For months, I grinded online with no understanding of bankroll management, doing things like 4 tabling $.25/.50 6 max with $300 in my account. Every now and again, I would sit for a hu sng with 1/3-1/10 my online roll, assuming that was standard. Again and again, I would double my bankroll only to crash down to busto shortly thereafter. I probably lost about $2,000 going through this cycle again and again and again, through deposits ranging from $50 to $200. Eventually, I realized something was going on other than bad luck. Still unsure what was responsible for my lack of success in online play, I found myself gradually gravitating away from 6 max and falling in love with hu sngs. This shift occurred for several reasons. First, I had gotten smashed at 6 max--a negative association had formed that was difficult to overcome psychologically. Second, I realized more and more that my greatest thrill in poker came from analyzing my opponent's starting hand and manipulating the flow of the hand occurring between us the most optimal way possible. Headsup offered this experience far more frequently, and allowed for much more creativity and loose play (I'm ridiculously loose by nature). Third, though I don't like this feature about myself, I've always been super competitive, and headsup simply appealed to the competitive spirit in me.

At first, I got crushed, just as I had been at 6 max. However, I couldn't get enough of hu sng action--every match was exhilarating, and I could sense myself learning rapidly. At some point, something clicked, and over something like a 500 game sample, as you'll see below, I became unstoppable. I remember almost never being wrong about an opponent's hand in big pots during this span--I was in the zone and followed where my sixth sense led me. At one point, I won 21 games in a row. ISuddenly, my graph over the 500 games looked livb-like. Despite all the hu sng success, I continued to play, and lose, at 6 max in NLHE and PLO, preventing me from moving up in hu sng stakes. At some point, I eventually cooled down, and found myself at a breakevenish stretch.

I took a break for a month after being almost broke irl (in anticipation of starting my job in January, at which, to be frank, I am now fortunate to be making a lot of $--I mention this because it is relevant later on, for reasons that will be explained). I returned to the hu sng grind and played below average for a couple hundred games. However, at some point, another revelation came, and I began to get hot again. My graph began spiking upward again at the livb rate over a fairly large sample size. For the first time ever, my online roll grew to 1k--it felt like a big achievement, despite the fact that in live play I have won many pots over that, in addition to several live tournaments. Finally I felt like I had a chance to succeed in online play. During the middle of this span, still not having much of an understanding of bankroll management, I decided I'd take a shot and play the $240 hu turbo Saturday afternoon tournament. I played, and outplayed, my first two opponents, a former FTOPS winner up 300k in mtt earnings and another guy who had 200k (a 110s reg) in earnings--those seemed like ridiculous #s to me at the time, and I was proud of myself. I lost the third match, one round away from the $, but I was proud of the effort and the knowledge that I could hold my own against highly successful regs. Shortly thereafter, I decided I'd go ahead and give the miniftops hu event a go. That day, I felt great, and was really excited about playing. I was nervous because I had played almost exclusively turbos and the tourney was normal paced, but I resolved to give it my best. The tournament went really well, and I ended up finishing 30/4196 for just under $1200, by far my biggest online cash ever. In addition to running hot, I also felt like I outplayed each of my opponents, except for the last, who I had built a 3.5-1 chip lead against us before being caught on a bluff where I had 25% equity after the flop. felt ****ty about losing, but then I felt a huge burst of pride. My account now had 1.8k, which would have seemed unfathomable to me months earlier.

Part two coming up...life graph below

gl OP

My confidence had now reached epic heights--I felt on top of the world and ready to burst onto the hu sng scene. Before the miniftops event, I had been alternating between 33s and 55s, but now I was comfortably rolled for 55s, which I had a 10% roi at over my first 50 games. I had always felt like I had my biggest edge against good regs, since I play an unorthodox style that relies on turning regs' tendencies against them, and the #s seemed to confirm as much. I began playing 55s exclusively and crushed over the first couple of hundred games. My roll grew from 1.8k to 2.6k. I decided it was time to start playing 110s, winning my first two.

Then it happened: the night I went on super monkey tilt. One of my weaknesses had always been my ego--I never declined a rematch, basically refusing to believe that I could not have an edge against someone after two or three games. This had cost me dramatically over the months, and many of my bad stretches came from stretches where I had lose 2 or 3 matches against an opponent, then started tilt-shoving every hand or otherwise tilting as I continued sitting the opponent and gifting big chunks of my roll. Despite my newfound confidence, I was still ill equipped for dealing with tilt. So it was, then, that I lost three matches to a guy at the 55s who outplayed me, proceeded to outplay him the next two matches but lose to horrific beats, and then go on crazy bat**** tilt and shoving every hand. After a few goes of this, he dared me to move up to the 110s. I instaagreed. I then lost something like 3 or 4 games before I realized I had to stop or I was going to lose the entire roll I had worked so hard to build. My bankroll had gone from 2.6k to 1.5k in the space of a little over an hour. I was devastated, my confidence destroyed. It took me weeks to recover, and I played on permatilt during that whole span, eventually dropping all the way down to $0 profit, when I had been at 1.8k profit during my peak (see the graph). Eventually I picked myself up and regained my confidence, though the process took a rather long time. After grinding, I had made it back up to 1.2k in what was a pretty good looking graph. During this period, I played in the next miniftops hu event, and finished 160th, another solid showing. I was very pleased with myself.

Then, however, the other awful thing that we've all experienced occurred: the downswing from hell. You know that quote "If you play enough poker, you'll go through a downswing you never could have thought possible." I went through that downswing. Despite playing what I felt was my A game, I found myself losing at a rapid late. I was losing every race, losing more often than not when dominating with Ax-type hands, and getting drawn out in all-in situations at a super disproportionate rate. I felt like I was getting punished for getting it in good. Not a thing was going right, and, after 200 hands of this, all confidence went out the window, and I again found myself playing on permatilt. I was down to 0 profit again.

Since then, this cycle of ups and downs has played itself out in miniature multiples, and I now sit on $23 profit. $23 to show for 5140 hu sngs and a 2725/2415, 53% record. My bankroll sits at $1,124.39.

Part 3 coming up

And that brings me to today, where I find myself inspired after browsing through these challenge posts. To put things in context, I'm in a much different life position than I was in when I started playing the hu sngs, with $2k to my name and $200 of that in my Full Tilt account. Since then, I've started a job with a very high salary and have a live roll exceeding 12k. However, I am miserable at my job, I am saddled with tremendous debt, and it will literally take me paying over 2k/month over the next 10 years to get back to even lifewise. That's unacceptable to me, and that's where I'd like poker to come in. Poker has always been my greatest passion, and I've always been enamored by the potential it offers to reach the top through enough talent and hard work. As pathetic as this might sound, I don't know if I've ever wanted anything more than to rise to the top in poker, and hu sngs are my best shot. I've always believed I've had the talent to succeed, but tilt, my ego, and, lately, financial security, have kept me from reaching my potential. I made this thread because I believe it will help keep me grounded and focused, and accountable to myself. I also like the idea of camaraderie with other folks pursuing goals. Further, I think it will help me come to grips with my weaknesses, which I don't yet understand well enough. 2+2 helped me conquer a former weakness of lack of understanding of bankroll management--I've gone from my old stance, as you can read out above, to adhering strictly to a 30-60 buyin approach with the occasional shot when I'm feeling good.

My goal is to turn my online roll, without any help from my admittedly large life roll, into $10k by February 1, 2011, playing primarily hu sngs. Because my job keeps me extremely busy, this will be difficult, but I want, maybe even need to do it, because poker offers me my best chance of escape from the debt. My ultimate goal is not to become a poker professional, which I just don't have the right constitution for, but to get out of debt. If I can accomplish this goal, I am fairly certain I can continue winning at a solid enough pace to escape my job and follow my heart after another three years. Thankfully, live play over the weekends has been going fantastically this whole year and has me optimistic--now I just need online play to catch up. I will post results though probably not every day I play.

Weakness #1: Tilt

I tilt, and I'm ashamed to say it bleeds into my chat. While I've become much better at managing my tilt over the last few months, I still could use a lot of improvement restraining myself. I believe that among the most important abilities of a poker player, if not the most important ability, is to not take bad beats/coolers/whatever personally, and I need to have that Tommy Angelo-like mindset. Plus, I always feel awful shortly after I've been a dick to someone.

To deter myself from tilt chatting, I vow to post the next time I tiltspew in the chatbox.

3-0 to start :-) $22s, though, which I'm more than a bit overrolled for atm

Play some Rush. There is just NO time to let your anger spill into chat before the guy it is directed to is gone. It has calmed the crap out of me because I have no choice but to let it go.

Thanks for the good wishes, jdawg!

Nsight, I've actually put in a ton of volume at RUSH 25NL and 25PLO, but couldn't do better than even over a large sample size, but you're right about it helping with tilt chat

UPDATE: finished the first day of my personal challenge 9-2 in $22 hu sngs, bankroll up to $1267

HONEST ASSESSMENT: I think I played really well today and only made one significant mistake. That mistake was playing too creatively and taking risky lines against an unknown--it would have been better to get a better sense of how he played before trying anything tricky. I think I got outplayed both matches I lost, though I outplayed the first opponent I lost to the subsequent match. I believe I got the better of my opponent each of the other games.

GRAPH FOR NEW STRETCH, 1K ---> 10K:

(note: this includes 3 games from last night, prior to my personal challenge, where I went 2-1)

Yea that graph definately has the look of a tilt monkey

the first one that is

Bankroll down to 881.89 --too tilted/tired to write about how (doesn't take much imagination: I fell victim to the perfect storm of horrible luck, tilt, very good opponents, etc..), but needless to say I'm very pissed off and disappointed in myself

back up to 1027.39, now going to bed

finished 8-1 against a single opponent

UPDATE/HONEST ASSESSMENT: I played terribly for most of the evening, but I also ran really, really poorly. The night started when I faced one of the toughest 22 opponents I've seen in a long time, someone whose LAGgy style seemed rather similar to mine, an uncommon sight at these stakes. I dropped 3 matches, beat him the fourth, and then he declined a rematch. I didn't mind--I told myself as I kept accepting rematches that I wanted to build more experience playing creative players, but truthfully I don't think I had an edge (or at least not this particular evening). After that, I played various opponents at the 33s and ran like absolute dog crap, twice getting it all in preflop with bigger overpairs and deep stacks and getting drawn out on. The more the bad beats started adding up, the more on tilt I played. Before I blinked, my bankroll was down to the low 900s, when I had started at 1267. However, I refocused, and continued playing 33s and 22s until I somehow, quite amazingly, if I might add, got up to around 1230. I felt great, and I wanted to continue riding the momentum. <cue the doom music> Then I got sat by an opp. who immediately requested to two table. That maybe should have tipped me off that I was up against a serious opponent. However, I won the first two matches, without even a whiff of a challenge. I then, yet again, got sucked out in big allin pots during the next two matches to bring us back to even. During the fifth game, something strange happened--I noticed that the opponent seemed to have made ridiculously good adjustments. None of my go-to moves seemed to work against this guy anymore, and suddenly it seemed like I was getting killed in non-showdown pots, which almost never happens given the style I play. This guy was matching me tactically blow for blow, but I didn't want to give up. However, the more we played, the more the guy dominated me in the luck department--at least three times, a game was determined when I shoved with a 1300ish stack, got called by an inferior hand, and ended up losing. By the end of this series I had become the tilt monkey I created this thread to destroy, shoving every other hand preflop, because, deep down, I know I felt like I desperately wanted to suck out on this guy to get revenge for all the times I'd been sucked out on. It never happened. I finally gave up after my bankroll had been reduced to the 880 # above.

Lesson to take away: When I'm running bad, am aware that I am playing on tilt, and someone seems to have my game largely figured out, it's time to, at the very least, take a break. I need to create a stoploss and stick to it. On the plus side, I did finish the night having recovered some of my losses. I got a ton of matches in against one particular opponent at the 22s and was lucky to finish my series against him 8-1, then deciding to call it quits to go to bed. Tonight's experience has been painful and I hope writing about it will help me avoid having to go through it again. Certainly these kinds of nights should be avoidable if I can come up with a well thought out anti-tilt personal code. I need to start setting some rules and sticking to them

Bankroll slid all the way down to $640 thanks to tilt/running super wonka ice cold, now back up to $1,083 thanks to taking a break and rediscovering my game

gl on this op, keep it up cool with daily updates aswell

gl dude

hey pal, how about i challenge you..this isnt an ego thing..but what i was thinking was a bit of fun...we play 10 games...then send over each of our hand histories, then play another 10..see who can best adapt...

i have done it before, and massively improved my play...

as long as you have some form of hand manager...

gl by the way enjoy the posts...i specialise in sng's , now moving over to hu...you play in the same ball park as me, sure i may have buped into you..i will be playing 100 hu turbo as a regualr in 2 months...

best of luck, im at work at the moment...and yes..i hate it!

thanks a lot for the good wishes, everybody--I'm really grateful for the support! I'll try to update as frequently as possible

callow, I've also always wanted to try something like that, so count me in. I'm pretty swamped at work atm, so I can't do it this week, but hopefully pretty soon.

also, I apologize for breaking my vow to post tilt chat excerpts--unfortunately, there was plenty of it as I slid from 1200-ish to 600-ish

bankroll now sits just above $1,100, pretty much back where I started, with $48 of rakeback due on Friday

playing for the next 1.5 hours--PM me if you'd like to get matches in at the 22s

Another good night, up to 30 cents below $1200, so made roughly $100 in about 1.5 hours at the 22s; ran slightly above average

some hands I'm particularly pleased with, each being examples of me getting my opponent to do exactly what I wanted them to do through risky, unorthodox play (note: all three of these are against different opponents, and each move was calculated to exploit a flaw in the opponent's game and/or their perception of me):

Full Tilt Poker $22 + $1 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15/t30 Blinds - 2 players - View hand 911589
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): t1050 35 BBs
BTN/SB: t1950 65 BBs

Pre Flop: (t45) Hero is BB with 9 9
BTN/SB raises to t60, Hero raises to t180, BTN/SB calls t120

Flop: (t360) 3 5 5 (2 players)
Hero bets t870 all in, BTN/SB calls t870

Turn: (t2100) 7 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: (t2100) K (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: t2100
Hero shows 9 9 (two pair, Nines and Fives)
BTN/SB shows K T (two pair, Kings and Fives)
BTN/SB wins t2100


Full Tilt Poker $22 + $1 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t20/t40 Blinds - 2 players - View hand 911591
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: t955 23.88 BBs
Hero (BB): t2045 51.12 BBs

Pre Flop: (t60) Hero is BB with J 7
BTN/SB calls t20, Hero checks

Flop: (t80) 6 5 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

Turn: (t80) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t80, Hero raises to t280, BTN/SB calls t200

River: (t640) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets t640, BTN/SB folds

Final Pot: t640
Hero wins t640


Full Tilt Poker $22 + $1 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15/t30 Blinds - 2 players - View hand 911592
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): t1380 46 BBs
BTN/SB: t1620 54 BBs

Pre Flop: (t45) Hero is BB with 4 5
BTN/SB raises to t90, Hero calls t60

Flop: (t180) J 9 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t120, Hero calls t120

Turn: (t420) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

River: (t420) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t300, Hero raises to t1170 all in, BTN/SB calls t870

Final Pot: t2760
Hero shows 4 5 (a flush, Nine high)
BTN/SB mucks T 8
Hero wins t2760

Played a ton tonight (probably 50-60ish matches) and finished up a whopping $5... I played against one guy roughly 30 games. He was a very tough opponent and made a lot of really good adjustments, and also ran well. I finished 3 buyins down to him, which I'm actually pretty pleased with, considering I think during that stretch he ran considerably better than me. Overall, though, I ran above average tonight, and probably should have finished up more than I did. I tilted in the middle of the long session after suffering a large number of bad beats in a row. There were a lot of really interesting hands but I'm too tired to sort through my HH's to find them. I do feel bad b/c I finished the evening going 6-1 against an opponent and then quitting so I could write this and then head to bed--I have work in the morning and already feel guilty about staying up till midnight to play. I gave the guy a warning the second-to-last game and he got pissed. I did run super well against the guy, but I also got him to pay off really thin value bets on a really consistent basis. If that's bad etiquette, I apologize, but imo no one should be forced to keep playing when they don't want to (any opinions on this? if my position unreasonable, I don't mind being told as much).

With rakeback coming in tomorrow, my account will be slightly above $1250--I'm feeling pretty good about my game, though I'm slipping into hyperaggressive monkey mode more often than I'd like. I need to remind myself in the middle of those episodes that I'm a small ball specialist and that my profit comes mostly from getting opponents to pay me off very thinly and not paying them off.

EDIT: WTH, feel like posting some hands:

I expected to be called with an A-hi type hand here from this particular opponent:
Full Tilt Poker $22 + $1 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t25/t50 Blinds - 2 players - View hand 914172
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: t1410 28.20 BBs
Hero (BB): t1590 31.80 BBs

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is BB with K Q
BTN/SB raises to t100, Hero calls t50

Flop: (t200) 5 7 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

Turn: (t200) Q (2 players)
Hero bets t100, BTN/SB calls t100

River: (t400) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets t400, BTN/SB calls t400

Final Pot: t1200
BTN/SB mucks 4 A
Hero shows K Q (a pair of Queens)
Hero wins t1200

exploiting the same guy when I expected him to have A hi again:
Full Tilt Poker $22 + $1 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15/t30 Blinds - 2 players - View hand 914175
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): t1935 64.50 BBs
BTN/SB: t1065 35.50 BBs

Pre Flop: (t45) Hero is BB with 9 A
BTN/SB raises to t60, Hero calls t30

Flop: (t120) 4 7 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t60, Hero raises to t1875 all in, BTN/SB calls t945 all in

Turn: (t2130) 5 (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: (t2130) 4 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: t2130
Hero shows 9 A (two pair, Nines and Fours)
BTN/SB shows 5 A (two pair, Fives and Fours)
Hero wins t2130

this was against the 30 games dude--there was so much metagame going on I really can't blame him for thinking his hand was good:

Full Tilt Poker $22 + $1 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t20/t40 Blinds - 2 players - View hand 914180
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): t1830 45.75 BBs
BTN/SB: t1170 29.25 BBs

Pre Flop: (t60) Hero is BB with Q 2
BTN/SB raises to t80, Hero calls t40

Flop: (t160) K 6 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB checks

Turn: (t160) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets t120, BTN/SB calls t120

River: (t400) T (2 players)
Hero bets t560, BTN/SB calls t560

Final Pot: t1520
Hero shows Q 2 (a flush, King high)
BTN/SB mucks A 7
Hero wins t1520




another hand to illustrate how crazy the metagame was:
Full Tilt Poker $22 + $1 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t20/t40 Blinds - 2 players - View hand 914186
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN/SB: t890 22.25 BBs
Hero (BB): t2110 52.75 BBs

Pre Flop: (t60) Hero is BB with Q 4
BTN/SB raises to t80, Hero calls t40

Flop: (t160) A 6 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN/SB bets t120, Hero raises to t240, BTN/SB raises to t810 all in, Hero calls t570

Turn: (t1780) J (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: (t1780) J (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: t1780
BTN/SB shows 5 8 (a pair of Jacks)
Hero shows Q 4 (two pair, Jacks and Fours)
Hero wins t1780

wow, just going through my results, and at one point this evening I went on a 15-1 streak--totally didn't realize that, inexplicably; proof + graph below (graph includes games from last night)

bankroll up to $1360 thanks to some hu sngs profit and a modest miniftops cash in the omaha 6 max event (I used a tourney ticket so I was basically gifted $90); rather disappointed in the omaha tourney results since I thought I played really well and weathered a lot of suckouts

bankroll up to just above 1440, meaning I've made $800ish grinding the $22s and through the tourney cash since my low point of $640 about 10 days ago

gj op keep it up

thanks a lot, stevo! played a little more online tonight and finished the evening with a FTP roll around $1560! also made nearly 1k playing live tonight--very good day :-)

here's my graph for the last 7 days, which I'm particularly proud of given that I'm running below EV for all-in situations: