GL next month

any intersted hands ?

GG Month!

I am updating a bit early because I am going to take the last few days of the month off.

September was another pretty brutal month. My volume was a bit low because I hit my deposit limit a couple times and stars support takes forever these days. I only have $1500 usd per week and I don't always keep that much money on stars. I know a few of my friends who were in downswings too and they turned it around this month so hopefully my time is coming soon!




These were my September goals:

- 75k hands (X)
- 10-20 hours of pio/week ()
- 5 hours of simple gto trainer/week ()

October Goals:

- 75k hands
- 10-20 hours of pio/week
- 5 hours of simple gto trainer/week

I still have been studying ok during this downswing, but I could do a lot better. Slightly de motivated this time after the last almost 300k b/e stretch a few months ago. That's what happens when you have a low win rate Before anyone comments no I will not switch sites and play in "easier games" lol.

My birthday is in October so hopefully it will bring me some run good!

Subbed

good luck OP

Sick volume man

I don't know how you handle these swings man. Going thru these stretches and showing up every day and playing such a volume shows that you have a great work ethic and really love the game.

But don't you think it would be better to move down where your winrate would be naturally higher and study until the point where you think that your winrate at 200z is higher so that the occurrence of these stretches is minimized? Gl turning it around!

Someone mentioned these rostucko stories are more inspiring than plain upswing ones, and I agree. Both stories are a realistic representations of the game, but the rostucko ones are the ones keeping us others sane.

Looking forward to the next update, whether it's 20BI more buy ins in the red or a rostucko one.

Sick dedication man. Keep it up.

I have definitely thought of this, but money isn't the primary reason I play and as long as I have the bankroll I don't mind too much. The main reason I play is the competition and to eventually be one of the best. I feel like you can clearly see the difference in level of play at 50, 100 and 200 so I want to play as high as I can to get that experience.

For example, one of the things I noticed at 100 was people started to overbet way more. So by playing there I had to start to learn how to play vs that. I find at 200 a lot of people are using small sizes in spots solver would but people at lower stakes would simplify to like a medium polar size. So now I am getting that practice vs that. It also helps me understand when and why I should use those sizes myself.

There is no doubt if I focused more on pool selection and possibly 2 tabling instead of 4 tabling I can minimize this. The difference in variance between a 1-2bb win rate and 3-5 is massive. If I didn't play a minimum 50k hands a month I doubt it would be sustainable. I don't know how people who play for a living play less than that with the variance of this game.

This might sound very cocky, but I don't feel like 200 is that much harder, the rake is also 2bb lower than at 100 and I genuinely feel I am not running well more than not playing well. Here is my last 300k hands all in pre for example:



I am not saying I am playing perfect by any means though. I have lots to improve, but I do feel like I am +EV in these games for sure. It would be nice to have more people or a group to talk to about strategy though. That's the only thing I miss about my past CFP's. I have a few now which is good, but it's tough to find people who see the game the same way you do and are not selfish and take more than they give.

I guess Pokerstars feels bad for me so they gave me another one of those 40% rakeback challenges



Looks like its going to be a big long grind next month

October birthday rungood inc glgl!

October update. Unfortunately, even though I put in 150k hands, I couldn't quite complete the poker challenge. I needed to rake 15k, but only raked 11.5k.

The good news is I did win for the month and I got the same challenge again this month. So of course I am going to go hard to try and complete it. This time I think I figured out my deposit limits issue, so playing mostly 200nl should make it a bit easier this time.





These were my October goals:

- 75k hands ()
- 10-20 hours of pio/week ()
- 5 hours of simple gto trainer/week ()

November Goals:

- 150k hands
- 10-20 hours of pio/week
- 5 hours of simple gto trainer/week
- Complete the challenge
- Start the stream

I know I have been saying this for awhile, but I will start streaming this month! I have everything set up. Just waiting for my webcam to arrive. I think this Tuesday or at the latest this Thursday will be my first stream. So if you want to watch you can find the stream here: https://www.twitch.tv/realmattroberts

Now lets get out of this 200nl downswing! 💰

gl mate, will tune into stream when its live

November Update. Let's start with the good news first. I finally started the stream! It's something I wanted to do for a long time, so I am happy I finally did it. Here is the link if you want to follow along: https://www.twitch.tv/realmattroberts

Now for the not so good news... I didn't hit the Exclusive Poker Challenge again lol. Raking 15k is tough!

Also, mid month I was finally convinced to try out Party after saying I'd never do it. I was a bit behind schedule for the challenge so I thought why not. I'm not sure if I will continue to play there though. With the Leaderboards sure you get 60%+ rakeback, but you're playing mostly regs so not sure if its worth it overall. This month I lost 30 buy ins on party playing 85k hands, but I still made money with the rakeback. It's different because you are forced to play deep and it's mostly shorthanded so more variance. It's mostly regs, but I am pretty sure I am still winning or at least breaking even. Some friends of mine say you lose about 2bb/100 playing there so with the lower rake and softer games on Stars it might not be worth it overall. Regardless still planning to play most of my volume on Stars.




These were my November Goals:

- 150k hands (X)
- 10-20 hours of pio/week ()
- 5 hours of simple gto trainer/week ()
- Complete the challenge (X)
- Start the stream ()

December Goals:

- 100k hands
- 10-20 hours of pio/week
- 5 hours of simple gto trainer/week
- Continue streaming schedule

This year, unlike previous years I can't go to Florida for the holidays so I guess that means more poker. Let's end the year strong! 💰

Partypoker is not easy

That's it for 2020! Before I do a yearly recap here was December. I basically played exclusively on Party except for the couple of times on stream where I played on PokerStars.




On party I get 50% rakeback ($5731.27) plus the daily leaderboards (3350) so my net winnings was +$6393.77.

This month I feel like I ran very bad. Especially during the middle of the month where as you can see I just went straight down. I felt like I would never have a winning day again haha. Despite of all that, I still ended up having the second highest profit month of the year while just playing 100nl. This is what makes it hard to go back to Stars, at least for the time being.

Here were my results for the whole year:






If you add the rakeback from Party ($12800.50) & PokerStars ($4547.20 This was from 1 exclusive poker challenge and random chest rewards) I ended up with a grand total of +$29068.04

Overall, this still wasn't the year I hoped for, but I made a lot of progress and it seems like some of my hard work is finally paying off.

The biggest highlight of the year was when I went through my first big downswing at 200z. I knew that if I could get through it it would finally solidify for me that I was a winning player. I will never forget the feeling of finally getting out of it. I actually have the graph framed just to remind me that no matter how bad things are or is going I will get through it.




I am also very happy I got the stream up and running. It's something I always wanted to do, I just wanted to make sure I had some proven results first. Sorry I haven't streamed as much past week or two because everyday I am supposed to stream it seems like it falls on a holiday. I will get back to my schedule this week though.

Now lets talk about 2021.

2021 Goals:

-Play 1knl+
-Continue to update thread
-Continue to stream

My main goal is to reach high stakes. I have been saying it for years, but I feel like this will finally be my year.

So how will I get there?

What I want to do different this year is instead of having a study to play ratio of around 1:4 or even 1:5 I want to try and get it around 1:2 or even 1:1. I think this will be really important. Everyone I talk to who play higher spend a lot more time studying than me. I probably run way more sims then everyone, but I don't go as deep as I should and I should be practicing a lot more with Simple GTO Trainer or something like that more than I do now. I am hoping and I do believe this switch will be the main reason 2021 will be better than 2020.

Next my plan for the first few months will be to grind Party. The reason is because I think it's the best way to build a big enough bankroll to start to take some shots at higher stakes. It's also basically variance free.

I know I used to make fun of the rakeback grinders, but I think one of the biggest problems I had in 2020 was since my win rate was so small I could and I did go months and months without showing a profit. This slowed me down a lot and is also quite demotivating. I still think if you are a player with a high win rate you are better off playing on stars, but that's also a lot easier said than done.

When I am in these downswing, all I want to do is grind my way out of it and I don't take as much time to study as I should. You can see during my losing months I will have 100k+ hand months just so I get out of it which surely is not a good thing because I must be playing worse. This year I had one 250k hand downswing and one 300k+ hand downswing. That is almost half the year I didn't make any money at all.

Once I start to accumulate a bigger bankroll since the times I play 200nl+ doesn't run on the party I will go back to Stars and/or maybe other sites to take some shots at higher stakes. Or if my win rate stars increase a lot I might just switch all my volume back to the stars, but we will see how it goes.

So that is my plan for 2021. I'm super excited to get to work and I'll end with my January goals.

January Goals:

- 100k hands
- 1:1 Study to play ratio
- Follow stream schedule

Let's crush 2021! 💰

Best of luck in 2021! Hoping to see you at high stakes soon!

January Update. I fortunately I had a really good last few days to save the month.





I got $4000 in cashback and $2525 in daily leaderboards for a total of +$5178.60 for the month. I played 163 hours for an hourly of $31.77.

Unfortunately, Party changed their affiliate program so I no longer get a flat 50% rakeback + leaderboards. Also, this month the leaderboards were way harder than November and December. Last month I had $3350 in leaderboard winnings even though I played the same amount. Lastly, I heard that Party might be getting rid of the leaderboards or replacing it with something else. So we will see what happens there. I still think it makes sense to play on Party, but it's definitely getting a lot less attractive.

I am still a bit disappointed with my results on Party though. The games aren't that hard. Yes, they are more reg heavy, but it's not like all the regs are crushers. I'm sure playing 170k hands, 6 tabling, playing deep (I reset stacks on stars) and playing short handed sometimes doesn't help though lol. Regardless, I still believe I can and should have a winrate in that pool.

Here were my January goals:

- 100k hands ()
- 1:1 Study to play ratio (X)
- Follow stream schedule ()

I did study quite a bit this month, but it wasn't even close to 1:1. The leaderboards being a lot harder to hit definitely effected that. My goal was just to grind around 300 points a day which should get me to at least the $50 dollar level and sometimes the $75 level. However, most days this month you needed at least 350 points to even hit the leaderboard. That's about an extra hour a day playing. You get 1 point for every $1 raked.

I think if the leaderboards continue to be this tough I might have to try for just a 1:2 study to play ratio vs 1:1. At least until I get back on stars. It's not what I want it to be, but if I don't I think it's pointless to be playing on Party and if the leaderboards are eventually going away I want to get as much as I can before it's over.

The last thing I will mention is a couple weeks ago I learned about Lucid GTO as a substitute for Simple GTO Trainer. It is 10x better. So I have been spending the majority of my time studying with that. If you haven't checked it out yet I would definitely recommend it.

February Goals:

- 150k hands
- 1:2 Study to play ratio
- Follow stream schedule

Let's hope for some run good in February! 💰

if theres ever a thread that shows zoom is a huge trap for most regs then its this one. No idea why u put so much volume in it given results. at least u finally moved to a site with rb. just play reg tables and have a better winrate whilst still putting 60k+ hands a month and able to shot take much quicker.

u still dont get it ? read whole thread again

Out of curiosity, I did an alias of the highest volume regs at 200z from my DB and found that on aggregate the population is roughly breaking even. Imo you gotta be a top reg in the pool to really entertain playing zoom as you are seeing so many hands with zero recs even at the table.

That being said, I think OP is claiming to be more focused on trying to improve skill level and see hands, though the posts tend to be rather result oriented rather than strategical

There are definitely merits of playing reg tables and just trying to make the most amount of money table selecting. However, africa is right that isn't really my goal as I don't play poker for a living and I make most of my money elsewhere. I play mostly for the competition and because I genuinely enjoy playing the game.

I also think there is a question of hourly. Even if your win rate was 1/3 as big as it would be playing reg tables you probably make a higher hourly playing zoom. There is also the benefit of having more control of your life. I don't always have time to sit down and play for a few hours at a time and playing more frequent hour or 30 minute session is better for my schedule.

I think there is still some misconceptions about zoom. Especially how tough it can be. Zoom is still pretty soft. It's way softer than Party that is for sure. If you put my sample into h2n you will see most of my volume has 2-3 recs per table. Are you going to find as many -30 or -50bb/100 recs playing zoom? Probably not. But it also doesn't mean it is unbeatable.



If you go through my thread I'd say the biggest reason for the lack of results isn't playing zoom, it's the lack of a consistent game plan and always switching my strategy. This caused me to waste a lot of time. Now I believe I have a good game plan and I am confident in my strategy. That's why, although it wasn't a great year compared to some other regs, it was my best year to date that I was very proud of. I do wish I played a bit less volume and focused more on studying though. I am sure if I did that I would see results faster as well. That is why my goal this year is to have more of a 1:1 or 1:2 study to play ratio.

My goal with this thread was to show a more realistic journey to high stakes vs just posting winning graphs which isn't realistic for most poker players. I found most people who start threads end up falling off or only posting when they are on an upswing which gives people a false sense of reality. I wanted to be the opposite of that and be as transparent as possible.

if what your saying is true that most volume comes with 2-3 recs per table. then your biggest leak isnt studying poker / changing game plan. its exploiting and playing against recs and it seems youre doing an awful job at it. i doubt the 2-3 recs per table claim though.

i also dont get how someone with a winrate of 1bb is saying zoom is soft. zoom is **** hard and evidently is by your winrate. Youre not a bad player at all, from what i been told, youre pretty good/solid and yet youre close to b/e.

competition argument makes no sense to me. Whats the competition at zoom compared to reg tables? Your winrate? Your hands per month? playing vs regs? It still all applies. and theres a lot of reg overlap. But yeh the 30m-1hr argument makes sense and zoom probably right thing for you then if thats the case.

Good thing for rakeback. Rough middle of the month. Only won 2/16 days. The downswing I first had at 200z wasn't this bad, but I guess it's to be expected when I am likely not winning in the pool and just playing for rakeback.







-$5111.81 (Party) + $3520 (Cashback) + $1975 (Leaderboards) + $389.85 (Stars) = $773.04

Here were my February goals:

- 150k hands (X)
- 1:2 Study to play ratio (X)
- Follow stream schedule ()

I was studying quite a bit this month, but once I started to lose I picked up the volume. Some people when they lose, they aren't as motivated to play where I just want to play to get out it it. Maybe to my detriment sometimes.

The best part of the month was the stream average viewers was way up month over month. Hopefully that continues to grow. It's nice to always have some people to chat with instead of talking to myself haha.

March Goals:

- 75k hands
- 1:2 Study to play ratio
- Follow stream schedule

In March I think I am going to move back to Stars and not play nearly as much volume. The rakeback on Party was good, but the problem is that it's very reliant on the leaderboards and I find myself being forced to grind a lot which isn't good. I also don't ever have the time to hit the top spots. I made a decent amount over the past few months, but I think it's time. The games on Stars are also likely 3bb softer, which was what I was getting in rakeback anyways.

Lastly, I hired a coach for a few hours this upcoming month to go through my hands last month and see if he can give me some advice. So we will see how that goes and if it leads to any improvement.

Let's hopefully turn it around in March! 💰

GL

Missing the streams the last few days. Hope you're doing well and running well.

I am sorry about that! I will be back hopefully by the weekend!

I thought nothing else was damaged when my liquid cooling started to leak, but I think it also must have hit my graphics card. As a result, I am waiting for a new one to come in. However, they are in high demand right now.

If you remember my first stream back it crashed. I thought it was just random and I resolved the issue. It was fine for awhile until it started to happen again while running OBS and playing some games. I hope that is the only problem and a new graphics card will solve the problem. I spent a lot of money on this computer haha.