NL2 to NL100 "The Cash Game Story"

Hey Elwin,

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.

Have fun

Laz

Hi R2P, GL with your challenge. I am always getting jealous when i see bloggers from down under... Do you actually have any time to play during summer? We even had some snow in the area - in south of Spain!
Fun fact by the way - we from PokerStrategy.com sit in Gibraltar. If you take the exact opposite of the earth... we'd be in new zealand!

GL with the challenge now, go and get the moneys!

Hey R2P,

Looking forward to see how the challenge works for you. I am also doing a BR challenge starting at NL2.
Even though your goals and playing time seems more ambitious than mine, it will be fun to follow a similar story.

Best of luck to you and let our Bankrolls grow large.

Cheers!

Hey everyone!

Thanks for the replies and sorry I've not updated anything for a while! Guess it's a case of getting in the habit of reporting. I wanted to post some graphs last week but it didn't seem to work. I've dragged a picture in the screen before wich showed, then later I tried it again and it didn't seem to work. I'll have a play around with it.

I'm writing down my goals for 2017 at the moment (better late than never)
1 Play and study poker as a profitable hobby
2 Learn a sport (still contemplating between boxing and Aikido)
3 Save $25k by 25/02/2018 for our wedding and travel to USA and Canada in August 2018

Those are my 3 main personal goals for 2017, it's not much but I think if you try to do too much at ones you give up on everything anyway, that's my personal experience. From these main goals, I do have a couple of side goals.

Playing and studying poker I want to break down into:
1 Learning poker skill theory = Study as many hours as I play. This has already proven a lot harder than it sounds! I just want to PLAY:f_biggrin: . None the less I think this is one of the most important rules I need to maintain (already behind 30 hours of study )

2 Learning what works for me = I want to find out what works best for me: when do I play, how long do I play, when do I force myself to stop, ... I need to teach myself to stop when I'm not paying the best I can. Again easier said than done (I just want to PLAY:f_biggrin: ) but this is deff what's hurting my win rate the most.

3 Keeping record = I want to keep up this blog as a way to keep record of what I'm learning, it might not turn out to be very interesting for anyone else but so be it it's more for myself than anyone else. I will try to update at least ones a week. Maybe throw in some banter, in general, I'll try not to be too negative about anything, let alone tell everyone the bad beats I had but sometimes funny things happen and I'll try to share some of those.

Originally posted by microstraddler
Hey R2P,

Looking forward to see how the challenge works for you. I am also doing a BR challenge starting at NL2.
Even though your goals and playing time seems more ambitious than mine, it will be fun to follow a similar story.

Best of luck to you and let our Bankrolls grow large.

Cheers!

Hey Micro,

Thanks for saying hello! Good to hear you're starting at NL2 as well. been having some swings in the last week. Mainly because of bad playing (I mean it's just variance) Currently back at $106 on Stars down from $125. Planning on moving up to NL5 with $150. Still happy I've turned $25 into $100 in a month.
I know my goal is pretty lofty, but I'll be super happy to hit %75 of that goal bu the end of the year. I feel that if you aim high not hitting your goal will still end you up higher then when you'd set a low goal.

I'll keep everyone Posted and go check out your blog!

First some banter!

What is the change of these? Anyone know how to calculate that? All happened in 1 session:

It's fair enough to get the same hand from time to time, but what is the chance of you getting the exact same hand at the same time dealt in the same way. Does anyone have a shot with the same hand at 2 tables with the same flop on both tables? (excluding the old matrix games on FT)

Originally posted by SvenBe
Hi R2P, GL with your challenge. I am always getting jealous when i see bloggers from down under... Do you actually have any time to play during summer? We even had some snow in the area - in south of Spain!
Fun fact by the way - we from PokerStrategy.com sit in Gibraltar. If you take the exact opposite of the earth... we'd be in new zealand!

GL with the challenge now, go and get the moneys!

Hey Sven,

Thanks for the response. Well there is summer and there is Auckland summer, windy, rainy, more rain and SUN (from time to time). Snow in the south of Spain sounds sick. I'm actually from Belgium so know the weather in Europe is weird but still. Random question: Are their apes on Gibraltar?

I know my goal is pretty lofty, but I'll be super happy to hit %75 of that goal bu the end of the year. I feel that if you aim high not hitting your goal will still end you up higher then when you'd set a low goal.

I totally agree. If you aim for the moon, you might hit the top of the trees.

I liked your update, good structure and fun to read. Keep it up!
It can be difficult to find motivation to study poker sometimes, but I think it makes the playing even more fun. I have promised myself to study more than I play this week, let see how that works

Are their apes on Gibraltar?

Yes, the only ones in Europe and all located on the same rock(small mountain), stealing peanuts from tourists.

Cheers!

Of course we have the monkeys. And in 6.5 years here I've only been bitten once by one vicious one....
Well, at least a reason to refresh some vaccinations...

The Story

Talking about a run good week!!!!

Work:
RAISE, not the poker kind but the permanent kind! Boss invited me for lunch on Thursday to chat about how It's been going for me, what I think we can improve and where I want to go. I've started this Job in October, I work in Real Estate after 3 years in Direct sales. Been suggesting a couple of logistical things I think we can do better. Those have been well received and because of me showing the commitment, I'm going to get 10% more as of right now. Woot woot!

Poker:
Work was so full on this week I didn't really feel like playing much during the week. I did play a little on party poker which is more for fun. Mostly I browsed the Hand reading forms on Poker Strategy and learned some great new concepts! Things like:

- Why am I checking betting raising? Hard to explain but I'm getting better at having a reason behind doing what I'm doing.
- Calling cBet's more with lower pocket pairs. Not saying I'm going crazy with them but often it goes
Call pre to set mine, F villain cBet - Hero Call, T Villain X - Hero X, R Villain X - Hero X and Villain mucks.

Still need to work on not going crazy with TPTK and I want to get better at reviewing my hand history in a significant way. Currently, I'm just looking at the major hands. Any suggestions on that are always welcome!

Below some crazy stats from my last 2 sessions. If only it would always go like this!

The Story

I posted yesterday but guess I didn't click save!

To recap I wanted to post a graph showing how the week has gone, mainly to keep track of my progress. I also revised my goal of moving up at 30 buy-in for NL5. I have a 10BB/100hands win rate at NL2 over 30k hands. Feel that I've learned a lot and I want to take a shot at NL5. I did one already over the weekend after I had the 2 sessions from above I felt confident. Lost a buy in didn't feel like it and dropped again. Tonight I'm back at $127. I'm going to give it a shot this week and move back down at $100.

First one is Last week:

Overall:

you have the same session duration than me - probably i play even shorter than you. Sometimes just a set of a few Spins...

Originally posted by SvenBe
you have the same session duration than me - probably i play even shorter than you. Sometimes just a set of a few Spins...

My greenline flatlines after about an hour! Still need to learn how to discipline myself a little better in stopping at that point. Often get in a "I just want to play mood"... They are not great for the win rate.

The Story

A swing and a miss - the Cash Game Story

Guess every beginning poker player will have to deal with and learn from the "over confident self"! Learning "The Long Run" is a valuable lesson that everyone in life should learn, poker is definitely a great environment that will teach you this principle.
I'm sure you're smart enough to deduct from my spirituality and title that the NL5 run didn't go as planned. The 10BB/100hands win rate is no more. All in all not too sad about it, back down to NL2, lesson learned and even more excited to study more!

A failure doesn't exist, I've just found one more way not to win at poker.

Plans have changed again:

-Stick to the initial plan: 30BIN for the next level. Mainly because I think I can learn so much more and I rather loose as little money as possible at the lower levels.

-Play at least 100kHands at NL2 I want to get is so many more situations, so I really understand every step as much as possible.

-Post at least 10 hands per week in the forum In the beginning I didn't find it that helpful, but the more you post the more info people start giving you

Except it's going to be a long process and knowing it's not about the money but about learning a skill!

Any thoughts on the idea that there is a cap on what you can learn at NL2? Can you only learn to be better from playing against better players?

Sorry to see you are going on a downswing mate! It is difficult to judge if it is just another downswing or if NL5 have tougher competition.
IMO, the competition at these levels are not that much different but it is probably a good idea to stick with NL2 for a large numbers of hands before moving up. Of course it is more fun to move up quickly but the downswings hurt so much more.

If it makes you feel any better, I am also on a downswing at the moment. Although my management is super nitty so it does not hurt my BR so much.
Do you have a stop-loss limit in your plan?

I do not think there is a cap to what you can learn from NL2, but what you learn might be a bit different from the higher limits.
Playing higher limits and better players might be better for learning how to play at higher limits but it can get expensive. ♦
Poker is all about adjusting to the competition.

Ending with a quote that I found encouraging to keep grinding NL2.

Originally posted by samni
First step is realising that if you don't beat the micro's, you won't beat anything else either.

Cheers!