Professor donkey is back at again with a straight up, set over set, house over flush, masterful blog!

I cheated from home in the sense that I began my challenge two months ago after a 2 - 3 year long hiatus from poker. Ever since I turned 18 I was a living donk legend in the depths of 4 NL, but I never stuck with poker for long enough to actually get out of the micros.

I think the reason was:
a) lack of skills
b) Risk averse and too social to ever grind it out for long enough stretches.
Also c) my ex girlfriend did NOT like the degenerate side of gambling. In her eyes, poker was equivilant to shooting heroin.

But luckily for me I am now a student with the following going for me:
Single, dead inside, and seeking the thrill of bad priorities.

Sarcasm aside, I have always been a student of the game. I was always winning the lower stakes but had difficulties adjusting when moving up in stakes, so I never made it further than 10 NL. I have never gone broke, but I have also never deposited more than $50 at a time, and I always ended up quitting and withdrawing what few hundres I had build my bankroll to.


I started playing again this summer, and I think my game has gotten to a point where poker is becoming a very profitable side hustle for me as a student, and since I have no one to talk to about poker IRL I feel the need to post about it on the internet.

So I started playing again during the summer. Deposited 80 euros on unibet and played it up to around 150. I decided I didn't want to grind 4 NL for the rest of my life, so I took a shot and deposited $350 on PartyPoker and jumped straight up to 10 NL. I did this exactly two months ago.

Things have gone well. My bankroll grew during september, and at around $750 I took my first stab at 25 NL which also went well straight away, and since then it has been a pretty smooth ride. Today marks day 61 of the challenge, and my bankroll is sitting at $1440, with me still playing 25 NL - Preparing for a push to 50 NL sooner rather than later. My goal is for my bankroll to hit $2500 before the end of the year, and 2022 I want to cement myself as a 100NL+ player with a bankroll of 10k. I figure this is my shot at this poker thing, and even though my studies may lack a bit because of it, I really can't help it. I'm addicted to this ****, and it is on my mind 24/7.

Day 1: $350
Day 30: $790
Day 60: $1440


October month saw me hit 55k hands which is an obcene amount if you ask me, but I'm hoping for an additional 30k hands next month.

Graph for October:

Downswing is my 18k hands where my world got Rocked in the fast Forward format. I tried to 4 table zoom and I just played horribly. Will stick to the format that seems to be the best fit for me, so no more zoom for now.

Weekly update:
Pretty good week. After having a horrible losing session, I've gone on to having 5 consecutive winning ones.
01. Nov: -$171
02. Nov: $8
03. Nov: $48
04. Nov: $89
05. Nov: $262

I got my bankroll back to 1500 today and took my first stab at 50 NL where I ran good well winning two all ins.
Bankroll is now at: $1656


Special hand of the week:

I wonder if we always call here? At the time I felt that he had a set of 4's or 3's way to often here. He didnt reraise, not afraid of Kings, aces not even AJ. Maybe Q10cc calls and makes the straight on the river? A few bd flushes as well I guess, but the bd flush doesn't fit the X/r line, unless its something like 65cc.

***** Hand History For Game 16361579983487373m99i9mn *****
0.25/0.50 Texas Holdem Game Table (NL) - Fri Nov 05 20:18:21 EDT 2021
Table Paris 51 (Real Money) -- Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 6/6
Seat 1: Player5 ($50.50)
Seat 2: Player6 ($50.75)
Seat 3: Player1 ($63.94)
Seat 4: Player2 ($50)
Seat 5: Hero ($130.83)
Seat 6: Player4 ($81.49)
Player1 posts small blind (0.25)
Player2 posts big blind (0.50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Kd, Ad ]
Hero raises 1.25 to 1.25
Player4 folds
Player5 folds
Player6 folds
Player1 folds
Player2 calls (0.75)
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Ac, 4s, 3s ]
Player2 checks
Hero bets (0.81)
Player2 raises 3 to 3
Hero calls (2.19)
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Kc ]
Player2 bets (6.24)
Hero calls (6.24)
** Dealing River ** : [ Jc ]
Player2 bets (39.51)
Player2 is all-In.
Hero folds

So after having acquired gto+ and having looked over my general stats, I came to the conclusion that I was not cbetting enough. During the last two weeks I tried to adjust my game, and at first it came with bad results, as I was just doing things different from what I was used to. I came across GTO Wizard where I looked over their preflop ranges, and surprisingly at 6 Max it had vastly different hands included in its range.

After playing around with it, I came to the realisation that I was 3betting hands that should never be 3bet in 100 bb stacked games. 76s btn vs CO? Don't do it.

Pocket 77s Co vs HJ, fold that ****.

66 UTG? Fold that **** most of the time.
Instead, pretty much play hands that would make sense to play if you were shorthanded. I think we're used to playing 100 BB as if it was "fairly deep" and most advice given today is given based on merit that may not actually be correct when considering the stack sizes. So perhaps a lot of the fun hands that we deem correct to play every now and then such as calling with lower pocket pairs, opening suited connectors from HJ / co, or reraising with from the SB are actually not very profitable all things considered.

After having tightened up in spots similar to these the game has become a lot more profitable for me. Even though I considered my vpip fairly good, in the area of 22 - 25, it most likely wasn't considering that I was considering a K10s fold to an UTG raise to be correct, while also considering 3betting 78s from sb/btn vs btn/co to be correct.

I think keeping those hands out of our range unless we're opening from btn or defending from the bb is for the best in the end, and even though my vpip will be between 18 - 21 instead of 22 - 25, we can 3bet and win preflop a higher percentage of the time since we block combos that will 4bet us, so less is given to the rake gods.

I'm sure this is the superior way

Second day of taking a stab at 50 NL:
Ran pretty well, got in 2k hands today.
Started the session with $1656 ended it with $1860 which is an all time high.
It's also great since it does provide my bankroll with a bit of room for a downswing which is awesome.

Lost 4 buyins the other day, did however receive an additonal $70 in rakeback.
Won a bit over 1 buyin yesterday, so in total I'm at around $1760 right now.

I have an exam coming up on thursday, but will still be able to get in multiple hours a day probably lol

I ran crazy good today.

Won with set over set, set running into TPTK punt, AKs winning over Aces, hitting a two outer on the river, reraises coming through and folding queens to Kings + Jacks all in.
Gotta appreciate a good run without letting the run good distort reality - lets stay grounded!


But I am up $360 for the day and my bankroll is now at $2128.

Just adding a cute link of my disgusting run good.

Got in 1.1k hands today.
Lost pretty much all all ins against short stacks today, but ran well in the big all ins.
One 1/25 flip happened, where my queens held up against Kings in both run it twice boards.
Another one on the flop where my I flopped queens, and got it all in against a flush draw. The flush draw came in on a turn that also completed a fullhouse for me.
Up $92 dollars today.
Bankroll is at $2218, but no more poker today nor tomorrow I think.


Have a calculus exam tomorrow after which I'm getting shitfaced, so If I'm active tomorrow then thats most likely not a good sign

Been a long time since the last update.
Went on a downswing in 50 NL, -$800 in 4 days or so.
Moved back down to 25 NL, lost a few more buy ins, took a small break, studied a bit and then decided to move to Pokerstars with $1300 bankroll.
Thus far its going well, and zoom has been fun.
Bankroll is currently $1650.
Uploaded some streamhighlights:

Another good day, up $180.
Been running crazy good, and am $300 above adj ev, but still very happy with my overall game. Been adjusting it, cbetting range a lot more and have upped my cbetting aroun 6 - 10 % since switching over to pokerstars, and I've also adjusted my fold to cbets so that I am folding something like 10 % more. This has made post flop a lot easier, and have for sure helped a lot.

Bankroll is now $1935

I still throw in 76s as 3-bet, those can play well heads-ups. If you only raise with nutted hands, you can become predictable. Doesn't have to be every suited connector, but I think you will benefit from some 3-bets here.

Not exactly sure what you are refering to, but you read my mind since I’m not 3betting SC often, only at a low frequency. 76s is however the sc i 3bet and play at the highest frequency.


Edit: ahh as a response to my earlier post. Since moving to zoom where stack sizes vary, I have adjusted accordingly

Update: So I am moving in with two friends in less than a week, which will be a total of $700 for one month of rent at my old place + what my deposit doesn’t cover and an additional $3000 up front at the new place. I have $6k in the stock market of which I have decided to withdraw it all. Most of it will go to moving expenses but the remaining 2k I will use to play some live poker at the local casino, just to give it a shot. This is a very small bankroll for live, only like 500bb, so I will need to run good. If the first night goes badly, I’ll wait for my online bankroll to grow.

Another good day. Ran bad in the beginning, but after 3k volume I turned the session around. Adj ev was above today, but I was almost a bit happy since I've been running so much above it for the last week or so.


Optional sunrunning picture: