I guess I’ll start with a little bit about me. I’ve been playing poker for a pretty long time now. I started in high school and gradually got more and more serious until I was winning at 100NL pre-BF. Since then I’ve picked it up and dropped it a few times playing on Lock and now Bovada and mixing in some live poker. I titled this thread keeping it mad real because I think I’m pretty realistic in my approach to poker. I’d basically just like to derive significant side income from poker while keeping myself entertained and enjoying the game. I enjoy the challenge of poker, but have no real desire to turn pro. Yeah it’d be sweet crushing 100kNL but the work you have to put in and the swings you have to endure just make it kind of unappealing. Combine that with the kind of regulatory uncertainty and the risk involved with the game possibly not even really being profitable in a few years and I’m really not sure why so many people are pursuing it. Not saying it's not right for some people, just explaining where my goals are coming from.

I’m a full time grad student right now and that covers my modest living expenses. All I really do is eat out a lot and drink cheap beer. Right now there is still a nice chunk of money to be made in the 100NL and 200NL games. I’m looking to put away a maximum IRA contribution every year and also start a little nest egg for all the future expenses I know I’m going to have. Buying a house, having a wedding, getting a new car, having kids etc etc. Christ, I sound like Joey Knish.

The goals for this thread:

Make 10k this year
Play 20 hours a week online+live
Move up to 100NL on Bovada
Move up to 200NL on Bovada

Currently playing 50nl on Bovada with a roll of ~$1400. Will mix in some 100nl tables as the roll gets close to 2k. I'm in small downswing right now unfortunately and also about $700 under EV, but:

Move up to 5/5 Live. Crush.

My live roll is ~$2k I’ll be using to play 2/3 gonna try to play live at least once a week if not twice up at Ocean’s Eleven. The 5/5 game looks pretty good and I’m kind of itching to get into it.

Get down to 180 lbs

Currently in the upper 180s. It’s crazy when I came into grad school I was like 250. I just gained so much weight in college from drinking and eating out. I’m kind of an extreme person in the sense that when I do something, I go pretty hard. When I’m working out I really push myself, and when I’m being fat and lazy, I am really fat and lazy. So I’m gonna try to hit the gym and lift around 4 days a week and hopefully get some other activities in also, maybe run a few miles here and there.

Other crap you can expect in this thread: Lots of good music, especially hip hop, and random talk about books, movies and TV. I’ll try to post some hand histories and be pretty open about my approach to the game, I’ve kind of avoided 2+2 for a long time now since I feel like there are large parts of the community that can be pretty obnoxious but PGC seems pretty cool so we’ll see whats up. Hopefully I can find some cool people here to talk poker with.

Looks like I messed up the youtube video but eff it, thats the breaks. Also before anyone asks that huge spike on PTR is a fish sitting on my immediate right open shoving for an hour at 50NL.

Played a couple hours of 50NL tonight and dropped a couple buyins. I think maybe I've gotten frustrated and been a little too aggressive with some weak value hands and end up turning my hand into a bluff when I should be checking back with weaker parts of my range. The only downside to the softness of Bovada is just how really at the mercy of the cards you are. You just need to be patient and hit and then hop on the train to Valuetown.

I hadn't really been studying too much since the games at Bovada are just so good but since I've been losing a bit lately I've been checking out some Run it Once videos. Particularly James Hudson. I really respect his just straightforward, uber solid approach to the game. It definitely makes him the most relevant instructor from rio for lower stakes NL and especially Bovada. So if any of you guys out there are struggling I'd definitely recommend him.

I guess this will just be my kind of poker journal for a while until I either get bored, or people take an interest in the thread. Maybe I should start sticking my nose out a bit into some other peoples threads.

Actually am interested to hear if people have an opinion on this hand, especially any Bovada regs. Villain if I recall was playing something like 60/30 over just ten hands or so, but I perceived him as a recreational player. When he first donks out on the flop I thought his most likely hand was a jack he was excited about, but the turn checkraise just really makes no sense to me and kind of left me puzzled. You see some pretty crazy stuff at Bovada so I ended up just shipping it in and expecting him to show a jack or possibly a flush draw.

Curious what people think of my play. Is this just super standard? My hesitation is mostly just the fact that the minraise from loose passives is often the nuts.

GL!

GL, I currently play 100NL on Bovada as well.

Been slacking pretty hard the last couple weeks. Running badly had me pretty unmotivated. On top of that I had some company, and started playing Diablo 3 again to take my mind off poker a bit. Anyway, back to the grind!

Played a 4.5 hr live session last friday, and booked a ~$60 win. Nothing to write home about but a wins a win. Going to try to put in a couple long live sessions this weekend. Hopefully will spend about 6 hours at Ocean's on Friday and maybe 8ish hours either Sat or Sun.

Also put in a 4 hour session online last night. 2 hours 6-tabling. 4 Bovada 2 Seals. And then another 2 hour session 4 tabling Bovada. The 4 table limit on Bovada is super annoying but a definite contributor to the quality of the games. The players on Seals mostly have reasonable stats, definitely not as many fish as Bovada, but they all still have huge postflop leaks so it's not too bad. Add that to the fact that you can deposit/withdraw whenever and Seals is pretty legit in my book. I'm kind of surprised more poker sites are embracing Bitcoin but what can you do. If Bitcoin takes off an old account at Seals could actually be pretty valuable with some legit rakeback.

from a fellow nl50 grinder to another, GL!

Been putting in pretty decent volume this week, for me at least, with not much to show for it. Put in another 4 hours last night and 1.5 tonight and my roll is just ping ponging around the 1300-1400 range.

That puts me at 11.5/20 for my weekly hours goal but I'm planning to play a lot of live this weekend. Hopefully put in 6ish hours after work tomorrow and another long one saturday or sunday. Really trying to focus on just putting the time in since it seems I'm running pretty meh lately. It's also just tough to pass up on the value live. I feel like I have a significant edge on the normal 2/3 game that runs at Ocean's and figure my hourly is probably in the ~$30 range. With any luck I'll be able to move up to 5/5 in a few months.

Put in 6.5 hours at Ocean's Friday and booked a nice ~$550 profit. Puts my live roll at around 2.6k which is about half of what I want before I take some 5/5 shots.

Spent all day Saturday day-drinking and then watching the Mayweather fight which was pretty sweet.

Playing a little bovada right now trying to put in the last 2 hours for me to hit my 20 hr/week goal. Up a little but nothing crazy. Still kind of treading water.

Think I'm going to spend some time reviewing the last couple weeks hands after I watch GoT tonight. Been lazy about it and haven't really been analyzing my game like I should be. I guess I just feel like I should be winning and so when it comes to studying/reviewing vs. playing I just choose to play. Would like to get back into watching some Run it Once videos. Also want to reread Haseeb Qureshi's book, if you guys haven't checked that out you should. It's not totally mind blowing or anything but it offers a lot of interesting and varied perspectives on topics and also just reminds me how much I love poker and gives me some motivation to grind.

This last week has been pretty much more of the same so haven't bothered updating. Put in 3 hours each on Monday and Tuesday, 2 hours each on Wednesday,Thursday and Saturday. Did a bit of 8-tabling, 4 bovada and 4 seals. Still pretty much breaking even. Will definitely fall short of my 20 hour goal this week since I didn't put in any live sessions. Got drunk on Friday and played kickball instead.

Since the start of this thread:
Bovada: -$200
Seals: +.1 BTC
Live: +$600

Maybe I'm just getting too caught up in my short term results. Looking at my overall results it doesn't seem bad. I guess I just take winning live for granted. Which is a bit of mental issue I need to deal with. Trying to focus more on just putting in volume and not worrying much about the results but I find it kind of hard to motivate myself when I haven't been winning lately.

I was crushing on Bovada for a nice little stretch and think I just started taking it for granted. Ran at about 12 EV bb/100 for a while but now my total sample is 30k hands at 50NL at 5.6 EV bb/100. Which I guess really isn't bad. I think on other sites 5bb/100 is crushing now, but those sites are also much tougher than Bovada and you can play a lot more tables.

So I received a bonus offer from Bovada which seems to be something few other winning regs can claim. I'm interested if any other winning players have gotten them? Mine stretches up to 350 points for $45 and I plan to clear it 3 of the 4 weeks. One week I'll be traveling and probably won't get to play much. But ~$135 will be a nice little boost to the roll.

I put in a pretty good session last night, a little over 3 hours to take a chunk out of the 350 points I need to earn and ended up about 3 buyins. So I'm sitting around ~$1350. I didn't add any seals tables, but I did watch netflix haha, I watched the Legend of Bagger Vance.

I'll assume its coincidence for now but I seem to do better when I'm just not paying that much attention and watching netflix. 4 tables at bovada is just way too damn slow to consistently pay attention. It does definitely cost me some EV when I miss notes about people making weird fishy plays that they repeat every so often though.

Also I think I'm earning something like 33 points/hr 4 tabling 50nl. Any one else have significantly higher/lower rates?