Hi all,
I've been a casual player that started taking poker more seriously during the pandemic. I've been working on my game for the last year and have gotten to the point that I think I can really start grinding and moving up the stakes without being a total noob. I'll be starting at 10NL Zoom on ACR and my goal is to be a winning 200NL Zoom reg within one year. I also enjoy playing MTTs and will try to have a positive winrate with them, although they will not be my main focus. This thread will be a good way to keep me accountable and have the 2+2 community follow the journey of a microstakes reg into a (hopefully) midstakes reg. I'll be posting daily results and graphs, as well as what I'm doing to study. Goals will start off light and manageable so I can accommodate them around what's going on in my life, but I plan to try to exceed them regularly.

About me
Recent college grad from a top university with a degree in mathematics. Looking to go to grad school next year. Have been playing poker for ~8 years now, but only started taking it seriously in the last year.

Goals
-Be a 200NL Zoom reg by September 2022
-Play a minimum of 1k hands/day on weekdays
-Play a minimum of 3k hands/day on weekends
-Have a positive MTT ROI
-Study poker a minimum of 10hrs/week

GL to everyone at the tables, and I hope to see y'all once I move up!

glgl

First piece of advice is quit MTTs or only play them on specific days (make Sunday your MTT day, for example). Don't mix and match.

Second, how specifically do you plan on studying? Lot's of people say they're going to study for X per day or week but without a clear plan it falls flat within a month.

10z - 200z in one year is a pretty ambitious plan, but if you can win a solid 5bb/100 after rakeback (rakeback on ACR is very important!!! Get the 27%!! I was playing up to 200z as well on the tiered system for a bit and losing heaps of EV) and play ~10khands/wk it's doable.

gl again

Appreciate the advice 2021! To answer your question about studying, I've got several books I plan on reading over the next few months (will be aiming for at least 20 pages/day, probably more) and a ton of video resources that I'll be using (aiming for a minimum of 1 video/day, they're about 15min-1hr depending on the video). Regarding your MTT advice - I think you're right, so I'll only be playing MTTs on Sundays (more of a fun/casual thing but I still hope to be putting up good results).

Here are my Day 1 results:


Got off to a pretty rough start. Got stacked multiple times in quick succession in some really unfortunate spots. We made somewhat of a comeback after the awful beginning and ended the session at -$45.28 after 1,448 hands. Overall I thought my play was ok, although I did almost quit after losing so much. This is objectively among the 5 worst sessions I've ever had, so I hope this doesn't happen again anytime soon. I'll have some posts in the microstakes thread discussing some spots where I wasn't sure what to do.

As for studying today, I'm reading through the first few chapters of The Grinder's Manual - I read it about a year ago and found it immensely helpful, but I'm a bit rusty on some concepts and ranges so it'll be good to review it again.

Day 2 results:


Ran pretty badly today again and ended the session at -$57.11 after 1,132 hands. Found myself in a few weird, multiway 3bet/4bet pots. Didn't really see too many good hands and missed a ton of boards. Lots of recs in the pool today, some of them opening to 8x UTG, some of them open jamming 100+BB into a 2.5x open. Don't think I can do much there without strong hands. Small sample, but I've seen a few players that appear to really hate folding small pocket pairs to 3bets/4bets.

I'll be working on solidifying my ranges and betsizes today. I've got Preflop+, an app that allows me to train ranges and other things, so I'll try to work with that for 30min. I'm continuing to read The Grinder's Manual.

Day 3 Results:


So I accidentally sat down at a 200NL table (misclick), but I decided to play until my next big blind instead of immediately sitting out. I got involved in a 4bet pot and took it down, which explains the huge jump at the beginning. Otherwise, we ran fairly well at 10NL today, went on a bit of a heater at the beginning after which I lost it all, but as I started getting deeper stacked later into the session I was able to play much more comfortably, running more bluffs and taking more pots down. Ended the session at +$33.44 at 10NL (+$100.75 at 200NL) over 1,343 hands.

I'm continuing to read The Grinder's Manual. Lots of good advice there that I'd forgotten, and I've been adjusting my gameplay accordingly. I've got an hour-long video on fighting maniacs at the small stakes (of which I've encountered several). Hopefully, that'll help me figure out how to combat their aggressive and strange plays. Feeling good about today's results and play.

Are you sure it was an "accident"? Don't worry, I think a lot of people have done similar stuff before. When I was playing 10nl with a ~400$ roll I sat down at live 1/3 to degen. Luckily it worked out, but kick the habit just in case it was purposeful.

No offense if it was really a misclick though. A fun story and screenshot to have nonetheless.

Good luck and don't get discouraged

Haha yeah, it was definitely a misclick, the highest I've ever taken shots at before was 50NL. Got to see 8 hands before I was out. I think I just need to be more careful when setting up my tables. The table selection icon is just so small on ACR.

Btw, if your state allows I might consider switching to Ignition, the games are much softer. Would be easier to have a WR and start building the roll.

Day 4 Results:


Got off to a good start with today's session. Ran into an unfortunate spot near the end of my session where I lost a stack to a fishy player making a bad play that paid off. I'll have to go through my database and mark the players that do things like that. Very happy with today's plays and results, never felt like I was being put in strange spots where I wasn't sure what to do. Ended the session at +$15.12 over 1,091 hands.

Reading through The Grinder's Manual is definitely paying off. I'll be attempting to finish the book this weekend. I think trying to read books + watch poker training videos might be a bit more than I can handle with my current schedule, so I've decided to only stick to one or the other for each day. I expect my schedule to clear up in about a month and I'll be able to put in more hours then.

2021 I like your suggestion - I'll set up Ignition this weekend and play some of my volume there to build up my bankroll, although I will stay on ACR to battle it out with slightly more competent players so I can learn how to handle them as well.

Day 5 Results (Mid-session Update):


Ended the ACR portion of today's session at -$93.10 over 2,042 hands. Got coolered a few times, but that only accounts for about a third of my losses and doesn't upset me that much - it happens. However, I'm finding it really hard to deal with the random bs players are doing at 10NL that makes them extremely frustrating to play against (min 3betting/4betting, 3betting to 40BB, 3betting 100+BB all-in). It's pretty much impossible to put some of them on a reasonable range at any position. I suppose I just need to mark down those players and start overfolding to them when they start taking aggressive lines and it doesn't make a ton of sense. I know long-term their plays are -EV and I'll be profiting against them, it just sucks when they all-in or showdown with hands you'd never imagine them to have in the first place (my all-in adj has me at +$48.32 so I think I just ran really badly).

I'll be doing the remaining ~1k hands on Ignition today once I set it up and will post those results as well. Overall I thought I played fine, but I'll have to go through my database and review my decisions to see if I wasn't just spewing.

Day 5 Results (End-of-session Update):


I have an old account on Bovada that needs to be re-enabled, so while I wait on that I played the last part of today's session on ACR again. I ended at -$33.29 over 1,040 hands. Ended the day at -$123.10 over 3,084 hands. Pretty miserable day.

Day 6 Results:
Tournaments: 17
Buy-ins: $140.83
Awards: $262.86
Results: +$122.03

I've decided to use my Sundays to solely review my sessions over the last week and play SNGs/MTTs. Had a decent run over a small sample, won two SNGs and made two FTs in some small buy-in MTTs although I didn't win any. I've decided I'll be playing blitz for another week, and then I'll play SNGs/MTTs for two weeks and see how results compare/how I feel in both formats before decided how I want to move forward.

Also if anyone has any advice for getting HM3 to track my tournament results it would be much appreciated since it doesn't seem to be doing it properly for me (doesn't get my awards accurately).

Day 7 Results:


Ended the session at -$28.15 over 1,012 hands. I think I might be overbluffing sometimes, but I pick spots where I have a really strong range advantage (ex: EPvBTN cold call, flopped broadway boards). I don't know if I should start giving up on these boards more often when I miss them, or if I should continue bluffing against what I perceive to be a capped range. I continue to see absolutely ridiculous hands and plays from a lot of the pool, but there's not really much I can do about it. My software says I'm ~2.5 BIs under EV for this session, so I'll take some measure of comfort in that.

Day 8 Results:


Ended the session at +$19.82 over 1,069 hands. Felt much better about my play today. Called off two all-ins that I shouldn't have and got sucked out on once, but otherwise had a solid session. Didn't have anyone in the pool making strange plays so I felt a lot more comfortable about my game and the lines I took. There is one spot I'll be posting in forum for some advice - I think it's decently interesting.

Day 9 Results:


Session went ok, ended at +$15.40 over 1,119 hands, but I found myself in a lot of really strange multiway 3bet pots again. I think I'm starting to understand how to play these. I keep seeing some absolutely wild hands though (47s on the BTN cold calling a COvUTG 3bet, for example). Keep seeing things like an open jam of 200BB into a 6BB pot, so I think I'll try calling off light when I find myself in those spots again. As it is, I'm still finding it difficult to range several of my opponents. I don't think I really have an issue playing against the other players with reggish stats. It's the psycho fish that are a problem. I need to stop treating their leads, check-raises and pot-sized bets as actual strength and start calling and 3betting more often. I did it a few times this session and, unsurprisingly, I rarely got called. With their wide ranges they're naturally bluff-heavy. I need to find resources that I can use to study multiway spots when I'm IP/OOP.

Day 10 Results:


Ended at -$25.59 over 1,023 hands. Session was going fine as I was playing the regs, then more and more recs started showing up in the pool. Multiple multiway 3bet/4bet pots, with hands that literally make no sense. 58s? A8o? J7s? I'm done with 10z. I'm rolled for 50z so maybe I should be playing there instead of dealing with this crap. I've already moved up before playing reg tables, so there probably isn't a need for me to start at 10z. The pool will be tougher, but at least I won't have to deal with this garbage.

if you think that people don`t gamble and do nonsense at higher stakes, you`re in for a rude awakening

subbed, tho

GL OP

Day 11 Results:


Ended the session at +$16.27 over 1,098 hands. Got massively coolered mid-session by some maniac 5bet-shoving JJ into my KK pre and lost a 200+BB stack. To be fair, I also punted a stack in a 3bet pot 3 barreling a bricked FD/SD when I think I could've played more conservatively. Looking at my results, I won a majority of 20+BB pots, lost the majority of 10-20BB pots, and won the majority of <10BB pots. Are these what my results should look like? Win the big and small pots, lose the middling pots? I think it should since this means I'm only putting money in with good equity+potential to improve+strong hands and giving up otherwise.

nosun you're right. I was just tilting really hard after a really bad week at the tables. I won't be moving up prematurely. I need to establish a solid winrate at 10z before I consider it. I need to work on my mental game, I think I have some resources for that so I'll see what they offer.

My software is telling me I'm running severely under EV. This makes me feel slightly better.

Day 12 Results:


Ended the session at -$50.14 over 1,105 hands. Lots of suckouts against me at the beginning of my session. I was playing fine till about 3/4 of the way through, and then two nonsense hands in a row left me incredibly tilted and I played poorly for the remainder of my session.

I'm going to stop playing for a while. I've got exams coming up soon that I need to focus on and I'm not in the right headspace to deal with poker right now.

variance is a *****, man, and mental game is hard to develop. I`ve definitely struggled with it, and continue to, but over time have developed some techniques to try to reinforce it. With a maths degree, I`m sure that you have a mind really well suited to deep, analytical thinking. Use that, treat every situation as a way to exercise that muscle. Even (and especially) when other players are doing things that are "non-standard", try to really clear your mind, and approach the situation in a cool, logical way, accounting for and trying to anticipate what specific mistakes people are making when they are deviating.

when you are struggling, and these players seem to hold over on you, it is all an illusion. many of these players without a studied game are overall losing players, though long stretches of what seems like unjust situations can cloud your perception of this. Always keep the long game in mind, and if players are doing things that frustrate you, like leading nonsensically, taking dominated hands multi way in big pots, really try to study these spots so that you don`t feel blindsided by them, which can exacerbate tilt.

post some hands in here if you want to, as well. regs `d be glad to help you answer questions about spots

Cheers nosun, I appreciate the support. Yeah my mental game def needs some work, I'll probably start up again next week, I usually find that when I'm on a nasty downswing like this it's good to step away and reset. Had a coaching session earlier today with a really strong player and while he told me there's things I need to work on, it didn't seem like I was making any obvious mistakes.