Here is some quick background. I played sports in HS: Basketball + soccer and I play a decent amount of golf - as much as I can considering I live in MI Anyways, I had a massive run from $0-$4k'ish early last year before I lost focus and began playing games that were outside of my BR and additionally I faced some very bad variance.

I ended up losing a significant amount of the hard earned $$$, and took a break from poker.I started back up again seriously last month and I have built my BR from $0 to over $700 again with several mtt coupons and a ton of VIPs. ( Around 12k ) My goal is to build my BR up to $10,000 by the end of the summer, and improve my NLHE mtt game. I personally think that I am a decent mtt player, but I am predominately a low-midstakes limit mixed game player and I also play plo and plo8, although I am significantly better @ plo8. I feel as though I have a huge edge in the $5-$11 Horse and Stud8 mtts on Carbon/Merge, but like I said earlier my nlhe mtt game needs some more volume/work.

So, here are my tentative goals: make $10,000 on Carbon by Sept 1, take advantage of all the monthly promotions on Carbon. I place second in the 2nd Chip king promo this past week for $200, and I started with only 1800 chips. If you are unfamiliar with the promotion, it essentially boils down to this: every week they host a FR that gets bigger every week. There are 4 of them during this month, and your starting stack is directly proportional to how much you have raked in the current month. I had only raked $180 up to the last deadline and I received an 1800 chip starting stack. Others started with as many as 15-20,000 chips, so I feel very good about my results. My goals are to build my starting stacks in the next two significantly. I also want to build my roll larger in the next 3 weeks so that I can play more of the upcoming OPS series events. Additionally, one of the main goals of this thread is to make some poker friends here on 2+2 ( Serious poker friends between the ages of 18-30... I am 25 btw. I am looking for friends who are very serious about the game, who are pro or have serious ambitions to become pro ) I know that poker isn't as exciting and glamorous as people think, but I also realize that it can be profitable and provide both financial and personal freedom. So ummm.... yeah, I will end my OP there before I bore everyone. I hope you guys read and contribute to this thread... I plan on updating it every day to help keep me focused.

Should i be betting the river here, or is my line fine here? Seems odd that he is betting the river here.
* Sorry I am a noob here... went c/c/c otf 3 way, c/c he leads full pot. I c/raised ott, and he flatted. The river is the worst card, but I checked and he lead HP. Should I ever consider folding? I mean I did, but should I ever raise?

don't post hands that include usernames.

Sorry... although I didn't know this was a no-no, I suppose I should have known. Welcome 2 the thread though.

I just put in a 37 game SNG session @ the $5s, and made around $70. This is slightly better than my avg $ won per game over the past 500 games, but I honestly felt as though I ran horribly. I have gotten to the point over the past 2 months to where I can easily run 10+ tables with ease and minimal mistakes. I shoved a couple of times in DONs where I shouldn't have, and I immediately knew it; it was just a function of being bored and lackadaisical.

Here are some pics to make my thread my sexy I hope to put in another 15-30 game SNG session to start the week on the SNG LB.

Good luck OP.

Here is a look @ my SNG graph over the past 45 days.... game 1250 is where it starts. I played a bunch of micro HU sngs before these games which helped me a lot, although I didn't actually make any $$$ in them. I feel pretty confident @ the $5 sng level. Although I have not played nearly as much volume as some of the top regs have over the past month and a half, I feel as though I am the best reg @ the level. ( Not trying to start a reg war or anything, lol )

I put in a little 3 hours session and ran pretty badly. Even still, I made like $20 + raked another $25 and am poised to make $100+ on the $5 SNG LB. My short term goals are to get the BR up to $700 by the end of the week, and $1,000 by the months end. I have enough VIPs to redeem for a $150 cash credit, but I am holding on to them atm. I hope to realise some serious equity from the 2 a days and Chip King promos that are this month, and hopefully I can bink a mtt over the next few weeks. I am encouraged with the traffic that I have seen on Carbon/Merge over the past 2 weeks. The action is really loose and people get impatient rather quickly. I am hoping that it continues to only get better I plan on trying to satty into the 125k on Sat, and am going to play a bunch of the good value Sunday mtts under $33. They may be slightly outside my BR, but I know I can take some shots with the sngs being as soft as they are.

Man.... what a rough go of it today. Went deep in several mtts and kinda just ran like an amputee. Still made a profit today, the BR is hovering around $1.000, and I started my BR @ $0 around 45 days ago. Still a long ways to go, but I am pleased to see how things are slowly falling into place. I have faith that I will bink a mtt for 4 figures within the next 2-3 weeks. Either way, I will just have to keep plodding along.

nice job sick keep it up man

glgl bro! see you at the tables

Thanks guys.... you both Carbon/Merge grinders? I also play on BCP under the SN FormerStarsPro as well, although I have played mostly Carbon over the past 6 weeks. Either way good to meet you guys and glgl.

The LB week end on the 21st.... I hope to @ a minimum collect $120 as a bonus. Maybe I will kick it into gear tomorrow and put in some furious efforts @ the tables in an attempt to get 1st. Its Sunday funday tomorrow though, so.... Guess I will need to get some more of these!!!



Weeeeeeeeeeeee

Damn.... a 29 game SNG lead for 3rd has been cut down to 10 games. #TimeToFireItUp

Oh.... also a little bit of a sports degen. My bold prediction is that the Grizzlies will beat the Thunder in 6. I had to do a little parlay.... game starts in a few.



Already catching a lot of flack from picking the Grizz..... most think they have no shot vs KD. My take is the Grizz are far from a 7 seed because of the injuries they went through, most importantly the Gasol injury. Will add more later.... too lazy to posit all my thoughts/opinions atm. Go Grizzlies!!!!

Ya, I grind on Merge on the Aced skin under the sn focusedmotion

Yeah, I was trying to think because I am pretty sure that we have played some games together, although the details are kinda fuzzy. GLGL

Well, today I was in 3rd on the $5 SNG LB and was prepared to coast since it was the last day and I had a lead over the 4th and 5th place guys. Well, I ended up slipping to fourth The good news is that I put in a 40 game session late last night to just get 4th, and I made $70 off the games. So, it was a good outcome I suppose.

Great job man Keep up the good work and you will achieve your goal!

Thanks man... it has been quite a grind to go from $0 to where I am atm.... ( hovering around $1,000 atm )

I plan on taking a break this week from the SNGs. They are very profitable if I play the entire week when coupled with the VIPs + SNG LB bonus, but they take up a lot of hours during the week. I really should jump up to the $11s for more profit, but I am being super nitty atm. Up until last week I hadn't experienced a DS of more than 3-5 games, but I had 2 DS's recently that were around 10-14 BIs. Anyway, I am only going to be playing a few small SNG sessions with some juicy mtts mixed in. Other than that I am going to go out and party a little and watch some sports.

Played very little today, I think that I am slightly ahead. Still kinda floating between $900-$1,000 atm. I won a $33 satty ticket that I am using in the $7500 Horse OPS # 7 event. I am pretty excited about the event and the series as a whole.... I hope that i can win some more satties/ build my roll more before the series starts, so that I can play more events. Ideally I would like to play all the NLHE events $11 and under, and all the Horse/Stud/Stud8/Razz/Badugi events under $33. ( I feel that I have a decent edge in those games ) I even would love to somehow satty into the $60 stud8 event and the $215 Horse event, but whether I take any satty shots @ those events will be contingent on how my BR building goes.

I really need to find the motivation to put in a serious 5-10 days of almost exclusively $5 SNGs. I am basically printing $$$ @ those stakes, and I can make enough $$$ to justify the time spent, if only I could find the motivation. The games aren't difficult for me, nor are they all that intense/stressful, ( they can be towards the end of a longer session when grinding 12+ tables ) but they can be very repetitive/boring

So yeah.... I kinda need to kick it into gear if I wanna continue to make any meaningful strides towards my goals. I really am amped for the OPS series though.... especially with the influx of traffic/fishy players that have recently been added to the player pool.

* Sigh.... just stone bubbled another satty Whatever... I am off 4 the night. Glgl @ the tables

I swear that I level myself @ the tables more than I should, but I read into situations far too deeply for the cheeseburger stakes that I am playing @ atm. The guys that give me the most trouble are honestly the fish. Guy @ my table is playing far too often and overcalling and I am 3betting the daylights out of him IP. He basically has turned into my piggy bank and this time he limp/calls my raise and the flop comes out A99. I have AK and he donk shoves into me around 4k into a 1800 chip pot. Its always a call, No? I mean if he c/raised me otf, or called/GII ott I would just chalk it up as an annoying cooler, so calling it off otf vs a donk lead is ok? I mean I have seen it far too often @ these stakes where guys shove weak Aces... I have even seen guys who have slow played QQ/KK and now decide irrationally that they dont wanna get bluffed off of their hand/ they wanna turn their hand into a bluff; although I am sure that they really aren't able to articulate why the F they are doing what they are doing. ( Its a complete spazz obv )

I guess I just find these spots so annoying. Another one came from the same limp/calling fish. He limps again and I re-pop AJcc, shorter now that he doubled through me with his J9 hand earlier. The CL @ the table in the SB squeezes, and I am just convinced that he is getting out of line. So I RIP it in and ofc he has KK. I mean the price that I was getting to rip it in + the fact that I imagine he is OOl x% of the time + the equity I have when called makes it a +ev rip, but its just so Godamn frustrating.

I find myself far too often thinking that people are doing things that make sense to me. Even the regs do the darnedest/dumbest things. I have ripped hands utg/utg+1 with 8-12 bbs with perfect nash ranges, and its amazing how often I find some reg up +3k/+11k etc, snap calling pocket 3s from EP or KJ from the SB. Freaking blows my mind. I know that I have a long way to go to become one of the best, but the level of stupidity that I see across the board is.... well, its a dichotomy. It is encouraging that people who are actually winning do some very/very dumb things, but @ the same time it is frustrating that I haven;t gotten what I feel is well deserved. I mean I have seen guys FT the Sunday 100k/$11-$33 nightlies, who are just plain dreadfuly bad @ poker. It makes me angry tbh. I want mine.... ( Ok rant is over ) Guess I better get back to work.... Carbon/Merge break is over.

Gl man!!

Played a very lazy session and min-cashed a $5 PLO8 mtt and 1 tables my last game a $2 mtt which I ended up winning. I ended up pushing A10 and getting called by QQ. Idk... the spot was kinda meh. I got lucky, and I really don't feel bad about it with all the negative variance I have been experiencing lately. Anyway, $2 to $98 Always nice to have a mini-session where I win as much as I would earn in 2 days of grinding $5 SNGs.
*Going to grind some more later.... hope I can bink something tonight as well

Congrats on your bink! I agree with the satties, they are def the way to go.