Hi,

This is going to be a personal blog which I aim to update daily with how I'm travelling. I'll post how I'm feeling, what I'm doing, and whatever I need to get off my chest really.

To give you a little background, I'm an Australian university student studying IT and want to grind multiple tables as a form of income (hopefully full time when I'm good enough). With this goal in mind, my journey has begun. I deposited $53 into my Pokerstars account after about a month of research and playing with play money.

As of today, 22/05/13, I'm left with $32.13. My goal is to grind that up to $250 playing 1c/2c games so I can move up to 2c/5c with a 20 buyin bankroll. From there, I hope to do the same: grind up a bankroll for the next limit above and keep at it.

One, over a few days I've gone from $53 to $32. What's this tell me? I'm a losing player. I'll admit that. Yes, I've had some winning sessions, but 90% of them have been negative or just breaking even. I'm a losing player. At 1c/2c.

For me to achieve my goal of grinding 1c/2c to a $250 bankroll, I have to learn how to improve my below average game to a point where I'm winning somewhat consistently. I'll be taking a risk with my $32 bankroll. That's just over 6 buyins so I'm going to have to improve fast and hope I don't run into a bad patch. It's a risk I'm willing to take, however.

So, let the improvement begin. I start by downloading BlackRain's Crushing The Micros as recommended by another member.

Today's morning session went much the same way as the others. I started out well and was up 5 dollars having bought in for 100 BBs on 4 tables. Towards the middle/end of the session, I started losing. I sort of just brushed it off as variance but I think it's only logical that people are starting to read me. I don't think my play changes much over one session?

Anyway, I broke even in the end. In fact, I might have lost 3 cents. I'm wondering if I should just stop my session when I'm up 500 BBs? It always goes downhill from there onwards.

So, how to stop this from happening? Tonights session I'm going to do slightly differently. Oh by the way, I fired up my trial of HEM and used that mainly for the HUD but with the amount of hands I'd played with the people at my table, it was virtually useless. It also wasn't showing up beneath every player, weird.

Anyway, as I was saying, tonight's session I'm going to record with Camtasia and review it afterwards before continuing reading Crushing The Micros. I want to see how far into a session my focus/gameplay changes and if that's why I start losing. I'd be crushing 20 minute sessions.

250 = 50x5 not 20x5?

I kinda' wanted to play with $12.50 buyins. But now that you mention it, I might not need to play deepstacked.

And here's some information about tonight's session!

Finished up $0.96. Four tables, 0.01/0.02 stakes, $2 buyins. I said before the session I'd play for 90 minutes only (plenty of time for me to get a good analysis on the session). A couple of changes I made for this session, instead of stealing blinds with 3-4 BBs, I stole with 2. Profitable? I don't know. Worked more often than not.

I also said that if I got to $4.50 on any table, I'd leave and buyin at a new one for $2. This is because I've been advised not to play deepstacked and honestly, I don't know what I should be doing differently with a large stack.

Here's my graph for the session.



I think the graph is funny because all of my previous sessions had been the exact same. I start off well and build nicely for the first couple hundred hands but then every single time, without fail, I take a dip (as you notice above at the 180 hand mark).

From what I can see, there are 4 main dips in the green line.

Hand 186: Lost $2.08
Hand 239: Lost $0.82
Hand 262: Lost $2.02
Hand 272: Lost $0.38

Let's look into these hands specifically and see whether this was just bad play or if they were coolers!

Hand 182 (-$2.08)

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

CO: $1.24
BTN: $1.54
SB: $2.08
BB: $0.80
UTG: $3.57
UTG+1: $2.10
UTG+2: $6.22
MP1: $1.03
Hero (MP2): $2.30

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is MP2 with A K
UTG raises to $0.07, 3 folds, Hero raises to $0.20, 4 folds, UTG calls $0.13

Flop: ($0.43) J 4 2 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.24, UTG calls $0.24

Turn: ($0.91) 7 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.52, UTG calls $0.52

River: ($1.95) 8 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $1.12, UTG calls $1.12

It's good to know this wasn't a cooler and that it was just bad play on my behalf

Firstly, I didn't look at his stats. 18/15 should tell me he's a pretty solid player, right? His first move was to raise to 3.5 BBs under the gun. I can put him on 88+/AK and I'm being lenient with that 88.

My first mistake was 3 betting. In a vacuum, it's probably not that bad of a play, but since he's raised UTG and seems to be a solid player, I shouldn't have been so aggressive pre-flop. A flat call here would have sufficed, right?

By the way guys, if I'm saying something that's just plain stupid or wrong, please let me know! This is just what I'm thinking.

Continuing with the hand, everyone folds and he calls. By now I should be worried he's got a high pocket pair. At the time, I wasn't too fussed, but that was just ignorant. Let's see the flop. J42. What I did here was continued barrelling despite a filthy flop. Maybe I could get him off 10s or something?

What I should have done here is checked with the intention to fold if re-raised. I was just tilted because he called my preflop 3-bet and I hit nothing on the flop. Generally when I'm on the button stealing blinds and I get called, they check the flop, I barrel to get them to pay me off. I thought I could do that here but it's just plain stupid.

Anyway, he calls my raise. The only hands he's worried about are JJ/KK and AA at this stage. Which is why I'm guessing he checked that flop (or maybe he was just slow playing). My bet size of $0.24 obviously didn't scare him enough, so he flat calls.

7 on the turn and he continues to flat-call my raise. At this stage, I think he's just hoping I don't have JJ/KK/AA. It is hard to fold a QQ here especially when I'm a smaller stack than he is.

I think it's pretty obvious I'm going to be committing to this pot with a bluff since it's too late for me to get out, maybe I can get him off QQ/TT. I think I was just using the 60% potsize button to re-raise here. If I consciously engage bluff mode I need to put more pressure on him. Maybe a raise 85% of the pot would have seen him fold. Maybe I could have shoved here as well?

8 on the river, I know I'm ****ed so I keep firing hoping he's got air. Pretty big sweat from him and I know he was glad to see me turn over AK. To mock me, he posts a fish emoticon in the chat. That's what really hurt about this hand.

Not that I lost a huge pot, but that I got called a fish. And you know what, I played like one so that's fair enough.

So, what would I do differently if I could play this hand again? Firstly, I'd take note of his raise from early position. Honestly, no alarm bells went off in my head. Generally, if someone is raising 3.5 BBs from UTG and they're not a fish, you can assume they've got a hand, right? Raising that bet was my first mistake. AK is fine to call with there.

Secondly, on that kind of a flop, I would check back to his check. I thought I could get him to fold like I do the blinds when I try to steal. But it didn't occur to me that he'd called my 3-bet pre-flop. If I was going to bluff here, I'd need to throw a good 80-90% of the pot out there to make it look as though I have Jacks, right? I should have put him on TT+ before the flop so checking would really be the only option for his range there. But no, I make the mistake of bluffing... at microstakes. I remember vividly writing in notepad "DON'T BLUFF" as part of my strategy. Guess I got stupid.

So what I'd do is check/fold the flop in that situation if I could do it again. Let's take a look at the next hand.

Hand 239 (-$0.82)

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

CO: $7.09
BTN: $5.05
SB: $1.40
BB: $5.00
Hero (UTG): $2.87
MP: $2.08

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG with A A
Hero raises to $0.06, 2 folds, BTN calls $0.06, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.15) 5 2 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.08, BTN calls $0.08

Turn: ($0.31) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.24, BTN calls $0.24

River: ($0.79) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.44, BTN raises to $4.67 all in, Hero folds

Well, ain't this a bitch? This time I had the best hand in the game and still managed to lose. That takes talent. Didn't even go to showdown!

So, I'm in UTG and raise to 3 BB ($0.06). That's fair, right? I want someone to come over the top of me so I can 4-bet, instead the button calls. The flop comes 528. As first to act, I stupidly hit the 60% raise button thinking I got this hand easy given it was such a crappy board. I should have probably overbet this since I didn't want anyone making draws or anything, right? I mean, yeah, someone could have made their draw on the flop but how could I avoid this having raised 3 BBs from UTG. All the button has to do is flat call to see if he hit his set or not. Maybe I could avoid this by raising to say 5-10 BBs with pocket aces and make the button pay for a peak at the flop before he folds his busted set. On the other hand, the likelihood of someone calling such a bet pre-flop is low, especially when I'm UTG. But maybe that's a good thing since I want to get in with other premium hands. Can someone advise me how to play this hand from UTG pre-flop?

Anyway, come the river he shoves on me. It's hard to put him on a hand here. Can I put him on 52s or 58s calling 3 BBs pre-flop? Maaaaybe. Can I put him on A3 given he's been calling my c-bets? Maaaaybe. It seems odd for him to have shoved on the river. Did he complete a draw or was he slow playing a boat? Probably had air. -_- Was I right to fold AA here? I'm glad I didn't call though. So many hands have me dominated but it's hard to put him on them.

Moving right along... Hand 262 (-$2.02)

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $6.93
BB: $5.74
UTG: $1.46
UTG+1: $5.03
Hero (MP1): $2.02
MP2: $2.05
CO: $1.85
BTN: $1.57

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is MP1 with 9 A
UTG raises to $0.06, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.06, 2 folds, BTN calls $0.06, SB raises to $0.24, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.18, 1 fold

Flop: ($0.62) Q 2 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.40, SB calls $0.40

Turn: ($1.42) 4 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.82, SB raises to $1.64, Hero calls $0.56 all in

River: ($4.18) 7 (2 players - 1 is all in)

In retrospect, I'm cringing at how I played his hand. First of all, raising 3 BBs UTG with 9A probably isn't the greatest idea to begin with. It was either a fold or raise I presume, so I went with raise. Called by the button and then re-raised by the SB. This should tell me that SB has a real hand right? Stupidly, I'm too anxious to see a flop and call. Flop: Q23. So he hit his threesome with the girlies. Thinking he hit nothing, I do the raising for him. And I'm not even going to bother continuing talking about this hand. I made a mistake calling the 3-bet pre-flop and I made an even bigger mistake raising post-flop. Might have worked if he didn't have the nuts but the fact is, it was wrong and I'm a fish.

Hand 272 (-$0.38)

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $1.09
BB: $1.95
UTG: $0.77
UTG+1: $0.80
MP: $2.12
CO: $1.01
Hero (BTN): $2.07

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is BTN with T A
4 folds, Hero raises to $0.06, SB calls $0.05, BB calls $0.04

Flop: ($0.18) T 7 6 (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $0.10, SB folds, BB calls $0.10

Turn: ($0.38) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.22, BB raises to $1.02, Hero folds

Raised ATo on the button and get called by the SB. Hit TPTK on the flop, raise, and get called. Jack on the river (which dominates my top pair), I raise to protect and he re-raises. I'm probably putting him on JX so I decide to fold. I actually think this was pretty decent play from me. I got out when I felt I was dominated. What are your thoughts?

The hands I won were pretty straight forward. Got lucky once to hit a backdoor nut flush with top pair on a wet board.

I can see where I go wrong with all of the hands I lose big on. I wonder if it's just coincidence that the mistakes come 60% of the way through my sessions. Are people getting reads on me? Possibly, but since I'm just playing bad it's more likely that I'm losing focus or just never had the focus/thought process to begin with. I need to think about each hand more closely.

It's late now so I'm going to get some rest. Tomorrow I hope to read more of Crushing The Micros by BlackRain79 and have another session where I don't play ******edly.

gl
you need to work on your bet sizing and your triple barrel with AK is bad. Check/give up after your cbet.

Cheers mate. Yeah, I'm salty about that hand still. Anyway, would you mind giving me an example of how I can improve my bet sizing? Cheers!

pre-flop raise to at least .24, I would prob do .30 because typically at these stakes villains call with a huge range pre-flop

you need to c-bet to at least .12 here and I would make river bet at least .55 because you are getting value from 8x and 99/TT a ton here.

Brilliant, thanks. All points noted. Now, I'm going to write about tonight's session.



Once again, a good start. How is that? Instead of losing at 60%, we start losing at 50% this time round. The good thing I can take from this session is the red line which indicates I'm playing well pre-flop (presumably?). Really quite happy with that. It means I'm folding cards on the flop I wouldn't otherwise and I was definitely folding to 3-bets much more pre-flop which is progress.

There's a few hands I played downright bad on in this session too. A cooler or two as well.

I had KK and managed to get it all in against A4. Sucks me out on the river. Oh well. He was short stacked so I only lost 25 BBs. The huge dip however played out slightly differently. Basically ended up all in with my JJ versing AA.

First up, before today my mentality with JJ was to shove. If someone who isn't a fish or maniac calls, what do they realistically have? QQ+ probably. I can't see any decent player calling all in with TT or lower. Here's the hand history.

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $2.02
BB: $2.44
UTG: $3.59
UTG+1: $2.03
Hero (MP): $2.00
CO: $2.81
BTN: $0.91

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is MP with J J
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $0.12, Hero raises to $0.32, 4 folds, UTG+1 raises to $0.52, Hero raises to $2 all in, UTG+1 calls $1.48

Flop: ($4.03) 7 7 Q (2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: ($4.03) 8 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: ($4.03) 4 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Yes, if this had gone my way, this would have been a winning session. But I don't think I could have felt happy about the way I played this hand regardless of results. Can someone just tell me that I should never shove pre-flop with JJ? Was it right for me to raise his 11 BB UTG+1 raise to 16 BBs? Or should I have called to see the flop? Do I even want to see the flop here? I didn't want anyone with AX hitting on the flop which is the reasoning behind my trying to get it all in pre-flop. The fact that he 4-bet me to 26 BBs should tell me a couple of things. One, I'm dealing with a real hand from UTG+1. Secondly, is it possible he had AX and just got frustrated by my raise, hoping to get me to fold? If so, 26 BB is probably too small of a fold. Seems to me like he wants me to play. Anyway, moving on to a few hands prior to this.

Really weird hand, if someone can run me through it, I'd appreciate it.

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

UTG+1: $1.74
Hero (MP1): $2.12
MP2: $4.51
CO: $0.80
BTN: $3.38
SB: $4.30
BB: $2.00
UTG: $1.98

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is MP1 with 8 8
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $0.04, Hero raises to $0.14, 1 fold, CO raises to $0.24, 3 folds, UTG+1 calls $0.20, Hero calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.75) 3 6 9 (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($0.75) 6 (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks, CO checks

River: ($0.75) 7 (3 players)
UTG+1 bets $0.06, Hero calls $0.06, CO calls $0.06

This one I call from the button with A7s and get called off all day.

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

UTG: $1.58
UTG+1: $1.13
UTG+2: $3.45
MP1: $1.64
MP2: $0.81
CO: $4.85
Hero (BTN): $3.15
SB: $1.02
BB: $5.12

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is BTN with 7 A
2 folds, UTG+2 calls $0.02, 3 folds, Hero raises to $0.04, 1 fold, BB calls $0.02, UTG+2 calls $0.02

Flop: ($0.13) A 9 J (3 players)
BB checks, UTG+2 checks, Hero bets $0.08, BB calls $0.08, UTG+2 folds

Turn: ($0.29) 8 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.20, BB calls $0.20

River: ($0.69) Q (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Is it realistic for me to think he has a lower kicker than me? Probably not and I don't think I should have played as the aggressor in this hand.

And finally, the first big hand I lost. I had AK in CO vs pocket 8s on the button. I raise to 3 BBs, he raises to 29 BBs, should I have just shoved it there? I have the better hand pre-flop (I think?) and we end up checking it down. The only difference was that I didn't have my whole stack on the table sweating it out for my ace or king to hit. Not sure if I played this hand good. I think it was bad play pre-flop and good play post-flop, I was more than ready to let it go since I hit nothing. I got lucky in that I could see all streets. But I'm salty that I called the pre-flop raise. I still don't know whether I should have shoved or folded; I don't think calling is the right option. Or is it?

So I ended up down $2.57 from today's session. Pretty disappointing but the positive is that my red line was up. I think if I make less/no mistakes in future and I can maintain a positive red line, I'll be a winning player.

Plans for tonight: I've got a game tonight and won't be home 'til pretty late and don't want to start a session after this afternoon's loss. I'll just do some reading of Crushing The Micros like I said I would today.

Pretty happy to have a positive session today. Really interesting and fun. Solid play on my behalf from what I can see. Looking through my hands, there's only one I can see that I definitely played badly (and only lost $0.18). I'm sure there's more sub-optimal play though.



As you can see, I never really lost any big pots/coolers. I did however bleed a lot of 6 cent raises with pocket pairs that never came to fruition, not sure what I can do about that.

Huge cooler that I won today you can read about in this thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32.../#post38656665

Other than that, I'm going to try read some more CTM and hopefully I can have another positive session tomorrow!

I cannot express how bad this session was. It started with me losing min raises and some 3 BB bets and I thought things would get better. Then I started getting hands and was able to get it all in only to lose to AA twice or thrice. And then when I get AA, I can't get anyone to play. Just a bunch of coolers that didn't go my way I guess.



Me losing these coolers leads to me getting tilted and then just playing bad in general. I mean, I had KK once against AX preflop. I had him on the flop but he turns an ace and I he leads out. I know he's got me beat but I'm too tilted to put my KK down.

Today's going to be comprised of some gardening, some work on my assignment, and then some reading of Crushing The Micros. I NEED to have a good session tonight. Another session like today will seriously **** my bankroll up. I've been risking it with 15 buyins for a while now and need to start winning to get back to a comfortable bankroll setup.

So, what can I do differently next time? Firstly, I'm going to take more care when joining tables. I can't be sitting down with a bunch of regs anymore. Secondly, if I lose a cooler, I need to keep my cool and not let that affect how I play.

One of the biggest things that killed me today was raising pre-flop and sometimes 3-betting preflop with smallish pocket pairs. When I don't hit my set on the flop, I get crushed and that's where I think I lost the bulk of my money today. So, what I'm going to do is, if I'm in early/mid, I'll min-raise. If I'm in late, I'll raise to 3 BBs. What if someone 3-bets me? Depending on my pairs, I'll call a moderate 3-bet from late otherwise I'll lay it down. Need to be able to reduce the money I spend on set mining.

bolded is absolutely terrible plan. When you are in early position your range should be at its strongest to counter the fact that you will likely be out of position all through the hand. You have hand strength , so bet larger and discourage calls so that you don't face multi way pots. 3bb at least. When you are in late position your hand strength is weaker because ther are less people to act after you preflop and you likely have the advantage of being in position through the hand. you can react depending on how everyone else in the and acts postflop. Since you now have a weaker range ,bet smaller so that you don't play a bloated pot vs a stronger range.

The way that you talk about set mining implies that you don't really understand the maths behind it.watch these free videos http://crushonlineholdem.com/101-ser...rategy-videos/ and they will set out a basic strategy for you to follow that are designed to plug a lot of leaks and turn losing 2nl players into profitable players.They explain a lot of concepts ( including set mining) but they are just a foundation. They are not the most profitable way to play but you can add concepts on top of these once you are consistently winning to improve your winrate.

I think i read somewhere where you mentioned something about bluffing. The only bluffing at 2nl you should be doing is cbetting as the pre flop raiser. Biggest mistake of micro players is calling too much. So why bluff ? if they are calling with bottom pair why bluff with your ace high, they aren't folding and you're just losing a bigger pot, your redline stays nice and healthy but your green and blue lines dive off a cliff. The green line is the one that matters.
Since they are calling with a lot worse instead of bluffing , your winrate comes from value betting your strong hands , and making sure you get your stack in with absolute monsters.

Thanks for that, Keith. I'll definitely watch the lecture videos before tomorrow's session. As for bluffing, I might have mentioned that I should be forcing myself NOT to bluff since I know that, in most instances, that's a mistake at these limits.

Good news is I had a positive session this evening. Pretty dodgy session although I did end up like $0.20 above the white line so I can't really complain. Definitely more theoretical work needed so my first point of call will be those lecture videos.

Pretty long session tonight. Went way longer than it should have. I'm going to post some hands tomorrow when I finish work so I can see why the session was so up and down.

Cheers!

After getting mad tilted and destroying my $50 bankroll, I'm back ready to give it one last shot. What am I doing differently this time to make sure I become a winning player?

Since going bust last time, I've finished reading Crushing The Micros and believe I've got a number of new tactics to implement in my game. As Keith mentioned, I watched the lecture videos on the above link and feel as though I've become more knowledgeable in general.

What's going to stop be from losing my bankroll again? Well, I'm going to start out with an $80 bankroll this time playing 1c/2c (40 buyins) on about 4 tables to start with. Might even start with 2 tables. I'm going to (try to) manage my tilt better. The last time I played microstakes, I don't think I played too terribly, mostly breakeven and losing a little bit. But I lost big when I went on tilt and when I'd had enough and wanted it to be over, I ripped out 16 tables and just went crazy. What I learnt from that is that I can handle 16 tables quite well, only I made a few calls/raises where I should have folded and that's where I lost it all.

I'm going to purchase HEM or at least extend my trial (since I'll barely have enough money for food if I buy it).

So I guess this is do or die for me.

Plans & Goals

As of right now, I'll be starting with a $80 bankroll. I want to grind that to $200 so I'll have 40 buyins at the 2c/5c stakes. When I move up I naturally want to have more buyins in case I lose a couple from adjusting to the new limit.

More importantly than aiming for any quantitative number, I want to play better poker. I want to become a winning poker. I understand that getting to $200 from $80 isn't going to be all sunshine and rainbows. There's going to be times where I lose for (hopefully no longer than) a week at a time. When I'm swinging low like this, I need to manage my tilt well.

I'm confident that if I can make it to $200 and transition into 5NL well that I'll be a good enough player to continue grinding my way up the limits until I can make a living from this. That's the long-term. Right now, I'm focused on becoming a disciplined, winning player.

You should probably get a job and save up some money if you are being torn between the option of either getting HEM or eating. Minimum wage in australia is pretty big so even if all you can get is a lame job you can still save up a decent amount of money relatively quickly and with a job you can start yourself off with a proper roll that can be replenished as needed. I'd also recommend you join one of the major training sites online

I actually have 3 jobs but I broke my ankle earlier this week and haven't been able to work at all so it's only a temporary thing.

As for a proper roll, I think $80 at 2NL is more than enough and I certainly won't be replenishing it if I lose it.

What training sites do you recommend and are they particularly expensive?

Ah I see. All the training sites are fairly expensive, but you can just get a trial membership for free for a week at most of them. I'd just take the free week long trial and try to watch as many videos that are relevant to your stakes as possible

Alright, sounds good man. Thanks for that.

Just registered for the trial on Deuces Cracked. Looking around for some 2NL videos but can't find any. :/ Still some great stuff here though.

First session back was a positive one. I'm in the process of buying my HEM license since my trial expired and they're not replying to my email requesting that they extend the trial. Doesn't really matter I guess since I'll be buying it now.

So, unfortunately, I don't have any HEM graphs or hands to post but there was a few things I noticed about tonight's session. At one stage I was up about $5 (playing 0.02NL). Playing really well and refusing to get tilted when losing a large pot.

I lost a set over set (333 vs TTT) which I'm kind of annoyed about since I could have probably folded if I had HEM stats on my villain. Probably wouldn't have though, let's be honest.

I just tried to focus on not tilting which I think I did quite well. I only played 2 tables. Sucked out against someone on the turn so it could have been a break-even session I suppose. I ended up +$1.50 or thereabouts.

Don't really want to play more than 2 tables without HEM but I'm so keen to play some more. Going to take the disciplined route and do some study on DC while I wait for my license to come through.

What's really bugging me is that I started losing at around the 60% mark again. How does this happen consistently!?

After being up about $3 again in another 4 table session tonight, I'm closing down tables +$0.50. I always seem to bleed out in the later phases of my session? I'll post some stuff from HEM tomorrow. It's 2AM now. :/

I am in a similar challenge to yours and having the same issue of going up and then crashing down every session! More than likely we have the same leaks...

My starting BR: $50 and Profit till date: $26.xx. One thing I would say is, your volume per session can be increased (ofc if you have the time). I am doing about 1.5K hands per day... Have a look at my graphs..

I am not very good by a long shot, but we are all learning anyway...

GL! Subbed, Will be following!

Thanks man! Yeah, definitely sounds like we could be learning from each other. How many tables are you playing and what limit?

Here's what my graph looked like last night.

This morning's session was an odd one. The complete opposite of what usually happens. I started off crap and improved at around the 75% mark.



Started off real slowly. I didn't play bad at all, IMO. Just got horrible cards and whenever I had a piece of the board, I'd get put in a real tough spot forcing me to make a disciplined laydown. I figured eventually the cards would come my way and they did which was nice.

I discovered a leak towards the middle of this session. Whenever I see a flop heads up and I have overcards or bottom pair and I fire my c-bet and they call me, I start bleeding cash. If I don't improve on the turn, I'll generally keep firing to and try barrel them off me. Kind of hard to do when they have the nuts half the time.

In future, I'm going to fire a c-bet on the flop, if I don't improve on the turn (or if I'm raised), I'll make the salty laydown. Played the following hand real stupidly.

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

UTG: $2.00
UTG+1: $2.05
MP: $2.00
Hero (CO): $2.03
BTN: $2.21
SB: $2.35
BB: $1.97

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is CO with T T
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $0.04, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.12, 3 folds, UTG+1 calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.27) J 5 9 (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $0.12, Hero calls $0.12

Turn: ($0.51) K (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $0.12, Hero calls $0.12

River: ($0.75) K (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $0.54, UTG+1 calls $0.54



But the following hand is what I was referring to with regards to my barreling addiction. In future I'll just shut this down on the turn.

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BB: $1.18
UTG: $5.50
Hero (UTG+1): $2.06
UTG+2: $1.97
MP1: $1.16
MP2: $0.99
CO: $0.33
BTN: $0.70
SB: $2.13

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG+1 with 8 8
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.08, 6 folds, BB calls $0.06

Flop: ($0.17) J 6 Q (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.12, BB calls $0.12

Turn: ($0.41) 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.30, BB calls $0.30

River: ($1.01) 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks



Overally, pretty happy with how I played the session. I stayed disciplined and let the cards come to me. My bankroll was at $83 yesterday and now it's at $98. I don't know how either. I've only made enough for it to be at $88 but I must have received some sort of rakeback somehow. I didn't see any messages about it which is odd. Can't complain though!

Another session that went quite similarly to this morning's one. Started out with absolutely nothing as far as hands go. Remained patient and finished in the +ve. Red line's been a bit down lately. Not sure if that's good or bad or doesn't matter.

As for leaks I picked up on in this game, I think I was being a bit too aggressive on my button, particularly when there were limpers. I need to be aggressive when I've got a good hand on the button, fold more of my bad hands (when there are limpers or if I'm against someone with a low FTS stat).

Bankroll is at $99! I said I wanted to win $4 a day, and so far I'm on track (day one). Will do another session later tonight with probably 5 tables.