Hello everyone

I am a 19 year old Poker player from Europe, still living with my family, currently trying to climb the stakes in Online Poker ASAP while trying to consistently grow in other areas of life.

My Poker history:
I started playing online Poker in September 2019 shortly after learning the basic rules of the game. After learning hand strengths only, I became desperate to compete with others. I have always been very addictive and competitive with the things I loved, mainly it being games in the past. After donking around on 2NL Zoom and 5NL Zoom in the beginning I had a tilty session which lead to me jumping up the stakes quickly to chase losses. So I ended completely busto at the time (I was 18), losing about ~1.4k in one evening in early September 2019. After that, I donked around in MTTs, mostly on Sundays until december, trying to bink one to get my money back, but just burned about 150$ every Sunday...
I got into Zoom cash consistently in December 2020, grinding slightly losing (-1.5bb) but with massive volume until march 2020. In that time I was at a very bad mental state of mind, consistently thinking about my own failure with the decisions I've made and also the game which I played so badly without any success so far (also things in RL werent that easy at that time).
So I joined a few Discord servers and also watched a lot of videos and Twitch streams in early 2020, which lead to me improving a little bit in some areas of my game. To that point, I was mostly losing because I was 4 tableing 10NL Zoom, mostly autopiloting and tilting a lot, resulting in massive single losing sessions that ruined my results completely. After also getting a very cheap coach and getting some coaching sessions in at the time, I was starting to understand a few of my leaks. I still had massive emotional problems while playing as the biggest leak of mine still. In April I had my first Winning month, with about 1000 € in Winnings, mostly on 10NL Zoom and a little bit of 25NL Zoom on Pokerstars.es. I was playing very good for my level, due to the upswing that I had in the beginning of the month. Not encountering many losing sessions helped my play a lot.
I moved back to Pokerstars.eu in June 2020 where I got my first RB challenge that they offer to some people (you get a fixed cash reward for a set goal of points that you have to complete in 28 days, equal to limited 40% RB)
Played mostly 25z in the beginning, moved up to 50z in July. I always played my stake with 50BI+ and I got most of my BR from RB at that time (I never had a big winrate over sample at 25z).
After breaking even for over 2 months at 50z I had a very good month in September with over 45BI that I won on 50z in ~100k hands. Followed by the biggest downswing I ever had in October, also over 100k hands (50BI) I played very poorly in that period of time, tilting every day and relying too much on my emotions, what lead to spewing off at the tables in almost every session.
So since November I once again started to take a new approach, this time focussing on my mental game, which clearly was the biggest issue , holding me back from playing better and developing a resonable winrate.
I decreased the tables, played only 2 tables and less volume. That leaded to playing very well, and soon I had a winrate of over 6EVbb over 130k hands on 50z in November-December. That period also boosted the confidence in me and my game a lot.
So after 500k hands of 50z I moved up to 100z in December 2020. Since then its going okay-ish, I have like 1EVbb and im not very happy with my play, mostly 3-4tableing again because of the RB challenge that I get, which I cant complete by playing 2 tables, since its too much Volume to be played in 28 days. So I slipped into a downer again 2 weeks ago (2 big losing sessions, one with -18BI and one with -12BI on 100z). Even though I tilted a bit, I was mostly playing good and was therefor I was also not that mad about the negative $$$.
My all dates graph:

Graph since November 2020:

Outside of Poker I actually improved a lot in everyday life in the last 2 months. Going from a gambling addict isolated kind of person into a more open mentality, focussing on self improvement. Did some psychotherapy work, got myself some homegym equipment so I can finally train hard and become shredded again, like I used to before I got addicted to Poker.
I also started to study a little bit, bought a solver and doing the MMAsherdog highstakes course right now.
Im not sure where Poker takes me and If I wanna do this for a living for the next couple of years, Im trying it out currently and I am very excited how far I can get.

I started this thread to actively show my journey as well as my development in everyday life and to be open and self reflective on the things I'm doing in and outside of Poker. I'm sure this is is also a benefit for you who might be reading this to get some motivation or simply getting an idea of new things that you can benefit from in your life, too.

Results are gonna be posted weekly, since I only look at them every 7 days.
Perhaps also gonna post some hands in the future. Stay tuned for updates!

Cheers and glgl

glgl

Hey man, just took the time to read your post.

I think one of your main issues was tilt. Your poker game seems to be decent. Mental game is 70% of it at micros. Also, don't bother focusing on rb challenges. They're good promotions, but it seems like you're focusing on this instead of results and playing well. Just put the rb challenge to the side. You'll make your money from it by just playing. You'll play too aggro when focusing on it solely.

Finally, don't let poker consume your life. I'm 22, and when I was 19-20 I focused on poker too much, and it affected by university studies. Luckily, it didn't affect any grades, but that's because I recognised it was an issue before it was too late. If you're not busy, play more. If you have commitments etc, play way less. Pay no heed to short term results, its out of your control. Just focus on playing well.

fellow poker addict here. good luck at improving yourself and your mental game, I'm in the same boat in life.