hi,
a few days i hit the gold here, or gold status at least.
dont get me wrong, i still dont know how to play poker.
and i certainly feel this way when trying to follow a coaching.
yet i managed to play +ev on the low limits.
on of the articles says that i should congratulate myself when i reach a br of $600
so actually i should congratulate myself twice now and i decided to start this thread for this occasion.
been playing poker since last august.
had some up and downs playing FL, guess i managed to play the starting capital from $50 to $100. got a bit bored with that and had a look at NL, playing SSS for a few days and BSS for a few days, break even or so. got curious about about SH and as i had $15 somewhere on an account from before i joined Pokerstrategy i decided to have a look with that.
got lucky there cos 4 days later my account was already at $115. so i kept on playing NL10 SH till i reached $322.
as i got there averaging around 22BB/100 hands i decided to adapt brm a bit and decided to move to NL25, promising myself to move down should i fall back to $100, even willing to reload with $50 of my own money in case of worst case scenario... im not a student, so $50 does not mean so much to me).
so there i was at NL25 and the fun was over, just a bad streak and some mistakes and one week later i was at $133, preparing to move down.
then my luck changed and my play got a little better. with one minor bad streak i find myself at $710 now with a winrate of 10BB over the last 20,000 hands (after the initial bad streak).
meanwhile i watched the videos, posted a few hands and studied the other hands posted on the forum.
as NL SH was quite a tense thing for me as in quite a few situations i still have serious doubts -and yes, often the entire stack is at stake then- i decided to have a look at FL SH.
i had around $86 on my titan account. found it relaxing to play an hour of FL after a session of NL. so did that for a few days on FL 0.05/0.10 and 0.10/0.20.
as staying awake seemed like the main requirement to win at that at level i moved up to 0.25/0.50 again a bit before classical brm allows... did quite well there also so moved to 0.50/1.00.
i still dont have a clue on how to play that game properly but im still winning there at around 4 BB per 100 hands over the last 5000 hands.
brings my brm for FL to around $512 (part of it from the first deposit bonus i got by retracking my titan account to ps) ... so not so far removed from the brm requirements for 1.00/2.00... 
worst mistake i have made so far:
not studying the game enough (being too keen on the playing itself)
i know i still have plenty of space to improve and fine tune my game
so im thinking to participate more in the forums and watch the coachings on a regular basis. (i really feel like a fool when i hear the coaches their interpretation of the game... but on the bright side: i can only improve from there on)
yesterday i ordered Phil Gordon's Green book, and Terry Borer's book on SH FL. -yet i dont think that reading them can match up with one can learn at ps-
moving to SH too quickly and adjusting brm a bit i dont consider as real mistakes. playing FR bored me and opening a second table was not an option as that way i was missing out too much.
playing SH however i took like a fish to the water (might be a wrong phrasing in the poker world 
) with only 5 opponent a the table i have a better grasp of the table and i soon was able to open a second table playing NL. (i tend to overlook a few things when i do that with 10 at the table)
so i know that this is against standard teaching here but somehow this seemed better for my frame of mind. (and i do hold the opinion that teaching is all about adjusting to the student's capacities)
so all in all i have not made up my mind yet on what poker form i should concentrate on. SH cash games for sure... NL or FL?... eh....
guess i just play around a few more days till the decision falls on my donking skull.
one thing im going to do is follow xylere and do some goal setting.
no, i dont intend to follow in his footsteps so again im going to make an adjustment according to my mind frame
goal:
-play 500 hands FL SH per day ( one day of playing 500 hand NL allowed)
(mainly being close to the next limit that decides here)
-post 5 hands per day to the forum for analysis and start participating in the discussions there.
-follow the coachings.
so i keep my goals simple thus easy to reach
as i never was into goal setting (but then again xylere's postings are sooo inspiring (thx xylere for your work) no long term goals yet. (i have to admit that i would like to date maria sharapova, but lets face it: the odds of not getting laid at all then are against me)
so aside from xylere another special thanks for undercover and puschkin -their bronze NL videos gave me a feel for the game, and their posts inspire me- and all others who participate here.
