Hello,

This is my first post as a 2+2 member. (this may be a long post but bare with me if you're interested!)
I'm currently still 18, studying Accounting & Finance, working on the side in the Insurance business.
I've been an avid poker fan for around only 1 year now. The obsession came around when I turned 18 and was legally allowed to gamble. Ever since I've been trying to learn the game to the best my ability.

I am DETERMINED to become an overall winning player. The dream isn't necesarily all the money in the world, it's more to do with freedom: being able to do what I want, when I want to and not having to be restricted by money. I'll do what it takes to get there, I will study hard and fix my leaks. I will put in the man hours and put my money on the line. This may sound like pennies to a lot of poker players, but I have to start somewhere, I need to start at 1/1 and build my roll and work my way up. I have high ambitions and big dreams, now to make it reality.

Ill be posting updates, poker and life orientated and see how I get along. I will post interesting hands i come accross and ask for feedback from the many of wise 2+2'ers out there

A brief history of past poker:

Online has never been good for me, and I am the first to admit I have an insane amount of leaks on my online game - overall a losing player. It's something I find difficult to sit down and sort out once and for all. On the other hand, I've seemed to have found a natural ability to play live, I thoroughly enjoy it and can quite happily sit for 24hrs with no breaks and play. My university has a poker society, and through that I've homed in my skills thus far.

Live has proven to be fairly swingy for me, I believe it due to still figuring out many of my leaks (seem to be fixing one, and finding another) I play 1/1 and 1/2 Live NL Holdem and infrequently a touch of Omaha. I also play various live MTT's ranging from £20-£200 BI's. On the basis between late Nov 2013 and to date, playing between 1 and 3 times per week, (sometimes more sometimes less) I've had around 3 First place finishes, 5 or so Final table chops, the odd 4th / 5th / 6th finishers also. In tournament life im probably up a small amount.

Cash games I am currently down, i've only been playing since Feburary 2014.
I've had three sessions where i've taken down £1k profit at a 1/1 table in a single session, around 5-6 with £300-750 profit and around 8-9 with under £200 ish profit. HOWEVER, more recently i've started buying in for maximum, (200) and if losing first BI, i've rebought up to 3-4 times. This month has been the worst month in my poker so far.

My Shot Take
01/06/14

I decided I was going to take 12 days away from work, and put a huge chunk of my roll on the line, having set aside money if all goes sour.
I played over 12 days, 11 sessions (each between 3-10hours each)
I believe 9/11 sessions I played near on my A game.
I had 2 sessions where I played very poorly.

During 11 sessions I found myself AI around 16 times.
I noted the equity of the point at which I was all in, in all of these 16 times.

3/16 I was AI either OTF or OTT with 95-96% equity.
9/16 I was AI either OTF or OTT with around 78-84% equity.
2/16 I was AI at any point during board with around 36-54% equity.
2/16 i was AI either preflop or OTF with around 20-46% equity (one a miss-step, the other I was short stack squeeze shoving)

Now, I don't know (as i'm new to this amount of volume live) whether I am just on the WORST run i've been through in regards to variance... considering 12/16 times I was getting it in very good... or whether this kind of swing is normal?

Due to this crazy amount of suck outs that occured to me during my little 'shot take'.. I actually burnt up my bankroll with a lighter and gasoline can, and then chucked a little bit more on.
... back to work I go


I've since played a couple of sessions, and much of the same has occured, the doubts start to creep into your mind as I'm sure you're aware - so my first question to you all, is how to deal with downswings? (I predict a reference to bankroll management is about to come, so I'll say now that my current roll is now at a mere £6k dedicated for poker)

Anyway, now you all know my goal, and a little bit about my history of the game. I'll get back to you all tomorrow with an interesting hand I would like to ask you about.

Thanks for reading- if you did!

In woo!

In woo!

Welcome.

nice man I like the post. beginner in love with poker coming at 2+2 raw and honest with where your at and where you want to be. 6k bankroll for 1/1 is solid. sounds like your hunger to learn the game and get results will only help you reach your goals. goodluck bro looking forward to your posts.

downswings are tough to deal with for a while for most people, you have to obviously read up on how to handle downswings, and experience them yourself and bounce back time after time. after you know what to expect and how variance is part of the game you wont be in shock when you find yourself on an 8 bi downswing. id say 10bi would be a decently large downswing and ive had those several times and always bounced back.

-don't play on tilt
-if youre in for several bi's in a session seriously consider how well your playing and if you need to take a break, switch tables, come back another day.
-don't be afraid to keep making +ev plays even if the outcome of those plays haven't been working out lately! continue on making the most +ev plays and you will find yourelf in the green and going up and up overtime.
-keep in mind poker is a grind, if it were that easy everyone would do it, toughen up mentally!

Hi, welcome to this forum.

You'll find that 2+2 is actually broken down into multiple forums depending on the subject. This forum specializes in strategy discussions for live cash games up to 5/5 games. Posters start threads about certain hands (one at a time) that caused them problems. Other posters respond with guidance on how they would play those hands.

TBH, the most effective way to learn is to respond to other hands first rather than posting your own problem hands. You'll see how others respond and think. You'll start seeing common situations to what you faced and how the better posters would handle it. The reality is that people aren't paid to respond (including moderators). If the situation doesn't interest them, the better posters won't respond. Often that is because you haven't provided enough information to give decent advice and that's why you have a tough decision. If you knew more about the villain, the solution would be easy.

If you want to post about your poker journey, the Poker Goals and Challenges forum is the right place to make a thread and post in it. Many posters in this forum have threads where their friends can chat about what happened to them.

You'll see a low content chat thread here as well. Consider it like the neighborhood pub.

That said, I'm going to lock this thread. We don't allow blogs in this forum because you can create one in the other forum. Good luck on the journey.