Too many fish - not enough cooks!

Hi everyone! Some of you sharks and forum nerds might remember me from blogging some time ago, but for those who don't, here is link to my previous blog.
Not much you can see there now, b/c image hosting site imageshack.us started charging me with fees and i deleted my account there, all pictures, tables and graphs were lost in process.
But other things like intro about myself and history is there!

A lot of things happened since last time I blogged. Long story short - private life, quit job, took brake from studies, quit poker, cashed out.. etc.

In December of 2014 I started to play poker again, with last couple of bucks @ stars just having some fun.. and I quite liked it!
Right after Christmas, 26th of December, I redeposited on stars and my BR was around 50$, and that's when I started to take poker more seriously again. Been more active at forums lately as well.

Why write this blog?

• to understand what I want to achieve playing poker (set goals)
• to reach my goals
• to track my results
• to boost my motivation
• to have some fun

My aim is going to be quality instead of quantity.. or to put it in other words - skills before volume.
Will see how this goes, because that was a problem before.

In addition to all of this I will take participation in bankroll challenge. Anyone who doesnt know what I`m talking about, take a look at Bankroll challenge thread.

OK. Now the things that everyone loves - graphs.

18mans

To resume my 18man turbo game quality, I have to say its pretty bad. Big amounts of knowledge has faded away with time, but the skills I guess stayed the same. A lot of mistakes that I realize during the sessions. A lot of spots where I`m not confident or sure what is the correct decision. If I manage to correct these things, the results should be much better.

Still, with my skills that's left, I can pretty much say that I can beat 1.5$ 18mans. Then will come 3.5$ and after that the old good 7$ where I left last time. Cant wait.

One of things what I need to do next, is to set rules for my bankroll management. Moving up the limits is just around the corner.

MTTs

Naahhh.. nothing special to report here.

BR 152.88

Ahhhhh... Fresh start, feels so good and promising!

The Bankroll Challenge - sign up!
Starting BR: 150$
Targeted BR: 1000$

Hey rupicis2,

Nice. Definitely following. I used to play a lot of 18 manners (both NLHE and NLO8) when I was a huge noob fish and the format owes me money and I want it back.

So I'll definitely be hanging around for some tips and your insight.

GL in Get Rich or Die Tryin'

Laz

Cool.
Gon' follow the thread as well.
Best of luck.

Hi rupucis2,

great to have you in our Bankroll challenge with your blog!
Any luck already this weekend?
We are trying to give a weekly or at least bi-weekly update of everyones challenge. Just to make sure we include you - don't forget to post your update in our https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=326222&goto=firstnew thread, it's due every Monday! Of course for you the first mandatory reporting is only due in the week after, as you probably only played a bit on the weekend!

CU & GL at the tables,SvenBe

Hi players!
Small update and goals for this week at the end of post.

Well... very crazy party last Saturday, only managed to start driving yesterday in the afternoon, before that I just lied in bed and watched tv. Because of my condition I also decided to postpone my Monday workout by one day. Now I can tell you that probably this was the last party till the end of February. Yeah, I know I`m getting old, cant manage to party every weekend like some years ago!

Hi SvenBe!
With my colorful weekend didn't manage to put any good volume and my BR is down by 15$ First update will come next Monday.

Hi RobZomby and Lazza61!
Thanks for good wishes and following. I will try to keep this blog interesting for you and me both!
Heehe.. 18mans NLO8, thats where I first got some taste for 18man format, played NLO8 for fun in 2010 and 2011, even managed profit in them

Goals for this week

• Set poker goals
• Attend 3 PS.com live coachings (LuckyLukePS 13.01., Collin Moshman 14.01., Tim64 15.01.)
• Study/repeat 4 sng theory articles on chip value
• Play 2 session 6-tabling and marking hands, after session review/analyze marked hands.
• 100x18mans

Ok thats it for now, see you at coachings, not at the tables!

Originally posted by rupucis2

Heehe.. 18mans NLO8, thats where I first got some taste for 18man format, played NLO8 for fun in 2010 and 2011, even managed profit in them

Lol. 2011 is when I switched from 18 manners to 45 manners (both NLHE and NLO8) so you probably owe me money

LoL indeed! Well.... I probably gave it back to you in 2012

He rupucis2,

waiting for your update for the challenge! Moving down to where they respect your ROI?
https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=326222&goto=firstnew br>

CU,SvenBe

Previous week goals:

• Set poker goals - completed
  Yearly goals and main guidelines for 2015 are set, going to post more in detail later today.
• Attend 3 PS.com live coachings (LuckyLukePS 13.01., Collin Moshman 14.01., Tim64 15.01.) - completed
  LuckyLukePS 13.01. - MTT coaching. Not my main focus in poker, but I like to play MTTs from time to time and I want to learn something about this type of poker.
  Collin Moshman 14.01. - for me and for most of sng players he is the sng guru, no doubt. This time the coaching was purely based on stt, that's not my format, but still a lot of knowledge anyone can absorb just by watching him play or analyzing others game. In addition I played in his poker stars organized home game, that is taking part in every coaching, shipped it for 1st place earning 6$ + knockouted Collin that gave me additional 5$ ko bounty! ♠_pleased:
  Tim64 15.01. - It was FTP jackpot sng coaching, not planning to play these sng's, just wanted to see whats cooking there. Had some private coachings with Tim before.
• Study/repeat 4 sng theory articles on chip value - completed
  It was good revision of theory I already knew. Only thing that was new for me - The risk premium concept, so some new theory for me to swallow as well.
• Play 2 sessions 6-tabling and marking hands, after session review/analyze marked hands - completed
  Because I run pretty bad this week at poker, I decided to cut down on table count in some sessions and concentrated more on my game, by marking hands and analyzing them right after session. So I did this task more than just 2 times.
  As well I posted one unclear hand in forums and still waiting for review to come.
  Spoiler

  18man sng final table - AJs early position

  Cant figure out whats the best play in this situation. Playing with these stacks and having AJs in EP feels weak to fold here, even if sngwiz shows -0.15% Diff. Nash is (13.7%, 88+ A7s+ A5s-A2s ATo+ KTs+ KJo+ QTs+ JTs) which I think is a bit too wide from EP with these stack sizes and blinds. Would it be better to omr and call shorties and fold vs bigger stacks? Or this would be mistake because bigger stacks could shove over with weaker aces and pp.

  PokerStars - $1.32+$0.18|100/200 Ante 25 NL - Holdem - 9 players
  Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

  MP: 3,555.00
  MP+1: 3,235.00
  LP: 1,885.00
  CO: 2,309.00
  BTN: 4,492.00
  SB: 1,275.00
  BB: 2,212.00
  UTG: 5,085.00
  Hero (UTG+1): 2,952.00

  MP posts ante 25.00, MP+1 posts ante 25.00, LP posts ante 25.00, CO posts ante 25.00, BTN posts ante 25.00, SB posts ante 25.00, BB posts ante 25.00, UTG posts ante 25.00, Hero posts ante 25.00, SB posts SB 100.00, BB posts BB 200.00

  Pre Flop: (525.00) Hero has A:spade: J:spade:

  fold, Hero raises to 2,927.00 and is all-in, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 1,150.00 and is all-in, fold

  Flop: (2925.00, 2 players) 9:diamond: 5:heart: 9:spade:

  Turn: (2925.00, 2 players) 4:diamond:

  River: (2925.00, 2 players) 9:club:

  Spoiler

  SB shows A:diamond: K:diamond: (Three of a Kind, Nines) (Pre 71%, Flop 77%, Turn 90%)
  Hero shows A:spade: J:spade: (Three of a Kind, Nines) (Pre 29%, Flop 23%, Turn 10%)
  SB wins 2,925.00

• 100x18mans - completed
  
  Spoiler

  

  I run pretty bad this week and on top of that I managed to spot some signs of tilt.
  As one of my priorities this year is to improve my mental game, I started to read "The mental game of poker" by Jared Tendler and Barry Carter. A lot of experiments, changes and improvements expected.

Goals for 19 JAN - 2 FEB:

• Conduct monthly review
• Set goals for Feb
• Study/repeat 4 sng theory articles - Playing preflop
• Read TMGOP chapter 3 & 4
• Develop session warm-up routine
• 200x18mans
• Conduct 5 session reviews (6 tabling and marking hands)

Originally posted by SvenBe
He rupucis2,

waiting for your update for the challenge! Moving down to where they respect your ROI?
https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=326222&goto=firstnew br>

CU,SvenBe

No!
Just starting all over again, from scratch (50$). Cant wait to get back at higher limits, just need to work a little bit on my game, gain back some confidence and bankroll.

Bankroll Challenge - WEEK 1

Here is my poker vision and yearly goals.

They of course are not set in stone and probably will change with my development in poker, but at the moment it is a good foundation where to start.

I will post and update them in the first post of this thread, together with monthly goals and other important information.

Bankroll Challenge - WEEK 2

Bankroll Challenge - WEEK 3

JANUARY WRAPUP

MONTHLY GOALS (13-18 & 19-31 JAN)

• Set poker goals
• Attend 3 PS.com live coachings (LuckyLukePS 13.01., Collin Moshman 14.01., Tim64 15.01.) (3 of 3)
• Study/repeat 4 sng theory articles on chip value (4 of 4)
• Play 2 session 6-tabling and marking hands, after session review/analyze marked hands (2+)
• 100x18mans (114 of 100)

• Conduct monthly review
• Set goals for Feb
• Study/repeat 4 sng theory articles - Playing preflop (3 of 3)
• Read TMGOP chapter 3 & 4 (2 of 2)
• Develop session warm-up routine
• 200x18mans (226 of 200)
• Conduct 5 session reviews (5+ of 5)

Hi! Started January fresh and from scratch, and.... well... pretty much everything was done according to plans, made some minimal adjustments and everything went down smoothly.
At this moment I'm not sure how I will conduct these monthly analysis in my blog, I will work on that in future, for now there is more urgent things to work on and those are - my poker and mental skills! That's why I will look back at previous and plan for next month from these two perspectives.

POKER:
Volume wise I did pretty good, managed to play even more than I planned. At the end of the month I was little bit short for silverstar status on stars and I decided to go for it. I had to play ~100 games at my limit in the last 3 days and because my aim for this year is to learn and improve instead of just grinding, this actually was quite difficult, I still was analyzing every other session and that took quite a lot of time.

If I had to choose 1 thing that's the best I improved or picked up this month - it is defiantly my hand analysis and session review. Still a lot to improve here, but its a huge step forward for me and my improvement. I didn't do any hand analysis before.. I tried doing this couple times before, but somehow gave up every time.

At the start of the month I repeated all articles on chip value and learned about risk premium.

Then for the rest of the month (~2weeks) I was focused on other articles - on open raising, preflop raising charts and playing post flop as the preflop aggressor.

1) I fully reorganized my open raise charts, before that I was much tighter, way too tight, but still playing looser than average old-school pokerstrategy micro grinder (like me some time ago ♠_p: ).
2) I adjusted my raise and c-betting sizes.
3) Analyzed and improved my 2nd barreling strategy.
4) Analyzed and improved my strategy when facing donkbets.
5) Improved my hand analysis skills. I marked all unclear hands based on the theory I was learning at that time and I analyzed them right after every session (90% of the times).

Next month I will still focus on all these things and add new theory.

And at last the results for January:

18mans

MTTs and pokerstars daily freeroll shootout promotion

MENTAL GAME:
This month was tough mentally, because of the variance and etc., but I was able to spot leaks for improvement and that made me stronger.
Off course with these results I questioned my game a lot --> had some issues with my confidence and had some signs of tilt, but this was not the case.. my game changes a lot at the moment, I'm adapting to new concepts and strategies and that takes more of my focus and time for adjusting. One very useful thing that helps me during this period is studying The Mental Game of Poker.

Some signs of tilt that I recognized:
2 times in last 2 weeks I quit poker because I was running bad, I thought it was the right choice to do, but actually it wasn't, I just didn't have the necessary knowledge. This already is a sign of TILT. It was not quitting because I made bad decisions at the table or etc., (quitting in that situation would be the wise choice), but it was because of bad results and bad emotions. I guess I was pissed because of how bad I run and the short-term results. I need to get rid of my negative emotions and just play through these hard times.
Also I had 2 situations where I had to fold because I was 99.9% sure I'm behind, but I still made a spite call and payed monies.
Of course there is no smoke without a fire - the good thing is that I was able to recognize these leaks and I can now work on them.

For laughs: