I’m 20, graduating next spring, and trying to save up as much money as possible from now until then because I am not going to get a 9-5 job. I’m not sure what I want to do, but it won’t be sitting in a cubicle, I can promise you that. After a long hiatus from online poker, I put $300 on a US ok site and will be grinding the cash games. I worked out a good rake back deal through a friend, so this will be my motivation to put in good volume. There are no HUDs on the site and I have no way of tracking hands/posting graphs (that I know of, I’m working on this), so aside from progress reports, I’m not really sure of what I want to talk about in the thread. I figured this would be a motivating factor for me, as well as hopefully motivating other young people that you can do anything you want to do. Screw society and the illusion that is the “real world”.

I’m into fitness, eating healthy, working out, etc. so I might log about that a bit. I also play guitar (semi-seriously for about two years now) and grinding will take a backseat to that if I join a band. I’m also recently over a break up with a long-term gf (recently single does not equal being mentally ok about the break up imo, I’m finally at the point where she doesn’t enter my mind on a daily basis, if ever anymore) and will make picking up girls one of my focuses as well. I’m not the “player” type of guy at all, but this is an area of life I want to improve upon because I think success with women, whatever your definition of that is, translates to success in other areas of life as well.

I’m currently at $530 (with about $210 rake back built up as well) and will be playing 50NL for the time being. I have more money to deposit if needed, but I think I’ll be fine. I’ll look to play 100NL regularly at $2000.

My goal for this year is to make $50,000. I think this is very doable with some hard work and my rakeback deal. I also do quite a bit of investing and will count this profit towards this goal, however do to the nature of the stock market, will refrain from posting about my progress in the short term. I hope to keep this thread going through the year and will throw in any investment gains/losses at the end.

My goals are going to be process oriented rather than results oriented. At the end of the year, the only thing that matters is how much I’ve made, how ripped I am, how many girls I’ve hooked up with, how many platinum albums I’ve written, etc. but I know that if I focus on improving my “system”, the results will come with time. I’ve given up on a lot of goals in the past because I wanted the results now, rather than setting myself up for the big win later on. That’s not going to happen again.

Goals for rest of month (10 days):

[ ] Find someone to jam with
[ ] $400 in rake paid
[ ] Ask for five phone numbers of girls I wouldn’t say no to screwing
[ ] Don’t spend my Friday/Saturday nights playing poker
[ ] No fried food, candy, or soda
[ ] Get up by 8 am during the week and get to the gym

These are all pretty “extreme” goals for me. I do none of them currently, but I think they are the right combination of being doable while not being too tough or too easy.

GL all, grind on, and keep working on making yourself successful, by your own definition of the word. Live in the now and realize that you are in fact happy.

Gl man. Bovada?

Update:

Bankroll is now $599. I've done a little over $100 in rake too so I'm happy with that. I'm running just horrible right now, absolutely brutal coolers and losing just about every all in. This sucks but it's also a good sign that I'm still up money. Gl all, I'll try to think of some strategy to talk about in the next update, just wanted to post a quick update for now.

Bovada doesn't have rakeback so not sure what site it is.

I would rather not say where I'm playing for now. The deal I worked out isn't standard and I'd like to protect my situation.

I played an absolute marathon session yesterday, probably 10-12 hours. By far the longest I've ever played before. I went from up 400 to down 60 to back up around 700. I think I played well and definitely picked up on some trends to exploit in the future. I'm going to be busy the next couple days so probably won't be able to play until Monday.

I just picked up a copy of "The Mental Game of Poker" and will be reading through that in the next couple of weeks. I also started talking with a buddy who is much better than me and this has dramatically improved the way I think at the tables, even in just the little bit we've talked. I'd urge anyone in a funk to do the same, just having the different perspective will open your eyes for sure.

I'm off to a good start poker wise, but school hasn't really started yet (the work at least) so I can't expect to keep this volume up for long. I'm just going to focus on improving and putting in volume when I can.

Bankroll: 1356
Rake paid: 270/400

Some strategy talk: What do you guys think of limping the SB? The games I'm playing are pretty donk infested and they never seem to fold the BB to a SB raise. I am sure I am down lots of money from the SB and I find myself in weird spots post flop that really aren't necessary. I'm thinking about starting to limp my SB with anything that isn't really strong. I think this would help me against the donks because I would only put money in post when I hit a hand and it would be pretty tricky for regs to put me on a range. Any thoughts? I've also started to c/r a lot of A high flops SB vs BB, as this seems to work WAY more often than c-betting and gets me a few extra bb's when they fold.

Also, if anyone has some good video recommendations where they aren't playing with a HUD, please let me know. It's hard to watch videos where the guy uses his HUD for almost every decision, knowing it's not really applicable to my games. If there's any REALLY good books for small stakes cash, feel free to list those too.

Thanks and gl!

End of January update:

Overall it was a solid couple of weeks and I've put myself in position to make a run at my yearly goals. I shouldn't really be at risk of going broke at this point. I was extremely close to quitting poker a few days ago, as I wasn't sure how + life ev it is for me, but I am planning on traveling to Europe and possibly Vegas this summer and I'd like to pay for it with poker winnings. I think having a tangible goal with poker will definitely help me see the purpose of me playing.

Here's how I did with my January goals:

[X] Find someone to jam with - Haven't jammed yet, but have two people lined up to jam with soon
[X] $400 in rake paid -did about $650
[ ] Ask for five phone numbers of girls I wouldn’t say no to screwing- big time fail, I forgot that I was going out of town both weekends in January so this was a terrible goal to set in the first place
[X] Don’t spend my Friday/Saturday nights playing poker
[X] No fried food, candy, or soda - went out to eat only once so this was a big success. I lost a noticeable amount of body fat but I'm concerned I'm not getting enough calories to build muscle.
[ ] Get up by 8 am during the week and get to the gym -fail, it's been like -10 every day and I have no intentions of getting up early to freeze my ass off to go work out. I did go a few times at night though.

Bankroll: $1100 (plus about $500 in rakeback I'll be getting in a few days). I know I can't justify saying this without a graph to back it up, but I got absolutely raped by variance in January. I lost so many all ins as a huge favorite it's sickening. I'm optimistic about next month though because my hand reading has been getting progressively better and I'm winning much more money without getting all in pre-river.

I'm going to post weekly goals as the month progresses but here's where I want to be by the end of February:

[ ] $4,000 bankroll
[ ] Finish the "Mental Game of Poker"
[ ] Watch some videos and make notes of areas to work on
[ ] Continue to eat super healthy and work out a minimum three times/wk
[ ] No poker on Friday or Saturday nights
[ ] Get five new phone numbers BUT can only get them during the day/sober
[ ] Have one original song completely finished

Gl everyone.

Where to begin...it's been a crazy month non-poker wise, poker just adding to the confusion and mind-f'ers. I've been getting crushed on the markets, my social life sucks, my classes are terribly boring, etc; I'm on one of those downward spiraling runs where it just doesn't seem to end.

So when I made this thread, I had just set up a propping deal on one of the new EPN skins. I grinded my $300 deposit to about $2000 in a couple weeks, the games were super soft and I was well on my way to making $50k this year. Then I started getting crushed, like really bad. Not only was I losing every all in (3.5k below ev at 1/2 and 2/4 in two weeks), but I was getting killed in non-showdown spots as well. Well it turns out that I was getting colluded against (3-4 players at every table were sharing info) and those players have been banned from the network, not without my money though. I've spent the last couple weeks absolutely hating poker and basically wanting nothing to do with it.

I really do need the money though and poker is the only viable option for me at the moment (to make $10k at least), so I am going to get back on the grind elsewhere. $50k may be a bit out of the question as I won't be getting 100% rakeback and have now wasting two months of the year with nothing to show for it, but I need to make about $10k by the time school gets out in early May. Bovada seems to be like the best option for US grinders, so I will look into throwing some money on there.

If anyone has any advice, please share it. I won't be depositing for a little while until I clear my head and decide which direction to take. I will probably need to do a variety of things to make money outside of poker as well (donate plasma, Amazon tasks, etc.) so if anyone has any ways to make money, please pm me with advice. A part-time job isn't an option because I'm only at school for another couple months and no one will hire me for a few weeks.

Put $400 on Bovada two days ago and have been playing 50NL. The rake is pretty bad but the games are super soft, guys are basically just handing over their money. Everyone complains about the rake being unbeatable, but it doesn't matter when the players are this bad.

Current Br: $1180

I'm feeling super good about my game right now, definitely playing the best I ever have before. I still have loads of room for improvement, but I'm definitely a lot better now than I was even a month ago. My mindset is money (pun intended) and I'm ready to make this 50k. No tilt, no emotions, just grind. Goal is to get to 2k by Sunday night and be playing 100NL exclusively from here on out. Let's do this.

Gl, I grind usa sites myself, hopefully the site you are on has good withdrawals, don't want your money getting stuck on a site. I personally only play BCP/ACR and bovada. Carbon might be good also.

Currently at 2.6k. I'm mostly playing 200NL now because the rake is just awful at 100NL and it was eating into my win rate pretty significantly. Obviously I'll drop down if things take a turn for the worse. I'm running worse than I've ever ran before in my life and it's getting really hard to deal with mentally. I'm forcing myself to take breaks when I feel tilt coming on, which I realize isn't the greatest approach because I'm not actually solving my tilt issues, I'm just running away from them. That being said, I'd much rather do that than play poorly and piss off stacks to donks. I don't have a HUD on Bovada but conservatively I'm 2k below ev, most likely closer to 3-4k. Lost a couple 500bb+ pots where the guy had 2/3 outs in addition to sets/two pair losing to flush and straight draw type hands. I'm crushing in non all-in pots though so hopefully when things turn around variance wise I'll crush at be at 400NL in no time. I'll probably start taking shots at 400NL when I get to about 6k and move down asap if I lose a couple buy-ins.

I can tell my game is improving tremendously and I'm really pleased with most of my play. I still have a tendency to not believe people so I've made some pretty bad calls...I'll continue to work on this. I'm not setting monthly goals anymore because they are just too hard to predict/follow up on. Instead I'm setting session goals (volume and play wise) and those have been working pretty well.

This thread has basically zero interest (I can understand why) so I'm not really sure I'll keep it going if something doesn't change. If you guys have any questions on hands, general strat, or whatever random nonsense feel free to post it and I'll try to get back to you asap.

Bovada players can show up with any two cards at least from my experience from them. You can definitely win there! Glgl. If you're looking to have some kind of hud for Bovada I'd try Holdem Indicator.

Yeah I probably should get Holdem Indicator, but really I'm only playing 4 tables and I find it's very +ev to play without a HUD, as I pay much more attention to the players. I think playing on Bovada can do wonders for your game because you don't know who the opposition is and there's no HUD's, so you have to make sure to pay attention and play solid, really thinking about ranges.

Currently at 2.9k. Still running awful in all-ins but winning heaps in non-showdown so when things turn around variance-wise I should start killing it. I am going to cash out 1k so will be grinding hard to make sure I can still be playing 1/2 this weekend/next week.

Piece of advice: When a donk check/min-raises on the turn on a scary/wet board, they have the nuts 99% of the time. This is especially true in larger pots. Fold your two-pair/sets and save yourself a lot of money. GL all!

Current BR: 3.7k

Weekend games have been crazy soft. Took a shot at 2/4, within ten minutes I got AA cracked twice for full stacks. Gross. Won't be going back there til 6k at least.

I have next week off for spring break so I'll be grinding super hard. I think I'm going to shoot for 2k rake for the week (6000 points?). It doesn't account to anything monetarily, but I'm thinking I could make a good chunk of money next week, so the rake is more of a motivation to grind than anything.

I'm currently reading The Mental Game of Poker and Mathematics of Poker. As someone with a very strong math and stats background, MoP is sooo money. I'm only like 20% through and already knew all of the concepts so far from a theoretical standpoint, but I can tell it's going to be a doozy of a book and should pay off big for my game.

General Advice: I've always been someone who could do just about anything if I had a discrete goal to shoot for (ex: rake 2k in a week), it's the continuous goals I struggle with (ex: getting really good at guitar). I think most of us are like this, with the exception of the true sickos that can do anything just because they are that motivated to be the best. If you're struggling with tilt or something is holding you back from reaching your true potential, try setting mini (daily, weekly, monthly) goals. Make them easy at first and tougher as time goes on. I was always under the mindset of "I want to make a million playing poker" and would repeatedly run $200 into 1k just to blow it all in a night. I probably did this 20-30 times. I never had a plan, never used brm, tilted like a monkey, and never improved my game. I just assumed because I was smarter than most people that I should crush poker. Not true.

For those struggling with poker or other aspects of their life, here's step 1: Quit thinking about the big picture. Set a few simple yet tangible goals for the next couple of weeks that will "prove" you are moving in the right direction. Will I make a million playing poker or trading stocks this year? No. But, I can put myself in a position to do it eventually. You can dream about making a million for ten years, all the while being a broke bum, or you can make $100,000 for ten years and be sitting on a million at the end. Better yet, let compound interest be your friend and do it in eight. You decide when it's time to take control of your life. Wishes and dreams don't come true by magic or some higher being, you make them happen.

GL everyone.

Current BR: 3k

Why does it seem like it's the times you're really motivated and ready to grind that you run the worse? I'm happy with the way I played today and honestly just caught cooler after cooler. KK<AA four times,*AA<JJ on T98 flop (for 800 pot),*and QQ<JJ aipf (600 pot). Really no crazy interesting spots or anything, just standard spots that didn't work out for me. On the bright side I got on pace for 2k rake this week and will grind hard tomorrow to get ahead.