A few weeks back I posted in the Beginners Questions section asking for advice. I went over my battle with being bi-polar. My inability to control my emotions, and the series of bad decisions I've made in my life, including blowing a near 20k bankroll by betting on a basketball game. Someone suggested I make a thread here, and for a lot of reasons it makes sense. Maybe it'll start making me more accountable for my actions.

A little background: I haven't played much online in the past 3 years after blowing my bankroll, I pretty much quit playing altogether, up until around Christmas that is...when for some reason a Doug Polk video was recommended to me on YouTube, and well, here we are again.

I deposited 50$ on ACR around Christmas, ran it up to over 300$ playing 2NL/5NL and a few sng's and tourneys. But, since I still don't trust myself, a few days ago I cashed everything but 100$ out. Now at least I know that whatever I do I still made a profit! Genius, I know.

Graph for the past month:



By Stakes:



By Position:




Goals:

• Get my Comma!
• Overcome Tilt issues.
• Play at least 30k hands a month.
• Fix my obvious Big Blind leak.
• Continually improve.

I may at some point start streaming. I haven't decided yet.

- 4bet20x

Good luck mate keep crushing


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I didn't realize anyone had replied at all, but thanks man! I appreciate the kind words.

Update: 1/22 - 1/28
Bankroll: $195.15
Current Stake: 5NL

I moved up to 5NL, and I seem to have been running pretty good this week...flopped a set of 9's vs a set of K's when someone slow played kings preflop. I rivered quads.

Another hand I rivered a straight flush vs an ace high flush. He thought he'd be tricky and check raise me on the river... sorry bro.

Hands Played: 36,636
Hours Played: 79.66
Current Bankroll: $249.46

We've made it through January without tilting off our roll at the blackjack tables! Baby steps.

nice one!!! interesting to watch the progress

Good luck 4bet, great start crushing the stakes

Thanks for the support guys!

I'm a bit proud of myself after the session I just finished up. It started off nice and I was up a quick 2 bi's. Then...I ran into my first bit of crazy variance..at one point I was down 4 bi's, so a 6 bi downswing.

I didn't end up at the blackjack tables, I didn't get tilted and end up at the roulette table...I kept my head together and kept telling myself that if I just kept playing my game things would turn around.

I have to admit though that I was pretty discouraged...I didn't think any of my hands would ever hold up again. In the span of 30min or so I had aces cracked 3 times, twice by sets and once by AK... here's that craziness:




The following hand however I should have probably checked back the river so losing 100bb was probably my fault.



Here's the last Aces hand:





Also had this one happen around the same time:




Then the biggest hand I lost of the day was for 200bb's with QQ in the bb. I have this leak it seems that when the button raises my big blind and I have jacks, queens, even TT sometimes ...after I 3bet, if I get 4bet I always jam. What's worse is I did it 200bb deep? Terrible. After looking back at this hand I don't think I deserve to have finished todays session up.






And then there was this.....wtf.






After today I really feel like I can do this. I got close to tilting, I really did...I could feel my blood starting boil. But I held it together!

I played 4,900 hands today... and I really feel like I can add more tables, I'm at 8 right now. I'm just not sure if I should worry about that anytime soon. If anyone has any advice on adding more tables while you're also trying to move up through stakes, I'd appreciate it.

- 4bet20x

nice comeback, gd job for not tilting.

4900 hands is good volume, I wouldn't worry about adding more tables, when you move up the stakes I think it is better to focus on quality over quantity.

I was thinking that's what others would say, and not really focus on adding more tables until you reach a level you plan on staying at for awhile.

I'm just so concerned about getting to the long term and needing to put in a lot of volume. I don't want to have much doubt that my results aren't based on variance. I want to be for sure that what I'm doing is working, so I can actually improve and not just look at the results from a sample of a few thousand and try to come to some ridiculous conclusion as to what my ability is.

I've never allowed myself to do that because I've tilted off my bankroll online in the matter of minutes more times than I care to admit. All because of a session where I drop 4+ buy-ins in spots I assume I should win. Me not focusing on the mental aspect of the game has hurt my progression so much.

I'd like to show an example of what I'm talking about that just happened in the past hour, I started a session, and I did something I know I shouldn't have done...I butchered the hand. But, it's often the case that when I start out a session I push medium strength hands way too far and end up in a hole very quickly. A hole that I know never should have happened if I played at my optimum.

I started off the session down 2 bi's in the matter of 10 minutes...here's one of the hands, (I should have checked turn and either called or checked back/bet small/fold to raise rivers):






I was very close to going to play blackjack. It's a struggle that I'm finally starting to learn from and overcome.

After being down 2 bi. I pulled my head together and finished the hour session up 1.5 bi's.




I'll get over the tilt issues eventually, but what I'm starting to worry about now is that when I start moving up, and the players get better, I can't start off sessions like this. It could easily take me from a winning player to a losing player. I need to be more consistent with my approach/strategy.

can easily tell from your January graph that you're beating the games for a good rate, just have confidence as when you move up the games won't be that much harder.

yeah that's an example of a bad hand (I'd bet turn and call river in that hand) but on the positive side at least it's not a bad hand of blackjack or a bad hand playing above your limits.

good that your noticing what you need to improve on as well. Keep it up

Awesome man. Subscribed Im on the same boat as you. Quality over Quantity right now! No need to get more tables going. I assume you're playing 3 tables? Im currently switching from Zoom to regular tables. If U want to study some hands ever PM either way im subscribed glgl

Thanks for the support! I didn't really expect that much from a forum. I assumed there would be a lot of trolling and dismissal of other people's ideas...especially mine.

Your replies have been extremely beneficial to the mental side of the game for me. I really appreciate it.

Thanks brotha! I actually play 8 tables right now. It's all I could fit on one screen lol. I play on ACR though so I don't get the option of playing Zoom.

Haha awesome. FR?

6max, I can't stand FR. Too slow, not enough interesting spots imo. I want to start playing HU a lot more too but I've heard you shouldn't look to do that at the micros.

Yeah definetly heard that as well. Just keep doing yo thang. Ur doing well keep at it.

I've spent a decent amount of time trying to help people in the microstakes forums by giving my opinion on how they should play their hands...very rarely does someone agree with what I say, which is strange to me.

I'm beating 5nl at 20bb/100 over 30k hands. I'm not trying to boast, and I know the sample size really isn't near large enough to estimate an accurate winrate, but I feel like a majority of those posters are going to get stuck playing those stakes and it comes off to me as Crowd Psychology. Conformity at its best.

In no way do I think I'm a great player or anything. I make a lot of mistakes, some I'm aware of, others that I'm yet to understand...but I know a few things. Some of my ideas may not be polished, but the concepts are more or less correct.

I bring this up because there was a hand posted earlier today where the poster had raised in late position with TT, got called by the bb and flopped top set on a board of T98

bb checked, he bet and the bb raised. The consensus of the entire board was that jamming here was by far the best play, calling was horrible. This to me is crazy. I voiced my opinion, and as usual it seemed like everyone scoffed at my ideas. Alright.

I'm sure jamming is fine against an opponent who is playing with decent ranges, but from my experience at 5nl this is often weighted more toward value and when you hold the T in your hand you remove a decent amount of combos that c/r this flop that you're ahead of...which to me means that a range that was already weighted more towards straights, is even more weighted toward straights.

I'm also worried about protecting my betting range.

I also just really enjoy playing turns and rivers. Getting all the money in on the flop just isn't skillful poker imo...it's boring, uninteresting and it definitely shouldn't happen very often for 100bb or more. Play like this just signifies to me that players are afraid to make tougher decisions on future streets.

Another thing, the argument some people wanted to make to me was that we can't just call here and let them get a free card. What? I don't even know what that means. Some made up human concept that really means nothing.

We don't bet/raise to charge people to see future streets, I'm not sure what game people are playing, but it's not the game I seem to be playing. I bet when I believe my hand is ahead of their range. I structure my decisions and bet sizing around what I think their range consists of...I also bet when I believe that my equity+their fold frequency makes betting profitable.

Similar things could be said about everyone in that sub-forum wanting to get 3 streets of value out of top pair.

I don't know...but I feel like it's not even worth my time to even try to give my opinions and insight anymore in that sub-forum.

/end rant

yeh.... you make a good point of how to play the hand. eh, guess you can learn from different opinions though and maybe use the info as to how your opponents may be thinking and use that when playing

10NL soon?

Honestly I normally stay away from my stakes on giving my opinion. It really doesnt matter until youre at 25NL


apk ~

I'm $5 from hitting $300, so hopefully I'll be playing 10nl by the end of the night. I'm hoping it starts out well.

Yeah, I think I'm going to start doing the same.

Well, my the first 10NL session went pretty well.

Would have made even more if it wasn't for this madness. But the more I think about this hand the more I'm not sure I'm okay with the turn shove. I'm obviously always going to be shoving my AT's here, and some of my KT's, when I did it I initially was thinking that having the Td was good because I really thought he was FD heavy...but now I'm not so sure. Me having the Td may be worse, but it's probably not as bad as having the Kd.