MajorCrimes

grunch

TL:DR

I've been lacto-paleo for 5 1/2 years, and done intermittent fasting for maybe 3 1/2 on and off (leangains.com if you aren't sure what that is). Long story short, once your body is adjusted, I think cognitive function actually increases during the fasted state (up to a point, obviously). On fasting days, I have an 8 hour eating window, and subjectively feel the most clear-headed on the 15th and 16th hours of my fast. Martin Berkhan provides decent explanations for why that is in my opinion on that site.

With diet stuff in particular I think it's incredibly difficult to hear the signal through the noise, there are so many myths about what our ancestors ate, etc. The ape argument above for example, is not sound from an evolutionary perspective, and this is reflected in the fact that all indigenous cultures I've ever been able to find research on eat meat. There are maybe some good environmental reasons for pushing a vegetarian diet, but our most recent ancestors were not vegetarians according to anything I've read that cited anthropological findings.

FWIW, in a healthy state of ketosis, your brain metabolizes ketones easily to supplement blood sugars, I believe. Dr. Eades discusses the process here: https://proteinpower.com/drmike/2007/05/22/metabolism-and-ketosis/

The super low carb thing has been pretty soundly debunked as a healthy long-term diet, to my understanding. Stephan Guyenet of wholehealthsource.blogspot.com effectively countered Gary Taubes (author of "Good Calories, Bad Calories") with regards to that argument I think: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html

To bring the cliche, though: Know your body and listen to what it's telling you, obv.

this is a really valuable journal

yes...i slumped bad and am now in grad school. But thx!

grunch

+1 to spew, it seems like there's very little consideration of our range, what we rep, blockers, etc. This isn't I line I can imagine taking for value like ever

If ur folding here you're folding like 100%, maybe only continuing with AKhh?

Since he's opening wide and not folding a ton to 3bets you can probably make it a little bigger pre

Grunch--With all gutters would be super spewy I'd think...thats a ton of combos. The qx hands seem like better candidates since they block AQ which is a decent part of his river call range to me. Are you 3betting qto here ever?

I am not really on the same page here, I think KK and AA are both vbets here 100% against most villains I play...and I'd never have QJ here for value, my value range is A4s, JJ+, and all of those hands are pretty much taking that line 100% as a standard line.

I guess I need to understand my bluff range well before I can compare his blocker effects accurately, but he is definitely blocking a lot of value hands in my personal range.

I don't understand the part about villain being far down in his range...against our polarized range, the only difference between ace king kicker and a pair is blocker strength right?

whereas Jx hands still only beat a bluff (same equity vs bluffs), and if it's KJ or AJ he blocks less of my value

Well, he blocks half of my AA-KK combos, 1/4 of my AQ (although my betting makes this a less likely holding IMO). I also only have 3 QQ combos.

Whereas for bluffs, he only blocks one of my KTs combos, none of my Axdd combos, and 1/4 of my ATs combos...I mean, it feels like I can't have that many more bluffs than those from a GTO perspective, right? Not gonna do all the math at the moment...

I'm not really seeing what you mean, can you explain?

"Mind Gym" by Gary Mack

Postflop doesn't seem too bad to me. I think we see quite a bit of Axs and QQ-JJ that call one. We're basically facing 6 combos of strong hands, and I think he can have way more than that of Axs and QQ-JJ. And I mean, I don't know if he has them often, but it's nice to fold out 98s, 65s, 78s type hands too.

It's not a spot I'm super comfortable with in general, those are just a few impressions.

I disagree, when the turn card is an over card and completes the flush, betting big seems less appealing because a lot if his range is either weakened or flushed.

Isn't it a bit of an issue that a lot of his bluffs have decent equity still? It feels like if I am checking back here, then he is gaining quite a bit by min c/r'ing his draws OTF, since he gets to see two cards so cheaply and will fold me out sometimes anyways.

Is this not a spot where we should be considering thin value and protection against his somewhat polarized range?

can you explain why you think the c/c line is better than betting tiny again OTT?

Just did a set of AM and PM sentence completion exercises for about a week, which I would definitely recommend. My first impression is that these types of exercises may be the best ways to both gain awareness and bring learning into the unconscious, both of which are obviously relevant for poker players.

I think QJ, AQ, JJ, and QQ and then draw hands are all better to have in ur range than TT here due to blockers and such, but OTT it may still be good to have it as a bluff catcher

Thanks for the replies and encouragement.

James, very insightful. Thank you.

Lol @ your apology about confronting me, that might be the best advice I've ever gotten with poker.

So, this has been a really discouraging last 4 months in poker. I was hoping to go professional starting in mid October, and instead I have just lost money for 4 straight months in a row. I no longer am even really able to put much time into it, because I need to make money with my other job and mentally it is just discouraging to hear "you suck" so much from something into which you are pouring yourself.

This is the 4th 30+ BI downswing of my career. It just feels like I cannot win money at the game. It is just gruelingly hard, and has been for months. I'm playing 25$ at Bovada and just getting rocked over and over again. I don't understand how it could feel this hard, while dudes like this are having that kind of an experience with poker (congratz to this guy, btw). I'm not even sure if I've made money overall on poker at this point, after this newest swing.

Outside of poker, life gives me the feedback that I'm intelligent, hardworking, and effective. I had a 3.47 GPA at Rice University, which is known for not inflating grades. I scored 99% in both sections of the SAT (if I recall) and 99% and 97% on the GRE (verbal and math, respectively). I did wilderness therapy at a high level for 3.5 years. That's a high-demand, high-stress job that burns people out quickly usually, and I thrived in the role. I have played and studied very hard for about four and a half years, with two 8 month breaks in there.

I've read "Applications" twice (being thorough with the math), Mental Game, Poker's 1%, and am almost done with Haseeb's book. Back in the day I read the two Tri e-books, Easy Game like 5+ times, a couple Harrington books and some Sklansky books. I'm pretty sure there are a handful of others I'm forgetting.

I've commented on thousands and thousands of hands in forums. I've listened to Tommy Angelo's 8 part DC series on tilt. I've been an active member in at least 5 study groups over the years, where I've done sweats, HH reviews, flopzilla analyses, and debated ranges. I've prepared and filmed a bunch of analytical videos. I've had tons of coaching sessions with oblioo, and a couple with another coach before Black Friday. I kept a mental game journal for months. I have NO idea how many videos I've watched. It's a lot. Same story with online articles, etc.

When I would go into the woods to work with kids in the program, I would print a hundred hands out from my database that had spots I was unsure about, and then I'd write down what I thought villain's range was for each street on each hand. I have piles of this type of exercise. I think I probably did this type of thing with maybe 400 hands or so.

Yet I am sitting here licking my wounds after losing around 1900$ from my high water mark at mostly 50 NL (some 25 and some 100). Why is my dream so out of reach?

I feel super defeated and confused as to why I've had this experience after giving so much of myself to the game.

Life has been crazy, I've been doing a lot of off the table work, especially on mental game. Will report soon =)

haha, no, I meant that I relate to your experience

This is more tangential for a lot of players probably, but it's helping me a lot with mental game: "The 6 Pillars of Self-Esteem" by Nathaniel Branden

I'm only a few chapters in but getting a lot out of it so far.

I'd recommend starting to think of your hand in the context of your whole range as soon as possible instead of just "I have this hand, I'll make this play". Its harder to change to that mindset once you've gotten used to just playing your hand (instead of your range).

Yeah that seems valid at first, but by the time he has bet flop and turn and we block so much of his value range, I think he's pretty polarized and therefore its not like he has a ton of calling hands that enjoy checking back imo