Brocky

@successlaw Yes mate but not until after the Man City/Liverpool match, so about 10pm GMT. Hope that's not too late. @Silver1 In a 1 euro game I'm almost never balancing my range but in say a 100eur MTT I think it's important to limp AA with X% frequency and raise it with Y% frequency. In HU I will probably raise AA 80% of the time, limp 20% vs a reg but raise 100% vs a rec without reads that they're going to isolate wide. Against a rec that we're likely never to see again I think you want to take the most profitable line in that moment but against regs it's important to protect yourself from being exploited by having some slight balance, especially when OOP. I'm not an expert on this by any stretch of the imagination so take what I say with a pinch of salt!

I think 3x/folding A7s at 20bb bvb is pretty bad. Maybe at the micros it'll be fine as people will generally be more passive in the blinds but at the higher stakes where there are more regs who will be attacking wider we want to give them that opportunity with their whole range and that's why I think just calling is probably best. The other issue is if they call we're in a 7-8bb pot out of position with a hand which flops really badly. If we hit the ace we're going to get credit for it almost every time and we rarely have top pair with the 7.

On occasion I've been known to be on both sides of the coin. One side where I lose a few games so just quit and the other side where I win a few and quit to protect the profit. It's important to just look at life as one long session and not worry about whether the profit comes today, tomorrow or yesterday. Wise words and not mine unfortunately, it's definitely something I struggle with.

@successlaw Thanks for regularly tuning in, appreciate that buddy. @TDW I remember that well! They were loving the QJ last night 🤣 @Silver1 The A7 is an interesting one because I think it's difficult to actually play it too badly preflop. Open jamming with blinds/antes is going to be +ev, raise/calling seems ok to me, limp/calling seems fine but also raise/folding doesn't seem horrible as well. The reasons I would opt for calling over raising are 1) If we're going to fold to the jam, we save 1-1.5bb by not raising and 2) By having stronger hands in our calling range it allows us to call wider without fear of being attacked so often The JJ9 was a strange one. I think there's merit for betting the turn as villain can have a lot of straight draws/gutshots/flush draw and we want to charge those but I'm not thrilled about getting it in if he jams the turn. My plan was to check back because I think he had about 1.4x pot left on the river meaning if he had a jack he may just go half pot and it doesn't cost me my whole tournament life. I think having position also allows me to get value on the river when he checks. If he had open jammed river it definitely would've been a tricky decision. @GR1ZZL3R Appreciate the kind words mate. I did contemplate closing down for the day on more than one occasion but I was also concious of the fact that if I have an edge grinding can only be a good thing long term. I think it's easy to get into a mindset of not playing or not putting in the volume which I've probably done in the past. Like you say though, no crazy blow ups at high stakes or casino games so today's an opportunity to take on the world again. @UAC For sure mate, the financial loss of the downswing last night isn't an issue really, I think it was more how it was happening and how relentless it was. Fresh mind today though and we go again! <3

Day 2 I feel like I could write a dissertation on today's poker. For those of you that have watched my stream you'll know I moan (a lot) but tonight might be the most brutal session I've had in the past 5 years. Let's just put it this way (and I mean no disrespect to anyone on here), when I see people on here moaning about one 60/40 or 70/30 that they lose I honestly want to put them in my shoes from today. Things started off well, really well in fact, I was up around 18 buy ins within 80 or so games and then what happened after that was just the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. I was 2-4 tabling for 5 hours straight, I think I missed almost every open-ended straight draw yet I managed to lose to the weirdest gutshots on no less than 4 occasions (for stacks). Twice in 3 bet pots villain showed up with 54 on A2xx boards where they somehow get to the river (despite me betting both streets) before hitting the straight and stacking me. I had AK into AA twice and QQ into AA once, without having a single premium vs premium cooler in my favour. In a vacuum these are what they are but when you're almost 200 games into a day of poker and they're all happening together, it starts to become almost unbelievable. I'm not for one moment suggesting it's rigged or anything like that, these things happen. I guess there's massive positives to take in that I didn't once move up stakes nor switch to the casino, both of which I have done more times than I can remember in the past. Volume was great today, I played reasonably well given how tilted I should've been and I guess if I'm posting a winning day in circumstances such as these then when the variance switches my way I will be absolutely printing money. A big thank you to @AndreiBN for being my first Twitch subscriber. I must admit I probably wasn't much fun on stream tonight for obvious reasons but I'll be back tomorrow no doubt. I guess if there were a microcosm of today it would've been the €25 MTT I played where I have 54 on a JT367 only to run into 98. In all seriousness I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. The mental toll that days like this take are unreal. At points I was sat here wondering if I should've even quit my job, could I even beat the games anymore etc. If the games weren't drying up because of the time I likely would've been sat here grinding until I fell asleep. The games were ridiculously soft in patches and that's what makes it so hard to stomach. When you have a guy who bets the river and snap calls your jam with Q high you would rematch them until you physically could no longer stay awake, yet somehow I was getting coolered against these players time and time again. 50% of me wants to sleep for 5 hours and get back on it like there's no tomorrow, the other half thinks uninstalling the client would be a good idea. I know I'm rambling but I'm still trying to fathom exactly what went on tonight. Hopefully I'll be fresh enough to grind tomorrow. Results 198 games at 25s, 105 wins, €142.50 profit, 2.9% ROI Total - Day 2 Current total/Needed to hit goal 301/200 games +€477/€400 profit 6.3%/8% ROI Well ahead on volume, decent profit, ROI has slipped. Today: Year to date: edit: I'll reply to the above posters in the morning.

Will do, glad you like it. Gonna be live on stream in 5 mins!

The low stakes stuff is just for a laugh, it's better to relieve some stress in the 2 or 5 euro games as opposed to doing hundreds in the casino or on sports. Did a short stream earlier, I'm up about 340 at the 25s today over 57 games, so a decent session required tonight to hit target for volume. Played 5 x 5eur Hexas and they were all 1.5x, then played 1 x 10eur one for a 10x and somehow managed to lose HU when villain was down to 3.5bb. Too tilted to grind after that! 🤣 Used a 1 eur MTT ticket I had to win a 4 eur UK tour ticket so will hopefully win a package for what is effectively free. Oh and that 20 euro challenge bankroll is now at over 1k. I've just withdrawn some though but the plan is to not need to deposit in 2019 at all, that'd be lovely.

Big love for all of the nice comments as per usual <3 Feeling rough and pretty unmotivated today so will probably have a shower then get a stream going. Who's around!?

Day 1 A pretty good day in the end after a real slog this morning where I was just getting ridiculous hands/situations. A nice upswing when I went on stream which was really enjoyable, was good to chat to a few of you guys as well so appreciate those who tuned in. Ended up spunking about 20 euros on a few micro stakes Hexapro's and a tournament but it's all good. Results are as follows: 103 games at €25s, 60 wins, €335 profit, 13% ROI. Volume achieved, ROI achieved, streamed and not had a bet on sports/casino. One down, 364 to go!

Stream will be up in 5-10 mins.

The first day of the rest of my life has arrived :inlove: :cash: Let's ❤️♥️❤️ go! Will def be streaming at some point today.

Nobody is offended but you're going to lose 38 times out of 100. That's not far from being a flip, so is it really as bad of a beat as you're making out?

I think the problem is people don't understand variance. I doubt even 0.01% of the poker playing population truly understand variance. I certainly don't understand it, but what I do understand is that people generally only remember the negative variance. I'm fairly sure 90% of poker players expect the best hand to hold 100% of the time which is ridiculous. Your AA is going to lose to 72 12.5% of the time, your KK is going to lose to AKs 33.6% of the time. That's more than 1 in 3 times. If you play enough hands, variance will even itself out to some extent. You will always people who run above EV and people who run below, the poker sites don't have any say on this, their RNG's don't sit there and look at how much a player deposits or how long they've been playing. If you go on Youtube you'll see 100+ videos of ridiculous beats in live poker but people only ever attribute bad beats to online because that's the narrative they want to believe. I hit a one outer on the turn at Unibet Open Dublin, did the dealer rig that for me?

Appreciate all of the messages, I'm currently crawled up in a ball on the sofa shivering with my head pounding. Hoping I'll be alright to grind on New Year's Day but will have to wait and see.

Cheers bro. The unibet rakeback structure can be very good but only if you're playing the highest stakes. At my level it's barely noticeable and I'm not really a fan. I also don't like the challenges, I can't check raise someone if they're never betting in position for example. I can't flat a king out of the big blind if they're not raising pre-flop. One discard per month is far too low. I tend not to even pay attention anymore, the pop ups really get on my nerves as well. If I were playing the 200s I would probably look but it's not worth the bother below the 100s I would say.

Thanks mate. I wanted to get into walking/the gym as part of the new year process and was debating which time of day I should go but your question has sparked a thought that maybe the perfect time to go is when the cards aren't falling my way. I'm sure some fresh air and an hour away from the computer can only be a good thing. If im honest i don't know how I'll deal with it apart from that. I've had many, many downswings over a 10 year period but they still hurt just as bad as the last. I think it's important to remember that this variance is why I have the opportunity to make a living from poker. If there were no variance, recreationals would never play.

Morning fellow sadists. I've decided to make a new thread as the first post in my old one isn't really reflective of where I'm at in poker at the moment. A very brief introduction, I'm 27, from the UK and I've recently quit my job to play poker full time. I primarily play the 25 euro heads up games on Unibet, with some higher stakes mixed in as and when. I'm lazy by nature but there comes a time in your life where you really need to step up and put the hard graft in. I think people who don't play large volume or even poker at all completely underestimate the mental toll that playing long hours, especially heads up where you're involved in every hand, can take on your mind/body. My girlfriend definitely doesn't understand but that's for another time 😏 In order to combat the high levels of procrastination I often have I've decided to start streaming in order to keep me focused on the task in-hand. I really enjoy interacting with others and hopefully can teach some of you heads up novices a couple of things about the game. Anyway, without further ado, here are my goals for 2019 (super ambitious): 3,000 heads up SNGs per month/36,000 for the year.8%+ ROI at the 25s+.Minimum of €72,000 profit as a result.Stream a minimum of 5 times per week.Have one person subscribe to my Twitch channel in 2019.Qualify for at least two live events.ZERO sports bets, casino game bets or high stakes poker tilts. These goals are going to be ridiculously hard to complete for multiple reasons. On the poker side, 100 games per day is a long day albeit achievable but those days where I can't play will really impact the volume meaning I'm obviously going to have to put in more than 100 most days just to stay on track. Then you have to balance in that this means more tables simultaneously and this will only have a negative impact on my ROI (pretty sure 8% is going to be tough to maintain). On the non-poker side, I'm a gambler, always have been and probably always will be. I hate to think of how much money I've wasted on bets but 2019 is the year to be super disciplined, put the measures in place so that it makes it harder to do something stupid and just remember that going back to work 9-5 is the last thing in the world I want! For reference, I played just 3,834 €25 HU games in 2018 with a 7.98% ROI. There will be daily updates and I will likely do a weekly recap of the goals to see how the progress is going. I am happy to answer any questions either here or on Twitch and I appreciate all of the support that the community offers, you really are a great bunch. My Twitch is www.twitch.tv/dianeabbottpoker (if you have Amazon prime I will gladly accept the free Twtich subscription you get with that :Wink: )

Good work on the Hexapro challenge, I think this shows that how you run in those few high multipliers is the difference between profit and loss in these things.

What level of research do you do for football betting? I've done lots of research before but it seems pointless most of the time. The problem is the bookies are rarely wrong; sometimes I'll look at a match, say Everton at home to an out-of-form West Ham and Everton will be evens or around there, which seems like a very big price, but more often than not they're pretty spot on with their pricing up of matches (yet I would lump on Everton because the price seems big to me). Another one I've noticed is I'll see home teams at short prices despite being much lower in the table than the away team which seems crazy but I think in certain countries such as Spain, Italy and Brazil teams struggle away from home more than say teams in the Premier League. For example, Athletic Bilbao who are 18th with 2 wins in 16 matches are 1.75 vs 12th placed Real Valladolid (who have the 7th best away record). X2 @ 2.1 would be my bet but that's why I play poker and don't sports bet :laugh:

I visited SA for the first time a couple of years back with caution as I'd heard quite a few bad things but I really couldn't fault it when I was there, I thought it was a stunning country. It was definitely eye opening though to see the shanty town as soon as you leave the airport in Cape Town so close to such a built up, wealthy area. Saying that, there's been quite a lot in the news recently about how there the racial tension is building again and there's a plan to allow the blacks to land grab from the whites? Sounds crazy and will likely only end up following Zimbabwe which is not going to end well. Sorry for going off topic! Good luck with the grind.

Interesting first post, which country do you live in? Was surprised to read the struggles you had withdrawing 100 euros.

Hey guys, I'm going to be streaming HUSNGs all morning/afternoon. https://www.twitch.tv/dianeabbottpoker

Hi mate, nice blog! I was moved to your direct right on the last level of day 1 in Dublin, nice result finishing 18th, it was definitely a tough slog. GL on the grind.

Edit: Not really sure which thread I'm posting in as the subject title keeps changing? For the streaming thread - Would anyone be interested in watching HUSNGs with a few Hexapros or too boring?