Background,
Spent half a decade living out of my backpack and hitching all over California and traveling Europe alone looking for rocks to climb. The last few years Ive finished an apprenticeship (top of class) and worked in Construction making decent money but absolutely beating the hell out of my body. I don't feel mentally challenged in the right way while working and the thought of having to do this job for the next 30 years or so is terribly depressing to me.

Ive played poker on and off recreationally since I was pretty young but never very seriously. Home friendly games are not exactly hard games to beat when the people hardly have a grasp of hand rankings so its always been pretty fun for me.

I started to consider taking poker much more seriously in the last few months (mostly the beginning of this year).

I started playing on WSOP.com last October and deposited $50 and was able to run that up to about $700. I tried out Pokerstars and was a slight winner over not many hands (25-50k combined between stakes 2nl, 5nl, and 10nl. I have cashed a few tournaments along the way and over all ive turned that $50 into roughly 12-1400 since October. However, my bankroll is not that amount as i have cashed out and used that money for life things.

Around the start of the new year I decided to obtain a membership to Upswing Poker and make more of an effort to improve and hopefully climb stakes and have an alternative to the normal blue collar lifestyle.

Since the start of the new year, Ive tried a few other sites out. I played about 30k hands on Ignition Zone 5nl and am roughly a 5bb/100 winner. (first 25k hands i was 12bb/100 winner, last 5k hands have been really weird spots where i get beat and obviously a bit of tilt sprinkled.

I have also had decent success at 50nl on WSOP and IGGY (although not rolled for it so too risky for me to continue at those stakes with out fear of going bust) Im up about 10 buyings from the 50nl games, but almost all of that came from noticing a weak player sitting down with small stack that is obviously playing anything and getting in bad and i just happen to be the one who has a hand that held up. So the confidence isnt exactly there since it could just be sun run or luck.

I have a bit of confidence that i can beat micros (5nl zone, 10nl) I have been a winner on a few sites at 10nl but i feel like I am at a point where I could really benefit from talking through some spots, theories, etc with other people to broaden my knowledge and obviously learn new things Im missing out on and in general be more immersed in poker thinking.

Ive followed a few people who made posts like this and within a year and seem to get a lot of support from this community and im inspired to put a lot of my time and heart into improving at this game. I love gaming, i have always been a gamer and the more I dive into the depths of poker understanding and knowledge the more hungry i am for more.

So i suppose in conclusion (im not a good writer lol) this is the start of my blog of my poker journey. I hope to connect with new people and we can all improve and hopefully improve at poker to a high(er) level.

Goals for 2023
-be a winning 50nl player (would obviously love to reach a higher stake, but ill keep my expectation modest)
-make some friends for study groups and talk poker
-learn more about self management and organization
-build something that i can be proud of my efforts and time i put in because i havent had something that i want to really improve at for a few years now and i think thats a big part of why i feel helpless if i just continue to do my 9-5 construction job that will leave me crippled and resentful and regretful when i reach the later years of my life.

Current BR - $841 ($341 on Global Poker and $500 i have set aside in my bank account that i dont want just sitting on a site but i have access to and that came from poker winnings so i dont include that in my life expenses)

Effective BR- $341

Current stakes- 10nl

Site- Global Poker

BR rules ive set is pretty standard
-move up when accumulated 20 buyins at current stake
-move down at 16 buyins to lower stake and move back up when back to 20

As i mentioned, Im still fairly new to all this and im very excited to keep going on this journey and i cant wait to look back and see how far i can take this

I look forward to following your journey here. It seems we are pretty close in stakes and sites, so I'd be up for bouncing some hands off each other here or on discord. I have a blog here too, so check it out.

Have you found the upswing poker membership helpful? I am around the same stakes and considering purchasing it? Thanks.

Now that you can have access to a rudimentary solver for around the $50/month mark, courses like this are becoming less and less the best option

I think it has been helpful for me. There is a lot of free info out that anyone can use, sure, but I chose Upswing because I thought it was structured in a way that would help me learn. It reminded me of Peter Clarke's book, The Grinder's Manual, but like a video/audio book of it. And much more in depth. I built my bankroll back up after I started ripping through the material so I can't say it hurt anything.

I'm not really sure where to start or go

I don't really have a way to easily save HH so I am just taking notes during and after each session. Hours played, BB won/lost, Rakeback earned, and dates to start

Current BR-$343.45
We have had a few ups and downs over the last few sessions but I don't think anything too serious. Upswing to about 357.00. Small downswing 3 buyins, next day got back to even, then another 2 buyins down, then clawed a buyin back yesterday after starting the session down another 1.5 buyins.

I feel like every session starts with me losing a decent amount of bbs and then I spend most of the next hours working to get back even. Mentally it is draining feeling like we always start behind.

The best sessions are ones where I feel completely detached from emotions that would be from the results of the hand. Instead I feel very calm and my decisions feel more natural and confident and not results oriented at all. It feels more about the process than the outcome.

I think I have a hard time letting go of some hands, I might start recording my sessions with OBS or something so I can go back and have a way to post them for feedback.

I think I am playing decent most days. On the days I lose more than 2 buyins, I just stop and walk away and don't come back until I am feeling sharp.

Thanks for the feedback!

Also have you considered getting PT4 to be able to review hands and stats? I believe it offers a free trial so you could test out how you like it before purchasing it.

Good luck on your journey.

PT4 does not support GP, I think. Also, I am not aware of a HH importer that complies with their TOS

Oh I skipped over the site you were playing on. Recording will probably be the best solution then. However, you could set up a template outline for a hand so you could easily fill in the information quickly-just a thought.

Should I using rake back to increase my BR and potentially move up quicker? Or is it usually standard to be ignore the rake back?

I have almost 3 buy-ins in rake back saved up, but not collected yet. I was not including this in my winrate, however, it would a be huge impact if I decided to include it. For some reason I feel like I would need to prove I can win and generate enough winrate to move up solely on that. I was coming across some material and the rake can be pretty high for micros and low stakes so now I am starting to lean towards using it to help avoid straight up losing so much to rake over time. Getting to higher stakes is incentivized by retaining more of my bankroll and not bleeding it to the casino/platform, right?

Profit without RB- 619.5bb

Profit WITH RB- 887.4bb

STARTING BR-->$281.50 (with bonuses) RAKEBACK=$26.79

STARTING AT 5c/10c (10nl)
-BR required to shot take 10c/25c--> $481.50

04/02/2023=$305.41 +$23.91

04/03/2023=$309.16 +$3.75

04/04/2023=$333.49 +$24.33

04/05/2023=$341.36 +$7.87

04/07/2023=$357.02 +$15.66

04/08/2023=$343.65 -$13.37

04/09/2023=$355.32 +$11.67

04/11/2023=$331.40 -$24.00

04/12/2023=$343.45 +$12.05

HOURS=40? I need to start doing a better job recording the time I play so I can accurately calculate my bb/hr

I also should have included this at the start of the blog but w/e. Now we should be mostly up to date

Played a few hands today, maybe about 1.5 hours. The day started and I could immediately feel that I was not focused and not ready to make good decisions so I just closed the tables and took a nap and went through some Upswing until I felt like I was more in the flow of things.

My decision to play while more focused seems to have paid off. Again reinforcing that I should be more detached from immediate results and continue to play my game having confidence in what I am learning and trusting in myself. I made some big folds on some run outs I wasnt sure about which started the session actually down a bit. We didn't let that break our focus and we ended up 150bbs over a 1 hour session while 4 tabling.

If i average about 3 tables, sometimes 2 but mostly 3-4, I think I have about 9k hands played. If I did the math right, I'm at 8bb/hour before Rakeback. And 11bb/hour if we include Rakeback.

We are over halfway to moving up in stake if I include Rakeback into my effective bankroll so moving up may happen sooner than I thought.

Got about another hour logged in last night before hopping off.

End of the night results-
-2.5 hour session 4 tabling
-Won 212.2 bbs

5nl zoom on Iggy 30k sample

I played about an hour yesterday and had a cool run up about 5 buyins at one point but ending at a nice 4. I actually felt really good playing against the pool. A few weeks ago I was definitely not feeling good about playing on Iggy during that downswing. I'd like to think that the time I have put into playing on reg tables really helps me to think through the hand maximizing the time bank and reserve. Also I'm sure my confidence is up, having moved up to 10nl reg tables and have been winning...


Side note**End day results yesterday for Global (not that iggy session, I just log those into pt4)
-1 hour session 4 tabling
-Won 78.2bbs

-TOTAL WON -918.9 bbs
Rakeback - 306.6 bbs
-TOTAL WON-1225.5 bbs

Good Luck OP!

Had a rough day today, feeling pretty sick but tried to play a few hands anyway. Session started looking promising, but overall I think I played pretty bad and ended up down 3 buy ins. I was tunnel visioned as soon I fired up the tables and got dealt in. On other days where I felt really good I think I would have put the pieces together in these hands and been able to make the fold. I'm not thinking in a strategic way and basically just dumping bets if I had connected with the board in any way. I'm confident I will grind the buy ins back, just a little set back. As soon as I lost the 3rd buy in I decided to just close out the tables and going to hit the books and come back another time when my mental is flowing better...

Logged on this morning feeling good and was able to have the opposite side of variance and hit some nice hands that happened to pay out. We are back up the 3 buyins almost. 2.5 to be exact so almost negated that bad session.

Is it better to write out the hands in a format that pt4 or HM would put in text, or should I share the links that global has to replay the hands? Let me know what you guys prefer so I can start sharing some hands. I am eager for feedback

Played about a little over 2 hours today, trying to 4 table if I can find enough table with fish.

Was a good session, well 2 sessions. First session early morning we we able to recoup the losses from the previous day. Later on in the day after a nap I played some more hands and in about an hour we ran up 3 buy ins on top of that. Getting really close to moving up now. Starting to get some more confidence in my game.

Total won w/o rakeback 1170.7bbs
Total won with rakeback 1552.6bbs
Total hours played -/+48

500 bigs to go.

Going to be preparing to move up, anyone have any good stories when they shot took their first time? I'd love to hear how it went, how it was vs expected, some things that surprised you, mentally how did you prepare, anything is welcome!

It feels good to set some goals and closing in on it is exciting

https://play.globalpoker.com/hand/64...64ec0001c01be7

https://play.globalpoker.com/hand/64...64ec0001c01be5

https://play.globalpoker.com/hand/64...dec50001010ec5

https://play.globalpoker.com/hand/64...dec50001010ebe

https://play.globalpoker.com/hand/64...64ec0001c01bc6

A few hands from today that I remembered to grab links for. Rewatching some of these makes me realize how much improvement I have to make. It's almost overwhelming knowing how much there is to know to really master something.

I think I remembered to grab these hands because they seemed totally off.
The first hand, that guy was showing up with air most of the time so I was more than happy to get in with an Ace.
The second hand that guy just went crazy. Do you expect to see 57s there often?
The third hand I had to share because it was a total misclick and happened to work out (lol)
The fourth hand, I have seen this guy stacking off with nothing as well. I can't say unlucky turn because what else would he be calling with there? So I think pretty poorly played. Flop sizing could be smaller, and I could check turn here when a A, 9, or spade comes looking to call and see a river. The way I played it though seems horrible looking back.
The last hand, not really sure why I saved it.

This is embarrassing to post these lol in the moment when I am thinking through the hand it doesn't seem as bad as it does looking at it now. But yeah take these with a grain of salt (or not) because they just happened to be the few hands that I snatched the replay before I forgot and moved on.

This is why I'm here though is for feedback and improvement and just posting these is kinda out of my comfort zone but poker is something I want to work on

https://play.globalpoker.com/hand/64...64ec0001c01cca

https://play.globalpoker.com/hand/64...dec50001011bcc

Player is marked as ATM
How was Flop sizing? I want to get value and check raising seems too strong to get a draw to come along and miss or a top pair/middle pair to come along.
Turn when he calls I am fairly confident he has a hand that he is mostly committed to seeing a showdown
River obviously a dream card unless he had pocket 9s. I honestly am not sure what kind of hands he might be calling the turn then a river overbet. What is he continuing with on this board?

https://play.globalpoker.com/hand/64...64ec0001c02941

Player noticed on multiple tables but not tagged

Thoughts on this line? I would expect this player to bet all his pairs so I like checking. I thought leading here would come off pretty strong on this board and if he wiffed then I give him a chance to maybe hit a worse hand later on. After he checked the King I thought donking the river might look like a bluff and he would be inclined to hero call. I think my biggest leaks come from the small blind so any feedback is appreciated

https://play.globalpoker.com/hand/64...64ec0001c0293f

Unknown Player

I don't like my turn or river sizing here