Summer is over, time to grind: from NL2 to NL50 as fast as possible.

That sounds like a tough challenge. Maybe it’s a good idea for you to participate in our https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=325001&page=1 promotion.

Further I wish you all the best with reaching NL50 and improving your game

Cheers,
SDK1987

GL ettorek,

are you going to play zoom or regular tables, FR or SH?
For the coachings, you can always check out our free (and of course also silver+) content here - live streams & videos!
Also looking forward to see you posting some hands & graphs in here!

Originally posted by SDK1987
That sounds like a tough challenge. Maybe it’s a good idea for you to participate in our https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=325001&page=1 promotion.

Thanks for teh suggestion, already done yesterday

Originally posted by SvenBe
are you going to play zoom or regular tables, FR or SH?

Tyty

My game is 6max.
I probably start with zoom because of the volume requirements but I could mix it up with regular tables at one point.
As I did write before is a matter of motivation and focus so this blog could def help a ton.

Hi there,
sun is shining in Prague today and we are enyoing our last days of summer!!!

This is my first report after having played 7k hands.

NL2 is pretty funny and ofc should be beateble with a good rate.
In order to do that is important to keep the right mind set when playing: playing standard as often as possible, avoid to bluff as much as possible and don't tilt at all!

First 5k hands where pretty ok but then yesterday I did played with a bad mood and managed to lose 1 BI.
Not a smart thing especially when you play a big volume: clicking buttons while in autopilot mode at this limit take you to play in two different ways:
- weak tight, giving up too much in a level where peoples make crazy bet/raises;
- loose aggressive, that is the best way to lose a lot of BB in crazy spots ♦

Lesson learned: avoid autopilot, keep focus high !!!

Today I will make some reviews and I will study a couple of hours then I hope to play with a better mindset.

Actual level: NL2
Hands played: 7032
Actual bankroll: 56,53$
To level up: -68,47$

Graph:

HANDS NOMINATIONS

Classic old style overshove of the day

PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

BTN: 267.5 BB (VPIP: 38.46, PFR: 23.08, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)
Hero (SB): 106 BB
BB: 101 BB (VPIP: 14.81, PFR: 7.41, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 32)
UTG: 102.5 BB (VPIP: 11.11, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10)
MP: 258.5 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 3)
CO: 66.5 BB (VPIP: 77.78, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 10)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 4:spade: 4:club:

fold, fold, CO calls 1 BB, fold, Hero calls 0.5 BB, BB checks

Flop: (3 BB, 3 players) 4:diamond: A:diamond: A:club:
Hero bets 2.5 BB, fold, CO calls 2.5 BB

Turn: (8 BB, 2 players) 6:spade:
Hero bets 6 BB, CO calls 6 BB

River: (20 BB, 2 players) 3:heart:
Hero bets 96.5 BB and is all-in, CO calls 57 BB and is all-in

Stack off of the day

PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

BTN: 147 BB (VPIP: 28.57, PFR: 21.43, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)
SB: 470.5 BB (VPIP: 18.18, PFR: 13.64, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 23)
Hero (BB): 170.5 BB
UTG: 109 BB
MP: 167.5 BB (VPIP: 20.39, PFR: 14.56, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 106)
CO: 111 BB (VPIP: 21.74, PFR: 17.39, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 24)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 7:heart: 7:club:

UTG raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 2 BB

Flop: (6.5 BB, 2 players) 7:spade: 4:heart: 5:club:
Hero bets 5.5 BB, UTG raises to 16 BB, Hero calls 10.5 BB

Turn: (38.5 BB, 2 players) 9:spade:
Hero bets 7 BB, UTG raises to 31 BB, Hero raises to 151.5 BB and is all-in, UTG calls 59 BB and is all-in

River: (218.5 BB, 2 players) 6:heart:

Funny bluff of the day

PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

Hero (BTN): 131 BB
SB: 131 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)
BB: 121 BB (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)
UTG: 351.5 BB (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 30.00, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 20)
MP: 106 BB (VPIP: 13.64, PFR: 13.64, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 23)
CO: 379.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J:diamond: 9:diamond:

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, SB calls 2.5 BB, fold

Flop: (7 BB, 2 players) 9:spade: K:spade: 7:spade:
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (7 BB, 2 players) 3:heart:
SB bets 1 BB, Hero calls 1 BB

River: (9 BB, 2 players) 6:diamond:
SB bets 5 BB, Hero calls 5 BB

Week 1
Hands played: 12745
Profit: +16,52$
Current Bankroll: 63,52 $

Played my first week and also if it wasn't as good as I wished to be it was not so bad either

Good start followed by a long breakeven stretch: I started to analyze my game, studying ranges and stuff.
And because the good work always pay you off then I enyojed a brutal 8BI downswing in just one day....
Then fixed up something and finally enjoyed a 9BI upswing in the following day.

The three mayor points in the first week are:

- tilt issues: is the single major I need to fix it up and already working hard on it;
- ranges: as expected having good ranges tailored for the level you play is a the other big thing to fix. I did spend probably around 50% of my study time just on them: now they finally looks reasonables;
- focus: I experienced very few winning sessions when I played more then 500 hands in a session. Losing focus and starting to play in autopilot is always a negative thing, but at this limit you simply cannot do that because players are so "creative" that I find myself in horrible spots very often. I solved this just playing more session with around 20 minutes break between them.

I wish also to play more then 2k hands by day, but this is a thing I decided to not push forward at the beginning because it could easily amplify a lot every big mistake I make.

Later I will post some interesting hands.

Week 2

Hands played: 24728
Profit for the week: +17,75$
Current bankroll: 81,27$

Second week is over and is not good as I hoped for.

Moved up to NL5 out of bankroll and went pretty good till yesterday where I decided to play an higher volume then usual.
Ended with an high variance session: 500BB under EV

Made a review session and, coolers apart, I'm pretty satisfied about how I played.
Gl all at the tables

Week 3

Tot hands played since start: 27035
Tot hands played last week: 2307
Profit for the week: +0,11$
Current bankroll: 81,38$

Not played almost at all this week: too busy between my day job and family.
Hope to put some volume this week.

Week 4

Tot hands played since start: 39169
Tot hands played last week: 12134
Profit for the week: +51,05$
Current bankroll: 132,43$

Overall since start:

Last week:

Solid grind week last one
Did played a lot and, more important of all, I did managed to fix some aspect of my game to fit better into the NL5.

Basically I had 15k hands where I was breakeven so I decided to review my ranges and the main lines in my game.
After a pretty deep analysis on HM2 I did found that I was playing def too aggro in spot where I shouldn't.
NL5 is def not the place to have the ranges super balanced but more the place where to exploit players mistakes.
The video series of KrisRukov is enlightening about this and he's doing a great job into analyzing the players tendencies at he micros.

Changes seems to work so now I need another week to be able to confirm that the changes are solid.

Gl at the tables

Good luck. Subbed.

Hi 4s4s4s thanks for the interest

Week 5

Tot hands played since start: 53448
Tot hands played last week: 14279
Profit for the week: +73,87$
Current bankroll: 206,83$

Overall since start:

Last week:

Another week has gone and it was a good week

I managed to play the highest volume since the challenge plus the best profit so def satisfied about the results.

I'm still unsure if it was better to spend another week at NL5 or trying a shot at NL10.

The plan today is to do a review session trying to understand where my game is and what to do next.
Result aparts I know that I modified my game to be able to make profit at NL5 and I'm pretty sure that it will not work so good at NL10.
Another thing that I have noticed in this challenge is how change the popolation between Monday-Friday and the weekend.
The main difference is that in the weekend people is simply wilder:
- do 3bet you aggressively;
- do shoves preflop > 50BB with big hands (all cases with AA but one when he had QQ);
- open marginal hands preflop continuing with the aggression if they have hit the flop in some (minimal) way.

In other words is high variance but pretty profittable if you manage to not run weird.

Other aspect that in my case I'm learning to manage better is the time thyt I dedicate to my family and the grind.
It's not so complicated if you are able to sleep less then 6 hours by night.... ♦

Gl luck at the tables.

Lately it feels like the F2CB on NL5 (PS) is quite high; basically if they call you they have the nuts.

Has that been your experience? How do you think the weekend 3b aggressiveness plays into this?

Hey corsc, in my experience depends by the type of player and the format (zoom or reg).
In reg tables I have the same feelings but in the zoom is slightly different because when someone decide to play then don't want to give up too light.

And also I did found less people just floating you IP to see how you play the turn and more people calling if they hit a piece of the board (no matter how hard).

Week 6

Tot hands played since start: 66771
Tot hands played last week: 13323
Profit for the week: -86,51$
Current bankroll: 120,32$

Oh well obv at the end here it is: the downswing! ♦

Part of this thing is to learn to manage also the bad stuff not only the good ones so let's see how to deal with it.

I guess that all started when I decided to move to NL10 and the session didn't went good.
For sure a lot of coolers but instead to call it the day I instead decided to play an huge session to recover.
This was not a good idea especially because after collected some other coolers I started def to tilt and played way too lose.
It was like "they cannot have it another time" or " pretty sure he will fold to a shove at the river" and, well, it didn't worked ♦

Also the following day I found myself playing really bad and overworried about my opponents.
So I decided to take the weekend free and I went to play a live MTT (where I cashed :P).

The plan for this week is to start to play shorter session trying to focusing more.
Not exluded also to play just a couple of tables at the beginning instead that the usually four.

Luckly I hit a couple of VIP freeroll on stars that helped to contain the losses added to cahsed up 4000 VPP for $40:

You finished the tournament in 344th place. A USD 1.25 award has been credited to your Stars Account.
You finished the tournament in 282st place. A USD 9.90 award has been credited to your Stars Account.

So still rolled for NL5 and we'll see where I will be next week
GL at the tables.

Sorry to hear about the terrible week. I love how you roll with it and adjust for the next week.
Hoping you have better variance this week

Week 7

Tot hands played since start: 78211
Tot hands played last week: 11440
Profit for the week: +12,80$
Current bankroll: 133,12$

Not the worst week ever till sunday 17:00: then I did again made the same mistake to play a long session with my B game.
Definitely I need to implement a stop loss probably after 4 buyin lost: otherwise in 3hours I risks to destroy all the week hard work.

All considered I feel pretty satisfied: I played focused almost always and almost never tilted again.

This week I need to study more because last week I almost not did it at all
Gl at the tables.

Week 8

Tot hands played since start: 87032
Tot hands played last week: 9976
Profit for the week: +21,76$
Current bankroll: 154,88$

Last week:

Overall:

Has been a pretty busy week so I post the last one update just today.

Studied and tried to get more into the differences between stakes.
Last week I did played a mix of NL2, NL5, NL10 and NL16 !!!

Looks like I still not able to beat the NL10 but it was a great exercise
This mainly because the tipical NL2 player approach can be found also in higher stakes, also if with a minor frequency, so you should be able to deal with it and so on.
Also this approach help to sharp your mind in not being focused on a static approach to the game (just exploiting the population tendencies at a specific limit).

Next week (this one) I will go back to my routine trying to play max a couple of stakes.
Study at least an hour at day will be the minimum requirement.
I need to be prepared for when I will be back in the NL10 arena!

Gl at the tables.

Week 9

Tot hands played since start: 101726
Tot hands played last week: 14841
Profit for the week: +67,03$
Current bankroll: 221,38$

Last week:

Overall:

Another week is over and it was a good one.
Played a lot and managed to have a decent profit: so everything's all right?
Not so sure about this.

Some bad habits showed up again and this make me reflect a bit.

Tilt is always around the corner
A couple of time I tilted when watching my hands cracked over and over again.
Luckly enough it was at the ned of the session so not big damage as been done with the typical response to this issue: playing hyper aggro

Studying is not an optional aspect
Definitely not done as should.
Looks like I was more focused on playing then improve: this thing could work probably well here at the micros, not definitely when playing higher.
I need to start some sort of routine that will help me to make studing a more natural thing.
In his weekly video report KrisRukov pointed well the thing.

One thing that looks like I'm starting to manage in the right way is how to manage the variance.
Thanks to HansTheGreat: he is definitely a great inspiration.

Sure I'm happy by the results and hope to reach quickly the point where I will be able again to attack the NL10.

GL all