Hi all,

I'm a 29yr old from Barcelona, long time 2+2 lurker, and started playing poker like 15 years ago. During the period from 2004 to 2009 I sustained myself just playing online poker (I know, piece of cake years). At that time I was studying my Computer Engineering degree at UPC (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya) and used to do around 1500 EUR monthly, that is more than enough for a comfortable student way of life in Barcelona. But let's start from the beginning.

My first contact with poker was with my grandfather, he showed me the basics and we used to play a lot during summer afternoons when I was 5-10 years old, we were playing 5-draw. Later at school at 12 age I started playing poker with colleagues, at some point 2 of them owed me more than 2000 EUR, it doesn't look too much but for a 12 year old Catalan guy it is a lot of money. They ended up paying 5 EUR/day during loong time with occasional 20 or 50 EUR, so I had all my daily and weekend expenses (cola, sandwiches, etc) paid .

Next important step is when I started university. I had to work during weekends to pay for my personal expenses and during that time internet poker was in its first days so I gave it a try and in no time I was making like 1500 EUR/month playing mainly 1-2 and some donkaments. My best score was 4000 EUR 1st place for a 50 buyin in Ongame. I sustained myself during 3 or 4 years this way but poker started to get harder online and I had a good degree in computer engineering and lots of job offers, so kind of switched to normal 9-5 and playing occasionally with friends or sometimes a Saturday or Sunday in GCB (Gran Casino Barcelona).

Where I am now and what I want: I am 29 now, with a 5 month old child and working as an engineer for a multinational IT company. I have a good salary and my wife too, so taking into account the environment where we are (Spain, economic crisis, 26% jobless) I am a lucky guy. Since I started working 9-5 style (6 years ago??) I maybe have "spent" like 2K EUR in poker. Some 50 deposits here and there, playing a donkament and busting, or growing to 400 and busting, I mean, just playing for fun, no need for the money, just... you know?
I want to be a little more serious now, my MAIN goal is to play WSOP in less than 5 years (looooong time I know, but I have only 5% time for poker). For doing so I'll have to pay the buyin with money earned in poker or win it in a Sat (obv) and I'll have to pay the trip expenses for me (and my family if they want to come to the trip).

How will I do it?: I will start with a 150 eur deposit and play 0.02/0.05 in Pokerstarts.es and 888.es. I will be able to play tournaments if the buyin is less than 1% of my bankroll or if I win a satellite, but I'll try to mainly play cash (80%-20%) because the first stages of this challenge consist mainly in re-understanding poker (as it is played these days). I'll follow a 20-30 buying BRM. I'm starting with 30 buyins at 0.05 and I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to achieve 0,25/0,50 in one year (so let's say this is the first intermediate goal).

What I promise to you?:
- Minimum update ratio of 1 post per week with cash giraffe and tournament results
- This post will also include (minimum) one cash hand and one tournament hand for discussing startegy


Let's see if this helps and motivates me (and hopefully some of you ).

gl mate. I'm an oldie too so I like these type of threads.

Since you're a long time lurker here, I'm sure you know you're way around, but here are some of my fav threads in regards to cg:

COTW

Systematic training drills

Verneer

Skraper vs BenjaminBarker

Mathenoobics of Poker

Hey Alexnorge thanks for your reply! To be honest I hadn't seen most of the threads you shared so it'll be very helpful . I'll post an update of my progress in a couple of days with the first hands and impressions

Did you say if you were going to play 6-max or full ring btw? Either or, I'd start to hang out in the uNL section of 2p2 for cash games and read up if those threads were new to you. Loads of good stuff there, quick check up threads, hh reviews, skype friends etc etc. Keep working and you'll get there.

Ok, so let's do the first update. I have played 3 sessions, totalling 5000 hands, I play 6max 4 tabling and my stats have been something like 32/25/14. I know, this is absolute b****** and so have been my results, 14 bi (from 150 to 80 eur@ NL5).

I have made some thoughts about that... I only play after dinner so I'm tired after working all day in my 5-9 job (sessions around 11 pm to 3 AM). This moment of the day my mind just wants to relax after work so I'm raising/calling etc just for fun, I have no respect for such small money quantities and it results in me playing sooooo bad an cally.
I can't do nothing about my playing schedule because I work and during afternoon/evening I do things with my wife and little boy 5 months old so it has a very difficult solution.
I could:
- Play only the days that I dont feel tired
- Reduce number of tables for mantaining focus (but I will be even more calling station/spewy...)
- Change games...

I have been thinking in playing hypers 6max. It is something that I have always enjoyed and during my history I have played around 1000 (1s, 3s, 5s, 10s) with a 5% ROI. For what I know this ROI is not bad for this games and the playing style is so much different than cash (much more push fold and steal autopilot) that I feel very comfortable. I will give it a try probably and lets see what milestones can I think of (or maybe you can suggest goals to me based on my personal status).

Time for a brief update. It seems that changing objectives is starting to work! I switched from cash (which I found veeeery boring to play at such small stakes after having played higher) to MTTs and hyper SNGs.
I find myself much more motivated playing MTTs where the reward can be eventually higher and I find it a lot easier than online cash. BR is now at 201 EUR (from 80) after 40 games mixing MTTs and SNG.
In MTTs I like to play KOs because is easier to breakeven soon during tourney and then play without money pressure. I have ran deep in some of them but lady luck (or maybe my not-very-good game before the bubble) is not helping too much, lol samplezise also.
I'll keep gring .

Initial BR: 150 EUR
BR: 201 EUR
Profit: 51 EUR