Coffee n Grind

When I studied, what I studied, and focus during studying
Date: May 7th
Focus: On and off
Using odds oracle:
1) Explored more open and 3bet ranges in range explorer

Using PT4 filters and pokerjuice:
1) Reviewed 3bet pots heads up on the flop
2) Ran them through shove module, and peel and stack off module
3) Played around with different board textures

Found some pretty big leaks playing 3bet pots against the preflop aggressor. Raising when I should be calling, folding when I should be calling.

Date: May 8th
Focus: On
Using odds oracle and pokerjuice:
1) Started building balanced ranges on high and low paired boards (Unfinished)

My "strategy" prior to this was to bet range on most paired boards, it still is vs some opponents, but after discovering pt4 filters I uncovered a ton of areas where I'm leaking money, paired boards being one of them.

Date: May 9th
Focus while playing: 4-8/10
Graph:

Great focus to start, I was going through every decision in my head, thinking where xxxx fits in my range and if it matters vs x opponent. At some point I lost focus and was playing my cards, but I was aware of it, and managed to switch back into gear for abit before breaking focus again.

Final thoughts and things to keep in mind going forward
Focus is either switched on or completely off, it's something I need to keep track of and become more aware of, take a break, and come up with a system to bring myself back to study and poker focus.

Read about Ebbinghaus theory of forgetting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgetting_curve

It has motivated me to apply a little structure to my unstructured approach. So tomorrow if I finish building ranges on paired boards, I'm going to put together a list of key pieces of strategy I've built and set days to go through them.

Alternatively, I'll keep building strategy and put together a library of my stuff to go through at a later date, Ebbinghaus style.

Problems I'm facing
Something inside me won't let me play until I've developed my game to the point I can go "Ok, I know enough to be +EV in these games, now I can focus on applying this in game and study on the side to keep adding EV to my game".

I fear making mistakes, but my biggest fear is playing a guessing game in spots where I have no strategy in place, even if the strategy is -EV, the comfort in knowing I have a strategy is +EV, because guessing is always -EV, and through repetition of following that strategy, right or wrong, I will gain a deeper understanding and clearer picture of what it is I'm doing, and uncover the strengths or weaknesses to tune my EV.

The problem with this is, when do I know my game has developed to the point of being +EV in the games I play, if I don't play.

Confidence is an issue here, but I fear when I start believing in myself, I will lose what it is that has driven my game to this point, and I don't know how to create a balance between the two, because I haven't solved what to balance self confidence with..

When I studied, what I studied, and focus during studying
Date: May 5th
Focus: On and off
Using pokerjuice and odds oracle I studied:
1) Preflop open and 3bet ranges in range explorer
2) Range vs range equities on different board textures
3) Frequency of hand types in different ranges on different board textures

I didn't gain anything from looking at range vs range equities in raw form until I started running simulations on hand type frequencies within those ranges

Date: May 6th
Focus: ON
Using pokerjuice and odds oracle:
1) Built a balanced river blocker range on flush and straight boards
2) Started putting together exploitative strategies vs overbluffers and underbluffers, overcallers and undercallers.

Gained alot of insight into overbluffing, underbluffing, and bluffing frequencies based on bet size while building my own ranges, which led me onto putting together exploitative strategies. Without the former I wouldn't have been able to do the latter(which led me down other interesting roads of thought on strategy building) but I found myself juggling too much information and trying to retain the ranges I put together for myself, so I will come back to putting together exploitative strategies, but I feel alot of it is common sense.

Final thoughts and things to keep in mind going forward
Unshackling myself from a fixed schedule and plan has removed so much dread and anxiety, which has allowed me to think with a clearer mind and focus on what it is that I want to do. When I don't want to do something, I have zero focus doing it, no matter how important it is, but when I do something that I want to do, and have visualized exactly what it is I want to do, I am hyperfocused on getting it done.

A4 sheets were getting stacked.

Because I spent alot of time working on balance, it got me thinking about how I'm going to balance my approach of not having any balance in my study.

So I put together a table with a category for:
Preflop
Flop
Turn
River
Different board textures
(I will keep growing the categories within this chart)

Everytime I learn something new I will add it to whichever category it falls under, then I will be able to see where I need to focus some of my studies, and where I need to backoff.

In a perfect world I'd rotate through each street and board texture, but I know there will be times where I want to keep riding the momentum on turn situations into the next day, and that was a big reason as to why I stopped setting a study schedule, because I want to do what my focus is hot to do.

Bankroll:
~$600

Stakes:
PLO5-10

Graph: