Not really sure if I have a point to the blog, but figure I'll start one and see where it goes.

History: I think I quit poker about 9 years ago, although it didn't feel that long ago until I went looking for my old blog. I made my start with two $50 deposits, and by the second was a 'winning' player at SNGs where I build up to somewhere around the $650ish mark (quotations, because I learnt some really basic ICM and became a push/shove bot, I even have a vid on here I should watch again at some point to see if it was bad or not). Moved to cash at around $. It took time but became a winning player there with help from a bunch of friends trying to make the same journey. I've lost the stats, but from memory I beat the games at a reasonable clip up to $6k where I moved to 200nl with 30 buyins. Fairly quickly went up 10 more buyins, then even more quickly went down 15. At that time I was playing a lot less, the stress got to me, so I pulled the majority of my roll out and built a basketball area at home that's been money well spent.

A few reasons to get back into things, but mostly just started getting some poker vids passing through my youtube recommendations, popping back on here to be nostalgic and a bit of a desire to have another shot.

Looking back in review (and I kind of knew this at the time, but didn't think it was as big of a deal as it probably was), I think my main problem was not thinking, or being capable of thinking, in terms of ranges. A big part of that final downswing was reading some new advice on aggressive bluffing, but not understanding when they were good, and when they were bad. Looking back through some of the latest conversations in my last blog, and it's clear I'd get some advice about how to play in one spot, then think I was applying that advice in the same kind of spot when it was actually different. Basically I'd think "this is a good place to bluff pretending I have XX" without considering things like whether the way I'd played the hand so far meant I was likely to have XX in my range (and if so, how much of my range made up 'value' hands I'd be betting/raising with).

So threads like the classic ISF theorem, which is probably the single most important thread posted on FTR, just went over my head. I got the idea of what he was saying, but had no idea how to implement it into my game. I'd do a hand review and just go "my hand is XX, what's optimal" instead of "my range here is this, what's the best play with my range?".

Now sometimes you just play your cards, and especially at lower stakes it's probably overkill (and perhaps even somewhat negative) to worry too much about balanced ranges, but I definitely think as I moved up this was the big thing that held me back, and the thing I want to work on the most as I try to rebuild a better game.

So, I'm not a winning player thinking he can crush back at micros. I've deposited $100 and plan to play 2NL while I learn the game pretty much from scratch again. Not only have I forgotten a lot in nearly a decade of not playing, but I want to relearn differently this time around. For now I'm not trying to win the most $ possible as fast as possible, I just want to develop a solid game that I can eventually use as a foundation to move forward with. For now this means reading/watching/thinking about some of the more advanced stuff, while mostly actually studying the very basics. Doing this while I play a limited amount.

I'm playing 2 tables, no hud. Most sessions are less than an hour long, sometimes only 20 mins or so. Just trying to concentrate on what I'm doing, and whats going on on the tables. I've done very little of my work yet. I have no 3-bet range. I have no call 3-bet range. I'm pretty sure my 4-bet range is exactly AK, KK+ atm. I do 3-bet. I do call 3-bets (probably too many). However I do so knowing these are parts of my game I need to develop fairly soon. Mostly so far I'm trying to focus on good preflop first in raise ranges, and trying not to be too stupid post flop. I think I've run pretty well, and gotten lucky at times, so trying not to be results oriented. I'll work on expanding my game in pretty much every spot as I go.