Really haven't had much time to play. Simply had too much study to do. When I have it has gone quite horribly. Starting to play in a more aggressive style against regs which I have a decent sample, but of course looking for the fishiest games.

There has been a couple preflop coolers and certainly some poorly played hands, but mainly runbad. At least I am not playing 25/50 or something!

Graph in bbs


Graph in $


Hoping to put in some hours over xmas. Sure to be soft games hoping I can grind myself back on track.

damn dude, i would feel easily tilted and just bust my roll lol. i like ur mental game, got any tips? looks like i got a lot of growing up to do mentally wise.

I'm not sure. Just don't play out of your bankroll and play with a loose stoploss. Generally if I drop 5 buyins I'm done for at least a few hours. Sometimes just a couple buyins if I think I'm playing badly or the games aren't that good. I think having a totally fixed one is stupid. You should know when you have dropped enough to quit for the day. If you don't you should quit poker. The only exception to this is when you are shot taking. I think you should have a fixed stoploss here and play fewer, jucier tables.


I have a massive issue about losing money gambling. I have withdrawn my roll a few times for a number of reasons. Either study or work usually. Once because I ran really bad over a really really small sample. I think that was at bet24. When I redeposit months later it is always at a lower stake than I should be depositing. Sometimes as low as 10nl. I can easily afford to deposit more and play 50nl exclusively with some shot taking at 100, but I don't like the idea of using my own money. This is the reason I started at 25nl again in this challenge. I would rather grind up a roll and use other peoples money to go into the unknown. I didn't actually know if I could beat 50nl, but I assumed it is pretty similar. It is. When you are game selecting like I do 50nl is pretty much exactly the same as 25nl. I'm not sure if there is much difference between reg aptitude between 25 and 50. Maybe at 100 it gets a lot harder, I don't know.


I have only just started playing 50nl within the last couple of months. Before that I had never put my money on table above 30nl. I have never "gambled" with just a few buyins for a stake, except when I got the pokerstrategy $50 free on Everest and started playing 10nl HU > 20nl HU > 50nl HU when I had a few buyins for each stake. I think this can be excused as it was the sites money, not mine. I would never take such an approach if it was my money. That would be ******ed. I have never played slots, blackjack or roulette etc. These games just do not interest me at all. I also do no gambling on sports or anything like that. I have a friend that is an oddsetter for a big sportsbook. The % of winners they have is scarily small.


Besides, I'm used to it now. I have always run bad when I have played. It is not my income so I don't really mind as I have never lost money, just not won as much as I would have liked. Of course rakeback helps a lot but I should really be at 100nl by now. There is nothing I can study or practice to run better so I just aim to keep the ev line skyward. In fact I think it has forced me to work harder at my game and become a better player.

Just calculated my ev deficit using the graphs in the old threads. There are two in one thread -ev and the other thread the graph is at expectation.

In total I have played ~225k hands and I am ~60+ buyins below ev. This does not include a stint at bet24 where I ran at least 20 buyins under in a small sample, but I can't really remember and I do not have the HH's so I wont include it. Also the $50 free I ran up to ~$750 playing HU on Everest that I ran a little above expectation, but it was over like 10k hands or something so wouldn't offset it by much at all. All the poker I played before that (3-4 years ago) was slightly negative winrate grinding far too many 5nl/10nl tables on ipoker making a modest profit from rakeback.


I had a friend that was definitely better than me at all forms of poker a couple of years ago. I am most probably better than him at NL now but I have never played PLO so no doubt he would beat me. He used to play underroled and win/lose significant amounts regularly. If he lost a silly pot he would go and sit with his remaining roll 80bbs deep at a 2knl table. This hasn't even crossed my mind once. It seems totally irrational to me. Anyway, he doesn't play anymore. It takes more than being good at poker to be good at poker.


Just ignore the greenline and look at the graph in bb's. If your ev line is consistently tracking up that's all you can do. Just keep playing well and the more you play the more likely you will be to converge with your expectation.

i am guilty of the parts i've bolded. i always tell myself if i reach X amount, i will move up to the next level. but once ive reached it, the money gets to me, and just keep currently played the same level. im beginning to realize im costing myself a lot of money by not moving up.

ive done stupid things as your friend. i dont do it often, but whenever im on a bad streak, i completely lost my mind and take shots at HU 10x my normal stake. stupid i know, but my brain can't function when im on tilt.

Looks like you should just set yourself a rule if you ever play a game with less than 5 buyins again you should let that be your last chance to gamble it up, then quit poker for good. Placing your roll on one table is just gambling.

In fact, if you decide to do this again I think you should just play blackjack. Your edge will be better than the table of midstakes regs who will insta sit you recognising you for what you are; a tilted smallstakes player with his roll on the table. They will almost certainly pick their spots too, knowing you will hit and run them a lot. Of course, if you like gambling and can afford to do so, by all means gamble playing poker, if that's what you like. I am just stating what I would do in your situation.


I am by no means an expert on highstakes games, but I would have thought apart from the few very best players at each stake the playing field is pretty even in skill level, especially in the NL games. The bigger winners are probably the ones that don't spew off to other regs or fish when they are tilted. Either they don't tilt, or they quit.

An example... Islidur is clearly a sicko poker player, but it is well known players only drop a couple buyins to him then leave. They hope to stack him a couple of times so he is stuck and starts going nuts. I saw Phil Galfond do this exact thing myself when railing them playing HUPLO. He just sat out after losing a couple stacks and said something like "too tilted, gtg. wp." The difference here is Isildur would just keep playing, trying to get unstuck. Compare their results and it is obvious who the better all around player is. I don't think Phil was necessarily "too tilted." He probably just wanted to wait till the next time he played him hoping to get him stuck early, or maybe just wait for a text from a friend letting him know Isi was playing and down some.

I don't really tilt too much. IRL I basically have one mood. Im always pretty level, apart from perhaps when I am hungover/very tired or something. A tell tale sign if I think I am starting to tilt a bit is playing too fast and not thinking as much. This especially applies to HU. When I notice this I try to snap out of it or quit.

Been playing a few short session this week when I have had time. Hoping to put in a lot more volume next month. Having to leave a real juicy game down as I really need to go to sleep.

My graph. Almost at 0 profit! Fun times.




Looking forward to a better November.

Finally posted a decent session. Weekend nights are always the best.

Day graph. Just over $200. Mainly 25nl, some 50nl.


Total graph

Not played online since last session. I did bink a live tourney at the nearby casino for £400. The standard was terrible. Some players looked like they may be ok, then I saw them do something disgusting later on. So they were pretty much all bad, but on varying levels.

Two men also had some gold teeth. One of said men blamed the dealers for his bad cards, splashed the pot with his horrible call and looked like he was going to stab the dealer when he was walking to his car later on. I think he genuinely believed certain dealers were luckier than others. I also heard one man say that he liked 72, as when you flopped 2 pair people didn't expect it.

Now I have a roll for livecash too. Will be playing 50p / £1 blinds when I bust out of the tourney on saturdays. A friend is taking 50% of me for this, so I effectively have 8 buyins. The cash line up looked quite a bit different, but hopefully its just more donks with deeper pockets.

Still going to focus on online. Thats where the learning will be done Im sure.

Hi guys.

Been playing a lot of zoom recently. Just trying to get to gold on stars so I can unlock my bonus as well as burning off the rest of my $600 deposit bonus. Four tabling it is just the best format to get VPP quickly and at a predictable rate. I started at 25nl and played about 6k hands to get familiar then moved to 50nl where I have played 12k hands so far. My winrate is 0.8bb/11 and I am up a handful of dollars. Doing this will be worth $250 in FPP bonuses that I can unlock and will pretty much finish off the rest of my deposit bonus.

Here are total graphs in bb and $

bb


$


My plan is to put all of my action on FT for December to check out the games as well as the bonus system. I had an email saying I have a 400$ deal me in bonus as well as Platinum for my previous Iron man status. Should be worth a bit, though when I have looked there doesn't seem to be as many games running as I thought there would be.


As for live my roll took a bit of a nosedive. I was in for £50 in the £10 rebuy + £20 add on after the third level and went out on the bubble holding 88 vs 55 AIPF. They think I am a lucky donk as I am just openshipping my 10-20bb stack every other hand vs 2 or 3 limps. I am no tourney player but this seems like it would be correct with half a hand.

I played cash afterwards and was down £70, but my friend has 50% so it is effectively £35. Just got nothing going. 3b Ak/AQ twice and whiffed on 78T type flops multiway and had to C/f. I double barreled with 7d7s on a AK4cc 7c and he raised my turn bet of 15 IP 2.4x with 70 behind and I called. This guy was going nuts and I was stacking him if I rivered a boat so I think it is OK.

According to my calculations I only need to play 6500 more hands of zoom to reach gold and unlock bonuses, so should be done by the end of the week.

Online has been going horribly recently. Just not used to aggression from unknowns. My default is just to fold a lot, and obviously this isnt good if you are doing it so often. In normal ring games i pick up stats pretty fast, so I can counter their play. Zoom i just fold too much I think. Also, I have had a lot of what seems to be coolers and running quite bad in 3bet pots. People seem to defend wide vs 3bets and my overpairs never seem to be good.

Live is going well though and up to £520 profit, eclipsing my online results. Going to play tonight, hopefully bink another tourney. I seem to be at every final table, though there has been a lot of flip rungood.

Here are my dismal online results. Going to cashout stars and play on FT. I think with my deal me in and top tier VIP level i will be getting something like 70% rakeback for the for the first 21 days, which is awesome. Plan to cash in on that as much as possible.



And filtered for non zoom

Really haven't been playing online for a while. Self excluded my FTP acc for 2 weeks so I can make sure I get lots of study done throughout the week.

Still playing Saturday night at the casino and sometimes on Friday. Binked another tourney Sat and up to +£710 total live net profit.

Another update. Filtered through my DB and have decided to just concentrate on 4-6 handed play. My DB shows it is my strongest game - not including ZOOM which I got crushed at. I think there was a bit of robot poker and bad variance mixed in. Probably want playing my best.

Here is my total graph unfiltered including zoom.


My HU and 3 handed graph

While not great it is fine I think. Obviously I wish it were a little higher but HU is high variance and Im still not that good at it. It is great to be semi OK though as I start a lot of tables and make the most money in the first 20 minutes on these tables, whether HU or short handed. When I have 40 BI for 50nl HU I will definitely go back to it, but I am going to concentrate on 6 max till then.

Here is the main graph - Filtered for 4 players + both in BB and $ won.




This is clearly my strongest area at ~6bb/100 ev adj, and although im running bad I am going to keep at it.

Going to try to complete the criteria for the top tier FTP level, meaning I get 25% RB + the ability to buy bonuses from my leftover FTP's before it was closed down. I think I have 11 days at ~45$ needed a day, which isnt too bad. At 25nl I rake $22 per 1k hands and 33$ at 50nl. Online roll is about 1155 so I do have enough to play in good 50nl games but I am gameselecting pretty hard there. I have ~40k FTP's so that is probably 2 $100 bonuses I can buy to total 65% rakeback. I only have enough for one but once I burn off the fitst I should have the FTP to buy another. After that I think I am going to join 888 to see what it is like as I have never played that site and the traffic looks reasonable.

Realised I made a miscalculation with my rolling averages spreadsheet. I need around twice the rake per day for the last 5 days that I thought. About 65$ or so. Six tabling at about 450 - 500 H/ph its about 4h per day. Wish me luck! Its been going well last few sessions so hoping for that to continue.

Graph without zoom...

Didn't get near the hands in I wanted to today, had too much on. Played just under half what I need which was just under 1k. Played well and was up 300bb or so. Exclusively playing 50nl now. Was coolered by a reg 100 deep BvB. He 3bets this spot 20% or something so I 4b/called off QQ vs his KK. I guess its a cooler?

Didn't make the rake chase for top Edge level but I will take the 20%. It looks super easy to stay on and I think I will try to keep it up while playing other sites. I made sure I bought my bonus from the diamond store before the time was up so I still ahve 60% rb effective till 17 Jan.

Here is my graph from last month or so, up till now unfiltered. Made 800$ rake inclusive over xmas/NY so not too bad.



Back at uni today so may play a bit tonight then I gotta grind the study for a while. If I play I will probably post.

are you playing on FT aswell?
asking because of a reg with a very similar screenname to your 2p2 name

Thats me. Only fair to pm me yours.

Would be interested in doing session reviews and discuss other regs/stake specific strats etc if you wanna add me on skype. Will send it to you if you PM.

Really not played much recently, but when I have it has gone pretty well. Just slow and steady. Roll is approaching 2k.

Total online graph:


Thought I would post my live results in graph form. I track it all pretty carefully after each session in excel.


Over the last couple of sessions my hourly has suffered and is down at about £6.50 per hour, and for the first time below £8.50 after last session. I told myself I would no longer play regularly if it dropped below around £8 per hour for more than 4 sessions in a row. I have 3 or so more sessions to pull my hourly out of the gutter or I will just go very occasionally. Maybe just once a month or something.

I am not sure what my online hourly is to be honest as often I may have one or two really fishy tables in the background when I am watching TV or whatever so that doesn't really count. Also I don't think HEM2 takes into account rakeback and bonuses etc so it is difficult to say. Also I have only just moved up to 50nl and I do not have a significant sample.

Live is also kinda boring. Sure, they are all mostly pretty bad but it is so slow and playing super ABC for 8 hours gets pretty dull pretty fast. I have about an hour to decide whether I want to turn up at the end of the rebuy period tonight so we shall see.

After tonight I don't see myself playing any poker until the week after next as I have some assignments etc.

Finally back into real profit. A whole $7. Winning player (barg) Total unfiltered graph:


And graph filtered for no Zoom:


Roll is over 2k now. Planning to play the mini FTOPS main event and the 6 max. Going to buy with FTPs. 116k would be nice.

Busted out of the mini ftops as expected.

Put money on a new site and first session had a 8 buyin upswing which was nice.

Graph without zoom included :


For future reference I will not include zoom hands in all graphs posted unless I specifically say.

Played a monster live session last weekend. Busted the tourney and played cash for like 8h. All in all 12 or so hours. Left cash up ~100 so net around 50 inc tourney buyin. That included getting all in on flop AK TPTK vs an asian fish with ~100bb starting stack. He donked and we were HU after CO folded. I just made a large overbet jam and he called with A7red on A62ccs. I figured he was calling any A/draw. He rivered a 7... Also got 100 bb in pre vs a 100bb reg tilting his face off and a shortie my QQ v 99 v 55. Reg had 55 and spiked river.

Online has been going decent. Think im gonna self ban for a week. I have some marked work to hand in. After that im gonna go on an online/live poker binge and try to smash the volume.

Here is my total 50nl results so far (zoom not inc). Most of that is recent on FTP/stars/888. If i dont include HU im going at a 5+ bb/100 rate but its not that big a sample. My HU is swingy and breakeven.


Redline starting to flatten off a bit. been working on some spote and notecaddy is helping.

Here is my total graph

Had an 8 buyin session, then a downswing running bad/playing not so great playing HU. Now back roughly where I was.

Hi guys, quick update. Played a few sessions over last few days. Gone OK. Hoping to be able to play a fair bit over the next few week so back to the grind! Decided im not going to post my ev line inclusive anymore and not look at my graph in sessions or at the end. It doesn't distract me that much but it is a small problem of mine for sure. Instead I will include SD/nonSD on my updates.

I have withdrawn about 1.5k from other sites and left the 1k on stars where I am going to be putting 100% of my action. I just cant be bothered to multitable different sites. I feel you can 12 table on stars OK whereas if you wanted 10-12 on three or more sites it would be disgusting. So yeah, I have 1.5k behind if needed but of course I would rather not topup. I dont want to move back to 25 particularly so I will reload before I do that. I plan to start of 6-9 tabling and maybe I will add more if it is going well. Not going to play anymore HU at all. My hu graph is breakeven and not worth it at the moment. If I play again I will probably get coaching first.

From now on I am going to post just my 50nl results. I will be playing strictly 6 max, no zoom. All my 25nl/30nl or w/e I played are too long ago to include. Just checked and I played 60k hands for a bb 100 of 4 and ev bb100 of 6 so was pretty solid. All on euro sites with rakeback. Of course I will very occasionally include the total graph (hopefully when I am a nl200 reg)

Here are my 25nl results and below on all sites (OK, one more EV line as its so nice)


My 50nl results so far on 888/FTP/Stars


Quick live poker update - Going to sack it off apart from occasionally purely for lols. Sure its supersoft but I just cant deal with playing so few hands per hour. Going to invest my winnings into a new 240 SSD over easter. My 120 is already full somehow... So yeah, no more live for a while. I think my time is MUCH better spent grinding online trying to move up.

Live graph



OK here is this month on stars (bulk of the hands this last week) Obviously all my updates now will just be stars graph.


Also going to try to post more hands.

GOGOGO time to grind.

Going to try to chronicle the hands i play in the thread, more for myself if i want to look back at hands.

Here are todays so far

50nl vs fish . Can I bet call this turn?
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69...-turn-1304917/

50nl 3bet pot vs 2 regs
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69...-regs-1304930/

50nl bad turn vs rec player
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69...layer-1304911/

50nl facing donk from reg
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69.../#post37363554

50nl vs TAG reg - 3bet pot
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69.../#post37363666

Not been a good session today so far but i think im pretty happy with play in general.

Last few days been pretty gross. Seem to have run into a fair few coolers vs the regs.

Here is total stars graph



And some hands from the sessions

50nl Sq pot vs fish
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69/micro-stakes-pl-nl/50nl-sq-pot-vs-fish-1306304/#post37420124

50nl vs reg - preflop spot
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69.../#post37420169

50nl vs reg HU after table broke - river spot
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69.../#post37420230

50nl - trying to induce on the river
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69.../#post37420299

Not going to play anymore tonight. Will probably play the big Sunday mill and a few 6max tables tomorrow.

Sent my data off for analysis. Going to get my 35nl and 50nl 4-6 players hands reviewed. Hopefully will help me get well into 50nl as I haven't had a great time of it so far. About 85k with no zoom, and about 105 with zoom included. Just going to include whatever the analysis guy recommends. Will let you guys know if it is a good service.

Short winning session this morning which paid for it so that was nice. Going to have to reload another 10 buyins or so over the easter holdiays when I plan to play most days.