game was pretty good during most of the month. Volume was pretty bad as well but I don't mind that at all since I'm putting a lot of study and my game keeps improving day by day.

Not much else to add. Back on the grind.

Good luck and thanks for reading as always folks!

zache86 6 years, 5 months ago

Hey buddy!
I don't know if your tried it yet or not, but regarding to your volume issues, i would suggest you to put a number of hands as a goal for everymonth (no matter how small/big that amount is) ...it has helped me a lot in the past to organize my day to day volume

Also do you have some sort of game selection on NL 500/1k or you just play when you are given action?

Gl !

Thanks Zache!

I always try to get to 20k monthly hands but I never get to play that much. 15k hands with all the study I’m doing should be a good volume I think.

No I don’t game select at all at those stakes. I love battling and there’s additional value on doing that since many times you get a pool going with weaker players on it.

2/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 184

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A+/A

Hey guys. Today was a good day. I didn’t get to play many hands but had a very good session at 500NL in which I started battling a top reg and performed my best game against him. Study was also very good. Let’s keep going.

Good luck!

zache86 6 years, 5 months ago

Nice to hear you are battling with a top reg...do you think it's fine for him to go down in stakes or is it too "risky"?
I'm saying this because sometimes regs don't give action on lower stakes to newer ones so that they don't get to learn "cheaply" some aspects of their strategy.
By newer i mean ascending ones of course

Hey Zache.

I think nowadays it’s just fine to do it.

Hey guys!

Haven’t been updating last days since I didn’t get to play many hands. There’s been good action during mornings so I’m planning on keep playing mostly during that timeframe. Study has been really good and I feel like my game is at it’s peak again. I’m very motivated to crush the games. Let’s go!

Good luck lads.

8/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 174

Sessions: 1

Game quality: B+

Hey guys. Today I started the day with a short session and I wasn’t feeling very comfortable playing so I decided to took the day off the tables. I did some good study as usual and enjoyed my free time. More tomorrow.

Good luck!

Bilt2t 6 years, 5 months ago

Why do you play so few hands?

Mainly because I value quality over quantity. I wanna play my best all the time. I do a lot of studying as well so there’s not enough time for everything.

Hey guys. Haven’t been updating last few days because I caught a cold and wasn’t able to play much at all. Hopefully will be back soon enough.

Good luck all.

Eldora 6 years, 5 months ago

Get well soon!

Thanks Eldora!

Jeff_ 6 years, 5 months ago

I've been bit busy lately, want to ask, why you play frabbx (sweden guy)? It does seems like he is top player, so there is no value in that... Nor you play to study, if you wanted to improve I don't think you would play 2 tables.... So your friend haha?

Hey Jeff.

He’s certainly a top player but I disagree when you say there’s no value on playing him. I sit against frabb mainly because of learning value but I also enjoy competing against great players like him and there’s even some incentive to battle because getting a larger pool going is way easier that way.

I can see how people thinks this is a dumb way to approach the game and I’m fine with that. Money doesn’t mean everything for me, if I just wanted money I’d be exclusively bumhunting on a bunch of different sites rather than battle every day on stars zoom pools.

Jeff_ 6 years, 5 months ago

Nahh definitely not dumb way, it make a lot of sense. If you aren't care much about money and feel confident and improving that way. Kudos for that.
as long as not jumping to nk5k-10k to play Linus and others,lol

Haha obv won’t do that YET!

Hey guys! Haven’t been updating last few days since I didn’t get to play a lot. I started the week quite demotivated and decided to get on the lab and change a few things in my game in order to stay sharp and regain some motivation and willingness to keep playing. I really enjoy studying and learning new stuff to apply at the tables. On a side note, I’ve finally decided that I’m going to stick to play almost only during mornings. I enjoy it way more and I often get to battle against good players so it’s a lot more fun that way. The plan is to keep studying around 3 hours a day during afternoons and enjoy my free time later on the day.

That’s all folks. Back tomorrow. Good luck and thanks for reading!

Wallmonger 6 years, 5 months ago

Cool blog mate, one question though...

Volume was pretty bad as well but I don't mind that at all since I'm
putting a lot of study and my game keeps improving day by day.

I skimmed the blog and I noticed you study way way more than playing. Do you ever find excuses for not playing? Because I find myself a lot in this spot, where basically I don't want to play because I'm not at the top of my game, I was running bad etc so I try to make everything up in order to avoid sit down at the tables. Instead of play I study a lot, but I recognize this is just an excuse. I 99% sure this is not your case, but if you found yourself into, have you got any advice?

Hey man, glad you like the blog.

I definitely study more than playing but the reason why I do this is because I tend to enjoy it more and the value of studying tends to be very high. I don’t really look for excuses for not playing, I really like playing as well. In your case, I think that you should try to enjoy what you do. If you don’t really enjoy and have fun sitting at the tables, it’s gonna be pretty hard to make this for a living IMO. To do this, I recommend you to try different things. From changing some small things in your game, to even use a different table theme every time you play or stuff like that to get the feeling that you’re doing something different every day.

Wallmonger 6 years, 5 months ago

Solid advice, I'm going to follow you closely, best of luck with your journey

You too man, glad you found it useful.

19/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 1098

Sessions: 3

Game quality: A, B, A/A+

Hey guys. Really productive day. Played a decent volume of hands, and studied a little bit as well. Had a rough day at the tables running quite badly but I was able to overcome that specially during my last session of the day and kept playing my best no matter what, which I think it’s sometimes quite hard to do and I’m very happy about that.

Not a lot of grinding tomorrow but hopefully a lot of study. Good luck folks!

Wallmonger 6 years, 5 months ago

Have you got some excel os something to log your activities? Since you are tracking study, hands and so on, you can easily dispaly your performace over time and it would gives you and additional motivation

I used to do this but I stopped it a while ago. I’m trying to be a more organized person in all aspects and I think using that excel sheet again would definitely help with that. Thanks for remembering me!

20/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 143

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A+

Hey guys. Didn’t get to play nor study a lor but both the study and my game at the tables were very good. Got to battle a top reg for a few hands and enjoyed it a lot. Then decided to review some of the hands we played and learned a few things doing that.

Now time to rest until Monday. Good luck all!

Jeff_ 6 years, 5 months ago

it was otb right? :P

Ha no! I just got to play 20 hands or so vs OtB on a 1k pool the other day. It was very exciting though!

Jeff_ 6 years, 5 months ago

so made a funny play vs him (otb or other top reg)? :)

What do you mean?

Jeff_ 6 years, 5 months ago

completely non standard play that also can be called spew haha

Legit no idea what you’re talking about haha. Feel free to post the hh here if you have it or tell me so I can look for it.

Jeff_ 6 years, 5 months ago

This one, Katya played creative and funny ^_^

ross654 (BU): $2,000.00 (40 bb)
Stefan11222 (SB): $9,931.89 (199 bb)
Katya18 (BB): $2,000.00 (40 bb)

[b]Pre-Flop:[/b] ($75)
ross654 (BU) raises to $114, 1 fold, Katya18 (BB) calls $64

[b]Flop:[/b] ($253) 9♠ 9♥ 4♣ (2 players)
Katya18 (BB) checks, ross654 (BU) bets $67.77, Katya18 (BB) raises to $300, ross654 (BU) calls $232.23

[b]Turn:[/b] ($853) K♦ (2 players)
Katya18 (BB) checks, ross654 (BU) bets $250.64, Katya18 (BB) raises to $750, ross654 (BU) calls $499.36

[b]River:[/b] ($2,353) 2♣(2 players)
Katya18 (BB) bets $836 (all-in), ross654 (BU) calls $836 (all-in)

[b]Total pot:[/b] $4,025 (Rake: $2)

[b]Showdown:[/b]
Katya_18 (BB) shows T♠ 8♠ (a pair of Nines)

ross_654 (BU) shows 9♦ K♣ (a full house, Nines full of Kings)

ross_654 (BU) wins $4,023

WTF haha. Who you think I'm on stars? Because I'm not a 6 Max player lol

Jeff_ 6 years, 5 months ago

Meant to say if you have hands like that(in HU of course), please share with community

Ohhh lol my bad, I completely misunderstood what you were talking about haha.

I actually have one!

Fun times

Enjoy haha.

22/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 554

Sessions: 2

Game quality: B+, A

Hey folks, I'm back. I had a super productive day. Woke up early, went to the swimming pool and then started the grind. Felt quite rusty during my first session and decided to stop rather than keep playing while not enjoying it. Then I had a very enjoyable one and played quite better. Study was also very good, did a solid 2.5 hour session with my friend and later studied around 30 min by myself. I'm really happy with my new schedule, I feel better during the day and I really enjoy playing during the morning.

More tomorrow, good luck guys!

23/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 224

Sessions: 2

Game quality: B+, A-

Hey guys. Not a great day. I didn't get to do much since I didn't sleep very well last night and I wasn't able to play very focused at all. Study was good as always. Now heading to bed to wake up early tomorrow and play my best!

Good luck all.

24/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 820

Sessions: 3

Game quality: B, A, A

Hey lads. Another good day. Got to play a long battle vs a top reg that was a lot of fun and provided me good material to review. Study was also good.

More tomorrow. Good luck!

25/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 367

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A-

Hey guys. Today I started by playing a regbattle at 1k in which I ran very poorly, I wasn't very focused either so I decided to stop playing. Then I had some great study reviewing HU Linus hands and took the rest of the day off.

More tomorrow. Good luck all!

zache86 6 years, 4 months ago

Hi buddy!
Did you play with linus or you searched some hh's on 2+2?

Hey mate!

Reviewed some highstakes hands that I found yeah. Haven’t played against him yet, that would be sweet hehe.

26/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 0

Hey guys. Today I took the day off the tables, had a good study session and enjoyed the rest of my time. Now time to rest until Monday.

Good luck all.

29/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 1010

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A, A

Hey guys I’m back! Had a very productive day. I started the day with a morning session vs a top reg in which I played quite well but ran quite badly. Then I had a great study session with my friend and finished the day with another 1KNL session.

More tomorrow. Good luck!

29/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0

Hands: 632

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Had a very busy day and I couldn’t study but played a long nightly session in which I played quite focused and did pretty well.

More tomorrow. Good luck all!

31/10/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 82

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Today I didn't get to play a lot but had a great study session and took care of some non poker related stuff.

More tomorrow, good luck!

MONTHLY UPDATE

Hi lads!

Here there are my October results:

October was a very good month for me. Studied and learned lots of new things and I performed quite well at the tables most days. Results are obviously not great but that's just part of the game. Got coolered quite a lot as well, that's the price you often have to pay when you play regbattles all the time and, to be honest, I don't mind it at all. I'm really happy with the way I approach poker, I really enjoy competition against the toughest players and money lost doesn't affect me a single bit if I'm happy with my game.

That's all boys. Back to the grind!

Good luck all.

Jeff_ 6 years, 4 months ago

I'm not sure, should I put ''like'' to that post or not(because runbad)haha.
gl next month!

Hahaha obv like it! I I'm very happy with my month despite the results hehe.

1/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 454

Sessions: 3

Game quality: A, A, A

Hey lads. Today I got to play 3 short sessions and ended up quite happy with my game. Study was also good, we're gonna be focusing on 3bet pots next so we ran some new sims and I think we're gonna improve a lot on those.

Good luck all!

2/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 166

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A

Hey folks. Quite productive day in the books. Didn’t get to play much at all even though I was sitting the lobby for 2 hours straight or so. Study was really good, we started with 3 bet pots and already learned a couple valuable concepts. Now time to rest until Monday.

Good luck all!

6/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2.5 hours

Hands: 508

Sessions: 1

Game quality: B then A-

Hey guys I'm back. Quite productive day. Started by playing a 1K pool pretty unfocused but then battled a top reg for quite some time and played slightly better. Felt a bit rusty as I usually do on Mondays, I'm planning on designing a warm up session and obligate myself to do it every day before playing my first session. This would definitely help me to feel more concentrated while playing and to be able to deploy my best game at the tables.

More tomorrow. Good luck folks!

6/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 364

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A

Hi again boys. Today I didn't get to play a lot but ended up quite happy with my game, specially during the first part of the session. Study was really good as well.

More tomorrow, good luck!

7/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 308

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A, B+

Hey guys. Today I didn't get to play a lot either but had a good morning session and a very short okay one at night. Study was good as always and I also took some time off the tables to design a warm up routine that I'm gonna follow every morning before my first session of the day.

More tomorrow. Good luck guys!

Jeff_ 6 years, 4 months ago

Hey, can you give idea about this
hand

I'm curios about bet call by linus. Seems closeeeee and how top regs(pio) are playing AKheart, KJheart, AJheart (I mean bigblind)?

That’s a weird hand.

AFAIK, most of those strong flushdraws besides AKs tend to shove flop after getting raised. I’d say that bet/calling this hand by LLinus is probably some kind of exploit expecting Kaarem to not be shoving flushes at all / shoving too many AKhx, AQhx kind of hands

Jeff_ 6 years, 4 months ago

Thanks, what about KhJx,AhJx, and AhKx or AxKh do they shove turn? (let's say in somewhat perfect world)

I’m not entirely sure but I think they may be supposed to mix some turn shoves, yeah.

8/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2.5 hours

Hands: 119

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A+

Hey guys. Today I just played a short session but ended up very happy with my game. Was in the zone the whole time and that’s what I’m gonna be aiming for from now on. The warm up routine I designed will hopefully help.
Study was quite good as usual.

Good luck guys.

9/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 0

Hands: 362

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A

Hi boys. Today I didn’t get to study and was only able to play one session in which I battled a longtime HU reg at 1KNL and performed quite well vs him.

Now time to rest until Monday. Good luck all!

zache86 6 years, 4 months ago

well known reg?

Kind of yeah, was dougiedan.

12/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 1097

Sessions: 2

Game quality: B/A, B+/A

Hey guys I'm back. I had a quite productive day. Started by playing a quite long morning session in which my game wasn't very good at all during the first part of it but then switched it and played solid A/A+ game for the second one. Then I had a good study session with my friend and took some time off. Ended the day by playing another session in which my game quality curve felt very similar to the first one. I think that having a strong warm up plan should help lots with playing A game from the start to the end rather than starting my sessions at B or even C game sometimes. I'm gonna focus on that and I'm gonna obligate myself to do a good warm up before every session I play.

That's all folks, more tomorrow. Good luck!

13/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2.5 hours

Hands: 613

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A, B+

Hey guys. Today was he first day that I warmed up before playing my first session. It was actually really useful, felt very focused playing most of the time and a bit more relaxed as well. The study today consisted on a practice session against my friend, we played ~ 250 hands and then we reviewed the most interesting ones. It was fun and quite productive too.

More tomorrow. Good luck folks and thanks for reading.

14/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 678

Sessions: 3

Game quality: B+, A, B+

Hi boys. Today I didn't get to study with my friend but he railed me while playing for a bit instead and I played some interesting hands during that session. I decided to do some study myself and prepare what we're gonna be working on for the next few days. My game at the tables was pretty good even though I didn't feel very comfortable playing in part because I didn't follow my warm up plan and I didn't do exercise before playing. That can't happen anymore. I need to do it, it's really useful for me and I need to make it a habit as soon as possible so I'm gonna force myself to go to the swimming pool every day even before turning on my PC and do my warm up session EVERY DAY even before opening Stars. To make it more fun, I'm gonna give away 1 free hour of coaching to a lucky reader who gives a like to this post if I fail to follow my routine a single day during the rest of the year haha.

More tomorrow. Good luck folks!

raphten1 6 years, 4 months ago

Glglgl! Long time lurker following every post anyway but now I guess I have even more of a sweat :)?

Jeff_ 6 years, 4 months ago

Already know what would I ask if get 1 hour coaching. ^^

15/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 431

Sessions: 2

Game quality: B-, B-

Hey guys. Today I had a very productive day even though my game at the tables wasn't good at all. I started by going to the swimming pool and had a good warm up before playing my first session of the day but I didn't get to play 1KNL and had a very hard time maintaining my concentration on a large 500NL pool for some reason. I think that playing against not very tough competition keeps affecting me and making harder for me to play my best game. I definitely need to change that. On the bright side, study was really good, we started focusing on a new topic and we're super excited about it. After studying I even spent part of my free time testing different sizings on new simulations and trying to maximize the EV of the strategy we're gonna be developing.

More tomorrow. Good luck lads.

Pedro Madeira 6 years, 4 months ago

Hey mate!
I have not read everything but I admire how much effort you put in the game. Do you play only HU or other variantes from time to time?
Btw, im looking for a study partner, altough I play moslty mtt I would love to study with cash players and specially HU ones, if you are interested, let me know.

Obrigado Pedro!

Yeah, I play exclusively HUNL. Sorry, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to be your study partner. I’m already studying on a daily basis with a friend of mine and I don’t have any extra time to do anything else other than playing some poker and having a life haha.

Good luck buddy!

Pedro Madeira 6 years, 4 months ago

Got it!
My idea is to study HU, mostly deep stacked. So if you coach, I would like to book some hours for the future

Yeah sure. Just sent you a PM.

Thanks!

16/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 367

Sessions: 1

Game quality A+

Hey guys! I had a really great day. Started by taking the morning off, did some exercise and worked on some sims I'm doing. I had another great study session with my friend and then I played one of the better sessions I've had lately. Started really motivated after doing my warm up session and played my best game for the vast majority of the time. I get this issue that can't maintain concentration at a very high level for more than one or one and a half hours straight so I had to quit even though it was a good pool going. Anyway I'm super happy about my day. Feels soooooo good to play really focused and feel very comfortable while doing it. Now time to keep simming and preparing study for the upcoming week. I'd probably go for a full review of today's session as well since I recorded it in order to learn from my mistakes.

Back on Monday. Good luck lads, enjoy your weekend!

19/11/2018

Study time: 4 hours

Hands 536

Sessions: 1

Game quality: B

Hey lads I'm back. Today was one of the most productive days I've ever had. Woke up early and tried to play some after going to the swimming pool but games were quite dead so I decided to do some HH review instead. Then I had my daily study session with my partner, we did great and we learned a few very valuable concepts. After that I took some time off and later decided to do some more study on my own. It was very good as well. Finally, got to play some 1KNL and my game was pretty meh mostly because I was very tired after my long day. At least I didn't force myself to keep playing anyway.

Heading to bed now. More tomorrow, good luck folks!

fefe.p 6 years, 4 months ago

Really nice effort you are showing mate, your work ethics is inspiring.
Was wondering if in your opining Kalapoju is the best HUNL player right now, at least on stars? He seems to hold the lobbies everywhere from 1k to 5k so i assume he is doing ok.
Wouldnt mind a HSHU regs power rankings as well if that is not too much to ask hahaha
Anyhow, best of luck in the future

Hey bud. Thanks for the kind words!

Nope, he's not even close to be the best at my stakes IMO. Holding zoom pools means literally nothing since you can leave when a better players sits. You won't see him battling top regs at higher stakes.

Not sure about a HSHU power rakings since I haven't played highstakes at all yet haha. I'd tell you that the best reg at 1KNL - 2KNL in my opinion is very clearly frabbxd.

Good luck to you as well and thanks for the comment!

Jeff_ 6 years, 4 months ago

what about buriedsea and buttonclik**?

I don't wanna give away a lot of what I think about other players but buried and button are, IMO, decent regulars. By playing against them you can see that they've done some PIO work and I respect that.

Hey if u think im weak why do u always quit/button rat me, we could arrange lil match like 20k hands if u want but it would take 4years to play since ur wormbrain can only focus 30 hands a day.
Wouldn't talk about pio if i was u btw since pretty sure pio bluffs ur just a dirty nit and ur never gonna get to gemma crateris, cya hick.

Pretty sure this comment autodefines this guy haha. Not much to say about all of this. Ego Crew strikes again!

Good luck lads.

wazzo11 6 years, 4 months ago

Had to wade in here, I play with you both regularly, and I'm very surprised at your comments Nuno. Kalapoju has made close to double the $ in 200z than you have done in lifetime all stakes combined. He is one of the biggest HU winners in MSHU this year and is quite clearly one of the better regulars at these stakes, and apart from Frab I have seen him battle everyone there. I also see you quit him regularly whenever he sits you, so I'm surprised you don't see him as one of the better regulars. Can you explain your thought process?

Fishfeast 6 years, 4 months ago

Yeah I play you both regularly and you and kala are clearly a very different calibre of player. if he isn’t even close to one of the best then you must be conceding that you are one of the weakest . You quit him at every opportunity

No match then i guess :/, maybe i post here how u got warned by stars about buttonratting is good advertisement for ur blog that ur readers knows ur nothing but a scummy scammer.

Yeah also remember to post the time you intentonally burnt full timebank while quitting a session to make a fish leave the pool and not play me.

Anyway, end of the story. These people don’t deserve anyone’s time. Get out of here and bring your hate somewhere else.

So u agree ur scummy scammer?

Antonio Miranda 6 years, 4 months ago

its sad to read you, i have no idea who u are but my impression on you is that you need to be admired and praised as a child and that's why you surround yourself with assholes

He doesnt think u are one of the best... OMG end of ther world...

Haha

zache86 6 years, 4 months ago

No need to fight guys...this journal isn't about that.
If someone felt offended i'm sure it wasn't Nuno's intention.

Peace

why snap quit me again soon as fish left??

20/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 892

Sessions: 4

Game quality: B-, A, B, A

Hey guys I’m back. Today I took the morning off the tables and started the grind right before having lunch. I played pretty unfocused during my first session. Then I did some study with my friend and decided to battle a top reg for some time. Started playing very focused and we got a pool going because a rec joined but my game quality started dropping since I was a bit tired. Took the rest of the afternoon off and ended the day by having another pretty good session.

More tomorrow. Good luck all!

21/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 0

Hey lads. Today I did some good study with my friend and then decided to take a break from the tables and spent some time with my girlfriend. We watched the newest Coen brothers film The ballad of Buster Scruggs. It was pretty good! We both really like their films, they're actually my favorite directors.

Taking some time off from time to time is certainly a good decision. Sometimes, being too focused with poker makes me forget about enjoying the rest of my life and I don't want it to be like that.

More tomorrow. Good luck buds!

zache86 6 years, 4 months ago

Hi,
the big lebowski is my favourite comedy film... best dialogues ever !! haha

Fargo was also a great movie, would you recommend me any of their movies in particular?

Hahah that's sick. The Big Lebowski is my favorite film ever! Dialogues are simply insanely good. It's also one of the very few films that I prefer the spanish version than the original one. This is my favourite scene in english and in spanish. Walter's voice is just soo good hahahaha.

Fargo is another of my favorite films. If you haven't watched the TV show, it's also quite good.

My girlfriend and I enjoyed True Grit and O Brother, Where Art Thou? quite a lot. Another one that we liked was Raising Arizona.

zache86 6 years, 4 months ago

Hahaha hard to pick a character on that movie... Walter or the dude !
Even donnie just being bullied all over the film is awesome.
Just so many epic scenes :)

I really don't like dubbed films but i guess in spain you are more used to than in any other country (at least in my experience)

I'll have to watch o brother and raising arizona, true grit was good but not on that scale imo

Some other hilarious scenes to remember
i'm finishing my coffee

over the line

"That's just like your eh opinion man" Best movie ever : D

ChaoRen123 6 years, 4 months ago

Coen brothers films are just too good. Loved True grits (I noticed at the end that the old badass cow boy is the dude, it felt kinda weird hahaha) Fargo, and The big Lebowski is just a masterpiece!

Funny to see the dude in other movies ^^ Tip: "Hell or High water"
"Burn After Reading" is another awesome comedy from C-Brothers as well, very funny

ChaoRen123 6 years, 4 months ago

Well thanks man, those are next on my to-watch list then :D

Yeah It’s super common in Spain. I don’t like it at all either. This one is the only film I can think of that I prefer the dubbed to the original version.

Both great scenes haha. The entire fillm is full of great dialogues.

zache86 6 years, 4 months ago

in case you haven't watched it, i recommend you "tiempo de valientes" an argentinian movie...it has that kind of wacky lines

Didn’t see this comment until now for some reason. I haven’t heard of it, thanks Zache would definitely add it to my list.

22/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 1258

Sessions: 3

Game quality: A, B, C

Hey lads. Today I had one of the worst days in the last months. My friend wasn’t able to study and I did some by myself but not as much as I usually do. Started by playing a good 1KNL session in which I was pretty focused but the rest of the day my game at the tables was quite bad. I didn’t get to play more 1K and had to jump in the 500NL pools and found really difficult to concentrate there.

More, and hopefully better, tomorrow. Good luck!

Any Idea's what caused the B/C-game ? I've got that sometimes too where I play A game session one but terrible the next ones. Sometimes hard to see the cause but always good to ask yourself of course

Yeah, great point.

I think that in my case there are usually multiple reasons for that. This particular time I think it was a combination of not having a good sleep the night before, not having an study session before playing and the lack of focus that produces me grinding a lower stake than usual (not for the money but for the competition)

I’d always say that playing lower volume but maintaining A/A+ game on the vast majority of your sessions results on way higher EV in all aspects. I personally feel amazing after having finished an A+ session even if I got completely demolished at the tables.

Ah certainly can relate to the sleep thing, I can never get my brain going quite the way id like without like optimal sleep (no alarms) And then nothing really seems to work ha not even coffee.

What you say about playing A+ and getting rekt but feeling good is awesome to achieve. I feel like I'm not quite there yet but get there maybe one day, feel that's like the highest achievable in the mental game aspect of the game! nice!

Ah certainly can relate to the sleep thing, I can never get my brain going quite the way id like without like optimal sleep (no alarms) And then nothing really seems to work ha not even coffee.

Agree, I think sleeping is very important to develop intense mental activities throughout the day.

What you say about playing A+ and getting rekt but feeling good is awesome to achieve. I feel like I'm not quite there yet but get there maybe one day, feel that's like the highest achievable in the mental game aspect of the game! nice!

Thanks! I think that I have a strong mental game when it comes to dealing with money swings. The best advice I can give you to improve on this topic is to try to only look at your results once a month or so. For me it has become very easy to do and has helped me quite a lot over this year. I usually have a harder time dealing with losing against weaker opposition and things of that nature and that is something I really wanna fix as soon as possible.

zache86 6 years, 3 months ago

yeah although sometimes it's hard not to check results in case you have to study hands you played before...my warm up consist mostly on checking marked hands (even the tiniest spot) before starting a session

“That's just like your eh opinion man”

Hahahaha nice one!

Coen brothers films are just too good. Loved True grits (I noticed at the end that the old badass cow bot is the dude, it felt kinda weird hahaha)

Haha can’t believe that you didn’t notice earlier!

“Burn After Reading” is another awesome comedy from C-Brothers as well, very funny

Correct! Also enjoyed that one.

23/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 262

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A

Hey lads. Today I only had time to play a short session but I ended up very happy with my game and with my results. OtB was on the pool for some time and it’s always a lot of fun to get to play some hands against him. Study was also short but good.

Now time to rest until Monday. Good luck all and enjoy your weekend!

ChaoRen123 6 years, 3 months ago

Must feel like an accomplishment to play aginst OtB! :D What is your routine before going into a session? Do you have any mantras or techniques to stay A/B+ game when playing? And any routine post-session? Thx and GL man :)

Must feel like an accomplishment to play aginst OtB! :D

Ha yeah, I only played him a couple of times but it was exciting!

What is your routine before going into a session? Do you have any mantras or techniques to stay A/B+ game when playing? And any routine post-session? Thx and GL man :)

I do. Since last week I've been implementing a simple warm up routine that's been helping me to maintain my focus at the tables and play as much A+ game as possible. I haven't fully developed it yet but I got a lot of ideas from this very recommended Chris Pimmer video

Thanks for the comment and good luck to you as well!

26/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 861

Sessions: 3

Game quality: B, B+, A

Hey lads I'm back. Today I had a quite productive day. Did a lot of study and played a decent amount of hands. My game wasn't very good on my first two sessions but then I played a longer one in which I was more focused and did way better.

More tomorrow. Good luck folks.

27/11/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 221

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A, A

Hey guys. Today I didn't get to play many hands but ended up quite happy with my game. The study was very good. We're developing a new way of approaching every hand in order to be able to apply our knowledge as much as we can while playing. Seems to be working quite well.

More tomorrow. Good luck!

Hey lads.

Been quite off last few days and that's why I didn't update.

On Wednesday I decided to force myself to play a super long nightly session in which I didn't play any close to my best and ran quite bad. It was a really dumb move. I played without any desire to do it and I definitely won't do that ever again.
I think enjoying what you do has to be your priority, I'm not the kind of player that plays to make the most money possible or anything like that. I play because I love the game and the competition so I shouldn't force myself to play just to make money and not enjoy it at all. It won't happen again. I decided that I'm gonna focus very hard on my mental game and I'm gonna develop a new way of approaching poker in that regard. I consider that I have a strong mental game when it comes to money and so but I definitely need to work in order to enjoy way more what I do and not be nervous/anxious at all while playing (which is been happening a lot lately)

That's all I wanted to share with you guys. Good luck!

Kalapoju 6 years, 3 months ago

U ran super well and u got lucky u didn't lose more.

MONTHLY UPDATE

Hey guys, here are my November results

Pretty dissappointing end of the month given that I was doing quite well until the dumb Wednesday night move haha.

Anyway I'm really happy about my game. I've been studying a lot lately and I'm gonna keep putting the work in because I just love doing it.

The stake breakdown reflects very well how my mental game works. I get excited and motivated to play vs tougher competition and that helps me a lot while playing. This is going to be my way. I'm gonna keep studying and battling against the best players at my stakes in order to improve and enjoy what I do.

Now time to finish a book I've been hooked by since last week and enjoy my free time. Back on Monday!

Good luck boys and thanks for reading!

Interesting but I understand how you see it. Maybe skip the lower limit ? If its not motivating you. If you want the volume maybe you need to find a way to motivate you for it. Like somehow see it as a challenge to crush the regs that play there. I remember OTB did a challenge on nl500z also to get him motivated

Good luck!

Great point.

I think skipping it is best for me atm since I wanna keep improving and I have no problem exposing myself to the variance that playing mainly reg battles at 1K supposes. The plan is to keep using 500 as a place to try new things on my game as well as a good environment to warm up and improve my mental strength / focus while playing.

Jeff_ 6 years, 3 months ago

that 10-20bi swing at the end must hurt. It is funny how most people (definitely including me) see things : you had good month and lost at the end - emotions sad, but if it was other way around bad month and upswing at the end - emotions positive. But it is basically same deal
Good luck in last month of this year!

Ha, I luckily don’t see it like that. I’m happy with my game and that’s all that matters for me. I just feel a bit dumb for forcing myself to play a session when I shouldn’t have done it and also a bit discontent with my mental game these last months. Other than that I’m ready to keep working and enjoying this beautiful game.

Thanks and good luck to you as well Jeff!

Kalapoju 6 years, 3 months ago

Show redline plz im wondering if its gto to lose 100bb/100 with redline, u must have studied alot of folding to get it that high.

Jeff_ 6 years, 3 months ago

hand

can you comment on this one. clicking buttonsor going for bluff?

Or just the risk of not running the 4 color deck ? :P

Jeff_ 6 years, 3 months ago

even if it wasn't flush river, call likely have more EV than raise. (It depends on bu strategy with his sizing)

Sure was just thinking maaybe linus misread his clubs for spades, but id not think that be possible w a player like him. So I have no idea whats going on here tbh

I think he’s just shoving assuming that bajs is never using that river size with better than a straight to get him to fold a chop or to very ocassionally call a set. Note that they’re playing 80bb deep.

Hey guys I didn’t update these last two days because I’ve been playing mostly 6 Max due to the lack of action on the HU zoom pools. I don’t really like 6 Max but I got to play some 3/4 handed games which I did enjoy quite a bit. The plan is to keep focusing exclusively on HU though. Hopefully there will be more action soon.

Back tomorrow. Good luck lads!

zache86 6 years, 3 months ago

Must be hard to focus on such different ranges, i mean you are used to play wider ranges...at least you are not playing full table, imagine SB 3b UTG haha

Yeah haha they are completely different games. I enjoy 3 and even 4 handed because it’s more similar to HU but I really dislike playing 6 handed because of super narrow range scenarios like the one you described.

Looking for life balance

Hey lads. Been a bit off last week. I wasn’t feeling like playing a lot and decided to spent some time with my girlfriend and do some non poker stuff instead.
It was a good decision, sometimes I tend to focus too much on poker and forget about enjoying the rest of my life.

From next week I’m gonna focus on developing a daily routine that allows me to play and study a good amount and also that leaves time to do some other things during the rest of the day. I’m gonna wake up early, go to the swimming pool, do some study and then start grinding until lunch time. After that I will do my daily study session with my friend and will take the rest of the day off. I think this way I’d be able to hopefully play around 600/700 hands a day with around 3 hours of study too which is very good for me.

That’s it folks. Taking the weekend off to prepare my new routine, read and play some Hearthstone. Good luck all!

Jeff_ 6 years, 3 months ago

you can get 600-700 hands by playing 6max 500z for 1-2 hours.

I know. But I don't really enjoy 6max. Hopefully I'd be able to keep playing HU and maybe some 3/4 handed games in the future.

Ricericemaybe 6 years, 3 months ago

Hey mate.

You've mentioned 12 times in this blog word routine, but seems like you can't really get a grasp on that. Having no other job or school to attend to your hand amount seems super low to me. Especially when playing regs.
You say that money doesn't mean that much to you, but what it poker good for other than money?
You also seem to be pretty perfectionist and afraid of playing. Waiting for a certain feelgood to be able to hit the tables. If I was you I would really consider switching to 6max, because you get yo play fish and regs more often and ring games will never die, but HU could die any day.

Hey man thanks for the comment.

I agree that my volume is very low. I don't mind that as soon as I keep working on my game and enjoying what I do. I don't have time for everything. It's true that I should organize myself on a better way and that'd help me quite a lot to be able to play more and have some free time as well.

For me, poker is a big part of my life. It's an activity that I enjoy a lot by itself, money is obviously a big part of the game and I like money but it's just not the main reason why I play. If I just wanted to amass money I wouldn't be playing on Stars haha.

I think you're right about switching to 6 max. In fact, this week I'm gonna start studying 3/4 handed to jump on those and try to get some hands in and see how I feel about it. My main game will stay be HU for now but I'm definitely should consider studying 6 max if I wanna keep being a professional poker player in the future.

A new me

Hey lads. This week I've been trying different things to keep my motivation up at the tables. Tried playing 6 Max and 3 handed games but I felt like I didn't enjoy either of them. I've been thinking about it a lot and have decided that I'm gonna focus exclusively on HU for now.

I've never been an organized person, I'm always thinking and saying that I need to have a better routine, I need to wake up early in the day, I need to have a good warm up session before every session etc. This has to change. I've been treating poker as a hobby rather than a job and I shouldn't do that if I wanna keep improving and growing as a player.

I won't wait for the new year to become an organized person. I wanna be a better version of me and I know that all of this is gonna help me a lot in all aspects of my life. From now on I'm gonna follow strictly a daily routine, in case anyone wants to do something similar I'll share with you guys a few things I'm gonna follow:

Wake up at 9 AM every weekday
Go to the swimming pool every weekday
Always warm up before playing
Always cool down after playing
Never force myself to play when tired
Maintain a minimum of 2 hours of study / day
Spend as much time as I can with my girlfriend
Never carry my phone out of home unless needed
Keep reading every day
Start meditating
Enjoy life

That's it folks. I would keep updating this blog daily as usual. Thanks for reading and good luck!

What does your warm up routine look like ?

Great approach to change things now, gl with this!

Thanks for the support Bingo.

The plan is to start with walking meditation, then do a short mindfulness session at home and review last concepts learned as well as play some hands in GTO Trainer to start my session focused and fresh.

I got a lot of warm up ideas from this Chris Pimmer video, very recommended.

Thx ill give that one a watch for sure!
Going to practice some of this as well, think mindfulness practices and visualization practices can put me in the right mindset. I have trouble starting off in a good flow, think this can help with that :)
Cheers!

Best of luck with that buddy!

17/12/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2.5 hours

Hands: 620

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A -

Hey guys. Today was a great day. I woke up early, went to the swimming pool and then, after doing my warm up, I played a quite long session in which I played quite well. Then I had lunch and after that I had a great study session with my friend. Later we played a very short practice match against eachother and then I put another hour of study on my own.

I really like being more organized and it helped me enjoy the rest of my day too. More tomorrow. Good luck all!

Lausbub 6 years, 3 months ago

Hey Nuno are you from spain? Where do you reside to play onlinepoker? Keep up the good work and dont be too hard on yourself

Hey thanks a lot Lausbub, appreciate the support!

Yes I'm spanish, living in Germany atm.

18/12/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1h

Hands: 614

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A, B+

Hey guys. Today I started by playing a short morning session in which I felt okay and did pretty well. Then I played a practice match against a friend and after that I had a short but very good study session with my partner. Later in the day played another session but I wasn't very focused and felt pretty anxious while playing as well.

More tomorrow. Good luck all!

ChaoRen123 6 years, 3 months ago

Hey man, good to see you keep improving and setting goals!
I struggle with organizing myself too, especially in my poker studies, do you have any advice about that?

Good luck and keep going! :D

Hey man thanks for the support!

I’ve actually decided to become more organized since this week. I recommend you to start by setting simple daily/weekly goals that you can accomplish easily so that motivates you to keep going. Keeping track of all you do in terms of study on a spreadsheet will also help you motivate to do it more and more.

Good luck!

19/12/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 h

Hands: 663

Sessions: 1

Game quality: A+ / A

Hey lads. Today I played a large morning session and ended up really happy with my game. Started playing A+ and even though my game dropped to A game during some part of the session I was pretty focused pretty much all the time. Study was also good.

More tomorrow. Good luck all!

Hey lads. Been off last days and now gonna be on vacation for some days. Will focus on enjoy my free time and prepare my study and my mental game for the upcoming year.

Merry Christmas everyone!

zache86 6 years, 2 months ago

hi buddy,
have a nice holiday!! where did you go?

Eldora 6 years, 2 months ago

Have a great holiday season!

Thanks guys, you too!

I came back home for a few days. Will post here when I’m back at it.

Hey lads I'm back!

Been on vacation with the family and girlfriend, didn't play any poker and I'm quite pumped to be back at it!

I actually forgot to post my yearly results so here there are:

2018 Graph

2018 Stake breakdown

Obviously quite disappointing end of the year. I don't mind that at all but I've been experiencing performance anxiety last few weeks and I really wanna improve that. I'm gonna start with meditation again and let's see if it helps me. If anyone has some advice regarding this issue I'm having I'd greatly appreciate to hear from them.

Thanks for reading guys. Let's crush 2019!

Gingivite 6 years, 2 months ago

Hey, go over that long losing streak and look for spots in your tracker where you were consistently leaking money. Review some of your more basic concepts with Pio just for a refresher and confidence boost (watch some of your own GTO Trainer vids, haha), and maybe go to a nearby casino to play in a little casual, live tournament on Sunday afternoon with a non-pro friend to relax and enjoy people’s company while playing. Those things could help you focus on just continuing to improve and enjoy the game instead of whatever issues your having. Maybe play a few mid-stake HUSNG’s to wind down. All that said, you’ll eventually need to figure out why you’re having anxiety in order to cure it. You’re a writer: try keeping a personal journal just before and after a session where you write down how you were feeling and potential reasons why (personal life issues, stakes, a certain villain, overambitious goals, etc.) that way you have a written record that can help you spot patterns in your feelings and play, ultimately locating the source.

Once you figure it out, you'll do great at helping others with similar issues. Crush it! We all want to see you do well and reap the benefits of all your hard work!

Man, thank you so much! This kind of messages mean the world for me. Really appreciate the help and support Gingivite!

Best of luck buddy, have a great year!

Kalapoju 6 years, 2 months ago

This post has been flagged as inappropriate

Moonwalker 6 years, 2 months ago

Interested in what happened here cuz from my experience with Kalapoju back when we were battling NL200 he is a really nice guy. Definitely the most friendly one I met on Pokerstars HU pool. OP on the other hand is not so friendly.

Haha this funny. He’s definitely a great guy. You can read the posts above to find out how great he is and why he’s surprisingly banned from RIO!

Kalapoju1 6 years, 2 months ago

This post has been flagged as inappropriate

This is completely ridiculous. I literally never ever said I’m the best 1k reg lol. In case anyone is wondering why he calls me scammer: This guy claims that I scammed people money by being a RIO coach while everyone here enjoys my content.

Please just go away and bring your hate somewhere else.

Antonio Miranda 6 years, 2 months ago

the thing is that kalapoju comes to Nuno's blog to cry like a kid while Nuno doesnt care a shit kalapoju`s year

what happened is that kalapoju needs everybody loving him and sucking his ass (like u do) and Nuno said in his opinion kalapoju wasn't Top reg of the stake.
Ego player = cry like a baby

Kalapoju1 6 years, 2 months ago

This post has been flagged as inappropriate

Kalapoju1 6 years, 2 months ago

This post has been flagged as inappropriate

Really interesting river spot

21/1/2019 UPDATE

Hey lads I'm back!

Last weeks I've been playing and studying as usual and I've been feeling pretty good at the tables. The biggest issue I was having lately was performance anxiety and it's definitely getting better. I'm also very happy to announce that I've joined RIO again now as an Elite Instructor!

I'm really excited to be back producing content. I've improved a lot since the last time I recorded for RIO and I think I have a lot of value to contribute with.

From now on will keep posting daily updates as usual. I actually played a good volume today and it's been some time since I posted some hands so there we go:

Bluff gone wrong

Getting max value

Lucky

Thanks for reading guys. Back tomorrow!

zache86 6 years, 2 months ago

-Hi buddy nice to hear you are back producing videos for RIO!

-It's been a while since you shared some hh's...some thoughts about them:

Really interesting river spot:

great hand, of course we are at the top of our range but i can't see many bluffs on his side...do you think villain is capable of turning sd into a bluff with this line? (he is representing so narrow)
anyway of course in any case it's just a cooler but interested on your though process during the hand

Hey mate thanks a lot!

I haven't played much against him at all although I think he's a 500z SH reg. He played very well and he seemed quite good. I think that this is a spot in which many players tend to underbluff dramatically so my hand would be an easy fold against most of them but I thought this guy was capable of turning some J4, J9, J8, T9, T8 combos into bluffs and occasionally shove his 98 combos as well.

Jeff_ 6 years, 2 months ago

he is probably targeting your 7x when bluffing. Something like JT seems nice combo to occasional shove and other times call

Agree.

22/1/2019 UPDATE

Hey guys. Today I didn't get to play much at all but I had a good study session and enjoyed some free time with my girlfriend.

Back tomorrow. Good luck!

23/1/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 532

Game quality: A

Hey lads. Today was a fine day. Had a short but great study session and got to play a large 1KNL pool in which I did pretty well.

More tomorrow. Good luck!

24&25/1/2019 UPDATE

Hey lads. These last two days I didn't get to play a lot of hands but I was very happy with my game. I've been playing my best game ever and I have been quite focused during my sessions lately. I'm really happy about this because it means a lot for me as a player.

On a side note, the other day my girlfriend and me watched this awesome documentary about Minimalism which I greatly recommend you guys to watch (it's on Netflix)

I personally got a lot of things from it and it definitely gave me another perspective to approach my goals and my life in general.

That's gonna be all for now, it's time to rest and review some hands as well as prepare study for the upcoming week. Good luck all and thanks for reading!

28/1/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 1h + 2 practice sessions

Hands: 475

Sessions: 2

Game quality: A, A

Hey guys. Today I had a very productive day. Played a decent amount, studied for some time and also had two somewhat large practice sessions so I ended happy with my day. My game was pretty good and I'm excited to keep doing well.

More tomorrow. Good luck all!

29/1/2018 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 1011

Game quality: A

Hey lads. Today I had a very productive day, played a lot of hands and started a new small project that I'll share with you in the next days.

More tomorrow. Good luck!

30/1/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 619

Game quality: A

Hey guys today I had another good day. Did some study and played a decent amount.

More tomorrow as well as the end of month recap. Good luck!

END OF MONTH UPDATE

Hey guys January is over and here are my results:

Volume was really low in part because of Christmas but I'm really happy with my performance and I'm looking forward to play 15k hands during February. It's going to be kind of a monthly goal in order to keep playing more and more.

Now time to finish the project I've been working on last weeks and rest until Monday. Good luck guys!

Gingivite 6 years, 1 month ago

Low volume, but damn dude, crushing NL500!

Eldora 6 years, 1 month ago

Congrats on a great start into 2019 ;)

Thanks a lot guys. Let’s keep crushing!

4/2/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 697

Sessions: 2

Game quaity: A, B+

Hey guys. Today I had a very busy day but I still managed to put almost 700 hands in and ended up fairly happy with my performance. Tomorrow I have another very busy day so I'll be back 100% from Wednesday.

Good luck all!

Hey boys!

I forgot to update past few days but I did a lot of study and played quite a lot as well. I’m really happy with my game and I’m doing very well at the tables.

Will be back tomorrow with a regular update. Good luck all!

9/2/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 1250

Game quality: A, B+

Hey lads, today was a sick day. I started with a very good study session and then played a lot of hands. I even played a session at night when I was definitely too tired for it and, even though it went great, I need to not force myself to do that since it affects me pretty badly and it messes up my sleeping schedule.

Now time to rest and back on Monday. Good luck!

Jeff_ 6 years, 1 month ago

at least made a record amount of hands in 1 day :P

11/2/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 711

Game quality: B+, A

Hey lads. Today was a pretty good day. Study was good and I ended up quite happy with my game despite running pretty bad at 1KNL and quite okay at 500NL.

More tomorrow. Good luck all!

Hey lads I’m back.

Played a lot lately but I’ve been really disorganized last days and that’s the reason why I didn’t update.

I’ve been thinking about becoming a more organized person since a long time. I tried to do it many times before and it never worked. I think the main reason for that was that I’ve never been able to maintain a good sleeping schedule. Some days I’d wake up early and enjoy my day but then go to bed too late and mess up my schedule again. I think that if I’m able to maintain a good sleeping schedule and I plan my life week by week, everything is going to be better, I’d be able to play more, study more and have more free time. I haven’t been very constant with my warm up before sessions either and I’m gonna give away the free hour of coaching I promised on a post last year by failing on that too.

Now I’m gonna take the weekend off to relax and organize the upcoming week. From now on you can expect more detailed daily updates (with hand histories included) and just a more organized version of myself writing in here :)

Will be back on Sunday to tell you guys a bit more about the week plan as well as announce the giveaway winner. Good luck all and thanks for reading!

Just let the RNG decide and Bruno is the free coaching hour winner out of our 7 participants.

Congrats man! Contact me via direct message and we can sort it out.

18/2/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 2.5 hours

Hands: 321

Game quality: A, A+

Hey guys!

Today I had a great day. Woke up quite early in the day and, even though I only got to play one session in the morning, I ended up very happy with my performance. Spent the afternoon studying both with my friend and in my own.

More tomorrow, good luck.

19/2/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 2.5 hours

Hands: 452

Game quality: A, B

Hey lads. Today I did a lot of study again and didn't get to play many hands. Started the day with a very short morning session after warming up because I wasn't feeling comfortable at the tables. Then did some study and had some free time and played a longer one before having dinner but I wasn't comfortable at all either so I decided to stop.

More tomorrow, good luck!

20/2/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 147

Game quality: A

Hey lads. Today my study partner wasn't able to study so I did one hour by myself and spent some time with my girlfriend instead. Then got to play a short session because it was a 1K pool running and I did pretty good.

Some hands:

Cooler v2

Interesting one

Back tomorrow. Good luck guys!

zache86 6 years, 1 month ago

Hi Nuno,
sorry i haven't been on the blog lately but i've been traveling a lot nonstop
btw nice to have those hh's more often!

Keep crushing buddy!

No worries buddy, glad to see you back!

Jeff_ 6 years, 1 month ago

on the last one isn't 5c quite bad blocker to have? Do you think 54 plays this way for value, or he more polarizes to A4 type of stuff?

It's hard to say because it's a very unusual line by him. I'd expect he'd be more polar than naked 4x though. I agree with you, 5c seems pretty bad to call river as played.

21/2/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 1 hour

Hands: 977

Game quality: B+

Hey lads. Today I didn't get to study with my partner either and I played a lot of hands and did two coaching sessions instead. Ended up quite happy with my game at the tables but not so happy mentally, I basically forced myself to play a lot which I don't wanna do.

Back tomorrow. Good luck!

26/2/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: 0

Hey lads. Today I had a great study session and sadly didn't find time to play, on the other side yesterday got to play almost 1k hands on a large pool. Here are some interesting hands:

Got the wrong K3

Interesting line

Tough river spot

Back tomorrow. Good luck all!

zache86 6 years ago

can't see those hands...it says weaktight has some security issues

Nuno Alvarez 6 years ago

Yeah same to me, that's weird. Let's see if they fix it in the next days, if not, I'd repost the hands.

zache86 6 years ago

Now it's fixed...wow, hell of a spot on last hand

MONTHLY UPDATE

Hey lads. Sorry for not updating last few days. I caught a cold and I didn't play very much.

The month is over and here are my February results:

Pretty happy with my month. Volume is pretty good given that I wasn't able to play much this last week. My game was quite good as well and at this point I feel like I'm learning a lot and playing better than ever.

Now time to take a few days off and probably back on Monday or Tuesday. Good luck guys and thanks for reading!

8/3/2019 UPDATE

Hey guys.

This past week I almost didn't get to play at all because I had to take care of some non poker stuff. At least I studied and enjoyed some time with my girlfriend.

Next week I'm gonna still be somewhat busy but I'll try to keep playing and posting daily updates.

Thanks for reading and good luck all!

13/3/2019 UPDATE

Hey lads I'm back.

Been quite busy last few days but I managed to put some hands in and I ended up quite happy with my performance.

Some big pots:

Bluffcatching OTR

Bluff that didn't work

Trapping

Cooler v2

Cooler v3

I also wanted to announce something I've been working on last month.

My study partner GaliZianBoy and me just released a HUNL Pack for Simple GTO Trainer.

As you guys know I'm a big fan of this program, I think it's really helpful to study Poker nowadays and I consider it a great tool to have.

We've tested a LOT of different sizings on pretty much every single postflop situation and we think this parameters that we chosen for the pack are great for everyone. Even for beginners in HUNL since there are not complicated at all.

You can find our pack here (it doesn't require a PIOsolver license nor a Simple GTO Trainer license to work)

That's all lads. If any of you guys ends up buying it and testing it I'll be more than happy to answer a few questions or anything you need.

Thanks for reading and good luck!

Kalupso 6 years ago

Nice pack. I saw you omitted flop 3bet IP in SRP. It seems like a reasonable simplification and it's a line I never got into learning. Is there any boards you found it more important to have a flop 3bet IP?

Nuno Alvarez 6 years ago

Thanks Kalupso!

I saw you omitted flop 3bet IP in SRP. It seems like a reasonable simplification and it's a line I never got into learning.

I agree, I also think it's a good simplification and I also never got into learning it mainly because it doesn't add that much EV for IP and it clearly overcomplicates the game tree.

Is there any boards you found it more important to have a flop 3bet IP?

No, but as I said, I didn't work much into it.

20/3/2019 UPDATE

Hey lads!

Been playing some lately but not that much so I didn't update til now. Things have been going pretty well, I'm really happy with my game and I've been doing a decent amount of study as well.

On a side note I've been reading quite a lot. I really enjoy graphic novels, I discovered Chris Ware a few weeks ago and I've got really hooked by Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth

The art is insanely good, I don't have a huge experience on this field but I really appreciate what this guy creates. In case anyone's interested on his work I found this interview about him

Alright guys this is gonna be it. Heading to Andorra with the girlfriend for a short vacation til next week. Will be back on Wednesday or so with an update.

Good luck all and thanks for reading!

27/3/2019 UPDATE

Hey lads I'm back!

Had a great time on Andorra. Spent some high quality days off with my girlfriend and we loved the country.

We decided that we're most likely gonna move there in the next month or so and that would probably mean that I won't be able to play that much at all. I also decided I'm gonna be on the lab as much as I can for a few weeks. I really love studying and I feel like I can improve some parts of my game so I'm planning on studying a lot of different spots as well as work in my mental game.

That's gonna be it lads. Gonna try to post weekly updates with some insights on what I've been working on.

Good luck all and thanks for reading!

Mandatory picture on Dali's clock sculpture :D

zache86 5 years, 11 months ago

Nice!
Moving to andorra? Great that your gf supports you...what does she do for a living? (if it's no too daring on my part :P)

Thanks Zache!

She’s studying atm but she’ll probably won’t have trouble finding a job there if we end up moving.

MONTHLY UPDATE

Hey guys. Here are my March results:

Not the best volume but can't complain since I was quite busy and spent almost a week and a half on a holiday. Really happy with my game though. I'm maintaining a great winrate at 500Z which is on of my main goals for the year.

Unfortunately I'd have to spend some time back home during this month so I don't think I'd be able to play at all but, as I said, I'm planning on hitting the lab quite hard. I'll try to improve my game as much as I can and I'd be also focused on growing mentally as a poker player.

Poker goals for April:

Record 4 RIO videos
Develop a good study plan and follow it
Create a warm up and a cool down plan
Sim some new spots and organize everything regarding study
Take notes of everything I learn on every study session

Life goals for April:

Start meditating
Keep reading on a daily basis
Become a more organized person in all aspects (AKA my nemesis :P)

Good luck lads and thanks a lot for reading, have a great April!

Hey guys!

As I said I haven’t been playing at all. Instead I’ve been doing a lot of study, recording for RIO and mostly reading and playing Magic The Gathering haha.

I’m planning on keep studying quite hard this week. I’d try to post an update by the end of it.

I also wanted to tell you that I’m looking for HUNL footage from a RIO elite member to review for an upcoming video. In case any of you is interested, you can leave a post on this thread

Thanks a lot.

A NEW PLACE

Hey guys I'm back!

Finally moved to Andorra and I'm ready to grind again. Been playing today already and, even though I felt kinda rusty in some spots, I did great overall.

From Monday you can expect daily updates as always and probably a lot of hands as well.

Good luck all and thanks for reading.

Eldora 5 years, 10 months ago

Always exciting to move - hope you'll have a great time exploring your new living surroundings and good "start" @ the tables

Bluffcatching not working

Hey lads!

Been playing quite a lot this past days and been doing quite well I think. I'm really happy with my game and I'm very motivated to keep studying and learning new stuff.

Here are some fun hands:

Bluffcatching working

Thin value raising

Back tomorrow with the first daily update from my new place! Good luck all.

Jeff_ 5 years, 10 months ago

2nd hand is weird. Is it pio approved? or what I'm more curious do we call our straight + diamond blocker at high frequency ?

I haven’t fully reviewed it yet but I think we call every single flush, we fold every straight without diamond and our straight with diamond blocker hands fall into the 0 ev category and mix some calls and some folds.

15/5/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: ~1200

Game quality: A+, B

Hey guys!

Today I started the day by playing a good morning session. Then took a break and did some good study on 3BP with my friend. After working on my game I felt quite motivated to play and had a great A+ game session on a 1k pool that was running. Finally I ended the day playing a solid B game session because I was way too tired to handle it.

I’m extremely happy with my game lately. I feel like the month I took off the tables helped me a lot to not feel as frustrated and not nearly as anxious as I was feeling while playing earlier this year. I’m really pumped to keep studying and improving day by day. The next step is going to be to start taking 2K NL shots and that’s pretty exciting. I also wanna organice my new routine here and be able to maintain a minimum of 20k hands a month (aiming for 25k though)

Btw I’ve been grinding without a chair for almost a week now lol. I have an standing desk but I usually switch very often between sitting and standing or just don’t stand at all while playing. Anyway I ordered a new one that’s coming in two weeks since I’m coming back home for a week next Tuesday.

Good luck all and thanks for reading!

Amazing Linus interview that I saw on 2p2 the other day

Highly recommended!

zache86 5 years, 10 months ago

Very interesting, thank you buddy!

Fishfeast 5 years, 10 months ago

you remind me quite a lot of linus nuno. I can see that you take inspiration from him

Hey guys just wanted to post this Review of HU Cash Training Pack that I did for the pack that GaliZianBoy and me released a few months ago in case inyone is interested to know more about it.

Back later in the day with a recap of my results since I moved to Andorra.

Good luck!

20/5/2019 UPDATE

Hey lads!

I just wanted to give a brief update because I'm leaving tomorrow morning back home for a week.

I've been grinding and studying quite a lot this past week and I'm very happy with my performance overall. I started taking some 2k shots and I'm planning on keep doing it more often when the pool runs. I'm actually gonna set up a yearly goal that's going to be to end 2019 being a 2k reg and playing every pool that runs there. I think this is going to help me to maintain my motivation up.

Results since I moved to Andorra:

Back next week, thanks for reading and take care!

Max Lacerda 5 years, 10 months ago

Congratz! Your goal is very nice, GL!

Thanks a lot buddy. I actually have another goal that I’m going to maintain private until the end of the year when I’ll post if I got it or not :P

Back to business

Hey boys.

I’m traveling back to Andorra after spending a great week at home. The plan is going to get back on the grind and hopefully organize myself in a way that I get to play, study and produce content as much as I want. I definitely think I’m on my best moment as a player and can’t wait to keep crushing the games.

Back tomorrow with a daily update from now on. Good luck and thanks for reading!

zache86 5 years, 9 months ago

Sweet!
Where are you from? Galicia?
Do you have any travelling recommendations for Spain? I've been there a couple of times but went to the 'well known' places

Ha yeah I’m from Galicia. How do you know? :P

I haven’t traveled that much in Spain but I’d enjoyed Barcelona the most. I’m also a big fan of Portugal, it’s close to where I was born in Galicia so I know some places there too.

zache86 5 years, 9 months ago

Hahaha white magic...just guessing because of your study partner's nickname
One of my best friends recommend me Bilbao; i've been in Madrid,Barcelona,Granada and Toledo

Haha nice read!

Never been to Bilbao but my dad also told me it's great. Definitely one of the main cities in Spain I wanna visit next.

Bingo 123 5 years, 9 months ago

tip: check out the guggenheim museum when you are there if you like architecture, just impressive to see don't even have to go inside (which usually is also worth it if you like arts)

Yeah will definitely do! Thanks for the suggestion. My dad is quite into art and enjoyed it too.

Hey lads!

Sorry for not updating these last days. Been playing and studying but I forgot to post here. From now on I'm starting a new daily routine that hopefully would help me to stay organized and maintain a good volume of grind and work off the tables.

Back tomorrow with the daily update. Good luck all.

3/6/2019 UPDATE

Hey guys.

Today I wasn’t able to wake up as early as I wanted because I didn’t sleep very well but I managed to go to the swimming pool and then to the city center to run some errands. In the afternoon I had planned a study session but my friend couldn’t show up so I played some hands instead and, even though I’ve been running poorly lately, I did quite okay.

Tomorrow I’ll try to do some good study and hopefully play a lot too.

Good luck all!

TJSuited 5 years, 9 months ago

Always a productive day for you. Never see you slacking

Thanks buddy.

5/6/2019 UPDATE

Hey guys.

Study time: 3 hours

Hands: 200

Game quality: A

Today I had a 3 hour study session with my friend that was one of the best we've ever had. We learned many good concepts and we organized them too. Then I played a short session because of lack of action and ended the day with a practice match vs my buddy which was very helpful too.

Back tomorrow. Good luck all!

Hey guys.

Sorry for no updating these past days. I’ve been playing and studying a lot. I took some 2KNL shots and ran badly there but ended up quite happy with my game. I need to be more organized in order to be able to maintain my A-Game as much as I can.

On the other hand, the study has been absolutely amazing. We spent the whole week reviewing a session that we played vs each other and we got so many different concepts from it. I think we’re improving at a very good pace and I couldn’t be happier about it to be honest.

Back tomorrow with a weekly recap and some hands featuring the one and only OtB_RedBaron :P

Good luck boys.

Hi all.

Today I didn't get to play much at all even though I was open sitting the lobby for like 4 hours. Now I'm heading to bed to wake up tomorrow early and start the week properly.

This week was great in many aspects, I just need to fix my playing and sleep schedule and I'm good to go so that's the goal for the next one.

Hand vs the GOAT as promised :P

More hands tomorrow as well as a daily update. Good luck folks!

Max Lacerda 5 years, 9 months ago

wow strange by his part. what do you think of his play?

Max Lacerda 5 years, 9 months ago

Thinking better about the hand now, since this is HU I think it's a pretty str8 fwrd value bet, he still gets called by a lot of worse hands

Jeff_ 5 years, 9 months ago

yeah straightforward for heads up. When he can have ''million bluffs'' it is easy to get called enough, and those valuebets are quite good.
Hero played it much more interesting flop/river

Yeah I think it’s very standard too.

I reviewed it and my play seems to be fine too. Flop and turn can be played as bets or checks. OTR I should be mostly shoving though but I decided to mix a low frequency check that time.

Gingivite 5 years, 9 months ago

Man, I really dislike the river check by hero and the river shove by OTB. Nuno is going to miss out on a ton of value by checking that river, especially against very good players whose defense frequencies are well balanced on that fairly dry run out. And the shove with the KJ should probably be sized down to get thin value rom 99, TT or AK with suit blockers and reserve the polar part of his range for boats, flushes and hands that can get value from AA, KK, AJ, two pair, etc. Nothing that KJ wants to fold is folding for a pot-sized bet there; I see no reason to turn it into a bluff. Of course if Nuno has a read that OTB is turning all of his marginal made hands into bluffs there in addition to his "normal" bluffing combos, then by all means, check away, but I doubt they've played against each other enough to have such a read.

10/6/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: ~ 900

Game quality: B+

Hey guys. Today I woke up quite early in the day, went to the swimming pool and then played a short session. After having lunch I had a great study session with my partner. As I said we’re learning a lot and we’re both very motivated to keep improving day by day. After the study I listened to the warm up podcast that Elliot Roe includes in his mental game course which I think it was pretty helpful to put me in the zone. I started playing very focused but my game quality dropped after the first 30 min and ended up ending my session at the one hour mark. I think it’s very important to not force myself to keep playing when I’m not feeling it, I should realize it and stop. HUNL is very mental draining since you have action pretty much every single hand so it’s important to play short sessions and take breaks quite often.

More tomorrow, I’m very excited to keep working. Good luck boys.

11/6/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 2 hours

Hands: ~ 400

Game quality: B+

Hey boys. Today I took the morning off, went to the swimming pool and played some magic. Then I had a great study session and after that I played my first session of the day. I battled a reg for 50 minutes at 500NL and ended up quite happy with my game even though I couldn’t concentrate as much as I’d like to. Ended the day playing a short one on a pool that was running but died really quickly.

More tomorrow, good luck folks.

Hey guys.

Didn’t find the time to update last days although I’ve been studying and playing a good amount. Today I’ll spend the day recording a RIO video and probably playing some hands too.

Good luck all.

Hey lads sorry for the lack of updates this past week. My girlfriend and mom came to visit me and I didn't play any poker at all. Now I'm gonna spend at least a week but probably around 2 weeks here and I'm gonna try to grind a lot. Daily updates incoming!

Good luck all.

20/6/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 662

Game quality: A, B+

Hey guys.

Today I started by doing some study with my friend and we got a few valuable things out of the session. Then I sat to play a 1KNL pool and felt pretty comfortable for the most part, after that I took a break and had dinner and ended the day with another short session in which I was a bit too tired so I decided to stop and went to bed instead.

More tomorrow, good luck.

eatyourveggies 5 years, 9 months ago

LFGO!!!!

21/6/2019 UPDATE

Hands: ~ 600

Game quality: A-

Hey boys. Today I didn't get to study but I played a few sessions and, even though I wasn't very concentrated I ended up quite happy with my game.

More tomorrow. Good luck.

Sextonhardcastle 5 years, 9 months ago

How often do you feel like you still play well even when you go into a session not concentrated or distracted?

Good question, I’d say that not very often at all. I think there’s a clear correlation between my A-Game and how concentrated I am while playing.

22/6/2019 UPDATE

Hands: ~ 1150

Game quality: A-

Hey lads, another day in the books. My game was pretty good today even though I didn't get to play much against regulars.

More tomorrow. Good luck all.

23/6/2019 UPDATE

Hands: ~ 800

Game quality: A

Hey guys. Today I started playing a 500 session in which I did really well even though I wasn’t very concentrated. Then I played a 1KNL pool and my game was really good so I ended up quite happy with it.

More tomorrow as well as some hands and some insights on how I’m going to approach the game from now on. Good luck!

24/6/2019 UPDATE

Study time: 1.5 hours

Hands: 944

Game quality: A, B

Hey guys. Today I got to play quite a lot of 1KNL since there was a pool running for the majority of the afternoon. I played pretty focused the whole time and then I tried to play a short session at night but I was clearly too tired for it so I closed and called it a day.

Some hands from these past days:

CheckRais3r check raising

Bluff gone wrong

Interesting river decision

One of the sickest hands I've ever played

Hope you guys like it. Good luck boys.

Jeff_ 5 years, 9 months ago

Bluff go wrong ^__^

Interesting river decision Surely villain have overbet turn sizing, so doesn't have all boats there. Your concern about big raising sizing on the river by You?

One of the sickest hands I've ever played People just bluffing with enormous sizing haha

Yeah, kinda close between shoving and calling I believe.

Hey guys I didn’t update past days because the games have been super dry. Let’s see if we can put some volume during the weekend. Good luck all.

MONTHLY UPDATE

Hey guys, June is over and here are my results.

I'm pretty happy with my performance this month. Volume is pretty good given that I took a 5 day break and my game has been quite good as well, specially these past two weeks. I'm really excited to keep playing and studying so that's the plan for July. I will take a one week break back home but I'm planning on try to play at least 20k hands still.

Goals for July:

Start meditating (I'm 100% gonna do this on a daily basis for once)
20k hands
Maintain a good study schedule

That's all, back tomorrow with my Monday daily update. Good luck boys!

Jeff_ 5 years, 8 months ago

what's gonna be meditation plan for you?

Heard nothing but great things about this book so I’m gonna grab it and start doing a morning session every day and see how it goes.

Hey guys!

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates this past week. I’ve been mostly studying and doing non poker related stuff and that’s why I didn’t update my blog. I’m at a very good level at the moment and I feel like I’m improving day by day so the plan is to keep studying and working hard.

Today I’m traveling back home, gonna be spending at least a week and a half there. Lately I was feeling a bit burned out with poker so this small break would likely be very helpful for me in all aspects.

Goals for the vacation period:

Relax and enjoy myself
Maintain study on a daily basis
Start reading “The mind illuminated” and get into meditation
Fix my sleep schedule

Gonna also do a small experiment on reducing the use of my phone to 1 hour a day or so (responsible using) and see how it feels. Will post results here.

Jeff_ 5 years, 8 months ago

sounds good, what you used to do on the phone more than 1 hour? texting I assume?

Yeah texting too but mostly Twitter, Reddit and YouTube. Basically wasting my time haha

Jeff_ 5 years, 8 months ago

deleting those apps might help a lot

Deactivated User 5 years, 8 months ago

how much realistically can you waste on social media? this can be heavy on schedule.

Probably around 2h a day I’d say. I’m doing better lately though!

Deactivated User 5 years, 8 months ago

can you start a new thread?
content is good but I can't stand scrolling down!

social media dopamine

so how much is 1h coaching for you worth?