Hi everyone,

asl: 29, m, Sweden.

I have been thinking about creating a thread about my progress as a part time poker player. My reasons for doing this (in no particular order):

1. Keep myself motivated
2. Add some pressure in the sense that I have to "report" my progress here.
3. Force myself to do some post session analysis
4. Keep a log of my progress
5. Get input and insights from other 2+2'ers
6. Improve my english
7. A bunch of other things i can't think of right now

My background and current situation:

For the past 5 years or so i have been playing zero hands of poker. During this time i have been busy getting my education, working as an engineer, taking care of my two kids and being a husband. Before that i did play about 5 years more or less seriously. The last of those years i did nothing but play poker, and managed to eek out a living with about $35,000 in profit from mid stakes limit holdem. This result was a massive disappointment as i had expected to make at least $100,000. After considering my options i decided that the best way to proceed was quit playing poker and get an education and a real job. While I studied structural engineering in the evenings and nights, i had a full time day job. This, and getting two children in the same period, made me realize what hard work really was. The "work" i had put in my poker career should not be called work at all, it would be an insult to the concept.

Now, after getting more settled in my life, i realize that i actually have some spare time that i can use on poker. For the past six months i have been playing quite a bit of micro stakes NL holdem with varying results. I have been reading a bit on 2+2, buying some new books and signing up for a membership at DeucesCracked. As far as i can tell my biggest problem is that i dont follow through on my plans. Way to often do i wander of the path that i have chosen myself instead of finishing what i have started. You wouldnt believe how many books on poker i have read the 3 first chapters and nothing more. The madness has to end!

My current poker status:

Site: Pokerstars
Game and Stakes: FR NL5 ZOOM
Bankroll: $140

Main Goals 2015:

1. Become a winning player at NL25
2. Play 20K hands per month
3. Studying 4 hour per week
4. Physical exercise 4 hours per week
5. Updating this thread with interesting hands as they come up, concepts/theory that i find difficult or interesting and documenting goal progress once every week.

Comments on goals:

1. To become what i would call a winning player at NL25 i will make a somewhat loose definition: to win more than 4bb/100 over 20k hands. Now i know that this hand sample is way to small to say anything certain, but given the relatively short period of time this will have to do. I could have set my goal at NL10 with a larger hand sample, but that seems a bit to unambitious.
2. Will probably play more than this, but it happens now and then that i have to travel quite a bit at work.
3. The studying will mainly consist of reading books and articles, watching videos and analyzing handhistories and database.
4. Should be mostly running or cycling, but can be lifting weights as well.
5. This one ties all the other goals together. This is where i make sure that i follow through on all the things i have planned to do. I will try to set weekly goals in my progress updates just to see how that works.


Hope to get a lot of constructive feedback from the great community here at 2+2.

I played a session of about 2k hands today.

I feel like it was a bit messy. Didnt play my A-game most of the time.

A few interesting hands came up:

H1:

BTN: $7.19 (143.8 bb)
SB: $5.43 (108.6 bb)
Hero (BB): $5.85 (117 bb)
UTG+1: $6.65 (133 bb) (21/18/6 over only 29 hands)
UTG+2: $4.22 (84.4 bb)
MP1: $11.54 (230.8 bb)
MP2: $11.41 (228.2 bb)
MP3: $5.14 (102.8 bb)
CO: $8.73 (174.6 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q J
UTG+1 raises to $0.15, 3 folds, MP3 calls $0.15, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.47) K 5 A (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets $0.30, MP3 folds, Hero raises to $0.85, UTG+1 raises to $1.65, Hero calls $0.80

Turn: ($3.77) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets $4.85, Hero calls $4.05 and is all-in

River: ($11.87) 2 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

[/hand_history][/converted_hand]


I probably should just flat the flop here. Villain has to be strong here when he is CBetting this board into two people, i guess at least something like AQ.
The C/R probably wont get villain to make any bad folds.
When i do decide to check raise, i probably should check raise a bit bigger. This size just smells flushdraw.

When i get 3-bet here, and with such a small 3-bet, i do think that just flatting is OK. After all, it seems like villain is inviting me into the hand I probably cant get him to fold here.

H2:

Hero (BTN): $5.69 (113.8 bb)
SB: $10.64 (212.8 bb)
BB: $5.07 (101.4 bb) (17/12/2.5 over 103 hands)
UTG+1: $9.60 (192 bb)
UTG+2: $5.81 (116.2 bb)
MP1: $1.57 (31.4 bb)
MP2: $5.79 (115.8 bb)
MP3: $6.03 (120.6 bb)
CO: $5.02 (100.4 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with K A
4 folds, MP3 calls $0.05, CO folds, Hero raises to $0.25, SB folds, BB raises to $0.55, MP3 folds, Hero calls $0.30

Flop: ($1.17) 8 A 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.60, BB calls $0.60

Turn: ($2.37) K (2 players)
BB bets $0.90, Hero raises to $3.74, BB raises to $3.92 and is all-in, Hero calls $0.18

River: ($10.21) 5 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

[/hand_history][/converted_hand]


This is more of a cooler than anything else.
However, i am wondering if the all-in raise on the turn is good. Villain has a strong range here preflop. The check on the flop means one of four things: he misses and gives up, he hits a monster and slowplay, he hits a monster and plans to C/R or he has something like kings or queens and decides to play it passively. Now when he just calls the flop we are left with monster or PP below Ace. When the king hits on the turn and he donkbets it smells fishy. I actually did think of the possibility while playing the hand, but decided i wouldnt be able to lay it down on the river anyway. This however should not be a reason to bet. I really think a call here would be the best play since we cant get any worse hands to call, and we cant get villain to make a mistake by folding.

I have a few more hands that i might post later.

A general observation: Limpers is still a goldmine! I will try to isolate them as often as i can. They almost always fold to a Cbet.

Another one: Setmining might not be as good at NL5 due to a lot passive players. I will at least demand Villains to have 80bb and AF > 2.5 to consider setmining. And the earlier position the better.

Thats all i have time for now.

Gl man! Subbed to your thread...btw what's the biggest difference u notice now compared to 5 years ago? $35000 is pretty good man...

Don't u think starting off from 5NL isn't worth it because the rake is too high?

Thank you JYamada.
It would be hard for me to tell you what the biggest difference compared to 5 years ago is because i obly played limit back then. I do think that the games are a bit tighter now, but that may just be a consequence of it being zoom. I would think that people generally get less impatient in zoom.

I agree that $35000 is pretty good, but it was far below my (unrealistic) expectations at the time. It is also a lot less than i make in my regular job now.

You may be right about the rake at NL5. However, i feel very confident that i will move relatively quickly up to NL10. My plan is to start playing NL10 as soon as i have 20 buy ins ($200).

Small update on studying:

I am trying to work my way through Doug Hulls new book "poker workbook for math geeks". This really basic stuff it seems. The book has a ton of problems that can be solved with the good old pen and paper. It is not hard by any means, but i do think that all of this repetition will allow me to estimate equities and pot odds more precisely at the table.
Anyway, i have now just about finished the second section of the book "turn math". It bascally covers how to estimate your equity with one card to come. As expected, the way that we should find the equities is by counting outs and using the "2-rule". This is all standard and mentioned in every book post 2006. However, it also includes some adjustments. For every 4 outs, you should add one extra percent to your equity.

For example: AsKs vs QdQh on a 7s2sTh5d board.
Outs: 3 Aces, 3 Kings, 9 Spades = 15 outs.
Because we have 15 outs, we should add 4 extra points to our equity.
Equity: 15×2+4=34%

I had actually never heard of this adjustment. It should make quite a difference towards more accurate results.

Looking forward to working through the "flop math" section to see if there are anything new there as well.

BTW, The actual equity in the example is 34.09. Thats a pretty good estimate...

Weekly update 1

As it has been only 2 days, there really isnt that much to report.

Bankroll: 156 (+16)
Hands played: 3k
Study: about two hours (Doug Hull book)
Exercise: had only one workout of about 1 hour.
Thread: going good

Weekly goals next week:

Going on holiday, and i am really unsure about the quality of the wireless internet at the place we are going. I may have trouble getting in some good playing volume. I will however try to get a lot of work done in the Doug Hull book. Exercise 4 hours shouldnt be a problem either. When it comes to updating this thread i really hope that i can get a good enough Internet connection so that i can post any interesting stuff from the book.

Weekly update 2

I have actually been able to play almost 4k hands this week. That is a lot better than i expected.

Bankroll: 179 (+23)
Hands played: 4k
Study: About 4 hours mediocre quality. (PWBFMG and Easy Game)
Exercise: plenty (Swimming, cycling, running, walking)
Thread: Not had the chance to update much.

Goals for next week: will be on holiday for another week, so the goals will be the same as last week.

a fun hand:







No comment needed on that one i guess.

I am still not done with the Turn section of PWBFMG, but i am almost there. There are a ton of problems to solve in this book, and i feel that it really helps my game. I hope that i can get started on the flop section this week.

Monthly update 1 and weekly update 3

A bit late updating this week. Had some really bad internet this week and i really didnt want to fight with the connection too much.

Anyway, have not been able to play that much this week. About 2k hand is all that i got in. However i did win enough to break the $200 mark. So from this week i will be giving NL10 a shot. I am thinking that i will give it a 5 BI shot, and if that does not work out it is back to NL5. However, my confidence is pretty high atm, so i am thinking more about what i have to do to get ready for NL25. More on that in a later post.

Week 3:
Bankroll: 203 (+24)
Hands played: 2k
Study: about 5 hours (reading Easy Game, working with PWBFMG and listening to The Mental Game Of Poker)
Exercise: about 7-8 hours of different activities
Thread: Low activity

Month 1:

Bankroll: 203 (+63)
Hands played: 9k

New Process

While on vacation I have had the chance to listen to Jared Tendlers book “The Mental Game Of Poker”. Even though I haven’t got through the whole book yet, there are some stuff in there that I would like to incorporate into my game and study-routines right now to help me reach my long term goals. This really is basic stuff, but I do think that it will help me focus on improving my game in a more structured fashion.

In his book Tendler describes the “Adult Learning Model” (ALM), which is a theory that defines the four levels of the learning process. The holy grail of learning is unconscious competence, where you have learned something so well that it is totally automatic. To get to this level you need repeat the skill that you are trying to learn enough times so that you no longer need to think about what you are doing. He also talks about “The Process Model” (TPM). This is basically a model for how one should structure the learning process. It is split up in five steps: 1. Preparation/warmup, 2. Performance, 3. Results, 4. Evaluation and 5. Analysis. I am not going to go into detail about it here because it is really basic stuff that we all know and already use, but if you are interested I definitely think Tendlers book is worth a read.

I think that structuring the work on my technical poker game after this model will be very beneficial. It is not that I think it is groundbreaking new stuff, but I think it is important to be aware of the process that one is working in. Now, I have decided that I will choose one concept every week/month that I shall work and focus on. The criteria for choosing that area will mainly be areas of my game that I do think need work, but it may be new concepts that I am currently unaware of, or something I choose for a completely different reason. However, as long as I play on the lowest levels (<NL50), the development of a solid value-based game will be used as a guideline. I will avoid getting into balanced ranges and that kind of stuff, because I don’t think that the opponents are good enough that I need to take such measures. The monthly concept in focus will be something that is really important and is a big part of the overall game, while the weekly concept will be more detail focused. When the week/month is over I plan to evaluate if I am ready to leave the concept or I if I will keep it for one more period. Doing it this way the concepts should be made a part of my unconscious competence or close to it.

I will use TPM to make sure that I do get enough focus on the concepts. This is how I plan to do it:

1. Preparation: Review of handhistories where the monthly and/or weekly concepts appear. I will try to make this a 15 min session just to get a repetition of what I am focusing on.

2. Performance: I will decide how long I am going to play before I start. During play the only kind of evaluation I will do is marking hands for review later. Try to be focused on the game that is currently going on.

3. Results: Try not to focus too much on winrate, but rather on my own impression on how well I have played in the session, how well I focused and if I feel that I have improved my game from the last session.

4. Evaluation: Immediately after the session I will review handhistories where I did have a tough decision or that the concepts in focus did appear. If there are some hands that I have real trouble with, I will post them on 2+2 or DC to get a second opinion. Write a short note (for myself) on how I feel that the session went. This shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes.

5. Analysis: This is of table work. I will use this time to do research on the concepts I am working on. I will look at handhistories, read books and forum posts and watch training videos. I will also try to identify a common leak/exploitable tendencies in my opponents game each week.

If anyone has anything to add to my general plan, or any questions/comments, I would appreciate feedback.

The concepts will be announced with a quick summary of my current understanding on every weekly/monthly update.

Played a 1,8k session yesterday. won 18 bb/100.

A few interesting hands occured:

Hand 1: VS assumed fish (60/0 over 15 hands)

BTN: $9.98 (99.8 bb)
SB: $15.69 (156.9 bb)
BB: $5 (50 bb)
Hero (UTG+1): $14.95 (149.5 bb)
UTG+2: $10.28 (102.8 bb)
MP1: $6.33 (63.3 bb)
MP2: $9.95 (99.5 bb)
MP3: $10.32 (103.2 bb)
CO: $15.69 (156.9 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with A K
Hero raises to $0.30, 7 folds, BB calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.65) 4 K 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.50, BB calls $0.50

Turn: ($1.65) 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $0.80, BB raises to $4.20 and is all-in, Hero calls $3.40

River: ($10.05) 9 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

[/hand_history][/converted_hand]

Comment: I find it really hard to range villains in these situations. but i think i made the correct play on the turn with the information available. The flop sizing may be way off.

Hand 2: vs 24/18 over 51 hands



Comment: I am not sure that a typical NL10 player will ever call this all-in with anything less than AA. I think this is to aggressive against someone who is not a complete maniac.

Hand 3: Vs 38/14 over 21 hands



Comment: I raise the turn because i expect the J to bring some fold equity. This may be totally wrong against a player with these stats who may not be capable of laying down a better pair of queens.

Weekly update 4

This week has been very good. I only had my first losing session yesterday, so this far NL10 is going great.

Bankroll: $270 (+67)
Hands Played: 5k
Study: About 4 hours (but not good enough quality)
Exercise: About 2 hours
Thread: Not enough activity

This result is great, but my mind has been mostly on my weekly and monthly concepts. I have been pondering about the monthly concept in particular. Actually i had decided that i would focus on the reasons for betting (as described in easy game), but i changed my mind yesterday after i played a session where my concentration was way off.

Monthly concept: Find good times to play

This is something that i have known is a problem for quite some time now. I too often sit down and play when i am to tired or there is so much stuff going on around me that i cant fully concentrate. I will try to work on finding the times where i can play without distractions and when i am well rested. Of course this means that i may be getting a lower volume than i would have otherwise, but i think that my bottom line will be better when playing my A-game a larger portion of the time i am playing. It demands quite a bit of discipline, and it will be interesting to see the results at the end of the month. Additionally i will avoid playing when i have so little time that i cant do any warm-up or evaluations pre- and post-game.

Weekly concept: Turn decisions without a made hand

First i thought i would look at when i had a draw and no initiative on the turn. However this happens so rarely! i seem to have the initiative almost all the time. So i have decided that i will focus on whether or not i am correct to be aggressive or passive on the turn in addition to having enough equity when drawing on the turn. The reason that i choose the turn now, is that the math here is pretty simple, and that the bets are often large, so it should make a difference that can be noticed on the bottom line. The main sources of literature i will use are Doug Hulls "Poker Workbook For Math Geeks" and chapter 4 of Andrew Seidmans "Easy Game". And of course any nuggest on this forum.

Weekly update 5

Once again, i have not been able to play much this week. Taking care of the house, working and being with the family have take up almost all of my time. The good news is that i have avoided playing at bad times.

Bankroll: 291 (+21)
Hands played: 2k
Study: 2 hours
Exercise: Zero
Thread: No activity

Not sure how much i will be focusing on poker the upcoming week. Have a ton of other things to do. Actually i am looking forward to the end of the summer. things should start to calm down then.
I have had the chance to do some research on my turn play. Depending on the end result, i may post it here when i feel that i have done enough work.

My weekly concept will be the same as last week. Need to get in a few more hours before i can move to something else. Maybe i will keep it for two more weeks.

This thread needs graphs.

Yes. I agree!
Will try to employ some graphs from next time i am updating? (Using phone now)

What stakes do you play Husker?

Btw, played a terrible session tonight. Down 4 buy ins over 1.5k hands. I was dead tired after 500 hands, but just kept clicking buttons for 1k more. Once in a while, i play idiotic sessions like that. The really bad thing is that i would have left the tables if i had been up. I have to sort this out in some way.

I just play 25nl these days.

Weekly update 6

I have gotten to play plenty this week, but man has it been swingy. Well, maybe swingy isn't the right word because i played terrible at the start of the week. It is quite hard to name the reason for playing bad, but i do think that i may not have been as focused as i should be in some of the sessions. Maybe my lack of physical exercise has something to do with it, or maybe i had too many other things on my mind. In any case i need to take care of the exercising stuff.

Now, over to the good news. I have done a lot of work on my weekly concept "Playing the turn with a drawing hand", and i feel that i am ready to move on to another topic. I have researched and calculated plenty of situations that frequently arise, and i feel that i have a much better understanding of the factors involved when making a decision on whether to bet or not OTT. Now, i have known that the factors involved are pot equity and fold equity, but now i have a clearer image in my mind on when i have enough FE and when i dont. Of course, i could have done a lot more work on this, but i think that i will let the information sink and mature for a while and maybe pick it up at a later time. I have written an "article" about the subject. I might post it here if i feel like it is well enough written that someone else may benefit from it. Next week i will be focusing on two really basic topics: 1. Keeping my preflop game as simple as i can when i dont have information 2. Not paying off big bets on turn and river. Both of these seem obvious, but i will take the time to focus on them anyway. I actually think that it is good to check back on the basics once in a while.

Related to topic #2: I have also noticed a potentially huge leak in my game, namely overestimating the other players. I have caught myself thinking: "this must be a blocker bet" or "this looks like an obvious slowplay, too obvious, he must be bluffing" etc. I think that i can save a ton of bets if i have the discipline to fold in situations where i am facing big bets. As one should expect, NL10 players usually have it when they risk a large piece of their stack.

I also received a $75 bonus this week.

Results:

Bankroll: $386 (+95) *
Hands played: 14k
Study: 5h
Exercise: 0
Thread: 0

* This includes the bonus and a small loss in a tournament i played.

Graph (here you go Husker):



As for my monthly goal, it is going well. I do think about how i feel before i sit down to play, and that is really what i want. I want to have an inner voice that asks whether it is a good idea to play or not. So ill keep that up until it becomes automatic.

My new weekly concepts, as mentioned above: 1. to keep my preflop game simple when i have little or no information on villains, but try to exploit as much as i can when i have info. 2. Not paying off big bets on turn and river.

So lets hope for a good week then.

Behold!!!! A graph!

Yes!
And thank god that i managed to pull back from the losing sessions. Would have been embarrassing to post my first graph showing a losing week.

Nicce defs sub gl.

You are definitely more aggressive in your BRM strategy, im at 200 and just starting to take small shots at 5nl.

But love the long writes about the books and particularly just a concept. im not a big reader so love to learn in small bits like this

Thank you. I will try to keep it up. Actually it write it mostly to make myself repeat the stuff as much as possible, but it is nice if someone else finds it useful as well. If you have any questions about anything i write about, please ask them. Thinking more about the concepts will only make me learn them better.

Regarding my BRM, i think that there is little difference in skill on NL5 and NL10. I also feel very comfortable with playing as high as NL25. Therefore, i think that i am just wasting time if i dont move up. Also, i am strickt about moving down again if i lose 5 buy ins. My plan is to move up to NL25 when i have 20 buy ins, and move up to NL50 when i have 30 buy ins. So, when i have a $500 BR i move to NL25 and when i have $1500 i move to NL50.

This is BRM stuff is IMO something that is very individual. You need to feel comfortable with what you are doing.

Played a strange session yesterday. Down almost 3 buy ins over 1500 hands.
I actually think that i played reasonably good, but that didnt help much on the result.

It started fantastic though. On the very first hand, i made my first Royal Flush! So i guess i can scratch that of my list.




It didn't last however. Just when i was starting to get the steam up, this hand occured. Yes, this is a bad beat. But i am really happy with my call OTF here. These huge overbets is something that i used to struggle with. How should they be interpreted? As i see it, there are two possibilities here. The first one is that villain is on a draw, usually a FD. He is relying on his fold equity to back up his pot equity to make this a profitable bet. The other option is that he has a medium strength hand that he wants to protect against a flushdraw. So when i have TPTK i am usually ahead, and should make the call.





A bit later i got tangled up in another hand. This hand i did not play well i think. My all-in raise OTF here is way too aggressive. He could of course have a set of 6s or 2s when he is 3-betting the flop, but i think that is rare at NL10. Players tend to fear the flush too much and only call a reraise if they have a hand like that. So that would leave villain with only made flushes. And against that i have only 34% pot equity and 0% fold equity. I think that calling his initial flop bet with a plan to call down if the board didnt pair. Maybe i could consider a fold OTR, depending on bet size.





This last hand is a bit strange. I wasnt expecting him to show AT in a million years. It was way out of the range i had assigned to him. I think the play here is reasonably straight forward. Maybe i could have sized a bit bigger on the flop, but then again the king is out there, and the preflop raiser might be up to do a CR. Maybe i also could have sized my turn bet to about $2 so that he would be left with about a pot sized bet OTR. That would have made it easier to get stacks in OTR. Now when the queen hits, there are so many hands in his range that are second best, that i have to value bet. Even when he raises i think i beat most of his range. 66, 22, KQ, AK, KJ could all play the hand this way.

Weekly update 7 and Monthly update 2

This week i have been forced to focus more on doing non-poker stuff than i had hoped for. Working overtime and painting the house has been my main tasks. It seems that i always get tangled up in projects that takes a lot more time than we have anticipated at work. Dont know if i work to slow or if we are just lousy at estimating how much time we need in projects. Anyway, working overtime brings some real money in, and that is never a bad thing. The house painting stuff is usually really boring. his time however i have equipped myself with the audiobook "How to Be a Poker Player: The Philosophy of Poker" by Haseeb Qureshi. This is really interesting stuff to listen to. It is different from other books that i have read, maybe something along the lines of "Elements of Poker" but written by a former internet high stakes player. He talks about everything from how to best structure learning to the benefits of eating sound food to how one should deal with variance. Actually, i think that it was so interesting that i have ordered a paper copy of it. In addition to the book being good, i really like his style of reading. (He reads himself)
Also i have had the chance to read the first few chapters in the Doyle Brunson Autobiography. An entertaining read to say the least, but i think that the author could have done a better job with structuring the material. It seems like he has just pieced together stories and didnt care about the transitions between them.
For my studying i havent been completely able to leave the work i did on turn decisions behind. I have done some calculations on exactly how much implied odds changes our required fold equity when betting on the turn. I feel like this is something that a lot of players dont really bother to check, they just brush it aside saying "we have implied odds, so our bet is profitable".

This first graph shows how much fold equity we need for any given pot equity and some chosen bet sizes. It can be viewed as if our bet were an all-in bet or that we were looking at the turn in isolation. Actually it would be exactly the same for the flop and preflop as well.



As we can see, we need quite a bit of pot equity if we want to rely on it by it self.

Now lets look at the situation where we expect to earn a half pot sized bet on the river when we make our hand. I assume here that we dont lose any more money if we dont make our hand. The bet sizes still refer to our sizing on the turn.



We can see that the required pot equity for not needing any fold equity has dropped quite a bit. For a pot sized turn bet we would need about 34% if we neglected the implied odds. Taking implied odds into the equation reduces this to about 26%. Another way of saying it: the required outs has been reduced from about 15 to 12. That can make a huge difference in how we value our hands. Now, we almost always have some kind of fold equity, and that would make the situation even better.

Over to this weeks (disappointing) results:

Bankroll: $408 (+22)
Hands played: 5.5k
Study: 6h (including some of the audiobook here)
Exercise: 6h (including a soccer match!)
Thread: 1 update

Graph:



Monthly results:

Bankroll: $408 (+205)
Hands played: 26.5k


All in all, i am happy with the month. I am closing in on NL25 now. The only bad thing is that i have lost my Goldstar status.

I've stolen those FE graphs