Hello everyone! I will start my blog from an introduction. My name is Andrius (in English that would be Andrew), I live in Lithuania, I'm 18 years-old (Well, not trully, my b-day is on 29th of February, so I get my real b-day only once in 4 years (if you don't believe me, check the callendar!)). I've known the rules of Texas Hold'Em since I was ~13 years-old, my brother played some online poker for playing money (he doesn't play anymore), but I haven't played it for myself. So, last year, my girlfriend started to play poker on Facebook (ZYNGA!!!) and I wanted to do something together when we were apart, so I just joined her at the table. Back then it was okay, I guess, though I played like an amature (and I was actualy). Later on, me and my friends started to play some live poker from real cash and it got me more into poker! So I played, played, played.. This summer I had a job and when I got my first salary, I decided to give a try at the real money online poker tables. I deposited it in PokerStars. At first ir was horible, I didn't know how to play properly to earn cash (btw my first deposit was 34.5$). As I reached 7$ I figured I don't want to lose everything and started reading Short Stack Strategy (SSS) provided by this site. It really worked, I managed to raise up my bankroll to 50$ and then it started - the up and down swings. For about 2 moths I raise my bankroll to 80$ then i go back to 4$ and it goes and goes.. So last week I figured I want to find out where I'm good at. Live I'm pretty good at SnG's, so I tried playing double-or-nothing. It went well for 2 times, and then I lost 2 and i fugured it's not for me. So there it was - my thing - HEADS-UP matches! I had 36$ in my bankroll and played 5,25$ buy-in tournaments (I know bad bankroll management here, but it works now (using SSS I used the normal bankroll management though)) and I started to win. So there it goes, now I'm playing HEADS-UP matches.
My goal: The tittle of this blog is "From counting pennies to money independence" and it really represents my goal. I wish I can go downtown and spend all the money I want, not even thinking about it, eventhough I'm pretty tight with money. I would love to go to a caffee and buy myself and my mates a coffee (me and my hommies just LOVE coffee), that may sound very stupid, but Lithuania is suffering an economic crysis, so I don't get allot of pocket money from my parrents. I get 50LT a month and 20LT a week (for lunch at school), to make it $ it would be 50+20*4=130LT its 51$. The coffee here costs ~8LT (I mean the good coffee) and that makes ~16 coffees a month. And I'm not even talking about the movies or going to McDonalld's or any pizzeria to eat.
So I would love to go and buy me and my palls a coffee everyday not even thinking that I'm short with money.
As I said I play Heads-up so I started to make some stats of my play from 30th of September.
30th of September
PLAYING: 5,25$ Buy-in Heads-up SnG's
IF YOU WIN YOU GET: +4,75$
PLAYED: 20
WON: 12
PROFIT: 15$
TOTAL PLAYED HANDS: 854
1st of October
PLAYING: 5,25$ Buy-in Heads-up SnG's
IF YOU WIN YOU GET: +4,75$
PLAYED: 17
WON: 10
PROFIT: 10,75$
TOTAL PLAYED HANDS: 971
2nd of October
PLAYING: 5,25$ Buy-in Heads-up SnG's
IF YOU WIN YOU GET: +4,75$
PLAYED: 37
WON: 18
PROFIT: -14,25$
TOTAL PLAYED HANDS: 1610
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I've found out about Turbo Heads-up tournaments, I've never seen them before, I would have played them before
3rd of October
PLAYING: 6,25$ Buy-in TURBO Heads-up SnG's
IF YOU WIN YOU GET: +5,75$
PLAYED: 10
WON: 8
PROFIT: 33,50$
TOTAL PLAYED HANDS: 419
So, had a pretty good run that day, my bankroll hit 100$(first time it got there)!!! If you wondering why I stopped at such a great run, there's an explanation - I've made a rule, to not lose too much and not lose when I have made enough money for a day. I said to myself I will stop playing poker for a day when I get +6 matches or -3 matches. example: If you play 5 matches, win 3 of them, lose 2, then you are +1 match. So I've hit my +6 matches that day, so I figured I want to stop there.
4th of October
PLAYING: 6,25$ Buy-in TURBO Heads-up SnG's
IF YOU WIN YOU GET: +5,75$
PLAYED: 15
WON: 6
PROFIT: -21$
TOTAL PLAYED HANDS: Haven't counted them, since I played the first 4 matches at school
So today was pretty bad for me, I broke up with my girlfriend, so I think I was in a bad mood, and I shouldn't have played at all. Well we learn from mistakes.
By the way, from 2nd of October I played 1 match a day on Full Tilt Poker. I had 12$ there in my bankroll, but I really don't like FTP (maybe it's cause I'm used to Pokerstars), so I wanted to play my all-banroll-match there. I swore to myself that I will play very focused and won't make any stupid mistakes. So I did, I won the game. I had 22$ in my bankroll. Yesterday I played another one 10$ buy-in game and won it too, so it's 32$ yesterday there. Today I also won a game after a recovery from my bad mood. So now it's 42$!
MY BANKROLLS:
PokerStars: 78,91$
Full Tilt Poker: 42,34$
So that's about it. I will keep you updated as frequently as possible, I'll try to do it everyday. Feel free to ask anything you would like to know and feel free to criticize me.
By the way, Sorry for my English mistakes, I'm not that used to write in English
SEE YA SOON!
I Respect your goodwill(about coffee 
8 
A 
