Its a long way to the top if you wanna build a roll

Another crappy night at the tables tonight. Anytime I started to get a bit of momentum going I would lose a stupid pot.

The biggest losing pots tonight.

Should I be folding at any point here?

Poker Stars, $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 5 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: $9.63 (192.6 bb)
BB: $5.07 (101.4 bb)
MP: $5.05 (101 bb)
CO: $5 (100 bb)
Hero (BTN): $5.45 (109 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with J A
2 folds, Hero raises to $0.12, SB calls $0.10, BB folds

Flop: ($0.29) 9 A 6 (2 players)
SB bets $0.12, Hero raises to $0.35, SB calls $0.23

Turn: ($0.99) J (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.71, SB calls $0.71

River: ($2.41) 5 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1.65, SB raises to $8.45, Hero calls $2.62 and is all-in

Results:

Kinda got lost in this one.

Poker Stars, $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 5 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: $5 (100 bb)
BB: $5 (100 bb)
MP: $4.67 (93.4 bb)
Hero (CO): $7.20 (144 bb)
BTN: $4.15 (83 bb)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q Q
MP folds, Hero raises to $0.15, BTN calls $0.15, SB calls $0.13, BB folds

Flop: ($0.50) 3 9 2 (3 players)
SB bets $0.31, Hero raises to $1.05, BTN folds, SB calls $0.74

Turn: ($2.60) T (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $1.90, SB calls $1.90

River: ($6.40) 6 (2 players)
SB bets $1.90 and is all-in, Hero calls $1.90

Results:

So in summary.

Hands Played: 282
Result: -$9.06
BR: $80.53

Seems to be one step forward and two steps back. Well im sick of line dancing. Only dancing I wanna do is river dance. By that I mean i wanna be the one rivering people and the dancing a victory jig.

In other news I have just been offered a new job that comes with a significant pay rise and a company car. Go me.

Wow, nearly 4 months since my last post. That's not good. Not good at all.

Well I'm back now. Lets make it for good this time.

A few things have changed since my last post. I started a new job which caused me to put poker on the back burner until I had settled in to my new role. This took a bit longer than I was expecting but I finally feel ready to recommit to my previous goals, as well as add some new ones.

My volume will still be lower than I first wanted to achieve so I have decided to move to playing zoom games mostly. I will start my new challenge at $100 using same BRM. I am aiming for a minimum of 4k hands a week to begin with. As i get into a groove I hope to increase this muchly.

I will also be opting into the Get Rich or Die Tryin' challenge with an initial goal of $1000.

I have other important goals away from the tables as well, mainly revolving getting fit and healthy and becoming more productive.

Life Goal 1) - Quit Smoking

I will start this challenge by smoking my last cigarette tonight. It has been a long time coming. After numerous failed attempts I must succeed this time round.

Life Goal 2) - Exercise 5 days a week

I have actually been achieving this consistently for a few weeks. I want to ride this wave of momentum to a healthy body.

Life Goal 3) - Become more productive

This i could use some help with. I see so many guys and gals on here crushing this aspect of their lives. Sick volume and ridiculous work ethic is what I want from my poker but to do that I must become far better at managing my time. Any tips are welcome.

Back to the tables, I played for a while tonight.

Hands Played: 1013
Result: +$15.76
BR: $115.76

Good start. Lets keep it going.

Hey garynicol85,

Welcome to the 'Get Rich or Die Tryin' bankroll challenge. we will be looking forward to your first update which you should post by Monday of each week in Get Rich or Die Tryin' - The Bankroll Challenge - Reporting thread.

Have fun

Laz

I managed to fail every goal except the volume one this week.

Not smoking only lasted one day before I crumpled and lit up again. I will have another attempt tomorrow. I have quit for extended periods of time in the past and have no idea why i keep falling for the same trap.

I have been exercising after work each day for the last few weeks but this week failed. A lot of this had to do with two 13 hour shifts at work and not having the energy nor motivation to work out for an hour when I got home. I will complete this next week.

Be more productive. Lol. Dont even know where to start with that one.

For the bankroll challenge, I started of quite happy with my play. My last 1K hands though were a nightmare. I played bad and the result wiped out a lot of the profit from previous sessions.

Hands Played - 6934
Profit/Loss - + $12.52
Bankroll - $102.52
Week 1

My poker related goals this week will be:

Play 7500 hands - i think 4500 was too low a target but I also want to make sure I am setting achievable goals that get gradually harder.

Study for 2 hours - I have not been the most studious (read: lazy) player recently. I am going back to basics, looking at opening ranges and make sure I am sticking to a solid game.

Feeling good this week. Poker wise I achieved both my goals. For volume I managed just over 10K hands, happy with this, so I will raise this target again. I studied my opening ranges and found this has helped me recall them easier during play instead of constantly looking at my charts. I will try to set aside 15 mins a day to keep on top of this until I have them fully embedded.

Its been a bit of an up and down week with some swings Austin Powers would be proud of (i'm so topical).

Here's a graph

On Friday i was on a 6 bi downswing and just kept playing because I wanted to hit my volume goal, completely disregarding my 4 bi stop loss rule. I'm glad I did as I finished the session only half a buy in down.

Again the last 1K hands were a bit of a let down. I ran well below EV having AA cracked by KK and my AKs beaten by KQo. Standard stuff I know but still annoying after a fairly decent week.

Anyways here's the final stats:

Hands Played - 10,004
Profit/Loss - +$26.38
Current bankroll - $138.90

I failed all my life goals because (insert lame, feebly plausible excuse here). I am still smoking and although I could throw a 1000 excuses at you, that is they would be. I need to remember how I felt as a non smoker and how I can achieve those feelings again. Exercising, I managed two workouts before my wandering mind decided food and playing computer games with the kids were more important. For the productivity goal. i dont even know why I keep listing this as a goal. Having a vague goal title like "be more productive" is, ironically, not the best way to become productive. I need clear goals.

Goals for this week:

Poker

Play at least 10,000 hands - I already achieved it last week but I know it will be tougher this time round due to work commitments.

Develop a long term study plan - Although I met my goal for studying last week, I felt it lacked structure. I will write out a plan for the next month.

Life

Stop Smoking - c'mon buddy. I know you can do it.

Work out for 5 days - No excuses.

Set clear productivity goals - I am going to use this week to set some goals for becoming more productive. I will write out a morning routine so I can hit the ground running each day. I will also make a night time routine to set myself up for succeeding at the morning ritual.

I am happy with these goals and I hope to report back with full marks next week. If it turns out I'm not just shouting into an empty cave and there are people reading this I would appreciate any advice on reaching any of these goals.

GL quitting smoking I went over to e-cigarette (which I didn't use excessively either) for 1 year or so before I've quit all types of nicotine some months ago. It's really amazing how weird it feels to walk up a set of stairs without panting once at the top It'll be one of the best things you'll do so GL with all your goals!

Thanks Vonki and well done for defeating this enemy we know as nicotine addiction. I thought about trying the ecig but i just want to be free of the addiction. Today will be my last day as a smoker. Nothing but clean lungs and healthy air from here on out.

I'll be honest, I haven't read your thread just yet. Partly because I'm focusing on sngs at the moment and cash games are somewhat irrelevant for me, partly because I wanted to congratulate you on the very cool title of your blog.

+1!

(I'll read it later though, I promise!)

Haha, thank you Nivekii. Not sure if the content is as good as the title. I think i may have misled people with catchy heading.

What a shitty week. I didn't complete any goals at all. A combination of working 80 hours, catching the cold and various errands that needed attended to resulted in me failing every single goal. Im not going to let it get me down though, just a small bump on the road to greatness. One small upside, I made silverstar status on Pokerstars. I haven't done that for months.

This is the graph since i started this challenge three weeks ago

Overall I am quite happy with my play. There was a couple of instances of tilt which helped towards the losing week but most of the losses were from coolers.

The stats:
Hands Played: 7308
Profit/Loss: -$16.51
Bankroll: $122.39

My goals this week will be the same as last week as I didn't have much time to work on them.

Poker

Play at least 10,000 hands -

Develop a long term study plan - I am giving this more priority than playing this week. I feel I would benefit from more structure.

Life

Stop Smoking - No excuses. I will not fail this time.

Work out for 5 days - Having a cold I will aim to just do 25 mins per day this week so I don't overdo it.

Set clear productivity goals - I did actually write these down and was getting into the swing of it before it crashed out halfway through the week. The goal this week is really to follow them each day.

Last week I said I hope to report back with full marks. This week I am not hoping, I am demanding it of myself.

he there,

GL with the smoking goal, i think that is the most important one (don't tell my boss that i told you it is more important than poker :-))

Also, for the productivity, it is really important to be concrete. Have a look at our nice article:
Setting and reaching goals

Thanks for the advice sven, I'll give it a read. I agree with you on the smoking goal. That is definitely the most important goal of all and the one i will have the most pride at achieving.

He garynicol85,

it is me again, still not smoking? Maybe you mixed something up ? Because there was no rule to stop reporting your results for the BR challenge, or did you crush too much ?
Here the quick link for you: https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=326222&page=73