Online Poker up to this point:

I live in Australia so even accessing online poker isn't exactly easy. Our government has decided to favour the forms of gambling that have well-established lobbying groups. Good thing some sites don't mind a little grey area business. Unfortunately those are also the ones that have the most questionable business practices in other ways too...

I started with tournaments. Had some rough beginnings, as all players do, but I made enough deep runs and final tables to keep the fire burning. Eventually moved away from Ignition to N8. The tournaments there were noticeably tougher fields and my unearned confidence was immediately shaken. I perservered and even managed to come 2nd for $1000 in a 5000 person micro bounty tournament. Would have been first but I suck at heads up. Now I know some of you have buy-ins bigger than that but for me it was a big deal. It at least gave me some bankroll to work with.



Unfortunately I then went on a huge downswing. For the life of my I could not have a hand hold when on the cusp of a deep run. I started to almost feel dread when being dealt KK. I am sure I was making errors left, right and centre and messing up the runs well before the stack gets to shoving ranges. But it is definitely being on the bad side of all-in variance that was making me feel powerless at times. Even if it was a previous play that put me in that position it is always the suck outs that stick with you mentally.

I know everyone says that they are running bad when they are playing bad. I made bad plays for sure. But even off the tables the run bad was hunting me down.



I have been studying hard and even noticed the more I studied the worse my results got. Almost definitely this was over-adjusting as I learned more. My play was becoming less clicking buttons and so it was easier for more studied opponents to figure me out. I was yet to find a balance and unfortunately the boom or bust nature of tournaments was hitting my bankroll hard while I was in this downswing.

So relatively recently I switched over to cash games as I was craving some more consistency. Almost exclusively reg tables as I prefer to get to know my table and try to adjust to player tendencies exploitatively. I have been enjoying this quite a lot and intend to stick to cash games for now with the odd tournament Sunday.

My bankroll management has been ridiculous. I started at 10NL with only about $500 left in the roll, quickly moved to 25NL, then 50NL and have even been shot taking 100NL. All with a bankroll that currently sits at $780 after losing 2BI at 100NL last session. I know... yikes... I am well aware of how idiotically aggressive this has been. My reasoning has been that I want to establish at what level I am comfortable at quickly and add to the roll if needed rather than grind out 10NL etc. I know this isn't the ideal way to do things but so far I feel comfortable at 50NL. I have only had one losing session at 100 but that session being a 2 buy-in loss was a nasty but necessary wake up call for how under-rolled and inexperienced I am for that stake. I know that I am under-rolled for 50 too but at least it's not completely out of line.

Now that we have established that I am embarking on a questionable endeavour in questionable ways for even more questionable reasons it is time to get into my questionable play...


How it's going so far:

I only have 16k hands in cash so far. I know how meaningless this is but it is what I have at the moment. I have been focusing on the learning process more than volume so I have been only been playing two reg tables at a time. I do intend to add more tables as I go but I really want to focus on fundamentals before volume right now.



Until last night's super rough session the roll was heading in the right direction. But after throwing my full hand history into Hand2Note the results are a lot more concerning. I thought that I was a marginally winning player as the balance was going up but I am clearly a losing player running above EV. Now this does include my initial transition from tourneys to cash. I certainly butchered some hands at 25NL before I started to figure out deeper stack play. At least at 50NL it says I am winning and at 100NL it was winning before the last session. This at least shows that my more recent play has been an improvement. Still very concerning though. I clearly have a lot of work to do.



I'm pretty sure that I'm a predictable calling station that overvalues marginal hands, stubbornly tries to bluff catch, chases draws with low implied odds and ends up at the river with hands that should have folded on earlier streets. If I can find that fold button, bluff more appropriately and fix my blue line without decimating my redline too much then that would be great.

I sometimes swing between between a passive whale and an overly aggressive puntlord and then justify it all as exploiting player tendencies. Sometimes my reads are right while other times I am just leveling myself into suboptimal play.

My studying and plans for improvement:

My journey has all been independent so far. Studying through YouTube and ebooks mostly. Training through GTOWizard and the DTO apps on my phone. I try to review my hands and analyse them through GTOWizard. Invested in DriveHUD for Ignition and the Run it Once course "From the Ground Up". I spend a lot of time watching hand reviews and other people's uploaded coaching sessions.

I have absorbed an absolutely mental amount of poker content and have no intention of slowing down. These days I live and breathe poker and, while I'm not where I want to be now, you would be hard-pressed to find someone more determined to succeed.

I'd love to some day get some regular coaching myself but I have yet to be able to afford it on top of my GTO Wizard subscription and life expenses. I know it would fast-track my progress a lot and pay itself off but it's kinda one of those damned if you do and damned if you don't situations.

Now that I have a 2+2 account I might be able to get a little bit of feedback on the odd hand from the awesome regular contributors that keep these forums going. You guys would be surprised at the number of lurkers that benefit from those threads and comments.

Also no more 100NL shot takes for a while. I'll be grinding 50 until I have more roll and experience behind me.

I'm not sure how often I will be updating this but I do intend to keep it going and be active on the forums. I don't have much else going on so it will probably be pretty frequently. If anyone is still reading then I want to thank you for taking the time and I assure you that not every post will be a sad essay about a life led astray. If my results so far are anything to go by then apparently it it will mostly be about getting the money in bad and sucking out. We'll see how things go as this is definitely just the start of my journey. Thanks for reading. "You got there Phil".

gl mate

Thank you. I've been following your journey too. Glad to see you sticking with it and continually trying to improve your game.

Good luck

gl

Bankroll management is key, I'd say move down to at least 25nl and work on your game. You admit you need to work on your game, yet are playing above what your bankroll allows. This is how you bust your roll. Preferably I'd say move to 10nl and get a lot of volume in alongside studying.
Also there's benifits to playing zoom. On one table you can fit in over 200 hands per hour, two tables held get a lot of volume in without sacrificing focus. To fit that many hands in on regular tables you'd be multi tabling and would be unable to pause. On zoom you have just two tables to focus on which you can pause during big spots that require focus. You'll also build up stats on players over time. That's my opinion. Move down, play zoom, and work on your game.

Glgl

GL GL! Will follow this!

Thanks for the well wishes and advice folks.

Well looks like I will be going back to 25NL at least. I put in some serious volume over 2-4 50NL tables and could not have a damn thing go my way. Ran a full five buy-ins below all-in EV alone.

Truly the roughest session I have had since starting poker.



Not a pretty sight.

Honestly with the set ups that were going on I am very surprised it is only -50 AIEV-adjusted. The number of times that some gutshot or flush ignored pot odds and binked it on the river against me was nuts. Every time I made top pair I knew that bottom pair would call down and make trips on the river. Two pair? Straight. Set? Four-to-a-flush. Full house? Quads. Just a nightmare of a session.

The beginning was mostly coolers and draws getting there but by the end of it I was definitely very tilted and made some super questionable plays. I definitely earned some new tags and notes by the end of it so I am going to try to be aware of what certain regs have seen from me and how they may adjust. Yeah... there were definitely some new notes...

By the very end I had the fight taken out of me completely and was feeling dread when I was dealt a hand that I had to do something about. Gotta get out of a rough session earlier. By the time I reached that point I had ignored many exit signs and kept on going.

I need to implement a stop-loss even if a player or table seems so wild and loose that it is easy to justify sticking it out. Like yeah it is +EV in the long run for someone to be at your table shoving K9o into your AKs even if they do win both run outs... But online if that happens then what are the chances that you get it back before they hit and run or spew it away the next hand. Wishful thinking so when nonsense like that happens it needs to be a sign for me to walk away.

Realistically I am more likely to have my play affected by tilt than to have the right set up to be able to get it back before they leave the table with or without the cash. Especially because once they do something like that it is really hard to get them alone in a hand. Once they are done spewing it away then I am then left there tilted and more likely to become the target myself. Just gotta leave them to it and focus on not compounding losses.

The AIEV is both comforting and tilting for the exact same reason; it was out of my control. I can't help getting sucked out on but there are heaps of other things that I can work on. Going to be studying a lot, reviewing my hands with GTO Wizard and implementing new tilt-control strategies. Hopefully next time I post a graph it won't look like such a disaster.

Would advise ignoring yellow line, she's a dirty devil who likes complicated relationships

Yeah, I'm just going to study, focus on the things that I can do better and hope that my turn comes.

Some of those hands were wild and tilting at the time but I've gotten the money in bad as well so who am I to judge? Never quite as bad as a K9o preflop jam but we all have our own journeys.

When I shot took 100NL a combination of super aggressive table dynamics, a limp-jam trapper and a bluffy short stack I was trying to isolate resulted in me pricing myself into a three way all in with jacks. I nailed a third jack against both of their pocket aces. So all of this nonsense is pretty much just things going back to order unfortunately haha

The past couple of weeks I haven't been putting in a huge amount of volume on cash games, not enough to produce a graph that means anything.

Last session started well but ended with me getting sucked out on in a large three way all in where I had 85% equity on the turn. Then a few hands later I found myself tilt-bluffing into a set. Still have some mental game **** to work on that is for sure. Despite that though I am still on the way up from the awful day that I lasted reported on. I just have to tame that tilt monkey on my back and make sure I leave the tables before my play is affected.

My graph is a lot of little lines going upwards with the occasional large one going downwards. If I can get out of the wrong hands earlier and resist making bad river bluffs then I should be able to lower the fequency of the big downs and keep that green line moving up.

Despite the ups and downs of cash games the bankroll is healthier than ever...

I switched to cash because I was in a terrible tournament downswing. But with GGPoker running their World Festival I have been firing a few bullets at the low stakes events. Which, up until last night, had been massively eating into my (already limited) cash game bankroll with very little to show for it.

These are all massive fields so you have to lower your expectations but goddamn has there been some nonsense. I remember reading once that cash game players have downswings where they question their ability while tournament players have downswings where they question their existence. I get that.

After a heap of deep runs getting cut short by bullshit (aipf AK v AK four card flushes etc.) I actually found myself on the final table of the biggest daily GGMasters; the Bounty Warm-Up. Not one of the festival events but rather one I entered at the same time. Ended up coming 5th out of 5025 for my biggest score yet!



Time to follow the tourney donk tradition and donate it all to 10/20 right?

There are couple hands towards the end that I wasn't sure about (ICM etc.) but overall I was pretty happy with my play and I ran good in some clutch moments. Feels almost anti-climactic to get so close to that big win and the GGMasters badge and not close it out. But for a couple of the players on the FT and last few tables my entire bankroll is merely the entry fee into a high roller tourney so just to make it there amongst that competition was pretty sweet. Some day that badge will be mine.

This has been a huge boost to my bankroll. I think that cushion will actually really help my cash game play as well. Being under-rolled at 50NL I often felt a need to make things work and take down pots that I had invested in. This resulted in some bluff lines that I probably wouldn't have taken if my roll was less affected by me not winning the hand. For every time I stole a big pot I also ended up paying someone off in another so this attitude has been costly.

Now there's a lot more involved in fixing my blue line and poor decision-making than just having extra cash in the roll but I genuinely do feel as though it is going to make a big difference.

After busting tournaments in ridiculous ways for a month straight I really did need this both financially and mentally. It had been almost a month since I had seen a final table. Still going to focus on cash rather than tourneys. I'm currently not a consistent winner in either but at least in cash when I lose an all in it is because I punted and not because I was forced to by the blinds. It has definitely reignited the fire a little though and I'm not turning my back on tournaments completely. The excitement of a final table is something that no cash game session has even come close to matching.

Congrats on the score!