Hey 2+2,

I have decided to start this new thread to document my poker journey! This thread is something that I want to look back in the future to see if I have progressed in my poker career.

I am turning 26 yrs old this year and works full time for a company that pays me pretty well and doing something that I enjoy (for now..)! Because of that I really only play about 20 games per week and my main focus is on MTTs.

I have been playing poker since I was 17 and was just playing $5 SNG at friends' house. Then when I turned 18, I decided to sign up on PokerStars and was getting very interested in it. I have always been a MTT player...tried cash game but its definitely not for me.

I have been playing on and off for the past 8 years and have finally gotten to a point which I feel like I am finally beating the low stakes and is moving on to mid stake MTTs. I definitely consider myself a decent recreational player and tend to stay as a recreational player unless something changes drastically.

I will not have a specific $ of the goal I want to reach but I do plan on putting some winnings aside to play some live tournaments and hopefully one day be able to travel to Vegas to play some WSOP events using my poker winnings!

Thank you all for reading and hope you will follow me along on my journey to poker success!

Cheers!

-dolphiNny5

For those of you who may be wondering, I usually keep a roll of $1k in my stars account and cash out what exceeds it when I bink tournaments or when I make money buying shares on marketplace.

So far in 2014 I have already withdrawn $4778 but have used about half of it just on discretionary expenses like taking my girlfriend on vacations and buying games and just spending on stuff I wouldn't normally buy with my work income.

I have also hired a coach about 2 months ago and he has helped me tremendously with my game with close to $4k profit in the last 2 months! Fortunately I was able to share some of those success by selling on marketplace to my fellow 2+2ers.

Here is a graph since getting coached and hopefully it just keeps going up! Definitely prepared for a sick downswing though!

Another update:

Did great on marketplace last week and was up about $500+ and decided to cash out $240 to maintain a little over $1k BR. I also started to play a little bit more live tournaments because they are super super soft and I want to play in couple good tournaments this summer that usually happens around summer time. My goal is to play a lot of the events for DSPT (deep stack poker tour) that is happening in Oct here in Edmonton.

Yesterday I played in a local $60 tournament and came in 4th for $325. A little frustrating because I knew I had a high chance of taking it down. It was 4 handed and I had KJ on the button.... CO/UTG (91k) limp for 10k and I shove for 82k and he tanked for a bit and said "I feel lucky....I have 2 small cards, I call" and flipped over 97dd......He outdrew me and turned a 9 and busto me.

I feel like the live games are super easy to play because the previous tournament I played I was able to chop 3 handed for $2800 and really just played abc poker and knowing when to shove/call late in the tournament. I will definitely start playing more and more of these games in the future but the downside is that I can't multi-table.

Anyways thanks for reading!

Poker Cashout: $5263

It's been a while since my last update mostly due to my lack of volume because of work and girlfriend.

I have probably played another 300 games since the last graph and am up about another $1000-1500. I used some of the cashout money to buy a new computer ($1300) so I don't lag while playing poker with HUD and watching movies, etc.

This Wednesday and Thursday I will be playing 2 live games of $560 + $450 buyins. I sold 65% at 18.8% markup which is more than I wanted to sell but I guess that means it will be less coming out of my pocket. These 2 games will cost me a total of -$230.

I have learned a lot from my coach ever since I decided to work with him in April. My results have been consistent to prove that I am actually learning stuff and applying the theories he taught me. Something simple like stack size awareness, 3bet shove/fold range, etc are stuff that I thought I knew but to actually realize I knew nothing about when I talked to him. Again, I have nothing bad to say but to encourage any players who want to elevate their game to check out Grayson Nichols (the_dean221) listing http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/18...ching-1413701/

With that said, sometimes good things have to go for better things to come along. I have been offered an opportunity of a lifetime to learn from a really really good player, someone who I have idolized for a while. Nothing is really set in stone yet so I don't want to get too excited and say the player's name and then look stupid when it doesn't pan out. I believe he can help me elevate my game even faster (with all due respect to Gray) and soon I hope I will be able to consistently play the mid/high stakes MTTs and better yet, make money at those stakes. Very exciting news for myself and just needed to post here to share since my girlfriend and friends do not really know how big of a deal this is to me!

Anyways good luck to all of you at your games and hopefully I can win the next 2 live games and make some money for my investors!

Poker Cashout: $6033

Good luck man will be following.

Played the $560 bounty but didn't go too well.....Decided to skip the $450 tonight since the tournament would've gone too late. Last night I busted 24th and it was already 1am so guess next time I can only play those on Friday/Sat nights. Really don't want to show up to work the next morning looking like a zombie.

Heading to Vancouver next week for work so I will try to play some 1/2 NL at night at a local casino. Will most likely bring my laptop with me and possibly play some online games at night if I don't feel like playing live games.

Yesterday, it made me realize how much I dislike the live game atmosphere. It could've been the buy-in of that tournament but everyone talks like they are professionals thinking that $5k and $10k buy-ins are "soft and easy money". There was this guy who went to WSOP bricked everything but talked like he is a lot better than all of us. Not sure why but it just grinds my gear hearing people talk bigger than they are but that is just my assumption anyways. I always think local 2/5 or 5/10 players are just degens with no proper BRM but I could be wrong though.

Anyways I went to look at our house today.....everything is great the insulations are complete so now we are just waiting for the dry walls to be put on. Really can't wait to see how the house will turn out! Also got permission from the girlfriend that I can get chanmanpoker (home poker thread) to build our Oilers themed poker table! It will probably cost us upwards of $2k but I think we will love it! Hopefully I can turn the basement into a man cave that I am picturing in my head right now.

Thats it for me on this update. I will update next week or so and hopefully there are more exciting news for you guys to read!

Cheers!

Hey guys its been a while but here is a little update...

Since last post I went to Vancouver for a week for work and went to casino for almost all the nights. Tons of 1/2 NL game there so I played a lot but to my surprise, the games there weren't as easy as it is in Edmonton. Overall I was up about $300 but all were punted in roulette.

With the week in Vancouver and lots of summer festivities, it definitely limited the amount of poker I can play. I was able to get a 4 hour coaching session in with my new coach and he has been very helpful. We only went through my preflop game and he had already noticed that I am way too tight and way too easy to play against because I don't push back hard enough to any steals or resteals.

I am currently still working with 2 coaches as I have not gotten a set commitment from my new coach and Gray has been very helpful to my game. If I don't happen to get a long term commitment with my new coach (currently at 5 hour deal) then I will most likely go back and work with Gray. But even with just that short session with my new coach, it really made me realize what I have been doing wrong and what I need to improve on if I want to play in mid stakes regularly and start to take shots at high stakes.

I have also decided to put some money aside and play Sunday Million as much as I can without selling action since it definitely is soft and just gives me a shot at making life changing money. This will be the only high buy-in game that I will play on my own at the moment as I don't have enough bankroll for regular high buy-in games.

I wish I have a graph to update on my progress but I am down about $1k from last graph due to taking shots but some of those were compensated from some great investments on marketplace. Right now I am sitting at about $1100 in my poker account without any reloading. Like I said, I tend to cash out after any bink and get my poker account down to $1k and that has been working. With plans on taking shots at higher games, I will try to keep a balance of $3k before cashing out. I am not cashing out because I need it for liferoll as I still work full time making an income but am just cashing them out so that I won't feel like winning $500 is minor when there is $6k+ in account.

Off to Vancouver again in 2 weeks for work but will stay a little longer as my girlfriend will be tagging along for the long weekend. After that trip, I expect to play a lot more until our house is done building in October. I have also opted out of my Monday evening commitment so hopefully I can consistently play the full day on Sunday and play the evenings on Monday and Tuesday.

Thanks for reading and will promise to keep updating and hopefully next update can be a little more interesting!

Signed up just so I can post and say lookin forward to playing ya in the DSPT Edmonton in october ;-)

Thanks buddy!

Yeah I will definitely play but need to find something that works with my work schedule. I know it will definitely go till really early in the morning if I play any of the events on weekdays and it will really suck going to work with only couple hours or no sleep at all.....so I may have to fork up some money and play the main event. Either way I will be there and have been looking forward to this for a while!

Do you frequent the local casinos alot?

Just a quick update to kinda keep this thread somewhat active...

I haven't been playing much lately. In the past 2 weeks I have only been able to put in a full day of games last Friday which didn't fair too well. It feels like I am getting out of touch with all the things I have learned from Gray and Jae and worst of all I haven't been talking to either of them for a while but they do know that I am fairly busy and can somewhat go inactive from time to time.

Probably the most common question I get asked from my friends or skype group is..."Why did you go inactive when you are on a roll?" Well, sometimes I wonder about that myself as well but in all honesty I think I am not as motivated as some of the players I have met since I don't rely on poker income for my day to day expenses or spending. I get distracted fairly easily by new games that comes out and sometimes I become impatient and just want my session to end so that I can start playing some of those games. Because of that, I have decided to only play if I really feel like playing poker and feels that I can play my A-game.

I think what I will start to do for the next little bit is to start playing a little bit more but will play SNGs instead as that won't take too much of my time and also let me get back into poker and practice some of the things I have learned from both my coaches. The only problem with SNGs is that the $7s and $15s don't load that often when I get home from work. But I guess I can use this opportunity to learn how to fit more tables in as my max right now is 6 tables for me to play optimally.

As I said, I don't really have much to update but I figure I should post since this is to document my poker journey. On another note, we finally have a firm possession date for our new home and that will be October 31st! Definitely can't wait to move in sometime November and have my own place. I already have a custom poker table ordered which costs me upwards of $2k but I think it is definitely worth it! Next up is to think of how to set up our computer room!

Anyways that's it for now. I will make sure to post some pictures of the house when it is done since pictures always tend to make readers more entertained!