This is going to be a PGC like so many others. I’m going to use this space to log my progress. I’ll be playing Zoom NL2 and see how far I can bring myself.

Intro
In November ‘18 I’ve started working the graveyard shift. When everything runs smoothly, there is quite some time to fill during my 12h shifts. I’ve picked up poker again to waste some time (and money apparently) and planned to learn playing solid poker. It has been years since I’ve played and I never made real progress.

I enjoy playing tabletop and strategy games and dare to state that I’m quick in getting the hang of them. Poker always seemed to be a different kind of beast. By December I had put in more or less 100k zoomhands @ the microstakes NL2-NL5-NL10-NL25. It made for a very ugly graph. I even managed to click myself through 50 BI’s at NL2 without a sign of things turning around. So I lost some money, a bit of confidence and lots of ego.

I really can’t stand the thought of not being able to compete at the lowest stakes possible. It’s time to turn things around. This PGC will help me log my progress and will be a summary of my ‘work’ on and of the tables.

Goals

• Take back the bb’s I’ve lost
• Take more bb’s than I’ve lost
• Become a solid poker player while doing so

Plan

• Play poker
• ?????
• Profit

Wish me luck, give me advice and help me on my journey... I’d really appreciate it.

Best of wishes for the new year !
Nachtwerk

In & gl.

Start from the bottom, work your way up. Try and get the very basics started. You should have standard opening charts from every position and really concentrate on knowing how to play btn and blind spots well.

Keep it simple and folding is your friend at these stakes.

I was a bit reluctant to get this first session started. I was scared to mess it up form the start. I more or less avoided playing poker this week but it made me do other useful stuff. I watched the series MMSS pointed me to. It's good stuff. I might even have learned a thing or two while while riding my bike. Im going to rewatch some of the stuff to get a better understanding.



Before I started this first session I wrote down some rules to follow:

• Follow the open raising chart and review hands where I didn’t
• Play a 3bet or fold game from the SB
• Avoid bluff catching and going for thin value
• Mark hands for review
• every 500 hands: take a short break

I’m sticking to this open raising chart which I took from Verneer’s guide and adjusted with helpful members of the microstakes forum.



Following the chart went well. I did open 2 baby pocketpairs from MP which I just shouldn’t. From CO I went blindstealing with 2 low of Axo but BU both times had a low vpip and 3bet while the blinds were or unknown or overfolding so that’s still defendable. From BU I deviated 8 times to steal ATC it seemed. Most of the time it was against a BB on which I had at least a 100 hand sample with a fold to steal >80. The 14 deviations all together made me a little extra EV.

I managed the 3bet-or-fold game for the blinds. I might need to make some standard ranges for SB and BB too.

Bluff catching and thin value plays remain an issue. When playing I still find reasons to call or bet when I shouldn’t. Biggest loss of the session was when I spewed 200bb on a tptk where I in hindsight could have easily avoided the loss. (review here). According to some I might belong in special education but well, I’m here to learn.

I started marking hands for review so now I have a bunch of them. The problem is I know I have flaws in my poker logic. So just watching them isn’t really helping without feedback of someone who knows what he’s doing. I don't really trust my judgement. Some things/questions are so small I don't want to spam the forum with useless hands.

The auto-piloting during nights might be one of the biggest leaks. Just clicking away 5k hands without focus might not be perfect for a learning noob. Who would have guessed ??

Conclusion: I made a nice start with some solid poker. I should look into SB open ranges and when to CBet. In a recent post someone pointed at my high CBet % (75% for this session) and said I need to work on my check-fold, check-call game. I might just do that.

progress: 3BI /50BI.

What’s that smell ?
Yesterday I played 2k hands in 2 sessions. The first 500 I played during the day when I had some time to kill. You can just see the redline steadily going down. I was unfocused hanging back in the couch and clicking away. Still had fun though...

During the day I revisited the videos from the series mentioned above about 3betting, Cbetting and valuebetting while riding my bike. It sucks for paying close attention or taking notes but something might be sticking in my head afterwards and it has a higher EV than watching netflix.

The other 1.5k were at (saturday)night. You can really notice the difference. I managed to make almost 3BI with my redline alone. Not sure if that is actually a good sign at NL2z. It might be me paying close attention, the zoompool being very soft saturday nights or a fish on a heater. My blue line went up steadily even if I really (really) butchered some premium hands.The last 500 hands the red line stagnated as my focus went down and it was getting late. The gf made me jump at last a meter high as she tapped my shoulder at 4 a.m. while I was listening music through the headphones. 'Normal' people don't play games at that hour apparently.

I kept to my preset guidelines of sticking to the chart, regular breaks and ABC poker. However the longer I was playing the more I loosened up in the BU even with the breaks every 500 hands. Focused two tabling with some music instead of watching series , roboclicking 3-4 tables during marathonsessions at work makes all the difference. My biggest leak might just be that unfocused autopilot play. So I changed that part and wrote on a piece of paper:

• No spew !
• No bluff catching !
• No chasing thin value !

And voilà: problems solved...



Biggest won hand::
PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 100.5 BB (VPIP: 22.50, PFR: 17.50, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 40)
Hero (SB): 132 BB
BB: 185.5 BB (VPIP: 17.21, PFR: 14.75, 3Bet Preflop: 8.00, Hands: 125)
UTG: 88 BB (VPIP: 12.50, PFR: 5.13, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 41)
MP: 124.5 BB (VPIP: 21.43, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)
CO: 101.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: -, Hands: 1)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has J J

fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, BB raises to 9 BB, Hero calls 6 BB

Flop: (18 BB, 2 players) J 2 6
Hero checks, BB bets 10 BB, Hero calls 10 BB

Turn: (38 BB, 2 players) 9
Hero checks, BB bets 21 BB, Hero raises to 113 BB and is all-in, BB calls 92 BB

River: (264 BB, 2 players) 3

Worst played and biggest loss:
costly missclick.

PokerStars - $0.02 NL FAST (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BTN: 159.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)
Hero (SB): 146 BB
BB: 212 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 22.22, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36)
UTG: 106 BB (VPIP: 20.51, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 40)
MP: 118.5 BB (VPIP: 30.00, PFR: 30.00, 3Bet Preflop: 66.67, Hands: 11)
CO: 19.5 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A K

Note: IDIOT !


fold, fold, CO raises to 19.5 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 19.5 BB, Hero raises to 79 BB, fold, BTN calls 59.5 BB

Flop: (178.5 BB, 3 players) 7 T J
Hero bets 67 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 67 BB

Turn: (312.5 BB, 3 players) 9

River: (312.5 BB, 3 players) T



progress: 9BI/50BI.(+6) - running above EV.

My night:

1. Went to the pub.
2. came home
3. watched a video about red line
4. solved microstakes zoom
5. smoked a sigarette
6. forgot all about it
7. damn

Progress: 11BI /50BI (+2)

I made a perfect start. I set out some guidelines and kept too it. Then I got confident and returned to my routine of just clicking away everything I took earlier. I jinxed it by saying out loud I was running good.

The first two sessions in which I carefully two tabled at home completely focused earned me lots of showdown winnings and a steady red line. I was definitely running too well to be sustainable.. But... After that my blue line just plummeted. I don't think it's a case of variance. it’s just awful play. I went up and down 15 BI on 10k hands! If I look at my entire hand sample 90k hand sample it’s a recurring thing. It's really saying: 'you don't play solid and keep switching around between whatever you’re doing’' even though I'm not even sure what it is that makes it behave that way. If this is variance then I’m really underestimating the amount 6max Zoom can have. it just can’t be. I think when I play my A-game I'm actually in good shape to be a winning player (yeah, it’s hard to admit I’m not). I am however kind of an idiot when it comes to discipline it seems. Without really looking into what went wrong I blame to things: playing unfocused and calling down way too light.

Of course it is stupid to first write here that I should avoid long sessions and then play auto-pilot anyway and throw away all the profits. I keep on playing until suddenly it is very obvious I'm not even close to thinking about what I'm doing. But the moment that happens I already donated too much bb.I realise it but keep making the same mistake. It's the same with calling down to much. I can keep repeating myself villain doesn’t bluff but then I come in another situation and ‘Woppaaa, let’s call down whoever with a second best hand because.. ‘I don’t even know why… As soon as I realise how much BI/bb I just burnt, I start to chase losses which doesn't help. In a hand review not that long ago somebody made a trolling comment of me being stupid for making a bad decision over and over. I was kind of offended, but he might have a point actually.

I just need to keep reminding myself to not play long sessions, to only go for value, to not bluffcatch, to overfold, ... But somehow I can’t actually keep myself t it. Strange things.. fixable I hope.. We'll see

10k hand graph

10k hand stats


Going to take some time going through my PT4 and formulate some action points for the next 10k hands.. Help is always appreciated. Pointing out the obvious might be necessary

Before I started the first session of this PGC-thread I gave myself some basic rules to follow:
I checked if I kept to them in the first 10k hand batch:

Did I follow my preset ranges ?
I came up with this rule because of Artie’s advice after I posted my stats for review:
Just posting the threads where I try to build the ranges so I can keep all the stuff I post together in this blog. It could be nice to look back on if I ever make progress:

• UTG
• MP
• CO
• BU

These posts lead to his chart:


I know I have nowhere close to a samplesize to make assumptions about which hand outside of the chart is profitable and which are not. But there might be enough in there to see some tendencies. It's also good to check that when I deviate I do it with a good reason. I checked all lost hands who are on the chart. I probably could have had spent my time better but there is no point in setting guidelines if you don't keep to them (or checked if you kept to them).

UTG:
1.6k hands played, 40 hands outside of the chart for a net loss of 0.31$. It’s not of real use to see why I deviated as UTG. There are so many players behind that I can’t expect to find a valid reason to justify why I should’ve left the preset plan.

12 of the deviations were ATo for some reason and they did the worst. KJo made some extra bb’s. I tend to play some extra SC’s too and added some baby pocketpairs. All in all I’m very happy with my UTG stats. It’s actually one of my best positions. However I doubt that’s a good sign.

MP
1.6k hands, 68 deviations for a net loss of 1.77$. Same as for UTG there are no real arguments for adjusting with this many players yet to act and with probably not enough hands on villains either to have valid reads.

lots ATo to be found again, I think I had them in a previous range. And then there were some Kx, Qx. The lower SC’s that showed up didn’t do well. But is’t a stupid sample anyway. I really like my baby pocketpairs for no reason.

CO
1.6k hands, 26 deviations for a net loss of 0.46$. If it wasn’t for one big losing hand It would have been some extra bb here. Only 5 losing hands here and only one was really bad played.

The hands added all were Axo and Kxs and a single K8o hand which costed me a buck. I might need to get a tattoo on my mousehand that says: don’t bluff fish !

BU
1.6k hands, 41 deviations and a net profit of 0.39$. 14 losing hands. The losing hands were steals supported by no handsample or just gone wrong. Deviation from BU was good. The losing hands reviewed weren’t all good spots to do so.

Conclusion:
The leaks aren’t to be found here. (And yes, I know I need to have a close look on my showdown hands. I’m just a bit afraid and not sure if I’m going to like what I’m going to find there. So let me postpone that just a bit more.). At least now I know I butcher good opening hands instead of crappy ones.


3bet-or fold from blinds
I didn’t call a single time in the 10k sample. On first sight I did some weird things with my 3bet range. I didn’t had any premade ranges for SB while playing these hands but it looks kind of weird.

In this post: Micro's Zoom 6max: SB range I looked for feedback and I came to this:



My 135 3bets from the SB however made up for this:
µ

Looks like there is some room for improvement here. But for the next 10k hands the 3bet game in general is going to be studied so I leave it at this for now.

Avoid bluff catching and going for thin value
This is were it is at. I just do what I do without really knowing when to call and when not. I’m even reluctant to face the elephant in the room. In this post: 'Improving my game' : I’m thinking about a coach. To be honest with myself, I might fix most part with mere discipline and focus.I think I even wouldn’t like someone else to see the crap I pull. . Going to spent some time studying my non show down losses to see what I can do about it.

Marking hands and taking breaks
I did mark hands for review and I kept to the mini-breaks after 500 hands. But I didn’t actually review enough hands and I played to many 500h blocks in a row . For the lack of reviewed hands I blame a lack of skill in reviewing. I don’t trust my judgement and a lot of the questions I have or so small or stupid I don’t feel comfortable posting in forums so I'm kind of stuck with that. That's also where the idea of a getting a coach or finding someone who actually knows how to play poker to talk to originated from.

gameplan for the next 10k hands:

• fat fat value
• **** thin value
• over fold over fold over fold

I've heard about redline problems but I don't understand.. it's the blue one that doesn't behave...

didn't call, bet bet bet

I got another 10k hands in without too much reviewing or studying. didn't found the time (or motivation) to get some actual studywork done. I'll be starting reading the 'Grinder's Manual' from tommorow. I miss the basics !

results:


stats


To Do:

• finish my pf-ranges by figuring something out for the BB
• stick to the SB-ranges
• Study 'the grinders's manual'

Guidelines:

• 500h blocks: review 2 hands every 500 played
• focused play
• stick to charts, unless I've got reads
• Don't call, don't bluff
• bet bigger

Good luck. I'm doing something similar although behind you in hand count. I beat 2nl but have never been able to work my way up slowly and methodically through the stakes so giving it a go now from the bottom.

Thanks ! Going slow but steady here...

No need to rush I guess, just work on the game and move up when you're ready.

realisation: i'm a fish.

when playing with focus I can beat NL2. The problem is I play too tired, after too much drinks, or without any focus. There is no winrate possible that can make up for all those times I play and throw everything out of the window.

Next update after 50k hands if I can manage myself bringing my A-game. I am very dissapointed with myself and the progress at the moment.

Definitely guilty of playing when I'm not in a good state myself. If you ever want to talk through some hands etc give me a shout.

Definitely.. I pm'ed you. I'm in need of some pokerbuddies.

I've started reading the grinder's manual written by Pete Clarke. I've decided to post whatever I take from each chapter in a few bulletpoints. I hope he doesn't mind. . If I got some questions I'll add them too.. Maybe there is a friendly forum member who can help me out then..

Here goes chapter one: Introduction.


There is no life changing information to be found here. It did however made me realise I spent too much time staring at my all-in equity line. My mental and practical game surely needs some help. I find myself whining on about not playing my A-game as much as I want/need in this thread. The play-study ratio he advises is quite steep but it would however make a real difference I guess. It definetely would get me to actually review more

Here goes chapter 2



The suggested openingsizes look a bit odd to me. I think it's weird to suggest to open 2.5x from UTG with 3 bettors behind. We are strong so I would think we don't really mind being 3bet that much. It makes V's 3bet size smaller perhaps but not sure what we achieve.

Also the 2.5x opening from the CO and 2x from the button look so small. Is this really what's working ? I understand the logic of reducing the required fold equity but aren't we being called substantially more by gving V a better price ?My sizings are:

• UTG: 3.5x
• HI: 3x
• CO: 3x
• BU: 2.5x
• SB: 3x

I might need to vary more in the sizings depending on villain. I never did that too much before.

I use Harrington's inspired HUD on PT4. I wonder how the 'Fold vs BTN open' relates to 'Fold blind to steal'. I don't really know if I should replace one with the other. The fold vs BTN open seems a lot more specific but it also takes ages to consolidate. I'm not sure if I have enough V's with that kind of handsample in my database. I actually hope to be long gone from NL2 before I actually do.
The BB fold vs SB open stat seems like a good one to add. Allthough specific it gives good information for all the times in the SB but here it is the same as above. 600 hands seems kind of steep before this stat becomes decently valid. Maybe Carroters is just a bit on the precautionous side of things ?

Can anyone help me out here ? What are the best stats to consider for adjusting stealing range from BU and SB ?

No readers nor reactions here, but I found some answers about stats and blind stealing on the thread in the micro stakes forum.

I read the third chapter, the notes:

yeah i've seen the typo's. I corrected them in my own version as soon as I saw how bad it looked. Couldn't be bothered to change the image here.

Nothing too new or special here in this chapter; I already kept to that sizings to ISO but the ISO-triangle concept can give some structure to my decisionmaking.

He makes lots of difference between types of fish. I wonder if I should tag them like that while playing. At the moment I keep to a very basic tagging strategy based on how many hands I have on V's. It draws attention to the statbox when I have a decent enough sample to adjust because of it. It's a bit of a coincidence I opened a thread about that some days ago. I might go for Wonkydonk's strategy combined with Carroters' fish types.

• fish - maybe the 4 types Carroters suggests
• nit - aggro and passive
• reg - aggro and passive

From now the book will get more interesting I think. I think I mess up most post flop or by calling too much 3bet's and such and that's where it 'll be going ! But now, let's play some more break-even NL2

Whilst holding yourself accountable for studying is good I'm not sure authors of books will necessarily appreciate you essentially posting their books online.

Fair point, I thought about that as well. I'm pretty sure however the notes aren't a treat to the sales for his book.. maybe it's on the edge of fair use but I'm referring to the book and essentially pointing to where I got the info. If I would read this kind of stuff online, I'd buy the book.

Out of curiosity I looked into what the internet says about fair use and maybe it's better to not post the summaries and just the questions.

It's not that I'm throwing it online in a whole, it's more in the spirit like 'this is what I got from it', in the hope someone reacts when I'm missing the clue, getting it wrong or missing a big part considering the topic. I'm just trying to get someone involved in my poker study and log whatever I do while zooming away..

I hoped that keeping track of my progress here would magically help me to have some discipline to bring out the best in me. Well, it doesn't. I might need to work more on self discipline than on poker skills. After one month I have to admit that I might have lost a month of progress. I do realise I can do better so next 50k hands will hopefully be summarised with a different feeling than I'm having now. This is just getting embarassing.

poker intentions when starting:

• study more
• review more
• play focused

first 50k hands reality

• studied less than intented
• reviewed way less than intended
• managed to play 25% of hands after beers and an even higher percentage auto-piloting 4 zoom tables

I wanted to only play focused and work on having a solid consequent game. As you see in my graph and the swingy red line that didn’t really work out as planned. At least I'm running highly above EV Most of the 50k hands are played at work and that might not be the most concentration and focused-friendly environment. I might be able to run break even or sligthly winning but I just click away most part of my hands. When I have time of and go out for drinks, instead of getting to bed after coming home early I sit myself down to donate my slowly won profitz. I tend to only get tired at the break of dawn lately. Drunk me then just wants to bully everyone out of hands and afterwards sober me tries to compensate the blue line. Just looking at the graph you can see when I went out for a good night. The red line shows I go out once a week. Drunk me is an ass but he does have a winning red line. The last bit is me rediscovering regular tables.



I should study more but I lack the motivation. I started out fine with making the summaries but when I stopped posting them, I just didn't continue anymore. I was just too tired I guess. My working schedule was eating away all my energy and therefore my motivation/discipline. I work 12h night shifts and have to do 14 of them each month. I can schedule them in communication with the rest of the team which is great for flexibility but doesn’t help with leading a structured lifestyle. This month I did all of my shifts in the first half of the month to be able to go on holidays in the free time I created that way. I might have pushed it a bit too far that way. I just didn't sleep close to enough. It is hard to stick to intentions, focus, or study when sleep deprived.

I was knackered by the time I left on my trip. I ended up sleeping every night before ten'o clock as all the fatigueI saved up caught up on me. But 8 days of doing close to nothing more then sightseeing, some walking and lots of food made me a new man. A fatter one too. But oh man, I love buffet breakfasts!

I need to get myself a more structured lifestyle. Not just for poker but all things life related. I have some pretty ambitious sportive goals I need to train for. So: I really have to sleep more ! I really need more structure ! Back-to-back worknights makes my biorhythm go completely out of whack and I end up switching nights for day in my free time because I simply can’t sleep at night anymore. I has made me auto-piloting not only zoom but on life entirely.

I realised I have to quit playing Zoom at the tempo I'm doing or just maybe completely. I'm just not good enough at the moment and I don't work hard enough to actually improve. After 40k'ish hands ( in this blog, it actually took me a ****load more to accept it) I realised this and I played my first regular table hands in years. I forgot how I actually like it. I thought it was going to be too slow but had some great times actually enjoying the flow at the tables. It has something satisfying to clean the fish completely out. I was incredibly surprised about how much more fishy it is in relation to Zoom. There is people giving away free money on every table I joined. Maybe I should become a bumhunter instead of aiming for zoom....

Results:

All


Regular


Zoom


Of course it might be just sample size and me liking new things. It could be a screenshot of my results right before losing interest and treating regular tables the same as zoom. I'll do my best to prevent that happening.

Stats


I posted them for review in the stats check-up thread as well, but feel free to help me out..


Objective goals/ intentions for the next 50k hands:

• Review more => Two hand reviews a day untill reaching 100k hands.
• Train more => 1000km of cycling for February
• Study more => study/summarize the grinder's manual completely
• Make a week plan every week from now and obligate myself to sleep/rest enough hours to achieve the above

and very important:
FOCUS

I stopped playing zoom:


should've tried something different sooner.
I have to admit I run hotter than hell.



I posted my stats of the latest 50k hands in the stats-checkup forum. Apparently I need to get the printed hand chart within reach again. Spewing money from the Button...

So... Let's try that while I go through chapter 4-5 from the grinder's manual...

I got 100k hands in and if it wasn't for the last couple of k I would've been so proud.

NL2 up to know..

When I made the switch from ZOOM to regular it kind of clicked in my head (I thought but actually I started to run hotter then hell.) I ran lots and lots above EV and I managed to get 25 BI profit at some point. Which added too my starting 50$ made the way clear to move up. I had 50BI for NL2 in the bank so everything on top of that was good to have a shot at NL5.

NL5

Damn, I felt good about my game here. I tend to be very result oriented I guess. It's kind of funny how good it can feel to start winning after turning breakeven. Even if it is with this small amounts of money involved. This also works backwards I felt after todays 100$ losing session.

I had enough starcoins to add 125 EUR in cash rebates which gave room to shot NL10 and there it went south

NL10

My 5BI shot went wrong and I continued playing at NL10 of course. So after going up a bit I had a 100$ losing sessiong to finish of the last hands towards 100k. I blew money away at every single stake tilting.

NL16

I shouldn't have even belong here

I feel stupid at the moment. I don't really care about the money lost. It just feels like such an amount of time that went through the drain. It feels like I just waisted 100k hands and 2 months of playing. I'm not making any progress at all.

Full graph in bb

Full graph in $:


Time to regroup..
/whine mode off.