Hello, 2+2. Allow me an introduction:

I am a father of 2, husband of 1 (no sister wives allowed. Working on that) with another child on the way. I've been playing since 2007, with varying degrees of success. Usually being none. I have a full time job, and this past year has been the busiest year ever, so poker is definitely something I have to make time for.

In January I set a bunch of goals for myself. They involved certain profit levels and playing successively higher limits. I was not successful in these. In fact, this is now around the 1 year anniversary of where I started playing again after a bit of time away from poker, and I'm down $10 from where I started there.

I realized at the end of this year that those aren't meaningful goals. While they are achievable, presumably, and are easy to monitor (am I playing 25NL? Is my bankroll $700?) they don't imply a method of achieving those goals.

I have a good job. My life is good. I'm happy at home. I don't need poker. I don't need to get good at poker. However, poker is interesting, challenging, and has a depth to it that playing videogames in my spare time isn't going to give me. I don't have to rise through the levels to feel good about myself. I do think that I have the tools to get better, and would like to start improving. It will help keep my mind sharp and give me something else to think about. If I do get good, the extra cash I earn won't hurt, either.

Here's a graph of my cash game results since April, 2010:



I may be missing some hands, but that's about how it's gone. I haven't had to redeposit since I started out with a decent amount of money online, and have had a lot of bonuses/rakeback. I'm still down a net of $200 or so, and have bounced around for the last 18 months or so at the $200 level.

Again, I don't need to be playing Phil Galfond or Gus Hansen to feel good about myself. I just want to become as good as I can in the amount of time I have available.

My current goal is (I will probably add/modify to this through the year):

[ ] Spend 5 hours a week studying

Studying so far includes:

-- Actively watching a video
-- Session review
-- Posting/commenting on hands on forums
-- Other exercises

I've come across a couple of exercises that I think are reasonable. I will also be looking to focus my attention to one spot at a time, I think. I saw a video today in another thread that talked about tilt, but I think also applies to learning about your game:



I think that explains my end-of-year results where I've just been thinking about too many things at the same time while I'm playing.

Anyway, my old practice of just playing and hoping to get better hasn't worked. I'm not sure why I ever thought I would. This ought to work out better.

Somehow I forgot:

-- Reading
-- Being coached
as valid methods of study as well.

WEEK 1 FOCUS: Hand Selection
A ground-up review of my game logically starts here. Hand reading may be the most important skill, but if you raise with 72o routinely, it doesn't take much skill to figure out when you have the worst hand.
This morning I was considering what it takes to be a winner at 6max micro limits. You are paying the blinds at a rate of 25bb/100, and if you play a normal number of pots you'll also be paying 10-15 bb/100 in rake. Obviously you'll occasionally get a walk, but this means you have to pick up 35bb/100 just to break even.

Almost two months ago, I switched to 6max from FR. Since then, I've found I'm averaging a VPIP/PFR much higher than average. If I'm playing an extra 15 hands every 100, I'm adding another 45bb/100 to the leakage to my stack. Nothing very revolutionary here, but I need to be cognisant of that.

The other obvious problem with the hands I'm playing is that those hands are worse on average than those my opponents are playing. I don't have enough of a skill edge to win those extra chips.

I've worked out a standard starting hand range, and will focus my attention on it. If i can make that my standard starting range, it should help my profitability right away.

hello first of all want to wish you a nice cristmas!!The game that you play is limit or no limit??You say you are down 200dollar bud your graphs says 1800dollar where is differint??gl at the tables

hello watch the video and the guy is wirght had the same issue wen i start to learn about poker so many things bud focus at one at the time is best!!Hand starting guide is one of the first thinks i began with! will follow this thread gl at the tables

gl

GL but can I ask how many hands the graph contains?

Some SNGs, bonuses, that sort of thing. I played for a lot of hands at Everest where you could get 80% effective rakeback at the limits I played with their monthly bonus offers, and also aggressively chased bonuses elsewhere. There's about 300k hands in that DB. Some are undoubtedly missing, but this is the general trend.

I stopped playing at ongame sites a couple of years ago because I noticed a lot of my hands weren't importing properly.

285,000 hands across a bunch of sites. If it's not clear on the graph, the amount it is showing I am down is a little over $1600, leaving a $1400 discrepancy between my estimated drop in bankroll and what PT3 reports. That's less than 5bb/100 at 10NL. At Pokerstars, where micro rake is low, I've paid between 10bb/100 and 15bb/100 in rake. At other sites, it would have been higher. An average effective rakeback of just over 33% would probably cover the difference quite nicely.

Just a little back of the laptop calculating there. No guarantees of the accuracy of the numbers, nor were they intended to be. I simply wanted to show the state of my game.

My report finally finished. $4060 in rake over those hands. That number will be as accurate as any other, given I've had 3 laptops and 3 tracking software suites in that interval.

$1.42/100 hands in rake. Most of that volume is 10NL.

2 updates:

1) I have been focusing on sticking to my preflop ranges and doing so moderately well. Tonight I definitely did so better than last night, and also was better at folding vs. 3bets or OOP.

2) While I don't intend to update this thread with actual results too often, I should note I dropped down to 5NL after last night's session brought me below 20 buyins at 10NL. It then occurred to me that if I was working to change my game, I probably should have done so right off. I think the change was good in that I felt less ego-driven, making it easier to make what I thought were the right decisions. Unfortunately I had only 80 minutes to play tonight.

Full Tilt is offering a reload bonus, but I'll probably pass. As things stand right now, I can't qualify for another stellar reward or move beyond silver star, leaving net rake tied at both sites. Qualifying for bronze status would tip it in FT's favour except: a) the bonus is only good for 14 days, b) in 6 days I can start earning stellar rewards again, and c) with the VIP program changes next year, I might actually reach Gold star. Not that I like goals that revolve around paying more rake.

I wouldn't worry about any bonuses or Star statuses, I'd drop to the lowest stakes possible (2NL) and work up from there. I see you've a bit of bankroll sense but starting at the lowest level will give you a lot more buy ins to work on your game. Sensible bankroll is key when you move up levels.

Have a read of pokerschoolonline.com, they have a load of free videos and training sessions that will start to sort your game correctly.

Hand selection is probably the most important point you can work on atm. Just rock up, playing only premiums and decent hands with aggression. When you do get a monster, use the pot betting function if there is one. That should make you break even for a start, you can always introduce other hands when you get into winning ways.

I'm a SnG player but if I were to play cash that's exactly what I'd do.

Regards

Gl Tsar.
I find myself in somewhat the same situation like you. Father of two, married to one. No third on the way though.
Grats & gl with the third one.
Will follow

Ovalman: thanks for the input. I'll check out the site. I am not really worried about status or bonuses. I'm just trying to get the lowest effective rake.

Wheelsie: always nice to hear from others in the same situation.

how many tables do you play??how many hours in a month??you rakeback of 4000dollar is great at these limits or are you grinding like hell???gl at the tables

I've played up to 8 regularly in the past. I'm currently restricting myself to 4 maximum. I find it hard to focus on the action and opponents beyond that, and think 3 is probably my optimal number for now.

I can get only play once the kids are in bed and things are cleaned up. Lately I've been getting a maximum of 2.5 hours. A night. I think I'm currently averaging 50-60 hours a month.

I'm using TiltBreaker with a stop loss of 2.5 buyins before it enforces a break. I've been hitting that most nights, restricting my play time. Hopefully that will be corrected by moving down, then a steady improvement in my play. Last night was the first time in awhile that it triggered a break due to session length.

GL OP, gonna start simular thread later on this week, subscribed!

Thanks. I'll be watching for yours.

Well what do you know? My worst hands are costing me money.

When I filter for hands that are not in my default button opening range where there were at least 4 players and VPIP=true, my results were 1.56 bb per hand worse than my results for my average hand where the other conditions were true, but I was not filtering the hand itself.

Ie. my average result for all 4-or-more-handed hands where I voluntarily put money in the pot was -0.11 bb per hand. My result for the hands I don't have in my current button opening range was -1.67 bb per hand.

I don't recall right off the top of my head, but there were approximately 250 of these hands, for an overall loss of $70 or so. I'm actually down $190 for the month so far. I'll start looking at each position and see where the rest is coming from.

One leak I've had in the past is calling 3bets too often. That's one that can cost a lot. I'll check for that when I get home tonight.

Anyway, preflop hand selection seems to have been an excellent spot to start. I'll have to postpone working through my combinatorics text for another week or two.

GL this year and thanks for the post I'll be following you along

Sorry, missed part of this. That's not $4000 in rakeback. I've paid $4000 in rake.

I've been going over my results for the month when facing a 3bet, and the results were dismal. I thought I'd try to find which hands I was working with profitably and use that as my 3bet calling/4betting range. I don't see a profitable range other than AA, however. There's no other hand that I've been consistently profitable with when facing a 3bet.

That suggests a topic for review. I'm not sure how I would select a reasonable calling/4betting range if I don't know how to play in those situations other than try to get all in with aces and not get sucked out on.

One other note to make- I wasn't losing 1.67 bb/hand when playing those off-hands. I was losing 1.67 BB/hand. Twice as bad.

Continuing with the theme of preflop hand selection, for those of you who may not have seen it, here is my favourite post ever on preflop hand selection:

Think about Shania

So far so good. Between reading, videos and analysis, I got in 6 hours of study, with a primary focus on hand selection.

I am on vacation, and can't readily play on my laptop, so I'm working on ingraining my preflop ranges by playing Zoom on my mobile when the rest of the family is sleeping. I think it's working.

Here's hoping everyone on Pokerstars is drunk.