KrustyTheClown

Good session today at the cash games tables 🙂 I only played for about 80 minutes but the action was pretty fast & furious. One of the things I struggle with day to day is fatigue. A couple years ago I was diagnosed with asthma and it's affecting me quite a lot at times. So after working from home I really needed a "nap". Which turned out to be over an hour and a half. After dinner I managed to get "on the grind". Session started off really bad where I lost a bunch of smaller flips and constantly the worst rivercard seemed to peel off. I slowly grinded a bit back when I finally caught some heat. UTG minopens and it's fourway to the flop! #familypot Easy call here with TJ and we bink the gincard! I thought about leading the turn but that seemed really strong. The check/raise however also looks super strong 😄 It's fourway so any aggro action from my side should get massive respect. Then I found myself contemplating which size to go for. A potsize bet would mean the overcaller is all-in to call but BTN has like an odd €12 behind. Just went for the jam and got called by a slowplayed set. I think slowplaying a set fourway OOP is a pretty big mistake. When I jam turn, I think bottom set is a fold here. He doesn't have enough equity versus a straight and is crushed in case I have a bigger set. The only possible bluff I could come up with for myself is maybe QTss. Then on another table I noticed a very familiar nickname on my direct left. Don't expect me to be consequent about it but I'll hide his "identity" this time. I know from experience this guy is an aggro spazzer. I open BTN. He flats SB which is already pretty terrible given that BB is also a reg. Anyway. He just flats my half pot cbet. I keep on betting turn targetting a bunch of pocket pairs, weaker 9x and god knows what. But he goes for the check raise. Repping 43s? A3s? I think for a couple seconds and make a pretty trivial call. He overbet jams river for 120% pot and I snap it off. He shows KQo 🫠 The very next hand I get KK and he 3bets BTN. No need to play it slow and he flats my 4bet. A pretty safe flop. I pretty much range cbet this size on a dry flop in a 4bet pot. I obviously snap it off again and he tables K9o 🫠KK held. This is a perfect illustration of how ego is costing people money. A bit later I lost a stack versus him. UTG is actually one of the few regulars that I respect and think is pretty decent. I could just fold. Was already expecting a squeeze from the wannabe table captain. But this is obviously a fine hand to play in position. UTG folds and we go heads up to the flop. He pots it, which is a pretty stupid size. I've pretty much got a monster and have good equity versus overpairs. He also still has bluffs in his range like AQ and AK type of stuff. Unfortunately he tables TT which is about the worst hand possible for me. Another big pot verus another nickname that I recognized and has my spazzer label. Starting off with a super standard 3bet. He flats. I cbet €2 on the flop which is around 30% pot and pretty standard too. He flats. Turn is a bit of a dicy card. I could keep on betting but decided to check to keep his range wide and see what he's up to. I think this is a typical case of a hand where betting makes your future decisions easier but checking could be more profitable. I flat. Another tricky card on the river. I thought about jamming myself in order to stack the possible AT and AJ combo's but ended up checking. Not loving it but we block KQ and he could still jam worse two pairs. He shows 55 🤨 Ended up +€78 for the session. I regged 4 €2 UO flips. Hopefully I can bink a ticket and can start building the DSO qualifier roll 🙂 Bankroll: €2585 2024 profit: €1328

Yes, that's true! I don't know the exact changes anymore but it felt significant at the time. However, my data lab seems to suggest otherwise 😄 This suggests the difference in rake is only slightly more than half a big blind per 100 hands. But most likely I'm playing a higher VPIP these days. So it's probably not totally a fair comparison 🙂 Just for fun I tweaked my code a bit and generated this graph of the rake I paid at 25NL over time. This Rake guy is one steady motherf*cking winner!

Hey fornicator99, glad you like the blog 🙂 I've been requesting my cash game results from Unibet since 2014 and have always kept close track of them in Excel files. Two years ago I created an application to visualize these results. I'm a software developer. I also really liked @P0kerM0nk blog, but he's been quiet lately. He's also Belgian btw 🙂

Just finished another wild session at the 25NL tables. I fucked up a couple hands but also had plenty of bad beats and coolers. I could have saved a stack where it was 4handed and I 4bet/called with AQ versus an aggro reg. I really felt like he was full of ****. He just had AA 🤦‍♂️ Also lost a 210bb pot where I had topset JJ versus an aggro clown who rivered the flush. He had Q8s... This was the biggest pot I lost. I made a standard squeeze pre and this spazzy reg just jams for like 125bb. QQ is not a nobrainer call here imo but I did end up making the call and was obviously happy to see TT. And then we get this absolute bullshit runout 🤮🤮🤮 I was down like €100+ and traffic already started to drop. But then I won a couple stacks. AA vs KK preflop all in versus a regular. AQ vs Q6 all in on Q9x flop versus a fish. The next hand got me into the green for the night. Villain was a huge whale and I went for an exploitative large 3bet. Not expecting him to fold anything really. Pretty safe flop and time to put in some more money. Pretty much a blank turn and we're setting up the river jam. I really didn't like this river as I felt like KJ is a big part of his range. But we're obviously never folding here. Since there aren't bluffs to catch except for 87, it's better to just jam it in ourselves. He shows J4o aka "The Robbi" 😆 Bankroll: €2515 2024 profit: €1258

Focus Since the last two years or so I've been focussing on purely NL cash games. I can handle playing all different stuff at the same time but I think it's better to specialize in one format. I also feel like tournament dynamics are a lot different now compared to like 5 years ago. For a couple years I was just grinding and crushing 10NL but couldn't really win at 25NL. Since around covid this changed and I started beating 25NL at about the same winrate 🙂 I also went from playing 8 tables at a time to only 7. This allows me to watch replays or open a new table and leave a bad table at the next big blind. Here's my lifetime graph at 25NL Unibet. Except for hands from the current month. Just your casual 270K hands breakeven stretch😆 I've dipped my toes into the 50NL pool but don't have enough hands yet to really jump to conclusions. I also feel like swings at 25NL can be pretty tough to cope with it. Goals The last couple of years I haven't really set any real goals. Not sure if I should now tbh. Anyway I think this will about sum it up. * Keep crushing 25NL for a couple more weeks. * Take another shot at 50NL somewhere in May if things go well. * Play at least 300K hands online this year. * Qualify for DSO Sanremo. I know this last goal isn't really in line with the focus on cash games. But I really want to play live again and Sanremo looks like a really nice place. And the casino is obviously beautiful too 🙂 I haven't played any qualifiers yet but will start doing so. I think I'll just register all the €2 flips and start playing the €10 games.

Introduction I'm a 36 year old guy from Belgium. Been playing poker since around 2009. Like many of you I learned the game from some friends. I remember starting off playing full ring limit Hold'Em freeroll Sit & Go's at Everest Poker where first place won $0.05 😆 FML. I was and still am pretty risk averse and wouldn't deposit any of my own money. I also busted a $50 free bankroll from pokerstrategy.com in the early days. A bit later I got around €10 for free at Victor Chandler poker and started winning steadily at 2NL. Everyone was terrible obviously 😆 Also back in the day Full Tilt Poker had some great freerolls where you could win some decent money. Those were the good days where you had insane rakeback deals and a dozen of sites to choose from. Back in my college days I also played a lot at Absolute Poker and played up untill 100NL. Just before the Black Friday shit hit the fan I moved all my poker money - around $5000 I think - to Pokerstars. Dodged some serious bullets there. Unibet Fast forward a couple years to 2014/2015. Regulation has kicked in. Around 95% of my volume is now strictly at Unibet. I would mainly play NL cash, but also mixed in quite some PLO cash. Also played quite some tournaments. Since 2016 I started playing more and more and started logging my monthly results in an Excel sheet. I know setting monetary goals is far from ideal, but winning about €5000/year was and is a good target for me. Live debut at Unibet Open Copenhagen Playing online poker is quite a lonely ride. It's a neverending grind. And even if you are long-term winner it can be very frustrating at times. I'm part of a small Discord group where I can moan and vent out my frustration. Contrary to popular belief I'm not a robot and I can appreciate some human interaction. Apart from your regular €10 cash games with friends I had never played live up untill 2016. I managed to qualify for Unibet Open Copenhagen! Although I had a tough time in the tournament and didn't cash, it was a great trip. I busted out squeeze jamming 73ss for like 10bb I think 😆 Epic trip at Unibet Open Malta Back in 2018 I qualified for Unibet Open Malta. This trip definitely was the highlight of my poker "career" so far. The hotel was very nice, the weather was perfect and Malta obviously is a lovely destination. Also lots of people from the Unibet online community were there 🙂 I got off to a great start in the tournament and think I had a stack of about twice average when I got moved to the TV table. The table was very chatty and quickly it became clear that the Finnish guy was absolutely hammered. He was so drunk he couldn't count anymore and was knocking over his chip stack all the time. Much to the delight of the commentators Kat Arnsby and @DaVitsche he was still ordering large pints of beer. Obviously he had a huge stack. I think it was the second or third hand after I sat down at the table. A short stack opened UTG for 2.3bb and I just went for a standard 3bet with AK. But now this crazy Finnish dude just announces all in and I had another 50 bigs behind. I frowned and thought about for like half a minute before sighcalling it off. I binked the ace on the flop and won a huge pot. Ultimately I busted out in 23rd on day 2 for €2400. Here's a picture taken just right after I shoved my last chips in. I think I had like 12bb left and was in the big blind with 99. UTG opens and it folds around to the lady in red on my direct right. Her name is Jenny Israel and she's a pretty active/aggro player from my experience. She 3bets it and I ponder for a while before jamming. But now the guy that opened UTG jams over the top for like 40bb+. As you can see from this picture I'm obviously not too happy about all this action. Jenny goes in the tank and ends up folding QQ face up! I'm like fistpumping at this point 😆 The other guy tables AK. There's a queen on the flop but also the ace comes in and that was it for me. Next time This post is already way longer than I thought it would be 🙂 I'll write some stuff about my current poker games and the goals for and reasons to this thread.

Any chance you are back on the grind? 🙂 Loved reading your blog and think you're definitely among the better cash game players at Unibet. Anyway, good luck fellow Belgian.

Update? Did you quit the challenge or move up?

How slow do you think we read? 😝 You were playing 4NL right? When you say escape from the "microverse" what exactly is your goal? Do you want to reach 100NL? GL.

Really well handled. Thank you Unibet and @Andy-Relax Congrats to the winner too. Was some sick value with only about 29 players that ended up regging 🙂

Just play 100BB cash games like a proper poker player. Easy solution.

As a Belgian living in Belgium I must say I'm a bit jealous of all that bonus money 😅 So how has the grind been for you lately? Are you still playing 100NL? GL 🙂

Yes indeed! That was back in 2017. Fun times 👍

Good to see you back around @wwaanneess I'll surely try to stop by your stream! Good luck ☝️

I don't really recognize those nicknames, so I prolly did confuse you for somebody else. My bad 🙂 GL

Update please? 🙂

Update? I'm pretty sure I played with you quite a lot some weeks ago. You always min open right? I think your 3betting and 4betting ranges were pretty out of line. You don't need to try and run over every reg imo 🙂 Anyway, good luck with the challenge.

Calling pre is fine. Raising the flop is fine. Calling his jam is not fine. His range has you crushed.

Should have 4K bankroll at the absolute minimum indeed...

You could aswell just pay attention to what's going on in hands you're not involved in... Try to figure out how everyone is playing... There is tons of value in that. Especially in live games playing exploitative is way more recommended than a more GTO based playing style.

It's the "curse" of a real grinder. The grind never ends. Will be interesting to follow your progress once again. GL 🙂

Had two Royals this year. The first one was a pretty brutal runout for the villain 😅

If you think some numbers on a screen will turn fish into decent players, you are terribly wrong 🙂

Good to see you're still on the grind and keeping your head cool 👍 Variance can be brutal at times as you know all too well too. Taking a couple days off and coming back fresher and stronger is the way to go. GL 🙂

@RushbieGet off the booze son! Getting it in pre with AK (suited or not) for 100bb is super standard. Versus a (tight) calling range you might be slightly behind, but the value mostly comes from getting villains to fold their 4bet bluffs. And yes people do 4bet bluff. OOP we basicly never want to flat AK. IP I do some flatting just to mix things up and protect my 4bet calling range. Mostly depends on the villain though.