Grinding micros and studying. 5-10NL

Hi all, I am an engineering student who is terrified of the cubicle 9-5 grind and so I have decided to give poker a shot. The plan for this blog is to be a journal for what I do in terms of study and play, hopefully this will also keep me accountable for my actions. Basically I started poker in December of 2025 and have been trying to consistently improve, March was my first winning month so we are on the right track. Goals for 2026 is to become a winning player at NL20. Currently level is NL5. Here is my graph for NL5

Studied material so far: GTOwizard for two months, but I felt I didn't really get much out of it as my understanding of the game was far too weak to use a solver effectively so I cancelled it. After that I bought The grinders manual by Peter Clarke which really improved my game, I plan to work through this again in more detail. I have also struggled with tilt control and consistency so I also picked up the mental game of poker and currently reading that. The following section is gonna be a counter I am gonna update as I go along. I will also post recaps of each session in the comments along with a few hands I find interesting/mistakes. Plan is to also do a more general monthly recap with no hand histories. Invested on edge:148€ Total winnings in 2026: 475.05€

First full month was march. Here is the graph

( think march was ok, volume was on the low side but that is to be expected as early on studying is higher EV than playing IMO. Basic game plan for this month was to play premium hands only, OOP I focuced on protecting my checking range and getting to showdown with my hands. IP I played a bit more aggressively but still plan was to win at showdown by letting fish bluff. A volume goal for April is to get 50k Hands in.

Session 1.4.2026

( amount of hands, Redline was good, but blueline suffered a lot. I think I was stacking off too much with too weak holdings. River call efficiency was a mere 26% so definitely bluff-catching too much. A lot of work to be done there. Nice to win though. Session 3.4.2026

( was a nice session. Of course it's easy to feel good after sunrunning. Compared to first session of April this one was more passive, less C-betting/bluffing and more bluffcatching. In this pool this seems like a better strategy, especially in fish heavy tables. Againgst regs bluffing seems to work a lot better. Reviewing marked hands shows river aggression needs to be thought about more iPoker - €0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players BTN: 94.8 BB (VPIP: 17.34, PFR: 9.49, 3Bet Preflop: 1.98, Hands: 582) SB: 100 BB (VPIP: 22.36, PFR: 16.85, 3Bet Preflop: 7.56, Hands: 645) BB: 88.4 BB (VPIP: 69.44, PFR: 5.56, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36) Hero (UTG): 115 BB CO: 176.8 BB (VPIP: 19.55, PFR: 16.42, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 547) SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has Qd Ac Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, BTN calls 2 BB, fold, BB calls 1 BB Flop : (6.4 BB, 3 players) Kh Kc Tc BB checks, Hero bets 4 BB, BTN calls 4 BB, fold Turn : (14.4 BB, 2 players) 7d Hero bets 10 BB, BTN calls 10 BB River : (34.4 BB, 2 players) Qc Hero bets 43 BB, fold Hero mucks Qd Ac (Two Pair, Kings and Queens) (Pre 0%, Flop 0%, Turn 0%) Hero wins 33.4 BB I don't really know how I feel about this river play. General idea in the hand was to pressure a 10 to fold by the river. Should be easy enough given that the opponent is a massive nit. On the river I hit my queen so the original idea of folding out a ten was no longer the plan and checking seemed like a fine idea. However the flush also got there and I had the Ace, and K/Q was on the board already so now I thought a king would also fold as I block the Ace high flush in my hand and he shoulnd't have too many other flushes with the king and queen on the board. Here is another example of a stupid bluff. iPoker - €0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com CO: 109.2 BB (VPIP: 48.00, PFR: 10.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 50) Hero (BTN): 100 BB SB: 65.6 BB (VPIP: 46.00, PFR: 18.37, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 54) BB: 67.8 BB (VPIP: 51.79, PFR: 5.36, 3Bet Preflop: 4.55, Hands: 61) UTG: 130 BB (VPIP: 18.70, PFR: 16.36, 3Bet Preflop: 4.71, Hands: 603) SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 5s As fold, CO calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4 BB, fold, BB calls 3 BB, fold Flop : (9.4 BB, 2 players) 6d Qh 7s BB checks, Hero bets 4.6 BB, BB calls 4.6 BB Turn : (18.6 BB, 2 players) 4c BB checks, Hero bets 13 BB, BB calls 13 BB River : (44.6 BB, 2 players) 2s BB checks, Hero bets 55.6 BB, BB calls 46.2 BB Hero mucks 5s As (High Card, Ace) (Pre 77%, Flop 19%, Turn 16%) BB shows 5h Qd (One Pair, Queens) (Pre 24%, Flop 81%, Turn 84%) BB wins 132.6 BB Honestly no thought went into this hand. I was just pushing buttons hoping the fish would fold. Anyways today was a profitable day. Plan right now is to start shot taking once I have 20 buyins for NL10. Currently bankroll sits at 15. As for studying goes I might try to do some database analysis to see which spots I am losing the most.

Session 4.4.2026

( of a bad session, happy that it ended positive though. First 1000 hands was absolutely horrible. Terrible punts constantly, even called an open shove with KQs. Shame, shame, shame. After that, took a walk and cleared my head. And things started going more my way after that. Curiously aggression frequency was a lot lower than on the 3rd. I would think this is because I wasn't really hitting the flop so I was missing almost all of my Value Cbets. Comparing this session to 1.4 in leaktracker I think they were kind of similar. Definitely 1.4 Was my best poker so far and 4.4 was the absolute worst of the worst punting. Next post is not gonna be a session graph but instead some database review of finding leaks and figuring out how to fix them.

Was really lazy all through out april

( really study or play that much. Started switching over to GGpoker to find softer games during the morning.

( winning month is a decent month. May so far has been an utter disaster. NL5 graph

( graph

( i am still up from my GG deposit thanks to their new player honeymoon bonuses and a BBJ I got in 5 NL. I think around 50% of my losses come from preflop play, this pool is way more nitty in their shoves/4 bets. It seems the regs are playing AK, KK+ 4bet range meaning KK is an absolute disaster shove since it blocks half of the AK combos so runs into AA constantly. AK at best its a split and worse its behind. Combining NL5 and NL10 graphs also shows the effect tilt can have.

Yikes. Almost a paisting level vertical fall of 10 buyins Another thing that is hurting my EV is lack of HUD stats. On my previous site I could just check the hud for obvious leaks on villains, here with no HUD stats it's almost impossible to keep track of some specific player's tendencies while multi tabling. Combine that with a lack of solid fundamentals/study and not much more can be expected. That's hopefully about to change. I picked up POP2 as a paper book and hopefully next month I'll buy GTOWizard again to do some more serious studying. I will also start tracking my BR at the end of all the posts. Right now it is sitting at 203.09$

pretty cool GL you have potential

Played today's honeymoon challenge, 50 Spin and gos. Ran like absolute shit.

( have also not studied this format at all so I resorted to a strategy of pretty much shoving when I thought I had over 50% equity so high variance was expected. I expect to get 50 tournament dollars and the two weekender tickets from the honeymoon challenge. This would give me a small bankroll to play some micro tournaments as well, see how I do in those, Current bankroll: 192.61$

WHINING POST. (+stats if someone wants to give free advice) Probably gonna have to switch back to IPoker. I just can't beat NL5 at GG. Somehow these fuckers are better than me. I sat on the left of a 95 Vpip monkey for 300 hands and LOST money? It is not even Just the rake as with rakeback I am paying less in rake on GG than i was on Ipoker.

( is a pretty accurate depiction of the fish here. Who the fuck looks at J7o and thinks "I'll 3bet this hand". How am I not beating these? I don't understand.

( figured playing an KK+ AK 4bet/shove range should be breakeven/optimal since over a large sample running aces into kings and kings into aces should even out and folding KK would give opponents too much fold equity on shoves. Still being negative with kings feels like I should just fold them preflop. Anyways, this morning's session was deeply in the red. The competition is just too tough I guess. I'll grind out the next Match bonus release (3$ more rake) and then move my bankroll back to Ipoker I guess. Just can't beat GG. 17.5 morning session.

( just think I should be winning. Maybe I am just way too spewy when I don't have my HUD to keep me in check?

() ( comparison these are my stats on IPoker NL5 that I was beating for 10 BB/100 over a 30k sample.

( now: 151.39$

I think you need to play more it can be just variance

Could well be just variance. I think long term I would be better off on GG with their rakeback structure and better availability of games when moving up the stakes. (on my old poker network there was sometimes no games above 50NL) But at the same time bankroll wise I kind of want to move to where I know I am winner, at the same time I know I can't make enough to live on there.

( have very litte trust in my edge on GG.

(: I shouldn't worry too much, even on the Ipoker graph there is a 10k hand long Downtrend, so my GGpoker sample is way too small to make any conclusions!

Probably just variance (or your previous winning could have been variance haha). I dont think theres major difference between big rooms in terms of skill at micros. From my experience, GG is softer if anything. 14k is not a big sample. I dont see anything too bad in the stats. Maybe cbet flop a little more, fold a little less, but this is just nitpicking. In your ipoker sample river call efficiency seems too high to me - you win $1.69 for every $1 you put in, and anything 1.5 and above probably means you are overfolding too much - small sample again though, and as long as its not below 1 you should be fine. Dont let the variance get to you and GL

Long time no see. I haven't played a lot recently, been caught up at work. Last week I decided to start playing MTTs with the tickets and tournament dollars I got from the honeymoon period, as well as the weekender ticket I got.

( went decently well, the weekender I cashed for around a 100$ (made a stupid punt as my last hand, still annoyed about it) and in some of the smaller MTTS I placed decently well. As far as studying goes I have made it about half way through Play optimal poker 2 and have realized I need to start analyzing/solving ranges from flop to river. I plan to go through this list one by one first on paper, then checking a solver to see how far off I was, and adjusting from there. https://www.runitonce.com/nlhe/50-shades-of-flop-texture/ I will be off work next month so plan is to play about 4-6 hours a day and do at least 2 hours a day of studying. Next I need to decide on a solver to pick up. I have heard good things about PokerSnowie but it seems to be crashing when I try to open it so I will probably end up going with GTOwizard again. Bankroll now:281.47$

Played 2 hours of NL5 today. First hour I played well, thought through the hands while playing. The second hour went terribly. I noticed myself not thinking through the hands anymore and just playing poorly on autopilot. Shoulda stopped but wanted to play the full leaderboard happy hour thing.

( here is the hand that really put my graph down for the day

( figured on the flop that I would check as I have seen opponent bet a lot after Preflop raiser checks, and he did so again. Turn I have no fucking clue what to do now so I just check planning to call. On the river the backdoor flush gets there and now here is the mistake, obviously jamming is bad given the flop action. Opponent would not bet QQ/JJ on the flop, I feel like those hands want to see a cheap showdown and don't really benefit from betting. So opponent has no calls on the river, and a very trivial fold with clubs/other missed draws/big cards. Also a very easy call with the flush. All around a bad punt. I feel like if I focus on getting rid of these punts I can very easily beat the micros. Just need to work harder. The extra few bucks in bankroll came from playing those daily freebies like mystery battleroyals etc. Bankroll now: 293.99$

20.6.2026 Today I finished up on chapter 7 of POP, and brushed up on my BB play. I am comfortable on my flop decisions, but I am missing a lot of my bluff 3bets on BB. I recall that 3betting from the big blind is supposed to be hyper polarized againgst early position players with basically AA/KK/AK as value, and then some suited Tx and Kx as bluffs along with the obvious A5s. However in game I have not been able to mix these properly and I end up with a mere 4% 3bet stat. However this seems to be working decently well.

( for todays playing session, I think I had my best session so far. Took a shot at NL10 on IPoker. The difference between this and GG is actually insane. These must be the softest games on the planet.

( only bad thing here is there was only 5 tables running, but all the tables had at least 2 fish, some tables I was sitting with 5 50% VPIP fish. I also mixed in some NL5 games but those didn't go as well.

( now:340.42$

Took a break over July and didn't play. So far august has been pretty slow.

( redline has started a strong trend downwards. I feel like this is a lack of study but I am not too worried about it since the EV is still there. Studying wise I have picked up Modern Poker Theory and currently working through that. It's pretty dense but I like it. https://www.mobiuspoker.com/articles/the-reason-you-are-losing-at-low-stakes Also came across this article and got really motivated. I have started going through my previous sessions big losses and judging my own game, will probably post some hand histories along with my own thoughts about how they should be played. Also withdrew some money to drink so bankroll is back down to 150$. Let's get grinding.

( a session yesterday. Started off heads up with some button clicker who just shoved any two on the river. Kind of weird chip dumping but i'll take it I guess. Then I donated my winnings back and grinded back to even. Recently I have had a goal of 10BB/100 in EV during my sessions. I Think focusing on making good decisions over a long period of time will be better than setting any monetary goals. Today I will review any hands over 20BB I were involved in to see any punts I find. Will post my thoughts about those.

HH1 iPoker - 0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/) MP: 163.2 BB (VPIP: 28.63, PFR: 8.24, 3Bet Preflop: 2.55, Hands: 727) CO: 119.2 BB (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 50.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 12) Hero (BTN): 110 BB SB: 105.4 BB (VPIP: 45.56, PFR: 1.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 91) BB: 102.4 BB (VPIP: 59.09, PFR: 4.76, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 22) UTG: 190.4 BB (VPIP: 52.25, PFR: 18.69, 3Bet Preflop: 7.96, Hands: 294) SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♠ T♠ fold, MP calls 1 BB, CO raises to 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB, fold, BB calls 2 BB, MP calls 2 BB Flop: (12.4 BB, 4 players) T♦ A♦ 3♥ BB bets 12.4 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 34.6 BB, BB calls 22.2 BB Turn: (81.6 BB, 2 players) K♦ BB bets 40.8 BB, Hero raises to 72.4 BB, BB calls 24 BB River: (211.2 BB, 2 players) 2♦ Spoiler Show

Hero mucks A♠ T♠ (Two Pair, Aces and Tens) (Pre 31%, Flop 80%, Turn 59%) BB shows Q♦ A♥ (Flush, Ace High) (Pre 69%, Flop 20%, Turn 41%) BB wins 204.2 BB Rake paid 7 BB

General idea behind the preflop flat was to get to play in position against the 40-50% VPIP monkeys in the blind. Also as a general rule fish seem to be pretty happy getting it in with top-pair weak kicker, having a hand that can flop well and beat those is really good. With ATs I am also not too worried about getting squeezed as it is a good hand IP as a call. Flop raise: I expect BB donks to be mostly Top Pair/flush draws. Having top two pair I expect to have around 70% equity against the flush draws, (8*4=36% for the flush completing and sometimes when the flush completes I still have around 5% to make my full house. Against top pair I am obviously dominating. Against all in happy opponents this action I think is the highest EV one, as opponents draw heavy range might not keep bluffing when he misses. Turn: Here I thought that since there are so many high diamonds on the board that they would block opponent's flushes, and that he wouldn't have AK in his range as that would 3-bet. In hindsight this flush blocking element only really affects my tighter range and not his defending range. I Don't really have low flushes in my range and he has all of them in his range, given how great pot-odds he got preflop to call with them. Even though I were ahead this time, I think this is a punt overall as a shove. Especially since the BB shouldn't have too many AXo in his range. HH2 iPoker - 0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/) CO: 46.8 BB (VPIP: 65.22, PFR: 10.87, 3Bet Preflop: 8.70, Hands: 47) Hero (BTN): 105 BB SB: 119.2 BB (VPIP: 29.68, PFR: 21.94, 3Bet Preflop: 9.80, Hands: 158) BB: 99 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 20) UTG: 98.6 BB (VPIP: 11.11, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9) MP: 103.4 BB (VPIP: 26.02, PFR: 8.16, 3Bet Preflop: 3.63, Hands: 522) SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has J♠ K♠ fold, fold, CO raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 6 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 4 BB Flop: (13.4 BB, 2 players) A♠ K♦ 9♣ CO bets 6.6 BB, Hero calls 6.6 BB Turn: (26.6 BB, 2 players) 6♣ CO bets 26.6 BB, Hero raises to 53.2 BB, CO calls 7.6 BB River: (95 BB, 2 players) 8♦ Spoiler Show

CO shows 6♥ A♥ (Two Pair, Aces and Sixes) (Pre 56%, Flop 76%, Turn 95%) Hero mucks J♠ K♠ (One Pair, Kings) (Pre 44%, Flop 24%, Turn 5%) CO wins 92 BB Rake paid 3 BB

No words can explain this horrific punt. Even though on this flop my 3-betting range has a massive nuts advantage over villain's calling range, this hand is not a turn shove. It functions very poorly as a bluff given it's good equity against CO calling range. (suited aces are a smaller part of that range than hands like suited connectors/lower pocket pairs) The turn shove only gives an easy decision for villain's bluffs and an easy call for his value. Now the cutoff leading out on this scary board is probably very value heavy as well, I wouldn't expect him to have a balanced donking range in a 3-bet pot. This is just bad (note also, A6s should not be part of any reasonable value range on AK9r board as a preflopcaller). The studying continues.

by Halla2603 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59387511#post59387511)

No words can explain this horrific punt. Even though on this flop my 3-betting range has a massive nuts advantage over villain's calling range, this hand is not a turn shove. It functions very poorly as a bluff given it's good equity against CO calling range. (suited aces are a smaller part of that range than hands like suited connectors/lower pocket pairs) The turn shove only ... See full post

You can always ask yourself this: what weaker hand than mine would comfortably bet a full pot on the turn?

I'd liked reading your blog If you manage to keed studying this hard, you'll grind it up surely

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I am also sure I can make it eventually if I am patient and put in the work required. I have read through Modern Poker Theory now once, taking notes. I am now using it as a reference for when I am going through hands/building post flop strategies. I find it really insightful and hopefully off table work will start translating to results soon!

HH3 iPoker - 0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/) UTG: 51.4 BB (VPIP: 59.62, PFR: 8.65, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 106) MP: 111.4 BB (VPIP: 28.24, PFR: 22.14, 3Bet Preflop: 9.76, Hands: 133) Hero (CO): 110 BB BTN: 33.4 BB (VPIP: 34.91, PFR: 15.22, 3Bet Preflop: 2.47, Hands: 234) SB: 40.4 BB (VPIP: 31.73, PFR: 20.92, 3Bet Preflop: 7.28, Hands: 911) BB: 32.8 BB (VPIP: 60.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10) SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♥ A♦ UTG calls 1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 4 BB, fold, SB calls 3.6 BB, fold, UTG calls 3 BB Flop: (13 BB, 3 players) 7♦ 8♣ 6♥ SB checks, UTG checks, Hero checks Turn: (13 BB, 3 players) K♣ SB bets 5 BB, fold, Hero calls 5 BB River: (23 BB, 2 players) Q♥ SB bets 19 BB, Hero calls 19 BB Spoiler Show

Hero mucks A♥ A♦ (One Pair, Aces) (Pre 87%, Flop 96%, Turn 89%) SB shows Q♠ K♥ (Two Pair, Kings and Queens) (Pre 13%, Flop 4%, Turn 11%) SB wins 59 BB Rake paid 2 BB

Preflop is a standard Iso raise against the limper. Flop is MMM rainbow (3 middling cards, no flush draws, 3 possible flopped straights). On the flop a couple Ideas come to mind. My hand is pretty strong, but at the end of the day it is just a pair. I have no need to bet for protection really, as open ended straight draws/gutshots with two overcards wouldn't fold to a small bet anyways, and I don't want to bloat the pot with just a pair so I elected to check. Turn I am pretty sure is a call Maybe a raise I don't know. Guess it doesn't matter since the money went in anyway. River I decided to call given the very low SPR, I figured SB would be willing to stack off with top pair given how shallow he was playing. I was surprised to see a player with a very normal 3-bet stat have KQ as a flat in sb. Next off to play a session 😀

( session was absolute ridiculous. Will post hands tomorrow. Nothing beautiful here though

Today's study is about plugging some preflop leaks and generally figuring out where I make my money. I start this with some graphs:

( pot

( raised pot

( pot

( pot

( (basically preflop all-in) Looking through this I have been absolutely sunrunning in preflop all-ins, however I am not losing in terms of EV. My general strategy in 3-bet pots revolves around just range betting for 33% pot. I find people overfold massively in 3-bet pots and the flop almost doesn't matter. I wonder if my overall winrate would increase if I did the same in SRP, but I don't want to try it as I think my HUD stat showing about 50-60% C-betting is a part of why I get so much credit in 3-bet pots. In SRP as the preflop caller I should be relatively ok, given my BB winrate of -25bb/100 and -5BB/100 in SB. (This is to say I recover 75% of my blind in the BB and 90% of the blind in SB. 3-Bet pots as the preflop caller are a completely different situation.

( opening sizes are 2x from LJ-HJ, 2.3x from CO, 2.5x from BTN and 3x from SB- Losing at over 300 BB/100 means that I would be better off just folding my whole calling range to 3-bets instead of calling. This leads me to believe my preflop ranges are just absolutely horrific, or I am leaking in some other big way. First thought that comes to mind is getting 3-bet OOP. I need to review my responses and make them automatic: fold, 4Bet/call and 4bet/fold are the most important ranges to get right. If I plug this leak I should improve tremendously.

Played a short half hour session today where I decided to range bet all flops IP, then decide on the turn if bluffing is a good idea.

( can see I have recently been way too passive. We all know rivers are generally under bluffed. We all know people fold too much versus aggression (Mostly because of said under bluff). Why then have I been playing relatively passive Definetly something to work on.

() First half of September is over. I have been very lazy on table volume, been studying heaps, mainly modern poker theory and just going through hands in a notebook counting out combos. Gonna invest in a solver soon, they are kind of expensive for these stakes but If I put in any decent volume I can pay for it from my poker winnings every month. I have also started practicing my soft skills to better support my poker hobby. I have set goals and routines that support me in achieving them. For example, this month's goal is to play 10,000 hands of NL10, read a book for 30 minutes a day, and put all electronics away 1 hour before bed. All relatively easy goals, but small victories over time compound into greatness.

First day at NL10. I feel like if I don't completely focus I fall back into my nitty ways and don't fight for pots enough. Have to remember almost everybody plays in these micros as if bluffing on the river is not allowed, so they overfold on the river and also don't bluff at all themshelves. Compared to yesterday in NL5 I ran like absolutely ****. Could not hit a set for the life of me. Felt bad playing against some of these guys that C-bet 100% Flop turn and river and I couldn't make a hand to capitalize. Still happy with the result overall. NL10

( also played a bit more NL5 yesterday after posting yesterday so gonna post that graph here too.

( are well on track to have a solid winning month!

End of September update. Lazy in terms of volume, been focusing on studying. At this point I feel kind of established at NL10. At the start the swings felt kind of big compared to NL5. Losing 30 felt like a lot, even though it is just 3 buyins and losing 3 buyins at NL5 doesn't feel like anything really. Over a few thousand hands it got better and I could start thinking in terms of buyins and BB again.

( reg to fish ratio at NL10 is a lot different to NL5. The regs however are still very bad and don't really deal with aggression all that well. But with less sticky fish to capitalize on, my redline has improved. Still too early to say but I feel like rivers are grossly overfolded, so I can bluff there a lot. I also reviewed all my river calls and seems like about 4/80 river bets are pure bluffs by the population, so there is a great spot to overfold. A lot of mergy stuff happens tho so I can still call with decent hands. Just not pure bluffcatchers. There was a few funny spots where I was facing a passive reg OOP. I went C/C/C with a small pair and on the river villain timebanked and then checked back a missed straight draw. I just felt like he can't bring himself to bluff river even when he very clearly wants to. Now even though these players are very bad, as is obvious by the fact that I can beat them with minimal study, I still classify them as regs because they play sort of okay preflop. Stats like 22/18/10 and the fact that they show up multiple days there makes them regulars in my books. 2026 graph:

( need to stop looking at the graph so much. It just feels so good to see it heading towards that North-East direction. I am gonna give myself a volume goal of hitting 100k hands this year. It's not a crazy amount of volume, just 10k a month from here on out. But I set this low goal so that I can crush it! I also have been thinking about doing a course like the Bronze carrot, as I don't see the point in grinding out the micros without a clear program to improve. 1 on 1 coaching still feels like its not great value as I have so much to work left with the basics. See you at the tables and good luck everybody!

Small update: I have continued sunrunning at NL10 well into October. Bankroll is sitting at 466, meaning I am approaching my 25 buyin treshold for a move up to NL20. However, I have decided to grind away October at NL10. This is because I don't have enough hands here to confidently say I am a solid winner, I want to prove it first before assuming it. I did end up getting the Bronze Carrot, and there wasn't that much value in there for me. It was very basic, apart from a couple heuristics it was mostly stuff I already knew, and seemed like a lot of the info in that course was the same as in Pete's old book, the grinders manual. If anyone has experience with Silver Carrot I would like to hear from you. Currently my knowledge base is based mostly on books. (TGM, MPT, and POP2) and preflop ranges from GTOwizard, which I am also using to drill preflop decisions into my head. Open to hearing thoughts about what the forum thinks are the fastest ways to improve. Here is some graph porn from October 😀

()

Dude you can't be calling A9s BTN vs BB at 5nl/10nl. 4b or fold that shit - you're either up against total garbage or you're up against completely nutted ranges, and either way calling is suboptimal. Even against a GTO 3b range and response to 4b A9s is mixed or very close between calling and 4b, and in practice people cannot 3b well and they also cannot respond to 4b well.

Following! GLGL

hello , nice blog ! i also play Cash Games !!!

Thought i'd post a couple interesting hands, now given that I am playing on what is probably the softest pool in western poker, none of these are gonna be very difficult decisions. iPoker - 0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/) Hero (SB): 637.8 BB BB: 286.4 BB (VPIP: 24.72, PFR: 20.17, 3Bet Preflop: 10.16, Hands: 2,403) UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 15.56, 3Bet Preflop: 2.86, Hands: 91) CO: 103.9 BB (VPIP: 29.11, PFR: 21.52, 3Bet Preflop: 10.71, Hands: 84) BTN: 237.8 BB (VPIP: 58.82, PFR: 36.76, 3Bet Preflop: 19.05, Hands: 206) Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 8♦ 8♥ fold, CO raises to 2.5 BB, BTN calls 2.5 BB, Hero calls 2 BB, BB calls 1.5 BB Flop: (10 BB, 4 players) 8♣ K♣ 6♥ Hero checks, BB checks, CO checks, BTN bets 5 BB, Hero raises to 31.2 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 26.2 BB Turn: (72.4 BB, 2 players) A♠ Hero bets 604.1 BB, BTN calls 204.1 BB River: (480.6 BB, 2 players) K♦ Hero shows 8♦ 8♥ (Full House, Eights full of Kings) (Pre 54%, Flop 97%, Turn 100%) BTN shows T♥ K♠ (Three of a Kind, Kings) (Pre 46%, Flop 3%, Turn 0%) Hero wins 470.6 BB Preflop: Now I normally play a 3Bet/Fold strategy from sb. But because Button is an aggro fish who just capped his range by flatting, and we are 200 bb deep I don't want to risk folding him out and ending up on the flop with just the reg so I elect to flat here. Flop: Fish are too sticky, and we are 200 bigs deep so we need to get the pot growing. Turn: Wouldn't ever shove as a bluff here. But against this pool and these beluga whales I think it is the right course of action. We expect to be around 90% favorite when called, sometimes they have two pair with outs to a boat that beats ours, or a flush draw. Mostly these one pair **** hands that they get married to. A gambly fish probably thinks somewhere along the line "If he is bluffing I win 23! I must call!" So I expect to get called way wider than any sane person would think. Nice 470BB pot. iPoker - 0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/) Hero (BB): 255 BB UTG: 203.7 BB (VPIP: 25.13, PFR: 20.59, 3Bet Preflop: 10.57, Hands: 2,210) MP: 172.6 BB (VPIP: 24.46, PFR: 20.25, 3Bet Preflop: 13.75, Hands: 4,489) CO: 161.8 BB (VPIP: 40.20, PFR: 27.72, 3Bet Preflop: 5.76, Hands: 521) BTN: 136 BB (VPIP: 27.91, PFR: 20.31, 3Bet Preflop: 1.72, Hands: 129) SB: 277.4 BB (VPIP: 57.03, PFR: 32.03, 3Bet Preflop: 12.96, Hands: 129) SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q♣ K♦ fold, MP raises to 6 BB, CO calls 6 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 19 BB, MP calls 13 BB, CO calls 13 BB Flop: (57.5 BB, 3 players) J♦ 9♠ 7♣ Hero bets 10.5 BB, MP calls 10.5 BB, CO calls 10.5 BB Turn: (89 BB, 3 players) T♣ Hero bets 225.5 BB, fold, CO calls 132.3 BB River: (353.6 BB, 2 players) 3♥ Hero shows Q♣ K♦ (Straight, King High) (Pre 44%, Flop 27%, Turn 77%) CO shows T♦ T♥ (Three of a Kind, Tens) (Pre 56%, Flop 73%, Turn 23%) Hero wins 343.6 BB Preflop: KQo is an ok hand to 3-bet, and the ridiculous open sizing used by HJ makes me even more inclined to 3-bet, as this is a known regular fish who just uses ******ed sizings all the time and still folds too much, so he is just offering money away. flop: Multiway fold equity is kind of decent usually, leading into a big pot multiway makes for a pretty disgusting bluff in many people's eyes, so they don't do it themshelves and will give us too much credit when we do it. Turn play was probably bad, I just figured I have the nuts and I absolutely hate if villain somehow improves and my ALL-in line goes down, so I wanted to just shove. I will still get called too much. iPoker - 0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 (http://www.pokertracker.com/) Hero (BB): 445.4 BB UTG: 184.6 BB (VPIP: 24.97, PFR: 20.43, 3Bet Preflop: 10.41, Hands: 2,256) MP: 131 BB (VPIP: 24.49, PFR: 20.28, 3Bet Preflop: 13.77, Hands: 4,521) CO: 108 BB (VPIP: 39.86, PFR: 27.40, 3Bet Preflop: 6.51, Hands: 580) BTN: 100 BB (VPIP: 21.96, PFR: 18.14, 3Bet Preflop: 9.40, Hands: 1,015) SB: 297.2 BB (VPIP: 57.24, PFR: 33.10, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 146) SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J♣ J♦ fold, MP raises to 6 BB, fold, fold, SB calls 5.5 BB, Hero calls 5 BB Flop: (18 BB, 3 players) J♠ 5♠ 6♥ SB checks, Hero checks, MP bets 12.6 BB, fold, Hero raises to 83.7 BB, MP raises to 125 BB, Hero calls 41.3 BB Turn: (268 BB, 2 players) 2♣ River: (268 BB, 2 players) A♠ Hero shows J♣ J♦ (Three of a Kind, Jacks) (Pre 18%, Flop 88%, Turn 95%) MP shows Q♦ Q♠ (One Pair, Queens) (Pre 82%, Flop 12%, Turn 5%) Hero wins 259.1 BB Another hand with the same fish as before. I have a note on him that he stacks off way too wide at every node, meaning he is happy playing for stacks with a hand as weak as top pair, and he is pretty linear here. No bluffs, just a stupidly wide linear range. So when ever I get a hand that beats Top-Pair Good kicker, I just ensure the money goes in against this guy. I did actually lose a big pot earlier trying to bluff him because I didn't check the notes on him. He threw a bunch of emotes at me calling me a "True Pro" and saying "Nice Hand". Pissed me off, so for the rest of the day every time I stacked him I said "Nice Hand" back to him. Finished the day up 10.6 buyins. Bankroll now:547.87