Hyper NLO8 journey

    • bebriukas
      bebriukas
      Bronze
      Joined: 01.06.2007 Posts: 20
      • 15.03.2013, 12:32
      • This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by bebriukas: 15.03.2013 12:34.
      Hello PokerStrategy!

      I am a 24 year old from Lithuania. Got introduced to poker since my early childhood in forms of video poker ;) Later on in highschool sometimes we played with classmates poker during breaks. After my 18 birthday I registered to some site where they offered no deposit bonus. It was at iPoker i think, and there is where I started my poker journey :) Played micro SnGs and actually managed to not go broke and increase my bankroll like 5 times or so.
      Have tried some different small sites later on, but eventually I settled down at PokerStars. Played some micro cash games like NL5/NL10, didn't really liked it too much. I think I played some fixed limit holdem too. Later on I got into PLO10, played for a bit there, but couldn't handle swings, and I didn't have big enough bankroll to continue playing it. So I returned to what I "knew" best - playing SnGs :) and playing some micro stakes MTTs too. Had some nice hits, but couldn't settle down for any one poker form and I tried probably most of games offered. And I actually like MTTs, but they do take too much time and fuck up most of your day...

      So fast forward a little to year 2013, and I finally(I hope so) found a game that I find interesting for me to play and try to figure out the most about it I can, and that lets you have any schedule you want. And it is hyper NLO8 SnGs offered by PokerStars. I have already played more than 1.5k of them, and I want to take it seriously and continue playing it and not quiting in few weeks after a bigger downswing :D So I hope that this blog will help me keep motivated and I will keep improving in poker...
      Also I hope that putting all my poker and life goals will make me more determined to try and achieve them.

      So a little bit more about me, and what I want me to be in X years:
      :spade: I really love traveling, and I sort of consider me to be addicted to traveling. And if I can feed this mine addiction with earning from poker, I would be more than happy. Of course if I will be able to get a villa on a private island from poker, then I won't be disappointed either :D Anyways, you will probably hear about my travels in this blog also ;)
      :spade: Also I have lived in Ireland for 3 months while doing my internship there, and I think I might want to move somewhere again, even if its just for 3 months again... So still considering it, and this is where I would like to hear suggestions from you guys :P
      :spade: Live MTT seems really exciting for me, and it also involves a lot of traveling so that's just perfect for me... So eventually I would like to play in biggest MTTs around the world. So far I have played in this years UKIPT Edinburgh stop(won a seat through pokerstars ;) ), busted out in 1st day, nothing spectacular... But it was a fun experience, but of course I have still lots to learn to be able to compete live.
      :spade: Have been always fascinated with guitar, so like a year ago I have bought one from poker winnings, but haven't taken it seriously at all... So hopefully I will find motivation to master that son of a b*!#$ some day... :D

      Thats for now, maybe will add something later on:) And now lets get back to NLO8...
      Been playing it for past ~3 weeks, played 1650 games at 1.5$ limit with a 7% ROI:

      So I guess I am beating the game, still looking to play a little bit more on this level(yeah, I'm a bankroll nit :D ), but I think I will soon start mixing up some 3.5s too and move up the limits.

      Short term poker goals:
      :club: 1k games per week(~140/day, or 200/day for 5 days giving 2 pokerless days for bars and other activities; I think thats achievable, although I will have to start playing a little more(last four day average is 120))
      :club: Start playing some 3.5s

      Mid term poker goals:
      :club: GoldStar VIP at PokerStars
      :club: Regular at 3.5-7s

      Long term poker goals:
      :club: Crush 30s and up :P
      :club: Start playing some mayor MTTs at stars from time to time, or maybe become an MTT pro(?) (still not sure about that because of long hours you need to spend playing them...)
      :club: Play in biggest live MTTs around the world :)
      :club: Be good at different poker games too(although I think I'm rather okeyish at mixed games, but probably its not hard to beat the lowest stakes), because I don't want to be good just at one poker form, I want to be good all-round poker player.


      Life goals:
      :heart: Travel, travel, travel.
      :heart: Move to another country(?) (still considering this)
      :heart: Start working out/jogging
      :heart: Learn to play guitar
      :heart: Have a more productive schedule


      Thats it for now and ask me if you got any questions, give me suggestions on anything if you feel it might help me. And let me know what should I post about here, so this blog wouldn't die out too soon ;)
      Appreciate your input, and thanks to all who took time to check my blog out :f_biggrin:
  • 13 replies
    • legand73
      legand73
      Silver
      Joined: 01.06.2010 Posts: 4,136
      Hey bebriukas

      Welcome to our blogging section. I really like the format of your blog so far. Good luck with all your goals.

      Regards,
      Luke
    • bebriukas
      bebriukas
      Bronze
      Joined: 01.06.2007 Posts: 20
      • 18.03.2013, 15:14
      • This post has been edited 1 time(s), it was last edited by bebriukas: 18.03.2013 15:15.
      Was a little busy last few days, so haven't played much and there's not a lot what to update on... Played few MicroMillions events, and some other mtts, but no good results :)
      So starting from today, I hope to hit 1k games per week. Not sure if I will be able to do it, but I will try :)
    • bebriukas
      bebriukas
      Bronze
      Joined: 01.06.2007 Posts: 20
      Have been running terribly lately... So to take my mind of played today a lot of MM-059 hyper nlo8 sats(1.15$ buyin, 1st and 2nd pays T3.3$, 3rd pays 0.18$). You start in them with 10BB and ante is 20%, as compared to normal hyper sngs you start with 25BB and ante is 10%. At least rake is almost 5 times smaller :)

      Of course a lot of crazy stuff happening in them, but ended up in profit, so I'm not too disappointed.




      Playing now MM-059 NLO8 event. And probably going to play 1.5s nlo8 hypers.
    • bebriukas
      bebriukas
      Bronze
      Joined: 01.06.2007 Posts: 20
      Well obviously I have problems updating this blog... Too lazy to post something, but I thought I will drop by and write something today. ;)
      Win rate is pretty much steady at these, and been maintaining the same ROI for another 2k games... Also started mixing in 3.5$ games too, and actually play more of them, because usually there is more traffic in them. Just it feels that its much more swingy in these ones... At least so far for me... Had +150$ day, and later fallowed few -50$ days :)
      Also I used to tile up to 12tables, but now I started stacking and using hotkeys. So now sometimes I run up to like 15 tables and more.. I have no idea why didn't I stack before... So much better, much less tilting, cause you don't see those crazy suckouts and so on...
      Oh, and so far this month I have collected almost 1.4k VPPs, so if I keep up the same volume for the rest of the month, I will probably achieve GoldStar.

      Time for graphs! :f_biggrin:
      1.5$ 3835 games, 6.82% ROI


      3.5$ 589 games, 6.68% ROI
    • LeTrac
      LeTrac
      Bronze
      Joined: 07.01.2012 Posts: 1,104
      update plz
    • legand73
      legand73
      Silver
      Joined: 01.06.2010 Posts: 4,136
      ^^ you've been missing in action for a while

      Regards,
      Luke
    • bebriukas
      bebriukas
      Bronze
      Joined: 01.06.2007 Posts: 20
      Hey all... I stopped writing because I was a bit sick of poker for a while, and shortly thereafter I got full time job. So I didn't play poker at all for a few months. But I couldn't live long without poker, so from time to time I started playing a bit again, mainly nlo8 hypers, but also few MTTs from time to time. And at the start of this year, I decided to take poker a bit more seriously, and we will see what happens :) I hope that this time I won't quit writing blog after just few posts. And I hope I won't get fed up with poker after few months :D

      Okey, now the sad part: I failed with my poker 'goal' miserably(obviously). Too bad that my life goals didn't do well either... It was hard adjusting to having a full time job, and for few months I was always tired, and after getting back from work I would just want to get rest.

      Probably the single thing where I haven't 'failed', is traveling :)
      In June I took a trip to southern France. Over a little more then a week I visited Toulon, Marseille and Aix(and a few smaller villages). Just so as it happens, the flight back home was in the middle of air traffic control strike. There were hundred(maybe even thousands?) of flights cancelled all around France in few days span. Luckily enough my flight was not cancelled :)
      And one bigger trip that I had, was a little more recently, in the end of November. I went to Cambodia for two weeks with few friends. Finally I went outside of Europe, so one 'little travel goal' achieved :) It was an amazing trip, a lot of new experiences and so on...
      And now in a months time I am planning a trip for a week to Sardinia(although still not 100% sure). And maybe a trip to Georgia in April/May.

      So shortly thats what I have been up to. Oh, and for my trips I mostly used my poker money, so my bankroll had considerably decreased :) So I still might be stuck in 1.5s for a while.

      And now the fun(?) part. Graphs! :)

      1.5s NLO8 all time:

      8255games @ 7.61% ROI

      1.5s NLO8 this year:

      1223 games @ 7.17% ROI

      And breakeven stretch at 3.5s:


      I hope to start playing 3.5s again soon, and I hope that I will run better this time :)
    • legand73
      legand73
      Silver
      Joined: 01.06.2010 Posts: 4,136
      Hey bebriukas

      Congrats on all the travelling that you get to do and on landing that full-time job. I just got one myself :) . Hope you can grind up your bankroll soon!
    • badgerer
      badgerer
      Bronze
      Joined: 29.03.2010 Posts: 555
      hi bebriukas,

      i have a question for you if you dont mind discussing a little bit of strategy. how do you play preflop in the first 2 or 3 levels? do you play push/fold right from the start? or are you trying to see flops cheaply.

      i only ask because whenever i play these games there seems to be a lot of profitable regs who open shove 25bb with mediocre holdings (like a5xx or worse sometimes) and i just cant understand why they are doing this.

      also what sort of hands are you stacking off with preflop in the early stage?

      i only have a few hundred nlo8 hypers under my belt and i'd like to hear from someone more experienced.

      i hope you get back on track to meet all your goals, good luck.
    • bebriukas
      bebriukas
      Bronze
      Joined: 01.06.2007 Posts: 20
      Originally posted by legand73
      Hey bebriukas

      Congrats on all the travelling that you get to do and on landing that full-time job. I just got one myself :) . Hope you can grind up your bankroll soon!
      Thanks :)

      Originally posted by badgerer
      hi bebriukas,

      i have a question for you if you dont mind discussing a little bit of strategy. how do you play preflop in the first 2 or 3 levels? do you play push/fold right from the start? or are you trying to see flops cheaply.

      i only ask because whenever i play these games there seems to be a lot of profitable regs who open shove 25bb with mediocre holdings (like a5xx or worse sometimes) and i just cant understand why they are doing this.

      also what sort of hands are you stacking off with preflop in the early stage?

      i only have a few hundred nlo8 hypers under my belt and i'd like to hear from someone more experienced.

      i hope you get back on track to meet all your goals, good luck.
      In first level I play as tightly as possible. But usually if I don't have many tables open, I'll just min raise preflop, and then see how it plays out. Not a fan of pushing and stacking off with 25BB stack preflop. When BB increases to 30/40, I will just switch to push/fold stage, unless I have doubled up and have 30+BB.

      I have observed the same thing, that several winning regs just open shove their stacks at 10/20 with A2xx(not sure if I ever saw a decent reg open shove A5xx early :) ). I don't really like to stack off so wide myself early, but its just that I haven't thought much about this stage, and I don't think I have figured it out. But there is certainly some value if regs do that. Maybe someday it would be good to sort out all that math behind this play. But at least what I am doing now, works well at the current stakes(not to say that this is better, there are better winning players than myself for sure). :)

      As I have said at first level I rarely stack off. But I will do it with all AAxx hands, AK2x usually. Not really wider(of course its player dependent, might stack of with weaker holdings against certain players). But after blinds increase my range widens a looooot :)

      Not sure if that helps you in any way... But if you have any more questions feel free to ask, I'll try to help out :)


      Going to play now for a bit, and later on I will post January graph, and past week graph :)
    • bebriukas
      bebriukas
      Bronze
      Joined: 01.06.2007 Posts: 20
      Done for today, it was a good day up until the end of last session :) But still cant complain :)

      January graph:

      1415games, 5.25% roi

      Last week:

      423games, 4.26% roi


      Had some swingy days, and judging from roi didn't do as well as before... Hopefully February will be better :) And if I don't get into a downswing, I might start mixing some 3.5s again...
    • narnou
      narnou
      Bronze
      Joined: 21.08.2007 Posts: 1,132
      Getting myself back on nlo8 hypers, any news here ? :)
    • SDK1987
      SDK1987
      Moderator
      Moderator
      Joined: 12.11.2008 Posts: 36,960
      It must be a pretty crazy hyper SNG format. I newer played them, but I expect the swings are huge in NLO8. How it’s going the last couple of months?

      Further I wish you the best to beat the micro stakes in this format :gl:

      Cheers,
      SDK1987