Grinding up from NL2

My advice would be to take a rest from the game for as long as you feel like. Days, weeks, month. Doesn't usually take years, but this might be the case and there's nothing wrong with that. Don't play pissed off, because that may totally destroy love for the game and you will not want to see cards in a long long time. Experience talking here. Whereas during that period you could be making money.

So take a break, until you get back that desire to play poker, like in the very beginning. But during that break, it might be a good idea to read some mindset-improving books, so you could be more ready for bad variance as you return. Only learn technical aspects of poker, when you are just before coming back and have a ton of motivation to crush.

Hope this helps a tiny bit.

thanks for the advice. I've started reading the psychology articles in the strategy section and that has certainly helped. I've just come back from a long break and I'm actully still enjoying my poker so I don't really want to take a break just yet. I think I just needed to vent a little. Of course if I lose much more I'll need to start playing SSS again

i know how you feel
from my own personal experience (which im still working on) ♦ i would have a bad session were i miss everything and were as everyone is hitting everything against me, i get 3bet on every table at the same time and i would just start tilting and making spewy splays thinking im folding to much and everyone is trying to exploit me....but guess what they are not they have the goods and im just in bad seats, when i finally have had enough of the session which may only last 1 hour on 6 tables i can be like 10 buyins down. ok half these could be suckouts but the other half are tilt for sure and these will really add up and are a huge leak, i used to get really angry and emotional this is very bad lol

ok so now i have to recovery this which i do because im allowed to run good sometimes so my graph is very swingy up and down up and down and im just breaking even.

so what am i doing about this? well its pretty simple i have learnt to use the fold button, i have set myself a 3 buying stop loss were if i loose 3 buyins i quit the session because if they are not coolers then the chances are i am doing something wrong, and because i want to play i dont want to stop so its easier for me to fold hands because i dont want to lose the 3 buyins lol ;;i lose far less big pots now and the ones i do lose i post in the nl.10 hand reviews were Veriz who is an excellent player and coach gives me his opinion for free which is great, i do this straight after every session now.

i hope you can get something from this and if you like i will put up my graph at the end of the month so you can see the big difference it has made to my win rate

thanks bud. One thing I've started doing recently which I think has helped with my mindset quite a bit is that I set a time limit on all my sessions of about 2 hours. I set my alarm and when it goes off I close all tables and take a break. I also have a 3 buyin stop loss.

I definitely have a huge leak against extremely LAG players which I'm trying to be more conscience of. I had a session yesterday that actually would've been profitable had I not donked away 2 BI's to a LAGtard who was on my right and playing a vpip of 90+

also like you i used to play a bit higher and crush that, i started playing again this year after i was offered another free $50 by p.s to try out a new poker client, which i took but like you got sooo bored playing nl 0.2 and 0.4 deposited the bit extra to play nl 0.10 and try grind it up to a nioce bankroll

for some reason my mind was not right these players are not allowed to suckout on me i derserve to crush this level im much better than them. well by the way im tilting off all my money im NOT i have let myself down and i need to get in the real world and get a grip. i have a moment of clarity and the light bulb switches on in my brain. thank god, now lets crush this level and move up when i have finally gotten over myself ♦ i will post a graph when i was playing two years ago

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

dont try and force the action, its very easy to get emotional and spew off to these retards, you just have to wait for the right spots, yeah i know there is a timmer over their heads and its a race to take their money but you just cant force the action

Hey there thebaptist333,

Excellent, straighforward and honest advice from nefarious26 there, I wouldn't want him on my table!
I don't think it needs to be said that he won't be playing nano-games for long!

This is an excellent thread and cheered my day, thanks guys.

Best regards,

Mal.

Thanks for all the advice. As I'm writing this I just finished up a winning session (about 2BI), this is my first winning session in what feels like a while ♠_biggrin:

One thing I might start doing more is posting more hands in the review forum.

Thanks again for the tips nefarious26. See you on the felt

Originally posted by thebaptist333
Thanks for all the advice. As I'm writing this I just finished up a winning session (about 2BI), this is my first winning session in what feels like a while ♠_biggrin:

One thing I might start doing more is posting more hands in the review forum.

Thanks again for the tips nefarious26. See you on the felt

you 100% need to post hands in the review forum, veriz is brilliant he is sometimes sarcastic with his analysis which i love it really gets the message home,

filter your hands and post the big pots you lose and so tough pots you win, also when your playing and are in a tough spot in a hand make a note of this hand and post it to, also read other posters hand reviews and digest what veriz says. i know this is obvious but i will help other also

im really in a much better place in my mind now and my tilting is 90% better now, im even happy for the less experienced players that suck out on me i now think good luck to you mate nice hand instead of i want to fucking kill you retard fish

Good luck practice hard and run good thebaptist

Originally posted by gadget51
Hey there thebaptist333,

Excellent, straighforward and honest advice from nefarious26 there, I wouldn't want him on my table!
I don't think it needs to be said that he won't be playing nano-games for long!

This is an excellent thread and cheered my day, thanks guys.

Best regards,

Mal.

Thanks Mal
yes it is straight forward and honest, its import that we are honest to ourselves otherwise we can not learn by our mistakes, we need to be honest with ourselves to be able to identify the root of our problems, this is more important in life as it is with poker.
we have to except variance and suckouts and not get angry and lose even more, variance is just poker tax its the extra bit of juice we have to pay, no need to go tilty and pay more than we should that would be irrational, that would be like walking down the street stubbing your toe on the kerb getting upset and start chucking £20 notes at people...it just wouldn't happen ♦

So after my good session, I had to end the day with a bad session to make it another losing day ♠_cry:

I'm playing primarily on titanpoker atm and I seem to do fine during the day when I'm playing mostly against regs and nits, but I seem to be struggling at night when all the fish come out.

I don't think I'm playing too badly, but I'm just not catching the right cards and donkey seems to always have the nuts.

Yesterday I lost the most against 1 particular player who was playing a 60/20 game. I've been trying to really tighten up against these players so I was playing somewhere in the region of 11/10

Some of the key hands I had against this player were:
QJ on QKJxK board, I folded river when he donk shoved for about 75 BB after playing the other streets passive.

QJ on QJxxx board where he shows up with JJ

AK on A5xxx board where he shows up with A5

Those were the 3 hands where I lost the most. I think it's just unlucky that you play against a player playing 60% of hands with TPTK or better and he shows up with the goods every time.

On another note, I was playing the 20FPP freeroll on stars and got down to about 140 players. I had a little over 10BB when Open shoved from early position with A6o. I was a big disappointed with that play and I'm not quite sure if it was standard, marginal, or just plain dumb. I think I could've waited for a better spot and the second I did it, it just felt spewy

Hey thebaptist,

I see a blog happening! ♦
What about starting one, or I can just move this to blogs forum if you like and you can rename it something cool after that.

Regards,

Mal.

HAHA, yeah that's not a bad idea. I think I just need a place to vent sometimes. Maybe a blog is the way to go

So I played some freerolls yesterday. Placed 10th in the pokerstrategy 1K freeroll for a measly $20 (represents 10 BI's for me so not too measly).

I also played the 5k guaranteed VIP freeroll on titan. I busted out in 8th place for about $112 which I'm obviously happy about. I went into the final table as the second largest stack though so in that way I'm a little disappointed with 8th.

I lost 2 big pots which meant the end for me. The first pot was my AQ vs AT from a smallish stack; he spiked his T on the flop and held. Then my final hand was a bit of a funny one. I had about 11BB and I min-raised from utg with JJ and the plan was to shove almost any flop. I got a call from the biggest stack. Flop was Qxx with 2 hearts and the SB donked for about half pot. I shoved and he called with AK of hearts. He hit his heart on the turn and it was goodnight for me. I could've ended in 6th at least since there were 2 players with 1 BB each, but I wanted the win, which would've been 1k, and ended up busting out instead ♠_cry:

The 5k tourney was also a rebuy tourney and I decided right off the bat that I would add on but NOT rebuy at all. Because of that I basically started the tourney with a half stack since most other players do a rebuy right at the start. I think that was one of the best runs I've had in a large MTT (I placed 3rd in another large freeroll once).

I also got quite deep in the 20FPP pokerstars tourney but internet decided to destroy me for about 30 minutes and I got blinded out in 130th for about 70 cents ♠_cool:

All in all, this could be the start of my upswing since I've basically made my losses all back and some.

btw, you're welcome to move this to the blogs section. I might try and keep it going since I find it quite calming

Yes it can be somewhat cathartic can't it? ♦

Ok, I'll move this to Your Poker Blogs for you, it should get more attention there as well.

Good luck with it and have fun!

Mal.

It's always fun to flop a set, decide to slow play against pre flop aggressor, and then hit runner runner suited cards to make a 4 card flush possible.

Hand converted with online PokerStrategy.com hand converter:

Play hand

$0.02/$0.04 No-Limit Hold'em (7 handed)

Known players:
[tg]CO$1.40:///////;BU$0.94:///////;SB$1.04:///////;BB$6.01:///////;MP1 (Hero)$4.06:///////;MP2$5.25:///////;MP3$4.34:///////;[/tg]

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with 6:s, 6:h.
Hero calls $0.04, MP2 calls $0.04, MP3 raises to $0.16, 4 folds, Hero calls $0.12, MP2 folds.

Flop: ($0.42) T:s, 6:d, K:d (2 players)
Hero checks, MP3 bets $0.31, Hero calls $0.31.

Turn: ($1.04) J:d (2 players)
Hero bets $0.72, MP3 calls $0.72.

River: ($2.48) 8:d (2 players)
Hero checks, MP3 checks.

Final Pot: $2.48.

I know I should probably lead the flop since there are straight and flush possibilities but sometimes I like a little gamble. Maybe that's a weakness in my game, or maybe I should stop watching high stakes poker shows ♠_mad:

Should I bet more on the turn maybe?

Villain showed up with the single A for the stone cold nuts so I have no idea why he checked it down on the river.

Originally posted by thebaptist333

Villain showed up with the single A for the stone cold nuts so I have no idea why he checked it down on the river.

I know villian should probably lead the river ..... Maybe that's a weakness in villians game, or maybe I should stop watching high stakes poker shows ♠_mad:

On topic: I think your sizing on the turn is fine, doesn't matter much at these stakes. If you made a bigger raise he would have called also. And shoving isn't fine here, cause you will only get called with bigger hands.

Hi thebaptist333

Welcome to the blog section!

I see you are having a hard time on the micro's? Don't give up! You will beat those fishes one day!

I'm having problems with fishes at well! I just can't wait to stack them. But a lot of times I do it in the wrong spot

If I can give you a good advice regarding fishes it's this. If they minraise you have to fold! Thats my experience though. Most of the time fishes minraise me they have the nuts.

Like you said you have to post hands in the evaluation forum, Veriz is such a good coach and if there is one guy who can fix your leaks it's Veriz!

Maybe it's a good idea to start with the No limit beginners course? I don't know if you ever heart about the No Limit beginners course or not? It's a course that consists out of 8 live coachings and 8 homeworks. During this course you will learn everything you need to know to beat at least NL2 and NL5 and maybe break even on NL10. At the end of the course you can do an exam and if you pass the exam you will get the same tag as me in your signature. You can start whenever you want and you can leave the course whenever you want. So you can give it a shot and stop if you don't like it.
No Limit beginners course

I'll be following your blog!

Best of luck on the tables!

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