Thanks man. Yup, I'm considering coming over in April for a small series, I think its the Melbourne champs?

Played a short session today at 5/5 NLH and ran pretty bad . I think I played ok and everything was pretty standard. I hope this is not the start of a big downswing.... was down -770

TARGET: 19,730/20,000 Target unachieved

I always believed in you and your non GTO approach to poker and life <3

We need more details but man!

Thanks brother!! Most of my profit this month came from a very juicy home game which I probably will get lung cancer from due to all the second hand smoke I've been inhaling so it's probably -EV overall for me lololol. I do have a really good carbon activated mask though which helps in filtering a lot of the smoke out.

I've been doing all I can to keep getting myself invited back to that game. I've been tipping the dealer generously at the end of the session (sometimes up to 80 dollars), sometimes I even give some of the losing players some money back (like 50 dollars or so). Most of them are wealthy businessmen and I think they kind of know that I am the only decent player at the table based on the fact that I am pretty tight (when I mean tight I mean I don't play J6 off-suit.....). But yeah, I try to engage in conversations in the table and be social and funny which I think has been going okay as I've been keep getting re-invited back. A few of them sometimes ask me questions like if they've played a certain hand correctly. I am always honest and explains to them the way I would play the hand in my mind (i'm not sure if this is +EV as I'm giving free information to help my opponents get better). I play on average 2 nights a week there and never had a losing session yet. Fingers crossed the run good continues!!!

One funny thing is, I rock up to the place and see all these Porches, Mercedes, Mustangs parked there, and I'll be driving a grannys hatchback and park next to them.... Makes me feel so out of place. I mean I have enough money to buy a better car but I think I should buy a house first. That's GTO thinking right?

That's pretty funny about the cars.

Don't spend too much money on a car man, i made that mistake and when i sold it 5 years later i got 25% of what i paid for it.

I would definitely by a house if you are able to get approved by a lender. I'd imagine NZ is quite similar to Australia and your mortgage repayments would not be much more than you are currently paying renting a joint (and paying some other ****ers mortgage off).

Def +EV for you to give advice. For one, you're not that good (no offence, but reading your posts, it's pretty apparent). That being said, you don't have to be a wizard to beat whales, so good job, getting in good games is the most important part of poker tbh.
For two, maybe it gets them a bit better over time, but it makes them like you more. Gatta get invited back to make $

This has probably been mentioned already but it does not matter if you're "good enough" as you are failing to incorporate variance into your bank roll management. Simply put, you cannot afford a $20k tournament just because you have $20k. To be profitable in the long run you need $700k - $1m (even 50 x $20k buy-ins is arguably not enough) to play in tournaments that size effectively, mitigating your risk.

I recommend you aim for some satellites into the 2020 Aussie Millions instead as the price to enter these should reflect what your poker bankroll has.

Play the 20k tourney, sell 50% at 15% markup. You use $10k for the punt, get $1500 of flights & hotel and now you have $10k to re-grind your roll back up.

haha. the tourney is only 11k. selling at markup would be a dream but i don't think that would be possible, I don't know enough people who would buy my action at mark up...

i have a separate life roll as back up so even if i go busto, i wont be sleeping in the streets, it will just suck big time

Haven't really played much for the last week as I twisted my neck on my pillow when I woke up. Yup, on my pillow WTF. how is that even possible. ****ing woke up and was adjusting my head on my pillow and heard a CRACK. Oh **** my life. Was so damn sore so I went to see a chiropractor who fixed me up a bit. But still took like 3 or 4 days before i regain some movement in my neck. GF said I looked like Frankenstein lmao. Thanks babe.

I played 2 short sessions and was up like +100, which is cool

TARGET: 19,830/20,000

what's next when you cross the 20k mark?

I will try to make a bit more. If I make another 10k, I will take it and fly somewhere to play a tournament in either April or August. Gotta punt it all

STOP PUNTING, you are going to lose in the long run. Figure out your bankroll and treat it like an investment. You even admitted earlier in the thread that you're a losing player on PokerStars. What on Earth makes you think you can casually buy into Aussie Millions and do well against real sharks? You're lucky to be playing against calling stations and nits so far to grind up to $20k. The reality is most kiwis suck at poker and are easy money grabs.

Assuming you really do have $20k NZD you effectively have $13.5k USD. Your bankroll only lets you play $55 tourneys giving you 245 buy-ins for your MTT's.

Sorry to be the Devils advocate here but you need to play within your means - Stop being a bankroll fish.

Bro I understand your concern. I know the chances of me winning Aussie millions is low, but I need to take risks sometimes. Gotta dream. Never give up. If i fail, I can start again.

Bro there's no way I can beat $55 MTTs on stars. I'm just nowhere near good enough. I need to start playing $7 MTTS first and even then I don't think I can beat those without a lot of work. You are right though, I should start playing MTTs and brush up on my tournament skills.

Once I reach 20k, I'll deposit $200 into pokerstars and start grinding MTTs.

Update: Played in the home game last night and got kind of wrecked from a combination of run bad and extremely poor play on my behalf.

This hand that i butchered disgustingly. 5/5 PLO game. I had A974. 3 limpers, I raised from CO to 30 just to build a pot. 6 callers to the flop. Flop came A:clubs85. Checked to me (I was last to act), i raised to 125. This is where the butchery started (I should have checked obviously). Big blind calls and UTG re raises to 375. I think for a minute and called for the gutshot (dumb i know). Then big blind ships for 450. Both UTG and me calls. Turn came A. **** me UTG raises to 675. At this point I'm already down 1600 in the game so I was a little tilted and was kind of in the chasing losses mindset. BB said something like he's dead and asked for another $1000 reload. At this point, I should be putting UTG on A8 as he would check back 88 mostly and since BB does not have an A since he said he's drawing dead so it's more likely UTG has an A. I think for 2 minutes and called hoping he's on 88 and I have 9 outs. River came a 7. UTG jams for remaining 1350. I snapped with second nuts and almost spewed when he declared A8 thinking about how dumb I played.

The players in this PLO game very rarely bluffs especially in big pots and I guess I was just tilted enough to not notice. I think that's a big leak of mine in PLO where I try to chase losses when I'm down by playing bad. So yeah lost 2.5k for no good reason other than bad play in 1 hand which is pretty sad. On the bright side, I will definitely learn from this. Oh well, live and learn and hopefully i will bounce back from this loss! Gotta have better mental game and think through all spots more

TARGET: 18,030/20,000

lol, theres a difference between "taking a risk" (such as starting a business), and just straight up purchasing a 20k lottery ticket.

idk why you're so committed to this idea, it's like scary delusional that you're comparing firing a 20k tourney to taking a reasonable calculated risk.

also extremely tilting that you keep saying "raise" instead of "bet"

Sigh.... Play a few sessions last week, did well in NLH but got absolute crushed in PLO so was down another -2k.... It's so disheartening losing like 3 multiway all-ins in a row when you go in as a favourite. I know that PLO is high variance game but it still makes me feel like **** losing 6 PLO sessions in a row in 3 weeks.

I guess my run good has come to an end and I am on the bad luck side now. I think going forward I'm going to stop playing PLO for 2 months unless there's 1 or 2 huge whales in the game and focus solely on NLH. I just need to get out of this bad mindset/downswing that I am currently in and focus on a lower variance game.

Hope that I can start posting some winning sessions again soon....

TARGET: 16,030/20,000

Yes! Ran quite well in the last week. Made $4.1k in a NLHE game that had 2 massive whales in it. Yay!

And I broke my promise in less than 1 week and played PLO..... but thank god I didn't lose for the 7th time in a row! Made $1.1k instead! Whoop whoop!

There is 1 thing that I was really ashamed of though. Last week I played a 1/3 game in the casino and got tilted by a couple of coolers in a row so was down to my last $165. I was dealt AK on the Button, 4 limpers to me and I raised small for $18 (should have been at least a $24). BB called, UTG tanked for 20 seconds then call. UTG+1 called. The rest folded. Flop came 359. Checked to me and I jammed the rest for $147. No logic behind it, pure tilt. All folds except for UTG+1 who called with a set of 3s. GG. If that was not bad enough, I was so pissed off at myself and my bad play that I then went upstairs to the Baccarat room for the first time in many years after I've sworn off it. Got $500 worth of chips and proceeded to play 4 hands of Baccarat at around $100 and $200 each to chase my losses. After 4 hands, I won back $300 that I lost and cashed out immediately and left the casino. On the way back I was quite dissapointed with my lack of self control. I need to stop having such a weak mindset and stop chasing losses. Otherwise, I will never become a good poker player. Anyone got any tips on how to have a better mental game?

TARGET: $21,100/$20,000 RE-ACHIEVED

You made 20 grand playing live poker in a month and a half?

Well it's more like close to 2 months since Feb is almost ended. But yeah I'm running really hot for the last 4 months. Between October to December last year I made around 40k just by playing for like 15 hours a week.

Pretty unreal eh..... I'm not exactly a good player, but I try to get better all the time!

Yeah OP, I think you're approaching this all wrong, this is unhealthy, both in a professional poker perspective, and the way you're approaching your life. I'd highly recommend some deep thought over it.

If this is the case and your goal is to become a pro, then get better. You get good, and win money, not the other way around. Plenty of people who get lucky early on in their career and bink some tournament end up losing it all back.

No you don't?? Why would you have to? Yeah you can "dream", but you can make healthy reasonable ones, not pipe degen dreams. If you need to win a big score to be happy, then you're a problem gambler.

Seriously, if you're serious about poker, you should focus a lot more on getting better at the game, and while you're at it, your mental game.

OP is just another degen. He's never going to learn until he goes broke.
He has major life/poker/mental leaks and doesn't have any desire to plug them.

I think we should all stop chiming in trying to reason with him, at the end of the day he's just ganna do what he wants despite what various seasoned professionals tell him.

So, I will sit back and enjoy the ride. OP, please never stop updating this thread. I want to be here a year from now (or longer), and be one of the many who can say "I told you so", so that maybe, JUST MAYBE, you will then listen to reason after that. Until that day, GL bud

OP one of the whales in the home game tbh. Ran really hot in super variance games.

One 2-7 game tip though this applies to live poker in general: if the game is on, your image is totally irrelevant people will just assume you have 72. This goes for running bluffs/light 3bets too...people won't be paying any attention to your image and justify calling you down.

Damn.... you guys really are right. I am just another degen. I really messed up big time last night.... Went to the casino last night and play NLHE and got bad beated for a $1.8k pot when villain went all in with a naked flush draw and got there. After that I proceeded to play like an idiot chasing losses and played PLO and ended the night down $1.6k. I was so pissed at myself that I broke my promise again and went up to the baccarat room to chase my losses. I withdrew $2k and proceeded to lose all of that in the next 10 minutes.

My soul was crushed at the end of the night and I was sitting on the pavement outside my apartment for 20 minutes hating myself for being so weak willed.

I realise I've been an idiot who has just been running well but when the cards don't go my way, I don't seem to be able to handle it mentally.

From here on out, I vow to never play another hand of baccarat/pit games. If I do, I will donate $1k to the World Vision fund for children.

I'll start setting short term non-monetary goals here and instead of trying to hit a monetary target, I'll set goals which will make me a better, stronger poker player instead.

Short term goals - For the next 5 days, I will go to the gym everyday and I will meditate to get into a better mindset and make my mental game stronger. I will also make it a point to meditate before every poker session so that I do not chase losses.

I won't set a target for the year anymore as it makes me too results-oriented and makes me want to chase losses all the time. I do not want to be a degen anymore.

Thank you all for your support, I am excited to turn over a new leaf!

RESULTS FOR THE YEAR: +17,500

Am I the only one that realized the John Wick reference here?

https://youtu.be/RNBTNaqSP0I?t=364

Nah I noticed that too. John Wick is the absolute best!!

Quick update: Played a few 25/25 PLO sessions this week as there was a tourist who wanted a big game so me and friend played with him. Was going ok but then some bad regs joined the game and bad beated me twice for a 4k pot and 6k pot T_T

So overall was down 1.5k for the week. On a positive note, my mindset and mental game is slowly improving as the swings aren't affecting me as bad anymore. It's an area that I need to keep working on though. Plenty of room for improvement there!

GLA at the tables!

RESULTS FOR THE YEAR: +16,000