4 Years removed...Former MSNLH grinder starting over in the States!
01-16-2015
, 05:21 PM
Hey 2+2!
My name is Spencer and this is going to be my thread documenting my journey back into the game after a very long break. My end goal is get back to playing MSNLH starting at $25nl following proper bankroll management and putting in proper studying/working on my game all while earning my Masters in Economics here in the US.
My Intro:
As I said, my name is Spencer and I have recently relocated back to the States to pursue my Masters in Economics. I'm 25 years old and was born/spent the first 6 years of my life just outside the Washington DC area. When I was 6 years old, my father took a job in Liverpool and relocated our family (I'm the youngest of 3) to Bebington, UK. From there, my childhood was pretty normal. I went to school, traveled EU quite a bit and just had an overall solid upbringing. When I was 16 or 17, I was introduced by some friends to the game of poker. I saw some of my older friends, who were already crushing SSNL, making some pretty good money so I decided to join the party. I started by playing a lot of the live friendly home games, talking poker with my friends and when I turned 18, I took my game online. I started out at $25nl and from there, I moved up pretty quickly just table selecting and crushing the recreational players. Eventually I found myself playing $400nl and winning for a pretty decent clip. Life was good and I was making more money than kids at my age could really only dream about. Then April 15th, 2011 hit. Of course I didn't think the US market shutting down was going to effect me THAT much. My whole bankroll was on Stars anyway so I figured life would just continue as is. Unfortunately for me, my study habits at the time were pretty much non-existent and I found myself quickly falling behind the other regs and eventually, I went from crushing to getting crushed.
It was at that point, with the influence of my parents, that I made the difficult decision to hang it up, go to uni and start the next chapter of my life. I cashed out what I had left online and put it towards living/educational expenses. I put everything I had into my studies and it paid off tremendously. This past fall I achieved one of my biggest life goals ever and was accepted into the Owen School of Business in Nashville. I always knew I would eventually want to come back to the States (most of my extended family is still here along with my older brother) so when the opportunity presented itself, I jumped on it. I've been here in Nashville for just a few weeks and love the city, however I don't know many people either. It's definitely been an adjustment, but things seem to be progressing nicely.
The other night, I was sitting in my apartment and I came across an old episode of the World Series of Poker. It was at that point, a little flame lit inside me and I started thinking back to the good old days. I instantly created this 2+2 account and did some research on US sites. After some back and forth, I decided to put some cash on Carbon poker (I'll discuss my reasons if anyone is interested) and grind $25nl cash. From there, I played abit and lost a couple buy-ins right out of the gate. That led to my next decision last night to purchase Poker Tracker 4 and put a HUD together. It'll take some tweaking I'm sure, but last night's session went pretty well and got me back to square one.
Thread Expectations:
I'm not sure tbh. Obviously, I'm going to be extremely busy with my studies so this will be a slow process as I just won't be able to put in a ton of volume. I also probably won't be able to post every single night, but will try my hardest to post a few times a week. I'll definitely post graphs, as many interesting hand histories as possible and some game theory as well. I'd love to see this turn into a place full of solid discussion and successes from all the crushers in the forum, but that's probably wishful thinking.
Anyway, that's about all I have for my OP at the moment. I'll be using a pretty nittyish BRM and won't be shot taking the next limit until I have at LEAST 30 buy-ins for that level. Maybe even more. I'll also be playing a few MTT's here and there depending on my free time for all the MTT PG&C regs out there. I hope everyone here decides to join me on my journey, let's begin!
My name is Spencer and this is going to be my thread documenting my journey back into the game after a very long break. My end goal is get back to playing MSNLH starting at $25nl following proper bankroll management and putting in proper studying/working on my game all while earning my Masters in Economics here in the US.
My Intro:
As I said, my name is Spencer and I have recently relocated back to the States to pursue my Masters in Economics. I'm 25 years old and was born/spent the first 6 years of my life just outside the Washington DC area. When I was 6 years old, my father took a job in Liverpool and relocated our family (I'm the youngest of 3) to Bebington, UK. From there, my childhood was pretty normal. I went to school, traveled EU quite a bit and just had an overall solid upbringing. When I was 16 or 17, I was introduced by some friends to the game of poker. I saw some of my older friends, who were already crushing SSNL, making some pretty good money so I decided to join the party. I started by playing a lot of the live friendly home games, talking poker with my friends and when I turned 18, I took my game online. I started out at $25nl and from there, I moved up pretty quickly just table selecting and crushing the recreational players. Eventually I found myself playing $400nl and winning for a pretty decent clip. Life was good and I was making more money than kids at my age could really only dream about. Then April 15th, 2011 hit. Of course I didn't think the US market shutting down was going to effect me THAT much. My whole bankroll was on Stars anyway so I figured life would just continue as is. Unfortunately for me, my study habits at the time were pretty much non-existent and I found myself quickly falling behind the other regs and eventually, I went from crushing to getting crushed.
It was at that point, with the influence of my parents, that I made the difficult decision to hang it up, go to uni and start the next chapter of my life. I cashed out what I had left online and put it towards living/educational expenses. I put everything I had into my studies and it paid off tremendously. This past fall I achieved one of my biggest life goals ever and was accepted into the Owen School of Business in Nashville. I always knew I would eventually want to come back to the States (most of my extended family is still here along with my older brother) so when the opportunity presented itself, I jumped on it. I've been here in Nashville for just a few weeks and love the city, however I don't know many people either. It's definitely been an adjustment, but things seem to be progressing nicely.
The other night, I was sitting in my apartment and I came across an old episode of the World Series of Poker. It was at that point, a little flame lit inside me and I started thinking back to the good old days. I instantly created this 2+2 account and did some research on US sites. After some back and forth, I decided to put some cash on Carbon poker (I'll discuss my reasons if anyone is interested) and grind $25nl cash. From there, I played abit and lost a couple buy-ins right out of the gate. That led to my next decision last night to purchase Poker Tracker 4 and put a HUD together. It'll take some tweaking I'm sure, but last night's session went pretty well and got me back to square one.
Thread Expectations:
I'm not sure tbh. Obviously, I'm going to be extremely busy with my studies so this will be a slow process as I just won't be able to put in a ton of volume. I also probably won't be able to post every single night, but will try my hardest to post a few times a week. I'll definitely post graphs, as many interesting hand histories as possible and some game theory as well. I'd love to see this turn into a place full of solid discussion and successes from all the crushers in the forum, but that's probably wishful thinking.
Anyway, that's about all I have for my OP at the moment. I'll be using a pretty nittyish BRM and won't be shot taking the next limit until I have at LEAST 30 buy-ins for that level. Maybe even more. I'll also be playing a few MTT's here and there depending on my free time for all the MTT PG&C regs out there. I hope everyone here decides to join me on my journey, let's begin!
01-17-2015
, 10:33 AM
Wanted to post an update regarding last night's small session. Overall, I feel like I played okay, but it always seems like you play well when you win just over three buy-ins. 
Definitely rusty and definitely have a lot of work to do. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday working through opening ranges and trying to refamiliarize myself with what hands from what position I want to open. Looking at my stats, so far I'm playing a 20/18/7 style which isn't anywhere close to where I want to be, however looking at the stats from last night's session, I was playing 23/21/9 which is getting there. I'm going to continue to analyze my pre flop game/ranges/3bet ranges and then I'll dive into my lacking post flop game as I just feel like it needs major work. This is when I'll start posting a ton of HH's.
Till then.
Definitely rusty and definitely have a lot of work to do. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday working through opening ranges and trying to refamiliarize myself with what hands from what position I want to open. Looking at my stats, so far I'm playing a 20/18/7 style which isn't anywhere close to where I want to be, however looking at the stats from last night's session, I was playing 23/21/9 which is getting there. I'm going to continue to analyze my pre flop game/ranges/3bet ranges and then I'll dive into my lacking post flop game as I just feel like it needs major work. This is when I'll start posting a ton of HH's.
Till then.