I recently actively picked up poker again. Past years I’ve played little to nothing due to
-day job,
-Family
-social life
-sports

Lot's has changed in my life last couple of years and now that the dust has settled I'm keen on making poker a succes again. Eventhough I've been playing sng's and MTT profitable mostly before the 'sabbatical' I started of playing HU cashgames orgininally.
I'm in no way ambitious to making poker a main source of income. My regular job is perfect really. It comes with lots of flexibility. Two days a week I can grind while being on the job. I don't really need extra income, but obviously it would be a welcome addition.


Main game
-A while ago I started grinding 10NL and just moved up to 25NL (again!)
-6max fast forward on party (using ~100BI bankroll management)
-6 tables at once max (Currently 4x 25NL 2x 10NL)
-Cashback/rakeback ~30% (not considering freerolls/promo’s/leaderboard prices)

Sunday MTT night: Play 1 or 2 Sunday’s a month. Separate roll and have 30% sold to one person.

Result(s):
-10NL 9bb/100 prior to rakeback over ~130K hands. Realistically a ran pretty hot.

I'm not sure yet as to how I'm going to post updates. I know everybody loves graphs, but I might just post one at the end of the year. Most likely I'll just make a post discussing results at the end of every month.


Goal(s):
>Get to 100NL and become a regular (likely combination with 50NL)
>1million hands 2020 (in 9 months)
-Beat 25NL 4bb/100*
-Beat 50NL 3bb/100*
-Beat 100NL 2bb/100*
*minimum, post rb
>Preferably make at least $10K profit pre rakeback

I’m doing heaps of studying. It is easy to combine with my day job. Looking for proper, not to expensive coaching. Perhaps coaching for profit. If there is a decent deal out there

Had my first propper sessions on 25NL and it had not could have gone any better really!

The office
I've noticed before that I have to create a atmosphere where I can easily focus on poker alone. My household is quite busy with 5 kids. Also I don't have a quiet place to sit and work at home, so I've rented an office. The fact that I phycially have to move myself over there makes it so much easier to focus. Yesterday was the first day at 'the office' and it made up for a 6.3bb/100 win over 5.163 hands (aproximatly 5 hour session)
That accumulates to a 10+ buy in session.


At the moment my mindset towards poker and making it worth while is pretty good. I think I found a good balance between all the important stuff going on in life and where poker is on that list. * quite low *
I have a weekly routine that I'd like to stick to. It is not completely fixed, but when you have kids it makes sense not to mix it up to much.

Routine
My dayjob is quite flexible. I work as a facility manager at a cultural centre/theatre. I run a 38 hour workweek spread over 4 days. Two of those days I work an eveningshift where there is little activity, but I have to be here because we are obligated by law to have two people on the site. I agreed with my employer that I would take the shift, but that I can work on my own stuff. I just finished a Spannish course in that timeframe and now it is going to be poker (atleast 50% of the time)

Monday
- No dayjob (mostly)
- Two 1.5 hour midday sessions poker
- One 2 hour evening session poker
- 10K run with cyclingbuddy

Tuesday
- Work
- Kids Soccer practice
- No poker

Wednesday
- Work
- coretraining (for cycling)
- Dinernight with the misses
- No poker

Thursday
- No dayjob
- Cycling ATB (morning)
- Two 1.5 hour midday sessions poker
- Two 2 hour evening sessions poker

Friday
- Cycling ATB (morning)
- Work (slow shift)
- Three 2 hour evening sessions poker

Saturday
- Work
- Kids soccer
- No poker

Sunday
- Cycling with group (morning)
- Other stuff we do on sunday with the kids
- Evening sessions twice/three times a month. At least 6 hours. (once or twice a month I also play MTTs on sunday) But the 6 hours minimum of CG is something I'm aiming for

Ofcourse this is next to the daily routine. Picking up kids from school, having diner togethere, helping with schoolwork, cleaning and other stuff. Essentially everything comes before poker when it has to. My goal is to play at least 16hours a week.

I'm completely lost in a spot like this one. No history on villian. Advise is appreciated

PokerStars Zoom, Hold'em No Limit - $0.10/$0.25 - 6 players
Replay this hand on Upswing Poker

UTG: $28.42 (114 bb)
MP: $39.20 (157 bb)
CO: $30.95 (124 bb)
BU (Hero): $115.85 (463 bb)
SB: $32.98 (132 bb)
BB: $22.99 (92 bb)

Pre-Flop: ($0.35) Hero is BTN with 7♣ 6♣
3 players fold, Hero raises to $0.57, 1 fold, BB calls $0.32

Flop: ($1.24) 9♦ 6♦ 7♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.75, BB raises to $2.10, Hero calls $1.35

Turn: ($5.44) 3♠ (2 players)
BB bets $3.74, Hero calls $3.74

River: ($12.92) 4♥ (2 players)
BB bets $8.40, BU (Hero) folds

* Now looking back I think ingame I was more confussed than I should have been.
** Why is it conferting to Pokerstars ZOOM? I wasn't even playing on Stars

I think you played it fine. Villains will usually give up the river if they Missed draws here and likely bet larger if they did decide to bluff.

Originally I had a long sessions planned for the evening/night. But I had a terrible sleep last night due to one of the kids being ill. So unless I feel refreshed later in the day I’ll probably end up skipping this Sunday.

Surprisingly received some offers for coaching and cfp, but nothing yet that sparked my enthusiasm. Suggestions are welcomed of course.
Meanwhile I subbed to this wonderful topic. It wouldn’t be a goal for me to stay and write ‘history’ on one type of stakes. But it shows poker is still very much beatable. Yesterday I had a 2K hands session where I ended up winning 12bb/100. I find 25NL not much more difficult over 10NL for now. More decent regs, just as many randoms, bad regulars.

November summary (more specifics will follow, I’m posting this from my phone)
- 10NL profit: 8.7bb/100 (67.000 hands) $580~
- 25NL profit: 15,6bb/100 (7.316 hands) $285~
- cashback/rakeback: ...

I ended up playing no poker at all. Had quite the relaxing day. Did a long ATB run in the morning with 'the boys'. For the rest lazy midday movies (Frozen lol). As of yet I have no hands logged for December. It's likely that I'm not going to play heaps this month. Work is always busy in the last month of the year and with all the family obligations and holidays I'm fine with little actual poker.
I did buy PIOsolver and I am going to try and use it a lot running simulations. I never really been much of a 'math-nerd' when it comes to poker. Atleast, not like some out there. For me the fun in the game is mostly on the mental side of the game. But obviously understanding and standardizing some parts of the math behind poker is pretty important.

I'm going to post on a regular basis, mostly HH and thogh spots. Some personal updates/ photos about sports, setups etc.

Underneath a default format of how I'm going to post a monthly update. Next months this will include graphs.

December goals:
- 40.000 hands (should be approximatly 10 hours/week)
- 4 hours a week study
- No poker between 21st of december and new years day
- No monthly cashout. (goal is to get to 50NL by march or sooner)
- 5 hours per week on the Smarttrainer (Swift)
- One 10KM+ run a week.
- Find a coach, CFP or an other form of coaching that suits me best


Summary November:
November summary (more specifics will follow, I’m posting this from my phone)
- 10NL profit: 8.7bb/100 (67.000 hands) $580~
- 25NL profit: 15,6bb/100 (7.316 hands) $285~
- cashback/rakeback: ...........................$275~

Bankroll: $3497,96

RIO or upswingpoker?

Pulled my first session this month. Just 1500 hands but I ran and played pretty horrid. Last 200 hands lost 5 buyins after being breakeven for the rest of the session. Still have to analyse the session, but I feel I was tilting a bit. Not sure why tbh. Nothing special really happened aside from my son being Ill. But he seems to be fine.

So I decided not to wait for a proper coach, but start off with a subscription to one of the the sites. RIO or Upswing. Upswing lab seems nice, but I’m afraid it might be to much focused on the beginning player and that it is to wide. Taking MTT etc also in consideration. RIO on the other hand might be to much of a ‘Whizzkid’ kind of place for me.

Not the best days over poker. Made a steady $2,55/h over the course of 7 hours. Probably not playing my best poker, but can't complain really.





I've decided to go for a Upswing subscribtion. This in combination with PIOSOLVER should be sufficiant for now. I'm going to aim for one hour of coaching every month for the beginning of 2020.

I'm keen on making this blog a successtory. That goes hand in hand with decent results on the felt. I'm working on a post for my goals for 2020 fully worked out. And I'm collecting HHs out of sessions where I was struggling or in spots that found interesting. So I can show a little of my thoughtprocess ingame.

Tweaked my game a bit last session. Just 1K hands or so. But I feel it is getting a bit easier at the tables. My Ag factor and 3b% where way off. Really low. Could just be variance obviously, but I think I was playing to TAG, close to nitty, postflop.
Instantly I can see my red-line going up, sadly the green line isn't yet





Bet Raise river? Bet turn?

I wouldn't raise this river ever. What can you get called by that you beat? May bet small on the turn 1/3 to get calls from draws, if he calls i probably bet/fold the river.
Also don't mind the check turn call river line you took.

Had quite the eventful grind yesterday. Not only took my firsts shots at 50NL after having some really good last few sessions. I also got lucky and binked a PP millions ticket after originally investing 22$. By far the biggest buy in I ever played so I sold 45% and swapped another 25%.
I late regged 1,5 hour into the MTT and got totally raped. Really though tables and never felt I was in control even though I wasn’t playing bad. I did not move on to day 2.

Regardless of what happens for the rest of the MTT (25% swaps are all still in) I’m moving up to 50NL completely. Despite of what I originally planned I also made a cashout. The goal was to build a roll for 50NL before or early into 2020. Now I have a roll for 100NL possibly even with the cashout:

Bankroll: $7845,19

Line check?
villian 40/0/3/0 (5 hands)

Move to 50NL isn't easy thusfar. I'm not sure to what I'm doing wrong. It is having quite the effect on my selfesteem. I'm really eager to make this work. My focus is on creating a situation where I can lay down a grind and do this poker thing part-time next to the rest I'm doing. I feel I'm capable. My mind and the will to do this is there, my skilllevel maybe not yet. I've been out of the game for quite some time and especially out of cashgames. I had some luck with the ticket I won and the hotrun on Party fast forward tables.
Since I moved to Stars I'm on the losing side of the game. I don't feel like the level at 25NL and 50NL is higher than on Party, but I might be wrong.

I'm considering moving away from the fast/fold format and focus on regular tables. Results show that I'm quite a bit down overall on the Fast/fold tables and have a more than decent winrate on the regular tables.
I'm not entirely sure what reason there is for this. As I think, especially nowadays, the ZOOm tables is a place where fish, recreationals more likely would be playing over the regular tables. But I might be wrong. I'm pretty sure it is going to be impossible to reach the 1.000.000 hands in 2020 playing 20h/week on the regular 6max tables. Reaching that number of hands is kind of a must to me as my main goal is to put down a proper grind. It is kind of a magical number to me as I never, not even back in the days when I 12-tabled , reached 1mil in a year.

I'm also seriously looking into a coaching/staking or coaching for profit deal. I was aiming for it before, but obviously there should be more value on playing on your own dime. But the lack of people who I can talk strategy with, the option to call for a lifesupport and to have an environment available that is pokerminded. My reach to the rest of the pokerworld is limited to this blog.

I am taking a couple of days off and I’m also not going to play today probably. Originally planned on playing some MTTs today. With the Sunday million and warmup on ps being half priced. But I just don’t feel okay on the tables. Little trust, little momentum. And I couldn’t be bothered playing 2 days in the same online MTT potentially really.

2020 GOALS and MISSIONS

I've been thinking a lot about my goals for 2020. As said before one of my most important goals is to play 1.000.000 hands next year at least. To me this is pretty important as I want to show and prove myself that I can lay down a grind. I've never played this many hands in such a timespan. I'd like to do it in 9 months as the summer and holdidays I don't want to play (as much).

The aim is to still reach 100NL and despite of what I said before, I'd like to move one step higher if possible. 200NL is something I played in the past and eventhough I've done well (over a relative small sample) the level is something that also kind of scared me. Potts can get pretty big fast and there is a lot of money shoved around by times. As a dad I feel I should be wary of not getting into deep moneywise. I'm not dependant on poker as an income and I've been okay with it costing money while being a hobby. But now I want to build a steady income out of poker next to my regular income.


I'll have some goals in poker and some personal goals to reach next year.

POKER:
- 1.000.000 hands or more (achieve goal in maximum 40 weeks)
- Get to 100NL asap and become a winner
- Find a proper Rakeback site/client
- Have a cashout every month (I want my family to profit from this awell)
- Have a coachingsession at least twice a month
- Let go of being scared money (Set tables to stacks in BB and don't look at BR)
- Improve my postflop game (I'm still to nitty postflop in some spots)
- No MTTs outside the big/valuable series online
- Play live 2/2 or 5/5 once a month

PERSONAL:
- Ride 10.000KM on the bike (MTB and road combined)
- Run 10KM every week once.
- Win at least 2 cyclocross races and 2 MTB races this competition
- Don't play poker (as much) in the holidays instead do stuff with the kids
- Don't play poker every sunday
- Make/keep my family happy

As said before, I currently play 50NL 6max ZOOM. I'm breakeven at best, but I made quite a lot on Party before moving back to Stars. I'm having issues with the Party software. It is glitchy and slow. Really annoying, but the rakeback is a lot higher over pokerstars and the level of skill a lot lower.
I ran better on 100NL ZOOM luckely so it had no real impact on my bankroll. But my competative nature makes that I'm really annoyed with the poor results on 50NL

25NL 2019


50NL 2019


100NL 2019

Things changed a bit for the better. I found an agreement that allows me to play 50NL to 200nl. I’ve started a week ago and despite of running under EV I’ve already more than doubled the original startroll.
Due to the software and client I currently unable to play more than 3.000 hands/week. But that number should go up a bit soon enough. As I moved away from the fast/fold format I also moved away from my
Goal to reach 1.000.000 hands in 2020. With the soft fields and decent traffic I’ll still be able to play more than enough hands and make a lot of profit.

I've noticed it is hard to keep track of a blog while playing poker, managing a family, working a job and everything else that involves living...

My main goal to start a blog is to be more involved with other people in poker, instead of grinding on my solitairy own. I managed to do so. I have a small network of people who I talk strat with and I have a coach. I currently get 3 hours of coaching a week. One hour of play I record every week with my though proces . My coach makes a analyzis of my gameplan and gives me pointers about certain spots. The other two hours are more about running sims and other stuff.
I also started coaching myself. I work together with my coach for his small/low stakes stable. I do a bit of stragegic coaching, but I mainly focus on mindset, focus and fitness. It goes as far that for some people in the stable I've made an foodplan and help them with getting in shape/losing weight. In general it is about getting mentally fit.

I haven't played many hands between christmas and new year. But as the new year started I've fully moved up to 200NL. I ran quite hot and having the backup and trust of the stable behind me is making pokerlife a lot easier.

But as mentioned, I don't feel like I have a lot of spare time left for blogging. But I don't want to let the blog go so easy. It helped me to get to the point I'm now quite quickly. All because people PMd me about heaps of stuff. Some nonsense, but also some people who turned out to be quite valuable for me.
I'm going to try and post an update resultwise no more than once a month. I don't want to be to open about my results, but I know how important it is for others who are struggling or just getting into poker to see how results can be made and moving up is a real option. Buy I really want to make a post every other week about my coaching. A bit of free content that people can use where ever they seem fit. I enjoy talking about it and my experience in semi-professional cycling has some value about getting mentally into focus and shape.

Enjoying the blog keep it up. Your giving me motivation to really give it a go this year. Thanks.

Thanks and thanks for the PM. I see if I can get him to contact you

W/e Dunno how to post images anymore.
Was nothing special anyway, but now that I'm playing up to 200NL I've had my first €1K+ session ever.

Anybody who can tell me how to post images (graphs and such) Previously used imageshack, but it seems a free account in temporary.

Due to terrible personal circumstances my current staker and coach is getting out of poker for a indefinite duration of time. This means the stable is being dismanteled and all player (15 micro/low stake cashgame players and about 9 midstake grinders) are let go without make up. It is a pretty sad situation, for him obviously more than for us, but it has quite the impact on all of us.
I'm not sure on what to do right now. I was getting quite comfortable on 200NL. I'm torn between making a deposit big enough to grind 50NL again or looking for a new deal.

Overall I have to let this sink in for a bit

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/5...e-more-285800/

gl this year

The whole situation has had quite an impact on me I’ve noticed. Games are not going well at all. I had about 2K online still after the termination of contract and played heaps past days. But running bad and even more, playing bad has result in almost going broke. Move up to chase your losses was a pretty stupid thing to do probably, but it is to late now.

I’m contemplating on moving over to MTTs for the time being. There are heaps of terrible players in the fields and I always appreciated te format a lot. Even though 90% of my activity in poker has been in cashgames the past 10 years or so.
I think it is going to be a easier grind for me now on the mental aspect of the game. And with proper game selection my experience in deepstack poker should be worth something. The only difficulty will Be that it will take a lot longer sessions.

I’m navigating what would be A valuable grind for me