Started to play poker almost 3 months ago with the goal of having some fun. Started to run good initially and thought myself to be a great player. Soon began to lose and blamed it on variance. As losses mounted playing $1/$1 live, started to play online 2NL and lost heavily there too.

So far I have lost nearly $2.5k live and about $175 at 2NL online(28k hands).

I have set myself a hard budget of $3000 in poker as I feel there has to be a point when I say "enough", so that is another $250 to deposit if the need arises.

I have $50 in my Stars account and I hope I manage to get better at this game.

youve only been playing 3 months. you need to take ALOT of time to work on your game off the tables and luckily for you there are many resources for you to use if youre willing to take the time and put in the work. if youre gonna continue to play on stars you should probaly switch over to sng'z and play the lowest buyin(believe they have50 cent games, maybe lower dunno for sure as im in the US) level possible to slowly build your roll and gain experience as opposed to dropping almost 100 buyins at the lowest cash game level, the sng's should be significantly easier. if you wanna play cash then i suggest switching to another site where the games are softer. GL

Three months is just like unzipping your pants to see you have an erection for the first time, thinking how you could/should use it.

You need a lot of practice my friend.

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

Need a bigger sample size. Also need more practice.

Thanks folks for your advice. I will not play live till I get to a decent level. Started to read books this weekend. Currently reading "Crushing the MicroStakes" by Nathan Williams. Plan to read "The little green book " by Phil Gordon next.

Today's performance:
Hands: 608
Won/Lost = -$1.08
EV = $5.61

Not a bad day, studied quite a bit, tightened up my calling ranges after realising I was calling too much. The session was played with 16/13/2.5. My last 5000 hands were played at 19/11/3.

Today's Performance(Day 2)
Hands: 1341
Won/Lost = $2.56
EV = $3.66
Stats: 12.63/10.83/2.49
My stats are probably too nitty today. I am avoiding trouble hands at the moment and trying to play ABC poker.

Completed reading "Crushing the Microstakes", so will start "The Little green book" tomorrow.

Don't read books the majority of them are out dated.
My advice would be to get a essential runitonce subscription it's only 10bucks a month 1000x better than any book for starting of at the micros

Thanks, MR McDonald, I have been thinking about getting a subscription to a good site. Probably will do it sometime in the next month.

Today's Performance(Day 3)
Hands: 1267
Won/Lost = $8.39
EV = $6.30
Stats: 15/11/4.74

Ran good today with a few all in situations where AA and KK held up. Next 2 days are busy in job so will be able to play/study only in the weekend.

Gordon's book is completely irrelevant to online poker. Sign up to deuces cracked, or even check out some good YouTube vids to get you started. Work on your Opening ranges, playing position, value betting propert and analysing opponents ranges. Be expecting to continue losing(learning) for a little while yet.. Glgl

Today's Performance(Day 4)
Hands: 2000
Won/Lost = -$12.80
EV = -$10.77
Stats: 21/15/6

It was a funny day, AA and KK got cracked 6 times. Biggest takeaway from today's session is understanding that such things can happen. I used to pull my hair off earlier but today I managed to cope well.

I will leave you folks with this funny hand, where I almost celebrated on the turn.
I had AK and opponent had QQ and we went preflop all in.

AJ2 on the flop, turn is a K and river T. I needed to review the hand before I realised that I lost.

MMM...Bacon - I have started watching videos on youtube about microstakes poker.

Year end update:
Total Hands = 94041
Won/Lost = -$192.25.
BB/100 = -10.38
Stats: 27/17/2.5 (6-max)

I am still a losing player, though my game has gotten better and I am slightly positive in the last 20k hands.
Goals for the new year:
1. Try to play at least 10k hands every month.
2. Beat NL2 and move to NL5.
3. Study and deepen understanding of the game.

A new challenge from today:

I had almost forgotten about twoplustwo in the past few months, today morning my birthday mail from the forum made me remember this thread.

In the past 8 months, my online play has been very less and I have played about break even poker online. In live poker, my game has been good and I have made about $3000 playing mostly $1/$1 equivalent game in my local cardrooms. This means I am currently down about $450 in my poker career which is a good comeback from my zenith of nearly $3800 in red.

Overall, I feel my game has improved enough to try the bankroll challenge. As a result, I have deposited ₹2000 (Indian Rupee, nearly $32) in an Indian website(Adda52.com) and will try and grind it up. I will start at the lowest stakes of ₹1/₹2. There are other sites with smaller blind levels and I should be probably playing ₹0.5/₹1 with this bankroll but the number of tables at these stakes is very low. Also, ₹2 is like $0.03 so it is not too high a jump from NL2 that I have played previously.

The other problem with this blind level is that the max buyin of the stake is only 40BB. I prefer playing 100bb deep, but that is available from the next blind level of ₹2/₹4 which would need much bigger bankroll. Also being only 40BB max buyins means I have 25 buyins at these stakes.

So, here is the plan:
1. Grind ₹1/₹2 and increase the bankroll.
2. 40% of the profits will be used to take shots at ₹2/₹4. This means I will take a 1 buyin shot when the bankroll reaches ₹3000. This is aggressive and I might have to revise this.

Target of the Challenge = 2k to 200k.

Day 1 update
Ran good today with no real tough spots. A good start always helps in the game.

Made a profit of ₹127 playing 4 tables of ₹1/₹2.

Starting Bankroll - ₹2000
Current Bankroll - ₹2127

The motivation is high, as is always the case with a new endeavour. Hope I can sustain this.

Yes, this thread was started a year ago, I have a much better mindset now. I don't know if I can change the title.

Regarding study, I do work on that. I have a runitonce subscription. I hope I will be able to pay for it from poker soon