About a father who is swimming among the sharks: Cash Game on midstakes

In April I did not manage to reach 30 BI in winnings, as I had a slightly negative last week for the month, but winrate was still above 10bb/100 overall, that is pretty cool. Last year I had only around 4bb in winrate, that should look pretty decent, but my main target for 2024 is to achieve a bit higher (5bb+) if I move up on stakes, as rake becomes less in bb/100. Obviously opponents will get a bit better, but there is no that much difference between 400 and 1k regs. Except for 2,5x in real money, that is a big part of the mental side if you have some downswings.

What do u think about comfort zone? How do you move out of it, when do you have enough courage to take a shot on higher limits? In the past I had "bigger balls", I had some sessions on 5k already (was a big loss overall). Now I have a family, I'm responsible for the material essentials and we do have to plan every details about the future of our children. I'm not in a rush, but I know my time is limited to reach high profit in poker as I'm getting older. What are your thoughts on it?

I am in no way an expert in this, but I would say, maybe have some other passion/job/income as well, not only professional poker. For example, I am now teaching computer game development to children, something that I really like. I remember when I tried to go poker professional only while having two small sons, it still led me to working at a kindergarten with disabled children etc. Professional sports is nice but people in general ask for social behavior I think. Of course it sucks in a way that you have to pull back from the career in poker but it is possible to enjoy working with children and then adding the fun to the professional poker career - it feels safer even. Getting emotional needs met in family and for others is great, real connections and real safety. I don't know if it is helpful or not, it is something that I do.

Higher limits I think is very much connected to the partner. I once played very high compared to my standards, giving my best, and she liked it that I gave my best effort in my career. I still pulled back a lot cause it was too scary playing that high. I took a 2-year break, now I moved up a bit after few months, she kept telling me to move up when I described what I'm doing and the amount of money involved. Then when I moved up, she told me to take the winnings out, cause it was too scary for her. But now I gave my best to support local schools in education and so on, so she started to support my current stakes, saying: "get that Skrill physical card, what are you doing, paying with Skrill virtual card extra $1.50 cost every time to grocery store worker (ordering food online only)". So, I believe, it has to be connected to partner. This is where the confidence is. We are no longer playing to get the money for ourselves, we have to give our best to partner/family.

May was a decent month, upswing is still in progess, managed to win 20 BIs, EV was around the same. Had my best red line ever with +3bb/100, but I still feel I could have played better in some spots. I'm going to have a bigger break pretty soon, as my daughter will arrive in 1 month. I managed to reach 100 BIs overall winnings in 2024 that looks solid, but I still have to work a lot on my quantity. GL

For a short period I'm taking a break from poker. My daughter is going to born in a few days and I'm spending the next few weeks with my family full-time. This one is a new chapter both in my career and private life, a pretty challenging one, but hopefully I'm ready for this again. My plain is to take 3-5 weeks off, but it depends on the need of my help.

The last 6 months was really a good period in my career, most probably I managed my best winrate in such a period in the last decade or so. To tell the truth I was also running above EV, but not that extreme. I could improve my sleep schedule, could improve my overall basic strategy and mananged my best red line as well. There are many factors where I could step up, obviously the results gave me confidence also.

Results on Ipoker:

See you soon and hopefully we keep up crushing!

Have a wonderful time! I also quit my job at the abandoned cats shelter when our 2nd son was going to be born, my wife wasn't happy but sometimes you need to make these changes in your life

Welcome back! My daughter was borned in the middle of July and I had a medium long break during this period. The girl is getting stronger and stronger and the family is getting more tired day by day, but we keep up trying with my wife.

In August I had some sessions, but I was feeling a bit disorientated and it was hard to find the right biorythm and focus. Since September I'm trying to sleep alone on a different level of the house, most often I dont have 8 hours of calm sleep, but it helps me to achieve better results at the table. August was my first losing month of the year, but luckily in September I was back on the 10bb winning path. Most probably the best part of the year is yet to come in terms of player pool quality, but I should really increase my volume if I want to achieve higher goals.

Good luck! Second child can be tough, i got depression even, cause now i was fully tied to that family 24/7 (girlfriend's mother was mad and attacking regularly). The child creates a really strong connection that can be life-changing. Each challenge builds strength.. i wish you all the best both with the family and the career.

Hey PokerStrategy! So I'm posting my results since the birth of my daughter. Honestly I haven't had my best game on some periods, but maybe these results are still acceptable in terms of quality. During these months I had my first losing calendar month of the year and had my longest DS/BE period also. Anyway I managed to get back on the winning path and hopefully two more very successful weeks are ahead of us.

I have never been a red line player before, most probably 2024 is going to be my first ever year with positive trend. Wwsf is also the first time when it goes over 51 on a long run. So basically my game became more agressive, using more overbets and protecting those capped ranges in a better way than before. Main stats for this weaker period:

winrate: 7bb/100
EV: 6bb/100
wwsf: 51
red line: +0,5bb/100

Pretty soon I'm coming with my yearly summary, GL!

Very nice results, congrats! How tough are midstakes games on ipoker? Do you table select heavily (do you quit a table if there aren't any fish at the table) or do you battle with regs every session?

I think the pool is pretty the same in every room from midstakes. I don't really feel it would be harder or softer, than any other room on the market right now. Of course table selecting is important, that gives the biggest boost to your winrate.

Year 2024 on Ipoker:
(A brief summary about my results)

probably the best winrate during a calendar period in my career --> 10bb/100 (9bb/100 in EV)
the focus was on quality, instead of quantity (aimed 5bb+ in EV before the year)
first ever positive red line on such sample (+1bb)
highest wwsf on bigger sample (51,5)
10 winning months, 1 losing month and 1 month "rest" w family
one father with big heart, one exhausted wife, two small kids, two dogs and a difficult daily biorythm, but I'm keep trying my best to achieve my dream

There is still a lot to do, see you in 2025!

Congratulations! novak53:f_drink: Great performance.

Congratz to the + Red line - many wait for that forever! (or have all other lines going down...). Or maybe you reached the stakes where they respect your raises?

Thank you, I'm still trying to improve in some aspects of the game, there is still room to evolve. Haha, I'm not sure about my respect at the tables, I have a pretty bad image, most guys dont believe my raises, but yeah I'm trying to make some exploitments against overfold frequencies for sure. To be honest I dont think a positive red line is easier on higher stakes, as I guess on NL25-100 there are more regs with massive overfold tendencies. Well I'm not saying I have become a red line player, as my blue is still dominant that gives the bigger part of my winnings.

Hey!

A brief summary about my recent 2 months. Finally a tough and long downswing caught me in this period, probably the biggest one in the last 5 years. Played around 45k hands this year and down around 5 BIs so far. That wouldn-t be such a big thing, but I'm running really poor in almost any given situations. There is 20 BI gap between my yellow and green line, I never ever had a losing showdown winnings graph on such a sample before. I really hope hard times can make strong fighters and I can evolve in all area that is the most needed right now. Gogo!

https://ibb.co/1Gk6V7KH

-5 BI in 45k hands, you should still be up in rakeback, no?

Fantastic resources

Hello my goal is to make it to NL400 I'm currently playing NL2

A quick update about my recent results. After a bad start for the year I finally managed to get back to the winning path. The second quarter was crushing again with over 8bb/100 winrate and over 9bb/100 in EV. The third is also on the better side so far with 5bb in winnings (4bb in EV). Overall I should be satisfied with my quality of play since the the big downswing ended in March. My main goal for the rest of the year is to increase my monthly quantity from 20k hands to 30k hands and try to evolve my red line play again. I havent spent so many hours in the lab as I have planned, so that's also an important factor for the rest of the year.

Results from April to August: