Beginner to Pro? Attempting a cautious comeback

It's a third day of my challenge and mission is accomplished again! That's 3 days in a row now!

Then again... the last winning hand is nothing to be proud of... All three villains were complete fish, so I thought "what the hell, let's take some chances"! I guess stupid play DOES pay now and then...

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $0.25(BB) Replayer
BB ($25.47)
($46.68)
Hero ($26.14)
UTG+1 ($22.93)
UTG+2 ($4.63)
MP1 ($4.38)
CO ($24)

BB posts (SB) $0.12

Dealt to Hero 8♠ 8♣

Hero raises to $1, UTG+1 calls $1, fold, MP1 raises to $4.37, CO calls $4.37, fold, fold, Hero calls $3.37, UTG+1 calls $3.37

FLOP ($17.85) 7♣ 7♥ 6♣

Hero bets $8.92, UTG+1 calls $8.92, MP1 calls $0.01 (AI), CO folds

TURN ($35.70) 7♣ 7♥ 6♣ 8♥

Hero bets $12.85 (AI), UTG+1 calls $9.64 (AI)

RIVER ($54.98) 7♣ 7♥ 6♣ 8♥ K♠

Hero shows 8♠ 8♣

Hero wins $52.28

Day 4 of my challenge and another success! Just keeping my mouth shut for now...

is there rly a point in this rule? ur not playing for full ur potential, u could be making much more not just 1BI :/
if ur so affraid of varriance then poker isn't a game for u

Originally posted by TilTmuch
is there rly a point in this rule? ur not playing for full ur potential, u could be making much more not just 1BI :/
if ur so affraid of varriance then poker isn't a game for u

I think there is a point, yes. More than one actually. First of all - this little system is getting me back on track in little steps. Second - it will not allow me to suffer big losses at least for some time.

I am playing at full potential when I am at the table, so I don't really understand what you mean. I just keep my sessions fairly short for now, thats it.

I am not afraid of variance. Who gave you that idea? If there is something I am afraid of then its my skill level. I am afraid I am not good enough to survive from my poker earnings alone.

When I had a good job and was earning 4000$ a month I wouldn't even blink at losing measly 100$ at the end of a month. I probably wouldn' t even mention it in my blog. But when your poker bankroll is 90% of the total money you have and you have to cash out something every month in order to pay your bills and buy food, then perspective changes significantly. Suddenly even braking even is bad news.

Maybe you are right and poker is not the game for me, but at the moment poker is all I have and I am trying the best I can to make a living out of it. From that perspective making 1BI day and is way better than losing 5BI's a day like it was happening for last few weeks.

sry i didn't mean to hurt ur feelings. didn't know about ur status.
but for me, i think like not only u will have -5BI days, u will have +5too.
btw, with ur 1BI a day, can u actualy move up limits, or u have to withdraw everything to pay bills?

by only letting urself win 1BI a day, ur seriously lacking volume, all ur rule does is stop u putting volume in and just actually increases variance. Sure having a stoploss is good, agreed but having a stopwin is retarded.

also i think u should fold 88 pre.

Day 5 - target reached again! Today was a difficult day... There was no game until evening and even then all the tables were infested with shortstacks. I was running below zero for most of the session and decided to quit when I got really tired even though I was only few euros up. Challenge or no challenge but there is no point in playing when you are physically tired. Funny thing is - when things are going your way, they are just going your way no matter what. I was already closing tables and orbiting out when I hit a set, stacked the guy and ended 1 BI up anyways. Whay can't it be always like that!?

to TilTmuch:
It's OK, no damage done. You live in Latvia the same as me, you can do the calculations.

to fusionpk:
I can see your point and you are absolutely right. Theoretically. In reality, however situation is a bit different.

- at the moment I couldnt care less about the volume. I need winning days to get my mindset and confidence back. Its so damaged now, that I am not even sure I can win at NL25 even if I put the volume in. Yes, yesterday I played like 150 hands only, but I spent the rest of the day studying, analysing my game and watching poker videos.

- at the moment I cannot afford to have a minus 5BI day neither financially, nor mentally. And it will hurt double if I happen to up at some point in the session and did not stop then. So I stop when I am up 1BI.

- I have a bit of a problem with long sessions anyways. My statistics shows that all the long sessions I have I either are close to breakeven (small win, small loss) or I have huuuge loss. So I feel that keeping sessions short and sweet is very good for me now.

- with NL25 on Boss Media I cannot put any serious volume in even if I wanted to. For example today there were 2 tables open for an hour 1 PM, then action died completely and restarted agan only about 5 PM. Even now at midnight, peak hour, there are only 9 tables open. And even that is a lot, sometimes there are 4-6 only. And if you think those tables are full of fish, think again. They are full of Spanish sortstack monkeys: ♠_evil:

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I think you will agree with me that there is no point in putting a volume at tables like this ( should I mention that only 2 non-shortstacks at that table are regs with rock stats?). So I prefer sitting down only when there are fish around, play till I take their money, leave immediately after that.

Anyways, this is only a temporary measure to keep me in good spirits and I will probably be back in full action from the beginning of October.

As for those 88... ofc I had to fold it pre! Thats the whole point of posting that hand!

P.S. On the offtopic... I have only recently discovered Japanese anime and now watch something every day. That nation is wierd... It really requires a special mindset to come up with things like that.

I really liked Ninja Scroll, Elfen Lied was just sick but I enjoyed new experience. First 3 seasons of Bleach were great (waiting for the rest to load). Now watching Death Note (very, very good) and there is more stuff downloading...

oh cool, didn't know ur from latvia too ♦
even more gl now ♦

Let me tell you how my day went so far. I really hope fusionpk will read this as well... ♠_evil:

Oddly enough there were 2 tables open pretty early, about 4-5 fish, so day started pretty good, I was in a good mood, ready for action... 15 minutes later total fish 54/20 calls my KK pf raise with T4s and hits 2pair. ♠_evil: After 5 minutes I hit a set and fish hits a flush on the river with J8s. ♠_evil: OK, thats 2 BI's down, I have reached my stop loss limit, I should quit... but wait!

I clearly played those hands right, I played only about 20 mins so far, I am not tilting, there are plenty of fish at the tables... so... lets get some volume in, because that will definitely decrease the variance or so heard. In the meantime I might get my money back, right?

3 hours and 1000 hands later, after none of my draws completed, none of my good hands paid off, one squeeze gone wrong, a couple of nasty coolers I am 190 EUR or in other words more than 7 BI's down for a day!!!! ♠_evil: ♠_evil: ♠_evil:

I have lost DOUBLE of what I have won in last 5 days, I have lost realistical hope of breaking even this month (even with rakeback and bonuses), I have been laughed at and verbally abused by two fish, who had no clue what was going on, I am facing the worst monthly result in my NL25 history, my hands are shaking with anger and I am generally in a terrible state of mind... again!!! ♠_evil:

Now... I would really like fusionpk or some other expert come and give me an advice. What to do? Should I put some more volume in today? ♠_evil: Or should I follow something that seems to work for me? ♠_evil:

Originally posted by SilverSag
Let me tell you how my day went so far. I really hope fusionpk will read this as well... ♠_evil:

Oddly enough there were 2 tables open pretty early, about 4-5 fish, so day started pretty good, I was in a good mood, ready for action... 15 minutes later total fish 54/20 calls my KK pf raise with T4s and hits 2pair. ♠_evil: After 5 minutes I hit a set and fish hits a flush on the river with J8s. ♠_evil: OK, thats 2 BI's down, I have reached my stop loss limit, I should quit... but wait!

I clearly played those hands right, I played only about 20 mins so far, I am not tilting, there are plenty of fish at the tables... so... lets get some volume in, because that will definitely decrease the variance or so heard. In the meantime I might get my money back, right?

3 hours and 1000 hands later, after none of my draws completed, none of my good hands paid off, one squeeze gone wrong, a couple of nasty coolers I am 190 EUR or in other words more than 7 BI's down for a day!!!! ♠_evil: ♠_evil: ♠_evil:

I have lost DOUBLE of what I have won in last 5 days, I have lost realistical hope of breaking even this month (even with rakeback and bonuses), I have been laughed at and verbally abused by two fish, who had no clue what was going on, I am facing the worst monthly result in my NL25 history, my hands are shaking with anger and I am generally in a terrible state of mind... again!!! ♠_evil:

Now... I would really like fusionpk or some other expert come and give me an advice. What to do? Should I put some more volume in today? ♠_evil: Or should I follow something that seems to work for me? ♠_evil:

Imho QUIT poker and get your old 4£k monthly job salary! More safe.

Originally posted by ramtatatam
Imho QUIT poker and get your old 4£k monthly job salary! More safe.

:f_biggrin: I could not do that even if I wanted to... country's economy is in ruins and my speciality is (was) real estate. :f_biggrin: I will not be able to get my job back for at least 3 more years... maybe even more. So I have to choose between being unemployed or being a (hopefully winning) poker pro. :f_biggrin: Can't really say it's a tough decision, can you? :f_biggrin:

and... believe it or not - I actually LIKE playing poker and I enjoy most of the time at the tables. It's just that lately... oh well, you can see everything in the blog. And this afternoon was like.... brrrr!!!! ♠_evil: ♠_evil: ♠_evil: ♠_evil: ♠_evil:

I am OK now. Will study my hand histories to find leaks and probably do another session later in the night... or maybe not. It doesn't matter anymore now, since I will be down for the month anyways. Just need to get back to usual routine and grind it through...

Hey.

Im felipezenteno, from Chile, i been trilled reading this blog, im a completely fish even in micro limits (but im learning with the beginner school here in pokerstrategy) , but i want to give you a piece of advice, because im amazed with your constancy and your responsability using your bankroll for living.

have you read the book "Small Stakes No Limit Hold Em", i believe its a must read for you, to beat those rocks that you face every day at boss network.

with all humility i told you about that book, I hope you become a big shark in the short term

Thank you felipe for nice words! Need all the help I can get now.

Overall result for September -----> FAIL ♠_evil: ♠_evil: ♠_evil:

I wont even post any graphs, results, etc. No need to look at them now, won't make me feel any better. I lost in NL50, lost in NL25, I even managed to lose on both my nanostakes projects - NL2 on Stars and NL4 on iPoker. Even after receiving bonuses and rakeback, I am still down overall. That has never happened before in my entire poker carreer.

I failed to reach my goals, failed to follow stop-loss limit... oh well...

OK, the month is over and lets concentrate what we will do next:

Game plan for October :

Play only when feeling great, confident and when there are few or no regulars and shortstacks
Play 30 000 hands minimum and try to reach 40 000 hands
Play NL25 and dont even think about NL50 this month!
Play some smaller limits on Stars and iPoker to get PS status to Silver
Post at least 10 hands for review
Study at least 1 hour a day
Start working on leaks - concentrate on playing top pairs (especially overplaying AK), betting and BB defense

how are u going to play 40-50k hands ina month with ur 1BI rule?
i can hardly get 50+k hands playing +-20days/month with avg 2.5-3k day.
anyways gl with ur goal and being down one month is nothing unreal, every poker pro have had months when they are in red.

Originally posted by TilTmuch
how are u going to play 40-50k hands ina month with ur 1BI rule?
i can hardly get 50+k hands playing +-20days/month with avg 2.5-3k day.
anyways gl with ur goal and being down one month is nothing unreal, every poker pro have had months when they are in red.

First, 1BI rule was just a temporary measure. I am back on track, in a fairly good mood given the circumstances, and ready to grind. And... since I it seems that I am not able to stop when losing 2BIs, then its really not very smart to limit your winnings, but not limit your losses. It should be other way around.

I am not planning 50K, I can possibly reach 40K by playing 1.5-2.0K hands day, which is realistic. I play basically every day and try to do at least 1.0k hands.

I could go for more, but there is not enough action on Boss Media and currently I don't want to play more than 6 tables.

finnaly u got what we are saying. no need to limit winnings, but u can do stop loose.
have u ever tried other room? cuz 6tabling and 1k hands a day is quite low assuming all u do for living is poker.
cuz if im in a mood to play i do like 3-5k hands/day while 6tabing

I think instead of giving yourself this Stop-Win limit you should simply play your sessions on time alone. Set a time limit for your sessions and when the alarm goes off just start blinding out instantly. I've just started doing this and it's working well. No more playing for stupidly long amounts of time because you're stuck, and no more cutting sessions short because you're a few BI up early on

to TilTmuch:
I understood what are you saying from very beginning. It's just that I was in terrible mood and I needed something to get me through. It was only a temporary measure.

I have a very good rakeback deal which pulled me through last 2 months. Also I kinda know the competition now and I know what can I expect. Changing poker rooms in this current situation is the last thing I want to do.

That said, I am slowly building small bankrolls on iPoker and PokerStars. If those will go smoothly then I might consider moving there.

to Wriggers:
Hmmm... I kinda like the idea. Might be worth trying out.

First few days of October brought nothing special. Broke even on 1st, won a little two days. I am doing a healthy 12bb/100h (ofc bad luck hasn't left me - lost KK to QQ, QQ to JJ, flopped fullhouse didn't get paid, flopped quads didn't get paid, so should be winning much more), but... I have played only 2500 hands in 3 days, which is a bit worrying.

There is so little action that I can't get any volume in. Not sure what to do... I have checked - there is plenty of action at NL50 and NL100, so I can't really say that I have to leave the network because I have no future here, but still...

1-2 tables open during after noon is no good... and when the action finally starts at around midnight I am tired and sleepy... ♠_evil:

Good thing is that I have plenty of time to study and read articles. Maybe that will finally dring in some needed results.

I don't know is there something wrong with me... maybe I will never be good at poker if can't make myself follow my own plan... ♠_evil:

After 3 winning days came 3 losing days and I was only few euros up again Most importantly, this time it was not because of bad luck, but because of bad play from my part. Good thing I didn't tilt, kept my cool and kept playing

Bad thing (or maybe not?) was the fact that I started to play NL50 again. There was no action on NL20 and NL25 tables, I calculated that I cannot make enough in rakeback if it continues like that and... there were plenty of fish at NL50... so I can't lose, right?

Today I ended 150 EUR up and my good mood is slowly returning together with confidence.