Hi, I'm Zack and I just turned 18 a little over a week ago. I play on Ignition as I live in the U.S., and I started this thread to hopefully track my progress and maybe get some help from people along the way . I deposited $200 the day I turned 18 and it's now sitting at $389 as I write this (~60 of that is from the deposit bonus). I'm currently running a 25BI BRM with a 5BIST at the next level (so needed $250 to play 10NL, and I'll move back down to 5nl if I hit $200). And you can expect me to (hopefully) update the thread around once a week, maybe more if something interesting happens.

A little background on me and how I got into poker:
When I was around 14 I started playing this game called Rainbow 6 Siege pretty competitively, I managed to log about 20-30 hours a week into the game on top of school and soccer, and was somewhere in top couple hundred of players in comp play. As a no-life PC gamer when you're not playing, you're watching, so I'd spend a considerable amount of time watching people play rainbow six on twitch. One night I stumbled upon the poker section and clicked on Jeff Gross's stream and was dumbfounded at the fact this guy was just casually playing for thousands of dollars. I was instantly hooked on it and continued to watch poker on twitch for a few years. It wasn't until around the start of last summer that I began to "prepare" for when I turned 18 and began playing. I bought an Upswing Membership for the first month of summer and watched around 5 hours a day until I finished the Core section. Needless to say, I didn't fully understand or appreciate the full depth of the teachings. After I finished the upswing lab, I bought an RIO essential membership and watched A LOT of content on there. I then bought flopzilla and just worked on ranging Heros and Villains by using HHs from forums.

Goals:
Long Term: Be shot taking/playing 100NL by the time I graduate from HS
Short Term: Be shot taking 25NL sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, oh, and stop punting like it's my job .

What I need to work on:
1. The biggest thing right now is just general punting. I think a lot of it is mental game issues as when I review a hand I find myself asking who's hand I'm reviewing, and easily understand what I did wrong, and can't possibly understand why I took that action. I think it comes from when I'm card dead I often feel obligated to start winning pots (don't ask me why), I think I fixed this yesterday by just slowing down and asking myself if I know why I'm taking a certain action.
2. I'd like to find a way to study poker without a training site, please feel free to suggest
3. Thinking in ranges . my first thought when villains take an action is way too often a binary one of "he either has x, or y" as opposed to thinking in ranges, I think my old habit of ranging myself and villain in flopzilla would help a lot with this, and taking notes while doing so to ensure I'm engaged.

Thanks!

Bankroll: $389.52
Current Level: 10NL
Next Shot take: 25NL when I reach $625

LFGGGGGG!

Be careful, the reg tables on Ignition have more bots than Zone. I would get used to Zone, you can make 400 in a month two tabling Zone at 5nl.

Have Poker Tracker 4 with ignition hand converter to study hands and mistakes. What I discovered after an almost 6 buy in downswing at 25nl (late night PT), is there is more bot behavior than other times. Not so much at 5nl, but there is a lot of bluffing. I was able to adjust my play, still reviewing if the mistakes are less, but results much better my last round.

Simple GTO offeres a free trainer, which you can download, and get a handle on gto with some sims provided for free. Drills teach you the mix of fold, check bet, raise, and regular gives you full game practice (though you can't pick your hole cards).

Ranges, tips and tricks come from the Grinders Manual (google), which can be implemented. When going for higher limits, remember there might be some rudimentary bots (they are not that good, without reads from huds). I was surprised, but had not put that much volume into 25nl. 50nl is more gto like, do not know if bots are there, do not have enough sample size. BUT, their behavior might not bring profit if more players balanced.

Sorry late reply. Thanks for the ideas! I've heard of grinders manual, but also heard it's kind of outdated? As for the botting, I haven't noticed "bot" play, but then again I wouldn't know what that would like? I think on Ignition theres probably not as much botting going on due to no RB.

We got some lately, don't know why.

Book not outdated, actually, some info from around 2010 is not that outdated. Because, poker basically doesn't change. Where the manual comes in is some tricks and math you might not be aware of. If you were to watch the course, from the ground up, it covers most of the same stuff, same author.

Week 2:

Bankroll: $370
Current Level: 10nl

Update:

Honestly pretty disappointed in how I've played, often finding myself very lost in hands. Lost about 7 buyins (BR peaked around $420, and I've made about $25 in rakeback from deposit bonus) in two 1 hour sessions, 3 of them were pretty unavoidable, top two vs set, 2nd nut flush vs nut flush in a limp call pot with a fish, etc. rest were pretty much grade A certifiable punts on my part though.

I got upswing for a day then got a refund-realized I suck at learning from videos. Bought combonator instead. I had a bit of realization that I really need to just sit there and grind with software if I want to get better, I'm sure a lot of people can get pretty far from just watching training videos, but not me, I'm a very hands-on learner. Also, just an opinion, I think the fact you don't really hear about people rising through the ranks a whole lot anymore is kind of linked to the fact a lot of people now don't have a "grinders mentality" when it comes to learning the game like people used to, instead opting to let pro's tell you how you should play certain spots, as oppose to getting into the lab themselves and really figuring it out for themselves. Which I think is probably much more beneficial. Just my opinion though.

The new plan is to spend the next week in combonator and just work on building my ranges across streets and try and balance them so I can hopefully cut down on that "lost feeling" I often have when playing. I'd like to plan on doing this sort of thing every 10k hands, maybe not a week-long always, but I just really need a lot of work right now.

Things I need to work on:
-When my range is wide, specifically after cbetting a large portion of my range OTF and the turn comes an awkward card
-River bluffs, I'm bluffing too many times because "I have the bottom of my range"
-More cognizant of cards which help villain
- Not playing on autopilot (maybe I need to cut the number of tables from 4 to 2/3)
-Being more cognizant of my range
-Pre I'm 3betting and opening too wide

Things I've improved upon since last post:
-Playing multiway
-Tightening my iso range vs limpers
-Playing more aggressive with my value

Thanks!

In. Enjoyed reading. Good luck and I hope week 3 goes better for you.

Thanks!

Honestly, i think Upswing and "GTO" thinking at small stakes is the wrong way to go. The whole "im at the bottom of my range" logic will get you into a lot of tourble. Try to play much more exploitably it will work all the way up until high stakes.

Agree with that, but we have an influx of gto bots, so be a little more careful.

Even high stakes are complaining about something not right.

Grinders manual then his video course (From the Groung Up) should do the job IMHO. Biggest outdated concepts I´ve found on the manual are the bet sizings (he improved this on FTGU and even made a full episode on bet sizings lol) and small but almost irrelevant erros on the charts for preflop game. Since I base most of my preflop game on pokersnowie anyway, it´s not that big of a problem.

GL

I don't necessarily think it's bad to teach "theory based", I think upswing doesn't do enough of explaining on how to make adjustments in high rake/microstakes games, it rather just sort of mentions them in the videos, but they don't explain them in detail.

Week 3:
Bankroll: $430
Current Level: 10NL
Next Level: 25nl @ $625


So the review in combonator went really well. I played about 2.5 hours on friday and felt really good, wasn't really getting lost in hands in terms of not knowing where I sit in my range. Found myself double and triple barreling a lot more than I was, just fighting for a lot more pots in general, I think combonator helped a lot with this. I plan on doing a review of a hand before every session I do, and maybe one after every session. It's a really efficient use of time for studying because you're basically reviewing a few hundred hands in a handful of minutes.

One thing I think working in combonator helped me realize just how much I need to be bluffing when you bet big, that's one of those things you don't really think about until you actually sit down and have to count out the combos, this has made me very cognizant of bet sizing, and aware of what bet sizings should do to both mine and villains ranges.

Things I need to work on
-Not going on autopilot
-Paying attention to player tendencies and making notes on them
-Balancing checking range, but not too much
-Monotone flops

Short Term Goals:
-Play at least 10k hands this week
-Be shot taking 25nl before Christmas
-Work in combonator before and after every session
Long Term Goals:
-Shot taking 100nl by the time I graduate
-Get better

Week 4:
Bankroll: $775
Current Level: 25NL
Next Level: 50NL @ $1250

Beat my goal! Started shot taking 25NL day before thanksgiving I have to be honest though, I am running VERY good. I honestly don't really like it, don't feel like I deserve it all, I'm something like 5BIs above EV post-combonator (Week 2) and like 12 BIs over all. I've gotten to the point where when I get it all in, I'm rooting to get sucked out on just because I don't want the guilt hanging on me, I get that All-In-EV is only one way of measuring luck, but still. Post combonator I beat 10NL at about 32BB EV adjusted over 5k hands, small sample size, but enough to say I'm probably a decent sized winner. In my shot take got pretty luck with a BIG setup, flopped top two in a 3bet 3way pot, turned a boat, and stacked a nut flush and trips, all were about 150BBs deep so ended up making ~100 dollars my first day at 25NL zone. Started out playing reg tables though and definetely agree with previous posters that they seem kind of sketchy, lots of bum hunting, on two seperate tables saw two users use emotes and sit out at the same time after a fish left, so going to be sticking with zone for now.

I'm really considering getting GTO+, I obviously can't afford a coach with my current BR, so I need to some sort of way to keep learning. I haven't decided yet though, so any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated.

On the volume front I doubt I hit 10k hands, even over the break, playing with such an aggressive BRM it's hard to put in a lot of hands because I don't want to play so long that I start to play bad. I also have a 3 buy-in stop loss, and if I hit it I stop for the rest of the day and just review hands in combonator.


Things I need to work on
-Cbetting (this a big one, if you have any tips/suggestions for content on cbetting please tell me)
-Not going on autopilot
-Finding the fold against fish
-Not getting overly committed hands and feeling like I have to win them all (play with-in my ranges)

Short term goals
-Be shot taking 50NL within a couple weeks after Christmas
-Decide on whether or not to get GTO+

Long term goals
-Shot taking 100NL by the time I graduate
-Get better

the heat is real!!!