Hands: 2,470
Won: -$82.72
Rakeback: +$10
Total: -$72.72
Total winnings: $2459.13
Still haven’t moved to a new apartment, waiting for some final stuff to get in, and unfortunately there is too little time left for poker. Overall this week I made a jump from NL10 to NL20 in my mini bankroll building, but it didn’t go so well. I’m really looking forward to be able to grind a lot more, to rebuild my roll and take another shot at NL50.
Hands: 3,361
Won: +$116.77
Rakeback: +$40
Total: +$156.77
Total winnings: $2615.90
This week went pretty good, but still a bit disappointed with my volume. On the other hand it’s understandable that it’s harder to grind a lot of hands on regular tables compared to zoom. Another disappointing thing is that I’m still finding basic leaks in my game, that should have been gone by now. But what can you do. We are here for the long road of never ending learning.
Hands: 1,424
Won: -$101.28
Rakeback: +$10
Total: -$91.28
Total winnings: $2525.62
So I skipped the last week, but I have finally moved to a new place and I am gradually starting a new routine of working/grinding/studying. Now I will have a bit more time for poker in general and I will try to take a studying approach which didn’t work for me in the past, but I have a feeling that it might help me improve my game a lot. Specifically I started recording my sessions and analyzing every spot, thinking about ranges with all the necessary adjustments in mind. I feel that exploitative part of my game is lacking quite a bit and it creates some problems on regular tables. Hopefully this method will help me improve my game and understanding of poker in general.
Hands: 3,661
Won: +$46.46
Rakeback: +$22
Total: +$68.46
Total winnings: $2594.08
Still struggling to find and fix leaks in my game on regular tables, but overall I feel like now I’m moving in the right direction. Also I have found some left over money on PokerStars and played a bit of zoom there. It’s funny, but it feels like zoom is much easier, as in it’s easier to make decisions without leveling yourself and making wrong adjustments. In a couple of days I’ll be finishing up my bonus on the site I’m currently playing and after that I will maybe look for some other sites to play on, but that’s always a hard decision.
Hands: 15,209
Won: +$349.12
Rakeback: +$20
Total: +$369.12
Total winnings: $2963.20
So this week I’ve abandoned the idea of playing at regular tables, I gave them a long enough try and it seems that something in my game prevents me from playing them profitably. I haven’t managed to play a decent enough sample on regular tables, about 30+k, which took me more than 2 months, and it felt wrong all the way through for some reason. I know that it’s a very small sample to make some sort of judgement, but after playing half that sample in just a week at fast poker format, I think that it’s definitely a way to go. Also this week I’ve managed to make an in-depth analysis of my game, which I haven’t done it seems in ages, and found out some major leaks that were present in my game even a year ago and as it turns out I still fall back to them, when I’m not consciously paying attention to those spots. But at least now I know what to work on, I have a solid plan for improving and going forward.
Hey elpsycho 
!
Just finished reading your whole blog and I must say well done! You seem to be so organised and knowledgeable and know how to analyse yourself.
Did you manage to deposit your money back, or are you still using a mini roll? Just asking because I feel I would be tilted easily if my bankroll on screen was to small.
Also what stakes are you playing now?
Anyway, good luck! Not that you need it with a work ethic like yours!
Hey, stompy91!
Nice to hear that you managed to read through my blog. 
No, I didn’t manage to deposit back any money, and what’s worse I had to withdraw some more, which as you’ve pointed out is kinda tilting and demotivating at the same time. But what can you do, that’s life, so I will continue grinding and rebuilding my roll. For the last couple of weeks I was playing nl30 snap on 888, but I think that in the future I will settle on stars, since out of all sites I had the best experience there. The games I’m playing now are much softer but I don’t enjoy them for some reason. As you might have noticed, I like theoretical and analytical side of poker, and all this stuff pretty much goes out the window when playing in very soft fields. So looking back at past couple of month I feel like leaving stars wasn’t as good of an idea for me as it seemed at the time, mainly because something in my game prevents me to adapt to softer fields. Maybe it’s lack of knowledge on exploitative poker on my part. To be honest, now it feels like I’m relying more on variance than on my skill to win, which is a bummer really. So yeah, I hope to return to stars and take poker and studying a bit more seriously, than I do now.
Well just stay motivated and keep studying and all your hard work will pay off!
I know what you mean about 888 as stars software is so much better but the games are maybe tougher. I'm sure with your skill you would maybe even get on better over there!
Good luck with everything and I'll maybe see you on stars some time next year! although you might be playing NL500 zoom by then so maybe not haha
Hands: 3,523
Won: +$86.33
Total winnings: $2863.66
I’ve missed a couple of updates in my blog, since I haven’t been playing a lot of poker due to holidays, but now I’m steadily returning to grinding. This week I’ve taken a session with a coach and it had a tremendous effect on my game, at least on my mindset. Apart from pointing out quite a big leak in my auto-pilot game, he suggested a nice system for documenting my sessions and study, which has improved my focus at the tables tenfold.
Another useful tip he gave me is how to follow a study plan more efficiently without jumping from one topic to another, which was a major problem I had with my study sessions. So I’ve been working on my game in this manner for about a week now, and I’m starting to see a lot of improvement in my game and also I’m starting to shed some misconceptions about lower stakes poker, which have significantly hindered my poker progress during past couple of months. Hopefully, I’m on a right track now and good results will follow.
In poker, there is only so much that you can achieve on your own through playing, reading, or watching videos. A good coach will shine light on parts of your game that you’d never otherwise be able to see. Coaching is now so ubiquitous in poker that extolling its virtues would be preaching to the choir— but if you don’t have a coach by now, get one. See your coach once a week, or once every two weeks if it’s all you can afford— but see someone. Always have that eye over your shoulder. No matter how good or bad things are going, you always want a second pair of hands guiding your development.
Qureshi, Haseeb. How to Be a Poker Player: The Philosophy of Poker.
Hands: 5,859
Won: +$39.10
Bonus: +$20
Total: +$59.10
Total winnings: $2922.76
This whole week I was focusing on a specific part of my game, which was playing preflop from the BB. Somehow, it feels like a huge leap in my game, at least mentally. I finally overcame my tendency to jump from one concept or situation to another, without cementing the previous one into my mind. This was one of my main problems all along. I was focusing too much on wrong things, while leaking money in spots, which I was studying previously, but obviously not enough, since in the end my auto-pilot got the best of me.
Another change I made is what I always knew was a right approach, but was too lazy to implement it in my routine. Which is setting session goals, documenting thoughts after every session and grading my mental and technical performance. This made me much more focused and I feel like this change alone should improve my winrate significantly. And for now I will continue focusing at one thing at a time, at least this way poker doesn’t seem so overwhelming and daunting.
Hands: 2,979
Won: +$1.45
Total winnings: $2924.21
Haven’t played a lot of hands this week, but spent decent amount of time studying BB defending strategy, which was great. Immersing myself into a single concept and learning everything I can about it is truly a game changer for me. I don’t remember the last time I had such motivation to study poker, and what is even more awesome, I feel myself detaching from the results and outcomes of a hand, session, week. Having a clear goal for sessions and study does wonders to the mindset, and, as I’ve already stated numerous times, it really helps improve your game. So when I’m finished with BB defense I will tackle the next concept and continue progressing through them one by one. For me this was the long-awaited answer to the questions “How should I study?”, “How do I organize my poker life?”, “What should I learn?”, “How do I know if my study method is correct?”, “Am I going in the right direction?”.
Hands: 5,488
Won: +$87.00
Bonus: +$10
Total: +$97.00
Total winnings: $3021.21
This week I’ve been studying C-Betting OOP, which can be a tedious and at the same time quite interesting topic. I guess I’ll be stuck with c-betting for quite some time, as it’s a very broad and complex concept, and the one that occurs in poker with a very high frequency.
Apart from that, I’ve been challenging my assumptions regarding how people think and play. Because the truth is I don’t know. Of course we can make assumptions and base our plays on them, but if you are stuck on certain stakes for some time there is one thing you should realize - you make wrong assumptions all the f-ing time. No amount of analysis and clever programs can make you money if your assumptions are off the mark. So I found it very liberating and helpful for my game to make only one assumption, which is I suck at poker and the only thing I can do is constantly improve.
Hands: 7,007
Won: +$152.22
Rakeback: +$100
Total: +$252.22
Total winnings: $3273.43
Well, not a lot of updates this week really. I have just kept on grinding and studying C-bet spots. I suppose next week will be the same. C-betting is such a vast and complex topic, and I will be studying it for the foreseeable future.
Hands: 3,152
Won: -$33.97
Total winnings: $3239.46
This week, to be honest, I was slacking a bit. I took some days off poker and returned to grinding only in the end of the week. However, this week I’m planning to return to my normal schedule. I’ve been jumping between zoom and regular tables and decided that it doesn’t really matter that much as long as I’m able to get some volume in. Regular tables are definitely more profitable, but starting a session can be a pain in the ass even on NL25, so sometimes playing zoom is simply more convenient. At the end of the week, I got a nice bonus from stars in the form of 5k stars coins, which was a very pleasant surprise, and with that in mind, my week was slightly profitable after all.
Taking a break also allowed me to eliminate a big part of “going through the motions” mentality in my grinding and significantly decrease the amount of unnecessary spews and random plays. So, hopefully, in the near future I will doing another shot at NL50, which has been my bane for quite some time now.
Hands: 3,231
Won: -$203.34
Total winnings: $3036.12
This was a very fun week indeed, and I definitely haven’t played my best poker. But I still learned a lot and made some adjustments to my game. Sometimes it’s much better to keep things simple, which I will definitely try to do from now on.
Tourneys: 403
Won: +$348
Total winnings: $3384.12
This was quite interesting week for me, since I didn’t grind cash at all, but instead I’ve experimented with Spins with my friend IvicaIliev77, who is a very good SNG player and I’ve learned a lot from him. To be honest, grinding Spins was the most fun I had in months in poker. The dynamic nature of them and constant adjusting of strategy make them very addictive and really fun.
For now I’m going to keep grinding them and learn some heads-up and shortstacked poker, and when IvicaIliev77 gets back to grinding, we are going to have a challenge to see how profitable Spins really are.
Originally posted by elpsycho
when IvicaIliev77 gets back to grinding, we are going to have a challenge to see how profitable Spins really are.
Wow. Looking forward to this. 
Originally posted by Lazza61
Originally posted by elpsycho
when IvicaIliev77 gets back to grinding, we are going to have a challenge to see how profitable Spins really are.
Wow. Looking forward to this.
+1
Puppy that graph is so sexy baby, keep up the grind with study habit and soon we start our challenge!
:f_drink::f_cool::f_love:
Tourneys: 483
Won: +$46
Total winnings: $3430.12
This week I was learning first-hand all about swings in Spins and those can be pretty harsh on an unprepared mindset. Still, rational thoughts and playing with variance simulators showed me that there are no doom switches and voodoo dolls full of pins in PokerStars offices, so I kept on grinding and it payed off in the end. Obviously, it was not a big swing in terms of what can happen in Spins, and I guess I should be prepared for around 200 buy-in swings, but still it was quite an experience for me, since I’ve never played hyper formats before.
Overall, I’m having a blast playing spins and, at least for now, they seem more profitable for me than cash, so why the hell not. If we are here to grind up some cash, why not have some fun in the meanwhile.
