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

Thank mcbethk! What limit/kind of poker are you playing right now?

I played 800 hands of Nl100 today up 3.5 BI, and then I took my first look at Nl200 playing another 800 hands up just under 1 BI.

I found Nl200 to be much tougher, mostly because there were way less fish at the tables. There were also a ton of LAG's and loose TAG's at the table which made for a long of 3 betting and interesting spots postflop that I wasn't used to. All in all, I don't think I played great, but I think I now have the skill level to compete at these tables. (or at least try )

I think I'll try out Nl200 whenever there are enough decent tables available, because even if there are less fish it should help me improve my skill level!

BR Lad- $5800 others- same as before

Played 1k hands at Nl200 today, finishing up about 2.5 BI. I ran really hot today, and i could easily have been up 4 BI if I hadn't bluffed off a lot of chips in a couple of spots. I guess I can't really say that though because my good hands probably wouldn't have gotten paid off like they did if I didn't have a loose image. I think I was picking pretty good spots to bluff, but I guess people could tell I was playing loose because both times my opponents were slow playing monsters

It's good that I'm constantly putting pressure on my opponents but I need to know when to give up, and when to spot a slowplay as well!

BR Lad- $6300 others- same as before

Played just under 1k hands Nl200 today. Finished up about 2 BI. I ran pretty normal, compared to yesterday and I'm really happy with the way I played. I feel like I kept up solid aggression without taking it too far like yesterday.

It's been a while since I posted my graphs so here's my Nl100 and Nl200 graphs so far on ladbrokes:

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I'm happy that my non-showdown winnings are breakeven so far at Nl200. My stats for Nl 200 so far are 19/15.5, 3bet 8, WTSD 21.5, af 6. I'm also glad that my WTSD is going up a bit, although I think I still need to get to some more showdowns by being a little less aggressive.

Had a really swingy session today. Played 1.3k hands and finished up about half a BI. The beginning of the session was absolutely terrible, and I went down 4 BI in the first 350 hands. After that, thinks turned around and I won quite a few big pot to get me back just above even for today. I don't think I played great today, just ok. The thing I'm very happy about is that I wasn't at all frustrated or tilted when I was down, and I didn't need to take a break or anything, because I'm confident in my game... i guess it's easy for me to say that since I've been running so well lately

BR- Lad- $6800 others- same as before

I just finished clearing my first deposit bonus, so at the end of the month I'm guaranteed another 1k as well as 30% rake back (should be between 500-800$) so that will be nice.

I played a small 600 hand session today, up a bit more than half a BI. Pretty normal session, except I made one hero play getting it in for a whole stack on a pretty dry flop with TPGK...I was pretty sure he was bluffing me hard and I was right! After deciding to call his shove all I thought was 'this is either a great play, or a terrible play'

Those graphs are looking great! little amount oh hands tough IMO. I'm guessing you haven't had any serious swings yet? So be cautious about variation
Nice graphs again and GL for future!

Hey mcbethk,

I know my sample size is small so far, and I'm definitely running pretty hot right now and won't be able to maintain a 15+BB/100 hands at these limits.

I had played another 11k hands before this on a different site at Nl100. At one point I dropped 15 BI without any recovering...so I have some idea of handling downswings, although 15 isn't that much. I work a lot on being in a good mental state every time I play so I think I'll be able to deal with bigger downswings well in the future...or I hope so at least ♦

I like talking with ya!
Yea i have had alot problems with getting away from my PC when running bad. I once had 17 BI downswing. But i guess i have alot experience with tilt and from now on i can handle it. If i start a session and get some bad beats or suckouts then i know it's not going to end and i'm happy to leave tables

Do you play SH mcbethk, and if so at what limits?

Yes, i play SH. At the moment i'm not playing at all because due to some problems i had to withdraw my whole BR. I was playing NL 50 and some shots at NL 100. I'm probably starting to play again on december or next year..

Hey mcbethk, thats too bad you had to withdraw your role...sucks for moving up limits but I guess its also nice to really appreciate your success by using the money ♦ GL when you start back up again!

As for me I didn't even have a minute to play poker this weekend because I had work commitments. Its ok though because I had been really focusing a lot on poker to clear the 1k at Ladbrokes and improve, so a forced break was probably a good thing. I've received the 1k from ladbrokes now so all thats missing is the 30% rakeback that I'll receive at the end of the month. Hopefully I'll get some time to play this week...but probably not much.

I've withdrawn all my funds from absolute poker and deposited them onto ladbrokes because don't plan on playing any more poker at absolute. This means I now only have 2 active poker accounts, ladbrokes for cashgames and fulltilt for the occasional tourney session (fulltilt account isn't tracked to ps so that sucks)

BR- Lad- $11 050 Fulltilt- $2 145

what mtt do you play? had any success?

Hey jmackenzie.

When I feel like playing mtt's I play pretty much any available between 26$ and 75$. I also really enjoy the 45 man sng's and have made over 1k profit in 26$ 45 man sng's I think. I've had 3 big tourney successes so far 2 for around 1.2k each and 1 for 4k they were 26$, 50$, 26$ buy-ins respectively.

*edit* I used to be good at mtt's/sng's and suck at cash games... I've only recently worked a lot on improving my cashgame.

why did you move from absolute? i've heard its pretty wild) and how is ladbrokes?)
isn't it sucks for you to play at european rooms/networks? i guess time doesn't really match.

xylene: I changed to lads for 2 reasons.
1)I really wanted an account tracked to pokerstrategy so I could watch all the video's and post hands in the appropriate forum.
2)I got 1k deposit bonus which is nice +30% rakeback. At absolute I had no rakeback and not much for good bonuses.

I didn't know this before I changed, but there are quite a few more tables open at ladbrokes for Nl100-400 SH then there are at absolute so this is nice for table selection as well. As for quality of the competition, I think there are tons of bad players at both sites...I mean there are quite a few regulars playing stats like 30/6 or 24/5 which I find ridiculous. As for the time zones I actually really like playing european sites because the time that I have to play normally is between 4:30pm and 8:30pm on weekdays which pretty much corresponds perfectly to peak player volume on lads I think. When I used to play on absolute it pissed me off that peak hours were like 7pm-1am in canada, because I often want to either sleep on weekdays or go drinking on weekends at these times.

October summary

Once again I'm happy to say that poker treated me very well this month!

recap of goals:

- +BB/100 hands and up 8 BI on Nl100- I played 13k hands at Nl100 at 18BB/100hands and 6k hands at Nl200 at 14BB/100hands. Obviously I'm very happy with this upswing! achieved

-clear Lads bonus- It took just under 3 weeks to clear. achieved

-become platinum- Also took about 3 weeks. achieved

-watch every mtt/SH video up to platinum- I didn't realize how many videos there were! I had time to watch about 3/4 of them. failed

-read every mtt/SH article up to platinum- I read every article at least once. Although I should definitely review some of the important ones. achieved

-post at least 20 hands- I didn't keep count, but I posted every hand that I had questions about so I'm happy with that. achieved

-don't waste mtt buy-ins- I only played 1 afternoon of mtt's, loosing about 100$. I actually did a mini tilt that day, and because they were tourneys I couldn't take a break... failed

-review my game lots and don't multi table much- I reviewed every single session that I played with holdem manager, and worked hard on learning. I also only played 4-6 tables at a time. achieved

-don't play above my skill level- I only moved up to Nl200 after I felt comfortable I was beating Nl100, and I never played above Nl200 achieved

-maintain in control of tilt- Pretty much a non factor since I was running so good. Had 1 small tilt in the mtt session but overall this aspect of my game was good this month. achieved

-make 10k- 13 215$ + something around 500$ rakeback coming in the next few day. achieved

I very happy with my cash game progress this month. Not only that I ran good, but also that I put a lot of work into improving my game, and I feel like I've fix a ton of leaks...only a couple million more waiting to be fixed ♦ Overall I achieved 9/11 goals so I'm happy about that as well.

In terms of monthly profit, I made 4k$ in SH Nl100/200, about 1.5k$ in bonus, and about -100$ in mtt's.

Here are my complete stats and graph of this month.

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Cheers!
Georg

congrats on achieving most of your monthly goals.
I hate whan i start to tilt when i am playin tournies b/c i can't quit.
gl

thanks fun101rockets.

For November I'm going to stay at ladbrokes and play Nl200 while trying to improve my game enough to start thinking about shots at Nl400. Here are my goals.

November goals

- play +BB/100 hands over a sample size of 25-30k hands at either Nl200/400. (I'll probably stick to Nl200 and plan on only taking shots at 400 if things continue going very very well at 200)

-finish watching every mtt/SH video up to platinum.

-rewiew every session I play and never multitable over 6 tables

-maintain in control of tilt.

-stay active in hand posting forum. I won't put a specific number of hands posted or anything...I'll just post all hands I have questions about, and comment on other hands when I have something to say.

-I'll make my BR goal 16k, which is 40BI for taking shots at Nl400. This should be pretty achievable... if I get 800ish from rakeback + 1.5k$ NlSH profit (just 3BB/100 hands over 25k hands at Nl200 is 1.5k) thats already 16k total.

The main thing I want to remember this month is to keep my focus on improving and learning...I realize that I've moved up the limits very quickly and still don't have much playing experience at these limits. This month I want to play enough hands at Nl200 to be confident that I'm beating it by a good margin. Once I'm confident in my game at Nl200 I start looking at Nl400.

Cheers!
Georg

Just played my first session of the month, finishing up about 1/2BI. Also played a couple of mtt's losing close to the bubble on both for -100$... In the cash game, one of the things I'm working on that I didn't put in my monthly goals is loosening up preflop. At this point I'm playing about 19/15, but I'd like to get it to 21/18 or something like that eventually.

BR- Lad $11 150, FT $2030

Originally posted by gggeorgio
thanks fun101rockets.

For November I'm going to stay at ladbrokes and play Nl200 while trying to improve my game enough to start thinking about shots at Nl400. Here are my goals.

November goals

- play +BB/100 hands over a sample size of 25-30k hands at either Nl200/400. (I'll probably stick to Nl200 and plan on only taking shots at 400 if things continue going very very well at 200)

-finish watching every mtt/SH video up to platinum.

-rewiew every session I play and never multitable over 6 tables

-maintain in control of tilt.

-stay active in hand posting forum. I won't put a specific number of hands posted or anything...I'll just post all hands I have questions about, and comment on other hands when I have something to say.

-I'll make my BR goal 16k, which is 40BI for taking shots at Nl400. This should be pretty achievable... if I get 800ish from rakeback + 1.5k$ NlSH profit (just 3BB/100 hands over 25k hands at Nl200 is 1.5k) thats already 16k total.

The main thing I want to remember this month is to keep my focus on improving and learning...I realize that I've moved up the limits very quickly and still don't have much playing experience at these limits. This month I want to play enough hands at Nl200 to be confident that I'm beating it by a good margin. Once I'm confident in my game at Nl200 I start looking at Nl400.

Cheers!
Georg

Good luck with those goals!

I look forward to reading about the progress. I like the the attitude with you approach the game and hope you can establish yourself as a NL200/400 regular sooner or later

(very nice graphs btw)