[Closed] How far will $50 get me?

Session 5 Update

I seem to be in the middle of my first real downswing. 56 games played over the last 3 days, without even a final table to show for it. I picked up a couple of min-cashes along the way, but they weren't enough to stop me blowing a $100+ hole in my bankroll.

I've just spent the last couple of hours reviewing all the games in PokerTracker and SitNGo Wizard, and as far as I can tell, aside from a few dodgy decisions here and there, I think I'm still playing fairly well, and pushing in the right places, I'm just not winning any races.

To try and counter it, I'm going to spend some time today with the ICM Trainer, as well as having a read through a couple of books I've bought, before having a session tonight. Like I say, I think I'm still playing well, although I have to admit I've been getting frustrated, especially when I see my aces cracked for the fourth time in a row, or someone making a straight with their 47o after calling my pre-flop all in with AKs! But I'm going to do my best to keep playing well, and hopefully the luck will turn around sooner rather than later...

Session 6 Update

The downswing continues! Although it did have a semi-recovery towards the end of last nights session, so there is some hope!

I've reviewed every hand from the games I played yesterday in SitNGo Wizard, and in 28 games there wasn't a single instance of me pushing where I shouldn't have, and there were maybe 15 spots where the software thinks I should push but the ICM Trainer disagrees (74o from mid position as an example - I don't care how low my stack is, I've got another 3 hands before the blinds hit me again, and there'll be at least 1 better hand than that amongst them!).

Overall I'm happy that I'm still playing well, if not better than I was before because I'm spending far more time reading, reviewing sessions and practising in the ICM Trainer than I was when I was winning, so hopefully when the luck is with me again I'll be able to get my graph moving back in the right direction...

Session 7 Update

Finally a return to winning ways! I reintroduced the 45s, both the $1.50s and $3.50s to try and reduce my variance, and also to practice my ICM play around the bubble which has been letting me down a bit in the 180s. I made a small profit on the $1.50s, but continued my losing streak on the $3.50s. I think I'm going to continue playing them though as they're great practise for the end game of the 180s, so until I'm happy with my ICM play, they'll stay a part of my sessions.

The winnings all came from a 1st and a 3rd in the $2.50 180s for around $170. I've just reviewed my session in SitNGo Wizard, and it's starting to highlight a few patterns which I guess are leaks that I need to work on. Firstly, I'm still not pushing wide enough around the bubble when there's no one else in the pot. When I started to push a little wider towards the end of the session, that's when the money started to come, so I know this is something I need to sort out, but it's sometimes hard pushing trash hands on the bubble, especially when you've not had a win for a while.

I also need to be a bit more careful about how I play small to medium pairs when there's already somone in the pot. Over the course of the session, I had 99, 66 and 44 in late position with a limper already in the pot. I pushed all 3 times, and all three times got caught out by people slow-playing big hands. Looking at SitNGo Wizard, it seems I only really want to be pushing these hands if there's no one else in the pot, unless I'm very short.

I also sometimes get a bit frisky from the big blind if there's been a couple of limpers, and on a couple of occasions I pushed hands I should have just checked, JT and A2, so I need to think a bit more about why I'm pushing in these spots, and perhaps just take a free flop and then push from there if I hit it.

Lastly, a couple of times I found myself calling a little too wide from the big blind, especially when the games get short handed, both around the bubble and the final table. One hand in particular stands out when I was in the last 3 of a 180, and called a push from the small blind with 22, lost the hand and was out of the tournament. Looking at the hand, I wasn't low on chips (maybe around 10 big blinds), so could have waited for a better spot to get it all in than that.

I'm going to spend some time this afternoon working with the ICM Trainer again, in particular looking at how to play small pairs, and how to play from the big blind, and hopefully I'll pick up where I left off tonight.

I'm rubbish at updating this regularly, partly because I forget, and partly because I don't like to post without having something new to say. But as it's exactly 1 month since I deposited my $50 onto Pokerstars, I thought I'd review the month...

I actually find it quite hard to believe it's only been one month. On the 23rd May, I deposited my $50 with a view to just playing a few STTs and seeing how long I could make it last before I busted. I was playing 4 tiled STTs at a time, usually whilst watching TV, and I'd never consistently won at any form of poker.

A month on, I'm a fully fledged poker nerd. I've read 3 poker books (Kill Phil, Kill Everyone and The Poker Mindset), set up Poker Tracker and Table Ninja, switched to stacking my tables, initially still with just 4 at a time, then moving upto 6, and for the last couple of days 8. I've spent hours with SitNGo Wizard reviewing every session, and just as many hours with the ICM Trainer. On top of all that, I've also managed to average 30 hours a week actually playing poker too. I've spent more time in the last month studying and practising than I've ever spent on uni work, treating poker as a full time job.

And it seems to be starting to pay off:

Monthly Summary
Starting Balance: $50.00
Games Played: 560
Net Won: $667.69
ROI: 45.03
Bonus Unlocked: $10.00
Hourly Rate: $5.30
Closing Balance: $727.69

I understand that I'm working with a small sample size, and that a 45% ROI might not be maintainable long term, but I'm still really happy with my first month. Not just financially either. A month ago, I was playing with a starting hands chart in front of me, with an odds chart next to it, and a spreadsheet that calculated my push/fold play. Now I don't use any of that, all my decisions are based on what I've learned and from experience.

This should allow me to really push on with the multi-tabling next month. I'm really comfortable now with 6-8 tables, and often find myself with periods of 20-30 seconds where I'm not making a decision, so I know I can fill these gaps with some more tables. I'm also planning on moving up from the $2.50 180s next month. I still haven't decided whether to play the $4.50s, or the $8 turbos, or maybe a bit of both. I might start mixing some $4.50s in with my $2.50 turbos now, and start introducing the $8s when my bankroll hits $1000. I'm a little bit concerned that the slower pace of the $4.50s won't suit my style, which is why I haven't tried them yet. At the moment, I'm very weak post flop, but feel I have a good edge in the push/fold stage, so the turbos are ideal. Post flop play is something I plan on working on in the near future, so I might wait until then before I start on the $4.50s.

I know this is a very long post, so to wrap it up, I just want to list my goals for July:

• Be comfortable 10-tabling
• Improve post-flop play
• Try the $4.50s
• Move up to the $8s by the end of the month
• Read at least 2 more books

My long term goal at the moment is more about learning than money. I've got one year left at university, and when I leave I plan to be a freelance web designer. Which is unlikely to pay a lot of money initially! So in an ideal world within a year I'll be comfortable mass-multi-tabling the 180s all the way up to the $35s for a decent ROI so that I can support myself with some part time poker money. I'm not really concerned with how much money I make between now and then, I just want to keep learning so in a years time I'm ready. Cue the massive downswing...

....but guaranteed dooooomswitch next month.

Originally posted by jbpatzer

....but guaranteed dooooomswitch next month.

I know it's coming...

Poker's so easy when the cards are on your side. I'm hitting my draws, my big hands are holding, and I even sat at a final table where someone pushed into my big blind with nothing whilst I'm sat there with Kings, only for the same thing to happen on my next big blind when I had Aces!

I gave the $4.50s a try, and although I did well, finishing second in one of them for my biggest result yet ($147.60), I don't think I can play these regularly. The one I cashed in I started at 8pm and it didn't finish until gone 1am. The final table lasted nearly two hours! I'm used to my tournaments being over within 2 hours, and I just don't see how I could get enough volume out of the $4.50s to justify playing them ahead of the $2.50s. I'd need a higher ROI in the higher buyin tournaments just to match my hourly rate at the $2.50s! I can however see the benefit in playing them as a way to learn post flop play, as there was never really a point in the whole tournament where my stack was so small that I was in push/fold mode. So although this takes away most of my edge, it will help me to improve my overall game ready for when I try to take on some proper MTTs.

So I've achieved my first goal of reaching $1000. I've been thinking about what the next goal should be, and rather than just plucking a higher figure out of the air and aiming for that, I've decided to try and start using poker to supplement my paltry student income (I'm calling it going semi-pro, because then I can tell myself I'm a big shot!).

The plan is that every Sunday I'm going to withdraw half of the profit I've made in the previous week. If I don't make a profit, I won't make a withdrawal, and if the total withdrawal would work out at less than $100, I also won't bother as the amount is too small to make much of a difference. I also won't make any withdrawals if my balance falls below $1000.

I'm not under any illustions that I'll be withdrawing hundreds every week, but if every now and then I can withdraw a couple of hundred, it'll be nice to have some spare cash knocking around, as at the moment my income only just covers my expenses and I never have anything left over.

As far as the games themselves are concerned, I'm going to be 10-tabling initially, with a mix of 6 $2.50s and 4 $8s. I'll gradually increase my exposure to the $8s once I'm confident I can beat that level. I'll also drop in a few $4.50s every now and then when I know I've got time for a 5-6 hour session, and likewise with scheduled MTTs upto a maximum buyin of $10.

One day I'll learn to post a short update...

Awesome start, sir. wp!

I understand that I'm working with a small sample size, and that a 45% ROI might not be maintainable long term

This.

I moved up to the $8s on Saturday after the run I'd been on over the last few days took me over the $1000 target I'd set for that level. 80 games and $200 later, they've well and truly put me in my place!

I'm 8-10 tabling my sessions with a mix of the $2.50 and $8 turbos and the $4.50 normal speed 180s. Having just spent an hour or so reviewing my weekend in SitNGo Wizard I think I'm still playing as well as I was before, and hopefully this is just some normal variance, but it stings a bit coming on the back of doubling my bankroll in a few days, then starting to lose when I move up, so the losses make a bigger impact on my bankroll much quicker.

I'm going to persist with the $8s for the time being, and I've set myself a stop loss limit of $800 at which point I'll stop playing them until I'm back over $1000 again. From what I've seen so far, they don't seem any harder than the $2.50s, and I hit a couple of final tables, but ran out of luck when I got to them.

In other news, I'm doing the 15 day trial of Holdem Manager at the moment to see how it compares to PokerTracker, because it seems most of the people on here use HEM. My initial impressions are that it provides a bit more analytical information which appeals to me. For example, I now know that I'm profitable when I 4, 6 or 8 table, but at the moment I'm a loser when I 10-table. I guess this is information I could have found in PokerTracker, but it seems much easier to access in HEM. So I'll be dropping back down to 8-tabling and can hopefully get back to winning ways.

I also achieved SilverStar status for the first time. No idea what this is, or if it benefits me in anyway, but I've been playing on and off on PokerStars for over 5 years, so it was nice to finally see that second star!

Originally posted by Tim64
Awesome start, sir. wp!

I understand that I'm working with a small sample size, and that a 45% ROI might not be maintainable long term

This.

Thanks. 45% looks a long way off after the last few days, I'd be delighted with 4.5% tonight!

Variance on those 180s is brutal. I hope you have balls of steel.

Originally posted by jbpatzer
Variance on those 180s is brutal. I hope you have balls of steel.

Dunno about balls of steel, but I do have blind optimism, and expect a $400 boost from winning an $8 in the near future!

What a rollercoaster couple of days that's been! They're not kidding when they say the variance is high in the 180s...

Over the last couple of days I've mainly been fiddling around with different software (PokerTracker, Holdem Manager, TableNinja, XPadder) to try and find a comfortable way for me to multitable.

Up until a week or so ago, I always 4-tabled, I always tiled, and I always controlled my games with the mouse, and the space bar for all-in. This worked fine, but it was restricting my chances to increase the multi-tabling, because constantly moving the mouse around the screen starts to make the wrist ache after a while, especially with more tables because there's never a break.

So last week I started stacking and set up Table Ninja properly with keyboard shortcuts. This worked fine, and I got upto 10 tables at a time without any real problems, until my keyboard decided to start playing up and not registering button presses first time every time. This led to me sometimes having to hit the space bar 2 or 3 times to get it to register, which of course when stacking leads to 2 or 3 tables sometimes going all in together when I didn't want them to. Which leads me to tilt and ruins my session!

So stacking was ruled out and I went back to tiling, complete with new keyboard to hopefully stop the issues with it not always working. This worked well for a while, but I ended up getting aches in my left hand after a 3 or 4 hour session where it's been hovered over WASD for all that time. So that didn't really work either.

So finally yesterday I downloaded XPadder and plugged an Xbox 360 controller in, and I think I've finally found my ideal setup! It took a little while to get it all configured, but now it is, it works perfectly. I've even got it set up so everything can be done with just one hand, leaving the other hand free to shovel crisps into my mouth. I've only 6-tabled with it so far because I spent most of last nights session fiddling with my Holdem Manager HUD, but tonight I plan to try and step up the multi-tabling again, starting with 8 and hopefully moving back to 10 by the end of the week.

Last bit about software for now before I actually talk about my session: I love Holdem Manager. I've used PokerTracker for years, and never really had any kind of problem with it, and had never even considered trying HEM before, but I'm so glad I did. It's so much easier to use, and I've finally got my HUD set up exactly how I've wanted it for a long time. I've got it split in 2, with one line above the player name one line below their stack, and it's all colour coded and much easier to use. Even the fact that the HUD resizes properly when I resize my tables appeals to me. It might be the case that all the stuff I've just mentioned can be done in PokerTracker, but I've had it for 2 years and never figured out how. I'll certainly be keeping HEM once my trial is done in 2 weeks time.

Finally, onto the session...

It started really badly, mainly because I was too busy messing around with everything I've talked about above. But last night, once everything was how I wanted it, it all came together. In 16 games across 2 and a bit hours, I cashed 4 times, final tabling 3 of them, getting a second and winning my first $8 for $396.42. That doubles my previous biggest ever tournament win, and the session as a whole was also the most profitable I've ever had. Even if I hated the Xbox controller, I don't think I can ever move away from it after that!

I've been avoiding this post for a couple of days because I didn't want it to be just me moaning about bad beats, variance and all that nonsense. But unfortunately, I'm still well and truly in freefall, so I'll keep it brief.

The $8s are putting me in my place, 77 games played now, $150 lost and an ROI of -25%. I'm also running much worse than usual in the $2.50s, 79 games played in the last week, $70 dollars gone for an ROI of -40%.

Overall, I've lost ~$400 since my last post, and it makes my graph look very sad. I'll have to cut it short there, or else I'll end up sounding like a whiny little girl!

I'm so miserable about my results from the last week that I forgot to say: I'm playing live for the first time on Friday night. It's my birthday, and a friend is buying me into the £15+£5 tournament at Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham as a present. I've never been to a casino or poker club before, so I have absolutely no idea what to expect. If my current luck doesn't turn around before then, I'll probably only make it through about 6 hands, but it should still be good fun.

Does anyone have any tips for a live poker newbie?

Keep your eye on everyone's chips. No 4bet bluffs.

Originally posted by jbpatzer
Keep your eye on everyone's chips. No 4bet bluffs.

Good plan. Although there was no fear of me 4 betting, bluff or no bluff, I was such a pansy. I got aces in the first level, and my hands started shaking as I tried to count out some chips. I was trying to raise from 200 to 500, but messed that up too, because I didn't announce my raise when I put my 500 chip in the pot so it was just a call. Unbelievably, the guy I was playing the hand with seemed completely oblivious to me practically wearing an I've got aces sign on my head and ended up giving me his entire stack. Which was nice.

It wasn't too traumatic in the end, I finished just outside the money 19/117. I got as high as double the chip average with about 30 left and thought I was in with a good chance of cashing, but in the end it wasn't to be and I lost 3 consecutive flips with JQ beating my A8 to finish me off.

I was a little disappointed that it was a turbo structure, it started at 7.30, and by around 9.00 it had already reached the push or fold for most players and by the time I went out at around 10.30 each hand was just a race to see who could get all in first in each hand. I'd hoped that I might be able to get a little more play with a slower structure, especially as the casino is open until 5.30am so it wasn't as it they needed it to be finished by midnight. But I suppose I can't expect too much for £20, and it was certainly great fun and I can't wait to go again.

After I busted out, I hovered around the cash game tables for a bit while my mate played roulette and blackjack, but wasn't quite brave enough to sit down. The smallest game was £0.50/£1 with a minimum buy in of £25. I had £30 burning a hole in my pocket, but decided to get some online practice in first as I hadn't played a hand in a cash game for over a year. Next time...

Unlucky! Maybe I'll go with you next time.

And so back to my progress in the 180s. Or lack of. My downswing has continued in full force, and I've now lost over $500 since my peak a few weeks ago, and it's now 180 games since I last won a tournament. I've officially dropped back down to the $2.50s as the $8s just destroy the bankroll too quickly when I'm losing every game. I don't think there was a massive step up in the quality of play between the two levels, and the last tournament I won was a $8, but I just can't afford to keep having days where I lose $100.

I've also had real life interfere in my poker progress once again. After paying £1200 for repairs to my car only 6 weeks ago, it's now failed it's MOT, and needs another £400 spending on it! As a student, it's now nearly 4 months since I last received any income, and there's still a more than 2 month wait for my next batch of student finance. In other words, I'm skint. So I've had to cash out a big chunk of my bankroll to get my car back on the road.

And finally, I've decided to have a break from the 180s for a while. I'm so frustrated with the downswing I'm on, that I only need to lose one or two all ins before I'm steaming, and I'm starting to lose confidence in my ICM game as well. The goal of this thread was to reach $1000 playing the 180s, which I kind of did - I got as high as $1400 at one point, and at the time of cashing out was around $850. As I'm drawing a line under this part of my poker career, I thought I'd post my overall stats.

Originally posted by jbpatzer
Unlucky! Maybe I'll go with you next time.

Sounds good to me, I'll let you know when I'm going next, I'm sure I won't be waiting too long.