[Closed] Switching to "leisure" poker

I'm running hot

I think I love this game. It makes me completely financially independent and even if I hit a downswing it can't be that bad to ruin all my winnings. It's full ring besides, so more than 10 BI swings are quite unlikely.

I mean, I have friends working for 300$ 12 hours shifts 16 days in the month(it's Bulgaria.. here, for instance, a big beer in a cafe in the central part of the town costs 1-1,50$ so it's cheap) and I play poker for 3 hours a day and since the beginning of june I've made 1700$. I feel good definitely. I really wonder whether to cash-out a bit more or go for the NL100. I guess I should do the second, because 3 ptbb/100(I think I could make it) is 6$ 100 hands = 18$/hour without bonus which would make it up to at least 20$/hour.

But I am definitely going to stick to Full Ring because comparing my swings to those of SH players, there's a considerable difference. Definitely SH has its benefits(more hands, faster bonus clearing rate, more fish) but I see no reason to switch, besides it will take some time to adapt.

So the decision is made, once I reach 2k I will make my first shots at NL100. This will be probably after I release the next 200$ of my bonus. I'm on the halfway to completing it.

Here are my stats if they are of interest to someone. I've gradually made my game more aggressive pre-flop but I've become selective with my continuation bets on flop. I mean, I still do them most of the time(65% to be exact) but that's less than before. I think it's better this way, given that raised/called conti bets piss me off really hard.

Bankroll: 1821$
Total cashout: 586$

Congrats to your nice play
I absolutly of your opinion that switching to SH would be senseless right now, cause you are so comfortable with your game.
Just keep it like that

I'm back from Sofia where I attended two exams for the university. I have a marvellous result on the maths exam, although it wasn't that important for me, since I had already achieved a nice mark in the pre-exam. But the more, the better, so I'm happy that I have improved my result even more(it's maybe because I was very calm and didn't care at all since I already had a good mark). As for the English, the test was more than challenging, and although I have the Certificate of Proficiency in English(the highest level of competence), I found it very difficult. Everybody did actually, as the level of the exercises was sky-high. Results will probably be available in the end of the week, pray for me

Enough about studies, a little poker update:

Bankroll at 1950$ and a winning rate of 4,55 ptBB/100.

It's just that I am running very hot on NL50, and I don't want the downswing to come on NL100 so I will stick to the lower limit at least till I release my bonus(in 7-10 days depending on how much I play). Hopefully I will have more than 2100$ after the bonus is credited.

On the 25th I'm departing to the seaside ♦
Till then it's pokertime, and I set my goal to at least 27,500 hands(currently - 11500) which would mean that for July my average/day would be more than 1k hands - that's fine with me.

BTW: I just found out that there's a daily 5+0,50 tourney with 500$ added(so nice value every time) on my network, every morning at 11. Actually I played it once and got 6th for like 100$ but I didn't know that it was daily. So this is where I will exercise my MTT on a regular basis, except the Sunday Hundred Grand for the Battle of the Donkeys. Va

Nice reading your blog. I found it very interesting.

Thanks

thanks very much I really appreciate such comments

Just couldn't restrain from sharing the marvellous run I had today.
233$ up for the 1600 hands I've played

Here's my mid-JULY graph, I'm very proud of it:

After 29000(5,6k@NL30 and the rest on NL50) hands since I started recording them in PT, I have a total winrate of 5.25 BB which is just awesome.

Bankroll: 2183$

I'm properly rolled for NL100 FR but I will call it off a bit, as I don't want to hit a bad run as soon as I take a shot at the new limit. It's a bit psychological you know, I've been on a constant upswing in the last days and of course I cannot expect it to last forever. As I said in the previous post, I intend stay on this limit till I release the 200 bucks bonus, then I withdraw what's on top of the 2000$ bankroll needed for NL100 to reward myself and welcome "medium" stakes, I would be no longer in the "low" ones

Very nice run, keep going!

2 days after the last update, played like 3k hands.

had some ups and downs but in the end i'm again in the green ♦

I played two times the daily 5+0,50 500$ added tournament and the second time I finished 20th for 30 bucks ♦ Actually I'm aiming for top 6(already finished once in 6th place 3 weeks ago) because the prizes are 100+$ with the first place at 800+$. I don't really care about the lower prizes but still this tourney is a cheap and +EV way(because of the added money) to practice MTT play, as I catch myself making mistakes quite often. But I'm improving

As for the ring games, I still stick to NL50, there's just 2-3 days left to play to release the bonus.. and I will try NL100. However, I am a little bit afraid because I had a hell of a run on NL50, and catching a downswing on NL100 is not what I want.

Bankroll: 2281$
Total cashout: 586$

Good read
GL at the tables

Played around 1k hands today and had tough time actually. Almost 4 buy-ins down but it was expected after all so no big deal.
Actually I am dissappointed with me for 2 hands, where I could save money. I lost 50$ because of my own mistakes, and this is an issue to note.

Here are the hands:

Known players:
[tg]UTG+1$30.75:///////;MP2$24.50:///////;Hero$52.68:///////;SB$61.95:///////;BB$10.64:///////;[/tg]
Texas Hold'em NL50 (10 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Ongame Hand Converter v0.2.5 by Life is a Bug.

Preflop: Hero is BU with J♣, J♠
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to $2.00, 2 folds, MP2 calls $2.00, 2 folds, Hero raises to $8.00, 2 folds, UTG+1 raises to $30.75 (All-in), MP2 folds, Hero calls $22.75.

Flop: ($64.25) 4♠, 9♣, 5♦ (0 players)

Turn: ($64.25) K♣ (0 players)

River: ($64.25) Q♦ (0 players)

Final Pot: $64.25

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows [ JC, JS ]
UTG+1 shows [ AS, AD ]
Hero wins $0.00 USD.
UTG+1 wins $62.75 USD.

Calling the shove was OK against an obvious fish, but I had no particular reads on that guy and I just thought for a second "he is a fish" and made the call. But actually he was absolutely unknown to me and it was an easy fold here most times.

Known players:
[tg]CO$28.00:///////;Hero$61.96:///////;[/tg]
Texas Hold'em NL50 (9 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Ongame Hand Converter v0.2.5 by Life is a Bug.

Preflop: Hero is BB with J♣, 7♠
5 folds, CO calls $0.50, 2 folds, Hero checks.

Flop: ($1.25) 8♠, 7♦, 2♥ (0 players)
Hero bets $1.00, CO calls $1.00.

Turn: ($3.25) T♠ (0 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $0.50, Hero calls $0.50.

River: ($4.25) 7♣ (0 players)
Hero bets $2.00, CO raises to $6.25, Hero raises to $59.96 (All-in), CO calls $19.75 (All-in).

Final Pot: $90.21

Results follow (highlight to see):
Hero shows [ JC, 7S ]
CO shows [ 8C, 8H ]
Hero wins $0.00 USD.
CO wins $0.00 USD.

Here shove on river was absolutely pointless. Of course folding is not an option, but just calling his river raise was ok - and this would have saved me 20$.

OK, these are the major mistakes I have noted, especially the second hand.. I don't usually do this but this time something distracted me from making the correct decision .

As for the remaining loss I don't think I could do something, I mean "it's just one of those days" you know

I am going to play some qualifiers this evening and hopefully win an entry to some tournament and while playing I may read something here and there, theory I mean.

Bankroll: 2082$
Total cashout: 586$

Hi guys, new update there this early saturday afternoon.

The downswing unfortunately continues

That's the graph of my last days and as you can see i'm running as hell.
As i said though, it was expected because my winrate was just sick before this swing. I don't have doubts in my game, and actually I have improved myself in terms of hand reading and I manage to steal many pots playing my opponents cards.

I continue to review the hands I lost money and here's one more mistake I'm going to post:

Known players:
[tg]UTG+2$58.38:///////;BU$70.58:///////;Hero$56.12:///////;[/tg]
Texas Hold'em NL50 (10 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Ongame Hand Converter v0.2.5 by Life is a Bug.

Preflop: Hero is BB with K♣, K♠
2 folds, UTG+2 raises to $2.00, 4 folds, BU calls $2.00, SB folds, Hero raises to $8.00, UTG+2 calls $6.00, BU calls $6.00.

Flop: ($24.25) 9♦, J♣, T♣ (0 players)
Hero bets $20.00, UTG+2 raises to $50.38 (All-in), BU folds, Hero calls $28.12 (All-in).

Turn: ($122.75) 7♦ (0 players)

River: ($122.75) 9♠ (0 players)

Final Pot: $122.75

Results follow (highlight to see):
UTG+2 shows [ JD, JH ]
Hero shows [ KC, KS ]
UTG+2 wins $121.25 USD.
Hero wins $0.00 USD.

I was pretty sure I was beat when he pushed, but my call was correct and that's not what I blame myself for. I mean, I had to call 28$ to win a pot of 120$ and I had 6 outs(2 kings + 4 queens for a straight), so I had 25% to win the hand which makes my call correct. My mistake was that I bet so big the flop and commited myself.. This flop was just too dangerous, a bet of 13-14$ would have made them fold if they had nothing and would allow me to get away from the hand against a push.

Apart from that I had pretty much nothing to do in the other hands. Mostly suckouts.

Just variance I guess. I will release my 200$ bonus today and it will make up partially for the losses and hopefully I will be on the upside of poker sooner or later. For now I stay at NL50(I am happy that I didn't rush myself into NL100 when I had almost 2300$ roll, because such a swing there would have ruined me:)) at least till the bad streak stops.

Bankroll: 1896$

I'm done with NL50.. hopefully.

Yesterday I released the bonus, which reinforced my wounded bankroll and now it is again over 2k. Played like 2k hands and I ended up around a buy-in up, so fortunately the losing streak has come to its end.
Thus, I decided to move up to NL100 FR and I really hope that moving down again won't be necessary - anyway, I will surely do it once my bankroll drops below 1800$.
I am going to play not more than 4 tables, and as a beginning, a more nitty style, just until I get used to the higher stakes.
My expected winrate on NL100 is 3ptbb/100 which makes more than 1000$ expected monthly profit if playing like 20k hands/month. I set this as a goal and I believe it is realistic - but time will show.

So here are the total graphs + stats of my progress on NL50:

Wish me luck in my first sessions on the new limit today

Fuck.. A thing I just realized. I'm such an idiot.. forgot to move some money to stars to pay for the battle of the donkeys. It's already too late.. maybe next week.

Bankroll: 2100$
Total cashout: 586$

Here is the graph representing my first steps on NL100:

As you can see it has been a real rollercoaster, but in the end I am more than 2 buy-ins up, so I'm more than satisfied.
Played a number of big pots, lost two stacks, the first with AQ versus 56s all-in preflop(there was a guy who blew off like 5-6 stacks and was moving in every second hand.. complete idiot, but although I lost a whole stack, I am still 70-80$ up from him, stacked him twice:))
The other 200$ pot I lost was set over set.. maybe I could get away from it(the hand developed a bit strangely, all action took place on turn and it was multiway) but it would have been a world class laydown so I don't blame myself.
As a compensation I got my AA paid off by KK all-in preflop taking down another 200$ pot.

My first impression is that the level is not remarkably higher, although there are definitely better players there, but fish for everybody too.

I am accumulating player points with a sick rate and it won't take long until the completion of the last 200$ of my bonus. I guess I will make it before 25th July when I travel to the seaside on holiday.

Then I wait for pokerroom.com to be added to pokerstrategy and move 2000$ dollars there, the rest I am withdrawing(hopefully by then my roll will be AT LEAST 2300-2500$, though I hope for more should no downswings occur) to enjoy the money.

Bankroll: 2344$(the highest point my bankroll has ever reached ♦ )

wow it's been such a rollercoaster.
after my first day on NL100 in the previous post, i barely played 150 hands yesterday with no interesting pots, just 20-30$ down. But today I played 2 sessions and from almost 4 buy-ins down(I was about to move down), I ended up 1 in the green. And that for like 1700 hands

And it was such a donkfest that I've never seen before on ALL limits. Won 3 stacks for just several minutes in hands like this one:

Known players:
[tg]UTG+1$145.85:///////;UTG+2$91.30:///////;Hero$99.00:///////;MP3$172.00:///////;CO$32.30:///////;BU$98.50:///////;SB$138.95:///////;BB$91.00:///////;[/tg]
Texas Hold'em NL100 (10 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Ongame Hand Converter v0.2.5 by Life is a Bug.

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with K♠, K♥
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to $2.00, UTG+2 calls $2.00, MP1 folds, Hero raises to $12.50, 5 folds, UTG+1 calls $10.50, UTG+2 folds.

Flop: ($28.50) 8♣, Q♠, 3♦ (0 players)
UTG+1 bets $9.00, Hero raises to $30.00, UTG+1 calls $21.00.

Turn: ($88.50) 9♦ (0 players)
UTG+1 bets $12.50, Hero raises to $56.50 (All-in), UTG+1 calls $44.00.

River: ($201.50) A♠ (0 players)

Final Pot: $201.50

Results follow (highlight to see):
UTG+1 shows [ 7S, 7H ]
Hero shows [ KS, KH ]
UTG+1 wins $0.00 USD.
Hero wins $198.50 USD.

The same guy sucked out on me 30 mins later in just the same scenario but with fives.. he spiked a set on the river with 5% but shit happens, can't help it

So with a bankroll of 2411$ I'm now in the safe zone and hopefully I won't hit a downswing severe enough to move me down(as I said in the previous post, I go back to NL50 at the 1800$ mark).

Btw I accidentaly found this while browsing my database:

Known players:
[tg]UTG$212.60:///////;Hero$112.30:///////;MP2$121.20:///////;MP3$98.50:///////;CO$40.05:///////;BU$96.50:///////;SB$58.90:///////;BB$20.00:///////;[/tg]
Texas Hold'em NL100 (10 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Ongame Hand Converter v0.2.5 by Life is a Bug.

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A♦, A♣
UTG calls $1.00, 8 folds, BB checks.

Flop: ($2.50) 3♠, 2♣, A♥ (0 players)
BB checks, UTG bets $1.00, BB folds.

Final Pot: $3.50

Results follow (highlight to see):

♦

Bankroll: 2411$

My good run is going on. Today the game wasn't so fast, not much stacks flying, mainly because I didn't get many good hands to play pre-flop, so it was boring on the whole. But with some of the few good hands I got a nice pay-off and I've generated a more than decent profit.
Besides I'm more than 2/3rds done with the last 200$ of my bonus, another booster.

Not posting any graphs because anyway I have to do it on the 25th to make my summary for the month.

Bankroll: 2692$
Total withdrawal: 586$

July Summary

Just 3 hours before I set off to the seaside, so I am going to write my summary for the month of July. No time to play today because I hanged around the whole day and I'm doing my luggage up.

Quick thoughts on the month, in terms of poker it was a unique experience. I managed to win a lot of money and to get a real insight of the game. I feel that I'm playing good but of course there's always room for improvement. The single thing I feel not very happy about is that I didn't play for a pokerstrategy site, but this is going to change as soon as pokerroom is added, since I have almost finished my bonus on the site I am currently playing at.

Once I upgrade my status to at least gold and hopefully platinum in August, I am going to study the material on the site I have never had access to. There are a lot of videos and articles to be taken into consideration and there's something to learn here and there for sure.

Now, let's talk about money
You may see in the June Summary post that I had a roll of 1100$+374$ withdrawn back then - a total of 1474$ and a sheer profit of 695$. Now I have 2355$ in the site and 586$ withdrawn - so that's a total of 2940$. The simple calculation shows that I am 1466$ in front for July.

Unfortunately I had "one of those days" yesterday on NL100 and lost 3 1/2 buy-ins, it could be better without it - but anyway, that's poker.

Graph of my play and a shot from pokertracker with stats(for July only):

My winrate is a bit below expectation unfortunately(I aim for 3 ptbb/100) but it's still OK given that I had some nasty downswings which I am happy that I overcame without tilting off much of my money. In fact, I may have cursed and shouted here at home, but that didn't affect my play by much.

As for the number of hands, almost 27k is fine given the fact that I was away from home for several days due to exams and that the rest of the month I will be away too.

I still make some mistakes, but giving them a consideration here in my b-log really helps me to improve and to minimize them.

So apart from the 825$ of cash-game winnings, I released 400$ bonus(and I am 7/8 done with the remaining 200$ but I will count them for August) and the rest is my balance from MTT's(like +240$) which I played from time to time.

On the whole, I estimate this month as really successful given the fact that I have more than doubled my winnings from June, went through NL50 and now grind NL100.

August Goals

This is what I will be happy to achieve by the end of August:

- play a minimum of 30k hands
- at least 1200$ on top of what I currently have(bonus + play combined of course)
- move to pokerroom.com once added, start their bonus and upgrade my Pokerstrategy status to gold/platinum.
- withdraw some money to reward myself

I am not planning to move up even if I catch a good run, I'm staying at NL100 for the following months.

My desired cash game win rate is 3 ptbb/100 but of course I will try to play my A-game - the rest is up to luck.

Anyway, that's it - I hope it was an interesting read for you.
Now I am going to party, sunbath and have fun like crazy for more than a week!

Nice ascent through the limits

Hey guys I'm back from my holiday.
I wish it lasted longer but that's it - now I'm back and a bit bored because I had loads of fun back at the seaside.
Actually I don't have much of a wish to play poker - but I think it's just a matter of days for this to change.
One more thing to boast off about, all my documents for the university are officially done and in one month I move to Sofia.

Enough about that, a word or two about poker:
I played almost 1500 hands since the last update and went pretty good in the beginning actually but just finished a session where I lost a stack with AA against a set and had a number of conti bets raised and such.. one of those days you know ;]
so for these hands I'm about breakeven

I'm definitely not happy with my current 1,67 PTBB/100 at NL100 after 7,8k hands but I hope it will eventually move up to at least 2,5.

Anyway, I released 200$ of my bonus and I will toggle on another bonus since pokerroom.com is still not added to pokerstrategy

With the bonus my bankroll ended up at 2539$.
I guess it's high time to reward myself for the successful July and a withdrawal of 539$ is currently being processed.

So I leave 2000$ in my account and stick to NL100 for now. Hope I get back the desire to play in the following days.

Bankroll: 2000$
Total cashout: 586$+539$ = 1125 $

fuck, i feel like cursing
this hand tilted me really
it's not about the 50 bucks but I played it like a complete donkey - calling station.

Known players:
[tg]UTG$100.00:///////;Hero$106.60:///////;CO$38.30:///////;BU$102.40:///////;SB$130.20:///////;BB$92.50:///////;[/tg]
Texas Hold'em NL100 (10 handed)
Hand recorder used for this poker hand: Ongame Hand Converter v0.2.5 by Life is a Bug.

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with A♣, Q♠
UTG calls $1.00, 4 folds, Hero raises to $4.50, 4 folds, UTG calls $3.50.

Flop: ($10.50) 3♣, A♥, 2♦ (0 players)
UTG bets $5.00, Hero raises to $15.00, UTG calls $10.00.

Turn: ($40.50) 5♣ (0 players)
UTG bets $16.00, Hero calls $16.00.

River: ($72.50) K♠ (0 players)
UTG bets $25.00, Hero calls $25.00.

Final Pot: $122.50

Results follow (highlight to see):
UTG shows [ 3H, 2H ]
Hero mucks cards
UTG wins $119.50 USD.
Hero wins $0.00 USD.

actually i don't know what happened after I came back from my holiday but I just get no pleasure from playing
i'm either too nervous or too indifferent
and i'm not even running bad.. i'm like 60-70$ behind which is nothing

I consider leaving 1000$ in my account and switch to another poker format, for instance 20+2 sng's but I still haven't made my mind up.
but maybe this could replenish the thrill of the game..

i don't know I am going to play for several days more NL100 FR but if I still play without any wish to, I will definitely take steps to fix that

there's just no point to do something you don't feel like doing

Hi finchybg,

Congrats on your progress so far! and thanks for many helpful comments you've made on hands i've posted in the past.

For me personally, I've found that I sometimes get bored of playing but when I change formats it really helps a lot. I started playing almost only sng's and now I'm playing cash games short handed, and will definitely go back to sng's when I'm tired of cash games. The thing that I like about this is that you're learning different skills at each different game, so It's much more engaging. Also, It's nice because the skills you gain are often very transferable from game to game. (I now feel way more confident post flop from NLSH which helps in sngs/mtts)

You could also start out on omaha, that can be a pretty fun game, and there's tons of fish for sure!

GL whatever you do