Hey. I'm 22 years old coming from Baltic states and decided to blog my progress, just so it's easier to improve and get in contact with likeminded people.

Poker background
Played freerolls in 10 different sites while being underage and complete fish, although liking the game and studying, but still complete fish, even when I grinded my BR a bit up it was all lost in higher stakes. When I was 17/18 turned 10$ in 1,4$k mainly playing MTTSNG and MTT, cashed out used this money to go to USA for summer, came back, deposited, had money which I made working in US, didn't have motivation and played around 900 games in a following year mainly degening somewhere and not taking it seriously. Lived 3 months in London in beggining of 2016, had free time, deposited 16$ run my roll up in micros again, came back, withdraw all, started a small business last summer. Fast forward to december 2016, I see that my local casino has 5day liveament promotion when all 5 days tournies are knockout, have played there before and knew that people adjust terribly to knockout and progressive-knockout tournaments espesially in live, so easy monies, right? Sold half of my action to private source, went all 5days, ran like **** in first 3 chopped 4th one HU and busted ME, still something around +1100 euros. Split the profit and decided to grind it up online, so i deposited my half. Now we're here.

What now?
I have my last half a year left in Uni, but time I have to put in to complete it is ridiculously small (around 100-200h till end of May), still living with my parents and don't have to worry too much about living, so all the winnings is just extra, but I would like to not withdraw anything and just build my bankroll. Deposited 400$ mainly playing small MTTSNG and MTT with up to 3,30$ buy-in and this is graph so far



Distance is really small and i have been running pretty hot. Have won around 100$ more in 180mans and lost them in MTT's though, already got a feel that variance in these formats is brutal.

Monthly goals :

[] Play 1500 tournaments in January
I will aim for 2k a month, but still have a lot of things to do this month, so this should be achievable
[] Gym 3 times a week
Nothing to say here
[] Finish exam's in school
3,5 years put in, have to finish it, even though it has been time and money wasted, ain't gonna quit now.

Longer term goals :

[] Move up stakes
LDO, would like to climb up as fast as my BR allows, but ain't gonna stress myself about this too much
[] Grind up a roll to play live
There are about 6-7 good tournies a month (ABI 120euros), and cash games are ridiculously soft, NLHE and PLO, only thing is I'm complete noob in PLO and even playing NLHE 100+bb deep so the next one is -
[] Learn deepstacked play and PLO
Not that important, but it would be nice to learn it, so I could play cash before/after tournaments, but as I said, I can skip this one and don't feel bad about myself.
[] Get myself established in poker world, cause finding a job seems a terrible idea where I live, so i will have to move to another country and well... I just like the idea of playing poker better.
[] Get into a stable
Been long time lurker here in twoplustwo, and I remember reading Yugiohpro's blog, where he said that if you plan to play poker seriously joining stable is one of best desicions and fastest way to improve. The thing is, I have heard not so good things about some stables and I don't like the idea of signing year long contract with mediocre one, I feel like all your time and half of earnings is quite a price to pay, so you have to choose a good one, although beggars can't be choosers right? One more funny thing is, that almost every stable requires staking experience so this kind of reminds me of this :



Anyways, this should be enough for first post, will play a session tommorow and update.

P.S. English is not my first language so sorry if your eyes are burning.

Had an exam today, after exam went to local casino to play a little bit of live, it was a 1/1 Dealers choice game with NLHE, NL Crazy pineapple, 4 and 5 card omaha. It was around 30% NLHE 70% 5 card PLO. Don't know why but Hold'em cash games are starting to die out there, propably because 5PLO attracts way more gamblers and indeed theres 500bb pots with KQJxx vs AAxxx on K92r board its crazy. There were 2 huge whales 2 semi-regs and other players were rotating. Lost 4 BI for 50e, so thats all of my BR for live poker for a while, but it was fun and I run supper bad so not too sad about it.

HH to get a better idea of the game

NLHE 1/1
SB Villain - one of the whales
45bb eff (Villain sitting on 500)

Hero A A

Folded to SB, SB raise 2(lol), I raise 8, SB calls

Flop (16) : 4 5 K
Villain checks, I bet 8, Villain snap calls

Turn (32) : 2
Villain checks, I jam 29, Villain calls

River brick

Villain shows 4 2

nh sir

Stacked other wale PF with AAxxx ds vs KQ5xx no suits for 60bb obv lost to K 5 2r board and stuff like that.

Missed all the flops and draws for big pots or got outdrawn, but its all good, atleast games are soft and I have confidence that with learning and proper BR they're beatable.

Have to work a lot on my 5PLO game before going again though, so if anyone who comes across this thread can give some advice it will be much appreciated.

Online has been pretty meh. Friday got first FT in MTT this year, 3,30$ Turbo deep payouts, busted 8th for 40$. Made a terrible shove, but it's ok, as long as I learn from my mistakes. Also found out that I play terrible when tired, calling off v-bets like a bitch, and generally couldn't find a fold button, all 2,5$ 180mans bricked, but won a 2,20$ Sunday Million sat on Thursday, so bankroll is still up from first post.

Have slept less than 6 hours past two nights so will get a good sleep and put in a long session tommorow, will update graph and bankroll on Sunday.

Peace.

Haven't played a lot, because every time I load more than 10 tables pokerstars crushes and it's instatilt for me and I don't reg anymore tournaments lol, I will try to figure it out upcoming week. Has been almost no volume since first update but here's the graph :



Have to get those tournies in.

Also gonna update my BR every sunday

BR 1030

Also going to start 5x5 Stronglifts in the gym and put results here.

Great thread name

GLGL

Thanks

Update #3

Haven't played online a lot this week had 3 exams so that was pretty tiring.

Only played two days and both were meh.

Graph so far :



Only 121 tournaments

BR 971

Anyway went to play live yesterday, and it was my first time playing this new tournament there (schedule was changed a while ago). Going to post a little report.

Basically it's 25e + 20e unlimited 2000 chip rebuys and 4k add on, on first brake. I had played 10 euro rebuy tournaments there and anyone goes crazy and stacks off really light to build stacks, this tournament you can only rebuy if you are out of chips so no double rebuys, and everyone was quite nitty in first levels, not a lot of action and like 3 rebuys in 90 minutes for whole table.
After first brake levels were 50/100 with AVG stack about 6-7k, And then there were 5 levels without antes, everyone was playing super tight so I opened up my game and was really agro, stealing pots and only went to one showdown with AK. Built my stack up to about 24k with no showdowns. After the brake level was 200/400/50, everyone loosened up, but there was only one guy who was good at my table, everyone were just loosening up, but still played really passive (limp folding from 10bb stacks n`****). Was card dead and played two hands badly, but still kept up agression, by opening, and reshowing so quickly built my stack to 30k.

Final 2 tables went quite fast, won copule of std hands w/ and w/o showdown , called 5bb push and sucked out A8o vs AA so that was fun, cause guy had been a douchebag to me previously. Continued to play agressively and run good went to FT with 100k avg about 45k. Chip leader on my direct right with about 200k.

Was 2nd place in chips all the way until HU.

FT was 8 paid, one women had 0,5bb, she busted quite fast (no ****), we insured 9th place and another bust next hand.

Payout structure is quite flat for 8th-5th place (100-200)

Then it goes smth like this

5 - 211
4 - 311
3 - 440
2 - 600
1 - 900

Too bad I was super ICM caged for whole final table, so while everyone went out I chipped down slowly, was card dead and had couple of stupid spots.

One hand I want to think a bit about is following one with 4 left :

BU Chip leader - 50+bb Only guy who was decent on final table played quite agro, opened wide and did call of bit on the wide side.
SB Me - 10bb
BB Rec1 - 7bb
UTG Rec2 - 7bb

Hero SB AJo

UTG folds, BU oppens 2,5bb His range here is any broadway, any ace, any pair, + some.

I jam, get called by AK and suck out a Jack on river. Propably a really bad call.

After that both Rec's busted quite fast, villain was 2:1 lead in chips but offered an even chop, and I insta agreed.

750 - 45 (25 buy in + 20 add on) - 10 for insuring 9th place = + 695

Had quite a fun cash game later that night but this post is long enough.

Sorry if this is chaotic, feedback is appreciated.

GL everyone!

Update #4 :

Late for a week for stronglifts start, oh well.

Results for first workout :

Squats 60 5x5
Bench press 60 5x5
Barbell row 50 5x5

After gym went to play live poker today was 15eR with 1k starting stack and 2k add-on, there was a little bit rebuy action, but couldn't find a good hand to GII so after first brake had 4k stack which is basically what I paid for. Had two interesting hands that I probably played badly, and then pushed 10bb from BU with AJ and SB woke up with AK so gg. Structure is lolbad in this one so propably won't play anymore Monday tournaments. Tommorow have to go to school, but probably will play another live one tommorow.

Peace.

Workout #2

Squats 65x5
Shoulder press 30x5
Deadlift 80x1

Played live on tuesday, tournament is decent and with pretty good structure, so tuesdays might be live poker days for me. Been experimenting with squeezing and 3betting lighter, and it seems to work, I think more about bluffing spots and people ranges but still have to put in a lot of work

Bust out hand : 250/500/50 Hero 10k V covers

Villain limps UTG, Hero on BB with 88

I actually thought about this hand and can't seem to find play that I like the most. I thinkt that Villains range here is something like 22-99, 65s+, 97s+, some broadways some Axs hands, he seemed to play straightforward so we can discount some of the strongest hands when he openlimps.

Check - 88 is a strong hand but we have to play it postflop OOP, overs will almost always be on the flop, and we will have to try to get to the showdown as cheap as possible and it just sucks, calling flopm x/f turn if we don't improve and Villain barrels.

Raise 1500 - IMHO really bad option because now we play 88 OOP with even smaller SPR

Shove - I took this options, but idk seems like a high variance play, and showing 20bb in a limped pot almost turns our hand face up.

Idk not sure maybe checking is the best play here.

Villain snap calls with JTs (wtf?, it was literally a snap) and I lose the flip.

Will put couple hours in online grind today.