Backstory
Started playing poker online when I was 17 and made my first deposit when I turned 18 ( 23 at the moment).
Eventually, I became a regular on the NL5/NL10 Zoom pool, but poker closed here due to legislation 3 years ago If I'm not mistaken
It opened recently again and I've made a 20€ deposit to kill the bug and see how my game was, considering I didn't play for a long time.

3 months later I'm at 280€ bankroll and almost rolled for NL10 shot.

Graphs & Infos

This is since the beginning of this year




Year Goals
My main goal this year is finishing the semester above average when it comes to grading and stuff. Shouldn't be too hard since I like the subjects that I'm having at the moment. I've also bought a 6 months gym membership at the beginning of the year so I just want to go as many time as possible every week.

Poker related I just want to improve, study regularly and review a lot of spots. I'm using my old ranges at the moment (RFI, 3bet&defend and cold calling). From what I've noticed they're a bit outdated perhaps, I don't think that they're making too much sense between my preflop play and my reasoning postflop. Definitely got to tweak them as soon as possible.

I'll try to update this thread very frequently. I'll post a graph whenever I play a session as well as some hands that I wasn't too sure about.

Lets see where this takes me =)

PS.: All the volume will be played on Portuguese Pokerstars, since that's the only room available =/

subscribed

Good luck, I found a bit of a difference in going from nl5 to nl 10 though, are you following any lines or apart any coaching group?

Thanks bud, I don't think I understand your question fully but I've never had coaching neither am I part of a coaching group.

What were the most noticeable changes when going up?

I had to take 2 shots @ NL5, first one failed due to crappy mindset mostly and second went well. Any recommendations?

Results for the day

Only played 1 session today, didn't have much time between classes and other life related stuff.
Went pretty well





Hand 1
Pretty straight forward hand. Villain was playing 67/43 over 80 hands. I x/raised him on the turn because there would be many Rivers where I could see him x/back, therefore this is the better play. Unfortunate that he binked the draw OTR but that's poker =)




Hand 2
Got a sweet River card on this one. Villain is 18/11/2,3 300 hands 55% Cbet on 11 occasions.
My thought process, when played, was that he shouldn't have many made hands that were ahead of me apart from sets. My x/raise OTT was to get the most value out of QQ+ and draws and being OOP I thought that it was the best play. After the session, when reviewing I just couldn't think of a bluff that I would take this line with. Most of my x/raises would be done OTF and OTT I'll be pretty faced up when I do this. Kinda confused with this one, thoughts?
PS.: Didn't 3bet preflop because I wanted BB to join in.



I'll definately put some volume tomorrow. Got couple of subjects in the morning and will hit the gym later, but that's it for the day should play 2k hands at ease

Couldn't play on Tuesday after all. Met two classmates from my previous major that I didn't see for a long time. Ended up having a couple of drinks together through the night, it was really late when I've got home.

Managed to get a session yesterday between classes and gym, it went alright. I've played good and got really good tables but unfortunately lost a flip or two. Still managed to end up positive.



My goal, poker related this month, is to keep Silverstar, I only need 2 more steps, 200 starscoins each to keep it. Should be fairly easy.

Won't be able to play much until Monday. Going out for the weekend to spend time with the grill, maybe I can squeeze 1 short session in. If I do I'll update the thread.

Hand 1
Probably should've raised bigger preflop. Postflop versus a minraise I don't think I'll ever be good it just looks so much like an invitation =/ Villain is an unknown. I know I don't have the Ah blocker but I think that If I call here I'll have to call on a lot of Turns again that aren't
Thoughts?

[converted_hand][hand_history]Poker Stars, $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand #37679247

CO: $4.93 (98.6 bb)
Hero (BTN): $5 (100 bb)
SB: $5 (100 bb)
BB: $5.52 (110.4 bb)
UTG: $5.56 (111.2 bb)
MP: $5.34 (106.8 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with A A
UTG calls $0.05, MP raises to $0.22, CO folds, Hero raises to $0.68, SB folds, BB calls $0.63, UTG folds, MP calls $0.46

Flop: ($2.11) Q 7 6 (3 players)
BB checks, MP checks, Hero bets $1, BB raises to $2, 2 folds

Got back from the weekend did all my life-related stuff and managed to squeeze in two sessions



Had to stop after a big suck out but didn't loose much

Here's the daily graph




Current Bankroll: 282€

Going to take a shot at NL10 when I hit 300€ with a 5BI try. Should reach it this week

Been running a bit bad unfortunately =/
I'm not feeling that much motivated to play this week, didn't have much free time but whenever I could play I just "wasn't feeling it". I've played two sessions today but didn't run that well again.

Pictures







Apart from not putting in volume this week, I've studied a bit, I'm almost finished with my Preflop Ranges/Defends/etc. Need to work on the Blinds range a bit more but it's going.
Also reviewed a couple frequencies postflop on some hands that eventually showed up that I wasn't sure about and that's it I think.

Hand 1

SB plays 29/19/4.4
BB was fishy 59/31 over 70 hands

[converted_hand][hand_history]Poker Stars, $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 4 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite. View Hand #37687508

BTN: $14.11 (282.2 bb)
SB: $5 (100 bb)
BB: $6.73 (134.6 bb)
Hero (CO): $5 (100 bb)

Preflop: Hero is CO with A T
Hero raises to $0.15, BTN folds, SB calls $0.13, BB calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.45) 8 J K (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $0.22, SB calls $0.22, BB folds

Turn: ($0.89) 9 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.58, SB calls $0.58

River: ($2.05) 2 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Flop: At the time I've cbeted because I thought that I would get a lot of folds from the SB since he much likely is wider than normal due to the fish on the BB. Didn't exactly thought about ranges and he's probably not folding enough combos for it to be a good isolation cbet.

Turn: Plan was a fail, fish folded and the regular called us. At this moment I've decided to continue semi-bluffing with this hand. We have the T blocker for the straights and my plan for River was to fire if came

River: River was a blank and I've decided to give up.

Thoughts?

Flop cbet is fine although it does get called often. We do fold out smaller pairs from SB which are almost 20-30% of his range and are ahead of us OTF.

His flop calling range is fairly narrow, however. Like: T9s, JTs, J9s or 79s (if he plays those PF, should check his SB VPIP), KQ, QJ, AJ (if he didn't 3b PF with that). Can't think of anything else. What do you think?

Any K, T, 9 or 7 turn helps his flop calling range better so it might be an option to check these turns and bet the rest of the cards to fold a Jx. Kx might never fold even a third barrel.

I will bet any heart turn if we have AhTh.

A 2d river, probably better to give up. It would suck if he paired up his 9 on the turn.

I've reviewed the hand range wise and it doesn't make much sense to Cbet bluff this combo since I'm not going to value bet enough for it to be necessary. Mistake was on Flop I guess, but thanks for the reply :b

Managed to do a late night session. Just had like 20 tables running of NL5, almost all of they had weak/drunktard players in them which was nice.
Put in decent volume for a session, I play better with 10 tables opened than I do with 6-8. My brain farts when there are waiting times without anything to do and I become unaware of what's going on and find myself looking at a wall for no reason at all.

30 hands deep in the session and 2 BIs were lost, flashbacks started coming and I was like "hurr, durr, downswing, unluckiest player ever, whatever, whatever"
Ended up alright, got to admit that it does feel good to run above EV and I was really needing it :b



Not going to post graphs daily. I figure that I play a bit too low volume for it to be "pleasant" to look at. Instead, I'll update the thread with whatever session I put in and just post a graph weekly.

That's all I guess, didn't study anything today and probably won't do any studying soon since I have a couple of exams coming up, we'll see.

Rest of a nice weekend to whomever is reading this =)

Week recap

Didn't play much this week, in total I've put in 391 minutes into play with 3699 hands dealt. Bankroll didn't grow, actually lost around 9€ but ran a bit bellow EV.





Current Bankroll: 275.79€

Felt like I should've played better this week, I mean, I've ended up most sessions with mixed feelings because even tho I felt like I played good poker, results weren't there but oh well, what are you going to do? That's just poker and looks like my mindset could use some sort of fortifying. I find myself having a "loser" mindset most of the times, downswings hit me hard and I think that every session should be a winning session. Shouldn't be hard to fix with enough sleep every day, to be honest, they're related in my opinion.

Hands

Villain was a 20/15/4.4 on 800 hands. Didn't shove because he'll never bluff here and I don't' want a shoving range versus him here. I was already popping champagne and that turn... Just sucks that he binked the last darn queen



This one I just butchered it. CO was donating for a while, everyone was trying to mess with him. MP is a regular who I think is ahead of the pool, seen him do things that others regs didn't understand but were good in my eyes. Also seen him isolating himself vs the fish whenever he could therefore why I've called the fish minbet. Looking back I should have just raised, I won't do it as a bluff here I don't think but it is what it is. I've a set after all. Never considered folding, not versus him. Don't think my shove on the turn was that good, but he's not folding anything if he has a piece of the board. GG breh





Nice turn to x/raise xD





Weekly objectives

Figured I could use some of these, most likely they'll motivate me to actually do stuff

[ ]Play 8k hands (Will be a bit hard but it'll push me to play more)
[ ]Go to the gym daily (This isn't hard, I like to go there, either way :b)
[ ]Study 4 hours
[ ]Keep a strict sleeping schedule (This one will be the hardest of them all, I keep falling on being a ****ing owl somehow)
[ ]Shot at NL10 if bankroll allows (I'll take a 5BI shot when I hit 300€, shouldn't be too hard to hit this week but you never know how you're going to run

Think that's all for today. I'm most likely still going to play today but I've to hit the gym right now.

I'll update the thread whenever I play, just the graphs & stuff will be posted whenever the week ends.

Didn't think that I would be able to play today. Had a lot of stuff that I needed done and wanted to hit the gym as well. Traded the gym for a poker session, my legs are taking a bit longer to repair, dunno why =/, and since today was a front leg day (probably not the right English term, but you should understand what I mean :B) I've taken the day off. Will do legs tomorrow between studies.

Back to poker, got pretty happy with my game today. Played really good but kept running into Villains top range quite often. The session started great, I sat down at a table and it gets limped to me and I flop a straight and 1 Villain has a set. I win his stack, 80bbs if I remember it correctly. I'm like fist-bumping and pumped to play more, was feeling like this would be one of those heat sessions, where anything you need hits. Couple hands later I 3bet Blinds versus a random CO and flop comes QJ8 and he has T9. Well, well, well.



Here's the session result, theoretically it is still a positive session due to the awesome promotion held by pokerstars. Got 20cents from it

Therefore bankroll grew an amazing 16cents today

Current Bankroll: 275.95€

Taking more to reach the needed bankroll for the NL10 shot than I thought it would. Better days to come for sure

Hands

First hand that I've talked about. He's just never bluffing here, he plays pretty straight forward a gets sticky with good hands postflop and I knew he either had a set or a better straight. He ranted a bit after he lost but I wasn't feeling like taunting him so I didn't answer.




Second hand that I talked about didn't even put hit on a straight, thought he had a worse set, either way, wouldn't play this other way





This one I was kinda lost. Probably should've folded on the flop but Villain had a high AGG% OTF. Also don't know why I didn't bet the Turn, maybe it was something related with the K that I held, but I feel that if I check TPTK here I'm checking almost everything as well, which might be the right play. Going to analyze it tomorrow for sure and see where my range is at versus his.




Sort of a level versus this Villain. He's a Aggro regular that thinks he's the best because he 3bet a **** ton preflop. His problem is postflop, he never defends enough...
Told him I had the same hand that he did when he folded to taunt him a bit. He responded "**** off, you would never bet AK there". He's definitely more wide there being so deep but oh well





Going to do a lot of studying tomorrow, but for a uni subject. Have an exam on Thursday. Will try to squeeze in a session =)

Money you didn't lose is the money you made

Hand 1,2 played themselves.

Hand 3, flop should be folded if we get x/r'd. AP not sure what you could do differently other than possibly folding river. He would not value bet any one-pair hand at that point, unless you think he can x/r bluff flop with an Ax.

Hand 4. WP, though good to keep in mind that AK loses some its value when 200BB deep.

gl with the exam!

My plan was to shove if the Turn was a club, probably didn't even had enough fold equity if he had bet the Turn with a good enough sizing. I find myself measuring dicks too often versus unknowns and I'm not sure why =/
Should pick better spots most likely

He plays solid on single raised pots but chickens out too much on 3b/4bet ones, that's why I've made the move.

Thanks bud, and thanks for replying =)

Quick update

Managed to squeeze 2 sessions today.



Didn't play bad in the first one, but I was messing with some friends and made some really thin calls. Couldn't go way worse to be honest.

Second one, I've played at home and won some stacks. It went well and I've definitely played a really solid game.

Current Bankroll: 282.89€

Also got 20bbs on the cardsmatch *woop, woop* xD

I'm also done with exams for this week, currently, I've 2k hands played. Since I couldn't play much till today, due to a test, I'll put more volume till Sunday and try to reach the 8k hands goal.

Going out for dinner and will for sure play more when I get home, but it'll be past midnight most likely so it belongs on the tomorrow's update.

Week Recap

Pretty bad week poker related. Thought I would have more free time on the weekend but didn't even play on Sunday and could only play 500 hands on Saturday. Failed the 8k goal, obviously by a lot =/

Those were the last week goals


[ ]Play 8k hands (Failed, could only play 4295 hands)
[ ]Go to the gym daily (Done, but I knew it would be easy)
[ ]Study 4 hours (Also done, reviewed some spots where I didn't know the right play)
[ ]Keep a strict sleeping schedule (Failed hard, started somewhat good but derailed really quick)
[ ]Shot at NL10 if bankroll allows (I've made some money this week but not enough sadly)

Week winnings and graph





Swingy week, had to play NL2 on Saturday, I've played sort of late and NL5 wasn't running apart from a couple of tables. Since I don't exactly like to mix in stakes, played NL2 and crushed it. Was just running pure with a couple of whales at the tables and booked a good win there.

Month Recap





I miss ZOOM. Back in the day, I could quadruple this volume easily by 4 tabling it. Regular tables run slower and I feel bad to just put in 21k hands in 31 days of playing, feels rookie and not dedicated enough. To be honest, I could have played more but some weeks the bug for poker wasn't just there =/

Weekly objectives

[ ]Play 6k hands (Got 2 exams this week but should be attainable)
[ ]Go to the gym daily (I'm almost at my ideal body fat percentage, and should start a hypertrophy training soon)
[ ]Study 6 hours
[ ]Keep a strict sleeping schedule (This week is going to be no joke)

Think that's all for this update, might post some suckout/interesting hands later in the day, got a class to attend in five minutes so got to run (Sorry for any typos)

Quick Update

Man, does it feel good to connect with some flops. The dry period seems to be over and the two sessions that I've played today went really great. Still ran below EV$ but I can't complain much since I've got the goods on really good occasions. Also seems that I can focus way more on Poker after hitting the gym, something to look at.



Hands

This might sound nitty and a bit results oriented but I don't think that this Villain will show up with worse here often. He plays super passive with AGG% of 20%. I thought I had to call because this will be pretty much high up on my range here, but folding will be the +EV play here in my opinion




Alrighty then, different Villain but still passive as fudge. On the flop, I don't think that we should have a raising range in here because we're pretty much repping 33 and maybe some strong heart draws if we raise, so I went with the call. The K felt like the perfect card for me, unless he had KQ, and I thought that there was no point in raising again since he's so passive. If the last 3 didn't come on the River I don't think that he would bet again so thanks Pokerstars for that.




Not exactly sure what to do with this hand. I've squeezed preflop for Value, CO plays 16/13/1.3 and was a bit too heavy on the folds to 3bets while BTN was a whale (72/11/20) and he was my target. CO didn't fold and the whale joined in as expected.
Now, I expect CO to actually have overpairs here since he 3bets so infrequently, his 4bet range will be nutted only so JJ and QQ will be on his range for sure. Either way he'll have Broadway combos as well that should fold sooner or later.
OTR I'll have some Overpairs on my range with some blockers but dunno if I should call this one as well since we block almost zero of his bluffing range




Any thoughts and any comments on the lines I took on the hands are very much appreciated =)


Current Bankroll: 311.something

Finally enrolled for an NL10 shot. Going to do a 5BI shot and move down If I loose them fiddy bucks. Might play tomorrow after dinner since games seem softer then.

I've looked at how the games run above NL10. NL25 has decent action but above that, it's pretty lame. Guess I finally have a limit objective, per say. Gonna try to establish at NL25 if possible and improve my game on the way there.

Guess that's all, thanks to anyone reading :b

Quick Update

Took a shot yesterday and it didn't go well, lost 3 of the 5 BI that I put aside for it. Lost a couple of stupid hands that didn't help, but didn't play great either, also had a super aggro Villain on my left on two tables and my stubborn self didn't swap tables -.-'

Won't play today because I still need to review some stuff for my exam tomorrow, but I'll put in some Volume tomorrow.

Here's the session



Hands

Not much to comment on this one. Could shove preflop but I opted in to call as I think it'll be the best play. Postflop I didn't had the blocker but it doesn't matter in here. GG boy




Don't know what I was thinking on this one. Didn't put him on a set, to be honest. I guess he's barely getting the odds to set mine but it won't be a winning play in my eyes.
My thinking OTT was in the lines of I've 0 fold equity so he'll definitely call with worse. I block his monster draw but still, AK isn't on his range and KTs, while a possibility, is heavily discounted. Could have TTs but that was about it. Well, another GG boy




Won some good hands but also lost a lot on 3bet/4bet pots. Wasn't exactly connecting but it was mostly bad play. Good luck to my 2 BIs left for tomorrow's shot

Current Bankroll: 354.17€

Week Recap

Again pretty low volume this week. I had plans to grind a lot after my exam on Thursday but the plans went down the drain. Got some social events that I wasn't expecting and things went south pretty quick. I abused alcohol and related stuff at a party on Friday and couldn't exactly play on Saturday since I wasn't feeling that great. Sunday was a different story and managed to put in 1 hour of grind. It went really great, I was down to 2BIs for my NL10 shot and I couldn't have played at a better time, Sunday after dinner, prime hours for fishy players.

Here's the session


And the week results




Can't say that I'm established on NL10. I'll still be playing NL5 sometimes since the player pool is pretty low and NL10 doesn't have a lot of tables during the worst hours in the day and I'm not exactly in the mood to battle 8 tables filled with regulars.

Hands

Hand 1 Feels like I've been losing a lot in situations like these. Someone opens, fishy player calls and I want to isolate. Now I've made it bigger because I wanted to put the fish all in. How are you guys playing this spot?




Hand 2

In the heat of the moment, I thought that this one would be the best combo to 3 barrel with. Now that I'm reviewing I'm not so sure. Even tho I block the nuts and my draw is reasonable, if the Q hits I won't get much value out of him. I don't have any reads on him apart from him playing 21/9/0 (35)



Hand 3

Raised too big? I could only be beaten by A7 OTR and I thought that he would only bet Ax and Air there. Now even if I raise small air ain't going to call and I'm only getting calls from Ax, if I raise big I might fold out some Ax but he has to call a big part of them as well



Would appreciate any thoughts/discussion on those hands

Closing thoughts

Not going to do any weekly grind objectives. I've done them twice and reduced a number of hands that I wanted to play from the first week to the second and still couldn't reach them. I love poker and I still think that having goals is good for me, what isn't good is setting a goal and failing it multiple times. I only grind whenever I can and whenever the mindset allows as well. It's not like I depend on it to live so...

Thanks to everyone reading, hope everyone had a pleasant weekend

Hand 1,

I'd like the squeeze better if we had AQ, mainly because depending on how big of a fish BTN is, he might fold a lot of his weaker Ax if you put him all in, but might call if he has AJ himself. If he has 77 or 88 or most other smaller pairs, you're getting PF action there as well. Not arguing for calling PF but let's say we call and hit an A OTF, we're definitely getting BTN's stack.

Since MP is 45/30/4.7 over 134, I'd check his Fold to 3bet stat. If it's greater than 70-75%, go ahead with this play for sure. If it's lower then I am not too sure since we might have to play a big pot OOP against a loose player (or multiway) with a not so strong holding.

Hand 2,

A lot of people might not fold top pair OTR on micros if they're getting almost 3.5 to 1. 3barrel is basically repping QJ, 99, TT, perhaps KT and maybe AK. It's good that we're uncapped but I feel the river bluff is probably getting called by a Kx. A Tx might fold river, that's about it. The bluff needs to work at least 32%, something I think given the line he has taken, he's not folding that much?

Hand 3,

River raise size may seem a bit too large but I don't mind it at all. You're not getting called most probably but the times the large bet does get called, the net EV would be higher since the hands he calls with, he should be fairly inelastic to the raise size with those. In short, 10% x (3.86-0.89) > 20% x (2.1-0.89)

Been a while since I've updated this but I'll keep it short

Took an unexpected poker break. Had a lot of unexpected social stuff going on and conjoined with my loss of the poker bug I just didn't play. Yesterday the Pokerstars shortcut laid me some puppy eyes and I opened it. To my surprise, they were offering Zoom and I jumped right to the tables.


Graphs & Stuff






Actually really happy with the way I'm playing at the moment and the volume as well (1.5k hands per day is very good to me). Got some problems with the HUD at first, that's where the NL2 hands come from. Turned out that HM2 didn't support Zoom on the .pt skin. The moment they've added support they emailed me and it worked.


PS.: Going to update this thread a bit less frequently. Updates will come on the 10th, 20th and 30th of each month. Will still post some hands if I feel like doing it.

Don't know if anyone is reading this, but if there are some lost souls that are following it, thanks :b

2nd update for the month

Actually quite happy with my volume since Zoom became available. Didn't play anything through 17-21, WRC came close to me and I went watching as much as I could, got to say that their handling is somewhat amazing and nothing you see on youtube can prepare for what you're about to see :b



Hit a somewhat downswing on the weekend, 13 and 14, I remember being at my uni library, not exactly to study, but my gf did need to and I was keeping her company, I played a lot those two days and nothing could go right =/
Now, my redline is nothing to be proud of but I've been trying to get it slightly better.
Got 2 BIs more for NL10 if things doesn't go right got to say goodbye to Zoom tables

Think that's all for this update, gonna play a bit today but mostly study for a test tomorrow