As someone mentions, you come over as too outcome-orientated and your focus is waaayyy too much on short-term results.

This...

....is really dangerous thinking. You are essentially saying: one good day = better player.

You gonna put yourself on graph tilt, results-based pressure and fail to understand the true impact of variance.

tl/dr more hands less graphs, monthly results not daily.

Best of luck with your goals. Also, if you are planning on going pro, 20 buyins is not even close to enough, I recommend atleast 50 buyins.

Dublin- haha that's crazy! Wow I lived in blackrock last year as well. Small world.

fatboy- yea I am way too outcome oriented, but in the end is about the money and it also makes the thread more entertaining. I am trying to take your advice though and focus only on volume and I have improved slightly mentally there in doing so.

karrlitos- thanks man! I have a bit more than 20 buyins, probably more like 30. Still not enough though agreed! Hopefully poker goes well.

Hopefully??? I dont like using this word on this poker word, suggest you again what karlitos did, find a level where you can have 50+ BI, that way you dont need to use any hope but efford instead...

Think both hands are played fine, bl.

mchares- Yea not the greatest word, you know what it will go well! I do actually 100% believe I will hit $1k this month, but again it's a volume goal we're trying to achieve.

muck- thanks, I think in the second hand if I want to get really picky I can fold the river bet due to player pool reads.

May Review

Monthly Profit: $25.68

Hours Played: 46

It was really only 10 days of poker and maybe 1 week of proper poker. I ended up slightly down which isn’t too good, but I did put in a good amount of hours. I did happen to make a lot of mistakes after reviewing hands so there is definitely room for improvement to be made. Pretty much a breakeven month in my mind and now it’s time to get serious. I am now a professional poker player. That means I’m playing poker for a living. Does it mean I’m successful at it? No. But I think I will be. This is the first time in my life where I literally have 8 hours a day to just grind out poker and learn more about the game. Honestly if I’m not playing 50NL by the end of summer I should probably just give up. At the moment I’m very confident in my game. I’m working on my mental game leaks which has cost me dearly over the month of May. Because of tilting and spew I’d say I lost at least $200, although I only looked at big pots for this so it could be even higher. Most of these, funny enough, were in 3bet pots when I had AA or KK and my flop cbet gets raised, I would then jam over the top knowing full well it’s not a good play but against fish or aggro players I level myself into doing it and because I kept losing 3bet pots I was spewing. Time to get to work!



Cavaliers vs Warriors

Let’s also talk about the Cavaliers vs Warriors game. I placed a small wager on Cavs +230. At this price the Cavs would have to win 30% of the time to breakeven. I think that is definitely achievable with the best player in the world on your team. I do predict Warriors to win, but Lebron is just on a whole other level than everybody else in the league. I mean we are talking about a player people are considering better than Jordan! I am a huge Lebron fan, but unfortunately I do strongly believe in the Revenge factor and I find it holds true. Kansas City Royals, North Carolina Tarheels, Cavaliers, etc all won their respective titles after losing it the year before. Now as far as matchups are concerned, I’d give edge to Warriors.

Curry-Irving (Tie)

Thompson-JR (Warriors)

Durant-Lebron (Cavaliers)

Green-Love (Warriors)

Zaza- Thompson (Cavaliers)

Bench (Warriors)

Coaching (Warriors-if Kerr comes back)

This matchup is really going to come down to open shooting in my opinion. Warriors usually tend to get a bunch of open looks just because they are so good, and the Cavs have Lebron who can just drive at will and dish out for open looks. There are just key matchup all over the place. LeBron vs Durant, Curry vs Irving, Green vs Love. Man I just cannot wait for this matchup to start tonight! Any recommendations on food for the big game?

Monthly Profit: $20

Hours Played: 11.5

I was away for a good few days as family came over here for a wedding. It was a lot of fun, but I ended up getting pretty sick. Although I grinded a few hours over the first few days of the month, my first real day was yesterday. Anyway, not too bad of a day, could have been much better. Still running pretty bad. It seems like when I win big hands, it's because I outplayed my opponent, but when I lose it's because I've been sucked out on. Now this is really just how yesterday went, but it's kind of been the theme all along. Last month I did spew quite a bit though in fairness. The goal is to play at least 8 hours a day. Hopefully we can make that work. I also think I'll start an excel sheet keeping track of my results daily and forming a graph with it. Since I play on so many sites, and some are untracked this will give a nice visual aid.

How does he have 99 here? Also, what a sick cooler. He can have TT+, AKs+

https://www.weaktight.com/h/593bcf4ed39043871f8b4785


What a terrible river raise by our friend here...

https://www.weaktight.com/h/593bd140d39043a82f8b4614


What do you think of this river call? I hate it, I don't think he bets worse here and I don't think he bluffs. I even told myself that on the river, but as I timed down I called.

https://www.weaktight.com/h/593bd009d390438e168b4634


What do we think of river checkback? I think he's only calling 2pair+ if we bet.

https://www.weaktight.com/h/593bd0ced3904356608b482f


This one is really sick as well. Huge pot for me to win 200bb. Oh well....

https://www.weaktight.com/h/593af3e8d39043685e8b46a5

Hand 3 AJs. Tight fold is fine, unless you know that he can bluff ½ pot.
Hand 4 KK. KQ missed, so you may get a light call, strong hands may raise the turn. It's close but I would try a thin vb. AJ can station down since it's still top pair. I would also take a note how he played nut flush draw on that wet board (didn't raise turn).

GL!

Thanks Fish, yea I should probably start taking some more specific notes here.

Update

Monthly Profit: $181

Hours Played: 20.50

Hit a nice little upswing. Doing well so far for the amount of hours being played, but volume is still an issue. Honestly, like some people suggested I'm not focusing on profits but mainly volume. I know profits will come as long as I play. At the moment I'm looking at getting coaching from a 600NL reg. Somehow he only charges $50/hour for low stake grinders...higher for higher stakes. Anyway life is honestly just amazing being able to wakeup and play poker and not really have to do much more. I do have a part time job, but it's w.e. and pretty chill anyway. My routine is getting much better. Wake up, watch a poker live play/theory/HH video. Then I go and play 10NL snap poker for about an hour. Once that is done I'll take a small break, and then go into playing some 20NL+ games. Ideally I would like to include some meditation in, and begin working out consistently.

Most interesting hands were played on skybet so I'll just write out some decent ones...

3way to the flop, I am on the BU with QJo. Flop is 8c9cTd. We end up getting all in on the flop for a 300bb pot. They have AcQc and Qs8d. So we are doing very well here. Turn is a Js. River is a brick. We split the pot, FML.

Few hands later...I open AA UTG, MP calls, BU squeezes, I 4bet, MP calls, BU calls. Flop is AcJ4. I cbet 1/4 pot, 2 calls. I jam 2c turn. 2 calls. River is another 2x giving me a full house. They turn over QQ and AT. We scoop a 300bb pot.

I haven't played much over the past few days. Just taking a break for a couple of days. Going to begin grinding some 20-30nl tonight and continue some heavy grinding through to the weekend. Goal is to achieve 8 hours daily Thurs-Monday. Bankroll is around $500 and still up about $150 for the month after 22 hours. I'll be getting a paycheck which will bring me over $1k, so hopefully some 50nl this weekend as long as we run well over the next few days

Monthly Profit: $130

Hours Played: 40

Two weeks in and volume hasn't been that great. I really need to pick it up. Hourly hasn't been great either, but I'm not really concerned as I do think it's there. Most of my profit was diminished when I jumped into 30NL Snap and hit some coolers. Anyway, need to pickup the volume and study hugely. I need to remember this is really all I have to do and I need to go hard. The goal is to be playing 50NL full time by the end of summer. So I'll need to 1) Begin playing 50NL and 2) Be a winning player there. I'm not really sure what a good play/study ration is...maybe 80/20? I think of 8 hours, playing 6 and studying 2 is good. The good news is that I'm profitable at 20NL and if we look at my stats I've got around a 8bb/100 winrate at it. I just have run bad at slightly higher stakes in a higher variance game format although I know I can beat it even for a small amount since the pool was very soft.


He can have 2pair here....

https://www.weaktight.com/h/5941d8a3d39043e9648b460d


What a cooler haha

https://www.weaktight.com/h/594339e4d39043bc1f8b4840


I thought poker was dead?

https://www.weaktight.com/h/5945cdded39043f66e8b493b

Monthly Profit: $200

Hours Played: 60

Hours still need to pickup big time, but profit wise I've been going in the right direction. I've really got no problem with 25NL and I really think I can do this fulltime or even part time as long as I put the hours in. 50NL is just on the horizon and that's where serious cash can be made. Hopefully things continue upwards!

Graph of one of the sites:

June Update

Monthly Profit: $250

Hours played: 70


Disappointing month overall in terms of volume and profit. At least it was a profitable month and 10 buyins were made. July needs to be a very productive and profitable month. I've got 2 more months of summer to my poker game and bankroll up to the point of being able to play 50nl regularly and hopefully even 100nl online and at least 200nl live. This month I should be shot taking 50nl soon as long as I don't hit any downswings. I'm also considering trying out some live poker even if I only go in with 2-3 buyins and hopefully hit a nice upswing and do that fulltime! We'll see, maybe tomorrow I'll hit up some .50/1 Live!

Update

Monthly Profit: $4

Hours Played: 18

Definitely need to pick up volume once again, but I was away for the beginning of July and was jetlagged when I got back. Anyway, so far this month I've played 25NL and just shot took 50nl last night. 25NL was going very well and 50NL ruined all profits. Small sample though so nothing to worry about. I'm very confident I beat those games.

25NL:




50NL:




I'm not too sure what to do at this point. BR at $460 and I think I'll just play some 25NL until I hit $550 and then try 50NL again.

Total Profit: $137

Hours Played: 33

16.5 hours a week averaged. Pretty bad. Also only averaging about $3 an hour which isn't the worst and definitely could get better. Still 25NL is around 10bb/100 winrate this month and 50NL is breakeven. I definitely know for a fact I can beat 50NL, but it will be higher variance. But as you can see I did a shot take at 50nl and am breakeven. Although it says I ran bad really good at 50nl, the opposite is true. Lost KK to AA. Also had this beautiful hand...

https://www.weaktight.com/h/5962d096d390435a5d8b460a



25NL



50NL



Anyway, goal is to mainly play 25NL while shot taking 50NL when I'm really focused and feel that the pool is soft. Going to go hard for the rest of the month. Very optimistic goal being set here, but I want to make $1k total for the month by July 31st. I plan on playing at least 60 hours a week for this to happen. I also create a nice little 2 week plan to optimize playing. Sleep, study, workout, meditation, poker plan. Remember, goal is to hit 100NL by end of August.

Monthly Profit: $251

Hours Played: 41

So far things are going pretty well. Up a very good amount so far this month. Although I do hold myself to a high standard, $6/hour is still crushing in these games. Also a lot of that is attributed to playing 10 hours of 50nl which haven't done too much for me. However, after speaking with my backer last night, I officially have the go ahead to start 50NL!!!! LEGGOOOOO!!!! Time to start making some real money now in poker. As long as the shot goes well I might have to delete this thread and make a 50NL version haha. Remember the goal was to be playing 50NL before the end of the month and 100NL by the end of August. So far so good!

Month to date: Mainly 25NL with some 50NL mixed in.

Get a jump rope man! Haven't read the thread yet, will do here in a sec but with your fitness goals and lots of butt sitting in a chair, jump rope is great trust me.

Good luck on your poker quest sir ballerholic!