You can see my last PGC threads here.

And my updated graphs until now:

Lifetime:


2NL:


5NL:


10NL:


All my volume is full ring, and all played in pokerstars.

So, things I know with a high degree of certainty: 1 - I´m a breakeven/losing player at 10NL. 2 - I have a huge mental leak.

I think I might have figured out how to beat 10NL (currently playing at 5NL, studying and doing some tests that seems to work). I will move up again by April, 1st and try one more time. The only thing that seems to work with my mental leak is not looking at my results at all, even when I fear I´m on a downswing and losing lots and lots of money. It really makes me remain unemotional when playing, which seems to lead to better winrates overall over meaningful samples. Being a bankroll nit and playing 5NL with more than 100 BIs also helps a lot.

I need a thread, not because of attention whoring, but because I really believe in accountability as a huge motivator to improve and not lose focus. So I will try again here, and hope this thread will remain active until December, 31.

I will also offer a lot of freerolls from now on. I will think about something and when the idea comes, I will put it here.

I wanna play at least 15k hands per week (2.5k/day x 6 days). I won´t look at my results until saturday´s end of session (first full update saturday, March, 31). To not forget about this thread, I will post number of hands played daily, and a brief summary about my play, mental state and other relevant stuff (beginning tomorrow).

And thats it from now. For the people who were following my former threads, I´m really sorry to stop updating without any notice. This thread will deliver, I promise.

Played 2359 hands today, falling a little short from my daily goal (if this becomes a trend, I won´t get my day off).

Feeling great for the most part, confident in my game, confident that I can beat most regs (the average 5nl fr reg is reaaaaaaaally bad) and play any 5nl table without having to bumhunt anymore.

Tilted a little bit after losing a big pot from a cooler (didn´t do anything stupid after that, but felt something wasn´t right with me after that hand), but I just had to take some time off (studied a poker vid) and everything was just fine then.

Have some funny hands that I promise I will post tomorrow.

See you soon

2303 hands, and ended the session a little earlier again because I was tilting. Games got too agressive, was running a little bad vs fish (and lost vs some regs when hitting top of their ranges) and ended up just clicking buttons and breathing hard, which is a pretty bad sign I guess. It got to the point where I wasn´t seeing the button, and min-betting when the action I wanted to take was check.

Also saw my graph, which I wasn´t planning to do until next saturday. Here it is:



I really want to find a way to stop this self-destructive pattern, so here is what I´m gonna do: Every week from sunday 00:00 until saturday 23:59 (brazilian standard time, GMT-3), I will donate via my stars client 5 USD (1 BI) to the first two 2p2ers to post on my thread if I:

1 - do not sit out, close the client and stop playing for the day at the first sign of tilt. I know when I´m tilting after some beat, because I take a big and nervous inspiration when that happens. It doesn´t matter if this happens at the first hand or at the 2000th.

2 - take a look at my results before the end of my next saturday session.

1 and 2 are not mutually exclusive, so I may end up having to pay 10 to each one if I break the 2 rules I´m self imposing. You need a stars account so I can send you the money if I lose this.

Hope this helps until my brain gets desensitized to those beats (hope it´s an achievable goal).

Since no one have replied, I was thinking and the way I´ve put #1 will probably lead to myself playing absolutely nothing, since beats are inevitable. So, I´m changing it to "if i do not sit out, close the client and stop playing for at least 15 minutes...".

man, i know that feeling, i have a zombie thread too :P

subbed

Thank you, yeah, hopefully things will improve when getting closer to my goals and people see how serious I am about them. Subbed to your thread too, gl with your goals.

Hi OP. I applaud you for setting yourself a challenge. Goals are good and motivating. I also play full ring on Stars and was playing 10nl as well last year. Since you seem to be struggling at this limit I have two recommendations for you that should be helpful for you in your quest to move up:

1. Play less volume. It really is all about quality rather than quantity when you're in the micros. Mass multi-tabling at these stakes is a bit like pedalling a bicycle as fast as you can when it is only in 1st gear. There's simply no way that you can play the kind of volume that you're putting in whilst also thinking enough about each hand that you're playing.
   I realise that it may seem like it will take you longer to move up if you play less volume but the increase in your win-rate will offset that and also your better skills will server you better at the higher limits. I would recommend planing no more than 4 tables at once but ideally just 2 at a time to really take everything in.
   
2. Post hands in the micro full ring forum and comment on other people's hands. It doesn't have the same traffic as the 6max forum but if you leave a thread up there for a few days you'll usually get some decent responses.

For what it's worth I also think your plan of only reviewing hands once a week is madness especially if you suspect during that period that you're playing badly or possibly even tilting.

Hey Brussels Sprout, thank you very much for the recommendations.

Yeah, I´m playing 6 tables (from 12 a few months ago), but maybe it´s still too much while I´m not beating the limit. I´m afraid of playing 2 tables because I might get bored and do some nasty plays, but overall it will probably be of greater benefit while I´m still trying to improve my game.

I will post hands there.

I will still review marked hands daily, and do my studies. It´s just the $$ and the graph that I will avoid.

It´s funny how I was struggling to beat 5NL a few years ago, and all of a sudden it just clicked (obv seeing what worked for myself, how other winners were playing, some threads here on 2p2...) and now it seems so simple. Hopefully I will find a way to do the same thing in the upper limits.

What are your values for the following stats at 10nl?

VPIP
PFR
3bet pf
Fold to 3bet pf after raising
Cold call 2bet pf
ATS
Fold to Steal
C-Bet flop
Fold to flop C-Bet
C-Bet turn

VPIP: 15.8
PFR: 13.4
3bet pf: 6.86
Fold to 3b: 62.2
Cold call 3b: 22.5
Fold to steal: 85.7
Flop Cbet 66.6
Fold flop vs Cbet: 43.1
Turn Cbet 62.7

how many hands you have played in NL2 and you have so match winrate?

Those numbers actually all look quite solid although I suspect that you've supplied me with the incorrect cold call value. I was looking for the cold call of 2bets not 3bets. If you're playing 16/13 that's probably going to be around 4-7%

Your 3bet value is on the higher side by 10nl reg standards. I'm guessing that you prefer to 3bet from the blinds rather than calling versus late position raisers?

What are your WTSD and WWSF values?

If I understood correctly, you mean cold call vs pf raiser? If that´s correct, the value is 5.12%.
Yes, I might prefer 3b vs lp raisers, if I see a high fold vs 3bet.
WTSD is 22.7, WWSF is 44.4. You didn´t ask and I don´t know if this is relevant for you, but W$SD% is 43.3, which is lower than what I was getting at 5NL (53.2) over bigger sample.
I have to add that I was getting frustated and probably tilted some stacks at 10NL before leaving and dropping to 5NL again. It might have affected some stats, but idk how many exactly.
All 10NL stats are over 21k hands.

Hello! 553000 hands, 7.79 bb/100 and 7.78 evbb/100.

W0W you need very patience to do this 550k hands are too much.

Yes, it really requires a lot of patience indeed, but I think the biggest reason is because I was (and still am) a huge bankroll nit, and my self destructiveness when on tilt was even worse a few years ago. So I would grind 100 bis at 2NL variance free, move up to 5NL, be faced with a really different game (in fact, 5NL is way different than 2NL imo) , lose a little bit, become frustrated, tilt a lot of bis, then quit the game for 1-2 months (sometimes more) and then repeat the same process again and again. I feel the same is happening now between 5 and 10NL, but at least I´m aware of this tendency and trying to fight against it.

I don't think there's any obvious leaks in your stats anyway so the next thing really is to post hands and explain your thought process on each street. Again I'd advise you to post on the full ring forum purely because more people who might be able to help you will see them there than in here (no offence).

Also half a million hands at 2nl is absolutely insane. There was a guy years ago who used to post on 2+2 (chip-star) who did something similar and PokerStars made him one of their feature pros for a while.

Read this book

Thank you, that is exactly the next book that I´m going to read.

Anyway, finished my last session, losing with a middle set vs flopped straight vs a fish, going all in on the flop, so decided to just quit and end the day. Played only 1807 hands today but I will not kick myself because of that.

Will watch a poker video since I´m not tired and then maybe go out and eat something if I´m hungry. See you guys.

But if you are so NIT at your bankroll you never make money or do some career at poker.If you play for entertainment ok then but if you play to make money you need balls.Maybe you are not comfortable with your game you must take knowledge for the game.You need good and essential read learn about your stakes dont read random things.

You are 100% right. I think I´m getting better at this actually, since now I´m feeling ok with moving up with less than 100 bis for the new stake and not seeing the $$ swings are keeping me really cool, and I´m really looking forward to play against better regs most days.

But I still think reading about the mental game, as Brussels Sprout have suggested, will be of greater help, since many of the buy-ins that I lost during my last shots were due to tilt.

Look your target is not to play with regs your target is to play with fish at the tables.You need good table selection never go in random tables this cost you much EV.About mental game I will give you an advice at this stakes NL2-NL50
the most useful is strategy. You need just good strategy to survive at this limits mental goes 2nd.Im not better than you i play NL2 now to build my bankroll simple Ι share with you my thought and what I have read if someone have different opinion I would be very happy to hear it.

I totally agree with you about having a good strategy being essential. Back in 2011, 2012, I coudn´t even beat NL2. Then I found this, and later read blackrain79´s book (CTM I think), and it was enough to start beating NL2. Then moved up to NL5 and found I wasn´t beating the limit following the same strategy (despite blackrain79 saying that CTM was enough to beat also NL5, but I disagree here). After much trial and error, tilt issues, going back to NL2 or stop playing, I finally learned how to beat NL5. So yes, having a good strategy is mandatory, but it is not enough. If you become angry when you lose, and start doing stupid things, you won´t win at any stake above NL2 imo.

I usually use color coding for all fishes that I find when playing, but it´s impossible to avoid regs, so I don´t try that anymore. And I think learning how to play against them is essential, as even when you have 3 fishes on your table, you still have to fight regs.

I think we might be talking almost the same thing with slightly different words lol. But thanks for your tips, and let me know if I can help with your goals also.

This article you linked is so baaaad, please dont follow that if you wanna be a winning player.
funny how people thinked about poker in 2009

lol agreed. Following that was enough to beat 2NL a few years ago. You could even play 24 tables, raising premium hands and folding the remaining, and still show a profit pre rb. Funny how things have changed.