Lol he did say around $200

Had no stats on the player. Thoughts on just folding to the 4-bet? I know it's bad in theory but it just felt like AA, KK especially with the sizing, and a little the timing. Sometimes this happens where I want to make the big fold then I 2nd guess it and think something along the lines of "you can't just 3-bet/fold QQ" or whatever. Maybe I should trust the gut a bit more.

PokerStars Zoom, Hold'em No Limit - $0.25/$0.50 - 6 players
Replay this hand on Upswing Poker - https://upswingpoker.com/replayer/225dx6DHF

ClinHelen (UTG): $56.02 (112 bb)
resendeandre (MP): $60.16 (120 bb)
MonPChan (CO): $52.73 (105 bb)
keysersozeXI (BU): $50.00 (100 bb)
DannyLennon (SB): $175.90 (352 bb)
Anti_GTO (BB): $63.39 (127 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.75) Hero (DannyLennon) is SB with Q♠ Q♥
ClinHelen (UTG) raises to $1.50, 3 players fold, DannyLennon (SB) 3-bets to $6, 1 fold, ClinHelen (UTG) 4-bets to $17.50, DannyLennon (SB) calls $11.50

Flop: ($35.50) 4♥ 3♣ 8♦ (2 players)
DannyLennon (SB) checks, ClinHelen (UTG) bets $38.52 (all-in), DannyLennon (SB) calls $38.52

Turn: ($112.54) 6♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($112.54) K♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $112.54 (Rake: $2)

Showdown:
ClinHelen (UTG) shows A♣ A♦ (a pair of Aces)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 81%, Flop: 92%, Turn: 95%, River: 100%)

DannyLennon (SB) shows Q♠ Q♥ (a pair of Queens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 19%, Flop: 8%, Turn: 5%, River: 0%)

ClinHelen (UTG) wins $110.54

Day 9 Update: 50NL Shot!
Bankroll: $2887 (Had to withdraw a little but hoping not to take much more out)

So I'm gonna keep playing 25NL but I figured it's friday night, I'm sure to have a higher winrate at this particular time and I have the roll so why not. It went great, probably going to play some more 50NL tomorrow night.

Today results:


Total results:


So moving foward it's probably going to be a mixture of 25NL/50NL, goal is still 300k hands at 5bb/100 (for both I guess).

Also bought the monitor, will show new setup on Monday.

Is that a standard 4! size?

No it's pretty big, So I 3-bet 12BB and I guess standard 4bet here is like 26bbish? He made it 35bb, which combined with the quickness of it made me want to fold pre.

Day 10 Update: Biggest loss
Bankroll: $2350

So miserable day like the title suggests, mostly 50NL. I'm going to drop back to 25NL, I think the difference between the 2 stakes is night and day. Of course I don't want to stay at 25NL but my redline at 50NL is terrible and I obviously have some huge leaks, I'm just not exactly sure what they are. I guess I just need to put a lot of work into the common spots for now.

Total results:


50NL Total graph for the year:


It's pretty much the polar opposite of my 25NL graph, also it's weird because Im beating 100NL over the same sample.

New monitor comes Monday, I might experiment with 4 regular tables and 2 zoom. and look for the softest tables. It would roughly be the same hands maybe a little less, but could be worth it.

Update: 75K hands in 6 days!!!


So long story short, I complained to Pokerstars about my weekly challenges being so low and they gave me this:


It's a massive bonus and I'm sure I only get it this week and next week onwards it will be $150. The problem is it's pretty hard to hit at 25NL, it will take about 75k hands. With my new setup I've been playing 1200 hands/ hour. So including today I have to play about 10-12 hours every day for 6 days, but whatever let's do it! I'll get $600 from the chest and $375 from the other chests, hopefully run good in Poker too.

So yeah no updates for 5 days till I'm done, wish me luck

Nice one, how did you contact them to negotiate? I have some ridiculously low reward.

Well it was $150 a week in April. I was playing $100NL at that point and it had built up. So I was getting the same 1 as I am now but it was 10% rakeback instead of 40%. I believe they give you 40% for the 1st 1 and then 10% after that if you're a reg. Then April I took a break after the big downswing and all of May it was $2. So I wrote to them through the client and they asked if I'd like to go back to the $150 1, I said yeah and the next day they gave me it with 40% rakeback. There's actually 2 of them so If I grinded 100NL for like 50-60 hours I'd make $1200 but I don't have the bankroll for it. I'll probably split it up between 25NL and 50NL.

Updates please how the grind went?

BIG update tonight my guy! Also great name, smokes lets go

Day 16 Update: Looooong week

Starting Bankroll: $1600
Total withdrawals: $470
Bankroll: $4563
Profit: +$3433

So this week was a long grind. I really wanted the $600 rakeback bonus because I doubt I'll get it again. I ended up 4 tabling 50NL zoom with 2 normal tables aswell, and after a rocky start I made a pretty decent profit. Last night I entered the "big $33" tournament. The idea was to stop me taking breaks from cash games I'll enter a tournament that I have to play. Ended up 2nd in that for like $600. All in all with profit and bonuses we're up $2500ish this week.

Moving foward I'm gonna take a breather tonight and think about my plan for 50NL. I'm still a losing player at that level and I need to make some big changes in my game. I might get a block of coaching for around $400. Also maybe for the next while decrease volume of playing and focus more on PIO solver stuff. IF they give me another $600 rakeback challenge (I doubt it), then for sure I'm going for it again.

Anyway here's the graphs for this week:




Total cash graph since challenge start:

Okay so just got my cashback offer and it's the same!



So here's my thinking. While playing 50NL zoom 4 tables with 2 normal I could make 200 points an hour. At that rate let's say I went all out and played 75 hours this week, I could unlock both boxes for $1200. That would also get me 2 normal boxes for $500. So if I went for it I'd make $1700 in rakeback bonus alone per week. Or I shot take 100NL zoom, it's a little bit riskier, I've been trying to over-estimate variance and playing a more risk adverse BR management strategy but considering this won't last for ever maybe I go for it. The downside is everything else in life suffers when you grind this much. All advice welcome, weird spot haha

maybe im late but about the monitors I recently bought a xiaomi ultrawide 1440p monitor (144hz) and it works great, you can 6 table and still have the session stats/lobby open

it was maybe around 300€

Super frustrating heads up match, big lead coming in got QQ vs KK and JJ vs KK. Would have been a big tourny win Oh well

Day 20 Update: Breaking Even at 100NL

Starting Bankroll: $1600
Total withdrawals: $470
Bankroll: $5954.86
Profit: +$4824.86

So since I got great reward opportunities I decided to play 100NL to try and hit them. I'm half way through the week and got 1 for $600, still another available. It went really well then had a big downswing today, lost $800 in a few hours. My problem is I'm a breakeven 100NL player and deservedly so. I'm hopeless in SB vs BB against decent regs, I'm pretty much guessing how to deal with overbets and I've got some more weaknesses probably some I'm not even sure about.

I need coaching for sure. As always advice is welcome and appreciated. I thought about buying the UPSWING course Elite cash game exploits by Uri Peleg. It seems like a good use of money even if it is 1/6 of my bankroll. However it might not address my main issues and maybe a personal coach would be better.

Total cash graph since challenge start:


Total torunament graph since challenge start:


Good news is my overall goal for the 50 days challenge was $5K profit, which we hit (almost)