I was recently laid off but received a decent severance and am on a non-compete. I can't work for the next 3 months so I wanted to see if I could rack up a nice bank roll.

Have been taking poker seriously for the past 3 years. I've read most of the poker canon (Mathematics of Poker, Applications, MPT, POP, etc) and within last year purchased RYE tourney apprentice class.

Was living in NYC but moved to Jersey City ~8 mo ago to play online more consistently (WSOP + Stars). Stars has been easier of the 2 and the MI merge has made it a lot softer (which is partially the reason for the challenge).

Goal is to win 40k by the end of the year. I will be playing cash (50/100/200nl) and mid stakes tournaments.

*Bonus goal if I win a WSOP ring by EOY as well. (Will be taking some shots).

Certainly welcome feedback & constructive criticism!

First few 50nl sessions on stars have been great. Primarily a tourney player so easing into it (sessions have been 1hr max).



Also want to mention I stream on Twitch (channel = shoveseason) but I won't be spamming this thread re: my streams. Just an invite to follow the journey in more/less real time.

First official tournament session will be Thurs 3/17.

Last night's session was unfortunately cut short. Started a 100nl session to warm up before the Thursday Thrill and was playing well/running well. I was only 1 tabling to work on a few things. I was up half a buy in and ran out of the room to have dinner before the tourney. When I came back I got the classic 'your account has been suspended pending a routine security check' message from Pokerstars. I'm a fan of stars and appreciate the way they conduct themselves but definitely was a mood killer! I felt like I was in the zone.

I was craving some action and thought about entering the WSOP $300 KO Freezeout but that is too much for the bankroll at the moment. I need to establish a good baseline before taking shots so despite it all I stayed disciplined and called it a night.

Woke up this morning to a Stars email that my account cleared the check and was reinstated. Will be playing some cash today and the US SCOOP this weekend!

Here is the results of last night's (short) session. Been running extremely well & anticipate things to level out but currently up $227 on the challenge!

Best of luck!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

10 sessions in and I'm beginning to feel like I'm getting into the swing of things (study routine, HH review, and playing). This weekend was a full(ish) schedule and while I managed to have my best session so far, I haven't been immune to variance. I've been putting in more volume and the sessions have been getting longer. I haven't had a losing day yet, but the sample size is still pretty small.

Friday I had my first losing session but on the day I managed to make a profit. I was playing 3 tables of 100nl but started to close out tables when I noticed I was getting a bit spewy. I took a $40 profit on the first session and lost $27 on the second session. I noticed at these stakes the exploitative fold will make you more money over the long run. I've noticed that I'm playing against people that only raise it when they have it, and have adjusted to this behavior.

Both Saturday and Sunday we were stuck 1 buy in early and managed to get out of danger. Same thing as Friday - I need to remove myself from overcalling on rivers and also when raised. I was paying people off, adjusted, and then started getting my stack back. I dipped my toes in the 200nl pool and felt comfortable v the opponents. I started 1 tabling 200nl on Saturday and tried out 2 tables on Sunday. The variance definitely takes a toll but we were also delivering punches as well.

Overall, right now I will make appearances in 200nl but I want to keep cashing at 100nl. The worst thing to do off the bat is get ahead of myself or get on positive tilt.

Friday p/l: +$13
Saturday p/l: +$70.52
Sunday p/l + 375.68.

Total p/l: $686

I'm in love with the red line on my graph. I think it is indicative of the opponent tendencies and I will keep this in mind. I have never had a red line that high.




Side note: Last night's stream was great and I had a couple players hop in and chat it up/follow. Counting that as a personal W.

Tourney schedule for the week (will be playing 100nl throughout)

3/20
US SCOOP $30 battle royale PKO and $30 phase 1 40k GTD

3/21
SCOOP $30 & $10 6 max PKO freezeout

3/23
SCOOP $10 phase 1 30k GTD

3/25
SCOOP $20 KO 20k GTD and maybe take a shot at $200 KO 125k GTD

Good luck, I’ll look out for you streaming

Thanks much appreciated!

Life sometimes pushes a reset button and that was particularly clear as to what happened in the past week. I ran the cash bankroll back down to 0 and then negative for a quick second but managed to bring it back into the clear after some adjustments.

I lost $850 on Thursday 3/23 and $370 on Friday 3/24.

A few reasons for this:

1) Despite saying I wanted to mainly play 100nl I got ahead of myself 2-3 tabling 200nl.

2) On Thursday I played tired and stressed after a long interview. Didn't listen to my better judgement and played shitty. Stubbornly couldn't let it go and played almost 800 hands (most I've played in a given session).

3) I played better on Friday but went to showdown with too many weak hands (calling off too light).

4) Ran into some inevitable coolers (not blaming this as a main reason for the blowup - I'm definitely taking accountability for my actions).

Over the weekend I took a step back and reflected on what I might've done wrong. This resulted in smarter choices (moving down to 100nl/shorter sessions) and better play.

The tournaments continue to drag my bankroll down so I think I'm going to step away from that for a bit after the SCOOP series. Cash has been going well and takes up a majority of my HH studying.

Graph below.



Bankroll (totals are at the bottom)

The total roll is in the negative right now but I am confident I can resuscitate things this week.



Tourney schedule for the week:

3/28
$50 super Tuesday

3/29
$50 Thursday Thrill

4/1
$50 Main Event! (LET"S GET THE ****INNNN TROPPPHHHHH)

Special thanks to DavidKayePoker for being an awesome dude & streamer. I was playing at his table while streaming on Friday and he gave a shoutout/linked my channel in his chat. I had a bunch of people stop by my stream and follow. It made my weekend and can't thank him enough to giving a fellow streamer a push. A small act of generosity went a long way.

I will post a few hands from my study session so this blog doesn't becoming a static page of updates.

Here is a hand I got away from after smashing the flop. I think I made the right decision. It's one of those way ahead or way behind scenarios. The blind v blind aspect made the ranges more difficult for me to discern.

Here was the action:



The villain's action is raise pre, 1/3 f,1/2 t, 1/2 r.

Going through each street I think the Villain goes to the river with this range.



I feel like the 1/2 bet size is pretty weak, but also the villain comes to the river with a lot of Ax combos. Based on the action, it seems like the villain is trying to value bet but can't decide on a sizing so opts to go with 1/2 again.

On the other hand, while the board itself is polarizing, the bet sizing isn't, which keeps a lot of his 2 pair combos like QKh and QKc combos in their range that I don't block.

The equity calculator given the river range looks like I was behind but this could be confirmation bias.



Would love to hear feedback on the river range analysis given the previous action. I might've had a clear snap call that I am not seeing.

We are hitting the reset button. We did what we didn't set out to do and got ahead of ourselves in 200nl/100nl and perhaps got hit with a downswing. At the height of the challenge we were up 2k and now we swung back to breakeven, and moved down stakes to 50nl.

But all that is in the past now and despite the rough time we feel like we're playing some of the best poker in our career (esp at 50nl).

*refreshes graph to 0 hands*
----

Today is Day 1 and we are starting off with a 10k bankroll and the challenge is to run it up to 50k by 12/31/2023.

We are going to start off at 50nl and won't jump up in stakes until we've made at least 2.5k.

Today's session went well and we played ~600 hands at 50nl/25nl. We dabbled in 25nl while waiting for a seat at 50nl.

We banked ~2bis at $95 and made some pretty good decisions.

50nl players cap their range like crazy and try to get to showdown for cheap so I want my redline to be the catalyst for my forward momentum.

Preflop I am going to play a raise/fold strategy with some exceptions on BTN/SB.

Might log a quick session later today.

putting in some decent volume in the past 3 days. Hit the 2k hand mark today. Played very light yesterday because I had 2 job interviews and I was mentally tired afterwards. I lost $8 yesterday (broke even) and made another +2bis today.

Graph since restart (June 13th).



Wasn't involved in this hand but these 50nl players crack me up. What in the chip dumping hell is this???

Day 7

Just shy of 8k hands and we are up 8bi ($100 rake back included). I am very happy with my results so far and we are running pretty well.

I haven't made any *huge* mistakes or gotten seriously tilted. I got a bit steamed at myself this morning but took a quick break, got water, splashed cold water on my face and got the mindset changed. It really helped and I turned the session around from -80 to +95 for the day.

Will post some notable hands soon.

Graph below - I want to get that redline healthier, however, I did forget that a lot of these 50nl pots go multiway. I just want to pump that line up a bit but it's still decently healthy.

Day 12

I've pulled myself out of 2 weird swings and am back to just slightly above breakeven not counting the 100 in rake back. I am getting really confident with my poker ability after 14k hands, especially the ability to get out of trouble. I am grinding almost 1k hands per day and trying to get to avg of 2k.

I played hungover and went on my biggest downswing. I will not be playing hungover without some sort of nap the next day.

I also got a rejected from a huge job I wanted on Tuesday and Wed sesh was pretty poor (2nd downswing) so emotionally things have been not even keel as well.

Having cleared my head I banged out a huge sesh today (+4bi over 2k hands) and am looking forward to the long holiday weekend to grind.

Streaming has been going really well and I'm getting subs & a consistent audience. Very happy with what persistence can do in streaming + poker.

Another positive is that I've found a group of guys that are very good players (and also very nice) so we review hands and bullshit as well. Haven't had that before and it definitely energizes me to play better.

Another 2k hands tomorrow! Hopefully another few bis!

Current roll: +134.73 (counting $100 rakeback)

Day 20


Had a 'There is no spoon' moment (I think) for the last 3k hands or so. Maybe I went on a heater but I think something clicked. Remains to be seen but I'm looking forward to putting in some more volume.

I say rush/zoom NL100/200 are some of the toughest games to beat long term right now. Good move to move down to NL50 if you can crush that limit consistently then take shots again. I still don't like to play much NL100/200 zoom/rush because the pool tends to be reg heavy and there is marginally ev to play against ld grinders and those which are overly aggressive.

Day 37 since restart and having some good success. I am definitely hitting some run good but I feel that the decisions I'm making with my value + bluffs have definitely matured.

I feel like this helps make the peaks higher and the valleys less profound when dealing with swings.

A lot of the 50nl players in the stars pool will be high VPIP low PFR and almost nonexistent 3b so it defintely makes it easy to choose my spots and profit. I think at the beginning of 50nl I was getting way too involved with players that were never folding or going postflop in a 3b pot against someone who never raises. Now after ~45k hands I am definitely getting the hang of how to exploit the pool.

Routine has definitely helped as well.

Wake up around 9am, have coffee while studying in depth at least 3 hands.

Walk dog

Stream

Upload hands into GTOw to study for 1 hr after lunch.

Rinse/repeat.

Bankroll Total: 1,321 (rakeback included)

Day 46

Things continue to progress in the right direction. I've reviewed a few lessons from Raise Your Edge and have been hitting the solver. As mentioned last week, I feel like my value spots have matured and my bluffing spots have grown alongside it.

We have reached the 50k hand mark at 50nl and are running at 2.89/100bb. Really hoping we can hit the 3/100 and up soon.

The routine has gone well and is paying off. I've also made some poker friends by hanging in a few discords of fellow streamers (and being active on their chat).

I went down to philly to hang with a few poker friends, and it was a great time. I'm also going to schedule a study sesh with another guy who plays 50nl.

Graph



Total bankroll: 1591

Found a pure bluff x/r here - the kind you fist pump afterwards. The villain is a pretty good opponent too.



Hopefully 100nl in Sep but we will see!

Cool thread. Good luck

I remember a few months back you called me down at slightly higher stakes and chat freaked out when you caught me bluffing. Hopefully, see you back up there soon so I can get some revenge

TY TY! I hope to be back up there and battle it out as well lol! Really appreciate the support.

Day 48

Broke the 3bb/100 mark and the bankroll has been growing nicely. I need to stop snap calling the stupid ass min raise or jams from fish. That's been my biggest leak. Gotta teach myself to take a breath and evaluate. Gotta also get away from putting it in bad v these stations/nut peddlers.

The board hasn't been the kindest either but it is what it is.

The best takeaway is that I can get into trouble or make mistakes and have confidence to recover.

Few weird hands from this week.





Terrible punt





Alllmossttt got my redline positive....one day soon hopefully

Current roll: 1,728.5 including rb

Day 54

Got my first HU invitation lol

folddabutton: shv
folddabutton: play me hu
folddabutton: ?
shvszn: nah im good thx
PlzDontCallx: he doesnt want the smoke
folddabutton: fish doesnt wanna play me hu
shvszn: eh im not studied
shvszn: maybe ill study and we can battle
shvszn: one day

shvszn: i can stream the battle too and we can get a watch party going
folddabutton: no offense
folddabutton: but u have no shot
folddabutton: aginst me hu
folddabutton: ur a legit reg fish

shvszn: no offense taken
shvszn: im prob not a favorite v you hu im not studied
folddabutton: ur not a favorite on m in anything
folddabutton: no offese

Hand that got him all steamed...

I should've either checked or jammed turn looking back on it. Don't like my awkward bet size. I was splitting the difference which never works out well.

Do I accept the offer? LOLZ

Anyways here's the 50nl legit fish reg graph yuuurrrrppp


Only ~1bi away from a positive redline lfgggg

They think I don't want the smoke.

I will tune in for the HU battle, fyi

Red line turned positive LFGGGG

Glgl. I subscribed and am looking forward to following this.

TY TY for the subs! It will be a fun journey for sure.

Day 56

I want to typically give updates at a weekly cadence but I've felt like I've been on a bungee cord all weekend. The graph is pretty funny to look at TBH. It could be ****ing horrible.

Variance tried to get the best of me. I was down 10bi by mid afternoon Saturday. I took a break, meditated, studied and bounced back to -2.25. I wanted to break even but was exhausted. Honestly I'll take it. I was a bit upset at myself for calling a min raise postflop, barrel from ppl that have 17/11/3 but the amount of set v top pair/good kicker was pretty stunning.

Red line turned positive late last night (~3 bucks) but **** it. That helped me get out of yesterday's trouble and I'm gonna grow that ****ing thing. Right now I'm looking at $88 bi positive redline.

Also, I took a few shots at 100nl this weekend. I game selected hard and it wasn't a crazy jump. There were a lot of player pool similarities and was definitely getting the feel. I've taken home 3bi at 100nl but definitely want to take it slow.

This weekend summarized:




Graphola:


Bankroll: 2,247 incl RB

Gonna sit down tonight and review wtf happened this weekend. I'm sure there are some glaring mistakes. Back at it tomorrow for the 10:30 am stream.

Nice stats. Let us know what happened with going down 10 buyins. Find the flaw...or was it simply variance?