My project: Baby steps at the Micro stakes

Woo, I just took 5/550ish 5$ tourney. Although this bankroll was meant to be only cash, since I played it on this site and was rolled for it anyways, I'm counting it as part of this roll. With this cash I'm at 800$ but I'll stay in 10NL until I hit at least 900$ or even 1000$. I need to know that I can win at 10NL consistently first and I don't feel I'm there yet.

Omgz second page, must update. I went to Barcelona for a week and only played some tournaments, didn't win anything big. Since I had no HUD or PT set up there I didn't play any cash at all. Anyways, since my last update I had a couple nasty negative sessions so not much progress in terms of bankroll. I did reread NLHE:T&P during the vacation. Today I played a short session, around 1k hands and ended up almost 2 buy ins up.

BR: ~785$

I haven't played much this week but just had an strong session. It was negative and I took a lot of beats and a couple coolers but I'm really happy with how I played. A month ago I would have tilted off several buy-ins. This time, instead of doing that, I kept my cool, and won some money back. The session was still about a buy in and a half negative but whatever. The money went in with me as the huge favorite in almost all the big losses, and that's what matters. I played my A game 99%, when I felt it wavering towards the end I finished my orbits and fucked off.

However, in the more long termish, I am a bit frustrated that I can't break out of this break even stretch. It's been almost 8k hands of pretty much break even since the second week of this month. Hopefully things will turn around to finish the month on a good note. Either way, even though I'm not running great (6ptBB/100), it's still my best month on cash tables by far. I just think I should be beating 10NL for a better rate but meh. As everyone says, gotta stop focusing on win rates and focus on my game.

BR: 795$

Bah. I'm playing good but I keep getting coolered left and right. Between yesterday and today I've had FOUR KK < AA AI pre-flop. Of 14 pair of aces I've had this weekend, 8 have been folded to my pre-flop raise and SIX have gone up vs sets. KK likes to go up vs sets some too. I'm not stacking most of the time with these overpair vs set situations but I am usually losing at around 50BB each time and it adds up. I tilted off a stack just now with this hand and then stopped playing. Someone point and laugh at my terrible play please. Also, would I like some cheese with my whine? Yes plx.

edit: The Poker Mindset arrived on Friday, been waiting for it eagerly so going to read that this week. I try to get a book each month so I think the next one is going to be PNLHE and then the unofficial sequel SSNLHE (I think?). If anyone has any suggestions for really good books, throw them my way plx!

BR: 765$

Absolute/UB Cereus No-Limit Hold'em, $0.10 BB (6 handed) - [url=http://www.flopturnriver.com/reviews/Online-Poker-Absolute.php]Absolute/UB Cereus[/url] Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

Hero (Button) ($9.63)
SB ($9.90)
BB ($18.15)
UTG ($16.28)
MP ($15.53)
CO ($40.94)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 5

, 6

2 folds, CO bets $0.35, Hero calls $0.35, SB calls $0.30, 1 fold

Flop: ($1.15) 6

, 6

, 2

(3 players)
SB checks, CO bets $1.15, Hero calls $1.15, SB calls $1.15

Turn: ($4.60) 10

(3 players)
SB checks, CO checks, Hero bets $3.50, SB calls $3.50, 1 fold

River: ($11.60) A

(2 players)
SB raises to $4.90 (All-In), Hero calls $4.63 (All-In)

Total pot: $20.86 | Rake: $1.04

Results in white below:
Hero mucked 5

, 6

(three of a kind, sixes).
SB had 10

, 10

(full house, tens over sixes).
Outcome: SB won $39.64

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/10nl-sweat-session-w-keithmm-hands-for-review-t87761.html

Feedback appreciated!

Cross post from July graphs post on the BC:

Here's the 10NL garph for July. I had a pretty nice heater at the start of the month, then I went into weak/tight "protecting my winnings" mode for the long breakeven stretch. When I finally realized how bad I was playing I ran into negative variance but I think I played well through it and kept even. I'm pretty happy with my take on poker atm. I know I have huge amounts of leaks and obviously tons of areas to work on; I'm going to fix them and I'm going to get better. Being average is not acceptable.

+141$ 10NL
+36$ Rakeback
+10$ Bonus
+23$ 5PLO
+186$ tournaments

Total: 396$

BR: 880$

Some might wonder why I'm still playing 10NL with a bankroll that supports 25NL and the reason for that is that I'm still very new to cash games. Most of the increases in my BR have been through tournaments up until this month so I definitely haven't made enough through cash games to justify the move up. When (wtf, I'd actually typed "if" instead of when") I make another 10-15 buy ins at 10NL I'll consider moving up stakes.

I found Titan Poker installed on my machine and didn't remember why I had it. Ages ago I signed up to it through pokerstrategy and got those free 50$ - played a few SnGs and grinded up to 67 euros (currency is in euros for some reason), so I figured I might as well put them to good use. I'm going to try to get the points I need to take the money out and stick it on my UB bankroll. So I started playing with 67 euros at 20NL, went on a sick heater and am now at 123 euros in a couple hours.

So since I didn't go busto I'm going to play there until I get the 2k points I need to withdraw the money. It should go really fast, since I'm already at 212 out of the 2.5k I need with less than 1k hands played; I'll need about 7.5k hands total.

Zomg 7 days left on PT trial. I need to get HEM up and going. That also means I've been at teh cash games for three months.

Well, Titan Poker project at 20NL is going well. The tables there are LOOSE and just juicy as hell. Like, worse than UB. Variance is a bit high due to some suckouts with the super loose play from like 50% of players but I'm still up around 5 buy ins over about 2k hands for 13ptbb/100 which is sexy. It's a pity I don't have Rakeback there or I'd think about staying around. Also rake seems to be quite a bit higher at Titan than UB but I haven't looked into how it works.

I'm almost done with The Poker Mindset and man I am in love with that book. It has helped me more than I could ever have imagined. If anyone actually reads this blog, I seriously recommend it to anyone who thinks they have any problems with tilt or actually just anyone looking for a new poker book to read. It's really, really fantastic.

So including my Titan Poker BR, the BR got boosted artificially a bit since there was already 95$ on there that I wasn't counting before. I also moved some of my tournament winnings from UB to my FT account where I play most of my tournaments so my accounts now stand at:

Full Tilt: 292$
Ultimate Bet: 626$
Titan Poker: 215$

For a grand total of: 1133$

I wonder what the odds are of having three made full houses on the flop or turn being beaten on turn or river within ~500 hands. Anyways, I nearly went busto (ok not really, but was down 6 buy ins at one point during the weekend) on my little operation on Titan Poker due to a lot of really bad run and some B-game mixed in which didn't help. I pulled back out of it and ended on a decent note. I feel I coped well with the losses though, which is what matters - and I felt I was playing my A game through a large majority of my sessions. If I tilted it was for literally a minute or two after the incident, then I cleared my head and moved on and then kicked some ass.

Like I said before the 20NL tables are way looser and maybe a bit more aggressive than 10NL I was playing before. But this is really terrible aggressiveness, like just blind aggressive, not selecting the right spots to do so. And that's really exploitable. But I guess exploiting these super aggro donks is high variance, which is what I'm going through.

Currently at 1630 points out of the 2484 I need to withdraw from Titan, so not long to go. I'm still not sure if when I go back to Ultimate Bet I should go to 25NL or back to 10NL. On one hand I feel 20NL on Titan Poker is something I can definitely beat and 25NL should be similar on UB, on the other hand, I haven't won enough buy ins at 10NL to justify the move up, strictly speaking. Thoughts on that would be good, if anyone still bothers with my half arsed attempt at a blog. Razz

snap .....sorta .....managed 2 cracked full houses in 300 hands tonight.

Well, project Titan is complete. It took 7.4k hands in the end and I ended at +115$ running at 8 bb/100. As you can see from the graph I trainwrecked at around 3.5k for about 600 hands where I ran really badly for a day (see post above). I'm actually ecstatic that I grinded back up to a decent profit after that bad run. After the 4k mark I didn't run particularly good, had a looooooot of rivered sets and two pair vs TPTK/2 pair kinda hands but I still did well overall. It shows that not only is my poker getting a little bit better, though still with lots of leaks to plug, but that my emotional and psychological state in regards to poker is much healthier. So yeah, good shizzle. Ship it!

That puts my Titan balance at: 233$

I'm also down like 20$ from 5$PLO so my BR still around the 1100$ ish range. Still not sure if I'll be playing 25NL on Ultimate Bet but my confidence is high after the good results from Titan so I probably will. This weekend I think I'll chillax playing some donkaments on FT.

Having one of those terribad weeks where every overpair goes up against a set, every straight has a flush draw that rivers inevitably, every flush has a paired board, etc. I make hands, tons of them, it's just someone always has something better. Or they fold on the flop c-bet, one or the other. Nothing is paying off. It's pretty gay. Poker's not really "fun" atm, not making money either so I'm finding it hard to find a good reason to play. Instead I'm spending more time reviewing sessions and reading stuff. On my reviews I do find some mistakes where I could have played better but nothing huge.

Down about 6 buy-ins this week thus far. We'll see how it goes.

1. Cutting down to 2 tables, will open a third once I have reads and if I like the tables and my position.
2. I've become too passive. Call less, fold more.
3. I need to tighten up (at least until I'm through the downswing).
4. I need to focus 100% on poker whilst playing; no watching shit, reading FTR, staring at session stats, etc.
5. I've gotten lazy with note taking. I need to write down every relevant read. Cereus' terribad note system doesn't help, was used to Titan's already; it's a lot better.
6. Be patient. It's called a grind for a reason. Second time I need to tell myself this.

I'm running bad and not playing my best. About 9 buy-ins down from my peak this month. It's nothing huge but the last couple days I feel it's starting to affect my play. Thankfully I was well rolled for 25NL so bankroll is still healthy.

Carry on!

Note to self: Every hand is the start of the rest of your poker "career" - play like it poopyhead.

Fucked if I thought I was running bad before. 3 more sessions, all negative, about 4 buy-ins down in all-in EV, and that doesn't even count all the times I'm in on the river where some dickwad rivered the 1835th set with some ridiculous low pair after calling three streets vs my 2 pair/overpair/whatever. Everyone runs like fucking god vs me. Yeah, I'm whining, I know.

This is supposed to make me money in the long term, yah but fuck. BR is down to around 800$, so not much longer before the long term at 25NL is over. I'm taking a couple days break and then I'll give 25NL one more shot before moving back down. /sigh

Hi FTR!

I'm still alive, and I didn't quit poker. Yay! I'm somewhat suprised my OP is only on the second page, I actually started looking for it at page 6 or so. But anyways, I've played veeeery little poker in the last two months or so. I needed a break pretty badly but it sucks admitting it; eventually it dawned on me though. I tried coming back to poker a few times in the last couple months, all sessions dominated by a some fail and a lot of fail. I wasn't running good, that's for sure, and I wasn't in the right mindset to play anyways. There was a LOT of shit going on in real life and I really shouldn't have been playing anyways, not when I was what would probably be called clinically depressed if I had been diagnosed.

But life's good recently, I got a pretty kickass job with my company and they're moving me to Irvine in California early next year. I'm quite ready to move on from Paris, been here for three years and a half or so already.

Anyways, poker related news: I've had a couple of decent sessions so I figured I'd post and say hi and post a list of goals for the near future.

*Play a few sessions at week, at least.
*Don't burn myself out, take it easy, don't try to force it. Be patient.
*Get on IRC and chat it up with better players than myself, shouldn't be too hard to find.
*Go over PNLH again.
*Get back to posting hands and reading posts on the BC on a regular basis.

I'm still at 25NL at the moment, although my bankroll took a big hit during October since it peaked near the 1k mark. I'm still well rolled for 25NL though, and as someone around here said, a bankroll is nothing other than a tool and that tool happens to be good enough for 25NL.

BR: 815$

I have a question, if anyone happens to bump into this blog and read this. Since I'm moving to the US, should I be withdrawing my BR from the anti-US sites that I may have it on before or can I still withdraw when I'm there?

Now off to catch up on what all the regs around here have been up to on their OPs! See you guys on IRC.

What company do you work for? What do you do for a living?

Taking time off is nothing to be ashamed of esepcially if playing would be -EV for you given your mental state.

Not sure about your question regarding the anit-US site since I live in Canada and unfortunately I'm not up to date with foreign policy (
probably because I grind too much lol), but I'm sure one of the Americans here in the forums can anwser your question accurately.

Good luck sir, and definately drop by the IRC.

I work for Blizzard Entertainment - WoW and all that. I started out here about 3 and a half years ago as a Game Master for the Spanish servers, then got a position as a trainer a few months after starting. The job was pretty shit after the novelty of working for Blizz wore off; was simply not a challenge at all and I felt like I was going nowhere. Finally just a few days ago I got a job I'm really looking forward to, which will be documenting the content of their games for internal use. Also, it's in their main HQ office in Irvine, which is basically a dream come true for a fanboi like me. I've wanted this job for years, big big +EV life move. Very Happy

Wow man that is so cool. You have a job so many people would die for, and congrats on getting that dream position!

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My project: Baby steps at the Micro stakes

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My project: Baby steps at the Micro stakes