My PokerStars career has been patchy at best. I've done okay in MTSNG's and had the odd decent cash in MTT's. During periods I have even been a winning player at the micro cash games for 2 or 3 month stretches but tilt and life eventually tend to get the better of me.

I want to give cash games one more proper shot. I have real financial motivation for doing so (some might say thats the wrong motivation but don't get me wrong - I love playing the game for what it is as well). I don't intend on revealing what I need the money for immediately but it may come out somewhere along the line. The bottom line though is that in order to come anywhere close to using poker to fulfil my goal I need to be playing 50NL successfully by early next year.

I can't jump in there though. I have never even beaten 25nl over any really large sample. So I have to start at the bottom - I have about $220 in my Stars account and will kick off at 10NL. I am not going to make promises either way about withdrawing or supplementing my role during the next three months. It will depend somewhat on my circumstances and mood (I do like to sometimes make small withdrawls for personal or family treats out of the poker roll - if I am going to put in significant time it feels like its something I should do).

Goals:
- 20,000 Hands a month for the rest of the year (Combination of Zoom and Std 6 Max tables starting at 10nl).
- Feel ready for a shot at 50nl early next year.
- Make 5 meaningful posts either on my own hand histories or on theory or hand threads every week.
- Plug some psychological (tilt and volume based) leaks - not sure how to measure this!!

I am not going to reveal my nick right now. But maybe soon.

I'm not the most creative writer in the world so my goal with this thread will be to track personal progress and by means of hand posting and theoretical discussion hopefully create a resource that other micro regfish may find useful.

Thats all for now folks!

GL!!! 1st.

Hoping to see you ride uphill the stakes and crush them fishies!!

Thanks.

Only played a short session last night. 550 odd hands for +$15. I had 10 bucks more than I thought in my account when I started the thread so my balance is $245. Quit when I felt myself getting overly curious about river bets!

After some thought I also think my volume goals are a bit low. I will try to exceed them for sure but I guess it's better to have something achievable. Life will bite me in the butt at some point so I will leave them at the realistic level.

Question / Comment / Discuss:
So I think one of my big leaks is becoming overly aggressive postflop (spewy). If I make money for a few weeks it kicks in and I start triple barreling in bad spots which leads to double barelling and giving up a lot and just general spew.

The adjustment I tend to make which works just fine @10nl is to shutdown much quicker when I dont have any piece. So my c-bet percentage gets quite low, my redline has a downward trend but at a small gradient and my greenline looks just fine. Not sure though how that adjustment will play at 50nl+.

I'd be curious what kind of values winning players have for cbet and cbet in 3 bet pots at stakes between 5nl and 25nl. I realise the numbers alone can be misleading because they need to be considered in the context of a players preflop strategy (as well as turn and river) but none the less... interested!

I guess I need to find some threadsavers some time in the next week or so!

Played 6 tables of Zoom (4x10nl and 2x5nl) tonight for a couple of hours. Ended up winning ten bucks or so but to be honest it was all a bit frantic and I won't get anywhere doing that very often.

For the most part I will stick to 6 to 8 tables of regular 6 max where I have a little time to consider my play rather than just clicking buttons but I will throw in one of these sessions every week or so until I start to adjust.

Roll = $257

Question / Comment / Discuss:
Whats the best way to use or convert (or should we save) FPP's for micro silver/gold VIP club members? I am sure there must be threads on this on 2+2 - maybe someone could point me to a really good one or just give me your views! :-) TIA!

GL

Play those 235 FPP satellites to $11, or if you're too lazy just save them until you get supernova

Played 1000 odd hands tonight - pretty much breakeven. Then played 4 of those 6 max satellites with my 1000 FPP's and cashed 2. So balance is up to 271 after selling the $T. Not bad but not really happy with the way I played the last two nights.

Have to spend some time reviewing and "studying" over the weekends as well as posting some hands and comments.

Anyway - progress in week 1 could have been way worse!

Time to have a beer and watch some presidents cup! Go the Internationals!

Grrrr.

Weekend was terrible. Old habits die hard and my post flop spew was out in force. It was stupid of me to play as much as I did in with the mindset I was in but it is what it is and when the blood finally settled the balance on Sunday evening was down to $149.

Yesterday evening I played 8 tables of Rush for an hour and won $26. Once again - while it can be frustrating - it has proved again that at least at these levels folding is underrated. I folded some really big hands last night basically believing anytime someone represented the nuts. It kind of sucks but at 5nl and 10nl they have it way too often. Those couple of hero calls that pan out on the plus side just dont make up for all the money lost when you calling too often.

So balance is $175.

I have two additional little challenges I am working on.

One is to drop 15kg by the end of the year. Planning on cutting back on eating a little but want to achieve this mostly in the gym. My drinking habits are terrible - tons of red bull and coke every day and if I can cut that down a lot and spend some time in the gym and pool I think its achievable.

The other is to break 80 on the golf course again. 5 or 6 years ago I was a low 80's and now and then high 70's golfer. Stopped playing for a while but took it up again at the beginning of the year. Right now I am shooting high 80's most of the time with the odd low 80 score - my best this year is an 83. On Sunday I shot 84 after 4 putting the 10th hole from about 20 feet and making silly double bogeys on 17 and 18. Was the best I played this year I would say as 84 was the absolute worst score I could have made. I play 9 holes every Thursday morning and 18 on Sunday. This week I have an extra game planned on Friday (its so easy to make me excited about golf!!). I don't have a ton of practice time. 30 minute warmup on Sunday is the only consistent practice I get. So I can't aim to high but I still think I can get myself playing well enough to be consistenly around the 80 mark.

I'll mostly just bore everyone with poker details but I'll update on those goals now and then as well!

193.61

On the comeback trail!

Getting addicted to zoom....

$225 - But yes - I am definitely running a bit good.

TableNinja2
What are the best alternatives? I have 50 odd days left on my trial but I might as well start getting used to something else?

Any recommendations are appreciated.

Some Hands - Help
1.


2.

Mini Challenge - Play the $109 800 Million Celebration

I am about 1100 VPP's short of a $50 bonus. Plan is to clear it before next weekend. This will also give me somewhere close to 2000 FPP's which I will invest in the 6 max 235 FPP 6 max hyper turbo sats. If between those two bonuses I can add somewhere close to $100 to my roll while making sure I profit in the games I play over the next week then I will have some fun and enter the tournament!

I know everyone will tell me its bad use of the roll but:
1. Huge added value in the tournament!
2. If you not having fun whats the point and a big tourney like this is fun!

Mini Challenge:
VPP's left: 855
FPP's for satellites: 654

And a few more plus sessions. Almost back to where I was before I spewed off my money last weekend. Balance = $265.

Well it can only be classified as a good week. $230 profit at 02/05c and 05/10c Zoom cant be too bad. But I know I ran a little good. About $55 above EV to be exact.

My red line is declining as fast as the green one is going up but I'll work on fixing that later. My strategy at these levels is basically the old make a hand, bet until raised and then fold and I'm not doing much bluffing so the red line wont be all that pretty.

Balance: $379.10
FPP's: 1234.21
VPP's needed for $50 Bonus: 469

I kind of forgot I have an exam next Mionday so I dont know - might have to rethink the tournament plan. Will see how well prepared I am by Sunday. Will probably only play just enough this week to get the bonus cleared in case I decide to play.

On the golf front was looking forward to todays round after two consecutive 84's. But hit the first drive out of bounds and never got back into a good frame of mind on the front nine. Shot a horrible 49 before a only slightly more respectable 43 on the back. Try again next week.

Weight thing didnt happen last week but got the gym kit packed for tomorrow.