Hi guys, I started playing around 5 months ago and straight away join to a poker school. Some people may disagree but I wanted to learn properly and with an easy way to get more information to improve my game.

Long story short, the first 3 months were quite hard to be honest. The school strategy has a lot of lines to learn and bet sizes and with 0 poker knowledge took me more effort than I thought would take.

The first period "learning the basics" had a lot of huge up/downswings, some stuffs I didn't understand or totally made wrong moves. Also the tilting factor was huge everytime I made a huge mistake.

My first 3 months (my journey started in 2NL):



Luckily this last 2 months finally things are starting to work properly:



My plan is to study every day, if something happens and I can't study next day I study x2. So far I have been studying between 1-2 hours 51 days in a row and plenty of material still waiting for me.

I still have an incredible amount of leaks in my game but 1 step at a time, right?

Fisr play bud... GL

Sounds like we are in the same boat, but you've had far greater results. I never did the poker school, but I study a fair amount. GL, set a few goals.

Today I played 2 sessions, the first one was super weird. I had a massive amount of good hands but nobody call me even in the flop which is quite strange because usually people call most of the time my 1/3 bets in the flop.

3 interesting hands I misplayed... i guess (took me a while to figure out how to post a hand ):



My check/raise all in is totally garbage here, either I call or fold but with an all in villain only should have K,5 or color. Even check/call turn and check/call river is way better than shove because villain could has some bluffs.

Second hand:



Usually pocket 10's are in my 3bet range but we were 4 in the table and I thought someone limp and didn't like the idea of a 3bet (obviously the "limper" was actually BB). Anyways I think everything is standard until we hit the river, here I'm not sure if value bet is a good option. He could try to trap me with 7's but I highly doubt it, either he has a bluff or mid-low pair and he maybe call/maybe not, probably he never has a bluff catcher on a 2 barrel scenario. So probably my best option could be a tiny bet (around 33%) for a call.

i'm going to ask my teacher later in the week (we have a day for a study group) but I think he would like a pot bet or even all in here.

Third hand:



My thought process was quite simple, the pot is too small and I need to raise so we can easily go all in on the river. The problem here is the texture of the board, there is a low chance that villain had a good hand and I need 0 protection. I'm 90% sure the best line was check/call here and check/raise all in on the turn but maybe someone here disagree.

Overall day:

I just faced the worst session of the year so far



I'm not sure what's happening this last 10k hands, pretty much every big pot is a losing hand and in this period I didn't saw a river with any of my top hands (set/ladders). Make me curious if it's just bad luck of I'm doing something bad, I prefer to pick the second one because 10k hands is a good size to point it as "bad luck".

Anyways the biggest losing hands:



I went check/call all the river to the river because I actually didn't mind to see another spade or heart blocking both projects. Villain had 59% vpip and always 3barrel when he bet so I allow him to keep betting.



check/call seems fine in the flop, I have enough equity to call and could give me a free card if villain check. when the river hit the A I actually said "oh ****... he has a set". Had to call anyway.



after losing 3 buy-ins I stop playing and went back to study to regain some of the losing confident.

AA raise the flop to the donkbet, it's not good calling when there's 2 other people behind your equity 4 ways isn't going to be amazing and you'll end up in a tonne of problem spots on turns. If you get reraised you can dump it especially holding the As.

AK you played well

Thanks for the advice nuxxx. Usually in normal pots (heads up) we pretty much always want to call to the villain allowing a wide range, obviously in this situation I didn't know what to do and just call it thinking in the regular strategy but you're right and I'm going to ask today to my teacher

Took a day off to play due the previous day but I still studied. The first session fo the day was terrible again! (what a way to start the thread)



Most relevant hands:



Difficult situation, in the turn I block the color and the ladder so I thought it was ok to call. In the river I had to call and win only 25% of the time. Still feel kind of weird, should I fold here?



Stupid mistake here, on a 4bet situation villain has QQ, KK, AK and maybe JJ. I only win against JJ!!



I don't feel bad in this spot, this guy was a 75/10 (vpip/pfr) and could play like this with a random 10, flush draw or 2 pairs.

Looks like I'm not very good in the calls situations.

88 bet the flop or raise as played, your hand is very vulnerable multiway. It's unfortunate he flopped a straight in this instance but try to get out of the habit of slow playing in these spots, gl in you next session

yesterday I had 2 long sessions, in the first one (around 1,5k hand) I was losing again but probably mostly for tilt, got some good spots and the river **** me over and over. Luckily in the second one i profit 6 buy ins, I'm still down around 4 buy ins since the downsing.



when the tilt is real:



Obviously my session stop after that.

An interesting hand which I'm not sure how to play it. My idea was to bet tiny in the turn and probably check in a lot of situations but villain raise me.



Some finaly thoughts: My red line is disgusting.

GL Man! Will watch this thread closely.

Today I had 2 sessions which make me feel kind of dumb. I'm getting stacked too easy in some spots and I'm not sure if isn't avoidable or I'm just dumb.







I have this kind of hands in pretty much every single session and I still can't learn from them, pathetic.

Anyways, overall day:

The month is ending and today took some time to see my progression checking some statistics.

First, let's compare the graphs:

December:


January (so far):


As you can see, my blue line is pretty much the same between both months with pretty much the same amount of hands but my red line is almost twice as big this month. Where is the leak then?

By position stats:

December:


January:


On the good side, between EP and CO I'm actually winning more this month but I'm winning half the amount in BTN. The biggest issue comes from SB and BB, not sure what change this month but from -10bb to -42bb is a whole world of difference.

Some huge leaks come from W$WSF with 33,7% (36,4% last month) and agg% factor with 17,7%!! (17,1% last month).

After a while thinking what could be my biggest weakness in this position I started to divide all the posible scenarios according to all videos I have to study from my poker school trying to find some leaks.

This statistics comes from all my hands (almost 100k at this point)

Pre flop raise with position (no 3bet, no call to 3bet, no all in preflop):


Pre flop raise out of position (no 3bet, no call to 3bet, no all in preflop):


3bet in position(no call to 3bet, no all in preflop):


3bet out of position(no call to 3bet, no all in preflop):


Interesting, isn't it? I'm a super winner when I'm the aggresor. I feel actually feel quite confortable with pretty much every scenario (3 barrels, bet/check/bet, check/check/bet, etc) and quite a lot of bet sizes depending of the situation (still have some misplays obviously I'm a 2NL player after all)

But what happen in all the scenarios where there are almost no videos to learn?

caller in position(no 3bet, no all in preflop):


caller out of position(no 3bet, no all in preflop):


call to 3bet in position(no all in preflop):


call to 3bet out of position(no all in preflop):


This may look kind of unnecessary but makes me realize how ****ty my ability as a caller is. Now, I don't know if this is how most graphs looks but maybe I'm spending too much time is something that I'm already quite good for my level and should spend some time on my weak areas. Sadly, as I mention before there are few videos talking about this matter.

I'm kind of lost here, I send around 3 weeks ago some messages talking about my red line to my instructor but he just said it's irrelevant until 10NL.

What are your thoughts guys? should I only focus on how to get value from my value hands all the way until 10NL?

Quite large session today:



Some funny hands





This was pretty much a dead sentence but couldn't fold that set, right?

The month is over and I'm a quite disappointed to be honest, I was expecting something close to 10bb/100 thinking about how much I studied and improve some stuffs of my game. Sadly the biggest enemy this time was the red line, funny thing is how my blue line is pretty much even between december/january but in january my red line is twice worst.

January graph


January stats:


The plan this month:

- Improve my w$wsf in BB, currently is 36,3% with -36bb/100 . How I would do it? no idea.

- Improve call to 3bet overall. Currently w$wsf 30,7%!! and -65bb/100 lol. I'm obviously too passive.

- Get better at getting value from my hands. Sometimes I check/call too much instead of check/raise or I'm too afraid of the only combo that beat me, less fear this time but still being smart.

- And finally keep studying every day!

First session of the month:



Weird hand on a 4bet



I don't know if betting in the river is a good idea or not, most people could think I'm bluffing or something but there is a good chance villain has AK here and get destroyed. Maybe 1/3 should be the best.

Multiway hand



I didn't raise because there is still a player waiting to call/fold but after thinking more a raise here seems the only good option, there are too many cards that I don't want to see in the river (diamond, clubs, 2,5,6,7). Got a bad card and had to fold.

Overall quite a good session but I'm starting to get worried about my EV, I'm almost 10 buy ins above EV!!

Anyways, today I hit a milestone: 100$ profit in 2NL

Insane session today! got a lot of value hands getting almost 40% WTSD% BUT got called by a lot of sets. I'm starting to think TPTK isn't really good in multiway hands.

Some sad hands:





Very unconfortable call but can't fold color here.



I was thinking just calling here but villain had calling station stats and BOOM


Honorable mention for AA, the worst hand of the day hahaha:





Overall session (above EV again!):

quite disappointed session today, the first 1k hand I got lucky with the middle value hands and those add up. Sadly the second half I pretty much check/fold everything! didn't hit even 3rd pair or backdoor... nothing, I was bored as fk. It's the first time I lose 5 buyins in the red line in just 1k hands!



AA isn't really good this month



set over set!



I'm not sure if I play it properly... probably I will lose every single time here with this sequence.



Took a dumb risk against a 10% agg player.


I was about to hit 10 winning sessions by the first time

Got a new sub! Keep crushing

thanks dev, I hope you enjoy it

not very long session today, took a couple of hours to review my last 20k hands and check if I'm follow the strategies.

Today's session:


lose twice against the same sequence!
I'm starting to have serious issues with multiway hands





random fish doing random things





Finally a semi bluff that pay off




I'm a bit below EV again, hopefully this will be the tendency in my next sessions to pay off the EV "debt"

Idk what that guy was doing with the k6 hand ����*♂️

The guy was a mega aggro fish, 50% 3bet, 95% agg and 80% vpip. He raise pretty much everytime he can that's why I didn't bother to bet until the river. I guess he just enjoy bluffing, not everyone plays poker to get money.

Took a day off to relax a bit and today spent a lot of time studying.

Today's session:



Lose my 2 all in preflop against AA

Disgusting hand:





Here I really thought villain has some sort of A10-A4 or KQ-KJ, in this stakes I'm pretty much the only one betting 1/3 in specific scenarios. Anyways, I guess I had to call for 1/3 of the pot

Nice bro. What would the kk hand I would of played the same as well. After you check on river and if he bets I think me personally I would fold. The AJ I think I would call river as well just because he donks on the flop.

Interesting news:

Thanks to my current performance and with the approval of my school I officially moved to 5NL

Overall performance:




Not even close of being a good 2NL reg but good enough to move. Still plenty to learn tho.

Also I had to move from Pokerstars to 888poker, sadly I was tracking 5NL tables for some hours to see how it's look and it's very slow. Probably I will have to play "snap" (or zoom version in pokerstars) to actually play for long period of times. Let's see how this go

1.) You don't need anybody's permission but your own to move up stakes
2.) If you break even over 10K hands after rake, you're in the top 10% of 2NL regs.
3.) Keep up the good work.