After a few years off poker I decided it was time to get back in the game, but decided if I'm going to play I want to put the time and effort in to get the results needed to move up stakes and achieve my poker goals/dreams.

About Me
I'm 27, live in Eastern Iowa, and recently married. I first started playing poker regularly when I turned 18 (Feb)- a friend of mine introduced me to online poker and I was hooked. That fall, I went to the University of Iowa for my first year in engineering. I played micro cash games and tournaments, playing poker nearly daily. I never really seriously tried to expand my knowledge of the game, just played for the love of the game and the challenge of growing my bankroll (used survival BR mgmt where I would rather play penny tables than reload when down to $10). While I attended college, I knew my classes should come first but as I'm sure most of you have done (or do) fantasized about turning pro, getting rich quick (reading stories about Tom Dwan), playing the WSOP, etc. I struggled to get my bankroll above $300, then tanked it when I moved up stakes too quickly (somtimes playing .50/1)- ran into tilt/being fishy/etc. That + watching my semi-pro friend go through the emotions of poker being his only income led me to take the logical approach and finish out school + get a normal job. I still played poker online (and live once I turned 21), but just won enough to make me a winning/break even player. I've logged a decent amount of hours at the local casinos and in a few 1-2/1-3 Vegas games the few times I've visited. Toward the end of college, I met my future wife and put poker on the back burner. From 22-27, I would still play poker once every few months, but went up to 9-12 months without playing. Before last month, the last session I played was a 3 hour session at Horseshoe Council Bluffs July 2016. Since then I've played about a dozen sessions in March to restart my poker pursuits.

Goals
One of my first goals is to expand my network of poker friends who I can talk hands with, learn from, and share insights with (thus the 2+2 thread). I am going to try participating in the forum more often and follow those with the same goals as mine.

2nd Goal is to do more work between sessions - preparation, postgame analysis, hand review, etc. I picked up the poker mental game book that I've seen suggested a few times which has me looking at time between sessions completely differently now.

3rd Goal is the obvious one, building the roll. I want to be able to build it to the point I can take a shot at 2/5. I keep track of my bankroll/results and in general believe in the conservative BR management strategy. I would say my roll needs to be around $8-10k before I take a shot at 2/5. I don't think that the quality of play is necessarily 2.5x better at this level, but I want to get back in a groove and in a very solid state of mind before moving up in stakes and don't want to play with scared money.

4th Goal which is a long term goal and personal dream is to play in a WSOP event. This doesn't necessarily have to be the ME, but could be one of the $1k's or less depending on events offered by the time I am in a position to register.

Besides just general bankroll updates or journal entries, I want to also host strategy/hand review discussions. Not sure if I will post them here or create a thread under the appropriate forum and link (suggestion?).

Thanks for reading and look forward to the poker talk!

First post to show March results + last year's session in Council Bluffs. This is what I consider my total poker bankroll even though there has been plenty of live action in the past which I will call breakeven in general.




Also, first interesting hand I've saved from March, I will post soon...

Grats on the married. How'd you met?

Thanks! We met on a social network website (not mainstream, not a dating website, honestly can't remember the name) - chatted for a bit on Skype and met up for a baseball game for our first date.

Can you see the image files I tried to attach in my 2nd post? I think I'll have to repost them along with a couple live 1-2 hands from last month.

For those interested in the bio part of my introduction, I think it is relevant to my poker goals to know that I now have a good job, I was fortunate to get a job almost right out of college and I'm not trying to turn pro/pay for college debt exclusively with poker winnings... Now that I'm a little settled in I've had the time open up to get back into playing poker again

For my second post, if you are unable to see the images or right click -> open in tab, let me know. For a quick glance...
BR = $1,329
58 hours played over 13 sessions (March and 1 session last summer)
$23/hr

I want to post more hands for discussion this month, but from March I only wrote down 2.

For both hands, I am playing live 1-2NL at a loose-passive table.
Hand #1

Most players sitting with $200-250 stacks. I have $300. We are playing 5 handed.
I am dealt 88
I raise to $8 UTG. This is pretty standard raise utg at this game, with mid/late position raises to $10-15 getting called loosely.
All 4 players call. Pot is $40

Flop: 10 Q 6
Action checks around

Turn: 8
2 checks to me, I bet $20 with 2 players yet to act. SB calls and everyone else folds. Pot is now $80.

River: A
Board: 10 Q 6 8 A

SB leads for $35.
My reads: Though I have only played about a dozen hands, I have already seen this player check/give up when he missed a draw on the river and I have seen him 2x value bet about this amount (1/2 pot) when he had strong made hands. While nobody is amazing at this level, he did seem like a thinking player that would not value bet a hand worse than mine. So since I have eliminated that, and with observing him give up in a similar spot with a missed draw, I believe he is value betting a hand stronger than mine. I believe he would perceive my line as a flush, or at worst a strong single diamond in my hand. If he is value betting as I think he is, I think the bottom of his range is a set of queens, and it is very likely he has a flush or straight (KJ flopped open ender) considering he is trying to get a worse hand to call and my line looks like a flush. I end up folding and he mucks. I think this is one area I have progressed, as in the past I would have called on this river considering the 1/2 pot bet and a set is just "too good to fold". If I was playing against a fishier villain and wasn't against 4 players to the turn, this could have been an easy call.

Hand #2: 9 handed, everyone with $200-300 stacks except for villain ~$450 and me ~$800 after running well first half of the session.

I'm dealt KK in cutoff. UTG+1 raises to $13. 2 people in MP call. I raise to $45. Button 4bets to $120. Original raiser 5bets all in $450. Action folds to me. I had no reads on either opponent (new table) but play at this casino is loose in general preflop. The villain who shoved for $450 was a younger guy but did not seem overly aggressive. I considered folding and looking at my stack thinking "I can preserve this huge win if I just fold now" but it was just too difficult to fold. I talked myself into saying he could be making this move with AK or QQ or even a hand like JJ as I have seen these moves at this casino fairly frequently. I call and the button folds. Villain had AA and it held. This was the biggest pot of my life and definitely put me on tilt. I did not play my A game the rest of the night, losing maybe another $100 (surprised I did not lose more).

Yo, I also live in eastern Iowa (Iowa City). Will follow, gl

Sweet! And thanks - I'll let you know next time I'm in town (I live in le Claire now). I've logged my fair share of hours at riverside and had decent success playing a tight game there when I was 21.
Do you have a journal thread or any hands to share I can follow?

In depth discussion of hand #1 above in the LLSNL forum:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...1-2-a-1662009/

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...eyond-1491164/

Thanks for subbing in my thread http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...2-5-a-1649699/

Subbed back and happy to discuss hands/process with someone in a similar position.

Played last night for 3.5 hours, profit of $18. Very boring night compared to the usual amount of action, very tight passive table. Was up $120 at one point and down $65 at another point so not many swings either. Felt like listening to the mental game book has helped for a couple of times I could have tilted that things were so boring and when I got dealt AK and whiffed 14 outs from the flop I was pretty chill. Looking forward to getting less worked up about the results and reflecting more about how I play.

Only real notable hand of the night:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17.../#post52044781

Definitely misplayed the flop and looking to trust my gut more in the future.

In regards to the KK hand- I have never seen a cold 4 bet from a non fish that was anything other than aces. A 5 bet for >200bb might as well turn his hand over and show the aces. I've done something similar before. I flatted a cold 4 bet and almost got away.

Anyway, if you're interested I have a lot of experience building rolls from scratch. I've done it several times (see my thread). The trick early on is allowing zero spew. You can't afford to give away stacks. Even if that means passing up some hunches, playing solid is paramount.

Are you able to supplement your roll or are you treating it like its own nonrenewable resource? If so, you have to force yourself to rack up and lock up winners if your entire stack is in play and you are likely to get into a stack off situation. It sucks but it's reality early on. You can't afford to lose a 2:1 fave for 30% of your roll.

Cheers.

Hi spike really appreciate the comments, and I agree with you that when I get a large stack I usually will like to rack up and take it home. I do have plenty of supplemental income if I go broke but in general like to play the survivalist br management game and would rather not dip back into the life bank account more than needed. It is kind of a weird spot / unavoidable right now since I know it is best to buy in for the max of 300 and my roll is only 1350 at the moment. If I had a bad run and got down to say $600 I'd start buying in for 200 again instead of 3. I'm also trying a lot harder to evaluate my play each session instead of the results so I know if I start losing if I need to scale it back or if I still have the edge and shouldn't worry about buying in for 100+ BBs

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It might be +EV long term to buy in full but only if your deep with the fish. If your only deep with decent players who won't stack off as easily ya actually an advantage to buy in for just 100bb or possibly less. You can always keep chips in your pocket if things change. I didn't start to buy in full until I had $2k this time around and I felt a lot less pressure. I'm in a much better spot now but early when my BI number was single digits I just decided to forego the damage if I got unlucky.

Good point - most games I play usually have at least one or two true fish but I have definitely noticed when more experienced players are in as well before sitting down

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Currently listening to poker mental game book which is encouraging me to stay organized and learn/prepare between sessions. Looking to create a base excel workbook for my poker game. One or more tabs for concepts I am learning, what stage they are in (trying to achieve unconscious competence), a tab for bankroll and session tracking, and one or more tabs for tracking progress in mental game concepts. I've been surfing some training sites (run it once and pokersprout) and wanted to put some concepts on my plate to learn/reinforce. Pokersprout I haven't seen posted or reviewed on here but was suggested by Andrew Neeme (YouTube vlogger) and the format of the site seems really nice. Also thinking of taking time away from live games to play some online so that I can do some more hand analysis and track my learnings much better.

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First concept I really wanted to focus on was C-betting. I found a great article under COTM in the live stakes forums here. Also found a really good video by "split suit" or the poker bank. Took notes as if it were a college lecture and slotted items into things I already knew and did well, things I knew but didn't understand, and brand new concepts. Also took away that I should run simulations/do some homework when it comes to analyzing flops vs. opponents' PFR calling range and their continuing range. Pretty excited to try to get this concept down a lot better as I feel like this concept is more like 10+ concepts in 1 and will really strengthen the weakest part of my game right now.

In regards to cbetting, I reccomend two resources.

1. The COTW in the micro full ring forum.

2. Flopzilla. WELL worth the money.

Thanks! I will add that cotw to my reading homework. And I saw flop zilla on this concept video by the poker bank and another one by pokerstars poker school. So definitely buying it

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I'd been wondering if flopzilla was worth it. I love to do the "homework" aspect of this game so I guess I'll check it out.

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Seems like from videos Ive seen there's an art to using it, using about a dozen ranges and 10-12 flop textures. Then putting the combos together like flash cards. I'm sure there are how to videos for each topic you're trying to get better at by using flop zilla

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Struggling to decide if I take advantage of a free Saturday night and play 1-2 for a few hours or stay home, study with flopzilla, and play an online tournament...

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Introverted or extroverted?

I enjoy my time at home but at the same time weekend nights at the QC casinos have the juicy games (as juicy as 1/2 can get). Also there's a severe T storm rolling through in a few hours lasting all night....

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