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Post by krcmdc on Sept 16, 2019 3:54:06 GMT
Monday... Tuesday... Wednesday... Thursday... Friday... Saturday... Sunday... Week results... Week results by stakes... Week graph... Halfway through September results... Halfway through September results by stakes... Halfway through September graph...
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Post by krcmdc on Sept 20, 2019 5:00:01 GMT
Well, it seems that about a month ago, GTO+ released an update, one that I basically ignored when the software notified me of the update. Not wanting to bother with the hassle of downloading, installing, blah blah blah, I was already happy with the software, so whatever minor changes were made didn't really matter to me.
I should really stop being so arrogant. As it turns out, this update was actually quite fkn amazing. As now GTO+ has a built in feature called "play against the solution". Where you can run a sim, generate a solution, and then sit there playing hands against a bot who will also be playing the solution that was just created. Thereby making it so much easier to become familiar with the solutions.
I had been considering making a few additional purchases of things like SimplePreflop, Simple GTO Trainer, and a few others. As well as having already purchased PokerSnowie. Now there's no need for any of these things, at least not any time soon. SimplePreflop would still be useful, but not so much at this point in time. No one is playing GTO preflop ranges in my games, no one is even trying to play GTO preflop ranges in my game. And I'm relatively sure that Snowie ranges will exploit the ranges my opponents use better than preflop GTO ranges would. That is assuming that I can play those ranges well postflop of course, and this new update to GTO+ will go a long way to help with that.
Given that I've had nothing but problems with the people at PokerSnowie, this is such a welcomed update. Now I can tell those thieves at PokerSnowie what I really think about them without worry of losing access to PokerSnowie, as I've already cancelled my PokerSnowie subscription and won't be renewing it, ever. Which is why I was looking for alternatives, and now I have the alternative that I needed most anyway. So hopefully I can get back to studying at least an equal amount to time spent playing.
I've been feeling really pessimistic about my poker future for the last several weeks, months even, and now finally today, a bit of good news and optimism for the first time since before they updated the Ignition software. Looking forward to the upcoming weeks, but now I have to speed up my process of generating solutions, so that I'll have something realistic and helpful to actually play against.
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Post by mcstackn on Sept 23, 2019 5:29:32 GMT
Hi.
Just played some on Ignition - games still seem quite soft.
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Post by krcmdc on Sept 29, 2019 5:00:54 GMT
Hi, lol.
Well, obviously "things changed" again. I played about 32k hands the first two weeks of this month, and I've played about 1k hands since. What changed was the release of the "Play against the solution" feature in my GTO+ software. So for the past 2 weeks, I've been practicing with it, not so much to improve my poker skills, but mostly to improve the quality of my sims, and thereby the effectiveness of my future learning and improving. I've also gathered every bit of worthwhile information I could get from Snowie before I tell those people to go fuck themselves. I've essentially gathered every single possible preflop range for every single possible preflop scenario. Anyone know the range that you'd cold call a 3b squeeze with from the SB when UTG opens, HJ calls, CO squeezes, and BU calls? Me neither, but I have it written down if I ever need it, lol. I have literally every possible preflop scenario, limpers, no limpers, callers, no callers, cold callers, cold 3bettors, cold 4bettors, squeezes, 4b squeezes, ..whatever, I have it as generated by Snowie.
I have also figured out several things pertaining to running sims. The most useful one being that bet sizes simply do not matter. For whatever reason, I always incorrectly thought that whatever the situation might be, there would always be one bet size that was better than any other bet size. This simply is not true. There are many bet sizes that all give exactly the same EV that the "perfect" bet size would yield. But here's the biggest thing I learned, even in the most relevant of situations, the absolute worst possible bet size still captures more than 98% of the EV that the "perfect" bet size would capture. The thing is, bet size isn't important, because whatever size you choose, your range adjusts for that size. If you bet small, you'll bet often, thin for value and bluff rarely. If you bet large, you'll never bet for thin value and you'll bluff much more frequently. That's how it works, everyone already knew this, including me, so looking back now, it seems rather stupid to think that the size of the bet mattered. What matters is playing the range and strategy appropriate for whatever size you choose.
With this in mind, I decided that there was no reason to complicate things. I'll simply choose 1 size for every situation. But then I quickly realized that I have no idea what I was doing in many situations. I'm not used to betting say 75% pot all 3 streets, so I would have to relearn everything essentially. Then it occurred to me that "one bet size" doesn't have to mean "one bet size for every single decision, flop to river". It could just mean "one flop size for every flop in single raised pots", and then "one turn size for every turn in single raised pots", and of course "one river size for every river in single raised pots". But each of these "one size's" doesn't need to be the "same size". So based on what I'm most familiar with, I went with 50% flop sizes, 75% turn sizes, and 100% river sizes for all single raised pots. This means that if I am cbetting the flop, it will be for 1/2 pot cbet. If I am check raising someone on the flop, I will check raise 1/2 pot as well. Any flop bet I make will be 1/2 pot. Same goes for turn bets, they'll all be 3/4 pot. And all river bets, of any kind, will be full pot. Now this of course assumes that previous bets were made. If I bet the flop, check the turn, and bet the river, that would be a turn sized river bet, aka 3/4 pot. So I suppose it would better worded to say that the first street of betting will be for 1/2 pot, the second street of betting, should it occur, will be for 3/4 pot, and if a third street of betting happens, the sizing will be full pot. 3bet pots work similarly, except the sizes will be 33%; 67% and 150%. 4bet pots will be 25%; 33%; 150%.
Now I don't have to spend any time at all memorizing which hands bet, and when they bet, with which sizes on which boards. I simply have to know which hands bet and when they bet on which boards. Basically cutting my "work" in almost half, from what it would be using 2 sizes. I've no idea why people still insist on using multiple sizes, as it seems that most people who know what they're talking about know full well that size doesn't matter. But they often still insist on using multiple sizes. I believe that this is done in an effort to complicate things for their opponents. If you play against someone using a strategy like mine, it's somewhat easy to study the appropriate strategy yourself. However, given the stakes I'm playing, plus the fact that it's anonymous, I don't think that this matters at all. It might matter if and when I get up above low stakes, but until then it simply does not matter. And by the time I get to low stakes, if that time ever comes, I should be quite familiar with this strategy, making it somewhat easy to learn to modify it to accommodate another bet size here and there.
So for the past 2 weeks, I've been running such sims. I've been running them for every possible standard heads up scenario that could occur in single raised pots, 3bet pots, and 4bet pots. Well, truth be told, I've run all the single raised pots now, and just started doing the 3bet pots. However, the 3bet pot sims go so much faster, that despite the fact that it took about 10 days to do all the single raised pots, I'm hoping that between today and tomorrow, I will be able to finish all 3bet pot scenarios, and all 4bet pot scenarios. Thereby giving me GTO solutions for every possible standard heads up post flop scenario that might come my way. I use the word "standard" to simply denote that I haven't included things like someone opens, someone calls, someone 3bets, I 4b, everyone folds to the 3bettor who then calls. This would send me to the flop heads up, but with a completely different pot size, a completely different set of ranges, from anything I've simmed so far. I'll get to these types of situations later, I want to get all the standard stuff done first. This is why I spent a few days generating every possible preflop range for any possible situation with PokerSnowie. I have the ranges, I can sim them any time, even after my PokerSnowie subscription has expired or been revoked, whichever happens first, lol.
I'm hoping to get all these "standard" sims done by tomorrow evening so that I can return to my previous schedule on Monday, except replacing the time I was spending with PokerSnowie with time spent using the "Play against the solution" feature in GTO+.
On a completely unrelated note, for the past 3 weeks now, I've also been following a regimen of fasting in my schedule. I do three 24 hour fasts every week. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I wake up an hour early, prepare myself a large breakfast, and then do not eat again for 24 hours when I have breakfast the next morning.
It has been shown numerous times that fasting is about the single most healthy thing that one can do, especially at my age. I thought it would be brutally difficult. Before starting I calculated that my average daily intake was between 7500 and 8000 calories. That's a daily average, resulting in about 55000 calories each week. My thought was that even if I managed to fast for 24 hours, I'd eat like crazy on the days I wasn't fasting, thereby negating the effects of fasting. But after talking to some people, they assured me that the effects of fasting weren't so much related to caloric intake. And so long as my average caloric intake didn't increase, then I'd still reap the benefits of fasting. So I gave it a shot.
First thing I learned was that it simply isn't nearly so difficult as it sounds to go 24 hours without eating. Granted I begin the 24 hours of not eating by consuming a breakfast that consists of about 2000 calories, which is somewhat of a benchmark for what a person should average daily. The second thing I noticed is that I don't consume more on the days that I can eat. In fact, I consume less. On days that I can eat, I've averaged about 5500 calories, down from nearly 8000 before I began fasting. So I get 5500 calories, 4 times a week, and 2000 calories, 3 times a week. Which is about half of the total calories that I was consuming each week, prior to fasting.
So basically, everything is different than I thought it would be. And not in a bad way, everything is actually far easier than I ever imagined. That's the good news. The bad news however is, much like when I quit smoking, I haven't really noticed anything "good". I haven't lost any weight at all, despite consuming 1/2 the calories for 3 weeks. No idea how this is possible, but weight loss wasn't the main goal anyway, so I'm not too concerned with it. I was hoping weight loss would be a side effect that went into the "good news" section, but whatever. I don't have more energy, I don't feel more awake, attentive, effective, blah blah blah. I have not noticed a single change in anything, except that I have noticed that I spend less money on food. Not half as much, as I'm also trying to eat a bit "healthier", which means buying healthier foods, which means the foods I do buy cost more. But still, I do spend less money overall on food. But other than spending $20 a week less on food, I don't feel any different at all. Hopefully someday the benefits make themselves more noticeable.
I intend to continue fasting, at least until something bad gives me a reason to stop. And I'm hoping that not noticing the benefits is kind of like not noticing the benefits of going to the gym everyday. If you check yourself before going to the gym, and after going to the gym, you're not going to see any difference. But if you keep going to the gym everyday, at some point in time, you do benefit from going to the gym everyday. Maybe this will be similar to that, and if not, well, the worst thing that has happened so far is that I'm saving $20 a week on food, lol.
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Post by krcmdc on Nov 11, 2019 14:57:43 GMT
As usual, nothing ever seems to stay the same long enough for me to complete any of my poker goals. I've relocated back to New Jersey to be nearer my children, as well as work out other things. I no longer have access to Ignition/Bovada poker games. But I do have access to "regulated" internet poker games now, which is essentially the same as saying I don't have access to internet poker games at all anymore. Except that it seems, somehow, Global Poker allows residents of NJ to play on their site, and that's what I've been doing for the past few days. Oddly, to me anyway, the games seem much softer than the Ignition games. Of course, I've started at the bottom, which now means $10nl on Global, as they got rid of their $4nl games a few days before I started playing there. So maybe the games aren't actually any softer on Global, maybe there's just an influx of terrible $4nl players currently trying to play $10nl on Global because their $4nl games don't exist anymore. This probably won't last and the games will get worse, I have no doubt, but I'll try to enjoy it while it lasts.
Playing on Global means no more DriveHUD, no more any kind of hud or tracking software in fact. My Snowie subscription has expired and I won't be renewing it, ever. So I have no real means of "study" anymore other than GTO+. Hopefully that will turn out to be all I could ever ask for, as it should be, if I ever figure out an effective way to use it. It seems so strange that I could have a piece of software that can answer any question I could ever imagine, and I can't figure out a way to ask it effective questions.
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Post by krcmdc on Nov 15, 2019 16:35:10 GMT
Ok, on November 3rd I deposited $50 on Global Poker, I've played a total of 21.5 hours since, over the course of 12 days and just reached $300. I'll be testing the withdrawal process today, withdrawing $100 via ACH transfer directly to my bank account. This is the method that I used with Full Tilt and PokerStars prior to Black Friday. If I remember correctly, it always took 5 to 7 days to complete the process. Reading the 2+2 thread, it seems that not much has really changed, so hopefully all goes well. I have withdrawn from Global once before, but that took 8 months to complete, via Paypal. It was a nightmare, hopefully this goes better. I've already provided bank information, and had it all approved, my identity was already verified from the last time, so there shouldn't be any problems. But there shouldn't have been any problems last time, and Global managed to turn it into 8 months of problems. So forgive me if I am not overly optimistic quite yet.
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Post by krcmdc on Nov 19, 2019 12:23:34 GMT
Something is different, but I'm not sure exactly what it is. I keep fighting the urge to think that something is up with the software. But up until today I was slowly becoming convinced that something was indeed up with the software. Ok, I'm going on record saying that something isn't right in these games. I know that ~50k hands isn't a big enough sample to prove anything, and I know how the mathematics works. And with this knowledge, I am still certain that after the software change, someone/something is now somehow cheating in these games. I'm going to keep playing, and keep telling myself that it's just a weird distribution, blah blah blah. But in the future, when the truth comes out, I'll be able to point to this post and say that I told you so. And finally the rest of the world has begun catching up. Several threads around 2+2 and RIO have been started recently where many former winners are saying the same things I was saying back in July. No one can prove anything, but everyone knows that something isn't right in the Bovada/Ignition/Bodog games. As much as it sucks, I admit being happy about it, knowing that I can still tell the difference between being outplayed, having a bad run, and being cheated is quite satisfying.
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Post by mcstackn on Mar 22, 2020 4:43:15 GMT
Hi.
Are you still fasting?
It's not good to play on regulated sites?
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Post by krcmdc on Mar 30, 2020 1:23:21 GMT
Hi. Are you still fasting? It's not good to play on regulated sites? So few games on the regulated sites, and usually above my bankroll. Global has been going quite well, as bad as the software sucks, the PLO games are super, super soft. No tracking software or anything, but can safely say that my win rate in these games is as high as my win rate has ever been in any game, ever. NLHE games are soft as well, especially compared to what we see at WPN or even Bovada/Ignition, but even higher PLO win rates are even easier to attain.
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Post by krcmdc on Apr 16, 2020 19:02:20 GMT
If anyone cares, Global Poker has beta-launched "Surge" poker, their version of fast fold poker. It's currently only available at $4nl and $10nl, it is slower than any other fast fold games that I've played, it also has some minor bug-type issues, and you can only play 1 table of each, but of course the games are super soft.
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