First off, As the title suggested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O70v5OuqP2I

Playing? Good, let's start then.

Heya! I'm Vincent, a 24 year old Dutch dude who has a goal. I've been traveling for the past couple of years now after I graduated from cooking school in 2011. But now I'm back in "Dutchyland".

Being that I've been in love with poker for vast majority of my life, I never actually made steps to kick it up to the next level. All the poker I did was mostly with friends at €5,- homegames every week. Now that I am back and not planning to go away for quite a while I figured that now would be the perfect opportunity to try and see if I could make a huge hobby into a nice side-income. And maybe even more...

Be as it may, there will be a massive amount of work to be done. Working as a chef and traveling has had a huge impact on my way of living. Sitting at a desk for 4/5 hours a day, getting up early to be able to get everything done and working on a regular and disciplined scedule are things I haven't done in a very long time.

'nuff about myself. Let's talk cards!

I plan on starting from the deep pitt of donkeyhell that is called 2NL on Pokerstars. Once I am confident that I am beating it on a regular basis I'll move up, rinse and repeat until I can't move up no more.

So this will be a tread containing the rise and maybe even fall of yours truly, I must ask to be a bit patient with me. I have never dealt with much theory or gameplans/strategies. So I really need to start from the bottom and work my way up.

The next post will be the scedule/plan I am working on so I get some accountability. Afterwards we'll see where things lead.

I hope I can count on the coöperation that 2+2 is known for wherever needed!

GL on the tables!

Scedule is taking a bit longer then expected, but I've been working on some sort of a pre-flop strategy that I would like to bounce off of you guys:

I've been reading alot of the Blackrain79 posts on his blog and been trough his book several times and this is what he suggests as a PF strat on the smallest of stakes (i.e. 2NL/5NL).

This is all meant to be for FR tables. Haven't really looked into 6max yet.

Playing around 15% of hands dealt at FR,

UTG/UTG+1: 22+,AQo+
MP1: 22+,AJs+,KQs+
MP2: 22+,AJo+,KQo+
HJ: 22+,ATo+,KJo+,QJo+,A8s+,78s+
CO:22+,All Aces, All broadways, K8o,Q9o+,J8o+,56s+,75s+
BTN: 22+,All Aces, All broadways,All Kings,Q7o+,J8o+,T8o+,56s+,64s+,74s+
SB:22+,A9s+,KJo+,QJo+,78s+
BB:22+,A9s+,KJo+,QJo+,78s+

He suggests a standerd open of 4BB (or 8c) with a 6BB open from LP.
Raise your standard size+1BB for each limper that enters the pot.

Only call raises PF when:
-You have a small PP and you want to setmine.
-Big Ace or fairly big pair and you don't want to 3-bet.
-Speculative hand IP and there is a fish involved.

If none of the above 3-Bet or Fold.
3-bet range will be between 2-4 % so; 99+,AQs+ and AKo.

When someone 3-bets you, you should be folding alot of the times, especially OOP.
Only call a 3-bet with TT+ and AK.
4-bet with AA and KK.

All of this is of course situation and player dependant. but will this be a good guideline to start off with? Refining some points on the go? Or is there something drastically wrong?

Some input would be appreciated (=

The swings, the swings...

Let's get another update going!

I didn't really get the start I wanted, that's for sure.
The first week went pretty well. Started out quite nicely untill I had one drink too many after work and got the brilliant idea to start bossing those 10nl full-ring nubs around. (Explaining that short but quite massive swing in my graph). Luckily I came to my senses after around 100/120 hands of spewing. And blocked myself from all games above 5nl untill I actually reach that level.

Afterwards I played/ran ok'ish until the beginning of the next week. Which was horrible to say the least. I'm not sure if it came because I got really unlucky in most spots, or if there was something really, really wrong with my play in general (I guess the second option is more viable) but I couldn't for the life of me end the session with profit.

I did however find out that if this could be called a downswing, I'm capable of handling those quite well. Each morning I got out of bed without some depressed feeling from the session the day before even though I couldn't and didn't make a profit.

It is really frustrating to read about all of those guys really crushing the microstakes, and keep yapping about how easy it actually is to do so, go sit down behind your desk, start a session, and get beaten up everytime you enter a hand by guys who for some reason seem to keep getting the hands that beat you in the end.

So after the 5th or 6th session I came to the conclusion that I needed to study ALOT harder then I was doing at that moment to get to the profit-making. I didn't sit down at any tables from that moment on (which I think was Friday morning) untill last Sunday and put all of my spare time into getting a decent pre and postflop strategy down on paper which would give me more insight into the way I played, and what exactly had to change.

And alot had to change....

The graphs:

Week 1 (18-01/24-01)


Week 2 (25-01/31-01)




Let's see if this week will turn out to be different, I am still working on a scedule that I'll follow for the following months which will consist of both personal and poker-related improvements. But finding/making one that works for me proved to be harder then I thought.

Thanks for reading!

-Vincent-

How's this going for you? So from your post i understood that you are raising 22's the UTG?
You are calling 3bets with TT/JJ/QQ?

Good luck with your endeavour, ATM i'm trying the same thing but playing abit tighter than what you posted. It's a rollercoaster

Im trying to figure out if raising 22-55/66 from UTG is better then limping or folding. As I said in a rpevious post, in his book, Nathan (Blackrain) suggests to limp those hands from EP to see a flop as cheap as possible and fold if unimproved. Im my limited experience so far it seems limping might be better overall. Although it makes it harder to extract value or stack off your opponents when you hit. (because of the size of the pot).

The calling of 3bets depends on the villain really. Sometimes I coldcall, sometimes if 4-bet. I'm not laying them down IP though. At 2nl I really think there is massive value to be extracted from some of the players with these hands.