I’m 24, and I started playing poker during the pandemic in 2020. Lost money at the micros and decided to try Jonathan Little’s poker coaching and read his book. Helped my game a lot and by 2021 I was winning 5NL. In 2021, I continued working and moved up to 10NL on ACR where I was probably a winning a player. Stopped playing in June of 2021 to focus on switching my job so I could make more stable money.

Now in 2022, I’m putting most of my energy into reaching mid stakes online. Bought Upswing and started studying and taking notes on GTO and I really think I’m forming a better strategy overall. The plan is to keep learning different GTO spots like SB vs. B and BTN vs. MP and at the same time play 25NL on Ignition. I work remote so I can watch lectures during downtime and play poker at night.

I’m going to try writing, posting graphs, and putting some hands up as a public study tool. I’m learning poker until I’m making at least $3,000/month online, which should be about 200NL online. Here we go.

Graph from October 2021 playing 10NL ACR

Hey I'm recently getting back into poker after being a slight loser at the micros in college. I have also made a commitment to take studyng more seriously and improve my game. I am currently playing 25nl.

How did you find Johnathan Little's stuff value wise? I've gotten a lot of value out of his free content on youtube but haven't made the plunge to buying anything of his yet.
Also wondering how you like upswing? I find their content very well explained and very in depth on youtube anyway, do you have any opinions on either program?

In my limited experiene it seems to me Johnathan Little's content I have found a lot of great things on expoitative play, where upswing seems more solver/GTO based?

I'm currently working through split suits preflop math poker book, its improved my play for sure but I find it not the most exciting or engaging content. I definetly have to be in the right mindset to really dive into to maximize the value I get.

Subbed to follow the journey. Cheers

Hey nice, good to see another person on the grind. Here's to studying and making it.

Jonathan Little's book / course was really good for introducing the concept of having 4 categories of hands (Bluff with your draws, call with your marginal hands). He also covered exploitative stuff (If you opponent C bets 100%, you can call and raise wider). He has very little GTO / solver work though.

Upswing seems to have all of that AND it has massive GTO work. Downside is that Upswing course feels like an overload with the 300+ hours of videos. I like Upswing though. I skipped Doug's category of hands stuff and just went into the solver stuff. Instead of spending $500 on a solver + a PC to run sims, I just watch the pros go over common spots and take notes on takeaways.

Day 1: Trying out 25NL Zoom


Today, I didn’t get to take any notes from studying. My plan is still to watch lectures when I can during work. Anyways, tomorrow should be good. I ended up playing 25NL zoom at like 12pm CST on Ignition.

Was my first time playing zoom, I didn’t notice too many people limping pots like they do in ring games. So I’m guessing that games were tougher than other. I ended the session losing 4 buy ins which isn’t a great start.

I’m pretty confident that I’m winning 25NL though. I had a friend who strictly used Polk’s category system and didn’t study any solver solutions, and he was winning 50NL on Ignition. He played during the nights and not zoom though. So, I’m gonna stop playing zoom and stick to ring and just trust that I'm at least a barely winning player in these fields regardless of variance. If I'm a 2bb/100 winner, I could have downswing of up to like $1000 according to primeDope calculator.

Today I also spent a lot of of time contacting people on FB for apartments. I’m living in Mexico City and working remote, so if I can get an apartment I can establish proof of residence and get access to GGPoker or PartyPoker.

I need to tag hands better while I’m playing on Mac, or set up a windows Virtual Machine so I can get real time stats. Anyways, I’m gonna post a random of hand from my zoom session below.

Ignition - $0.25 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players

Hero (BTN): 107.96 BB
SB: 99 BB
BB: 163.64 BB
UTG: 35.28 BB
MP: 127.92 BB
CO: 115 BB

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has Ad Tc
fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, SB calls 2.6 BB, BB calls 2 BB

Flop : (9 BB, 3 players) Ts Th 2h
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 6.44 BB, fold, BB calls 6.44 BB

Turn : (21.88 BB, 2 players) 4c
BB checks, Hero bets 15.6 BB, BB raises to 42.2 BB, Hero raises to 98.52 BB and is all-in, BB calls 56.32 BB

River : (218.92 BB, 2 players) 5d

Hero shows Ad Tc (Three of a Kind, Tens)
(Pre 70%, Flop 19%, Turn 11%)

BB shows 2d Td (Full House, Tens full of Twos)
(Pre 30%, Flop 81%, Turn 89%)

BB wins 210.92 BB


IÂ’m not sure about 3-betting on the Turn. I think that was a big mistake. I also would like to simplify my flop betting and just use 1 size. When the flop favors, IÂ’ve been liking a wide bet with 33% and then playing on the Turn.

This is a cooler so I don't think there's anyway this isn't an expensive hand for you however I also think that the turn 3bet is a mistake.
When Villan check raises here his range is very polarized and at these stakes I find players massively underbluff so I think Villan's range contains a lot of value but there are also villans at 25nl that will way overbluff and punt so you have to know your customer a bit.

I know theres hardly any combos out there that realistically beat us but I think we want to flat the X/R here on the turn in posistion and allow Villan to continue to punt if hes punting. When we 3 bet I think we are very face up and make Villan's decision making very easy. If we flat his turn X/R in posistion we become much more difficult to play against. Also if you are going to 3bet the turn when you have AT what hands are we going to call this bet with? Without AT in our call range I think our flat range becomes very expoitable on the river.


I have been using small sizes with pretty much my entire range on a paired board like 25%-33% pot, I have found that players at 25nl make massive mistakes against the small bet on a paired board, and don't attack these bets enough while massively overfolding. If we bet 25% pot if villan folds more than 20% we are immediately profitable, if we go with 33% pot we only need a fold 25% of the time. Players are way over folding this. When we do get villans defending this properly I like sizing up on the turn and find I can take down more than my share of these pots.