This thread is going to be a sort of journal for me to keep track of things and to get peoples thoughts on hands and things as I make my way up the ranks. I started playing poker toward the beginning of this month seriously. I have played before but I mostly just threw money away.

Now I want to study the game and learn what it takes to be a good poker player and take my game to the next level. I had some money on Carbon left over so i played 2k hands at 10nl (guess they got rid of their 4nl tables). I only played 2k hands over their but things were going good. I made almost 4 buy ins with a bb/100 of 19.07. It was probobly just variance but my confidence was high.

I decided to cash out and take a $10 bonus at ACR and start playing the 2nl tables. Things have gone well but I am concerned with my crappy ev and thinking I might just be running good. But I'm learning. I have 8k hands so far and plan to play about 5-10k hands a week.

Right now my goals are:
[]play 15k hands in January
[]have a winning bb/100 and ev bb/100 in January
[]post an update in this thread at least 3 times a week in January
[]make new goals for February

Current graphs:
carbon:


WPN:


Thanks for looking

Played 800 hands today. started off well then lost a hand full house over better full house, and finished the day break even, and negative on ev.

Todays graph:


Big hands today:

Hi all. haven't posted in a couple of days but I have been playing.

Yesterday I played 1100 hands and finished up +1.15bb and +.55evbb. So far I have played 11,613 hands this month. I should reach 15k.

Goals:
[]Play 15k hands in January
[]have a positive bb/100 in January
[]have a positive evbb/100 in January
[]post an update in this thread at least 3 times per week
[]make new goals for February

Graph:

Big Hands:

Update:
This week I opened up my range a bit from all positions but especially the button. I seems to be working well. I am happy with my ev line but I am currently ~10 buy ins under ev for the week. No big deal, I'm just happy my ev line is doing better. I have really gotten better post flop and started folding a lot of hands where I'm likely beat. I think this has helped a lot. I hit my goal of 15k hands in January and will be trying for 25k hands in February.

Goals:
[x]Play 15k hands in January
[]have a positive bb/100 in January
[]have a positive evbb/100 in January
[]post an update in this thread at least 3 times per week
[]make new goals for February

Graph:


Hands:
The hand history converter doesn't seem to be working right now. Ill post some hands later.

January Review:
So January was okay. i really started to improve my game late in January, by stealing more, 3 betting in profitable situations and cbetting in profitable situations. Also learning more about drawing hands, playing AK more appropriately and watching my opponents more closely to pick up on patterns. Luckily I ran good at the beginning of January when I wasn't playing as well. The only goal I didn't achieve is posting 3 times per week.

Goals:
[x]Play 15k hands in January
[x]have a positive bb/100 in January
[x]have a positive evbb/100 in January
[]post an update in this thread at least 3 times per week
[x]make new goals for February

January Graph:


New Goals for February:
[]Play 25k hands in February
[]Have a postive bb/100 in February
[]Have a 4+ evbb/100 in February
[]Post in this thread at least 6 days this month

The 2's (full house over full house) was a weird hand. Not sure why you bet on the flop, into the pre-flop aggressor.

I've started my own thread/challenge here as well.

See you at the tables!

Your right. I think I must have had to many tables up and didn't notice it was 3 way. Only thing I can think. I've learned a lot and if I played that hand today i would check the flop.

Ill check out your thread!

Good luck.

Yeah, stop in and say hi.

I've been playing between 6-8 tables. You?

I tried 10 last night. I did ok. But I got jammed up in couple of spots. My play was ok, but I got a bit lost in one hand and checked when I should have bet. Just to be on the safe side after about 20 minutes I adjusted back down to 8.

Most I have done is 7. I feel comfortable at 4 or 5, maybe 6. it's easy most of the times until I get hands on 4 tables at once and each one sees a flop. Then I have to keep track of all the action on 4 tables and I slip up.

do you play 6 max or 9 max? do u play on WPN?

I'm playing 6max at WPN.

hey guys I play on ACR as well. I'm even playing 2 nl too so I'm sure we've run into each other. One thing I've noticed is your UTG raising size. I'm one to fold 4's and lower from UTG but I'm a nit that way. . but in my opinion if you decide that anything is good enough to raise from UTG you need to be raising more than 3x bb. You just get way too many callers and inevitably get put into difficult spots. Best case scenario for you is to get either bb or sb be the only caller with a worse hand and that will happen so much more if you raise, regardless of your hand, (aq+ 22+ seems to be your utg range) to 5 bb. GL out there!

Thanks risky. I started raising to 4bb to test it out. I like it. I might try 5 some time.

Week review:
First week of February wasn't great but I feel like I've been running bad, not in terms of ev but just not able to get my hands to show down. When I have a hand everyone folds and when I don't everyone wants to get it all in. It started to turn around at the very end of the week though. Oh well. I played 7,048 hands and I am ahead of schedule for my 25k hands this month.

First the giraffe of the week, not the best:


I would post some hands but I'm having issues with the HH converter.

gonna take the night off to study. good luck at the tables!

GL mate!

Followed. I'm grinding nl2 fr on ipoker and we have almost same volume goals

GL

Are you talking to Stormy or Me?

Yeah-I was thinking about playing around and raising 4x UTG and only 2x on the button. Occasionally I do only raise 2x but never UTG and this usually has more to do with the opponents stack size or tendency...

I never change the raise size based on the strength of my hand and I've done it with aces on down.

I think opening you're UTG range is fine as long as you're not calling someone who 3bets by 3x or more your 2bet raise...

there are different schools of thought on this. you can do 3x from every position, it's not a big deal.

So terrible week. well, actually most of the week was good, but then saturday I played 1500 hands and destroyed myself. Lost all winnings I've had so far and pushed my ev into the negative. 3 things happened:
1. I was getting dealt gutter trash cards and flopping air 95% of the time.
2. When I did hit a hand, it was second best hand and my opponent had the nuts.
3. I had some issues with my game exposed and now i can fix them.

So the next couple of days I am going to cut down on volume, and study a lot, and work on my game. I will then start hitting it hard and try to reach my 25k hands for the month, and in March I want to play more volume.

Weekly graph:

Perhaps you should not be playing gutter trash cards to begin with?

I wasn't, I was playing my normal cards I usually play, just getting them a lot less frequently

This will happen quite often, you will have stages 1k, 2k, 5k or more hands where things simply don't go your way, you can't hit flops, your med strength hands get raised all the time and it seems like you can't win a hand. Don't despair, don't overadjust. Evaluate your play and if you are playing hands rather optimal than not, keep at it and ride the variance out.

Thanks for the advice. I'll do my best to follow it.

Weekly update:
This week I feel like my play improved a lot. i noticed when I play 6 tables I'm auto piloting a lot (not thinking about my opponents range, not really analyzing the board texture). I started playing 4 tables instead and really analyzing all my decisions. I think know it's helping, but I havn't been doing it long enough to see a difference yet.

I also signed up for rakeback. I should have done it a long time ago but oh well.

not a great week... graph:


Hands:
As a new player I learned something on this hand. Bet big with sets. I always want to bet something that I will get called more often, but now I realize I need to make people pay for draws. On the turn there are 2 flush draws possible and I bet 1/2 pot. Looking back I think I should have bet closer to full pot or even just shoved since I would be leaving so little behind anyways.


This hand is against a fish
On this hand my thought process was so:
Flop: A SET! IT CAN HAPPEN AFTER ALL!! ALL RIGHT BOYS LETS MAKE MONEY. hmm this board is pretty coordinated though. Better bet 3/4 pot+ here. Hmm he called... I could be beat, but more than likely he's drawing to something.
Turn: Well there are a lot of possible straights out there. theres another flush draw too. Do I bet? I think I'll check it for pot control. I'm not feeling good about my hand. at this point.
River: Board paired, full house. Great card for me. If he has a straight I can get a little value from him since he's a fish. Hmm he bet 1/3 pot. Is that a value bet? what does he think I have? Could he have pocket 8's? If he has 8's or 7's then it's a cooler. I need to just get as much value from straights as I can. Ill try and get it in.


Thought Process:
Pre: This hand is good multiway and the people after me arent 3betting an insane amount. Ill try and see a flop.
Flop: Combo draw and I'm last to act. Hmm. check raise and take it down now? sure. He shoved... My flush draw is probobly good since the ace is out there. The only hearts he could reasonably have is KQ that beat me. He's probobly shoving with a set here. Theres a little dead money in the pot. I'll call.


This hand is against a fish.

Thought Process:
Flop: I should bet big here to make flush draws pay (I think i should have bet bigger still)
Turn: Still good against flushes but the boards getting straight. He probably didn't call the flop with a backdoor straight draw unless he floated AK though, mabey AQ. I don't think he's on a straight draw. He could have QJ but that's not as likely as AJ, KJ, or TJ. Ill keep betting big to make the flush draw pay. He raises, I've got .85 left. He could have me completely beat here, but he's a fish so it's hard to tell. I think I'm good often enough to call here.


Let me know what you think of my play and thought process and feel free to give me some tips

Hand one: yes you're right that turn bet size is atrocious. When ever you bet, or more importantly raise, on the flop, for value, ask yourself; what would my opponent call with on the turn that he called on the flop with? In this case you're only losing to kk and AA and if he's calling your flop 3b, he's calling your turn bet no matter how much it is. shove for sure!

Awesome. thanks for the advice.

Update:

Not feeling good about my play. I thought maybe I was on a downswing but I'm starting to think I'm just bad. Not terribly bad, but a slightly losing player.

I'm thinking this because over the 35k hands I've played, by bb/100 is -0.57 and my EV bb/100 is -1.61.

So I'm going to start posting more hands where I lost big pots, or folded what might be a winner( I think I'm losing a lot of value here) find some good resources for study, and focus on my game rather than my volume.

So anyone have suggestions for the best resources for poker study?

Good luck at the tables everyone!