I am on a quest to make $10,000 from 4 tabling 10nl zoom. I'm planning on it taking me about 1 million hands. Maybe more, maybe less.

A little backstory:
I started playing poker in 2013. I never deposited. I won a freeroll and played a lot of 10 cent HU SNGs. I then moved to 2NL, 6NL, 10NL, 25NL, 50NL, 100NL, and 200NL respectively following a strict 20 buy-in bankroll rule. What has ended up happening is I would move up to 200NL get beat by the regs and move back down to 100NL and then I would move back up again and continuously repeat this process. One day, I decided to go big or go home and played 10,000 hands at 200NL and got slaughtered yet again. My downswing got so bad I had to move down to 100NL and ended up going even further down to 50NL. There was a period of time where I also did $50 and $60 HU SNGs.

Anyways, long story short. I was discouraged and took a long break from poker. Now I am back. This time I'm just going to play to take some profit off the table. Instead of moving up and then back down and repeating this process, I'm going to make a little dough first so it doesn't feel as much like a waste of time.

If I was to total up all the time I've spent playing poker I would not have made all that much money. I think I only withdrew $2000 some. For the amount of time I've played it isn't that much.

I began this challenge quite recently I started with $1,737.87 (This was after a horrible run as well as bad play at the 100NL bad beat jackpot tables. I was at over $3,000 at the time) I am currently sitting at $2,081.43 after 30,137 hands at 10NL zoom. Not that great, but not that bad either. Perhaps it would be higher if I managed my tilt a little better.

Wish me luck everyone!

Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake.




Oh, n GL.

I don't think it is possible for a human being to survive 1 million hands of 10NL without going completely insane.

So if you played about 2,740 hands per day, every day of the year you would reach your goal of 1 million hands. And the end game is $10k. Do you realize how ******ed this is when you factor how many other things you could do in a fraction of the time to make $10k?

People play poker for a few reasons. To make a living, to have fun (maybe make a couple extra bucks), or to bankroll some larger endeavor. Time is such a huge asset and this seems like an utter waste of it. I realize my comments sound terribly negative, I mean they are but holy crap what you're proposing isn't worth the time investment. I guess...good luck?

Perhaps I'll be the first to do it.

Well, as long as I'm having some fun in the process it isn't a complete waste of time. I mean, I could be playing video games, but I'd rather be playing poker since it is more fun to me. Plus I get the bonus of extra money.

I will also post some hands here from time to time. Had an okay session today, but lost some on the last hand of the day.

Button has 150BBs and I cover and opens 3x
SB calls
I call with Q 7

Flop($0.85) Q 7 3
SB checks
I check
BU checks

Turn($0.85) Q 7 3 6
SB check
I bet $0.62
BU calls
SB folds

River($2.03) Q 7 3 6 6
I check
BU bets $1.40
I raise to $6
Bu shoves all-in for $14.59
I fold

Theoretically seems good to me, but I may be getting a little too fancy. My opponent had the ugly-looking pig avatar so maybe not the best dude to bluff in spots like this.

Hey TGS,

Agree with Strapz, if you want to play and enjoy the poker why not do a bank roll challenge moving up the stakes as you mentioned in OP.

Even if you felt you can't beat a certain level, you could stop at say 100nl and just play there. The play 1 million hands, I guess you want it to sound impressive?

All that being said, I wish you luck with your quest and hope, as you say, that you will enjoy it.

With Q7suited on the river you have an ok bluff catcher so callings fine, but I guess at this level players are under bluffing, I wouldn't be turning this hand into a bluff here ever. You unusual river check raise line looks a bit spewy.


But what is poker with out a bit of spew:P

what a cool premise for a challenge, the volume itself becomes part of the challenge. i think you will reach 10k in no time because of the volume

do you have a timeframe in mind godson? or are you playing a certain amount of hands per day?/

i think one thing that prevents many players from building a roll, or reaching a goal is that they dont embrace volume. i like to think of it as a 'tortoise and the hare' kind of thing lol

follow brooooooosky, where you playing ignition i guess?

Yup, I definitely spew from time to time.

I don't have a timeframe in mind really. I just play when I feel like it. Some days I may play 400 hands. Some days I may play over 5,000.

BetOnline. On Ignition I can't get reads on people since everything is anonymous.

GL

how can you play that much hands while juggling a job and life?

why 10nl? why not 25 or 50 or 100 NL?

The real risk here is burnout. I have way more fun trying to move up, failing miserably, rebuilding and repeating the process 30 times before succeeding (and being forced to play close to 1 mil hands on the smaller stake anyway lol) than trying this, but everyone is different, so gl. Will be following.

Things I have to improve immediately is tilt and berating players in the chat. I am not proud of this, the other day I was really nasty to another player and feel bad about it. I always frowned upon people that would do this kind of thing and I don't want to make this a habit and become that kind of person.

On a more positive note, I was able to make a hero call with a full house. Hero call and full house probably shouldn't be in the same sentence, but given the action I consider it a pretty loose call since I almost always fold in similar spots.

HJ (likely recreational) opens $0.30
CO (loose aggressive) calls
I call with 2 2 in SB
BB calls

Flop($1.14) 2 J 5
I check
BB checks
HJ checks
CO checks

Turn($1.14) 2 J 5 J
I bet $0.81
BB folds
HJ calls
CO folds

River($2.67) 2 J 5 J J
I check
HJ bets $2
I call

HJ shows A 8

Any jack, five or higher pocket pair beats me, so not a great spot, but for some odd reason I thought he could have a flush and called.

I wonder if my opponent knows he is bluffing with the flush or thinks its a value bet.

Interesting spot with K J in a 4-way pot today.

HJ with 100BBs opens to $0.30
CO player with 638BBs calls
BU player with 412BBs calls
I call in BB with 247BBs

Flop($1.19) 3 8J
I check
HJ bets $0.99
CO folds
BU calls
I consider raising, but end up just calling instead because of deepness

Turn($3.99) 38 J 6
I check
HJ checks
BU bets $1.95
I call
HJ calls

River($9.52) 3 8 J 6 4
I check
HJ checks
BU bets $4.76
I call
HJ folds

How depressingly nitty are those games when you consider folding the second nuts there?

pretty much man, bring antes to all the tables to revive some cash games, thats why I moved to play mtts dude cash games feel like hell

@Kelvis

Well it isn't too terribly nitty. I just 5-bet bluffed with T 7 versus an aggressive solid player (No way this guy regularly plays 10NL, probably 100NL or better). I felt the guy 4-bet because I was starting to 3-bet too wide and also to isolate against the BB caller who was calling too much. I figured he might 4-bet fold AJ, AQ, maybe even middling pairs like 99 and 88.

BU with 253BBs opens to $0.23
I 3-bet in the SB to $0.84 with 394BBs
BB calls with 42BBs
BU 4-bets to $2.72
I 5-bet to $6.30
BB calls
BU folds

BB had 69 and I ended up scooping the pot.

Wasn't sure what BB would do, but his range was so wide that I wasn't too worried. Perhaps he was tilting because the call was pretty unexpected. Normally I fold T7s preflop here and also to the 4-bet, but this just felt like a really good spot as an exploit.

I've reached the 50,000 hand milestone. I'm $474.61 in the green which is lower than I wanted to be at, but at least I'm winning.

Here are some notable hands:

I opened in CO with J 7 150BBs effective
BU calls
BB calls

Flop($0.90) 6 9 K
BB checks
I check
BU bets $0.50
BB calls
I call

Turn($2.32) 6 9 K 7
BB checks
I check
BU bets $1.16
BB calls
I raise to $6
BU calls
BB folds

River($14.75) 6 9 K 7 8
I shove all-in for $9.01
BU folds
Phew!


CO limps
BU makes it $0.60 with 250BBs behind
I call with Q J
BB and CO fold

Flop($1.33) T 9 5
I check
BU bets $0.89
I raise to $2.20
BU calls

Turn($5.48) T 9 5 K
I bet $4
BU raises to $11.65
I jam all-in and he calls with K T

River is a 2 and I end up with over 70BBs.

I've noticed that when my stack is larger I tend to make more money, because people fold to me more.

H1 - What is the reasoning for raising turn? Surely a flat call works much better as you have the odds/implied odds to draw to the flush. Good bluff on the river. I like it.

H2 - After BTN makes it so big pre why would you raise flop? Sure you have a load of outs but the Q/J aren't clean outs by any stretch if V has KK/AA/JT/QT/J9/Q9. He also is certainly not folding QQ/JJ/TT/99/club draws. Fantastic turn for you and I like the bet sizing as the board is draw/2 pair/set heavy.

After moving up to 10NL recently on Stars the games seem much, much softer than 5NL imo.

Gl dude.

If you can maintain 10bb/100 for 200k hands, I'll uninstall my Pokerstars

Not cbetting king high flop as PFR because...?

Calling 6x from SB with QJs not closing action because..?

I suppose I could call though I don't see myself having much showdown value. I felt like my line would look pretty strong and get a lot of folds. If BU has QJ, QT, JT he may triple barrel and I'll have to fold. If BB has a weakish king I think he'll likely fold. If either player calls and a 7 or jack hits the river I can probably extract value from hands like AK or KQ. When the flush hits I can sometimes get heroed because there are players that assume you have to bet your flush draw on the flop as the PFR.

If BU player has a strong draw to the nut flush of either diamonds or spades and the river bricks the action will likely go check/check and I'll win with a pair of sevens.

With hand 2, I raised the flop because I thought I'd get a lot of folds. This player likes to barrel a lot. Also, felt like he might be a bit timid since we were playing fairly deep so some of those borderline hands might get folded.

Ha, not sure I will be able to. Today was an awful day. Was down so bad. It seemed like everything that could possibly go wrong did. My AA and KK got cracked constantly in preflop jam situations. Houses facing 4 of a kind a couple times. Sets getting cracked by odd ball str8s on rivers. It was just awful. I even tilted a little bit, but not as badly as I have in the past. I was down close to 20 buy-ins and could hardly believe it.

I began to focus very hard and was able to climb back up to only a 12 buy-in loss. This was all over the course of 4,000 hands so maybe I didn't play so good. I'm not sure if it is possible to go 20 buy-ins south if you play good. Then again, I ran really really bad. It was awful.

I didn't feel like I was playing too badly, but I think I was c-betting a bit too much in 3-bet pots which was not great.

I usually do c-bet this flop, but pot was multi-way and wanted to protect my checking range with some flushes.

BU player in the QJs hand always tends to bet larger. I pretty much never flat from the SB, but here was an exception. Since the sizing was quite large I wasn't too worried about a squeeze also stack sizes give me a lot of potential to make moves.

Wow, just played 3000 some hands and moved up over 17 buy-ins. I focused very well and tried to think more about how my opponents are feeling/playing. I've been balancing too much in the past and I've left some good money on the table doing this.

I've noticed that when I pay attention I can scoop up massive pots that inattentive me wouldn't notice. For example:

200BBs effective, SB was a short stack
I open $0.30 with 7 7 in HJ
CO station calls
SB calls

Flop($0.95) 8 2 8
SB checks
I bet $0.48
CO calls
SB calls

Turn($2.31) 8 2 8 7
SB checks
I check
CO checks

River($2.31) 8 2 8 7 K
SB checks
I bet $1.84
CO raises to $3.68
SB folds
I go all-in for $19.43
CO calls with 9 8

I was focusing on how my opponent was playing instead of being overly GTO balanced. In the past I've given my opponents too much credit for hands in certain spots. In this spot I could choose to be worried about only getting called by 87 and K8. However, when really focusing on the player, I can determine how he's playing and what he's calling with. In this scenario I believe he can raise river with trips and flushes which won't fold to the jam.

In another hand I 3-bet squeeze jammed with AA in BB versus a 5x raise from a 300BB deep UTG open with BU station caller and SB caller. I got calls from AK and 88. Great spot for me and not balanced at all. Are people going to 4-bet in this spot if I 3-bet small. No, they aren't. They don't do it and I rarely 4-bet jam that deep with AA anyway.

I was able to get 2 people to tilt really bad against me. By timing my bets correctly I can get some wild plays:

SB opens $0.50
I call in BB with 3 3

Flop($0.95) 9 8 3
SB checks
I bet $0.63
SB calls

Turn($2.14) 9 8 3 2
SB checks
I snap bet $2.14
SB calls

River($6.18) 9 8 3 2 A
SB bets $7.50
I go all-in for $7.73
SB calls with K Q
SB bets $


In another few hands I was able to get 63o to spazz off a stack to me as well as 52o from another player. Versus another player who limped on the button I 10xed it with AA and got them to spazz all in. I was raising a lot, but when I saw the button limp I just knew the 10x raise would get em'.

When a nit came to the table I was able to open my button with ATC with hardly any 3-betting. It was a poker player's dream.

I opened 43o on the BU
SB nit folded
BB called

BB donk bet 1/6 pot on T74tt board
I made it 1/2 pot and he called

Turn was a 6 completing a flush
BB bet 1/2
I called

Rive was an ace
BB bet 1/7
I called
BB showed 33 and was fuming and lashed out at me in the chat.

This guy gets angry quite often and once he does he can't stop himself from spewing.

Overall, very good night for me.

The real problem with this goal was that he was hoping to obtain only 1bb/100 over a 1m hand sample.