[Closed] My poker journey... maybe this time I can get it right!

August Summary

Another month has come and gone and once again I'm on the happy side of poker ♦, hopefully this will last!

Here's a recap of my goals at the start of the month:

Come top 3 in leaderboard race: Although there are still 3 days left in the race, and I won't be playing, I think I have a big enough lead that no one will catch me. At the worst I should definitely be second. So it should be a nice $500/$700 bonus achieved

Play at least 30k hands: I don't have a pokertracking software right now, but because I did so much 9 tabling I'm certain I played at least 30k hands. achieved

+BB/100 at Nl50 SH: I definitely finished with a positive winrate, but because of the last 3 days of grinding while tired, I finished maybe up 4 buy-ins or something...which is nothing over such a large sample size achieved, but not at all satisfied

post and comment on 30 hands: I don't actually know how many I posted and commented on, but I don't feel like it was enough. failed

identify and fix leaks: I though about this after pretty much every session, and write them down in a notebook. achieved

handle down swings well: I had 3 swings where I went down over 10 buy-ins. These aren't huge or anything, but they're still the biggest I've had so far. I think I handled them pretty well for the most part, although I can't say I never tilted. Lost maybe a stack or 2 to tilt, so for me I'd call that a success, with room to improve. achieved

be suitably rolled for a shot at Nl100 (25-30 buyins): After seeing 10 buy-in swings, I'm rethinking that maybe 35-40 buyins is safer. Anyways if I win the leaderboard that will bring my BR to $3685, which I feel is enough to take a shot at Nl 100 if I feel like it. achieved

So I achieved 6/7 of my goals. In terms of profit, I went from $1615-$3685 (assuming I win leaderboard) so this is $2070 profit. If we break this down its about +$1000 in tourneys, +$200 Nl50 SH, +$700 leaderboard bonus, +$170 points for cash. If I put these numbers together with last month my 2 month profit is $3435 ($2015 playing profit, $1420 bonuses). I'm happy to say I stuck to BRM again this month and never ventured above Nl50. I did played a couple of $50+5 MTT's (had 40buyins at the time) which would be bad BRM if I played a lot of them, but I don't see the harm in playing 1/2 a month as a kind of fun reward for hard work.

Next month I'm not going to play as much poker, because of work/school, but I'm sure I'll fit some in (hard not to when you're an addict :P) Because I'm not playing much I'll be staying at AP once again, because I wouldn't be able to clear the deposit bonuses at other sites.

At the start of Sept. I'll make some knew goals, and we'll see if I can continue in an upward direction.

I'll end this post with my main goal for next month... don't go crazy or busto ♦

Cheers,
Georg

Nice summary. congratulations to your achievements. Keep it up.

you're keeping up a nice b-log
GL at the tables

A new month means that it's time for some new goals! Unfortunately my computer crashed on me today, so I'm not going to be playing almost any poker for the next week or so... or however long it takes for my computer to fix. (I may play a mtt or two on my girlfriends comp but its too slow to multitable, so that will be all) Because of this, and some school work, I'm going to keep my goals pretty reasonable, and not try to play much volume.

September goals

-Win montly leaderboard (I know I just said I didn't want to play much volume, but this shouldn't actually be that hard if I play Nl50 / Nl100, considering I won it the first month playing Nl10 / Nl25)

-Take shots at Nl100 and have a positive win rate. Considering I didn`t do really great at Nl50, I probably won't switch entirely to Nl100 until I feel comfortable that I can beat it. I do think that it will be a better learning experience for me to focus on a couple of tables at Nl100 as opposed to grinding 6-9 tables of Nl100.

-Identify and fix leaks. I think I do this pretty well most of the time, but it's just so important that I can't forget to focus on it.

-Avoid tilt more effectively then last month. I think that the 2 main things I need to do to achieve this are first of all not get too frustrated with bad beats. Secondly I have to accept that sometimes I do get frustrated and at these times I need to just suck it up and take a break until I feel stable again.

-My only BR builiding goal will be to make it to $4500, which is basically what I would have if I played completely break even and won the monthly leaderboard + some points exchanged for cash.

-I'd like to have more learning goals of reading articles, watching video's and so on, but I think I've pretty much gone through everything this site has to offer for bronze members at least once. I guess these goals will just have to wait a month or two until I finally get myself an account tracked to pokerstrategy!

That pretty much sums my plans for september. Now I just have to hope I can get my computer fixed quickly and hit the tables.

Cheers,
Georg

edit-thanks for the comments Tribune and finchy, I appreciate any support I can get

Today I found 30$ hanging around on Fulltilt poker from my last free BR that I had lost (I must have gotten some kind of reload bonus in the past two months)

I decided to enter into a 24+2$ 45 man sng. I finished 3rd for 172.8$. After this I still felt like playing a bit while watching the 2008 wsop on youtube, so I opened up another 2 of the same tourney. These two were good as well, I busted out of 1 in 14th I think, and the other one I ended up winning, taking down 410.4$. So overall I boosted my BR by just over 500$ which is awesome.

I was a huge luckbox today, especially in the one that I won, but I also think I played a pretty good game. The main thing I tried to focus on was really putting the pressure on others as the blinds started to rise. The blinds go up every 6 minutes, so by the final table the average stack often has less than 10 BB. Because of this there's obviously more luck involved, but I was astonished at how bad the level of play was. Some people were limp folding with 5-10BB left, while others wouldn`t play a hand outside of the top 10% of hands! I found that my edge over most came by knowing ICM and also making some looser 3bet all-ins. I pushed in situations where the villain very likely couldn't stand a reraise. This definitely makes you look like an idiot sometimes when villain snap calls with aces and you're sitting there with KJ, but I think it definitely gives you the best chance to go deep. I believe I have a bigger edge in these 45 man tourneys than big mtt's, because when you're into the money everyone has closer chip stacks, and the blinds are very high. These two things together make most average players tighten up way too much trying to inch up the payladder by waiting, which gives those of us who know better a huge advantage!

Cheers,
Georg

BR- $4185

I played a $24+2 514 person tourney on Full Tilt today and finished 9th for a little over 200$ profit. Even though this is a nice result it was really frustrating. The top 4 places all payed over 1k and I started the final table 2nd place in chips. I busted out on the first hand of the final table on top of that.

I'm on my girlfriends computer and cant find my hand histories, so I can't post the hand I lost on. To make a long story short, I don't think I made a mistake in the hand, but I ended up in a three way all in preflop with AJ against a shorter stack and the big stack who turned over pocket aces. Based on the circumstances I put the big stack on a huge range of hands, and so I pushed in trying to isolate against the short stack that I probably had beat. I guess it was the risk I took pushing in AJ with the big stack still to act behind me, but I still think it was the best play I could make.

I'd rather bust 9th with a chance at winning than fold my way into 5th or 6th place, but it's still pretty frustrating starting a final tables second in chips and busting out on the first hand!

BR- $4400

My laptop still isn't back yet... so I've only played a couple more mtt's since my last update and a couple hundred hands of heads up Nl50 and short handed Nl100 for fun. I broke even in the cash games, loosing some in the heads up, and making it back in the short handed. I've watched some heads up videos and I find it's a very interesting chalenge, because its so much more skill based and you have to continuously change you're game depending on your opponent. I think I'll give heads up I try on a regular basis sometime in the future, but for know I'm going to stick to SH for cash games.

As for the tourneys I played 3 24+2$, 2 with 45 people and 1 with 1000ish. I didn't cash in 2 of them, but I did come second in one of the 45 persons ones for 270$. I'm running super hot in those 45 person right now! In 5 tourneys I've made about 730$ profit ♦ Right now I'm liking mtt variance!

BR- 4580$

hey,i read in your last post that you watched some heads up videos.could you please tell me where can i find these?i would really use watching some heads up videos.
Thanks.

The videos I've watched are in the self study forum. There are 2 heads up ones and a third session review by xylene that are kinda interesting.

well for less than 3 weeks you have more than doubled your bankroll and you have my congratulations on that
I wish I had the same success in MTT's, too, but I am either on the negative side of variance or playing not good enough - anyway I still don't have a succession of nice cashes like yours
I hope you take care of your money carefully and why don't you cash some out and enjoy yourself? I'd do that if I win 2,5k in 2-3 weeks

GL dude and keep the progress!

Hey finchybg,
Thanks for the congrats. I don't think I'm going to cash anything out for now, as I have a job that pays the bills ok. I'd rather use my mtt/bonus money as a buffer so that I can be over rolled for cash games. This way I'll have a better chance to improve my cash game by taking shots at Nl100 Sh without playing with scared money. The only withdrawals I plan on making in the near future will be to buy a 22" screen and a poker tracker.

I played another 2 45 person 26$ mtts today, and took one down for 410.4$. I'm still running like a crazy luckbox in these tourneys...on the final table I came in as the short stack and picked up KK 3 times!

BR- $4935

A very impressive development that can be followed in this blog

Its really interesting to see how you've been steadily building your Bankroll and developing!

Best of luck in having the trend continue

Wow... Nothing else to say..

Is some of that luck for rent? If so I'd like to have some of it ♦

I got my laptop back and also just bought myself a 22" monitor!

This afternoon I'll be playing my first real session of Nl100 SH on AP which should be a good challenge. I'm switching my focus back to cash games now, as I want to try to win that learderboard once again this month and be a winning player at NL100. I'm going to try to play more or less a session a day for the rest of the month... so we'll soon see if I'm good enough for the new limit!

I'll post updates every couple of days if I can.

Cheers,
Georg

THanks a lot for the congrats SoyCD and Kimber88!
@Kimber: if we both keep studying we'll both have plenty of success, regardless of luck

Ok, here’s my first update after attempting Nl100 SH. –7.5 Buy-ins in just over 5000 hands. Obviously this isn’t the start I was hoping for, but it isn’t a disaster either. My biggest downs on Nl50 were between 10-15 buy-ins, so dropping 7.5 buy-ins could definitely have a big luck factor, although I know there are plenty of hands that I should have played differently… hindsight is always 20/20! The good part is that I feel relatively comfortable at this limit after 5000 hands, and I don’t feel like I’m getting outplayed too much. For now I’ll keep doing a lot of hand analysis, and continue playing Nl100 SH unless I drop too many more buy-ins, or find that I am in fact being continuously outplayed.

In terms of the way I’m playing so far, I’ve started making adjustments to my post flop play against the regulars, who I find are much stronger at this limit then Nl50. Also I’ve been working on trying to find the right balance between protection and pot control, which is something I find quite difficult. Another thing that I noticed when I moved up limits is that I changed my game a bit too much, thinking that since I’m against stronger opponents I can’t play too predictable. I know that sometimes you need to switch it up, but for the most part I need to stay with ‘solid’ poker, and not try to be too fancy J. My only other comment is that I started playing too tight preflop, something like 13/16, whereas I think I should have a PFR of at least 15.

Just to sum up this post, I’d say I still have a lllooooonnnggggg ways to go before I’m a decently profitable cash game player. It’s worth the work though; as I definitely believe that the skills of a solid cash game player are super important for mtt’s, stt’s or whatever.

I plan to play a lot of poker this friday, saturday, sunday, so hopefully my next post will have some different news!

BR-$4100

I took another shot at Nl100 SH yesterday, and lost another 2.5 buy-ins very quickly. In this case I'm pretty much certain I didn't make any major errors in these hands, but I stopped playing because I felt that I was starting to tilt due to the downswing. I decided to start playing some more mtt's since I still felt like playing poker, just not cash games.

In the end I spent close to 300$ on mtt buy-ins, mostly 24+2$ ones on full tilt. I didn't cash in any until the one I just finished playing which I won. It was an 11$ 3k guaranteed on full tilt with 489 players for 1222.5$. I feel that I played very well on the final table and didn't make any huge errors. I had a pretty tight table image and got away with a couple of steal 3 bets preflop which was nice. When it got down to 3 handed we were all pretty even in chips until I picked up AQ in the big blind. The button raised, SB flat called, I pushed all-in and the button called me. I was pretty disappointed when he showed AK...until a Q hit the turn and I took a commanding chip lead into heads up.

The blinds weren't too high when we started heads up so I had something like 45BB and my opponent 20BB. It was a fun heads up because I had a pretty good read on the other guy, who was relatively predictable. I stole quite a few pots from him postflop and got him down to 8BB very quickly. He then doubled up a few times and got really aggressive postflop. At one point he actually gained the chiplead, but it was short lived. I managed to take control of the match again and get another 2:1 chiplead. Then I picked up KK and ended up stacking him (he called 1/3 of his chips preflop with QTo...)

I feel really lucky to hit a big mtt win like this, just after really suffering at the cash tables ♦ I've decided not to try and win the leaderboard on AP, because it would require a lot of cash game grinding, which I'm just not up to right now because of my down on Nl100. My plan now is to just finish the month playing a lot of mtt's, and then next month I'll probably start up with cash games again. I believe that I can beat Nl100 Sh and that my loses we're mostly bad luck, and I'd like to prove it. But right now I need to make sure I'm mentally ready to play a solid cash game and not go on tilt the second I get a little unlucky!

Wow...this post got kinda long

BR- 4735$

Here's a quick update even though not much interesting has happened since last update. I haven't played much poker due to fatigue after working all day.

In the past couple of days I've played a bunch of mtt's without any major cashes. Sometimes I feel I played well, but other times I don't think I should have entered the tourneys because I kinda feel that I wasted the buy-in, because after 10min I could tell that I wasn't mentally ready for a solid tourney grind.

As for cash games, I've played a little more Nl100 Sh because pretty much break even. I'm only playing 4 tables at a time and really trying to review all my plays afterwards to improve...and eventually not suck at this limit ♦

BR- 4500$

The last couple of days I played about 1.5k Nl100 Sh hands. I've been trying really hard to plug leaks and improve my game, and I feel that i played the best I have so far at this limit. I finished up just over 3 BI. I also started playing with stats for the first time, which I'm finding extremely helpful...I should have gotten a stats program earlier on!!!

Here's my graph of Nl100 Sh so far.

It seems like I have a lot of leaks in my non-showdown pots, and my WTSD is only 20. I guess the two of these things together mean that I'm getting pushed out of too many pots. I think the thing I need to work on most to improve this is picking lines that get me to cheap showdowns when I have weak made hands like top pair decent kicker. As for my preflop stats, I'm trying to get comfortable with a PFR of something around 15, but I'm not quite there yet, and maybe playing something like 13-14 right now.

I'm going to try and play quite a bit this weekend and hopefully keep grinding away my early loses at this limit

BR- $4825

I just took down my biggest cash game pot so far!

Here it is:

Pre-flop: (5 players) Her is Button with 7♠ 7♦
2 folds, Her raises to $3.5, SB calls, BB folds.

Flop: ($8) 7♥ 2♦ K♦ (2 players)
SB checks, Her bets $5, SB raises to $17, Her raises to $45, SB calls.

Turn: ($98) J♠ (2 players)
SB checks, Her bets $70, SB raises all-in $134, Her calls.

River: ($366) 3♦ (1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $366)

Villain is a regular, and during the hand I had him on a flush draw. In the end he turned over KQ...which really surprised me. I think he payed me off like this because he had caught me making a big bluff in another session I had played against him.

Good hand and good pot for you ♦