What's that? Another micropleb PG&C? Why yes, yes it is!

About:
OP is early 30s, Scottish, male. Poker history is donking about in the relative glory days of 2011-2014 Stars 2-25nl (rare ventures into 50nl are best left undiscussed..) and running a £25 deposit high enough that by the time I realised 2015's 5nl was going to be harder than 2011's 25nl and I'd honestly rather be outside (shudder) talking to strangers (shudderer), cashing out paid for 2 months rent and a bike. Not bad for a hobby.

In the 2+ year interim, I have gained:
* a love of cycling
* a wife
* a passionate hatred of train delays
* financial security
* a tendency to greet political developments with 15 seconds of laughter
whereas, I have lost:
* circa 2st/30lbs/13kg
* old 2p2 login details (rip ~120 embarassing hh posts)
* near-certain knowledge that I will always live in Scotland
* many of the worst symptoms of a chronic medical condition
* a tendency toward murderous tilt (....or have I?)

During that time, poker was limited to skimming news/strat posts/etc, watching some youtube strat vids, and stomping the odd beerstakes home game by knowing that open limping J3o is a terrible idea and that calling the iso doesn't improve matters. I have frequently considered getting back on Stars taking it more seriously because I find the game very interesting, but the urge was never quite strong enough to make me redeposit.

But now I'm posting this, so obviously I'm playing online again.

What changed?
Well, there's a decent chance that by the end of the year I'll be living outside the UK, so some of the first deposit bonuses I've had my eye on may not be available to me for long. I must have (some small fraction of) them. Plus, if and when I leave I'll be able to bing an old and once loved hobby with me - or it'll all go horribly wrong and poker will be one of the many things I leave behind.

Play time over the last month has been patchy due to a trip abroad, so as a test I put £20 on a high-rb-no-bonus iPoker skin to check I'm not too awful to bother trying bonuses - 9k hands of 4nl is a meaningless sample, but 7.42bb ev-adjusted is good enough that I'm happy trying 10nl, which is really the minimum for clearing anything before it expires.

After posting this, I'm off to check out iPoker 10nl. If the tables have even half as many whales as 4nl I'm confident I'll be at least breakeven pre-rb, which is a good enough starting point for my purposes. I have another busy week ahead so it'll still be bonusless, as I don't want to start the clock before I have to and curse my impatience later.

Short-term goals:
[ ] live the high life by breaking even at 10nl
[ ] make at least one more post in this thread
[ ] pick which bonus to go for first

Long-term (lol more like 6month) goals:
[ ] read the poker books that have been gathering dust on my shelves for ages
[ ] devour precious bonus rb ev on UK-facing sites before I (maybe) bugger off
[ ] actually make an effort to improve at the game
[ ] world peace

Stay tuned for:
* obligatory graphs!
* probably some hand histories!
* half-hearted attempts to avoid identifying myself!
* enough information that a motivated person could find me irl anyway!
* ill-informed comments on the books I read!
* updates on whether my tilt issues really are gone!
* no good reason, if I'm being honest

Sounds lovely. Gl

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

Surprise family emergency means last night's session was short enough that the result is basically meaningless (thanks, mum...), but as it happens I was breakeven to the penny over 427 hands due to set<set on the very hand after clicking Sit Out Next Big Blind. Rigged, I tells ye. I'm reassured to see, over a loltiny sample, that 10nl looks just as fish-heavy as 4nl and that the reg pools have significant overlap. I've also picked Coral's 100%/£200 for roughly 23%-29.66..% rakeback (depending on EUR vs GBP tables, as well as exchange rate) as my first target - 90 days to rack up €937.50/£674.16 in rake seems totally within reach, especially given iPokers crazy base rake.

This afternoon I read the first 30ish pages of Ed Miller's 'How To Read Hands At No-Limit Hold'em', so I'll give my thoughts. First, the title bugs me - "at"? "In No-Limit", surely? Second, I know it's 6 years old and is discussing live play, but I don't recognise any definition of a nit that involves open-limping 20% of hands... but 30 pages, so it still has a lot of time to impress me.

For hand histories, I've decided that each update I'm going to post one brag/laugh-at-the-fish and one butchered hand to shame myself into (hopefully) not repeating the error.


Hand 1:

Hand 2:

Short-term goals:
[x] live the high life by breaking even at 10nl
[x] make at least one more post in this thread
[x] pick which bonus to go for first

I am awesome at this.

New short-term goals:
[ ] stay at 10nl without feeling lost
[ ] finish reading Miller's HTRHANLH
[ ] move to Coral for great bonus victory
[ ] start posting on BQ/uNL properly

I've had a lot more free time than expected, so I've hopped to Coral and cleared the first two £5 bonus levels. Obligatory graph #1:



Ugh. That big blueline dive from 1500 to 1700 hands includes 2 set<sets (5 total in the sample..) and KK<AA aipf twice. Thank **** for rakeback, eh? Also I didn't think I was bet/fold spewing all over the place, but obviously my redline is beyond atrocious and needs fixed. Still, I don't feel like 10nl regs are above me and there are plenty of recs in the pool, so I expect my next graph to be a lot prettier. Unfortunately iPoker 10nl's rake is ****ing brutal (1c per 15c, capped at 20bb - hugely deflating to stack someone for £10 and only get to keep £8.67) so I'm hoping to improve enough to take a stab at 20nl, where it's a far more civilised 1c per 20c capped at 10bb.

As well as the £200 deposit Coral's signup bonus comes with a handful of tickets, so I played two €5 Twisters last night - I think my first ever online donkaments - and am now €10 richer for no measurable risk thanks to winning the second. It seems a nice format, and I can see the player pool being really soft with recs drawn to the speed and the lottery aspect. I might come back to them.

I'm about half way through How To Read Hands now, and it's certainly picked up. There's no great revelations in it and I don't like the author's style - short sentences everywhere like GRR Martin; very light on actual theory; some overstatement of good the book can make you (seriously, page 22 opens with "You've now got the tools you need to start soul reading opponents." - dude, I got the book. You have my money. There's no need for us to be lying to each other.) - but there's some good stuff here, and even when I disagree with him it's useful to think about why.

Hand 3:

Hand 4:


Short-term goals:
[x] stay at 10nl without feeling lost
[/] finish reading Miller's HTRHANLH
[x] move to Coral for great bonus victory
[/] start posting on BQ/uNL properly

New short-term goals:
[ ] run better
[ ] track down and start plugging my red line leaks
[ ] be less lazy about hand analysis

32 Red Poker has a decent deposit bonus and 30% rakeback, along with really low rake.

Short-term goals:
[x] run better

>9bb/100 below all-in expectation - it's rare to find a heater where you'd be richer had you open-folded AA every time, but there you go. I've also cleared 10% of my deposit bonus, which is good given that's ostensibly my primary motivation here...

It's hard to be too upset about the redline when the all-important gold line is climbing. It's still dreadful and a definite area to improve, but I think a lot of it is down to table selection - I've sat to the left of a lot of whales who make it profitable to call with all sorts of speculative crap, and obviously my non-showdown results will plummet if I (correctly) fold all the times I miss my set/flush/whatever. That said, one thing I did find: I've been overfolding to 3bets (>69% in the previous graph...) and playing too fit/fold vs regs who call my own 3bets. I've tweaked some of my open ranges and come up with better plans vs 3bets, so hopefully that line will flatten out a bit.

I've still only played at 10nl, but I've peeked at a few 20nl tables and seen a lot of the same (beatable) regs and plenty of recs I recognise from my tables. Another ~3k hands with my gold line still climbing and I think I can take a shot there - my bonus will clear far faster if I can play the same number of tables, and the bb rake rate will be less depressing even if I need to cut back.

Miller's HTRH is finished. My feelings on it are largely unchanged: it's not a bad book by any stretch, but not all that impressive either. It's a lot more novice-focused than I'd expected, with most of its advice coming down to "count combos", so unless you really want the example hand excercises.. I'm glad I got it from the Stars VIP store years ago, and didn't spend real cash on it - according to Amazon it's £39.99, which happens to be exactly the same price as The Grinder's Manual. I'd say a poker noob would be better served getting that instead, and reading TDA's Pooh-Bah and the various ancient COTWs etc on hand reading. Anyway, next up will be Matthew Janda's 'Applications of No-Limet Hold'em', which I'm really looking forward to.

Hand 5:

Hand 6:

Short-term goals:
[x] finish reading Miller's HTRHANLH
[x] start posting on BQ/uNL properly
[x] run better
[/] track down and start plugging my red line leaks
[ ] be less lazy about hand analysis (srsly tho stop this)

New short-term goals:
[ ] prepare for a shot at 20nl
[ ] work on c-bet/don't c-bet spots so I don't have to guess
[ ] read Janda's Applications

Thanks for the tip - apparently MPN is being a dick about PT4 compatibility though, which really puts me off.

Although I was actually a clear winner, as my database doesn't include a 262bb pot I won with AA>TT aipf (lol?) due to my Coral client crashing 3 seconds after I jammed. iPoker's field is softer than a pillow, but the software is... imperfect.

Full graph for June:



And on top of that, £35 in bonus clearance and around £50 in affiliate rakeback. Firmly back in "not bad for a hobby" territory.

As well as the play, I'm about half way through Janda's Applications already, and I am beyond impressed. It's not only the best poker book I've ever read, but possibly the best (semi-)technical manual on any subject. The writing is clear (even funny in a couple of places) and the topics are presented in manageable chunks and a logical order. It feels a bit like a collection of COTW posts, but significantly better than I remember any of them being and with a far more solid foundation.

Janda and a few posters here have convinced me that I should have more to my small blind defence game than 3b then jam/fold - ie, I need to start flatting 4bets (although over the 10kish hands in June I'm actually turning a small profit from that seat. Yay, variance!). I'm not entirely sure where to start with that and I can see myself losing a lot of money in dumb spots as I learn, but it has to happen some time and it might as well be when I've got ~60% effective rakeback, right?

Hand 7:

Hand 8:

Short term goals:
[/] be less lazy about hand analysis (getting there...)
[x] prepare for a shot at 20nl
[/] work on c-bet/don't c-bet spots so I don't have to guess (again, getting there...)
[/] read Janda's Applications
[/] track down and start plugging my red line leaks

New short term goals:
[ ] dip into 20nl and keep my head above water
[ ] construct and learn a SB 3b/flat range (possibly also BB, but SB first)

Ugh.

I haven't had a lot of time to play this month, but as you can see in the graph above that's probably for the best. Partly I ran bad; partly I played some hands worse than I have been; but mostly I think it was down the the 20nl regs raising post-flop a lot more than I'm used to, and me not really knowing how to react to that. This probably explains why the red line this time is even more atrocious than usual. My Coral bonus is 30% cleared now, so that's something...

Applications of No Limit Hold'em is finished, and remained fantastic to the end - I have a few more unread books to go, but this was so good I ordered his second book straight away. I felt a bit of information overload in the final third-ish of the book so I don't think I took much of that in, but that just gives me an excuse to reread more carefully in the near future. Score.

Next book is Will Tipton's Expert Heads Up No Limit Hold'Em: Volume 1 - I actually play exclusively 6max, but A) reviews of the book are really strong; B) table starting is probably very lucrative and I could do with learning enough HU to start doing it; C) most post-flop pots are heads up anyway. After a chapter and a half I'd say it feels like a slightly less formal, significantly more NLH-focused, The Mathematics of Poker, which is hardly a bad thing.

As for study, I have worked out a 3b/c blind range I feel ok about, but it turns out getting 4bet after a resteal doesn't actually happen all that often, so it's hard to say if it's really working or not. I've also come up with a repeatable method for reviewing specific hands/examining range+board interactions with Flopzilla, which has already started paying off at least in terms of confidence in cbet spots if not visibly in terms of BB won.

Hand 9:
Hand 10:

Short term goals:
[x] be less lazy about hand analysis
[x] work on c-bet/don't c-bet spots so I don't have to guess
[x] read Janda's Applications
[/] track down and start plugging my red line leaks (ongoing..)
[] dip into 20nl and keep my head above water
[x] construct and learn a SB 3b/flat range

New short term goals:
[ ] lick wounds while recovering bankroll at 10nl
[ ] read Tipton, Vol 1
[ ] work on spots to bluffcatch vs post-flop raises, especially flop/turn check-raises