Background history: As the heading of the thread states I have decided to play poker more seriously again. I first heard about poker in 2006 while being a bridge player in Australia. Quite a few good bridge players were playing poker and making some serious money with it. I deposited 50$ and started playing in summer of 2006. First limit holdem and then made the transition to NL holdem. By mid 2008 I had grinded my roll to 10k and turned pro. First few years I played mostly full ring NL holdem, then swithced to HU NL Holdem. I burned out mentally in 2012 and stopped playing for 4 years. Started to play a few live and online tournaments again in 2017. I did play some tournaments back in my pro days to break up the routine. Tournaments are more exciting for me and I have more motivation to play so I have decided to give it a more serious go.

Bankroll management: I am going to allocate 10k to my poker bankroll. Planning to play MTT-s on Stars and Partypoker with an average buy-in around 20$ which makes it a 500 buy-in roll.

Goals: As MTT-s are with high variance I am setting goals for a 4 month period (end of Jun - end of Oct). Goal is to play minimum of 1000 online tournaments.

I do not have a large enough sample size to determine my roi in online MTT-s but I am pretty sure it is on the + side as I am in the top 10% 15% of the time. My current live tournaments roi is 67% over 136 tournaments. I am hoping for 20%+ roi for online MTT-s.

Couple of links where to check my progress:
Pocketfives profile
Officialpokerrankings

GL

care to Opt in to PPL?

http://pokerprolabs.com/players/chief_five/pokerstars/

best wishes

Did a first session yesterday. Tinkered with HM2 and TableNinja at the same time so didn't play too many tables at once. Altogether 8 tournaments but I was running hot and cashed in 4 of them. Placed 7th at 55$ bounty tourney. Here is a key hand from it:


BB had been abusing his stack and trying to push over the table so I decided to make a stand with my pair of 44s. Did some EV calculations today. Looks like it is a break even move when he is 3-betting about 15%. In case he is 3-betting 20% it is a good +EV push. I was the smallest stack left so had to make a stand somewhere. But villain seemed too loose so maybe not the best spot as he is calling off most of his range including 66, 55.

A few other tough spots here:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...-pair-1715565/
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...k-bet-1715564/

Session 2
MTT-s: 15
Buy-ins: 279,5$

Another session in the books. Played 10 tables at once with PokerNinja and started some turbos towards the end as well.

Sucker calls me off with AQ and hits a runner-runner flush:

Session 3
MTT-s: 21
Buy-ins: 470$

Did a good Sunday evening grinding session. Had a worse side of the card run and didn't get any deep runs. There are some spots (mostly related to playing OOP) I don't feel very confident about my game. So need to put in some work off the tables. Reviewd and analysed all key hands today and also subscribed to Runitonce poker coaching site. Planning to watch some videos and hopefully learning something new and refreshing parts I already know.

Session 4
MTT-s: 20
Buy-ins: 390$

Decent session with a second place finish in 15$ S&G turbo and a "just not deep enough" run in 3,3$ Big at PS placing 28th out of 3352. Reviewed hands from the session and worst blunder is this one:



Squeeze is good as co raiser is folding 70% to 3-bets and SB caller is a fish who is cold-calling half of his hands in SB. Once the fish starts to donk-bet though it gets dangerous. In hindsight I don't think he double barrels with anything else than a A so I should fold on the turn.

While I am grinding small-midstakes one Estonian player cashed big in WSOP 1500$ tourney. Second ever FT from WSOP to Estonian players. Nicely played

http://www.wsop.com/m/updates/?dayof...6451&grid=1487

Session 5
MTT-s: 26
Buy-ins: 526.5$

Pretty horrible session with almost no cashes or even bounties. Placed 2nd again in a 15$ turbo S&G again so that saved me from a total disaster. No chance to fight for a first place with such a cooler in HU:

What were your experiences like as a professional NLHE player? What made you "burn out mentally"? How much did you win, what stakes did you play, how was the overall lifestyle, what did you do well and what would you have done differently?

I ask because I'm trying to go pro. I quit both my job and my degree this year. And I'm trying to prepare myself as much as possible for what's ahead.

Good luck with your challenge too!

I was playing 0.5/1 and 1/2 with some shots at 2/4. First year or two was pretty exciting but after that playing cash games was a real grind for me. I had to force myself to play and did not manage to put in the volume needed to really move up the stakes. I earned 10-25k a year and spent more or less all of it on day-to-day living expenses. The grind and some longer downswings just proved too much and I decided to stop playing.

Now I am working as a nature guide and not planning to go full pro anymore. The stress of making all your living from a high variance game like poker is not worth it for me.

Session 6
MTT-s: 20
Buy-ins: 377$

Bagged my first tournament win for 844$ today by besting the field of 215 in a 22$ 6-max turbo. I have ran really hot in the turbos and busted out of deeper stacked events. Just variance I guess because as an ex cash player I should have a bigger edge in the deeper stacked events. Had a few "just not deep enough" runs as well. Here is the hand that would have set me up well in a partypoker bounty tournament:

Session 7
MTT-s: 22
Buy-ins: 430$

My motivation to play is pretty high right now but have had to skip some sessions because of family matters. Wife has been working late in some evenings and I have spent some time with my daughter. It annoys me when it happens but have to keep in mind that quality time with family comes first.

Session 8
MTT-s: 23
Buy-ins: 428$

Sent family to vacation in our summer cottage and took rest of the week for myself to play poker. One interesting spot:


Villain just arrived at the table and with 19 hands so far seemed pretty laggy. It felt like a mistake when I called so I crunched some numbers today. Gave him some overpairs and sets and draws and I am getting good enough odds to call with every reasonable range of his. Considering he seemed laggy and may be trying to isolate the bounty I feel less bad about the call now.

Thanks for responding. I feel like I'm going through the same thing too. I'm glad that you've found a solution to that problem.

Session 9
MTT-s: 21
Buy-ins: 451$

Not a good session. Got a few min cashes and just ran bad.

Played a live local tournament (50 euro) series tournament. Busted out with KK vs JJ. At least our team is fighting for the 1st spot in the series ranking. MPN tour 550 euro tickets to the winning team so fingers crossed.

Session 10
MTT-s: 21
Buy-ins: 400$

Session 11
MTT-s: 12
Buy-ins: 233$

Moved to the summer cottage so fired a session on the laptop. Played fewer tables due to lack of screen real estate and did not start too many new tables as wanted to watch ENG-CRO semi-final.

Couple of interesting spots from the session here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2.../#post54040792

Hit some straights in the "just not deep enough" run:




Finally fell with a cooler:

Session 12
MTT-s: 18
Buy-ins: 343$

Another grind. Man, it takes forever to cash or run deep in Partypoker tournaments. In the deepstack it is over a 5 hour grind to cash. In a regular tournament over 4 hours. Tested my patience yesterday. Finally ended both in "meh" spots of 77/985 and 39/612.

Sometimes they just dont want your chips:

Session 13
MTT-s: 20
Buy-ins: 401.5$

Couple of min cashes again. Had a good run in a 15$ turbo S&G again but was busted in 6th place. Still waiting for the next deep run. Have played 250 tournaments so past due.

Session 14
MTT-s: 14
Buy-ins: 268$

Not a great session. Had two deeper runs but both ended bit too early. In 7.5$ got AA cracked by KQs, pf AI. In Big 22$ lost 3 flips in a row. So still looking for that money making run.

One more interesting spot here:


How would you play it?

Session 15
MTT-s: 28
Buy-ins: 546$

Finished my first month with longest session yet to make up for some lower volume days. Played 290 MTT-s and 1 live MTT so I am bit ahead of my planned schedule of 1000 MTT-s in 4 months. Going to need the head start because I will have some periods where I won't be able to play. Put in 110 hours of playing time + at least 30 hours of analysing and improving my game off the tables.

Results are nothing to brag about. I am down about 70 ABI-s. Besides one win and couple of 2nd place finishes in smaller S&G turbos haven't managed to reach the final table. Lot of variance was to be expected so hopefully it is that and I will start making deep runs soon. If not then have to really look into my late stages play.

Have concentrated more on playing and less on posting lately. 2 months and 530 tournaments done so still on schedule. Starting to have a decent sample size of hands so took a look at some HM2 stats. Overall I am winning 7bb/100 hands over 43k hand sample. Looks decent but I have no idea what mtt pros generally have here. Breaking it down though it looks like i am losing with 16-40 BB stacks. So need to look deeper into my medium stack play. This could be the leak that has prevented me from making a decent nr of deep runs.

I put in good volume during the two weeks of Powerfest/WCOOP. I have played 730 tournaments now but unfortunately the results are not good roi wise. I am down 3250$ so about 200 buy-ins. Did manage two top 1% runs the last two weeks but both in small 7.5$ tournaments and ended in meh spots of 12 and 20-something.

I have a two week break now guiding and birdwatching. I will try to figure out how and if to proceed during that.