Hello all, my name is Adam and I have been playing poker on and off for several years both live and online. A little about me...I am 26 years old and just graduated with my Master's degree in Experimental Psychology specializing in Behavioral Neuroscience. I am on the job hunt as of the writing of this PG&C, so in the mean time I thought it would be worth my time to turn a casual hobby I love (poker) into a lucrative one. I've been lurking 2p2 for years now and thought it was finally time to give it a run.

Like many people, I have made small deposits online only to play way too big and bust out after a touch of run bad and a cooler. I consider myself to be a talented player, however my major problem is a lack of discipline when it comes to bankroll. The paramount goal of this log is to learn to hold myself accountable and prove to myself that I can build a bankroll and move up the stakes using a solid disciplined approach. I genuinely believe that if I can establish and maintain discipline, I WILL crush Bovada.

I can't tell you how many times I've run up 300-500bbs at a single table at one stake, only to take it to a higher stake where I only have 2-3 buyins, then proceed to lose it to the inevitable cooler and run bad. Now that isn't to say that I ONLY lose when I get coolered, obviously there are times when I think TOO MUCH in a hand and wind up making the bad call when in hindsight I should have folded, example from today, and apologies for not using the hand converter, for now writing will have to do...

Hero is dealt KQo in CO, Villain opens to 3x UTG, folds around to hero who calls. Flop Q62r, Villain makes a pot sized c-bet, hero calls. Turn J, Villain makes another pot sized bet...alarm bells start going off in Heros head and starts the wheel turning... "ok so villain raised pre from EP, potted a bone dry flop, then potted a still dry turn, did I really just run into AQ, KK, or AA? But why on Earth would he bomb flop and turn on such a dry board with such strong hands? Wouldn't he want to get value from smaller pairs, Q with weak kicker etc..." all the while my gut screaming fold, but my finger clicks call. Check/Check on a blank river and he shows me AQ. It is spots like this that I need to focus on really evaluating the evidence and sometimes despite weird lines, making the fold.

Ok this is getting too long, I'll wrap up with the actual goal of this thread.

I'll be playing .02/.05 on Bovada, the lowest they offer, with a starting bankroll of $70 (14 buyins). I will be shot taking the next higher limit when I have 15 buyins for it and move back down if I lose 5 buyins.

Immediate Goals:

-Establish discipline to not jump limits with way less buyins just because I am slaying a lower limit
-Shot take .05/.10 when bankroll reaches $150. If I drop to $100, move back down.

I wrote this more for my own accountability than for feedback, but I look forward to any comments or suggestions people have. I will try to save at least one interesting/difficult hand per session and post it for you guys to critique if you want. Thank you for reading and good luck out there!

*Disclaimer: I don't yet have any hand tracking software so for now no pretty graphs, but I will be completely honest in my post-session updates to keep myself as accountable as possible. I also don't yet know how to use the hand converter but I will figure it out ASAP, until then bare with me*

Session update:

Duration: 2 hours
Starting Roll: $70
Ending Roll: $98.11
Change: +$28.11 (562.2bb)
bb/hr: 281.1

Comments: Standard session at the micros. Obviously ran good. Getting paid on all my premiums, people shoving air into wet boards that hit my ranges hard etc...made a lot on 2 pair hands this session. No good hands to note, besides I am on Bovada so I'd have to wait until tomorrow to pull the HH. May put in another session later this evening.

For those wondering I am 3 tabling 6-max usually. Sometimes throw a 9-handed table in too.

Update: Put in two short sessions last night and this morning totaling 5 hours. Last night started out rough, dropped 3.5 BI in the first hour but made the climb back up to be positive 1 BI. This mornings session has been largely unremarkable, just a solid grind and getting paid in good spots and avoiding getting fancy and making bad calls when I should be beat 90% of the time.

I think I will keep a cumulative total of my hours played/roll/winrate in each update. I hope to get a tracker soon so I can get some nifty graphs of my play. I think Holdem Manager 2 is highly recommended, does anybody know what works best with Bovada or have recommendations?

Duration Total: 7 hours
Session Starting Roll: $98.11
Session Ending Roll: $111.48
Change: +$13.37 (267.4 bb)
bb/hr: 118.51

2.5 hr session in the books. Still running insanely good and playing well. Mostly standard spots against weak opponents. Noticing that in the beginning of a session I am less focused and tend to spew a little bit and make more marginal calls or look up players for apparently no reason. Need to kill that tendency.

Duration Total: 9.5 hours
Session Starting Roll: $111.48
Session Ending Roll: $129.73
Change: +$18.15 (363 bb)
Average bb/hr: 125.55

Goodluck with the grind!

Thanks! Been going super strong so far but I'm sure the negative variance will kick in soon..

Subd Gl

If you really want to ever do poker the right way and really make it more then just a hobby the best approach is solid bankroll management. 30-50 buyins for all cash games. Stop shot taking and stop wasting time in the micros. I think the smartest thing to do is save up $500 and deposit it on Bovada and get deposit bonus for 100% if possible still and play lots of tables at a time. Start with maybe 2 or 3 and move up to 6-8 with mtts included bc they have huge val. Anything under 10NLH is just a waste of time and for rec fish only imo. I think there is next to no skill gap between 5NLH
and 10NLH. Even 25NL is pretty fishy. 15 buyins and 5 buyin ds stoploss to drop down stakes may work, but all it takes is one day for you to get frustrated and break a 5buyin ds and keep playing. I know from experience. Less stress to you mentally if you play with enough to survive downswings and move up stakes comfortably. If you really end up crushing 25NL then start going back to 25buyins brm imo. See where you fall on the scale of cash players before you lock yourself into a stake. Put in 10k hands at each level to get a feeler for your game(50k hands or a month at each stake before moving up limits is highly advised). This is all stuff I have read on 2p2 and know to be good advice. You should expect up to 25buyin ds's at which point you move down stakes if not working. Step 1 get out of the micros immediately. Step 2 put in time studying, playing and improving game and playing for stakes that actually matter to you so you take it seriously at all times.

Good advice generally but for now I think I am most comfortable starting at the bottom and making my way to the top. If anything more so to establish the discipline I know I am lacking. In other words, if I can stay disciplined at stakes that are in real $$ not that important, then I should be able to maintain excellent discipline and BR management at higher levels. I agree that the lowest micros are vastly underskilled players, so building a bankroll off of them isn't the most rewarding feat, but I still think it pertinent to put in ones dues. That, and as I mentioned in my first post, I am between work...so the 70$ starting BR was about all I could allocate. Thanks for the nice post and I will take it to heart!

Currently playing a session and I just need to vent quick. I'm only an hour into this session and am down 3 BI due solely to bad beats. The kind where the guy checks his JJ on a J22 board, I bet with pocket 66 he calls. Turn check check. River, a 6. I bet he raises etc get it in for stacks. Thanks Bovada...ok I can take bad beats. But the next hand I've got KQo on the button and 3! pre. Flop K73. He checks I bet he calls. Turn 6. He bets I raise he calls. River 6. He bets I call he turns over............... 65o for runner runner trips. Called flop with less than nothing, called a turn raise with third pair. I usually love when they play like this but this one irked me so much that I had to get up and talk a little walk around the house. Anyways...on another table just got it in pre with AA against KK, 1010, and the other 1010 and held for a quadruple up. Silver linings...

Last three sessions update:
Yesterday afternoon: 1.5 hrs
Duration Total: 11 hours
Session Starting Roll: $129.73
Session Ending Roll: $137.12
Change: +$7.39 (147.8 bb)

Late last night: Was playing tired and making loose calls and mistakes. Calling down with second best and getting dealt some beats to make it even worse. Nearly hit my stop loss. 2 hrs
Duration Total: 13 hours
Session Starting Roll: $137.12
Session Ending Roll: $123.45
Change: -$13.67 (-273.4 bb)

This morning: Got stuck big right off the bat (see my last message for some details) but managed to make a huge comeback and get almost unstuck after 4 hrs. Big unsticking hands were AA into KK, 1010, and 1010 and held for a quadruple up, and KK into AQ and JJ and held for a triple up. Other gains were steady play after I shook off the tilt from earlier.
Duration Total: 17 hours
Session Starting Roll: $123.45
Session Ending Roll: $122.00
Change: -$1.45 (-29 bb)

Comments: Still getting tilted by some things, especially when they all happen within a very short span of time. Getting better at recognizing it though and sitting out my tables until I relax and calm down. It's only been 17 hrs of 3 tabling 6-max (~4k hands) but I'm still up a good 61 bb/hr +$52 overall thanks to my run good the first two sessions.

Really hoping to grind it up to my $150 goal so I can shot take .05/.10 within the next day or so if I can stay level headed and keep playing well.

I'm brand new and most likely my comments will mean little or nothing to you.....but I have played a good deal on bovada and stars and doubt I will go back to online poker much until Stars one day arrives back. But what I have come to realize is micro limits mean little or nothing to my game other than many more donks and profits that I would rather be greater than $20-$50 in gratitude of my solid play. I agree with suited and zooted on going higher than staying low and safe. Which is why I'm changing my game to live play instead of online at the moment. I would prefer to grind 6 hours of live a night at a 1-1$ table then grind for a measly $20 in 2 hours of play where at least in my background of learned little about my game and the money is easy to steal whereas it won't be the same outside of those areas.

Thanks for the comments. I intend to shift up the stakes as soon as possible when my bankroll allows for it while taking aggressive shots at the next stake. Believe me I do NOT want to stay in the 5nl and 10nl games for longer than I need to. I'd like to be playing 25nl and 50nl as my regular games within the next couple weeks if possible. I also play up at my local casino playing $1/$2 when I can, but being between jobs I just can't afford it. Just to be clear - I am working my way up to the higher limits so that I don't have to play for nickels and dimes at a time. Thanks for taking the time to reply, I enjoy hearing other peoples' thoughts on things. Main goal is to blaze my way to a sufficient bankroll for 25nl as fast as I can so that I can make an hourly that actually means something.

Sorry for the lack of updates these past couple of days. I dropped my laptop which, naturally, broke it. Lost my tracked data and have been waiting to get this replacement.

Poker-wise the past several days have been very very swingy. Again I lost my tracked data but essentially since my last update I had a heavy downswing spanning two days dropping me from my last BR value of $120 all the way down to $80ish. So roughly an 8 BI downswing which I hate to say it, was almost entirely the sickest beats I've ever seen and they just kept coming session after session. Things like runner runner flushes when AIPF, people floating flop with air then going runner runner trips or nuts. I handled the tilt about as well as I could have and slowed way down and got up from the computer more times than I can recall to avoid tilting away good money. Despite the downswing and gross variance I am happy to report that I was happy with my overall game and play. Rarely getting it in without being the favorite etc...

BUT! The past two days have seen a remarkable upswing. I am still playing my normal game, which BTW I haven't mentioned before that I employ a revolving TAG/LAG style throughout sessions. Before you say it, I know TAG is what I should stick with at the micros, but I make far more $$ playing more on the LAGgy side. I just have a good way of approaching it I guess. Anyways back to results: The past two days I went from my almost starting BR $80 at the trough of my DS, to being back up and beyond my prior peak. I am now sitting with a BR of $151.64 by playing my game and staying consistent and avoiding tilt-spew. It has been a trying couple days to say the least, however I know I will have more, and longer DSs in the future.

I have hit a point in my BR that I said I would shot take .05/.10, however for now I think I will stick with my current style at .02/.05 until I hit $175, at which point I will be nearly fully rolled for .05/.10 and I'll just move up entirely instead of shot take. I will have a 5 BI downswing move-down limit but hopefully I can start crushing the .05/.10 like I seem to be my current stake.

Just wanted to check in! Thanks guys!

Been playing short sessions a couple of times per day the last several days. BR is now at $206.07 as of this post. I have started playing .05/10 and the difficulty doesn't seem much different from .02/.05. That said, I am still glad I took the time to grind through the lowest stake because it helped me to recognize some leaks like opening too wide against fish. It also forced me to deal with tilt issues because I could post literally dozens of pure bad beats just from the past week alone. It was very trying at times to relax after some of these 2% chance hits they made on me.

Anyway just wanted to post an update that I have officially moved up to .05/.10 and will hopefully never have to go back down!

Goals Met:
-Move up to .05/.10
-Overcome some tilt issues
-Able to maintain BR management to this point to avoid big shot taking and busto

New Goals:
-Grind until I have 15 BI for .10/.25 which is annoying because the BB is 1.5x the SB, so instead of shot taking at $300 if it were .10/.20, ill have to wait until my BR hits $375 before taking a shot at the next stake.
-Start saving hands to post for review!!! I can't figure out how to save Bovada HHs and use the converter on here, if someone could suggest a way?? Anyways below I will write a rough HH from yesterday where I flopped the nuts, but I would like feedback on if you can find a fold, my raise sizing etc...tear it apart! Thanks!

Villain is UTG+2, Effective stacks are $9.70

Hero dealt 910 in sb UTG raises to $.20, fold, UTG+2 calls, fold, hero calls, fold. (pot $.70)
FLOP: 768
Hero checks, UTG checks, UTG+2 bets $0.35, hero raises to $1.00, UTG folds, UTG+2 calls. (pot $2.70)
TURN: 4
Hero checks, UTG+2 bets $1.35, hero raises to $3.10, UTG+2 calls. (pot $8.90)
RIVER: 6
Hero checks, UTG+2 bets $1.88 into $8.90, hero calls. (pot $12.66)
SHOWDOWN: Hero shows nut straight, UTG+2 shows 35 for flush.

My thoughts after the hand: Mistakes!
-Should have just folded the 910o pre in the sb to a min raise and call out of pure position disadvantage and having to play three handed OOP, but the price was good to call...
-Flop nuts and check raise, I made it about 3x hits bet, this is pretty standard I think, however given the wet board he can have 9s and 5s plus flush draws a lot of the time, so should I have gone even bigger? Something like 5x?
-Turn check raise when the 4 hits gives any 5 a lower straight, so I raised about 2.4x for value while still (barely) pricing out flush draws (he has to call $1.75 to win $7.10 ((4to1)), but I realized my sizing was DEFINITELY too small. Heck, I think a shove on the turn might have been the best play with that board. Most 5x are calling as the third nuts, and many flush draws might still chase getting awful odds. I think check-shove turn is best, because most other raises forces me to call off on bad rivers due to price (SPR??).
-River comes probably the single worse card in the deck for us. 6 completes the flush draw, pairs the board for any sets filling up which likely play this the same way, and it isn't a high card diamond that could possibly have hit villains overpairs etc...so really one of the couple nut worst cards to come. I check with the intent of just check-calling a normal sized bet or possibly check/folding a shove, but at this point due to my tiny C/R on the turn, I really can't fold river for any amount as I'm still getting around 1.5 to 1 on a river shove (flawed thinking here?). Villain bets only $1.88 into $8.70, I only have to be good ~20% of the time here, so it's an obvious call but I'm expecting to see the suck out most of the time. He shows the combo draw from the flop open-ended and flush draw so I can't be upset with how the hand played out, except that I miss a ton of value the times he shows up without the flush...

Thoughts? Please shred my line of thinking and my as-played line as well. I know people usually want the results to be withheld for a day or more but I don't have much traffic and I think for my first HH I just want peoples thoughts overall. Thanks!

two things I have:
- I spew money from SB so my personal range for calling is extremely tight. I wouldn't have been in the hand at all the begin with. Even if it's +EV to the moon. That's just me.
- with the c/r after the flop that he called, I would have been a pot sized bet on the turn. If V is calling or re-raising I'm not sure what I would do in the moment. Gut says shove, brain says re-evaluate his range. In my brain, I can't put him on a flush draw calling a pot sized bet on the turn, so I would have put him on a set at that point.

-Agree with point 1 that I likely shouldn't have been in the hand in the first place...
But given that we are, in your second point about pot size betting the turn, are you saying I should lead the turn for a PSB, or that I should have c/r a pot sized bet? On the turn the board is 4 to a straight with a any 5 making the middle straight. So it would need to be either that or he is poorly continuing with a set on a 4 straight 2 flush board...hmm I still think check-shoving turn might be best, but do sets or flushes call off on that scary wet of a turn board? If we c/r all in what does opponent have that could call besides something like top set and spaz calling out of frustration, maybe a huge nut flush combo draw. I don't know. Obviously villain was probably never folding, especially after picking up the lower straight on turn with the flush redraw, but in a vacuum readless, what is the optimal play...I think it must be check-shove if he bets turn or if he checks behind, bet/fold river?

- Having the higher straight on the flop, I would have made the same bet as you. I would have put him on a set at best, chasing a flush at worst.
- On the turn I would have done a pot sized bet. If he called, I would have kept a set in his range. If he raised, the idea of a flush draw 3bet wouldn't have entered my mind and I would shove assuming he's got a set.

super gross spot regardless.
* I wouldn't have put him open ended straight (even though he hit it) because he called an open raise from UTG from the get go. Who calls with 35s facing an open raise?