MY WAY TO BECOME A POKER CRUSHER:
Let's go back in the time, after finishing a law school, working for a year, and successfully passing my state law exam, I made a lifechanging decision to quit my job and leave my law career for good.
You probably ask why would anybody do such a thing? I am that type of person, either I give 100% or nothing at all. And poker deserved my 100%.
That was the time of big economic and financial crisis in Europe and Croatia faced it a lot stronger, and that pushed people into extreme poverty, from that moment I knew I want to be an architect of my own destiny and poker was a way to make that from possibility to a reality.
At this point of time everything I had was 300 dollars of savings, and it seemed and felt like a lot.
Only experience I had in poker was from playing with my friends in our free time and immediatelly I fell in love with the game, litereally I was the last man standing everytime we played, just couldn't get enough. Already then I realized that poker is not a game of luck, it's so much more then that. I was probably the worst player of all my friends, but I had something they didn't, I had tremendous passion for the game and a determination to learn and become best player I can.
My family was in shock for a long time, because we lived in very conservative enviroment, where poker players were considered gamblers, who looses houses and "keys of their car" in a game. The hardest thing for my family was to be faced with the question "what does your Son do for a living nowdays", they gave a lot so I could go and finish law school, they litterally gave everything they had. And what did I did? I decided to throw all that away (in their eyes) and travel the "unknown path", definitly something no parent wants for their child.
But I had something that's really rare to find, I had a will of steel. Michael Jordan said, work beats talent 100 out of 99 times, there is no place where that is more true then poker. I guess Poker was my destination to reach no mather which choices I made.
I started to play from NL2 on Microgaming and always had a strict rule of at least 150 buy ins for a limit I play, then there were no Solvers, and you had to make your own strategies because online you couldn't find much. Beacuse of that every step forward you made was a "baby step" and made the climb harder.
For me it was the same who I play with, I have never table selected in my life(still don't), I always "opened and closed tables". It was never only about the money, my main goal was and still is - to be the best player at the table. Poker is like when you are in love, you want to be a first and "only one", you are the first or last, there is no "inbetween".
I was playing and working on the game every day, and while playing I was 100% in it (still am), I was observing my opponents (even in the hands I'm not a part of), writing about the way they play, reads about them, about their habits and after the game I was making strategy and counters against every single one of them who I found as a threat. The results was very good from the beginning, and I started to climb on limits, only time I pushed back from higher limit to lower was when I started to play NL50. And I still remember that night, that feeling of failure... My girlfriend and I took a walk, and walked and talked till morning. Even now when I look at that NL50 I got that same feeling in my stomach. I just couldn't go back to NL20 (and I knew that I will have to do it), I felt so unsuccessfull, and my girl was listening to me for hours, every hand I played, every hand I fuc..up, every hand where I would do something different now, she didn't knew anything about poker, but she was giving everything to understand what I was saying, and for me that what love is, somebody you love is broken, and you don't know anything about the reasons but you give all of you to make it better, even nothing of that is on you, but it hurts you the same. I find out then, and I know that still, there is no "loss", loss doesn't exist, If you don't accept it, it just not there, it's not real. If you loose, you just have to work, and I'm cool with that, work 2,3,10 times harder, and you will eventually get there, you can do it if you want to do it, you just have to want it enough. I get back in there and I grinded that NL20 with so much passion and dedication, like never before, like it's the last game I will ever play and I just knew, next time I will make it, there is apsolutely no chance I will fail again...
I always had very high confidence in myself, if you will not belive in yourself why would anybody else? You must love yourself so other can love you too, and so you can love others.
I couldn't wait for that NL50 shoot, and finally I got a chance for a rematch.
I just crushed it. It didn't took a while and I started to play NL100. At the NL100, I change my BRM to a 210BI for the "shoot" to a higher limit(and back to previous limit if I go lower then 200BI).
I didn't have any problems on NL100, I continued to work on my game (mostly on flopzilla), I was learning rangevsrange mostly, because everything in Poker is range-related, all strategies and counters come from range (for example you cbet high % when you have range advantage, when you have range disadvantage you are defensive and you protect your range a lot, you donk when you have range advantege...), basically everything you can do in poker is in relation with your range, your opponent range, and how board structure coordinates this two ranges. I learn that very soon, and Solvers just verified that.
After that I started to play NL200 on Microgaming, and pretty soon I start mixing also NL400, after Microgaming died, I switched to Ipoker, but I had a lot problems with Ipoker(and still do), scripts are just ruining the game, on Microgaming you had waitlists, but on Ipoker tables are broking and creating constantly, and without script you don't even have a chance to play. That was the bigest reason why I started to play on PokerStars before a year. I have great rakeback deal on Ipoker, 45% old RB system(weighted contribution), and I also like the software, so If they would resolve that "script" problems nobody would be happier then me.
I got married 4 years ago, soon we got our baby girl, and my life changed 360Β°, literally 360Β°. People say, that you will meet the "most beautiful woman in the world" for sure if you get a doughter, an that's 100% truth. I've never experianced that type of love, it's not comparable to anything, I would give my life in a heartbeat for her. But, you know, nobody can prepare you for that, your life changes completely, every day is a something new, and you have to deal with it. My life just stoped in a way, I didn't even tried to move up on limits (even I could have), I was just trying to make perfect home for my doughter, and help my wife, cos most of it fell on her. I had still learn and played with passion, but I didn't want to take any risks, so I just stayed in my comfort zone.
In the meantime I have changed from Holdem Manager to Hand2Note, I created my own HUD (first on holdem manager, but then advanced it a lot on H2N) , put in everything I find important to get the most benefical information I need from my opponents, and start mixing Pokerstars, Superport poker(Croatian poker site) and occasionally Ipoker.
I also started to play MTT's, started from low stakes to high stakes in last few months(until 1k buy in).
This are my results with my HUD:
IPOKER
SUPERSPORT POKER (it's in croatin currency "HR Kuna",USD-HRK was 1:5 at start, then 1:6, before few day is up to 1:7)
POKERSTARS
PokerStars MTT
I have succeeded to get to 10bb/100, but last month I get in a big dowswing, huge ammount of set ups(12 times AK on AA preflop all in, 1 times I had AA on AK, and 5 times KK on AA, 1 time I had AA on KK) and what was even worse really sick hand like runner runner gutters in big pots, 2 outers on river where I basically thought I had nuts, a lot of bad beads also, but still I played really good, and I felt really good.
These are my results with with "number of fishes"
POKERSTARS
SUPERSPORT POKER
I am motivated, I want to learn, I want to play better and get better, so please join me in my journey, you are welcome to my Discord channel also (there are a lot of really good players there): https://discord.gg/6ybPhejzhw
I appreciate your feedback, you can ask me anything, I'm open for ideas, and Let's go!!!
MartaiMrko
