Hey guys,
I am a 19 years old kid from Germany and have been playing poker for a couple of months now. I recently moved up to 10NLz and unfortunately, I am currently only a slightly winning player over 30k hands.
My goal is to be able to beat 25z and build my bankroll up to $1500 (current BR: $418.01) by the end of December. I created this thread mainly to keep myself motivated as I believe that this is going to be a very hard task to accomplish.
The next coming month I am going to dedicate almost all of my energy and time into poker. I am going to play for at least 6 hours a day and study for 2-3.
I will use this thread as a diary to reflect upon my daily results, my gameplay, and mindset. Furthermore, I will post weekly graphs and goals, which I set for the week.

I also have other goals for December. These are:
-going to the gym 5 times a week (MO-FR)
-losing 2.5-3kg of weight (currently at ~79kg)
-having a clean, balanced diet (allowing myself 1 refeed day, including stuff like ice cream per week)
-reading/listening to 3 books (min. 30min & max. 1h per day)
-Meditate on a daily basis for at least 5 minutes

I am going to do whatever it takes to accomplish these goals.
Wish me luck guys!

PS: I have no idea why I chose this name I don't even like sausages.

Look forward to seeing this challenge, good luck sausage boy ☺

Good luck man!

The first day of the challenge went pretty well. I played 3692 hands in 7 hours and managed to grow my bankroll up to $516.88. I believe that I played really well today, however, in some spots I was a bit too spewy. Unfortunately, I was only able to study for 1 hour as I got really tired and didn't think that studying is worth the time if I am not fully focused. I will try to compensate for the missed study time tomorrow. I will go over some hands that I played and watch some RIO videos.

In terms of my other goals:
-gym session went pretty well
-I managed to stick to my meal plan without cheating
-I meditated for 5 minutes
-However, I did not find the time to read

My goal for the next coming days is to build my bankroll up to $560 and take a 5 buy-in shot at 16NLz

The second day of the challenge was again very profitable. I was able to win some nice big pots and my bankroll went up to $584.22. I didn't keep track of the exact time I played, however, I managed to get in 3643 hands. I also added a third zoom table at the end of my session and it worked out reasonably well. Nevertheless, I got coolered a few times this session, which made me go on tilt. Although I usually recognize rapidly when I am tilted, this time this wasn't the case and I lost 1-2 extra stacks in spots where I shouldn't have.
Overall, I am very satisfied with the results and I am going to take my first shot at NL16z tomorrow. Hopefully, it works out.

The 16z shot didn't go too well today. I ended up losing a couple of buy-ins and my bankroll dropped down to $553.09. I only managed to study around 1 hour. Tomorrow I will continue shot taking 16z and I hope that this time it works out better. Also, I am planning to do some intense database analysis in the upcoming week to fix some of my biggest leaks (primarily over c-betting turn). I am also planning on adjusting my preflop ranges as I think they are slightly to loose for such a high rake environment.

gl in

GL! You play on stars? Might've played with you in the 16nl streets

Yes, I do play on stars. My stars name is Ryan Fang.

Thanks

Ah yeah we have played a few hands together, i'm ryanshire94

Played 2 sessions today. The first session went super well and I ended up winning $82,97 in 1017 hands. However, the second session was the complete opposite and I ended up losing $73,36. I realized that since the 16z pool is much smaller than the 10z pool it might not be the best idea to play late at night? I will try out different time intervals for my session where more fish are online. Overall, I think I played reasonably well, however, in some spots I was very unsure about certain lines I took. My bankroll right now is at $564.73 and my plan for tomorrow is to continue shot taking 16z. I will also watch 3 25z live play videos on RIO and continue looking for a study buddy/group as the ones I joined are fairly inactive and not really helpful. (Btw if someone is reading this and wants to talk hands/strat just PM me ).

In terms of my other goals:
-I have to admit that I was too ****ing lazy to read. Tomorrow is my cardio session and I will definitely be able to listen to an audiobook for at least 1 hour (btw I hate reading, it sucks but it so much +ev just gotta do it )
-Gym session went well
-diet mostly clean, but ate some ice cream after the workout, but I am still in a deficit for today so it should be fine

Gonna finish the day by meditating and maybe watching a movie as I was kinda unproductive today and am not in the mood to do work. The rest of the week is gonna be very intense and I will have to do some hard studying if I want to finally establish myself as a decent 16z reg.

Btw below is my lifetime NL10z graph for those who are interested.

Hey, if you want to discuss hands sometimes add me on discord: Nightowl #4534

Usually the opposite for me, I seem to win more 2am onwards (UK time) at 16nl there seems to be a ton of fun players/fish at these times lol

16nl is absolutely mental though, be prepared for huge swings, winning 5BIs one session then losing 4BIs next session is pretty normal there lol. Keep it up though

I'll PM you

edit: Or message you on Discord, just saw lol.

Today was kinda boring lol. I played 3818 hands in total and most of the time I was breaking even, down or up 1-2 stacks. Then when I was about to quit the session I played a pot with a fish where we were 400bb deep. To cut a long story short I flopped a set and stacked this guy. My bankroll at the moment is at $625.07. Nevertheless, I was very disappointed with my play today. I made a few horrible laydowns and spewed 1-2 stacks away. I figured that the best thing at these stakes is probably just to get super deep and stack some whales lol.

The study session went well. I watched 3 RIO videos related to the micro stakes and could implement some of the stuff I learned into my game. Tomorrow, I will probably build a decent hud as I now have a reasonable sample on some of the regs at 16z. I am still not sure when I will be doing the database analysis, but it will probably be on the weekend.

In regards to the other goals:
-gym session was kinda bad, I didn't feel to well and wasn't able to perform to the best of my ability
-I planned to listen to an audiobook for 1 hour while doing cardio at the gym, however, I forgot my headphones at home. This tilted me so hard.
-The diet was 100% clean. No cheating, everything was on point.

Plan for tomorrow:
-continue grinding 16z, study, gym, repeat. Let's see how far I can go.

Good luck mate, this is a sick challenge and I'm really curious to see how you get on.

I played 2767 hands today and ended up losing a bit under 2 buy-ins. The session was the most boring session which I played in my entire life. I ran 3 buy-ins under EV and was basically breakeven the entire session. I notice that at late night the games are kinda ****ty. There is still plenty of fish online, however, most of the fish are kinda tight and not quite the whales I am looking for lol. I will probably focus more on studying the next 2 days and increase my volume on the weekend as the games should be much better then. My current BR is at $594.11.

Today was another losing day. I added a third table and played around 3500 hands. I think my play was ok even though I was very greedy in certain spots and missed value against fish. Overall, I think I am improving, however, for this challenge to be successful I need to improve at a much faster paste. I will probably increase my study time during the week by watching more RIO videos, doing database reviews and analyzing more hands in order to improve my technical game as fast as possible. On the weekends I will probably not study at all and just put in as much volume as possible as some of the 16z regulars told me that the games are much much softer during that time. I don't really have strong tilt/mental game issues, which is very helpful as I can just focus on my technical game at the moment. My current BR is $576.10. Also, I played the big 3.30 today and busted after 5 minutes, because I tried to bluff a random off top pair. (maybe I do have some mental game issues? XD)

Whatever. The plan for tomorrow is to watch a lot of RIO videos, go to the gym (maybe a bit earlier?) and put in some volume in the evenings when the games should be nice.

Holy moly, the games on Friday are sooo much softer than during the week. I played 5182 hands today and ended up winning a bit over 5 buy-ins. I have to say I ran terrible. I lost 5 hands with AA vs some random whales who sucked me out every time on the river or flopped the nuts vs me. I was able to study a decent amount today and I think that I am slowly improving. I will probably not study at all tomorrow and just put in tons of volume as I want to get the most out of the weekend and build my roll. I think that I will probably just study much more during the week and reduce my playing time and just put in more volume on the upcoming weekends. My current bankroll: $663.07

My other goals:
-didn't go to the gym today as I wanted to play poker and wasn't in the mood to do cardio
-my diet was also ****. Although I am still in a deficit, I cheated quite a lot today, but I think it ok as long I am progressing
-In regards to reading, I think I will change the goal and try to finish at least 1 book, but I am not forcing myself to read 3. I want to invest most of my time into poker as getting better is very difficult and takes a lot of time. Reading doesn't relax my mind, it exhausts it, as I always want to fully understand the material that I am reading. Thus, I will only listen to audiobooks while I am at the gym and probably only during cardio sessions. Maybe I will catch up on the reading if I for some reason build my bankroll faster than expected and improve at a much faster rate (which is pretty unlikely)

The plan for tomorrow is to grind, grind and grind even more until I fall asleep (unless the games are for some reason not as soft as today)

Today was again a slightly losing day. I played a couple of thousands and lost around 2 buy-ins. I got very tilted today for the first time since I started the challenge. I got stacked in very silly spots and this affected me emotionally. I also played a couple of Mtts and it crashed a few of them but didn't hit a big score, unfortunately. I played around 26k hands at 16Nlz and I am basically breaking even over that sample. I came to the conclusion that I am not able to beat the games at the moment. This means that I will change my plan and will put TONS of time into studying next week. I might play 1-2 hours per day to implement some of the stuff that I learned, but I will basically just focus on improving my game. I am not sure yet whether I will update this thread in the next coming days as I will probably not be playing a ton. I will definitely put some volume in next Friday. My current bankroll is at $618.42.

Whilst it's certainly possible that you could breakeven over such a small sample and be a big winning player, I do think that it's a good idea to lower your volume somewhat.


It's very difficult to bring your A-game to the tables, not just over the course of long sessions but even in general. The times where you'll feel like you're playing as well as you possibly can are few and far between IMO. The key is to improve your game to a point where, even when you can feel you aren't close to your A-game, you know you're still comfortably beating the level. That means improving the weaker aspects of your game alongside the stronger aspects. At the micros you protect yourself a great deal by having a solid grasp of PF ranges, and by knowing what the bottom of your opening range should be in certain spots. A lot of the time the bottom will adjust based on who is behind, especially in later positions. It's also important to understand what you should be defending from the bb, which once again will adjust depending on who is opening and from where.


I don't know what your stats are mate but if the gap between VPIP and PFR is quite large then you will improve your winrate by being a lot more selective, especially in situations where you're in the bb, someone has opened and at least 1 other player has flatted. I used to always call vs 3x-opens + flats with stuff like 97o or A5o in those situations, and you just get into awkward spots post-flop. The times where you'll get stacks in with a big hand are few and far between, and don't ever come close to counteracting the times where you c/f flops, or end up dominated/coolered and putting more money into the pot. You might already not be playing those hands, but if you are then you can definitely work on that.


I didn't want to sound negative when I saw the challenges you'd set yourself, and I know that all people are different and it's possible to do what you're doing. But I do feel like it's a tall order for a fairly new player to play such large volume. Whilst I know you're studying and asking question so this maybe doesn't apply to you, I'm sceptical as to how much people can actually improve just by playing. Maybe there are a small % who have abilities that allow them to improve through large-volume grinding alone, but I know I'm not one of those people. Much better for most people to focus on improving off the tables, and to work on trying to implement those changes with lower-volume and more focus to make those improvements automatic before ramping up the volume.


In these days of effectively 0 rakeback on stars, the guy winning at 5bb/100 playing 30% of the volume of the mass-volume, 1bb/100 reg will not only make more money, but more importantly, set themselves up for moving up to higher levels that the 1bb/100 reg isn't going to get to.

I spend the last couple of days studying and improving my game, mainly by watching RIO videos. I think it helped a lot as I worked on my exploitative skills and learned a few things, which I can implement into my game. I also improved my hud as I now got a somewhat reasonable sample on some of the 16z regs. In the last 3-4 days, I probably played around 3-4 hours and dropped to 2 tables. The few sessions went really well and today I reached a new bankroll peak of $719.77. In the next few days, I will continue watching some RIO videos and also work on my BTN play as my win rate is somewhat low for that position. I will put more volume in on the weekend as the games are much softer. However, I will still stick to 2 tables only as my main goal for the challenge was to become a better poker player and I believe that thinking through hands in more detail will benefit me much more than playing a few hundred hands extra per hour.

Also, today I had a small surgery on my tongue and I am not able to speak and eat properly for the next few days. I will probably also not go to the gym as I think I won't be able to perform if I derive most of my energy from soup and other low-calorie meals.

Post HHs. Gl

I will go over a lot of hands tomorrow, thus I will post some interesting ones.