At least 2008 was good.



Has not been a fun year so far. I've had literally one winning session in this entire sample. I pretty much only make blog posts when things are going poorly.

Tbh I'm not sure exactly what this graph means- when I downswing I try to just examine my game and review a little harder and not worry about EV lines and ****. But I'm pretty sure this thing means I'm running really really bad. Hopefully that's true, because if not I've got some serious problems.

I think I've identified a few issues. I think I'm floating a bit too liberally, as regs seem to be getting better at barreling, and I'm getting worse at hitting good turn cards. I feel like they're ****ting all over my bluff raises too, although that's a bit more likely to be variance, because I think I pick my spots pretty well and make sure to have a legit value range against competent opponents. So ship the G-bucks I guess. I feel like people are shipping in over my 4bets a lot more too, but I'm making a ridiculous profit on my non-showdown 4bet hands so clearly I'm still doing something right.

I've been experimenting with some new things with mixed results (by mixed I mean terrible, see above graph.) I've started opening to 2.5x on the button, obviously nothing revolutionary, but man some people are just terrible at adjusting. One well-known reg in particular has decided to adjust by making like 2.5x 3bets, OOP, with **** like JTo, A8o, T8s. Just awful, awful poker fundamentals. Obviously 4betting turns a healthy profit but in theory I should be making much more by calling and letting him play bloated pots with dominated hands OOP. But of course he runs like the sun so he basically always has top pair and I always have the 2nd pair with the gutterball that doesn't get there.

I've also been experimenting with 3betting really small BN vs CO, like Raptor has done in some of his CR videos, against people who 4bet a ton but never call. Like they open to 3 bb, I 3bet to 7.5. Honestly I suck too much at thinking to fully understand the theoretical implications of this, but at the very least I know it must bug the **** out of them, and that puts a smile on my face.

So for the past 10k hands or so I've tried to reign it in by really nitting it up OOP and trying to show a bit more restraint, but it doesn't appear to have helped. Basically I get the money in bad 10000 times per session, and get it in good 3 times and lose 2 of them, every bluff I make fails and every float gets barrelled. I suck.

I don't really know what my gameplan is from here on out. Grind through this garbage I guess. I think I should try to engage the poker community in some way. I don't really talk poker with anybody competent, and that would probably help. Although if this downswing gets much worse I'm probably just gonna quit and become an air traffic controller.