Had a 2/5 sesh today. I know I said I wasn't going to play higher than 1/3 but I guess we all slip up. Anyway I ran super hot, got dealt AA twice and QQ twice in 2 hours. Won some big pots and cashed out $766 profit. Currently $5864 up at live poker now.

You don't even try to take this seriously are you?

What do you mean? Poker is my dream. I take it extremely seriously.

The very second you have some kind of bankroll due to a heater you're jumping in a 2/5 game. You barely have enough to play 1/3, playing 2/5 shouldn't even be in your mind until you have like 15k. If you're serious about this then you need at least some form of discipline.

Yeah I admitted that it was a mistake to play 2/5. But then again, this huge upswing began from a lucky 2/5 sesh. If I'd never taken a shot whilst underrolled then I wouldn't be where I am now. So it's kind of understandable why I have this urge to keep coming back to 2/5. But I will try my best to fight the urge.

Actually no, to everybody else it is not understandable why you keep playing 2/5. This lucky session could just as easily have been a crippling loss and that limits your ability to play even 1/3. There is no need to get there as soon as possible. Actually I do understand why you want to get there asap because you are forced to lock up winning sessions in some kind of shared bank account and/or spend it on 20k/year dinners/food. Yes that's right, 20k per year on food alone. How is that sustainable?

Just make a plan about how you are going to get there and stick to it. Let's say you win $100/session at 1/3 on average, you know how many days you need to play every month to get up to a 15k bankroll. If your bankroll is 5k right now it takes 100 sessions to get there. That might very well take over half a year but that should be no problem in the big picture. The 2/5 will still be there and if it isn't then poker isn't long term anyways and everyone who plays poker is screwed.

Nobody takes you seriously when you jump around in stakes, take ridiculous shots and spend insane amounts on frivolous things. The ones that make it in poker treat it like a business and have a plan. If you're honest to yourself, would you think the way you're handling poker right now would be accepted in any field of work?

This sums it up

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Final and best advice right here.

If you don't apply decent BRM,you're just gambling.
Remember all the times when people would tell you poker is just gambling etc and you should stop, you are living up to THEIR standards and expectations. If you really care about your goals etc, respect what it takes and apply decent BRM.

Consider yourself lucky you had this upswing, which shouldn't have happened in the first place, and learn from it. It has gave your BR a boost, you have increased confidence to play at 1/3 and you could realize how the swings there would seriously hurt your BR and life.

Move down to 1/3 and play for 100 days or so and improve your game, before you start playing 2/5 with a decent BR.


Most poker players don't realize how important your total upswing game is. It often leads to spending sprees, overconfidence, irresponsible BRM, lines that are way to funky and more. Combine these factors with a streak of losing sessions and you're doomed harder than you can imagine.

Trust me, I have been through this cycle multiple times and it is devastating and takes more time than you think to recover from. Realize how much youre affected by a losing session at 2/5 and the influence on your overal winrate. Realize what influence being calm and less influenced by swings does for your game.

If you don't take this advice, I suggest asking next time at the table to double the stakes. This way, you multiply youre winrate by 2x which means you reach your goals even faster!

Thank you for your advice, Kelvis and Crown.

I do agree with pretty much everything you said. It sucks knowing that I've been on a 7k upswing over the past month, yet I have only 5k to my name because of reckless spending. Even last night I went to the strip club and blew $200 there. And it really hit me when I woke up today and realised that I'm literally spending 1k per week. That's more than what a millionaire with a $400k/yr job would spend.

I spoke to my girlfriend today and told her that I'm going to try to be especially tight with money across the near future because this just isn't sustainable. I told her that we can eat a cheap restaurants and eat leftover food from work (we both work at restaurants), but we'll try to avoid fancy restaurants. I've bought a "slab" of beer and left it in the fridge (24 beers cost $50), as well as some $5 bottles of wine, since it would cost $10 per beer to drink at a classy establishment, so that will help cut our costs down significantly. I'm going to try to live the same way I lived before this upswing began; back when I only had $100 to my name.

In terms of poker too, I will constantly remind myself that I'm only just rolled for 1/3 but significantly underrolled for 2/5. The 2/5 games require 3x the bankroll that the 1/3 games require, despite only being 67% higher in blinds and buyin, due to the increased aggression at the table and the fact that people are 3x as deep. And it goes without saying that I'm going to avoid the 1/3 PLO game like the plague, despite how incredibly "juicy" the game might look.

You are right that the average Joe perceives gamblers to blow their money recklessly, and since I'm on a mission to prove people wrong, it's crucial that I don't live up to their expectations and don't become the irresponsible degenerate that they expect me to be.

Today will be a fresh start. 5k bankroll and grinding 1/3 live. Being disciplined, following BRM and not blowing money recklessly off the table. Gl me.

Solid post OP. I like the insight GL

I don't mind OP taking measured and controlled shots at higher games. After all, that's how many of the pre-BF online pros made big money. As long as they are that - measured and controlled. Unfortunately, he feels like the type of person who will one day jump into a higher game and tilt off everything he has.

You need some sort of mental and emotional support, like a coach or a friend who understands poker and can discuss hands + the mental side of the game. Think about the support people have in areas like sport - they have their coaches, family, close friends, sports psychologists etc. No one could get to the top on their own. It seems like no one supports you whatsoever. Everyone in real life just thinks you're a degenerate gambler and thinks you will fail.

The lack of support will slowly eat away at you mentally over time. You have your girlfriend, but she seems to only use you for your money (just the impression I got, maybe I'm wrong there).

I think you’re trying to make unrealistic measures. Don’t go from spending 1k a week, $200 on strippers, to not taking your girlfriend out on meals. It’ll effect your quality of life and the overall life EV loss is not worth the money you save.

Instead, you should make smarter life decisions, treat yourself once in a while, but don’t be stupid with your spending. This falls in line with good BRM, you wouldn’t feel the need to spend wrecklessly / be extremely tight if you were consistently making similar amounts of money each month. The results of your sessions should definitely not have an effect on your spending habits. This is the same concept as people who live lavishly on payday, and then live broke for the rest of the week.

One of my friends who has been playing pro for 10+ years said to me “life nits tend to always do well in poker”. I agree with this statement, I’ve seen some very talented friends crash and burn because of poor life decisions.

Gl mate

I'd recommend not talking about poker with people who don't understand that it's different from playing roulette. An easy way to identify those people are that they say the following:

I have a cousin who counts cards too

The house always wins

You can't leave when you're on a heater


People who don't take poker seriously or play at all generally lump it in with all other things in the casino.

Also, if your casino has decent comps and restaurants use them for a poker free date night with the girlfriend.

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JJ is a really difficult hand to play

$1/$3, 9-handed, loose-passive table, $300 eff.

Hero is dealt Q9o (no spade) in BB
5 limpers
Hero checks

Flop ($17, 6ways) is As Qs Qc

Hero bets $20
UTG calls $20
Everyone else folds

Turn ($53, HU) is 4h

Hero bets $45
UTG calls $45

River ($134) is Td

Hero bets $90
UTG calls $90

I show my hand and UTG shows Jh Jd ?!?!

"Bad luck. Pocket Jacks are a really difficult hand to play."

"I block King-Jack! I block King-Jack!"

OP if you want some honesty you're going about the whole bankroll/spending thing all wrong. By the sound of it you don't have another income so you can't replenish what you spend from your bankroll. If this is the case then you need to be super strict with what you're spending your money on, especially things that aren't necessities. For example, do you need to eat out 3 times per week? At the early stages of building your bankroll you probably want to budget all of your fixed costs, add in some variable costs such as leisure/eating out etc and then look to only spend that in a week.

Such as:

Rent $200
Bills $200
Food $150
Leisure $150

If you're then spending double that because you had one good session you're not acting like a pro. A pro would be excited that their good session gives them more buy ins, less risk of ruin, less pressure etc. I'm not being negative but I'm not sure you're mature enough to be the level of pro you want to be. I've been there before, I now have a full time job which pays all of the bills and I use poker simply as poker with little pressure. Many others will have been there before, make the same mistakes etc and like someone earlier in the thread mentioned, you will have to make them for yourself.

All I can say is please do your best to budget and I would actually advocate getting other people involved in your journey. If you say to your gf or your parents "ok these are my costs each week" and then you're consistently grinding out more than that, proving you can win and save more than you would make in a job then that will win them over. At the moment you're too financially involved in your bankroll, losing 2-3 buy ins is the most common thing ever and it should not even phase you, let alone lead to you calling it a downswing. You need to remove that attachment and the only way you'll do that is by having a bigger bankroll, which at the moment means you need to play more and spend less.

GL anyway.

yo man,
im from melb too. hopefully i can move up the ranks of 2/5. GL. subbed

I have two sources of income: I earn around $400/week working at a pizza shop and then poker is my secondary income.

I do admit though that I'm overspending. I really need to cut down on expensive restaurants, alcohol and nights out.

$362 down today at 1/3. I was winning at first but then I pulled 3 big bluffs and ran into basically the nuts everytime.

I bluff raised an 9h 4c 3h 2c 8s river against a nitty Asian girl that limp-called pre, x/called flop, x turn and bet river. I had no clubs or hearts in my hand so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to get her off a 1pr hand, but of course she had exactly 65cc.

I bluff jammed a 97658 river after it checked to me. This was roughly 2x overbet but the guy had KT.

There was another bluff too but I cbf'd posting it.

I'm sure if I posted all of these hands in the LLSNL forum, everyone would be like "dude don't bluff at low stakes live. Just always value bet and never bluff." But I feel like these people incredibly oversimplify the game. There's nothing wrong with bluffing nits and TAGs, just as long as you try to avoid bluffing stations.

Living an unhealthy lifestyle

I'm a tall skinny guy. So skinny in fact that my BMI says I'm underweight. I've been meaning to go to the gym regularly and get my weight up by 10kg, so I can be healthy, more energetic and look more attractive, but so far this year, I've only been to the gym 4 times total. Pretty poor effort.

I'm not eating enough either. I eat on average about 2 meals per day. When I'm not working: I'll wake up at 4pm, go to a restaurant for a plate of food at 7pm, then not eat until 4am when I'll grab either a meat pie from 7/11 or a Bacon Deluxe burger from Hungry Jack's (Aussie equivalent of Burger King). And that will be all I eat the entire day. When I am working: I'll do the same thing but maybe eat half a leftover pizza from work too. I'll also drink an iced coffee each day and the milk kind of fills me up.

There aren't too many food options available after midnight, that's the problem. I'm not allowed to cook after midnight too because it will wake up my flatmates (and I suck at cooking too), but I really do want to start eating healthy food and not have 50% of my diet consisting of either Hungry Jack's, leftover pizza or 7/11 meat pies. The quality of food I eat when I'm not with my girlfriend is horrendous, and even the quantity of food is appallingly low too.

For this reason, I'm considering taking a 1 week break from poker and really focus on waking up earlier, going to the gym and eating healthier food. I think a short break from poker would do me a lot of good, both mentally (not getting burnt out) and physically (more time for physical activities like the gym). It will also give me some time to take a step back and reflect on my winnings. In 2 months, I went from being 1.3k down to being 5.5k up, which is a huge sum of money to me, given that I spent most of last year with less than 1k to my name. So I think it would be good for me to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of what I've accomplished and what my goals are, rather than being so intensely focused on the day-in-day-outs of it all.

Home games vs the casino

There are a lot of home games in Melbourne. It's not illegal to run home poker games in Australia, but it is illegal to take rake, so those things aren't usually advertised.

Anyway, I've found that home games tend to have slightly lower rake, slightly larger buyins and more options for things like live straddling and running it twice or more. They also don't have that bull**** 10 second timer that Crown Melbourne has. And they usually offer free food and drinks, including alcohol. So they're run better in that sense.

The downside is that home games are a massive regfest. Think about the top 20% of 2/5 and 5/10 players at your casino, now imagine them playing deep-stacked 1/3. People are quite nitty but also thinking players that can make moves at the right moment, like x/raising the turn on a flush draw when they know they can credibly rep a strong hand. There's a lot of 3betting, 4betting and squeezing too.

Overall, I find that the downside of home games (significantly tougher competition) outweighs all of the upsides combined, so for that reason, I think it's generally far better for your hourly winrate to just grind at the casino.

That's probably a good idea. Maybe it is worth it to organize all your expenses and make sure that you're able to make due without resorting to poker, and maybe save a little each month too. That way you can do literally whatever you want with poker.

Make sure you're good to go financially and mentally, make a bankroll plan that makes sense and follow it. If poker is something for you then eventually results will come, if it isn't then nothing lost. Share these plans with people that you like support from so that it doesn't seem like you're 'just' gambling but there is actually a structure to the madness. They might still not get it but at least it buys you some good will and when you're getting consistent results you can let those speak for you.

The heater just won't turn off

So I know that I said I was contemplating taking a week off poker, but the gambling addiction reels us all in sooner or later. I lasted less than 48 hours until I felt a strong magnetic force pulling me towards Packer's Den (the casino).

There's a superstitious belief amongst gamblers that when you've ran really bad recently, you must be due for a win, and vice versa. But that's nonsense. It doesn't matter whether you're currently going through the biggest upswing/downswing of your life. Things can always get better/worse.

In short, I played 2hrs today of 1/3 and made $1506 profit. Now I'm $7008 up for the year at live poker, which is more than 70% of the way towards my 2018 live poker goal.

Here's one of the notable coolers:
$763 effective
UTG opens $15
2 callers
Hero calls $15 SB with 44

Flop ($57, 4ways) is 943 with two hearts
Hero checks
UTG bets $40
2 folds
Hero raises to $125
UTG calls $125

Turn ($298) makes it 9437 and flush completed
Hero bets $180
UTG calls $180

River ($658) makes it 94377
Hero jams $443
Villain snap calls $443 with 33

So we flopped set over set, rivered boat over boat and scooped a $1544 pot. That was just one of the many lucky hands I had tonight.

You never follow any advice, do you? So much good advice in this thread and you just ignore it.

What do you mean? There hasn't been a single post in this thread that I've ignored.