FINISHED - Growing Bankroll: Let's make 1k

Week 5
I am a fish

Hey all,

I am a fish! That's how I felt too many times this week, I just know there are so many things wrong with my game and an observant reg would destroy me!

Actually, the only part of my game I am content of is my open raising, and that is the easiest as you just can print some cards for yourself to help you.

What I really need to work on: Reaction vs 3bets and hands I cbet, because so far it was a bit cbet when I feel like it, which is bad because emotions might influence this too much.

But my biggest problem I have so far is differentiating my plays against diverse type of opponents. For example I know that fish most likely won't bluff at the river, so I tend to overfold against bets and raises there, but against someone who might be a reg it is a really hard to react to bets on the river. Preflop I find this even worse, when people 3bet me, usually they have something big, but regs might add some bluffs too. In theory I know what to do, but in practise I tend to focus on the fish and let regs out 3bet me on too many spots.

But yeah, I am not playing for that long so I'm happy that I've got too learn many and many concepts, because otherwise the game would be too easy, I have played a little over 15k hands total now.
I hope NL5 is fish-filled as well, because I might move up soon.

Hands: 2297
Starting bankroll: $62.79
Bankroll last week: $93.71
Current bankroll: $101.67
Profit/loss this week: $7.96
Profit/loss total: $38.70

Graph

Next week and the week after will have probably less than 1000 hands because of exams.

Side challenge

It is really hard to track how many tourneys you played (and won) on unibet so I really don't know how many I played, think about 30, and I made a profit of $6, now I have $67, still a little while to go till I move up.

Moving up

I did it, reached the 25BI mark for NL5, let's move up!

I will need some time to adapt to the larger money amounts on the table (like every pot is like a 3-bet pot on NL2 now!). Also the rake will go slightly up :(.

Maybe I need to change my playstyle a bit till I adapted to the higher money amounts, I was quite loose on NL2, (like between a LAG and a TAG) but I think I will play a bit tighter now (but still aggresive!)

Hey, good luck

bravos bravos bravos bravosss

Originally posted by AgapieGheorghe
Hey, good luck

Originally posted by ickatahape87
bravos bravos bravos bravosss

Thanks for the cheers!!!

Week 6
Well I just started on this limit and I don't think things couldn't have started better!

Most profitable week yet! Already up 3.5BI on the new limit, very happy about it :).

The lessons I've been taking lately on this site are very appropiate, the Summer Succes - Moving up the stakes coaching series from W34z3l, I've actively watched 5 of the 6 episodes so far and there were two episodes that were especially helpful, one about a solid cbetting strategy (post-flop play as the aggressor) and one about playing against cbetting (post-flop play as the cold caller). I've been able to implement many of the concepts I've learned there and it really changed my post-flop game. So I am very thankfull for winning that status upgrade and I will finish the series tomorrow, because next month I will be silver again.

So I improved my flop and turn play lately, my preflop game was already on the level I want it too be, the next few weeks I need to work on the river, as I find that I often don't know if there is any value to be made on the river and because I do occasionally still call down to wide.

This is the graph that follows when I filter for any hand that I called on the river this week, so as you can see, I should be able to limit my losses here.

An example hand:

Another example was posted on the forum today already: Another weak river call

And this problem is actually huge because river pay-offs are usually the most expensive ones. So lots of ground to cover.

Now for the results:

Hands: 2244
Starting bankroll: $62.79
Bankroll last week: $101.67
Current bankroll: $142.75
Profit/loss this week: $41.08
Profit/loss total: $76.96

Btw, I got an extreme amount of bonuses this week, so that's the other part of the winnings. I got the first part of my first depositors bonus (+$10), I think I still got some cardmatches this week, don't know for how much. Completed the 'Golden Button Challenge' 3 times for (+$0.75) and min-cashed one time in the daily shootout (+$1). And the most lucky one, when the 'The Deal - Jackpot' is above 100k I try to play the game twice a day (for 14c per day) looking to get my share and every day I did get one pair, so that makes it kinda cheaper, but one day I did get a fullhouse (+$5), so I run above my starcoin EV a lot for now, but didn't get a share of the jackpot yet.

Side Challenge
This week I decided to cancel my mission with the HU sit and go's. At the beginning of the week I won some, than I went on an enormous losing streak, like 10 in a row, then I won a few again, anyway I do not really like the format anymore. But after all at wednesday when I was down 10 for the week I decided to just quit the format and better focus on cash games.

I will leave that balance alone for 6 months because after 6 months of inactivity I will be able to track my account with pokerstrategy so I can collect strategypoints from unibet and participate in the rake races. I might do some occasional sport bets though so the balance might change (I'm a soccer fan), but no huge bets, all between 1-2% of my bankroll.

Today I had a pretty rough session! At the start I did get a lot of playable holdings, but no playable flops, no OESD, no FD, only weak pairs or gutshots, so it is quite expensive to see flops and don't like them for a few 100 hands, the hand that hurted me most today was AK (both AKo and AKs).

Today I did get AK 13 times in total, 7 times my raise or 3bet did get called and I saw those flops:

I really don't know how to handle the pot after it comes like this, so that does need some working for sure.

At the end of the session I was only one Buy-In down. But then this hand happened:

PokerStars - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 206 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)
Hero (SB): 136.8 BB
BB: 101.2 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)
UTG: 106 BB (VPIP: 8.00, PFR: 4.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 25)
MP: 84.6 BB (VPIP: 75.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 25.00, Hands: 4)
CO: 162.4 BB

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has K♣ K♦

fold, fold, CO raises to 2 BB, BTN raises to 6 BB, Hero raises to 13 BB, fold, fold, BTN raises to 206 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 123.8 BB and is all-in

Flop: (276.6 BB, 2 players) 4♥ 5♣ 9♠

Turn: (276.6 BB, 2 players) 8♦

River: (276.6 BB, 2 players) T♦

I really think I did make a mistake here with calling, but still... I don't think I can ever make this fold.

Btw, I also played like really bad today, so that is ofcourse the main reason for my big loss today. I was auto-piloting at too many spots and in the middle of the hand I woke up and felt like, how the hell did I get myself in this situation.

Another part of my game that didn't get through as often as I would like too are my semibluff checkraises, so I will need to work on those too, as these are by far the most costly mistakes I made today, I think that without ever semi-bluff check raising today I would've only lost 1 stack (instead of 2.5). I think I just chose the wrong spots today, which is weird because I feel like I picked the same spots as usual.

TO-DO LIST

- Working on river-calls
- Working on check-raise ranges
- Be less results orientated

Results Week 7

A short update this week:

I had exams this entire week so I mainly played poker in between the learning sessions. Results were not that good:

I still made too many calls when clear that opponent almost never bluffs at such spots, I sometimes still have a hard time reading my relative hand strength. So in my head some spots are a clear call because I win against all his bluffs and even beat some of their value range, but in reality I only beat their bluffs. I guess I just gotta keep working on it, it doesn't sound too hard it's just a matter of counting combos quickly, I guess.

This week I experimented with a week of just zoom tables instead of regular tables, but I think I still prefer the regular tables. I like color tagging, making notes and especially using those notes when I do hit my premiums :). So I will be switching back, although I did like the easy volume on those zoom tables.

Had somewhere between $4 - $5 from bonuses this week so:
Hands: 2576
Starting bankroll: $62.79
Bankroll last week: $142.75
Current bankroll: $152.55
Profit/loss this week: $9.80
Profit/loss total: $89.76

I am really looking forward to improving my skills! Can't wait for summer when I have more time to do so.

And of course I owe you the hand that let my winnings deviate so much from the expectation:

PokerStars - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 101.4 BB
Hero (SB): 100 BB
BB: 45 BB
UTG: 118 BB
MP: 131.2 BB
CO: 112.4 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has K♦ K♣

fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 7 BB, fold, BTN calls 5 BB

Flop: (15 BB, 2 players) Q♦ 6♠ J♠
Hero bets 8 BB, BTN calls 8 BB

Turn: (31 BB, 2 players) K♥
Hero bets 16.4 BB, BTN raises to 34.8 BB, Hero raises to 85 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 50.2 BB

River: (201 BB, 2 players) Q♣

Still don't think I played this one wrong, he would raise with many worse hands and only 20 combos he calls a 3b with have me beat OTT (AT, T9s). But he could raise with many draws (for example Ax of spades) and his two pair and undersets might do this as well. So I would say I am definitely calling, but decided to jam, hoping for 2pair and lower sets to call me and his draws to fold, well I atleast had 10 outs. And the pokergods saved me.

By the way does someone know a good article or video on table selection, right now I just look at stack sizes and notes I already have on people, but there might be more

Hey Tim128,

It might be worth checking out w34z3l's video Poker Players Toolbox (1)

Regards

Laz

nice progress so far. keep up the good work

Thank you both!

Originally posted by Lazza61
Hey Tim128,

It might be worth checking out w34z3l's video Poker Players Toolbox (1)

Regards

Laz

I will check this one out for sure somewhere in this month while I still have my status upgrade!

Look at me able to use the baduga theorem:

PokerStars - $0.05 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (SB): 136.2 BB
BB: 193.6 BB (VPIP: 30.88, PFR: 26.47, 3Bet Preflop: 16.00, Hands: 69)
UTG: 74.8 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 16)
CO: 105.4 BB (VPIP: 36.36, PFR: 24.24, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 34)
BTN: 86.2 BB (VPIP: 44.12, PFR: 17.65, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 34)

Hero posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has A♣ A♥

fold, fold, BTN raises to 3 BB, Hero raises to 9 BB, fold, BTN calls 6 BB

Flop: (19 BB, 2 players) K♦ 2♣ 3♦
Hero bets 10 BB, BTN calls 10 BB

Turn: (39 BB, 2 players) T♦
Hero bets 20.6 BB, BTN raises to 67.2 BB and is all-in, fold

It's a hard one cause only the flush hits! But looking at his (small sample) stats, he looks like a calling station and so I do respect this raise very much, always hard to fold aces

Good at the tables buddy ♦

Originally posted by AlphaClock
Good at the tables buddy ♦

Thanks a lot!

Week 8

Nothing new!

Hands: 2795
Starting bankroll: $62.79
Bankroll last week: $152.55
Current bankroll: $192.00
Profit/loss this week: $39.45
Profit/loss total: $129.21

You can see that I got lucky again, but I don't really mind getting lucky because my EV line is about 10bb/100 up, so I am happy!
Btw, the reason that I run so much above EV this time is that I won with KK vs AA once and I won some allins against draws.

I made an bankroll management because I almost need to move up again (about halfway through NL5).
It's a little proggressive but nothing special.

It goes all the way up to NL100, but don't think I will reach that short term, not my goal in any case, my goal is NL25 within this challenge.

Weirdest pot:

PokerStars - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 133.8 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 22.22, 3Bet Preflop: 20.00, Hands: 9)
SB: 124.4 BB (VPIP: 15.79, PFR: 5.26, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 20)
BB: 95 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)
Hero (UTG): 173.6 BB
MP: 193.6 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
CO: 93.6 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 4)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has K♦ K♠

Hero raises to 2.8 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.8 BB

Flop: (6 BB, 2 players) 6♠ 4♦ J♠
BB checks, Hero bets 3.2 BB, BB raises to 15.4 BB, Hero calls 12.2 BB

Turn: (36.8 BB, 2 players) T♣
BB bets 35.2 BB, Hero raises to 141.8 BB, BB calls 41.6 BB and is all-in

River: (190.4 BB, 2 players) 6♦

The guy was not a full stack so I though he might overvalue toppair top kicker or something. Looking back I don't think this play was anything but right, I think I will get called by two pair and sets way more often, but then again I don't think I would make this play against a fullstack (reg).

Btw I don't get why I am still golden status, I won a status upgrade in march, but right now I am still gold??

Week 9

This week was very important, if you check some of my graphs (almost every week) you will find that I am quite a lucky person! But this week... the tides were turned, it was horrible!

Hands: 2573
Starting bankroll: $62.79
Bankroll last week: $192
Current bankroll: $174.52
Profit/loss this week: $17.48
Profit/loss total: $111.73

The first 200 hands of the graph already were in the report of last week but I didn't know how to filter by time. But that's why the losses are more than it says on PT4.

The first few stacks I could laugh about it but the further in the week the more frustrating it got. It is really a weird feeling and I can understand that people start tilting and lose all their money when stuff like this happens. And to be honest I think I am capable of that too.

Sometimes even at showdown when I got 'outrivered' but all the money went in the pot when I was in front, I felt like I deserved that pot and that they just got lucky, then I want to loosen up against that person as if that is the best way to get my money back. So far I was able to control myself.

But I am happy to say that even late in the week when I was 5 stacks below EV, I didn't make any tilty decisions. I mean look at my yellow line, looks pretty solid!

But I don't like negativity and so far this post has been a little negative, so I'll end on a bright note:

This is the graph of the entire challenge so far, and I am happy to say that my EV line finally caught up with my green line! It didn't feel right to be a lucky winner, but now I am just a normal winner!

Week 10

The downswing continued for the first 300 hands, but after that I recovered and I recovered big!!! Really happy that even though I was 11 BI down from my all time high at one moment, I didn't start playing badly, it really felt like the first real challenge: 'How to play when things aren't going that well?'

My mindset was ok, but the next downswing I need to take care of my emotions off the table more, I was able to control myself on the tables, but off the tables I was thinking about: 'Winning my money back, by putting in more hours' a lot, while I knew that I just don't have the time for that...

For now, my BR was above 210$ somewhere this week, but because I was busy this weekend I decided to play very casually yesterday night, I didn't use my dual monitor setup, instead I used just my small laptop screen while playing in bed, like a recreational player, I even ran in one very difficult spot:

PokerStars - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 104.2 BB (VPIP: 42.86, PFR: 7.14, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)
SB: 100 BB (VPIP: 100.00, PFR: 100.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
Hero (BB): 106.6 BB
UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)
MP: 157.4 BB
CO: 114.8 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 13.89, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 36)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has Q♠ A♠

UTG raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 2 BB

Flop: (6.4 BB, 2 players) J♠ 8♦ Q♣
Hero checks, UTG bets 97 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 97 BB

Turn: (200.4 BB, 2 players) 6♥

River: (200.4 BB, 2 players) 4♦

In NL5 zoom you run in this kinda spots from time to time, but my thoughts when calling: 'If he does have something big he wants to get called, so he probably would bet smaller, if he doesn't have anything he would probably check-fold like any recreational player (which I assumed he is by his sizing). So I put him on a middle pocket pair like 88-TT which he doesn't know how to play any more and decides to jam so he doesn't need to make any further decisions. But still it feels like a big spew! Ouch.

Further I misplayed about 3 other hands that session, went outside my standard gameplan and played ''too fancy''.

But in the end I made some nice profits this week, which I am happy about, I would just like to get those spewy mistakes out of my game! They ain't that hard to fix just need to be a believer a bit more.

Results
Hands: 2264
Starting bankroll: $62.79
Bankroll last week: $174.52
Current bankroll: $199.80
Profit/loss this week: $25.28
Profit/loss total: $137.01

Hand of the week:
PokerStars - $0.05 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 103 BB
SB: 140.2 BB
BB: 104 BB (VPIP: 30.77, PFR: 23.08, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 13)
UTG: 109 BB (VPIP: 21.05, PFR: 5.26, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 20)
MP: 56.4 BB
CO: 100 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 7♦ J♦

fold, fold, CO calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 4 BB, fold, fold, CO raises to 7 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

Flop: (15.4 BB, 2 players) 2♦ 8♦ T♦
CO bets 8 BB, Hero raises to 29.8 BB, CO calls 21.8 BB

Turn: (75 BB, 2 players) 9♥
CO bets 14 BB, Hero raises to 66.2 BB and is all-in, CO calls 49.2 BB and is all-in

River: (201.4 BB, 2 players) 4♠

Very GTO call of this player, of course your pair of twos plus your gutshot is a clear defend against a turn push! Well played and hard for him it didn't pay of this time

In the first hand i see no way to call that.

What are you beating? People often think: uh, i have the nuts, but what happens if a 9 or Ten comes? Then i dont get value anymore from anything that pays right now (because they will think i have a bluff...)

Originally posted by SvenBe
In the first hand i see no way to call that.

What are you beating? People often think: uh, i have the nuts, but what happens if a 9 or Ten comes? Then i dont get value anymore from anything that pays right now (because they will think i have a bluff...)

That's definitely a better way to think about it, if they bluff all in it are mostly short stacks...

Week 11

Had a good week, reached a new alltime high with the bankroll (somewhere in the 215+ range), however the last few 100 hands completely drained my winrate, got stacked I think 5 or 6 times, so that took some of my winrate I guess, it's not all running bad, it's also a lot of second best hands and a few times inflating the pot on the flop because I have a set, then on the turn the fourth card to a straight gets tere, but I have to call due to my pot odds to make a boat...

Well you all know it sometimes you run good, other times you run bad, so far may hasn't been my month:
This is the entire graph of may and the first thing I see is that my winrate this month is extremely low, 2.3evBB/100... in march when I was only playing NL2 it was 21evBB/100 (part of that is variance ofcourse) in april when I was playing a mix of 2NL and 5NL it was about 10evBB/100 and now in may when I am playing just NL5 it seems to slowly decrease, ofcourse part of it is variance as I just don't run in the same kind of profitable spots this month.

But as you can see my blue line is pretty flat at the end of the month, so there might be a problem... The thing is, I started watching the red-line rampage show and therefore I started to bluff more on the river (just hands that have 0 showdown value) and I notice so far that I get called by hands that sometimes don't even beat bluffs, so that might be the reason that my blue line is lower than usual, however I don't see a increase in my red line so far, I even see a decrease... I think I need to just continue learning, results will follow...

But even though this month is not my month so far, I haven't given up on the mission, I know that NL5 is not that hard to beat, I see so many -EV plays from the guys on the tables every day, just not enough against me

Btw from now on I will round al my numbers as the cents don't matter that much on the long term scale.

Hands:4052
Starting bankroll: $63
Bankroll last week: $200
Current bankroll: $192
Profit/loss this week: $8
Profit/loss total: $129

By the way I am almost through my bonus at pokerstars, about 200 VPP to go, I think I will transfer my BR to another room than to clear more bonuses and to test out other software and softness of the rooms. So far I am thinking about:

888poker
Pros: Soft room, much traffic
Cons: More rake, less pokerstrategypoints (I kinda want to keep gold and I am on the edge of keeping it)

Partypoker
Pros: Much traffic, new bonussystem (might be worth it)
Cons: No HUD

William Hill
Pros: Really big bonus
Cons: Will probably not be able to clear the entire bonus

Natural8
Pros: Playing with asian fish
Cons: Don't know too much about it yet

So any advice is welcome will probably move in about a month, also if you know another room that suits my playing style (about 2500 hands a week, mostly CG (sometimes ZOOM)) feel free to leave a comment!

Hi Tim,

I see you play different formats, which is interesting because I never mix it up and just play one format (limit cg in my case). In the beginning I also varied a lot, but I think in the long run it is better to just concentrate on one format and play / study this intensively. But who knows, maybe this approach is also viable. Anyway, have fun and good luck at the tables!

Originally posted by Sendrafreak
Hi Tim,

I see you play different formats, which is interesting because I never mix it up and just play one format (limit cg in my case). In the beginning I also varied a lot, but I think in the long run it is better to just concentrate on one format and play / study this intensively. But who knows, maybe this approach is also viable. Anyway, have fun and good luck at the tables!

Hey, thanks for your comment!

I don't mix it up that much, the only two formats I really play are Cash Games and Zoom, like 60 % CG 35 % Zoom CG (which are pretty similar for studying) and 5 % other formats (for fun) but with a different BR (mostly play money).

The main reason for mixing between Cash Games and Zoom Cash Games is because in the evenings, there are pretty sweet tables to sit at available, so I can happily table select, however in the off-peak hours table selecting can take much too long so I'd rather play a short zoom session.