I went about 8 years without playing much and I got back into the game with a neighborhood home game in June of '18. The game has been running every 2 weeks for almost two years, and it has renewed my interest in the game.

I am doing this to hold myself accountable for playing and working to get better while the world is turned upside down. I won't be grinding for 10+ hours a day or anything like that. It will be more like 30 minutes to an hour at a time when the kids are in bed or other moments during the day. I likely will not play more than 2 tables at a time. At this point in time, I don't feel comfortable playing more than two tables.

Guidelines:
- Minimum of 15 buy-ins in bankroll to play a game.
- Minimum of 40 buy-ins in bankroll if I play a tournament
- I will only post financial results every 1,000 hands. I want the focus to be on getting better at decision making.

I will most likely be playing .01/.02 and .02/.05 micro stakes. The bankroll is at 99.76 right now.

After 4 days I have played 585 hands. I am trying to average 100 hands per day. It takes me about an hour to play the 100 hands which is doable with my current schedule. I think I butchered the hand below, but I am not sure. Any input is appreciated.

UTG folds
UTG +1 folds
UTG +2 folds
MP Calls $0.02
MP +1 raises $0.08 to $0.08
HERO (3.47) raises $0.20 to $0.20 w/QQ
FOLD
FOLD
BB (1.41) (Villian)calls $0.18
MP folds
MP +1 calls $0.12

*** FLOP *** [5c Tc 8d]

Villian checks
MP + 1 checks
HERO checks

*** TURN *** [5c Tc 8d] [4d]

Main pot $0.60
Villian bets $0.47
MP Folds
Hero calls $0.47

*** RIVER *** [5c Tc 8d 4d] [4h]
Main pot $1.50
Villian bets $0.74 and is all-in
HERO calls $0.74

*** SHOW DOWN ***

Main pot $2.90
HERO shows [Qs Qh] (two pair, Queens and Fours [Qs Qh 4h 4d Tc])
Villian shows [Kd Kh] (two pair, Kings and Fours [Kh Kd 4h 4d Tc])

Pre - Flop: I felt like everything was standard.

FLOP: I had c-bet successfully after the flop 2 out of the last 10 hands, so I wanted to mix things up and check a flop where I had TP or better.

TURN: I can't fold, but I have to think that he has a big hand.

RIVER: What do I beat? TPTK and JJ and that is about it. I did under rep my hand on the flop, but does he shove TPTK. I don't think so, Maybe JJ. Everything else beats me that he plays this way.

Thoughts???

Ok on the flop just bet. We have a strong hand in the micro stakes. If you feel like you want to mix in some traps, pick a different hand to do it with. If we have ATs for instance, that makes it less likely they have a hand we can get value from since now it's less likely they have a T. If we have QQ, we don't block them from having a T so we should just bet ourselves.

In general, you can trap top pair, but don't trap overpairs. If you are going to trap an overpair, in general trap AA. We benefit a lot from betting QQ because we don't mind folding out a hand like AK. If we have AA, we don't care if they have AK and get to see a free turn.

In general people are not going to be bluffing that river spot a ton, but given that V can have worse hands for value like JJ I like calling, you mostly just got unlucky. The pot was 60 cents going into the flop and there was only $1.20 behind so we are just going broke there. If we are deepstack then we can consider our options, but this shallow it's bad luck.

glgl

Preflop I would 3bet bigger as you ideally want this to go HU with a low SPR to make things easier, and people at micros hate folding so you can get this situation to happen facing an even weaker range than you might suspect.

On flop I would lean towards betting this hand, the reason being that while you do want to slowplay some TP+ hands, you want to do it with hands that are not very vulnerable to a lot of turn cards and QQ runs the risk of getting outdrawn a decent amount of the time. For example, AA is a hand you may want to check in theory as you'll never see an overcard on the turn, and top set is a hand that blocks a lot of the hands villain will call a cbet with. However, at this limit I think you can say screw all that and just bet a sizeable amount with good hands because they will never bluff raise you enough and they will call way too much. I also think this board is far too draw heavy to do much checking on since you will often see a turn that prevents you from getting all the money in.

On turn I would just jam. You stand to have the best hand a large % of the time and there is a ton of worse hands that will call. You also need to fast-play most of your good hands because almost every river changes the board drastically, so getting it in now is the play.

LOL at the guy having kings

832 hands down. Getting close to the 10% mark. Things have been moving along slowly but surely. I got 250 hands in today, which may very well be the high number of hands on any single day for the entire challenge. There were 6 hands that I questioned myself on today. I am finding that I question myself on the hands I lose and not on the ones that I win. That does not seem to be the best way to get better. If I am making mistakes on hands that I lose, then I have to be making them on hands I win as well. I'll share this one from today. As always, any input is appreciated.

Holdem(No Limit) - $0.01/$0.02

UTG folds
UTG+1 calls $0.02
HERO (AcQc) raises $0.08 to $0.08
MP folds
MP folds
SB VILLAIN calls $0.07
BB calls $0.06
UTG+1 calls $0.06

*** FLOP *** [4c 8c 4h]

Main pot $0.31
VILLAIN checks
BB checks
UTG +1 checks
HERO bets $0.20
VILLAIN calls $0.20
BB folds
UTG+1 folds

** TURN *** [4c 8c 4h] [4s]

Main pot $0.69
VILLAIN checks
HERO bets $0.40
VILLAIN calls $0.40

*** RIVER *** [4c 8c 4h 4s] [Kc]

Main pot $1.45
VILLAIN checks
HERO checks

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Main pot $1.45
VILLAIN shows [8h 7h] (a full house, Fours full of Eights [4s 4h 4c 8h 8c])
HERO mucks hand

My real time analysis was that I was firing away with the equity from the flush draw and the overs in my hand. When I got to the river, I thought oh crap I am beat with the nut flush. I folded my hand and at first I felt good about the correct fold. I realized that if I was going to fold the nut flush on the river, then I should have never of bet the turn and cost myself an extra bet. Thoughts???

Hope this helps!

Good thing I read Ejames’ post before I posted because he said almost everything I wanted to say.

The only thing I would add is on the flop we have to be mindful of how multi-way we are. The more players, the more we might want to check our draws. On this exact flop though, we can still get a lot of folds multi-way since it’s not incredibly likely someone flopped a big hand. Even if they flopped an 8, we are flipping against them and we have turns and rivers we can barrel since the board can get pretty ugly for them.

On a board like K98 or 976 two clubs in a four way pot, we are going to want to check a lot of our flush draws.

@ejames209 and @Badreg2017

I appreciate your input. I read each comment in earnest and with an open mind.

I am 1,112 hands into the challenge. I started with 100.87 in the bankroll (I was incorrect in the original post) and I now have 98.92 in the bankroll. After over 1k hands, I am down 1.95.

Am I down 8.7bb / 100???

I feel like that I have played well, and ran bad. But it just as well may be that I have a lot play bad mixed in there as well. I will post more hands going forward. I hope to look back on this post in 9k hands and realize that it was mostly run bad. We shall see.

I am 1,357 hands in and I had my worst session of the challenge. These three hands all came happened within about 2 orbits of each other. Any input is appreciated on the hands or my thought process.

Holdem(No Limit) - $0.01/$0.02 -

Villain is 200BB deep and HERO is 100BB deep.

*** HOLE CARDS ***

UTG +1 folds
UTG +2 (Villain) raises $0.06 to $0.06
MP folds
MP +1 calls $0.06
MP +2 calls $0.06
Button (HERO 6d 5d) calls $0.06
SB calls $0.05
BB raises $0.16 to $0.18
Villain calls $0.12
MP + 1 folds
MP + 2 calls $0.12
HERO calls $0.12
SB calls $0.12

[*** FLOP *** [Jd Td 7d)
Main pot $0.92 | Rake $0.04

SB checks
BB checks
Villain bets $0.40
MP folds
HERO raises $1.00 to $1.00
SB folds
BB folds
Villain raises $3.78 to $4.18 and is all-in
HERO calls $0.78 and is all-in

My thoughts in this multi-way 3 bet pot after the flop is to try to get the money in the middle. This hand didn't bother me too bad after it was over. I am only crushed by AdKd, AdQd, KdQd, and 8d9d. Only 4 combos. Everybody else is calling with overs, sets, and draws to my flopped flush.

Thoughts???

Villain turned over KdQd.

Hand #2

- Holdem(No Limit) - $0.01/$0.02 -

VILLAIN (2.19) raises $0.06 to $0.06
FOLD
FOLD
HERO (10 10) (1.94) raises $0.24 to $0.24
FOLD
FOLD
FOLD
FOLD
FOLD
VILLAIN raises $0.69 to $0.75
HERO calls $0.51

*** FLOP *** [8 J 4]

VILLAIN bets $1.44 and is all-in
HERO folds

I feel like I am lighting money on fire here, but I am not sure what to do.

Just call the pre-flop raise.
Fold to the 4 bet. (Looking back, I think this may be the best play. I feel like I am behind, and I am only calling to hit a set.)

Thoughts??? Criticisms???

Hand #3

- Holdem(No Limit) - $0.01/$0.02 -

FOLD
HERO - 2.00 (KA) raises $0.06 to $0.06
FOLD
FOLD
VILLAIN - 2.00 raises $0.21 to $0.21
FOLD
FOLD
FOLD
FOLD
HERO raises $0.69 to $0.75
VILLAIN raises $1.79 to $2.00 and is all-in
HERO calls $1.25 and is all-in

Should I save my last 1.25 to a 5bet shove? or am I being to results oriented? Not sure how to play this.

Villain turned over KK and it held up.

There is a lot of Axdd hand here as well, maybe KJ/K10. Though I think we are getting It in anyways and hoping they are on a flush draw or have 2p/trips.

Personally I probably flat the 3-bet but more often than not and play the flop. After the 5-bet I think we can let this one go in 2NL as most ppl are not 5-bet with air.

I am now 2,779 hands in. I am averaging about 100 hands per day. I am down 5.98 since the beginning, which is 299 big blinds.

PROBLEMS

I am way to sticky with over pairs. I have gotten it all in on the bad end with over pairs on multiple occasions. I am looking forward to getting to the 10,000 hand mark, and I want to keep the thread going for accountability.

gl man