About Me:

I'm Carl, I'm 28 years old and from the UK, I've worked plenty of jobs from building sites to damage control which all need a good work ethic, since 2009 I've been in and out of these jobs due to ill health and eventually had to stop as it was putting to much pressure on my heart. I've had 5 surgeries so far in life and have 4 more to go, thankfully the surgeries have been working and it has eased the pressure, so I can start looking to get back in to work. I have issues with mobility now though due to all the surgeries to my leg, I can get it back but it will take around 8 months. I have till 2017 before I have to go back to work maybe sooner depending on how this/physio goes.

Poker Background:

I don't have a very good poker background, I found poker around 2009 and I was a complete fish at every form of the game I tried. Then at the beginning of 2015 I decided to study a little to help improve my game, my problem was I was trying to be good at all formats of the game and it just really didn't work. Earlier in 2015 I was going to do a cash PG&C thread but after a bit of time playing and studying I just felt my game was better suited to MT SnGs and MTT's, I've wanted to attempt challenges like this before but my bankroll management was just very poor.


This is my embarrassing graph to date (in GBP), I've circled a section in red as that was the last decent time I used BRM and decent scores were coming more regular at the micro stakes. After that I went back to bad BRM and with this challenge I've set limits on pokerstars for me to be unable to do that this time around. Also if anyone knows how to change currency on SharkScope let me know please, I tried the symbol top right it doesn't do anything.

Poker Challenge:

Due to my bad BRM in the past, I've decided to go with ABI's and the higher the stakes I go the more buy ins I need, so here is how the plan looks:

1. Start with $150
2. Play $0.50, $1.00 and $2.50 180 man SnG's | ABI ($1.33) > $800
3. At $800 Play $2.50 and $4.50 180 man with $5.00 90 man PS KO SnG's | ABI ($4.00) > $1,800
4. At $1,800 Play $4.50 180 man with $5.00 90 man PSKO and $8.00 180 man SnG's | MTT's $2.20-$8.80 ABI ($6.00) > $4,800
5. At $4,800 play $4.50/$8.00 180 man SnGs | MTT Schedule up to $33.00 | ABI ($12.00) > $10,000

If I drop to $100 I will remove the $2.50 180 man buy ins, I'm unsure of what my volume will be as of yet, I'm looking at around 45 (180 Mans) per day, I only 6 table at the moment and with time my volume will get better. I understand this would affect my hourly early on but I'm not too worried about that to begin with, I'll concentrate more on that the further in the challenge I go.

Life Goals:

1. Quit Drinking
2. Quit Smoking
3. Swim 5 Times a Week

I want to quit drinking first as that has been the main downfall in my life, I'm not an alcoholic but I'm a massive binge drinker. I enjoy life without beer but with no routine in life and nothing in my area but pubs I get drunk to often.

Smoking is the worst thing I can do with my health issues, however it doesn't give me a better or worse quality of life, so I've put to quit drinking before that. I'm not a massive smoker anyway I probably smoke around 20 a week if I don't go the pubs.

Lastly from February 2ND I want to swim 5 times a week Monday to Friday in order to get the mobility I need back in to my leg, physio hasn't been working as I'd of liked and I enjoy swimming so I will try this approach for a few months, If it does get mobility back in my leg, I would still like to continue swimming to stick to a routine.

Lastly:

I've called this Phase 1 because if I do reach my goal, I will be continuing this challenge to a higher amount I just wanted to set realistic targets to begin with and see how it goes.

I've had no routine in my life for a long time so I would also love to get that part of my life sorted, here is my weekly routine template that I have so far for anyone that is interested:


It's not complete as of yet as I'm not sure how long poker sessions etc will take but that is the rough idea of the routine I'm going to work towards for the last 11 months of this year.

I apologize for the long opening post, if anyone has any questions or wants to see any other images feel free to ask, I will be updating this thread Tuesday - Sunday at 7PM GMT with how my daily sessions went. Any constructive feedback/criticism would be appreciated.

GL GL OP

Smoking is a bit hard to quit..try vaping or something else..
Mix the swimming with some Slow Jog or static bike(if your leg are better)and try get up n walk every hour when you're playing to circulate blood pressure (rather than sit the whole time while playing)

Wish you luck in life and poker
Subbed

Sent from my Mi 4i using 2+2 Forums

GL mate. You seem to have a good plan.

Do you think you got the poker knowledge you need to be profitable at 0,50$-2,50$MTTSnGs? If not (or even if so), do you have any plans of studying / coaching / study grouping?

Thank you for the advice, I will eventually get to jogging but my knee is in too bad of a condition for that at the moment, I agree with moving as much as possible too as my knee ceases up a lot so need to do it for that as well as the blood flow. Thanks for the GL!

If I'm honest with myself, I'd say the $2.50 is around my level at the moment I have over 60 hours of content to study I will do an hour studying before each session then an hour probably reviewing at the end of each of my sessions, I'm hoping to improve as I go along with this challenge.

When I get to $4800 I will look in to 1 on 1 coaching if I get that far, as that would take my game to the next level, is study grouping discussing hands with other people?

If so I don't really know anyone within poker to do those kind of things, I live in a really small town and none of the people I know even play poker.

If you mean group coaching I may look in to that sooner as it is likely a cheaper option, I would prefer 1 on 1 coaching though.

once again thanks for the GL!

Glgl

Thank you, I appreciate it.

I'm doing an hour study now then start my session, I'll post an update tonight. I won't post many HH's in this thread, if I do it won't be a bad beat it will be a situation where I could use feedback/advice.

Update 1

Slightly disappointing day today, I feel I get exploited too much post flop and that is an area of my game that I will really need to work on. I need to 3bet, cbet's more often instead of just flatting a lot of the time, I also need to cbet more myself. I feel other than that though I didn't play to badly, I made 3 final tables and I wasn't able to capitalize in any of them with my highest finish coming 3RD with a 5TH and a 7TH.

Variance hit me really hard today, but with more volume that will even itself out. The biggest disappointment for me today was the $2.50's I min cashed in 3 of the 15 I played, the saviour of the day was the $1.00 180 Mans. The issue is that is a regular speed tournament so it takes up so much of my time, if I'm profitable in them though I have to stick with them in the schedule as it was the only one I was profitable in today.


Starting Bankroll: $150.00
Ending Bankroll: $136.14
Session Profit/Loss: -$13.86

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I may need to take another look at the schedule, as when I want to start it takes a while to get the 180 Mans going. As you can see it has taken me a long time to play just those 42 180 mans, I'm not going to rush in to anything as of yet though as this is the first step and is always going to take the longest.

I would try more tables and try and split it in to two sessions but I'm not comfortable with more tables yet, my other option is switch it to evening sessions it might get them done quicker, although I'm thinking quality>quantity at this early stage.

I'm already looking forward to tomorrow's session though, GL at the tables!

Good luck!

For volume's sake it is definitely better to play in the evenings or at least from mid-afternoon onwards. I suggest adding in the 0.50 and 1.00 90-man turbos to your schedule of 180-mans. Although they don't run as often as the 2.50 180s they are great to form part of a session.

I agree evenings would be better, but for the time being I'm going to stick to this schedule. Apart from poker I really need to get a routine in my life, so whilst I was considering changing the schedule, for now I'm reluctant.

I don't want to change my plan to much either, so what I might do is drop the $1.00 180 Mans for the 90 Man Turbo's to get the volume that I wanted in a quicker time.

I'm going to have one more day of the session I done yesterday, as the $1.00 180 Mans were the only thing I was profitable in, then review it after the session.

Thanks for the advice/GL! GL at the tables to you too.

1on1 coaching is basically the best case scenario, unfortunately most of the time hard to afford for micro-stakes-boys.

When I started playing MTTSnGs, discussing marginal and/or questionable spots early-,mid- & late-stage of tournaments was always some useful input from other people.
There's study buddy threads in the tournament poker forums. I myself am yet to determine my main game (either 6max STT or 45-&18-men SNG) if im deciding for the latter, we can definitely arrange a Skype group with 2-4 other players that try to climb the ladder - in case you would be interested in that kind of studying.

GL, ship some!

I'm always looking to improve so Skype groups would certainly interest me. I had the trouble of deciding between cash and MTT's but I thought I should focus on what I felt I was best at. I don't want to be a jack of all trades but a master of none, so decided to focus solely on MTT's.

GL to you too!

Interesting! Going to follow, i hope you can stop smoking. It ishardnut worth it. Gl

Subbed. Gl sir!

Smoking is not my priority compared to quitting drinking but the less I drink = the less I smoke, so I should be able to get there, thank you for the GL, GL to you too.

Thank you, Ste. I appreciate it, GL to you too.

Just starting my study now before my session, will update later on tonight. Thankfully my study session consists of pre flop and post flop stuff today, so I'm hoping my post flop game improves today.

Update 2 - Chance of Going Bust = 98.76%

Today is the worst I've played poker, ever! Even before I studied poker I didn't play this badly. I started off the session well and confident but more as the session went I just got more and more demoralized. I got carried away with $2.50's today too, which has battered my bankroll. I didn't even realize, I looked late on and saw that I was meant to of dropped down in stakes already.

It was one of those days, I just kept running in to the nuts, I was 3 outered on the river quite a few times today as well, so hoping the run good turns up and fast as I need it. I played 43 tournaments again today and only min cashed 5, I had two 13TH's where I should of really been getting to the final table but as I said before I kept running in to the nuts. For example blind v blind I'd shove with 11 bigs and run in to aces etc, I will remain positive of turning this around though, here is today's graph.


Starting Bankroll: $136.14
Ending Bankroll: $72.57
Session Profit/Loss -$63.57
Overall Profit/Loss -$76.93

PokerTracker seems to have lost a 50 cent tournament somewhere I think, so it maybe around 50 cents off.

At times today I was starting to feel I'm just really bad at poker, but for the changes I want to make in life and poker, I have to remain positive.

So the plan going forward has changed slightly, I'm going to try an evening session tomorrow and now I'm only allowed to play th $0.50c 180 man turbos and I'm going to add the $1.00 90 man turbos with that as well instead of the 180 mans. Majority of these MTT SnG's are turbo's and I feel just focusing on turbo's tommorow will help improve my game instead of mixing regular speed in with them.

If you want any other images like Chip Graph or my Stats feel free to ask in the thread, as always constructive criticism/feedback is welcome.

GL at the tables!

Keep going mate!

I will do I'm determined to succeed, thanks for the encouragement.

I have followed Andre Coimbra in 2014 during his 100k challenge. He started with 100$ playing 1$ 90max. The approach was to aggressive and then he moved back to 0.50$, only 45max. This is because eventually you can reach the ft more often with respect to 90/180/360max, and your poker morale at least does not go too low.
Coimbra was really successful on that occasion, making significant profit by the end of the year.
Perhaps you can read his blog and follow some of his tips (which I have sometimes found useful.

I actually read through that about 6 months ago, may have to have another read through to refresh my memory. I think my main downfall was the $2.50's I'm still confident I can turn this around.

If I drop to $50.00 after tonights session, I will only play $0.50 45/90/180 mans, so fingers crossed for my first profitable day!

I'm looking at doing around 4-9PM so the update will be around 10PM tonight.

Would people prefer if I added hands to this thread? Or any other changes people wish to see, let me know.

Certainly hh are always welcome.

I'm sorry for no update yesterday, I played a couple of satellite's and got in to a couple MTT's but nothing of note, then needed to help a family member move. I've played one MTT so far today and finished 33rd in the big $3.30, which I also satellited in to, about to have a bit of a grind now and will update later.

It's awesome that you want to quit. I am an alcoholic (sober for 4 years) and I can't tell you how much quitting drinking effected my life and my game. Congrats and look forward to following your progress!

Take it a bit slower. Maybe try 9-man sng's first ... And buy: Crushing online SNG's. It's an awesome book :-)

Thank you for the encouragement, congratulations on being sober 4 years, that's a great achievement.

Thanks for the advice but I'm more interested in learning MTT's instead of STT's, I will check out that book.

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Update in about an hour after I finish my session.

Got a long way to go