Chip Up & Ship It (GGPoker, Spins recreational regular diary)

Bankroll at the Start: 1017$
Week 1 bankroll End: 2215$
Profit: 1198$
Bonuses: 1568$

Tournaments played: 500
Wrong plays by GTO: 14.92%

Here are some stats screenshots:

This month, daily BLAST leaderboard prizes are doubled. This is a very sweet promotion that can boost my bankroll quite heavily - therefore I've decided to play daily as many leaderboards as I can. This paid off right away as I managed to snag the first position on the 20s limit leaderboard on the first day. That win netted me 20x50 BLAST tickets, which effectively doubled my bankroll overnight. It was a great start to the week and gave me a lot of momentum heading into the next few weeks.

However, as you all know, poker can be a fickle mistress. On Saturday, I decided to take a shot at the 100s limit leaderboard and play 30 BLAST tournaments for leaderboard points. With a bankroll of 3K, I felt hesitant but ready to take on the challenge. Unfortunately, I was quickly reminded of the variance that comes with the game. In a blink of an eye, I lost 900 dollars and ended up finishing 15th in the leaderboard. The top-8 players were the only ones who cashed in, leaving me with nothing to show for my efforts. But, as always, there's a lesson to be learned. I realized that it's too early to take a shot with 30 buy-ins in the pocket. It was a costly reminder, but it's one that I won't forget anytime soon.

My first shot on 100 limit

Despite the setback, I remain optimistic and excited about the future

That's it for my first post. I'm excited to continue sharing my journey with you all, and I hope you'll join me along the way. Until next time, may the poker gods be with you!

Hi Studentishe,
Welcome to PokerStrategy.com EN Community blogging section.

Are you in the https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3255945#post3255945?
(I am too lazy to look )

Hi and welcome to the community.

Congrats on the winning the leaderboard. A bonus of 1k is worth the efforts. But sad to read that you lost it while taking shots higher. But you are staying optimistic, that's good!

Hey hey VorpalF2F and H0witzer,

Glad to see the first readers and commentators to my freshly started blog.

@VorpalF2F : thanks for the tip, looked at the challenge description - makes a lot of sense. Having a personal blog is the first condition that could be crossed out. Receiving a badge would be quite an awesome boost to my "bronze" status. I messed up the registration process with 888Poker and don't receive SP because of that (

@H0witzer: Optimism is the quality that helps me get through all the variance and downswings in poker and life...

*Updated Week 1 results with the nice addition of 205$ of LB Bonuses. As LB finishes late at night (2 AM) I'm getting final results only in the morning next day

Week 2 Update

Current Bankroll: 3485$
Wrong plays by GTO: 14.85%
Week 2 profit: 1270$

* Profit from the tables: 386$
* Bonuses: 884$

Tournaments played: 645

This was quite an intense week poker-wise. I got sick with some nasty virus that made me sneeze all the time and my nose was in a total mess. Therefore, I took 2 days of sick leave on my work and could put some extra hours into grinding. That resulted in 645 tournaments played this week with a sweet 53 ChipEV/Tournament - that suppose to be around 7.5 - 8.5% EVRoi. (I struggle to calculate the expected ROI on 888Poker as starting stack size varies from the multiplier and PokerTracker is terrible in calculating expected winning for me). According to the rough calculations that suppose to get me around 1250$ winnings, but instead, I got only 386$ from the play. I guess, it is due to negative variance on the 50s limit.

The highlight of the week was placing 4th on the daily leaderboard 20&50 which brought me a sweet 400$:

Another highlight was that I managed to shave 0.07% from GTO wrong plays KPI. This is not much, but given that I started at 23% level before GTO Wizard became part of my training routine, 14.85% now looks like a big leap forward:

From the low lights of the week, I'd like to mention that more than 2/3 of my profits are coming from Bonuses that are quite unreliable. This month is the Double Daily Leaderboards promo on 888Poker and afterward, I can expect a big drop in profits.

Another mental trap that I have noticed this week is that based on having only one negative profit day (-40$) caused me to think that I'm printing money here. Based on the results of the last week and this week I'm starting to project further profits based on 1K$ / week calculations and I like those sweet additional 50K / year. I feel like this sets very wrong expectations and long down strict can crush those hopes and put me into a nasty tilt.

Anyhow, I'm happy to record a second profitable week with a healthy volume of 50s played at the end of the week. I'm trying to take a shot at this limit, having 70BI deep BR for them. It is quite uncomfortable and I'm constantly checking my balance if stop-loss should be called. I'm not sure if this is a limit itself, or the fact that I played it on Friday - Sunday period, but 9/10 players that I face get a "green badge" (I mark fishes with green color) and tons of notes, of all the weird stuff that I have seen them doing. :f_smile::f_smile::f_smile:

I'd like to post more here going forwards, not limiting myself to 1 post a week for weekly update

That is it for today. Good luck on the tables and would love to see any comments here )

Here are some more charts to snap shot this week:

Grinding while on sick leave is not that bad it seems. Very nice results last week!
When life gives you bonuses, you don't ask questions and you make profit

Thanks! Turns out, my sick leave was just what the doctor ordered for my poker game. Who needs rest and relaxation when you can grind your way to sweet profits, right?

Life handed me bonuses, and I'm taking them straight to the bank with a big ol' on top! It's the best kind of medicine for both my poker bankroll and my sick days.

Now, if only I could find a doctor who prescribes poker as a legitimate form of therapy!

Today, I took another shot at the 100s limit, hoping to make it big. With 46BI in my bankroll, I once again thought it was a brilliant idea to go for the highest daily leaderboard. But guess what? It turned out almost exactly like my first attempt - a massive difference between ChipEV and actual EV won, leaving me down by -1.2K.

Oh, and guess what? I missed the bonus payout by just one spot. I mean, seriously?!

I swear, one of these days I'll actually make a profit playing those cursed 100s and finally earn that elusive bonus.

Current Bankroll: 3726$
Wrong plays by GTO: 14.35%
Week 3 profit: 241$

* Profit from the tables: -45$
* Bonuses: 286$

Tournaments played: 463

This week was relatively light in terms of playing time. I took a 3-day bike trip with my dad to make the most of the long weekend here in Germany. As a result, I only managed to play 14 tournaments on Thursday, skipped Friday entirely, and resumed play on Saturday evening. Saturday started off really well, with a positive balance of around $800 :f_drink:, until I decided to take a shot at the 100s leaderboard. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, and I ended up in the red for the day. (Put details in the previous post)

However, my strategy is to aggressively aim for higher limits and settle there as soon as possible. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'll give it another shot once my bankroll reaches $4.5K - $5K, and I feel more comfortable taking that chance.

The exciting news this week is that I found a poker coach who offers affordable coaching sessions for $50. I've scheduled my first session with him tomorrow. I initially reached out to Ryan O'Donnell, the author of the Spin-and-Go course on PokerCoaching, but his price tag of $250 per session was beyond my budget considering my current hourly rate, which, to be honest, is still uncertain but feels like peanuts at this point. However, Ryan was kind enough to recommend a friend and a fantastic coach who aligns with my needs and budget. I'm super excited about the opportunity to learn more from a professional Spin & Go player.

That wraps up this week's update. Stay tuned for more adventures, wins, and lessons as I continue my poker journey. Until then, may the cards be in your favor!

Some PT4 graphs from this week under spoiler:

Just had my first coaching session today, and boy, did it open my eyes! The coach dropped some knowledge bombs, and the main takeaway is clear: I need to invest more time and effort into analyzing hand histories. It's all about understanding where I'm losing money and how other players are leaving their wallets wide open. Time to put on my detective hat and dive into PT4 filters, reports, graphs, and screens that I have never seen before!

Now, here's the million-dollar question: How the heck do you calculate EVRoi for Spin&Go's on GG and Blasts on 888Poker? It's like trying to crack a secret code! If anyone out there has cracked the EVRoi puzzle, I'm all ears and grateful for any hints or advice.

On another note, my coach shared his GTOWizard stats with me, and get this: he has 95% of correct plays according to GTOWizard and mostly consciously deviates from GTO play around 5% of the time based on his opponents. Meanwhile, I'm sitting at around 14.5% errors, mostly because I'm still figuring out what GTO play even means in each spot. It's a journey, folks, and I've got a long way to go, but hey, at least I know which direction to head in!

Let's keep the game fun and the chips flowing! May the cards be kind, and the EVRoi ever in our favor!

Current Bankroll: 4328$
Wrong plays by GTO: 15.08%
Week 4 profit: 601$

* Profit from the tables: 341$
* Bonuses: 260$

Tournaments played: 386

This week was relatively low in terms of volume as my wife and I embarked on a much-needed vacation in the form of a road trip through the Baltic states. As much as I wanted to take advantage of the x2 leaderboard promotion this month, I had to skip a few days to fully enjoy the trip, and there were even some places where internet access was scarce. As a result, my GTO plays took a hit, which I attribute to the less-than-ideal setup of playing on my 13" MacBook Air instead of my trusty 27" monitor back home.

Not much else to report. Despite the limited playing time and lower limits, I'm quite pleased with the outcome of yet another profitable week.

Graphs under spoiler:

Originally posted by Studentishe
Just had my first coaching session today, and boy, did it open my eyes! The coach dropped some knowledge bombs, and the main takeaway is clear: I need to invest more time and effort into analyzing hand histories. It's all about understanding where I'm losing money and how other players are leaving their wallets wide open. Time to put on my detective hat and dive into PT4 filters, reports, graphs, and screens that I have never seen before!

Good to hear about the coaching session. That is something I'm also very interested in. To have someone or a program take a look at my handhistory and give feedback or find my leaks. I prefer a coach than a pokertracker. The cheapest solution would be to upgrade my free tracker probably. I'll let it sink in for a while before I decide.

Highly recommend investing in both tools and coaching. :f_thumbsup::f_thumbsup::f_thumbsup:

Tools are a game-changer and give you a significant edge over the competition. I can't even imagine playing without GTOWizard—it's like having a poker oracle that provides answers to countless situations and bridges the gap in my knowledge and experience. My typical session now starts with a 15-30-minute warm-up in GTOWizard, using their drills and predefined spots to sharpen my skills. If I didn't have GTOWizard, I'd be spending that time warming up at the tables, which can be costly and nerve-wracking.

Coaching is a new venture for me in the poker world, but I've experienced the benefits of professional guidance in various areas of my life, whether it's German language tutoring, skiing, or therapy. It's like trying to master a musical instrument on your own—it's possible, but having someone by your side who has already mastered it is much more effective and efficient.

June started very promising:

First 25x multiplier in a while and could scoop the win

Challenge: 1K->10K

Week 5 Start BR: 4328$
Current BR: 8003$
Week 5 profit: 3675$

GTO wrong plays : 14.65%
Tournaments played: 673

Overall graph of all games:

The best week so far. Was close to finishing my challenge as I started today's session with 9,4K on my balance, but the cards were not falling in my favor - around 17 BI went below EV on 100s limit.

Started to track session lengths to grab an idea of my hourly rate. Need some time to collect data to get meaningful number.

Had another coaching session where we mainly went about non-GTO spots and how to adjust my lines when see one. The most popular non-GTO spot is when the button limps, GTOWizard marks automatically those hands as "NonExistingGTOSpot". Nick (the coach) showed me a way how to study those spots in GTOWizard, apparently, there is a "research" mode that I have never used. A big thing - is that I have changed my reference Push-Fold Nash charts from "standard" ones to the ones that include 10% ante. Ante changes things quite a lot, not hope to see fewer GTO mistakes in the HU push-fold phase. At the end of the session, we ran some reports for my HU game and it appears that I'm totally crashing it. Winrate 8.83 BB / 100 appears to be quite high and I even haven't started to use HUD, which is essential for HU. Looking forwards to the next session - we'll dive deeper into my stats as well as the field stats.

As I have opted-in for SharkScope tracking I'm looking there to grab the overall results of the games. PokerTraker doing an awful job for me to display the results of the tournaments. I know that it is only 4 days of the month, but so far leaderboards there look very nice:

Today I've completed my 1K -> 10K challenge.

My BR at the "end of the day" (right now 4:45 am, so not quite sure that end of the day is a good naming here) is 11795.

All started with a small "plus" session on 100s, but then I decided to take a taxi and go to play offline, where I successfully left 2.2K in very questionable hands (JJ < QQ and K9s < AKo). When I got home the best idea that came to my mind is to open a bottle of wine and "get it all back" in spins. Well... that was actually a good idea...

Looking at this graph one can say, that I was just lucky:

But taking a step back and looking at the total graph for 100s, I would say I just got back what I was owed ))):

Have a good shot at getting 700$ from the top leaderboard:

Will write another post tomorrow with overall charts. I'm happy and wanna sleep, see you soon

Nice to hear. What a short but epic run

What's your next challenge?

I have to say that I'm getting intrigued by spin and go.

Originally posted by H0witzer
What's your next challenge?

This is a really good question. Keep thinking about it today as I feel some sort of emptiness - either because of completing the challenge or because of that bottle of wine yesterday

Originally posted by H0witzer
I have to say that I'm getting intrigued by Spin and go.

Spin and go - is a great format. I like the speed and dynamicity, that you need to change strategies constantly depending on effective stacks, you need to play some spots with 100% range. The element that every time you register in the tournament there is a very small chance (but still there is one), that you will hit big, like really big.

If you need any tips - let me know, gladly would help out

Here is a detailed overview of the whole challenge. Will be a lot of numbers and graphs as I like those.

Number of calendar days: 35
Number of playing days: 31

Rake paid: 6302.45
Bonuses received: 5839.5
Rakeback: 92.65%

On this graph you can see how my BR progressed over time (blue line) and how much of that BR were bonuses (red line):

Overall, I think I found a very sweet combination of room promotions and game format. On 888Poker BLAST leaderboards are designed in a way that doesn't incentivize you to grind as much as you can and compete with the same "athletes", but rather show up every day and play a very manageable amount of tournaments to collect leaderboard points and call it a day.

As I started in May when Leaderboards prizes were doubled it contributed significantly to building a bankroll and setting the foot on the highest limit - 100s, where competition in the leaderboard is close to none. Thanks to the bonuses I managed to have only 9 negative days out of 31 playing days:

Below is an overall chart of all BLASTs that were played during the challenge. It doesn't tell much other than that I'm running significantly above ChipEV, most of this difference is coming from lower stakes and small multipliers.

To summarize my experience:
- I liked the efforts that I managed to put in consistently in the past 35 days;
- I still can't believe that I managed to get 90%+ rakeback - this is insane (thanks 888Poker);
- Time that I have put into play is not sustainable, meaning that I would need to rebalance it going forwards or I'll lose my wife eventually ))
- I got really low interaction in the blog, which was a bummer. Probably, need to reconsider what and how am I sharing. (Thanks @H0witzer for all your comments - they meant a lot to me)))
- GTOWizard is a great tool to work on your game. Very happy that I discovered and invested in it