I have been playing poker for a few years now though haven't played much in the last 4 years. I did open a few threads with similar challenges before but never completed or took them seriously. Now I am looking to get better at the game and play regularly. Will be playing mostly on Indian sites and CoinPoker at NL2 and NL5.

In preparation for the new year I have played last week and these are the results.

Initial Bankroll - INR 6450 (Deposited on Indian Sites)
Total Hands -2416
Results INR -510
Rakeback INR 324
PnL INR -186


Results are tracked in excel as not all sites I play on have trackers.

On coin poker I did manage to get a ticket from a freeroll satty and then got 4th place in the tournament for $24.
So at the beginning of 2024 I have about 10 buyins for NL5 (INR 2/5) on one site where it is the lowest stake and 7 for NL2 (INR1/2) on another site. On CoinPoker I will keep playing freerolls and will start cash once I have 10 buyins for NL5.

This is not enough from a bankroll perspective though I intend to add to some other sites once I am in the groove of multitabling more than my current limit of 3.

Targets for 2024:
Main target for the year will be play 250k hands.

It was an interesting beginning to the year. Deposited in Adda52 for INR 1000, taking total deposits to 7450. Got a couple of tickets for depositors freerolls though I don't yet know when they are.

The new site proved to be different at NL2 in the players seemed to be more passive and their bets seems almost always for value, though with only 498 hands played there maybe I am concluding too fast and results oriented as I was shown the goods whenever I tried to bluff catch. Overall, it was not a great day for the cash games.

Hands Played = 1132
Result for today = INR -475
Rakeback = INR 73
Current Bankroll = INR 6862

It was a great start to the year for Tournament in Coinpoker. Cashed in the Santa Freeroll 23/318 for T0.33 and also managed to get a ticket from a freeroll satty.

And then I had my first ship in about 4 years in the Daily micro R+A (0.1 buyin)


Overall, it was fairly good day as I feel I am better equipped to handle the cash games in Adda52 where the volume is better at NL2.

I was wrong about being better equipped to handle the game yesterday. I had a horrible day at the tables and ended up playing very poorly. I was probably tilting a bit by the end of the session so I stopped playing after 3 hours. With 4 tables now I was finding it hard on my laptop so I am investing in a used monitor a friend is selling for about 4000 INR (50 USD).

I studied a bit looking through my hands in Hand2Note and the biggest losses showed a pattern of calling overbet shoves on turn/river. It happened about 8 times yesterday and I won 1 time and lost 7 times. Of the 7 losing hands I was only ahead 2 times when the money went in. Even when I was ahead the bets were for value and not a single bluff came in. I will need to tighen my calling range to this kind of shoves and that should help stem the losses.

Hands Played = 705
Result for Today = INR -879
Rakeback = INR 75
Current bankroll = INR 6101

The Monitor came in today and immediately I can feel the advantage of the higher screen estate. I don't have to continuously juggle which is a nice thing and helped my focus.

Yesterday's study proved to be helpful, and reducing the number of shoves I called helped me save a bunch of money. I am not sure if this is a good EV line, but I have managed to stem the cash burn a bit and got my first positive session of the year.

I am almost out of cash in Adda52 so I may need to deposit again, though one of the sites I was playing in hardly sees volume so I might withdraw there and move it to Adda.

Hands Played = 898
Result for Today = INR 685
Rakeback = INR 133
Current bankroll = INR 6920

Overall NL2 results = 2735 hands at -6.28bb/100

I busted the initial deposit in Adda so I had to reload 1000 INR more. I tried to withdraw from the other site but could not as wagering requirements were not met. So, for now the total deposits go up to 8450 INR. I will have to be careful with the bankroll as I don't want to keep on reloading more and more.

In terms of gameplay the day was low in volume as I was in dilemma whether to reload or not and it affected my gameplay as well. I am realizing how being in a good mental space is so important to be playing decent poker. Already this way of handling my game where I am trying to justify the expense before doing it seems a tough but necessary step. Being disciplined is important as otherwise before I have just reloaded with no clear plan. I may have to deposit more so I need to put a stop loss number. I am thinking of 20k INR as that would be 100 buyins at NL2. If I lose more than 5k on any site I will also stop reloading there till I have better results on other sites.

Hands Played = 677
Result for Today = INR 21
Rakeback = INR 111
Current bankroll = INR 8065

Overall NL2 results = 3412 hands at -2.91bb/100

There was this hand yesterday which I misplayed yesterday I think and would like to get thoughts on.

I probably should not have called the donk overbet shove on the river but I was getting 4:1 on the call. But against this passive fish probably nothing other than the nuts.
Is there any other way I should look to play on flop or turn?

I would play it the same way except iso-ing bigger pre, on the river i'm not in love but who knows he could be overplaying AJ/AK or decide to something silly with like KQ, if it was a pot sized shove its a little bit nastier, probably just close my eyes and call.

I don't know if the site you're playing on has a auto top-up function but I would always have 100bbs if that option is available

Thanks @EpicWin. This site has 50bb max buyin on NL2 and the other 2 sites I play on is 60bb and 100bb. All have auto topup but I have disabled it worriyng I will donk off my small bankroll if I have auto topup.

Having said that I really think it is a good idea, I will try it in one site to trial. Thanks for the tip.

The first week of January proved to be fairly brutal in terms of results. Overall I lost about 8 buyins at NL2 before rakeback and 3.5 buyins including rakeback. Its been a tough start to the journey but I should not have been expecting to suddenly turn up after 4 years and expecting to win suddenly. My gameplay has been poor and I have played some extremely bad hands but I will have to take it in my stride and play on.

End of week Results:

Hands Played - 6736
Results = INR -1421
Rakeback = INR 701
PNL = INR -720


Key Takeaways:

1. Stop calling down big bets on river
2. Iso raise bigger as they never seem to fold pre
3. increase aggression on the turn when they check back flop OOP

These 3 things are the most important things to keep working on this week. Keeping things simple and grinding away probably is the thing to continue doing this week as well.

In general when they take a strong line usually it really is a strong hand >80% of the time, at least on the GG network. To compensate for this people are also nits generally so you can apply lot of pressure when their ranges are weak and yours is stronger. But maybe at the site you're playing on it could be different.

Its fairly similar to what you are saying @EpicWin. Preflop they don't want to fold and generally goes multiway to flop. Which makes it harder to apply pressure with air because someone hits the board. I think my approach will have to be more towards value betting.

Jamming premiums seems a good idea too, I am seeing open shoves called by horrible hands for 30-40bb stacks.

Had a couple of good sessions in the last 2 days. Reducing call down of big bets on the river has been a good adjustment to my game so far. I am missing out on the big pots and probably overfolding but so far I have not seen any excessive river raising. At NL2 on the sites I play there are only 3-4 regs, so I am not expecting too much exploitation anyway.

Yet to work on the remaining 2 takeaways from last week as I am trying to focus on one thing at time. Today I also tried to play 6 tables for the 1st time, though I did struggle a bit I think it will be comfortable to play 6 tables soon.

As for study I downloaded Equilab and did some equity training on BTN vs BB. One consistent theme there is I am overestimating my equity when I miss the board.

Results for 8th and 9th January:

Hands Played = 2537
Results = INR 509
Rakeback = INR 127
PNL = INR 636

Should we value bet the river?

Is villain calling with worse?

I got spooked by the flush completing and checked back. But now that I think about it, I dont think there is any worse hand that calls the 3rd barrel.

I think the opponent with 50/8 stats will not fold Jx to a 1/2 pot bet.

Over the last 2 days I have been experimenting with different settings in the poker clients, using a 4 color deck and playing up to 8 tables. (4 tables of NL2 and 4 tables of NL1), hoping the 4 tables of relatively low risk NL1(they have a max buyin of 40bb) will help me with getting my speed up to the mark. I did experiment with hotkeys for folding as well but that is something that will take more time to get used to. I ended up folding AA and few more premium hands while using hotkeys so I have disabled it for the time being.

One of the sites I was playing on hasn't seen NL2 table running which is a bit sad as even though there used to be only 1 table running there they had a good promotion for playing hands which was easy to get and I have made almost 3 buyins using that. Missing that will hurt me in the short term as I am not yet profitable before the offers. On the other side I have made enough points to move to silver bracket on another site which doubles the rake back offered. I have made so far 15bb there in rakeback so the value is not high but still better than nothing.

I have withdrawn 2000 INR to bring the total deposits down to the original 7450 INR.

NL2 action has been continues to be low on my sites, and the reason for that I think is the fact is NL2 and NL5 are sharing the same leaderboard promotion, so players are playing more on NL5. As a result I have also moved to NL5 playing 1 or 2 tables. Its a risky strategy and I am giving myself 5 buyins at NL5. Also I have reduced playing on one site without hud as I think I need to have the hands in a tracker for me to be able to review them. Unfortunately, Hand2Note seems to miss a few hands every session even where it can track and while the overall picture should be fairly accurate over a decent size sample, it is annoying for sure.

NL2 graph:


NL5 graph:


Overall Results:


I did manage to finish 2nd on the leaderboard yesterday for a locked bonus of 222. These have 30 day expiry so hard to get them fully. I am counting them in full as the cashier adds them up immediately.

Current Bankroll: INR 7031

The 5 buyin shot at NL5 has ended horribly with me losing all 5 buyins. So back to the grind in NL2. With so few tables running at NL2 it will be hard but we will get there.

NL2:


NL5:


Results:


Current Bankroll - 6073

Results have been better on the untracked site, but with no hand history available there, I don't know if I am running good or doing something different.

Others:
I have found StackAndTile and I am using that to experiment with multi-tabling more. I am only playing 4 tables at the moment. So far I like what I see, folding a hand and not seeing I would have hit a big hand means I don't brood on it. Lets do the 15 day trail and see where it takes me.

Been dabling a bit in Tournaments but haven't cashed in yet.

I have been using Hand2Note3 beta since the beginning of the challenge but now I have found that DriveHud tracks all the sites I am playing on. So I am on the trial version of it, 30 days trial and I hope I can make enough money to buy the full version from the challenge itself. If we can do that it will be really nice. I find the convivence of having the tracker so my spreadsheet can just track cashier and rakeback/promotions each day very useful and DriveHud may become my playing tracker permanently if that happens. I do have PT4 that I bought long back and that is where my overall results are being stored, as I am more comfortable using it.

Volume has been less in the last few days as I am now doing 1-2 tables, slowing down to take more time into my decisions. I am tightening up my preflop play and to that regard I found this website called FreeBetRange which allows us to create our own ranges preflop. I have created a basic range for myself based on the various charts I have found on the internet, and its tighter than recommended but with most pots being multiway at NL2/NL5 I am trying to keep things simple. As I get more comfortable I will look to add more hands. I was ending up with higher VPIP than I should based on the ranges. As a result, after every 1hr session I am filtering the hands by position and going through what I have played outside my planned range and why. It has been a good exercise as I have reduced some of the errors.

Things to focus next:

1. Keep working on preflop and get inline with the planned ranges
2. Introduce light 3-bets into preflop play
3. Reduce calling from small blind as the price is good.
4. Raise from big blind more when there are limpers.

The work done in the past week finally seems to be bringing the preflop play in line with the expected ranges. I have now got solid stats in the opening and isolating limpers more rather than limping behind.



Things to focus next:

• Keep working on preflop and get inline with the planned ranges
  EP to CO and BB seems ok, need to work more on BTN and SB
• Introduce light 3-bets into preflop play
  Not yet started
• Reduce calling from small blind as the price is good.
  On the small blind calling has been a big leak in my preflop game and I am happy to see VPIP is down from 36 to 26 in the small blind.
• Raise from big blind more when there are limpers.
  I am making massive blunders playing postflop OOP when I do this. Need to take this slow

All values in Drivehud images are shown in $ but they are in INR

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD 2 Poker Tracking Software

NL Holdem 2.0(BB)
UTG ($141) [VPIP: 25.5% | PFR: 2% | AGG: 11.1% | Hands: 51]
HJ ($152) [VPIP: 24.2% | PFR: 21.5% | AGG: 28.7% | Hands: 299]
CO ($70) [VPIP: 33.1% | PFR: 11.9% | AGG: 17% | Hands: 119]
HERO ($100) [VPIP: 21.2% | PFR: 16.2% | AGG: 21.4% | Flop Agg: 23% | Turn Agg: 27.6% | River Agg: 20.3% | 3Bet: 4.1% | 4Bet: 5.4% | Hands: 2166]
SB ($68) [VPIP: 60.6% | PFR: 21.2% | AGG: 37.4% | Flop Agg: 37.9% | Turn Agg: 42.9% | River Agg: 32.1% | 3Bet: 0% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 52.4% | Hands: 102]
BB ($137) [VPIP: 14.6% | PFR: 2.1% | AGG: 20.3% | Flop Agg: 18.2% | Turn Agg: 29.4% | River Agg: 18.2% | 3Bet: 3.3% | 4Bet: 0% | Cold Call: 5.9% | Hands: 340]

Dealt to Hero: 9 7

UTG Folds, HJ Folds, CO Folds, HERO Raises To $5, SB Calls $4, BB Calls $3

Hero SPR on Flop: [4.2 effective]
Flop ($15): 3 T 2
SB Checks, BB Checks, HERO Checks

Turn ($15): 3 T 2 6
SB Checks, BB Bets $8 (Rem. Stack: $124), HERO Calls $8 (Rem. Stack: $87), SB Calls $8 (Rem. Stack: $55)

River ($39): 3 T 2 6 3
SB Checks, BB Checks, HERO Bets $24 (Rem. Stack: $63), SB Raises To $55 (allin), BB Folds, HERO Calls $31 (Rem. Stack: $32)




The pot odds were 3.8:1 so seemed an easy call. Sets and Full houses seemed unlikely given the play but is villain doing this multiway without a better flush? All amounts are INR.

We are finally beginning to win a bit at NL2 and the hard work done of the virtual tables is showing results. In the last 5 days I have played about 2800 hands and made 6 buyins bringing the bankroll back up to 7900 INR. It was at this point earlier I had started my 5 buyin NL5 shot and that is probably worth giving another try.


NL2 graph (from 19th Jan when I installed DriveHud)



I am studying Jonathan Little's free ebook "Strategies for beating Small Stakes Cash Games" at the moment and will be taking the NL5 shot once I finish it. It is a short ebook with just 77 pages but the content is dense and though I dont expect to get everything in one go, I want to read it up quickly and then get back to it after playing some hands.

Key Takeaways From reading Jonathan Little's book

Focus on your opponent's range while calling. Find ways to 3-bet bluff to take dead money out of game.

Multiway Squeeze play can be very useful. Find the correct bet size that make people fold.

Get comfortable playing post flop well, the tricky spots must be learned now else we will get destroyed in higher stakes.

Raise limpers with hands that flop poorly A-4, K-6 etc to steal their limps.

As a short stack, look for All-in situations with Suited Connectors and Suited Aces to get the raw equity + fold equity to make a profitable play. Though calling range can be tight against loose opponents we will pick up pots often to make it profitable.

In small stakes cash games you should try to maximize your value from each and every hand you play.

Bet with the intention of folding to a raise. Most players at low stakes are not raising without a premium hand.
Many players will be raising top pair and we should be looking to call with Overpairs and TPTK.

Thoughts:

I am feeling a lot more confident after reading the book. I have come to the realization that I have been playing extremely poorly postflop. I went back through my results so far and realized that the only site I have positive results is the one with 100bb stacks and I have lost in other sites with 50bb stacks. I will have to have different strategies while playing the 2 different stack sizes, which is obvious in hindsight but something that was not obvious to me before.

End of January Update

It's been a month into this challenge, and it's been a great learning experience. NL2 has proved to be pure humbling experience and proved me how much I need to learn to beat even the lowest stakes in the game. I had a lot of free time this month and I got in 30k hands. This means I have grossly underestimated how much time I need to play to be able to get 250k hands this year as I will not have this much free time for the rest of the year. So, I will have to reevaluate the number of hands I will be able to realistically play over the coming months. Having said that I also think I will definitely be able to get better in this game.

Gameplay Leaks

1. I play like a calling station on the river. I have a hard time laying down hands if I have a good hand.
2. I overplay pocket pairs. I need to learn to lay down JJ+ when the overcard comes on the flop and the opponent is being aggressive.
3. Lots of players have small stacks and they jam facing an open. While some do jam with absolute garbage, most of the time it is AT+,22+ and we need to be beating that range before calling.

Observations
The first 20k hands were absolutely horrendous with me losing at -8bb/100. The last 10k hands have been better with me winning at 3bb/100 though I have been lucky as my Allin adjusted is 1bb/100. I don't think I have gone from being a losing player to breakeven all of a sudden and probably my overall rate of -4.4bb/100 is more indicative of my current ability.

Rake is huge at my stakes ranging from 5.9-6.4% with 12-13bb cap. Overall, I have been paying 14bb/100 at NL2 and 12.6bb/100 at NL5. Promotions are decent and partly offset the high rake.

January Results

Hands Played 30733
Results on Tables INR -1775
Rakeback/Promotions INR 2841
Bankroll INR 8330

Goals for February

• Play 25k hands
• Build a basic postflop strategy
• Continue working on preflop 3-bets