[Closed] Micro stakes micro blog

Hi lee200,

nice blog, nice goals, i wish you good luck with your journey. As i am currently playing micros as well, with similar goals (trying to get to nl25) i will closely follow your blog and progress

have fun

freespirit

I've nearly made the $100 I need to start playing at 4NL. Not much for most of you I know, but a step towards my poker goals. I'll celebrate with a graph:

The green line is going up which I guess is the important thing. The initial drop is down to me jumping straight in to the 6 max tables with my $50. It should be fairly obvious where I changed to full ring and started reading the strategy articles!

I think these stats are okay. Perhaps PFR could be a bit higher in relation to my VPIP and my 3Bet could be higher?

Finally a couple of hands:

1. Any comments on this hand appreciated:

$0.01/$0.02 No Limit Holdem
8 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Villain is 21/10 and stealing 59% of the time out of the SB

Stacks:
UTG ($1.97)
UTG+1 ($0.97)
MP1 ($5.03)
MP2 ($2.30)
CO ($1)
BTN ($0.96)
SB ($5.14)
Hero ($5.08)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03, 8 players) Hero is BB Q♥ K♥
6 folds, SB raises to $0.06, Hero raises to $0.18, SB raises to $0.54, Hero calls $0.36

Flop: 10:club: 9♥ 10:heart: ($1.05, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.61, SB raises to $1.22, Hero goes all-in $4.54, SB calls $3.32

Turn: 6♦ ($10.13, 2 players, 1 all-in)

River: 7♦ ($10.13, 2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $10.13
SB shows
9♣ 9♦
Hero shows
Q♥ K♥

SB wins $9.49 (net +$4.41)

Hero lost $5.08

Obviously I was unlucky to find him with a hand near the top of his range and for him to hit the flop so hard. However, the more I look at it the more I think I should've got away when he raised me on the flop or maybe even pre-flop.

2. The advantages of being patient:

The villain was a total madman. He was playing 93/69 and was in practically every hand, betting and raising like a lunatic. I'd already put in his notes "only play good hands, let him do the betting" when this hand came along:

$0.01/$0.02 No Limit Holdem
8 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($2.51)
UTG+1 ($2.03)
MP1 ($2)
MP2 ($3)
CO ($5.15)
Hero ($4.91)
SB ($4.74)
BB ($4.92)

Pre-Flop: ($0.03, 8 players) Hero is BTN A♣ 10:club:
3 folds, MP2 calls $0.02, CO calls $0.02, Hero calls $0.02, SB raises to $0.14, 1 fold, MP2 folds, CO folds, Hero calls $0.12

Flop: 9♣ 5♣ 4♣ ($0.33, 2 players)
SB bets $0.32, Hero calls $0.32

Turn: Q♠ ($0.97, 2 players)
SB bets $1.02, Hero calls $1.02

River: 8♣ ($3.01, 2 players)
SB bets $3.26, Hero calls $3.26

Final Pot: $9.53
Hero shows
A♣ 10:club:
SB shows
Q♦ J♠

Hero wins $8.91 (net +$4.17)

MP2 lost $0.02
CO lost $0.02
SB lost $4.74

I love it when a plan comes togther ♦

Thanks and good luck at the tables

alright mate, nice blog and nice work in reachin $100 gl taking the first small step up and with all ur other goals too.

I didnt get to play last night so still down at $95 you wanna make some kinda challenge see if it helps us progress any faster? message me on skype if you do.

I missed last weeks update as I was at a family reunion. It was my wifes family from Ireland, so lots of drinking and laughing. Great fun and we even managed to blag a free meal from the hotel as the hot water wasn't working one morning. I had one of the best steaks of my life and not just because it was free. I can thoroughly reccommend the Hilton, very accommodating (excuse the pun). Anyway, on to the poker:

As the graph shows things have been progressing well. At least I think so anyway. The red arrow shows were I started playing 4NL (goal achieved!!) and, after a bit of a choppy start, I feel pretty comfortable and confident with my game.

As its the end of the month (nearly) I'll do a quick run down of my short term goals:

1. Read all NL cash silver articles by end of October
   I've managed just under 50%. Epic fail as my children would say and I would have to agree
2. Increase BR to $100 (currently at $75) by end of October and start playing 0.02/0.04
   Success, I had the $100 mid-way through October and am upto $150 now ♠_biggrin:
3. Get a better understanding of my HEM stats. I'm currently playing 16/9 and from what I've read my PFR should be higher (about 75% of my VPIP). I think this may be down to not 3 betting enough
   Success I think. I'm happy with my playing style and it's making me money at this level at least
4. Sort out my HEM HUD. Currently I have VPIP/PFR/AF/3 Bet, but I'm thinking of adding Fold to 3 bet, Steal, Cbet and Fold to Cbet
   Success. My HUD now has VPIP/PFR/AF/WTS/Hands on the first line and Steal/3 Bet/Fold to 3 bet/Cbet/Fold to Cbet on the second. I'm definitely making more use of it at 4NL, especially when it comes to 3 or 4 betting

My new short term goals are:

Read all NL cash silver articles by end of November
Increase BR to $250 by end of December and start playing 0.05/0.10
Finish reading The Poker Blueprint
Swap from full ring to 6-max

On that last point does anyone have any comments on the differences between full ring and 6-max or links to any good articles?

Have a good weekend and good luck at the tables

Nice blog budy and inspirating goals you have there, maybe i steal some for my blog if you don't mind ♦

Now i can see there we are at least 3 players here at the same time and limit trying to climb up: me, you and ExternalUseOnly. Maybe we can help each other to accomplished our goals. You know stuff like hand evaluation and stats explaining ....

Make that 5 including me and RainbowPonny.

Nice progress!

As for the move to 6max - blueprint is definitely a must read, good pick. Be prepared for much higher variance nad that you will be facing a lot of action and a lot tougher decisions then at fullring. On the other hand, 6max is way more fun, so good luck!

Originally posted by Pokrovec
Nice blog budy and inspirating goals you have there, maybe i steal some for my blog if you don't mind ♦

Now i can see there we are at least 3 players here at the same time and limit trying to climb up: me, you and ExternalUseOnly. Maybe we can help each other to accomplished our goals. You know stuff like hand evaluation and stats explaining ....

Thanks. Steal as many as you want, just don't beat me in achieving them ♦

Originally posted by lozz08
Make that 5 including me and RainbowPonny.

6 as there is also HollyMichelle

I'll add you all as friends. Hopefully we can get a bit of a micro-stakes group going and help each other out as Pokrovec suggests

Good luck at the tables

Originally posted by freespirit47
Nice progress!

As for the move to 6max - blueprint is definitely a must read, good pick. Be prepared for much higher variance nad that you will be facing a lot of action and a lot tougher decisions then at fullring. On the other hand, 6max is way more fun, so good luck!

Thanks mate. Now, I just need to make some time to actually read the book

Nice blog! I feel I need to step mine up a bit! Really impressive results and graphs Good luck with everything!

nice progress there mate on NL4 keep it up,

this looks good alot of people up for some kind of group learning improvement type thing you can count me in for definate ill be on skype tomorrow night

Keep pwning

Well I'm another playing the micros. I've been trying all sorts like NL2 SSS/BSS and $1 SnG/DoN. I mostly see my BR shrinking unless I'm playing Stud. It's difficult to multi-table stud unless you have an eidetic memory, which I don't.

Great blog. I guess I should blog too. It may help with motivation. Motivation seems to be vital for grinding.

Thanks. I think its best to concentrate on one type of game when you start out e.g. NL cash, SNG or whatever. Chopping and changing is only going to lead to confusion. I know some people will disagree, but I honestly think full ring cash is the best starting point. At the micro-limits its easy to play ABC poker and still make a profit ♠_biggrin:. This gives you time to concentrate and improve upon other aspects of your game like hand reading. Also, you don't have to worry about increasing blinds, ICM and the bubble that are a big part of SNG's.

If you haven't already read them the What is the Big Stack Strategy and Advanced Open-raising (FR) articles are a good starting point.

Good luck at the tables

Well , you can't say my blog doesn't lives up to its name! Nearly two weeks since my last update and I haven't even got the excuse of going to a party.

After growing by bankroll to $150 I had problems moving on from there and spent about 8000 hands getting nowhere:

I felt I was still playing okay, just not making any headway. My pokerstrategy psychologist (thanks ExternalUseOnly) suggested I might be suffering from a subconscious mental block (Freud eat your heart out) and that was it. I smashed through $150 'barrier' and am up to $170 now.

You've probably also noticed I was running way ahead of my EV. It's been hanging over me like the sword of Damocles these last couple of weeks. Thankfully, the gap contracted last night and the best bit was I still had a winning session ♠_biggrin:.

Finally, I'd like to talk about one of my pet hates. I was in a hand and got my money in on the turn with a flush as a 6-1 favourite only to lose when my opponent rivered a better flush. One of the other players at the table laughed at the outcome. Rofl to be precise. I can't stand that. It would've been bad enough if the player that sucked out on me did it, but some other random player? However, I later went on to stack the joker when he overplayed his AK v my AA. Ah, revenge is sweet ♠_evil:

Good luck at the tables

you seem to be doing well, keep it up

...and then Conal spoke...

Originally posted by conall88
you seem to be doing well, keep it up

Okay, to be fair, I can't really blame Conal :). The downswing occurred over just two sessions. The first a loss of $30 and the second $15. I think the results can be put down to the following factors:

1. Aces getting cracked by KK, etc
2. Running my good hands into better hands. Set v set, etc
3. Laying down hands thinking they were beaten after meeting resistance
4. Not laying down hands after meeting resistance!

Situations 1 and 2 can't be helped, but 3 and 4 are symptoms of tilt I think. That feeling of I don't want to lose any more money, or, worse, I need to make some money back and I'm going to push this hand despite all the betting evidence :f_cry:. I'm pretty sure I could've restricted my first sessions loss if I'd just shut down the laptop and walked away for the night.

Anyway, I've decided to to use this setback to start playing 6 max. I'm still 6 tabling, but I have dropped down a level until I get used to it. So far I'm really enjoying it, loads more action and a lot more poker too. Not just ABC all the way. As moving to 6 max was one of my goals I suppose the loss of the 9 buy ins has had at least one positive outcome. Just as well I always look on the bright side of life...

You have to if you play poker! Another positive to look forward to is my 6 buy in -EV decreasing. 72 cracking AA here I come ♠_biggrin:

I'll leave you with a comedy hand from the $30 downswing day. My thoughts in purple

$0.02/$0.04 No Limit Holdem
9 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ($4.35)
UTG+1 ($2.63)
MP1 ($4.25)
MP2 ($5.02)
MP3 ($4.71)
CO ($4.77)
BTN ($3.69)
SB ($5.23)
BB ($6.82)

Pre-Flop: ($0.06, 9 players)
4 folds, MP3 raises to $0.16, CO calls $0.16, 3 folds

Flop: 5♥ A♣ 5♦ ($0.38, 2 players)
MP3 bets $4.55,
Damn! Meant to type in 0.22 but typed 22 and ended up all-in. Never mind, I'm sure he'll fold. He's probably got a weak pocket pair...
CO calls $4.55
Damn again! It'll be okay, it could be an A with a worse kicker...

Turn: 8♦ ($9.48, 2 players)

River: 7♠ ($9.48, 2 players)

Final Pot: $9.48
MP3 shows
A♠ J♣
CO shows
5♣ 5♠
Quads!!! That just about sums my night up

CO wins $8.85 (net +$4.14)

MP3 lost $4.71

BIG ouch! Just keep on playing you'll get through the downswing.

wow that was a good mis-type lol. Chin up anyway you will be crushing again soon ive taken a break from SH it was getting the best of me actualy ive pretty much taken a break from poker not played for about a week now ive switched back to grinding FR for some (hopefuly) easier decisions to make get my confidence back then since youve started 6-max (nice one btw) we can do some sweat sessions in a couple of days if you want?

Thanks for the support guys.

@ExternalUseOnly: Good luck with the FR. Definitely up for the sweat sessions