Plugging leaks and climbing the ladder

Hey thebaptist333,

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.

You can certainly include rakeback and bonuses. ♠_thumbsup:

Have fun

Laz

I look forward to the weekends because it seems like that's when all the fish come out to play, but I started this weekend with a bit of a nasty downswing. I've started playing more 6-max tables to get more hands in and to help clear my bonus faster. I'm usually quite a tight player on full ring, I play something around 15/12/3 (vpi/pfr/3bet). But on 6-max I try to loosen up quite a bit and I sometimes end up in some costly spots. I find there are more regs on 6-max and a lot of them won't fold to a flop c-bet. I've since realized that position is way more important on 6-max, and I've started playing more cautiously post flop. Since making those adjustments, I managed to grind my downswing back and was about 15 dollars up from the start of my downswing but then went on another small bad run and lost most of that.

Here's the breakdown:

total hands played: 28,415
bankroll: $226

This week was rough. I'm playing the 6-max tables now but I'm finding it really hard to adjust to the LAGS. It seems like this week all the tables were just full of LAGS, combine that with being card dead and the result is a major downswing. It feels like this week was either me making a stand and putting a lot of money in the pot with the second best hand, or getting it all in when I'm way ahead and villain hits a miracle 2-outer on the river. I've had a good number of bad beats this week but there is one that was especially painful. All the money went in on the turn in a 3-way pot with, each with 100BB+ stacks, so it was over 300BB pot. I had top set (99), villain 1 had second set (66), villain 2 had overpair (JJ), there was no draws on board so I knew I had the nuts. On the river I need to dodge 3 cards to win the pot. The river was a J

My biggest leak at the moment is adjusting to the LAGS. I tighten up against these players but when I finally get a playable hand, something like AK, I don't seem to be connecting with the board. I'm cbetting less, because LAGS don't ever seem to fold on the flop. I also find a lot of these players will donk into you on dry boards. So if I open pre with AKo, the LAG player will call out of position, then if the flop is something like 2,7,J they will donk into you, then what do you do? I'm 95% sure at this point that I have the best hand, but I'm scared to raise because I don't want to face a shove, so I call, then they donk again on the turn, and if I call again, they donk again on the river. I'm really struggling with dealing with this line of action and it seems to be happening a lot. I end up calling my stack away, and I know that's a huge mistake. A lot of times I get sucked into calling a flop donk and a turn donk, then I fold the river because at this point they're putting me all in. I know this is a huge leak, but I'm not quite sure how to adjust. I watched a video yesterday by a youtuber called gripsed where he talked specifically about dealing with LAGS, so I'm looking forward to my next session and hopefully implementing some of those tips.

I just remembered another sick hand I played yesterday against one of these lags. I had AA, and this guy raised, so I 3bet and he called out of position. The flop comes 6,x,x all clubs, I have the A of clubs, he checks, I bet, he calls, the turn is x of diamonds, he checks, I bet again, he shoves all in. At this point, I'm pretty sure I have the best hand, the board is not paired, and even if he has made flush, I have outs, and I had so much money invested already that I was not folding. I call and he turns over 64o with the 4 of clubs. So he's shoving all his stack in with a pair of sixes and the 4 high flush draw. I'm crushing him at this point. The river is a 6 of diamonds, and I have to watch another buyin get scooped up by another LAGtard.

Here's the brakdown:

total hands played: 47,272
bankroll: $189

This week started out like last week. One of my biggest weaknesses is that I'm too results oriented, this means that when I start losing, or winning, a few pots, I start playing badly, I either tighten up too much and end up folding to a lot of bluffs, or I loosen up too much and end up putting a lot of money in the pot with the second best hand. I decided that in order to stop the bleeding, I would drop down to NL2. The main reason for this is so that I can play my best game without worrying about the result as much. So far, so good. After a slow start to the week, I've managed to end the week in profit.

total hands played: 58,892
bankroll: $218

Due to inconvenient powers cuts, and internet troubles I only managed to play over the weekend. My stats for the week should reflect that.

total hands played: 63,358
bankroll: $222

Another week where I could only play over the weekend. I don't mind though, I find I play more relaxed when I play less often and I'm actually enjoying it more.

My youngest siblings were visiting this week so I spent some time doing other stuff with them, like going to the movies, etc.

total hands played: 65,701
bankroll: $233

I played very little poker this week. I had to be admitted to hospital for some minor surgery and was there for about 4 days. I play on winner poker and for some reason the cash tables often won't load, it seems to happen mostly during the week. I don't know if it's a problem with my internet or if it's an issue with winner poker, but some days I simply can't play cause the tables just don't load.

Anyway, hopefully I'll get some decent sessions in this coming week. I try to play at least a couple of hours a day, but it seems like that's just not happening the last few weeks.

total hands played: 66,112
bankroll: $235

So I'm not sure if this challenge is still going, but I feel like typing up an update anyway.

I didn't really enjoy the winner poker software that much so I withdrew my whole bankroll and consolidated into pokerstars. I like the pokerstars software a lot, unfortunately I signed up for it before I knew about poker strategy so I don't collect points for using it.

So my personal challenge last year was to try and be making $2500 dollars per month. Due to different circumstances (mainly lack of discipline to grind), I haven't achieved that goal, far from it in fact. But it's a new year and I'm here to take another stab at it.

I have a problem with being too results oriented. I tend to set a results based goal and then I get disheartened when it doesn't quite work out. This year I want to approach poker from a slightly different angle. Instead of making result oriented goals, I want to make more volume oriented goals.

So my goal for the next 3 months will be to grind out 75,000 hands a month. At the moment I'm only 2-tabling 5nl zoom.

Ok so after consolidating all my rolls into pokerstars, I had a starting bankroll of about $275. We are almost half way through January and so far I've gotten about 20 or so sessions in totaling just under 17,000 hands. I have a ways to go to get to 75,000 for the month.

It's been slow going. I had a few 2BI+ downswings and 1 very profitable 9BI session, so I'm sitting at around 3bb/100 at 5NL and about 1.6bb/100 at all stakes. It's not great, but I'm not going to concern myself with that this year. I'm going to employ a very conservative bankroll management, so I'll start taking stabs at NL10 once I get close to $500.

That's my graph so far. I know it's not pretty, but it's early days.

Total hand count will be from beginning of 2016 from now on.

current roll: $297.14
total hands: 16,797

Quick update.

I've played way more hands than I anticipated. I've been 3 tabling zoom exclusively so that could have something to do with it.

I found 20 dollars on one of the other sites I played on, so I moved it to stars and added it to my BR.

My win rate so far is quite appalling, but it is a win rate so that's something. I'm doing under 2bb/100 on 5NL after about 80,000 hands

Here's my graph

current roll: $398.82
total hands: 85,101

very nice, man

Thanks.

So my graph has taken a bit of hit over the weekend.

I've stopped playing the zoom tables. While I do get a lot of volume in, the tables are just full of nits and the grind can become quite painful to get through. I find I'm losing way more from my mistakes than I am winning from the mistakes of others.

I had a horrible session on Saturday morning playing 5NL zoom. I dropped just over 8 stacks in 8000+ hands. My win rate for 5NL zoom is now sitting at 0.41bb/100 after 81,000+ hands.

So now I'm 6 tabling 5NL 6max regular tables. It's much slower obviously, but definitely more fish willing to put their stack in with second pair. I'm still going through a bit of a rough patch, but I feel like my play is solid for the most part so the variance should even out. Obviously I still have big leaks in my game, but right now I'm focusing on just grinding out the volume.

here's my graph

current roll: $359.18
total hands: 110,225

Hey man, def following from this point on! gl !

ok so there's been a slight change of direction. I've been chatting to Vonki and I'm very pleased that she's decided to coach me.

We've only had a few session's so far, but she's already helped me see some very big leaks in my game. One of the big problems she's helped me see is that I tend to play for very long periods of time and I play too many tables. Obviously the problem with that is that I play on autopilot without fully understanding what my mistakes are, so I'm autopiloting bad play.

So we've decided that I should play a maximum of 4 hours per day, and I will play a maximum of 3 tables standard FR. So having been playing 4 tables of 6-max zoom, this is obviously a big adjustment for me, but I think it's helping me a lot, I'm taking more time with my decisions and trying to understand the opponent's and the situation better instead of just clicking buttons.

Before we decided on these rules I had a long 9 hour session where I dropped 7 BI's, so my graph is going to look quite terrible. Only way to go from here is up.

One obvious side effect from working with Vonki is that there is no way for me to do 75,000 hands a month anymore as was my original goal. But I think that's a good thing, clearly it wasn't working.

current roll: $410.78
total hands: 116,530

I had $75 on a different site which I added to the bank roll.

Looking forward to working together, really excited to see where our path takes you

I think ima start this up again. I've been playing for a few months now and I'm itching for a place to brag about my successes and cry when the donkeys suck out on me.

I'm at work atm, I'll post my goals for 2019 when I get home.

Good luck at the tables.

Game: nl10 6max regular
Tables: 2
bankroll: 302.99 euros
BR management: start introducing higher limit at 20 BI
Goal for 2019: buy a house

played for 7.5 hours last night. I ended the session about half a BI down but it felt like a win. At one point I was down 6.5 BI's.

I think I was playing fine early, I might have made a few iffy plays early on which put me in the hole. By iffy I mean, calling all in with top 2 against loose passive fish with 0.9af, and calling chk/raise all in from same player on A high board with AQo. Apart from those 2, I I got unlucky in some spots, set over set, shoving all in HU with 66 against AK and rivering the A, pocket TT vs pair of 9 and rivering a 9, KK vs AT on QJ9 board and rivering an A.

I don't like losing sessions, but I console myself in the knowledge that I can be 6.5BI down and still play close to my best game. And I think I played some good poker in the second half of the session.

I'm not 100% certain about this hand. villain is 89vpip/51prf/4af. I think my call preflop is fine since we are deepstacked and there is another caller.

On the flop I shove because villain was overbetting the pot a lot, and if I call with my flush draw, I don't know what to do on the turn if I don't hit. Also I think my pair of 6's is good here some of the time.

Holdem manager tells me that I have 54% equity on the flop against his AK so I guess my play was fine since AK is the very top of his range.

Poker Stars, $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: $17.16 (171.6 bb)
BB: $10 (100 bb)
Hero (UTG): $17.33 (173.3 bb)
MP: $5.65 (56.5 bb)
CO: $17.54 (175.4 bb)
BTN: $10 (100 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 6♣: 5♣:
Hero calls $0.10, MP calls $0.10, CO raises to $0.70, 2 folds, BB calls $0.60, Hero calls $0.60, MP folds

Flop: ($2.25) 7♣: 6♦: A♣: (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, CO bets $2.70, BB folds, Hero raises to $16.63 and is all-in, CO calls $13.93

Turn: ($35.51) Q♦: (2 players, 1 is all-in)
River: ($35.51) 2♣: (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results:

Bit of an up and down day today but ended on a high so I'm happy.