The Journal of Online Poker

 ok. so my last few poker sessions were a bit of a disaster from a mental game perspective. although my results were okay, these tears in the fabric of the mental game fortress I have been constructing, if not addressed, will lead directly to my ruin. Specifically there were three mental game flaws. But they all emanated from the same mental game weakness. Checking cashier constantly. Being fixated on results and desperate to get even. Unwilling to quit stuck. Dropping PLO $10 tables in favour of PLO $25 tables not based on game selection criteria but simply because it was higher stakes. There was a third but I forget it now. Maybe it will come to me later. Anyway. I will address these weaknesses. I am going to play another session, and will attempt to fix these mental game leaks in this session. Or quit if I am unable to. OKAY. I am going to fire a session of online poker. I'm ready. I'm alert. It is time to grind. My goal this session is to work on my above identified mental ...

 About to fire on a poker session. Hopefully it goes well. My goals for this session. Volume.  Quality. Focus. Let's get it done. session recap :  decent session. not much on volume, but high quality and good focus. really short session. ok. goign to fire another session. session goals. play well. make good decisions. post session recap. go for a walk after session recap : this session I exhibited concerning behaviour, specifically sitting at PLO $50 and playing 6 card PLO. Actually, the 6 card PLO table turned out to be extremely profitable, after I flopped nuts + redraw in a three way three bet pot and GII with 75% on the turn three way. I cashed out that hand. Then I won a massive pot not much later with flopped nuts (JT on AKQ) which I check called until the river when I c/r. Villain had top two pair only. So yah. Definitely problematic. I did have a nice win and am now even for the day. But definitely tested my mental game and found it wanting. So I will have to work...

 Alright ladies and gentlemen, it is session time again. Today I am going to be grinding PLO $10 and PLO $25 across two different sites. I think things are going well. So far I have played 4,000 hands on this grind. The volume has been pretty clean. I like what I've been doing with my journal and grinding. This is a really effective way of staying competitive, because I am forced to be accountable to my journal and I am forced to reflect upon my play. Ideally I would like to get more hands in.  Anyway, gonna fire on a session. My session goals are to play well, stay focused, and evaluate my mental game. And do a post session recap. post session recap : not really feeeling it. quit early.

 About to fire on a poker session. Last one went well.   The session plan. One hour session. Up to 8 tables. PLO4 $10 and $25.  Before I begin let me think about my poker goals. My immediate short term plan is to grind PLO $10 and $25. I'd like to get to the point where I am grinding 6-8 hours a day. As a job. Probably 4 sessions of 90-120 minutes.  Anyway. Let's go. Post session recap : Session went pretty well I guess. Lost focus at the end and started tweeting so I called it. 38 minutes. 169 hands. +$29.

 going to fire a session of online poker. my goals are to play good, get in some solid volume, and make good decisions. after the session i want to do a post session recap.  okay. i want to do a big session. 6-8 tables. ideally play until 1 or 2 am, then go for a walk. then a post session recap. mark hands. take notes. make good decisions. pay attention to my mental game. also i want to do a longer more exhaustive analysis  post session recap. ok. pretty good session. 1 hour 25 minutes. 916 hands. +$43.60 pretty smooth sailing I guess. A slow decline where I was just bricking flop and then bang. This little beauty. Not really an interesting hand strategically. We three bet good aces vs MP raise and CO call on the button 100 bb deep. Very standard. We flop top set and pot it in a low SPR situation. Again, very standard. And we hold vs two flush draws. 62% equity three way is nice. Okay, so that had was 22:36. At 22:39 just three minutes later this hand occurred. Which was ...

I slept. Got a full 8 hours I think. Did some chest press in the gym. Hit the pool for like 30-40 minutes. Showered, grinded anno for a while. Pretty much ready to play, but I am dehydrated, so first I will fix that. Also I'm hungry, so I will eat something light and prepare some food to eat during my session. Also coffee. ok. 30 minutes to 150 minutes. 6-3 tables. plan to start with 6 and then aggressively drop tables until i am the 2 to 3 best, with 1 backup. do a post session recap. play good. make good decisions. take notes. adapt to my opponents. think about my decisions. plan future streets. lets do it. 90 minutes later post session recap : okay. The session went pretty well I think, despite a $76 loss. I had a plurality of equity in my biggest loss, with 38.36% three way. Preflop actually I was a slight money dog with only 30.14% equity, because CO and I are sharing so many cards, although I don't think that is relevant to the two decision points of this hand. I don'...

 about to play some pok-ah. for this session my goals will be to game select. to straddle $10 and $25 so I can find the best games at both levels. no more than 6 tables. no more than 1 hour. do a post session recap. take notes on all mental game events. alright. lets go. session recap : session went well. some ups and downs. this hand was my biggest victory of the session.  This hand demonstrates one way to print money in PLO, stacking off with dominating draws vs dominated draws. Villain's flop play is nonsensical, basically just hoping to luckbox one of his eight outs on the turn despite not getting anywhere near the right odds to draw. And if he hits a jack he loses to my higher straight. His postflop error stems from his weak preflop hand selection. 9754 is a bad hand precisely because it hits the bottom end of things. And it is just janky looking. On the flop we are an 83.41% favourite, and we get $8.5 committed so now the pot is bloated and villain will have a bad decisi...

  This is me, sitting in front of my computer, sweat dripping down my face like condensation on an ice cold bottle of mountain dew. Did I just run a marathon? Scale a mountain? No. I walked to the store and back. No small feat when you weigh 300 lbs. It is almost exactly 300 meters each way.  In 31 degree heat (that is 87.8 F for Americans). Carrying two large jugs of water. Normally we get our water delivered but it is holy week. Anyway it was actually a great workout and a great way to start the day. I'm going to play some online poker soon, but first I am going to allow a cool down period to recover from the intense physical activity I just experienced. I am also going to intensively hydrate myself. Not only to recover my precious bodily fluids lost on the trip, but also because sleeping tends to dry me out heavily as well. OK. I played some video games for a while. About to start a session. Need to hydrate a bit more, get a coffee. My plan is to play 4 tables of PLO $10 fo...

 About to fire on a brief 20 minute poker session, playing 4 tables of PLO $10.  Things have been going well, but I don't like how wildly I've been diverging from my pre session plans. I don't mind a little initiative, but I've been going way off course. This is going to be a quick, disciplined, in and out.  My goals for this session are : stick to the plan. just 4 tables of PLO 10. nothing more, except maybe a 5th transitionary table. Do a post session recap. ONly 20 minutes. Only PLO $10. Play good. Might be a while before I get to sleep. Had an okay morning session in the pool, had to run away from the  sun. Worried about that UV radiation. Might actually check it out after my session see how the shade is doing. Okay. Am I ready? Get some water. Let's put on some Billy Joel during this session. We didn't start the fire sounds right. Ok. Let's do it. Post session recap. Session went well. 20 minutes, 4 tables, PLO $10. Felt I played okay. Wasn't a huge...

Pre Session Write Up :  I am going to fire another session of online poker. I feel a little tired. Guess I will have a coffee. I am going to play 6 tables of PLO $10. I think that is a good approach. This will be a short session, I am a little tired now. But I can still play. I will have a coffee. My goal is just put in some good, clean volume. Tag hands for review. Play straight forward, ABC, winning poker. Today has been a good day. I went swimming, and then I went on two decent walk sessions. Right now I am feeling a little bloated because of the smoothie I had. Just milk and berries. And my legs are a bit tired / sore. Need a rest. So I will grind 30 minutes to 1 hour of online poker. Then free play. Then pool. Post Session Recap Ok. That was draining. I feel drained. Could also be all that milk and berries I ate. But anyway it is pretty late for me. I feel like I woke up around 5 pm, it is 5 am now. So that's 12 hours. Anyway the session went good. I played up to 12 tables, wh...

I decided to google 'how do you get good at poker' and came across the following thread, where user Abhinav7354 posted a thorough response. How does one get good at poker? (Super newbie)   Abhinav7354 Abhinav7354 • 10mo ago Few useful tips Learn preflop ranges. The #1 leak low stakes players hands is that they play too many hands and they play their hands regardless or position at the table. By simply playing better hands than they do, you will outperform them significantly. Learn to isolate. When you play live poker at the low stakes, you end up going multiway a lot to flops. When you are the initial raiser, there's not much you can do about this. What you want to be doing after someone opens is 3betting aggressively. This lets you push people out of the pot and get it heads-up even if people do defend. Learn when to bluff. At low stakes, it's nearly impossible to get players to fold hands that have a high absolute hand strength (trips or better) and so if your bluff ...

Going to fire a session of online poker. My plan is 4 tables of NLHE $2 for 30 minutes. My goals are to mark a few hands for review. Do an immediate post session recap. To monitor my mental game and to improve at observation and analysis specifically through looking at showdown hands. Let me first reflect upon poker. What are my goals. What am I going to do to achieve those goals? I want to improve at poker. Today I am going to play a session, and then I am going to do hand review and analysis. Additionally, I will read some forums. I will also take some walks. Self check. I got okay sleep. Not great. Could have used more. It is still early in my day, relatively. I did some light cardio already. I've got water and my coffee. I think I am ready. Almost ready. I am going to read and post a bit on r/poker first.  Post session recap :  Okay. That was wild. I ended up playing up to 10 tables of 6 max PLO. $10 and $25. On two sites. My reasoning was, I am wasting time with this penn...

Unfortunately I will not be swimming today. Unless I hit a 6 am session tomorrow. Which I might. I guess I can substitute with some stretching and some light dumbbell work. It's not much, but it is something. Okay. I am going to do a session of online poker. My plan is to grind 30 minutes of 1 cent 2 cent NLHE. I am doing this to improve at poker. I need the experience of playing hands as well as the process of reviewing hands and my session after. My last session was okay, but very short. I was feeling a little tired. Right now, I am pretty alert. I got a good nights sleep last night (technically today). Probably about 9 or 10 hours in total. At least 7 or 8. I had two sleep sessions, between 7 am and 12 and then again until 4:30 or 5. Not sure exactly on the hours. But a lot of sleep anyway. I give my sleep a 6/10. There are a number of factors I would like to improve on, like sleep continuity. In my next session, or in a coming session soon, I am going to deposit $50 and shot ta...

PokerStars - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 3 players Hand converted by PokerTracker 4 Hero (SB): 100.5 BB BB (BB): 201 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1) BTN (BTN): 104.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1) Hero posts SB 0.5 BB , BB posts BB 1 BB Dealt to Hero: 2s2h BTN raises to 2.5 BB, Hero raises to 8.5 BB , fold , fold Hero wins 6 BB Okay, this was a fun hand. The button opened, I went for a light three bet with 22, and he folded. Actually, I thought this would make a good basic hand to do some research on. There are really only two decisions here, so it should be nice and simple. So the first question is, what are some reasonable button open frequencies here? And my second question is, what should our strategy be from the SB vs button opens of varying frequencies? Also, what should our strategy be against an unknown button open? I have found and reviewed a number of online discussions on this subject, doing my best to highlight interesting commen...

Poker Journal Tuesday, April 15th, 2025 12:26 am  Pre Session Notes : Today I am going to play a session of $2 NLHE. Afterwards, I will do an immediate recap of this session here in my journal. My session goals are to note a few hands for later review, to keep an eye on my mental game, to think about my decisions. I think I am in okay shape to play. It is midnight, but I woke up less than 12 hours ago. My pre session day was not great mostly I have been grinding Anno 1800, a video game. This will probably be a short session. My primary motivation is to get better at poker. Session Notes :  Areas to work on. Observation and adaption. Patience. Start off join 1 table, open sit another. Need to turn on 4 color deck. Feeling pretty tired. Took some notes. 12:37  Post Session Notes Fun session. Win about $2, mostly when I flopped a set vs top pair + nfd. It was a 4 way limped pot, so I c/r for pot vs bet call and villain turned two pair to go with his NFD and we stacked off th...

Well, I got that itch to play some live poker again.  I decided to go play some PHP 25/50 NLHE at Prime Poker .   Early on in the session I picked up AA UTG, and decided to go for a limp reraise. This can be a pretty powerful move when it works but it is risky and can back fire easily if no one raises. That was the case in this hand, as MP, CO, and both blinds saw the flop with me. The flop (250) came Jc5d7h, and I bet 150 into 250, getting two callers.  The turn was a 6h, which we call checked. The river was the Tc. I checked again, the second player checked, and last to act fired out a bet of 600. I hemmed and hawed before putting in the call and losing to 5cTc. On the next hand I picked up AKo UTG, and again went for the limp reraise. This time I took down a decent pot pre as there were a few limpers and an iso raise from the button before everyone folded to my oversized three bet. Things picked up quickly after that. A few hands later I isolated an EP limper to 2...

One of the things that attracts people to poker as a vocation is the freedom it offers. Quit work, sleep until noon, and play poker, as the infamous John Fox book suggests. And there is a lot of truth to that. You can find amazing games (and terrible, nitty ones) at any hour of the day. But as a pro, you are pretty much negligent if you don't show up at the card room Friday and Saturday evening, especially around midnight. That is prime time for poker. So when 10 pm Saturday rolled around, having enjoyed some random napping throughout the day, I hadn't been planning on playing poker, but out the door I went. One of the many great thing about playing poker in the Philippines is the cost of transportation. According to google, a four mile cab ride in Chicago will cost you $13.25. That same ride in the Philippines, using Grab or InDrive (which are like the Asian Uber or Lyft) costs me the equivalent of $3. For a low limit grinder this equation is important, especially because I am...

I was playing .10/.25 NLHE about twenty years ago with a few friends. I had flopped an open ended straight draw, and called two large bets on the flop and turn. Of course I called. I had a draw. Calling is what you do with draws. Unfortunately, I did not hit it. Instead, the river paired the bottom pair, and in desperation I fired out a large bet, representing a stubborn bottom pair that had tripped up. My opponent, Jamie, didn't believe me and called without too much hesitation. Fast forward twenty years. I'm playing a 25/50 game (albeit denominated in pesos, so in USD it would be more like $0.50/$1.00) and I open JcTc for 150 and get two callers. One is in position on me, and the other isn't. The flop came ace high with two clubs, and I c-bet 225 into 450. The in position player flats, and the other guy folds. The turn is a brick, and I check fold to a 600 wager into a 900 pot. Understanding the proper way to think about draws in NLHE is very important. And it is not some...

Prime Poker is a stand alone poker room located in HK Sun Plaza in Pasay, just moments away from Manila Bay. HK Sun Plaza, a bird's eye view Formerly known as GG Poker and then Two Ace, the club has been rebranded once again as Prime. The GG Poker title was probably a little short sighted, given the existence of the unaffiliated GGPoker.com, the most popular online poker site in the world at the moment. 'Two Ace' was a reasonable name, but with the entrance of 'Ace Poker' located at nearby Heritage casino, perhaps the additional rebranding was needed. Prime recently moved south within HK Sun Plaza, from beside the Korean mini-mart to just before Hong Kong Seafood Restaurant. It is still facing the Dampa Seaside Market and Manila Bay, it is just at the end of the plaza instead of the middle. The location is centrally located relative to a number of other Manila poker rooms, so if you don't like the action at your table, you can pay 150 pesos and take a quick Grab...