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Thanks for the comments RaoulFlush CrappyTimeSlot .

Good point about playing AJcc/AJhh like this which I probably do at least sometimes and should add some more value to my range.

I guess I really have to look at my OOP cbet strategy. What sizing would you guys recommend? Going 1/3 pot OOP seems wrong to me aesthetically but that is obviously not a good reason...

Hey man. I think I am guilty of thinking too much about my winrate. Anyways, my goal is not to have a sick 12bb/100 at 5z, I just want to get these stakes behind me and gather experience to be prepared for 25z+

Thanks for stopping by!

Yesterday, I watched James Hudson's video on database examination and took a look at some of my stats. I found I'm 'only' cbetting flop 51% which is on the low side, especially combined with the fact that I'm check/folding flop as the preflop agressor at about 58%.

A second leak I identified is that I'm check/raising too little on the flop (only 5.6%). I like to think that I'm check/raising a decent amount of value hands so it's likely that I'm not bluffing enough in these spots. I usually try to check/raise strong combo draws and weak draws, especially gutshots, so I will have to work in some flush draws and OESDs into that range while making sure not to overbluff as the population is still quite station-y.

I will look out for spots like in my upcoming sessions and provide hand examples with my thoughts in the next days. As for now, here's an example hand:

Unknown CO opens to 2.5x, folds to Hero in BB who calls. Flop: Qh9s7h. Hero checks, villain bets half pot. What hands should hero elect to raise?
I raise 99, 77, Q9, Q7s and 97s (not sure if I have Q7o and 97o from pre) for value. As for bluffs, I want to have some flush draws, some straight draws and the strong combo draws like JThh, T8hh, KJhh, KThh. The combo draws play well even if we get 3bet so I think we should pick the other raising hands to be pretty weak draws - low flush draws, OESDs like 86 or T8 and decent gutshots like KJ or KT. Having a backdoor spade draw would be a helpful thing but I don't think it's too necessary. My other FDs and OESDs I would like to call with but mix in some AhXh to build the pot for eventual flush over flush scenarios.

What do you think about that general flop approach? Raise value, some pretty weak draws, very strong combo draws and some draws to the nuts.

Hey! I still believe these aggressive shots are a good idea, I have put in a lot of work out of the tables to be confident to win at 10NLz and 16NLz right now so I would love to move through them as quickly as possible. That being said, I really need to hold on to my stop loss and that has been a problem when I took my last shot about 2 weeks ago. I'm optimistic that I won't let that happen again.

Thanks for the kind words, I will do my best to have regular updates.

keep this journal updated at least weekly with results, interesting hands and general things I did to improve my game.

yeah about that...

So since writing this post three weeks ago, my holidays started and I headed home for longer than I expected. I only got to play 7.3k hands (about 350 per day AKA nothing) but ran well in 5NLz, allowing me to hit my goal of $150 to take a shot at 10NLz. I played a short session of 221 hands at 10NLz that resulted in me losing $34.61 or as I like to call it, -156.7bb/100. So that was fun. The hands were coolers for the most part.

Hand 1: Lost with AK on AA265 where villain rivered a boat with A5
Hand 2: 4bet pre, cbet flop and shove turn with AK on A65Q, villain has AQ
Hand 3: AK < slowplayed AA on K high flop

Each of these hands lost me an entire buy-in of $10. I also went a good bit over my stop-loss of 2 buy-ins, I felt I have an edge (I'm still very sure that I have one) but that doesn't justify having nearly 10% of my roll on the table, especially when I'm probably pretty tilty. Overall I lost $45 that day, my biggest losing day ever.

After more than a week away from the tables, yesterday I finally got to play again, this time back at 5NLz. I turned 2000 hands into a profit of $46 (about 45bb/100), feels nice to come back to an upswing. My bankroll is sitting pretty at $177 right now. I'm planning on taking another shot at 10NLz after I got some more hands back in as I still feel quite rusty (accidently timing out more often than usual, opening trash hands without thinking every once in a while etc.). I will probably do another long 5NLz session today and try 10NLz tommorow with a strict stop loss of 2BI. I think I just need one of these to go well in order to establish myself at the next stake. We shall see.

TL;DR: Took 10NLz shot, lost more than my stop loss before moving back down, now on the 5NLz grind again and looking quite promising.

Thanks for the feedback. I messed up the hand in every way, looking back at it, I can agree that it was just poorly played. I often happen to come across these sorts of spots and not have enough time to make very good decisions.

Thanks for the advice on Steve Paul. Will look into his work.

Thank you. I have already looked at the Learning Paths section. What I wondered was how applicable many of the concepts are to the stakes I'm playing (5 and 10nlz). I guess the concepts are still very relevant to me but I need to make adjustments to the generally nittier and more straightforward player pools of the games I'm playing.