i started playing poker when i was 19 after watching the WPT back in 2002 or so on the travel channel.

like a bunch of other idiots i deposited $50 on pokerstars and started playing .05/.10 limit hold'em or whatever the lowest stakes were back then. i read every poker book i could get my hands on, including a bunch of 2+2 ones of course, and eventually i moved up and started playing on partypoker, 4-8 tabling 5/10 and 10/20 6 max LHE games 'full time' for roughly 5 or 6 years while getting my engineering degree. also played a bit of $400NL and PLO.

on a side note i had another 2+2 account that i mostly posted on but that seems lost to the ravages of time.

i was horrible with getting hours in and i was lucky to play 10-50 hours a month. i made enough money to pay for tuition, rent, living expenses, etc during that time however and was a solid 2BB/100 winner at those limit hold'em stakes.

fast forward 20 years or so and i recently took a voluntary severance from a top FAANG company. i'm semi retired now and thought it would be fun to get into the game again and play with solvers/GTO stuff. i might go back into the work force if i can get a job at a top trading/HFT company or interesting tech company again, but for now this seems fun.

anyways this is just to track my progress at 25NL and 1/3 and 2/5 live games in the bay area. i'm overrolled for any online/live games up to $5K NL (of course i'm probably a loser right now at 100NL online), so i want to spend more time studying / analyzing hands than getting volume in but aggressively move up in stakes and take shots.

bankroll strategy is the following:

1) for online start at $25NL with $250/10 buyin bankroll
2) move up when i reach 10 buyins of next level
3) move down if i reach 10 buyins at previous level
4) rebuy for $250 if/when i go busto

for live i'll just keep a $10k bankroll for 1/3 and 2/5, try and build up to $20k, and then start shot taking at 5/T NL. they also spread limit here so might try the 20/40 games at some point.

plan is to 2 table online, play for 1-3 hours, import hands into gto wizard, analyze, repeat. once i feel like i'm not having to think about how to play hands properly and i'm down to 2-3 uncertain positions per hour i'll probably bump up to 3-4 tables.

any critiques on the plan? anyone think i should be more aggressive with shot taking at online NL? if there are any coaches out there interested let me know.

i've actually played 3 live sessions at 1/2/3 NL since getting back into the game. so far i'm down -$478 over 16 hours. i have almost 0 live experience and definitely need to adjust. will probably get a month of that bart hanson crushing live poker course this weekend.

most people are generally bad, either too loose passive, calling down too much, or generally too loose aggressive considering the $6 or $7 drop. the raises sizes preflop of $15-$20 really make the game awkward to navigate preflop.

i'm considering just playing 2/3/5 going forward.
1) the drop is ugly at 1/2/3, less so at 2/3/5
2) get to play more hands as i don't think people are typically opening for 5-6.5x BB but i may be mistaken there.

i mostly focused on keeping track of the pot size, getting a feel of how to label people live, and the basic player types in a 1/2/3 game. understanding there are people who don't open raise with AQo, what back raises generally mean live, and the strengths of hands when people raise on turn/river. basic stuff of course, it's just very different from online.

overall the strategy just seems to value bet a lot, and value bet thinner than you might expect. even if the bet sizing makes you think you're playing your hand face up, it doesn't really seem to matter. still trying to balance a little from the GTO i'm learning, but i definitely think it's -EV in the lowest limit NL cash games. implied odds are great here as lots of people will stack off with top pair but surprisingly there are a number of weak tight players who can seemingly fold top pair with some larger bet sizes on the flop or turn. taking advantage of that in multiway pots has been fun.

Wow another Bay area techie. We should do a meet up.

Yeah I would recommend the 2/3/5. The game is just better overall. I'm assuming you're grinding Bay 101?

Which online site are you playing?

haha ya, guess it's a bit of a cliche now a days?

thanks for the suggestion. i was trying out the m8trix since they have 1/2/3 and i wanted to just get comfortable with playing live before jumping any higher. but ya, i think i'll move to the bay because i hope the atmosphere is a little nicer and i can also get familiar with the style/regs there before taking shots at 5/T.

right now i'm only playing ignition but once i hit 50NL i think i'll also get some money in global poker for some more table selection.

I just noticed you and one other person started posts recently.
So far I've only noticed the three of us in the area.

I'm not familiar w/ Global. Why do you have to wait to get on there?
Is it higher stakes only?

google luck mate

from what i've seen global seems a bit softer but it's untracked. i'm focusing on ignition because i want the ease of building up a hh database / imports into gtowizard for self review when i'm likely misplaying a bunch of spots. figure by the time i hit 50 or 100nl the tracking won't be as critical and i can just save off the hands in global that were close for review later or during the session which hopefully happen less frequently.

global has a decent selection of 6 max $10, $20, and $50NL games going on.