Hi all.

My name is Gordon, from Scotland.
I am 28 years old.
I have a bankroll of $500 and I currently play $10 NL 6 max mainly. A mixture of zoom and regular games. This blog will follow my rise through the stakes. I will update it daily.

I will have a mixture of daily weekly and monthly goals and will document my success in reaching these goals.

I got a new PC for Christmas so I have no database at present.

I will play by the following rules :

Decide what games to play at the start of the day / session and do not deviate
Play 4 tables at a time maximum
Play 60 minute sessions
Review my previous session before starting my next session
Put relevant hands on 2+2
If drop 3 BI in one session then stop immediately

If playing tournaments I will start with 4 tournaments and play them to finish, not adding in any other tournaments at all.

Goal for 10th January 2014 - Play 10NL Zoom exclusively
Goal for week ending 11th January - Play 10NL Zoom exclusively building up my database.
Goal for month ending 31st January - Stick to my rules as above. Have a win rate of 5bb/100. Read some poker theory. Play 30,000 hands. Move up at $650.

Good luck

Review of 10th January

Yesterday I played an $8 180 person tourney and came second. I also was up a few buy ins at $10 NL so I have a bankroll of $800 which is enough to move up to $25 NL.

Goal for 11th January

Play $50NL 6 max zoom exclusively (no tourneys either).

Current Bankroll - $796

I will write a weekly review each Monday detailing specific hands. So that will come tomorrow.

I am going to write a small summary of every session I have and will put up some interesting hands either in this thread or on the main subforum after each session. I haven't been very good at that up until now.

After the first 5 sessions I have played :

3162 hands and have a win rate of -10bb/100 and have a bankroll of $750. I've had a few interesting hands but nothing to shout about. I'll update a word document as I go and will then post at the end of my last session of the day.

Right I've been a ****. I'm down to $490. This is it. Going to do this properly now.

January 13th 2015

Long Term Goal
Play $10NL Zoom exclusively until I reach $590. (Up 10 BI's)
Play $16NL Zoom exclusively until I reach $750. (Up 10 BI's)
Play $25NL Zoom exclusively until I reach $1250. (Up 20 BI's)

Aim to make 5bb/100 at each level. So this should take 80,000 hands to achieve

Daily Goals
1. Play 4 hours of good solid poker
2. Complete 10,000 steps for today

All the best Gordon

Day 1 - January 14th 2015

Right, so so far my challenge has been BS. I've been pathetic and tilting and playing some SnG HU and Spin and Gos when I said I wouldn't. Its time to go for a new start and not be a complete idiot. Luckily on this occasion I won and have $650 in my account. No more tilting. This is a clean slate and my final chance. Today will mark day 1 of my challenge. I know I've been pathetic so far but I want to show I have learnt. The outline of my blog may change over time but I guess thats fine as I learn how I want to display things and progress.

Yesterday my in laws came over so I only played an hour or so poker, I was chatting to them and suffered so opened up some HU SnG and Spin & Go to recoup my losses. Luckily it worked. Usually it does not. Lesson learnt.

I've also decided I do not want to exclusively play cash. I want to mix it up a bit but I need to decide at the start of each day what I will play and stick to it so I don't tilt. I'm determined to succeed.

Daily Playing Goal
1. Play at least one hour of good solid poker. Only 6 max $25NL zoom.

Weekly Learning Goal
1. Watch some videos from this link by Sunday. I'll share which ones I found most useful on Monday http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...videos-621404/

Bankroll - $650
Cash : $25NL
SnG / MTT : $13
HU : $7

Day 2 - January 15th 2015

I was confused why my HUD wasn't working so I deleted my database to try and fix it as I'd tried everything else. Turns out it's not my fault but just something created by a new stars update!

I played about 100 hands on each zoom limit (0.01/0.02 - 0.25/0.5) to try and work out what was going wrong as I noticed the HUD worked on other limits. Wish I hadn't deleted my database as I was up in them all.

Won 1 BI at $50NL when I 3B suited connectors, flopped a flush, triple barreled and was called down by QQ (overpair).

Also won 2 BI at $25NL but not sure what happened anymore!

Daily Playing Goal
1. Play at least two hours of good solid poker. Only 6 max $25NL zoom (normal speed if zoom HUD not working).

Weekly Learning Goal
My link wasn't what I expected. I'll watch actual reducing tilt videos instead!

Bankroll - $761
Cash : $25NL
SnG / MTT : $13
HU : $7

Day 3 - January 16th 2015

I decided to play MTTs yesterday. Did quite well. Came 2nd in a $3.50 180 man rebuy. Yeah I didn't stick to my daily goal. I need to sort that nonsense out and do as I say, although in fairness I stuck to what I said I would do to myself before playing. Not sure how strict I need to be on myself, or how flexible. I just fancied a change as I had the house to myself.

I wasn't going to move to $50NL until I reached $1250 but I need to get 17,000 FPP from stars in order to get my ultimate bonus of $200ish. Therefore I have made an executive decision to take a 5 BI shot at $50NL. If I fail I'll still have $750 + any rakeback. I will have to just play cash to get points to clear this bonus. Tournaments don't give enough rakeback.

Bankroll $995
Cash $50NL

Current Playing Goal
$50NL Zoom. Move down at $750.

I watched this video Thought it was fairly decent.

Hi,

Keep it up Gordon. Feel free to let me know if you want advice on a particular hand or something. Also, if you're interested in learning, I've dropped back down to the lower stakes to do one of these challenges myself, and I'm recording it on YouTube. Here's the link if you're interested.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjo...SxmzeUbyHzeU3A

Kind Regards,

Chris

Day 6 - Monday 19th January

Bankroll $1015

I didn't play too much over the last few days.

I've had a bit of a think on how I want to improve my poker. I want to play a bit of everything, not only cash. On a Monday I'm going to set proper playing and learning goals for the full week. Then at the end of each week I can see how I have performed. I still have a lot to work on postflop. My redline is shocking.

Learning Goals for the week
1 hour reading some articles / watch some videos on improving my red line
1 hour reading some articles / watch some videos on playing 3 bet pots
1 hour reading some articles / watch some videos on continuation betting
1 hour reading some articles / watch some videos on Heads Up play
1 hour reading some articles / watch some videos on hand reading
Spend 5 hours on 2+2 reading posts and actively contributing. Put at least 5 hands up for analysis by the forum.

Playing Goals for the week
After having done some homework on Heads Up play 4 x $7 HU normal speed & 4 x $7 HU turbo.
Spend 7 x 15 minutes one tabling $50NL zoom in order to work on hand reading
4 table $50NL 6 Max Zoom (default game choice)

Other things I am allowed to play over the week
$10NL Heads Up cash games
Some MTT of up to $11 buy in

Things on my to learn list
Playing suited connectors
Playing pocket pairs
Playing suited one gappers
Playing AK
Preventing tilt
Note taking advice

I know some of these things look quite basic, but these are leaks I feel I have. It's not that I don't know some of the theory behind playing these hands, just that I don't think I do it well enough and want to improve these aspects.

Will update my progress daily. I've mainly been updating this at work. I need to do it from home as well, during actual game time.

Hi man,

Really good stuff, it's good to see you're thinking about your targets and goals, I'm sure you'll improve rapidly as a player with that sort of motivation!

Just a quick point with regards to your comments on the red line. The red line will usually be negative. There's absolutely no need to worry about the red line being below 0, that's expected. If you watch pro online grinders (xflixx or someone) on youtube or poker school online, their red lines are usually negative. So don't worry about that bro Mine is well below 0! The reason for this is the red line is not based on your ability as a player, it's simply a question of style. Every time you fold before showdown, it hurts your red line, so if you're a tight player, you're realistically never going to have a positive red line because you'll be paying so much in blinds. Red line is not a problem, just worry about the profit line and the EV line!

I'll try and give you some pointers on the other things you've mentioned, but I'm not exactly sure what you specifically feel your leaks are in each area.

So, for 3-bet pots. The key thing in my opinion when playing a 3-bet pot is position. It is absolutely vital. Try not to get yourself in a 3-bet pot out of position without a premium hand. The good thing about 3-bet pots is that it narrows your opponents range a lot, unfortunately, it narrows yours a lot as well, but at stakes like 10NL, 25NL and 50NL, your opponents are unlikely to be very good hand readers, if they're even near that level oft hinting at all, which gives you an advantage. Look at their stats, think about their likely range, and never float in 3-bet pots. Floating can be useful sometimes, but the cost is too high usually in 3-bet pots.

Btw, I started one of my more recent videos with an interesting 3-bet pot in my database, if you haven't already, check it out, should help immensely as I analyse the hand and try to show when to play a 3-bet pot.

C-betting is a ver difficult thing to master. You need to be very good at hand reading. Don't c-bet as a total bluff on a heavily connected flop usually, one with a lot of draws. A flop like J72 rainbow is a great situation for a c-bet usually. The second thing is often c-betting when you have outs. AK on a flop of QJ5 is a decent c-bet, because you have A, K and T as outs, including the T for nut outs. This is why draws are also prime c-betting targets. Next point, select your players. The choice of whether to c-bet in a situation or not is often player dependent. If the guy has a 0 fold o c-bet stat, and you have air, c-betting is probably a losing play. The point of c-betting with air is to get a fold, and if he's not going to fold, you're just throwing money down the drain a lot of the time. However, if the guy folds to c-bets 90% of the time, well, hammer him every time you can. Relentlessly c-bet against this guy, and when he calls it, you know he's probably got a good hand, top pair plus, so you can then narrow down his range and get out the way if you don't improve. A general guideline for me is you want a c-bet percentage of 60% - 65%. If you have it there, you're probably c-betting with roughly the right frequency.

Heads-up play is one of my weakest areas, so I won't pretend I'm good enough to give advice to other people on it. I do know that you should be ultra-aggresive, that's a good strategy,don't be afraid to shove chips in the middle. Also, hands become worth more pre and post flop, because your opponent can have any two random cards in a hand. So, any ace becomes a 3-betting hand often and top pair becomes a pretty nutted holding and so on.

Hand reading, the most important skill in poker, in my opinion. I can't help with this really, this comes from experience a lot of the time. All I can advise is to think each situation through. Think about the story the player is telling from the start of the hand. He raises early position, you call, he checks a flop of J23. What hands would he not c-bet? Something with showdown value perhaps. Is he a passive player, could he be checking a monster and inducing? At this point I probably have him on a middling pair, 8s or 9s etc.. Don't be afraid to put your opponent on a range if you think you can, if you're wrong, learn from it! It's a difficult, but vital skill!

Hope I've helped to some degree.

Chris

Thanks for the feedback / information. I appreciate it. I will certainly check out your youtube channel and your thread properly. It's on my list of things to do.

I'll also respond to your advice above when I get a proper chance.

Thanks man! And no problem, hope it proves helpful. Bear in mind, it's not fact, just my humble opinion!

Day 7 - Tuesday 20th January 2014

Bankroll $750

Only played a couple of hours yesterday and lost 5 buy ins. Didn't feel like I did much wrong (but I'll put up my hands today and see what people say).

Unfortunately this means I'm going to move down to $25NL. Will take a 6 buy in shot at $25NL.

Today's Plan

I think today is mainly going to be about learning. Monday, Tuesday and maybe Wednesday will be days for mainly learning. I'll mainly play Thursday - Sunday when I expect more recreational players to play. So with that in mind this will be todays plan.

1 hour reading some articles / watch some videos on hand reading
15 minutes 1 tabling $50NL Zoom (I have no hands at $25NL and my HUD doesn't work so hand reading will be less effective)
15 minutes 1 tabling $25NL Zoom (Practice hand reading knowing nothing about my opponents)
Put up my hands from today and yesterday to be analysed by the forum
1 hour reading some articles / watch some videos on continuation betting

Good plan! I would also advise, based on my own experience, watching poker being played. I find that apart from playing, that's the best way of learning. Watch some pro's do some live sessions at poker school online, or go on 'Pokertube' and watch a show like High Stakes Poker. I found it really helpful Unlucky about the downswing, I'm sure you'll pick it up again! Well done for having the discipline to move down, a lot of people don't.

Day 8 - Wednesday 21st January 2015

Notice I've been putting 2014 in my dates. Oops.

Yeah I quite enjoy watching other people play poker, and hearing their thought processes. Even if I don't agree with them it can be quite useful to hear another point of view.

I didn't quite stick to yesterdays plan, but didn't do too badly. My girlfriend was out the house so thought I'd play a bit more poker than I had intended and what I did play I played in a "different way".

How I compared to yesterdays plan :

1 hour reading some articles / watch some videos on hand reading passed

15 minutes 1 tabling $50NL Zoom (I have no hands at $25NL and my HUD doesn't work so hand reading will be less effective) [Not quite - explain below

15 minutes 1 tabling $25NL Zoom (Practice hand reading knowing nothing about my opponents) Not quite - explain below

Put up my hands from today and yesterday to be analysed by the forum Put up a couple of standard hands

1 hour reading some articles / watch some videos on continuation betting
No but I probably spent more than an hour looking at hand reading and looked at quite a few threads on 2+2 instead so not too bothered

So how I actually played my poker, and how I think I'll continue playing as I found my concentration levels improved greatly and I also analysed my hands more thoroughly than I used to.....

I tried one tabling to practice hand reading but found a lot of hands didn't go to showdown so it was quite pointless and wasted a bit of time. What I did instead was. Played for 15 minutes. Reviewed all the hands I'd tagged. Posted a couple on 2+2. Then played 15 minutes again. Reviewed my hands. Etc. Really enjoyed playing this way. Felt I played a lot better, was more alert, made less mistakes, and found patterns in my or villains play where the hands were fresh in my mind rather than viewing them a day later when I forgot exactly what had happened. I've got a couple of interesting hands to put up but I wasn't sure whether to put them in here as a boast of look at my call downs, or ask if I played them correctly in the relevant section. I think I'll maybe do both (although it'll be pointless for anyone who has viewed my thread).

Bankroll - $815

Todays Plan

No real plan as I'm not sure how much time I'll have. There is one video on hand reading I'm only half way through so I'll probably finish that off. Will have a read of the forums. Hopefully do yesterdays work on continuation betting.

I have to say, and take this as a compliment, you are by far the most organised micro grinder I've ever come across! I have no doubt that this will stand you in good stead!

Thank you. If I don't try to be organised I have a habit of not playing games I'm supposed to. And even if you study now what I say I'm going to do, and what I do do they tend to be different things.

When I play a 1 hour session and then try and review my hands, I find it boring as I have too many to review and seems to take up a lot of time. However working in 15 minute sessions seems to be quite appealing. Sometimes only 2 hands to review and take notes on so it only takes 5-10 minutes and then I can start my session again.

Definitely seems to be a more efficient way of working, stops the monotmoy of just playing and in my one session yesterday it appeared to work, so will try and keep it up.

It should also avoid me losing too many buy ins. E.g. in a one hour session I could lose 3 buy ins and feel I did nothing wrong at the time, review my hands and realise I made the same mistake twice. In 15 minute sessions I'll hopefully lose 1 buy in at most thinking I played well, review and see I did poorly and adapt while it's fresh in my mind.

We'll see how it goes!

Day 10 - Friday 23rd January 2015

Yesterday was a good day
Won a poker tournament at the local casino, then played a bit of cash until 4am and still made it up for 6am for work! Shattered now though. I played really tight. Was close to getting blinded out, waited until I had AX in last position a couple of time and raised all in picking up the blinds. I then doubled up with AK v AQ and from there took the tournament down. I then played cash for a couple of hours and basically doubled up twice from my starting stack of £200 making it a very nice day indeed!

Bankroll - $3000 Just over in actual fact but will pocket the extra. Only got $777 in stars as I've either been playing terribly or running bad.

Weekend Playing Plan

I probably wont play much over the weekend as I've got a few plans. Will play a wee bit. Probably $25NL Zoom only (been losing at $50NL so even with this big win I'm not moving up. I want to keep my other bankroll for live play so need to get 19-20 buy ins to move up

Weekend Learning Plan
Still learning about Cbetting and Hand Reading. Think these are more important to read for now.

The dawning of a new era

Right since my last post I've been thinking of how to manage my time effectively. I've been modifying my spreadsheet so I can keep it updated in line with this blog, and so I can keep an eye on everything I've been learning. This format doesn't allow me to easily list together articles on certain subjects for example. I need to keep this thread updated, along with my spreadsheet at the same time to make the most of this.

I've been reading a few articles on opening ranges and feel I've been too loose in early position. Although I've been analysing individual hands I've not been analysing my overall game, how I've played from each position, etc.

So, this is what is going to be my plan of action from now on.

1. Play a 15 minute session.
2. Review my hands and make notes. Decide if I'm in the right frame of mind to continue.
3. Play a 15 minute session.
4. Review my hands and make notes. Decide if I'm in the right frame of mind to continue.
5. Play a 15 minute session.
6. Review my hands and make notes. Decide if I'm in the right frame of mind to continue.
7. Play a 15 minute session.
8. Review my hands and make notes.
9. Review the entire session as a whole, looking at my play in each position, AF, etc. Make sure I haven't been making any major leaks.

I will then take a break for at least half an hour as if I play for any longer than this I tend to get tilted, lose interest, play poorly, neglect my girlfriend hahaha

Every day I will update with my days performance, and put up some interesting hands.
Every Monday I will review my weeks play, and put up my positional stats and graphs, and bankroll (rather than putting it up every day). I will put my learning goals for the week up.
On the last Monday of every month I'll put up a list of articles I have read, bits of advice I feel have helped me this month, lessons I've learned, etc.

So this post is really a stop gap between the old and the new. I'm away to put up another post referencing today as week 1 (and pretend its a Monday).

So here's a fresh start so everyone can see how I perform and follow my progress.

The Start - Friday 23rd January 2015 - Bankroll £2000 = ~$3000

Weeks Playing Goals

Since I lost a couple hundred at $50NL Zoom and I'm even down a couple of buy ins at $25NL Zoom here is my plan until Monday. All I'm playing this weekend is zoom.

$25 NL Zoom : Move down if lose 5 buy ins. Move up if win 20 buy ins.
$16 NL Zoom : Move down if lose 5 buy ins. Move up again if win 7 buy ins.

Weekend Learning Plan

Hand Reading
Continuation Betting
Aggression

Notes

I realise now I've read on this "restart" seems pointless and I've got bascially the same info in here as "Day 10", but it's mainly because I wanted to keep my spreadsheet and this updated properly, I had a clearer vision of what I wanted to do, and well it's my thread so I can do what I like. I want to see if this thread can also collate lots of pieces of information which can help people learning to play poker so they can basically follow me and improve. That's the way I may tackle this from Monday. Put up a list of books and articles that have helped me so far, and progress through books and articles.

Saturday 24th January 2015

So yesterday I went back to the start and defined my preflop default opening, 3 betting, 4 betting, 5 betting ranges again using the following sources :

Ryan Fees 6 max guide
A couple of spreadsheets I found on http://www.pokerspreadsheets.com/
And just from browsing the forums and looking around on here.

UTG : 11-14 %
MP : 14-16 %
CO : 23-27 %
BTN : 40-50 %

The reason for this is because I feel like I was opening too wide in all positions.

I tried to link the old archived 2+2 threads on hand reading / continuation betting I've been reading but this didn't work properly.

Plan

I'm going to try and watch pokerpedias videos since he has been trying to help me in this thread and also the videos from Poker Academy on youtube.

Grind $25NL and keep reading articles and watching videos

Finalise and tweak all my ranges

Tuesday 27th January

Over the weekend I played a small amount of poker and ended up around evens.
I played one of the TCOOP tournaments yesterday. The 1st hand after the bubble UTG went all in with J9s. I called with AKs (both of us had the same suit). He hit the straight to knock me out. So received just over a min cash. Had I doubled up I'd have been top 30 with about 250 players left. Never mind, wasn't too be. Ended up around $100 up for the weekend.

I've watched one of Pokerpedias videos so far. I intend to give him feedback soon.

Plan

Read Ed Miller how to read hands
Purchase Flopzilla
Watch some more Pokerpedia videos
Watch some more Poker Academy videos

Grind $25NL with some $50NL thrown in there.

Bankroll - $850 in Stars