Hey forum!

My name is Simone (yes, a female poker player - we do exist!) and I'm 23 years old, and I've played poker since I turned 18. I've been searching for the right format for me for the first couple of years of my "poker career", and about a year ago I finally found Spins. They suit me, my playstyle and my life perfectly.

During the last year I've climbed the stakes from $1 to $7 spins in ~3200 spins, and I intend to - hopefully - climb even higher during this year!

Here is my overall Spin & Go's graph and results below. It containes both $1, $3 and $7 spins.





My overall chip EV has been ~85,8, so I'm very happy with that!

There is a long way to my goal though. And because of my studies, I can't put in the volume, that I really want to. Instead I'm trying to put in some quality hours, when I finally play.


Here are my Goals for 2018:

- Play <500 spins per month
- Reach a <39% EV ITM for $7 spins
- Move up to $15 spins with a 200 buyin roll by the end of the year.

Goals for this blog:

- Upload my chipEV and result graph at least every month
- Post smaller updates every week on how my Spin & Go game has been doing.


I hope you will find it interesting to follow my 2018 grind.

-- Skorfix

Oh no, what a bad start to this blog.
Why are my images not showing??

Do any of you know how to upload an image correctly?

glgl girl

YES. I found out how to upload the images correctly! Great, great.

Anyway. I have my last exam this winter in 4 days, so I should probably study instead. I will play poker again after I - hopefully - pass my exam.

Hello hello.

First month down and I'm very happy with my results this month. Especially because moneywise I've been running a fair bit under EV and the first half of the month I was loosing dollars, even though I weren't supposed to. But I somehow managed to stay focused and not like it get to me.

I've been working hard on the mental game part of poker by listening to Jared Tendlers (mental coach) podcasts, so therefore i'm really exited about this.

Anyway I've reached most of my goals this month (yay!)

Goals:

- Play <500 spins per month: YES. I've played 665 spins!
- Reach a <39% EV ITM for $7 spins: My EV ITM has been a godlike 39,4% (I might be running a bit hot, EV wise)
- Move up to $15 spins with a 200 buyin roll by the end of the year: Well, I'm up a little bit this month. My bankroll is now $1028

Goals for this blog:

- Upload my chipEV and result graph at least every month: ... Yay!
- Post smaller updates every week on how my Spin & Go game has been doing. Nay My exam last week has taken all of my freetime. But I hope to get better in this area!

Now for some graphs and results!





Over n' out

Update for today

Hey forum. So today I wanted to share with horrendous graph and result picture with you for the beginning of February. My run today went so bad. I'm gonna review a couple of the tourneys later to see if I was tilt spewing or just running into unlucky setups.
I usually play 2 tables, but today I tried to 3 table, and did that for around one hour or so, before one tabling the last 20 tourney, just to try to regain the focus, so I could end the day better. So I will definitely review all the tourney I played while playing 3 tables.

I just fell like I have to test myself sometimes and play 3 tables, otherwise I will never be able to add a table to my sessions.

Anywho. Today was bad, but I'm happy with my volume, I'm (sort of) happy with my attempt to play 3 tables, and I didn't go and mad tilt (I think - I guess tomorrows reviewing will tell)

Graph:



So as you can see my ChipEV is pretty bad... Moneywise it's fine. I've gotten over a 20BI downswing before, I'm just a little tired of not being able to get past the three Mount Everests



Anyway. I hope your grind is going better than mine, but I'm looking forward to climbing the graph mountain yet again and hopefully soon get even higher.

Hey forum!

I wanted to give an update, because my week has been a little bit crazy, and that has made me change my plans a little bit - for the better, I think.

I'm not gonna post graphs yet, because I think it is more fun to show them at the end of the month, but I can tell you that in 368 spins, i'm running 300 dollars under EV. It's been rough. I actually hit two 25x spins, but managed to lose them both, so no getting that EV back in one tourney yet.

Anyway. I don't wanna whine, because this is actually meant as a very positive post. A couple of days ago, I was watching this reg playing 100s on youtube, and he was asked about his play vs study ratio. He answered that is wasn't static. When he is running well and feeling good about his own game, he tries to put in as much volume as he can, but when he is running badly and begins to loose confidence, he studies. A LOT.

That got me thinking. I've been running so well on 1s and 3s, that all the studying I did in the very beginning, when I was learning Spin and Go's, I've pretty much neglected. All I wanted to do was grind, so the number of hours reviewing hands and watching videoes has been at a minimum.

So given my horrible start to 2018, I've decided to make some special goals for the rest of February regarding study goals.

- Watch 10 hours of quality Spin training videos, while paying close attention to the strategy involved.
- Review 20 tourney. Choose ones where you were either 3-tabling or running really pourly.
- Post 3 hands on 2+2. It is probably not gonna be posted in this thread, because there might be a higher chance to get a reply in the HU forum on 2+2.

The monthly goal will still apply of course.

ALRIGHT. Small update on how it's going. I know that $300 under EV is to be expected at spins of course. But I feel that my game and mental state has been decreasing over the last 1000 tourneys, so I think it is a good time to put in some study volume.

Have a nice grind!

Hi again.

Better late than never, right? The reason why I'm a bit late on the monthly update is that I've been making some changes, and I needed to see how they worked out, before I could give a good update.

First of all, I will present my monthly results to you on Pokerstars:





As you can see my Chip EV has decreased by a bit since last month, which was a bit demotivating for me. I've put in a lot of volume though (745 games), so I'm actually pretty proud of myself in that area. I'm up by a little bit this month too though ~ $64 + rakeback.

Speaking of rakeback, this has been the source of all my worries in February. Long story short, it all started when stars had a deposit bonus running. If you deposited $100, you'd get a free $20 cash and $10 worth of $1 spin and go tickets. So naturally I deposited, and withdrew the $100 after getting my hands on the $30 bonus. Stars then decided to cut my rakeback in half, so I would get 5% rakeback instead of 10%.

I had been frustrated with stars' new chest system for a while, I decided to move my entire roll to Party Poker, where I could get around 20% in rakeback.

All was good. I started playing $10 spins over there, but there were sooo many regs. I believe 70-80% of the players I met was decent regulars. This meant that my chipEV in 166 games were 28 i.e. my winrate was negative.

The funny thing is, that in my anger, I had already withdrawn 900 bucks from Stars thinking I was never coming back.

Anywho, I might be back at stars again. I'm figuring it out. The most hilarious and brutal discovery was made today. Guess what Stars did for punishing me for withdrawing $900?



LUL. This is ~2.5% rakeback. I guess I've learned my lesson Stars...

ANYWAY. Let's see if I've met my goals this month


Goals:

- Play <500 spins per month: 745 Spins baby + 10 $1 spin + 127 spins on Party Poker. Beastmode confirmed.
- Reach a <39% EV ITM for $7 spins: Well... No. 67 ChipEV on Pokerstars and 26 ChipEV on Party Poker is pretty far from my goal
- Move up to $15 spins with a 200 buyin roll by the end of the year: It's a little bit complicated to figure my bankroll out, since there were some loss in transfer, plus I lost some $$ on MTTs on the side, but my roll is around $1100. Great stuff!

Goals for this blog:

- Upload my chipEV and result graph at least every month: I'm a bit late
- Post smaller updates every week on how my Spin & Go game has been doing. Nope nope nope. I'm pretty horrible in this area...


I also made some studying goals earlier in February. And I've haven't been studying as much as one could have hoped, but I did put in some hours in the beginning of the month, but I focused a lot on figuring everything out with the sitechange and so on.

Long post. GL on your own grind folks!

Hey all!

I'm back with this months results. The month started out amazingly with a beautiful ChipEV number, but towards the ending of the month the ChipEV decreased a bit everyday and ended on a disappointing 64. I'm reviewing the last few days Spins, and I can already tell, that I was not as focused as I would have liked.

As you can see I only played 471 Spins this month, and all that volume was in the second half of the month. I wasn't really feeling like playing in the first half of the month, so I had a lot to catch up to, which reflected on the last couple of days intense grind. Unfortunately my ChipEV suffered.

Anywho. Moneywise this has been the best month to date, so at least I get rewarded now for the past work I've put into Spins.
I hit a 25x and took that one down, so that is great!





I started a Twitch stream to keep myself motivated to grind, and that has been a great success. I already have 13 followers, and I really want to create some great content for them, and grow the stream bigger.

If you are interested to watch it, you can find me here: https://www.twitch.tv/skorfix

Let's get to the goals list!:

- Play <500 spins per month: Nope. I'm very happy though that I played 471 Spins, because all the volume came in the second half of the month. I'm very motivated to grind right now, so I expect to get some more volume in April.
- Reach a <39% EV ITM for $7 spins: Even though I've been studying a lot more, my results have not reflected that. 64 ChipEV is unexceptable. I will do better next month!!
- Move up to $15 spins with a 200 buyin roll by the end of the year: My bankroll is somewhere around $1600, so that is great. I'm thinking about taking a 20-30 Buyin $15 Spin shot (30 buyins, if I think the field is soft enough) when I hit a $2000 bankroll, so I hope I will get there soon!


I hope to see you on twitch! But otherwise I will get back to you next month!

GL on the felt!

Heey fellow poker grinders.

I've been neglecting the blog - I'm sorry about that.
There's been exams, moviestuff - all kinds of things, but I wanted to give you a quick update, to let you know, that I'm still here. Working my ass off.



As you can see I managed to climb the three Mount Everests.

I've decided to take a a 30 buyin shot at $15 Spins when my bankroll hit $2000 - It's currently around $1750. So another $250 and I'll be shot taking.

I figured after probably 3000 games +, it's time to move up. I've proven that I'm profitable at the $7 stake, so it would be -ev to stay there too long.

If I lose the 30 buyins ($450), I'll move back down and grind the bankroll up to $2000 again and take another shot. Rinse and repeat. That should be a winning method as long as I keep playing my best and beating the stakes.


Does anyone know when the stakes start to get very reg infested? When I was playing $3 Spins I thought $7s were tough, but now I'm starting to wonder whether my winrate will decrease drasticly at $15s or maybe the big challenges lies from $15s to $30. I don't know yet.

Anyway, see you soon!

i cant imagine the skill difference between stakes is really that big at all and youve got good similar ev roi of all the stakes so far, regs between 2nl-50nl spins think there be similar ratio of fish to regs there.... i dont play them though but they attract gamblers like me and people definitely not using BRM and i imagine up $50 spins you got lotta idiots like me and people new to the game of poker never played before floating about in them (it actually was my first introduction to poker ever those things never played before up until that point, on Betfair Poker though and think was called twister sit and goes over there lol)
sorry for waffling on, hopefully it helped but maybe not and im talking nonsense.
but good luck and cool thread
sure your crush all your goals
seem like you got the right head and approach to the game using bankroll management actually studying etc and you deffo seem more of a poker player than just a gambler that happens to play poker so im sure your do fine moving up and crush weak regs and find weaknesses in their game strategy too and eek out edges there aswell

Hey mate! Thx for the reply! It's very motivating to see that someone is reading along and enjoying the content! Thanks for the kind words. I really hope you're right


The summer break from my university is right around the corner now, so I'm looking forward to putting in some volume and hopefully build that $2000 roll, so I can start shot taking by the end of August. It's always difficult to make short term results oriented goals, but I'll make some better ones in my next post

Right now I have to write a 15 pages exam paper due on the 1st of June, so I'll be busy AF this next couple of weeks, so that beautiful summer vacation is what keeps me going!

I'm back! Hope you are all well.

I'm feeling great cause I finally finished and handed in my exam paper today, so there's a liberating 10 days till my next exam!!!

I'll show you the graph for May, but it ain't so pretty. I had to cut poker off for some weeks, because I needed to study, so I've only managed to play 142 Spins... But summer is coming and I'm hoping to put in some volume over the summer. I will spend around a month shooting a short film though (I'm an amateur cinematographer), but I'll find the time for poker.

Anyway, here are this months results:



As you can see, my Chip EV is not really behaving it self, but I don't worry too much about that since my volume is so low. I actually feel myself getting right now. I've been putting in a lot of study regarding ranges.

It's so great when you're read on a villains range actually pays off, when you get them to call a small value bet (cause their range is weak) or a pot sized value bet (cause their range is strong).

I will put a small example of a hand I analysed recently vs. a weak reg (this is very important, since I believe the ISO vs limp range 7bb deep pre is pretty capped, and therefore can I exclude many hands from his check back range)




Alright. This might seem straight forward - And it kind of is (especially because of that beautiful turn card), but it got me thinking.

Flop comes 85Q rainbow. What can villain have when they raise the flop, given that they checked back pre effectively 7bb deep.

Villains range is very weak with a few traps (AA, KK, maybe QQ (blocked))
Villain would shove all the good queens in their range pre (AQ, KQ, QJ, QT, maybe Q9), so the only queens they have is weak queen (I block Q8 and Q3). They can't have a set (other than the unlikely set of Q's), because they would shove any pair pre. They can have two pair (83). This is their value - BUT wouldn't they just check/call all of these hands? Why raise to make me fold a worse hand, especially when we're this short???

What semi bluffs can they have: They can turn all of the weak hands in their range, which is soooo dominant, into a bluff (especially since a had been limp stabing quite a bit).


Alright so. Conclusion, their range is insanely capped. So the check on the turn and let them bluff off river is mandatory. But what I also learned about this hand is this: Let's say the turn is an A (which they also don't have in their very capped range, since they shove every A pre), then I should still call the river, because they have soooo many bluffs and no real value, when they bet. The only real hand I can think of is 74 that didn't want to risk it all on the flop and shove.

I'm not saying it's a bad play be villain, it's probably profitable against a lot of weak regs and recs that aren't playing attention to ranges, but it's diffenetly unbalanced to raise the flop there.


First official hand analysis in this thread. Now you see why I don't do this too offen... It would take up all of the space. But I like to go deep into theory every now and then.


GLGL on the grind people! Let's make June better than May, shall we?

GLGL, reading along as well :P
do you plan on grinding throughout the whole summer?

Good to hear!
Yes, that's the plan!
As I briefly mentioned in the previous post, I'm the cinematographer of a (somewhat big) short film project called "Crystal" this summer, so the hours I put into poker will unfortunately be limited.


We have a pilot out now btw, go check it out, if you guys are interested!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-9DmvsXnW0&t=91s

But I intend to grind as much as I have time for! I did some calculations of my winrate and so on, and on average I could move up to 15s in ~1000 Spins, so that seems doable to accomplish over the summer. It's definitely gonna be my goal!

VAMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS


Phew, I did it. My bankroll is now $2000,09 and I am now eligible to take my first official shot at $15 Spins. It feels so ****ing good. Let's look at some the graph from my first ever $1 Spin to now:



I will procede the following way:

- I will take a 30 buyin shot ($450), if I should fail, I will move back down to 7s and grind it up again.
- I will only one table doing this entire shot so that my ChipEV is on it's highest and reduce the risk of failing.
- I will try to stay away from morning grind (where the games are tougher) for the same reason.
- I will only play, if I feel well (same reasoning ofc)

Great. Let's do this thing! Wish me run good, so I can become a 15s regular soon. GL on your own grind, fellow poker nerds

Yeah, $15s is good. Run good, spin a few 25x take em down +$1k upswings happen.

Now, most important question pls. How many $7s can you do in a day if you'd grinded hard full-time & how many tables at once do you play?

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to moving up into the league, where there's some more serious money to be made.

I can comfortably play two tables at a time. This month I've almost exclusively played 3 tables, as I want to get better, but my ChipEV has decreased so much, that I'm back to two tabling. I'm working on that part of my game though, because I want to increase volume.

Hmm... An average good day for me is ~50 Spins (two tabling) right now, which isn't much. That is why I'm working on playing more tables, since I can't play more than 4-5 hours a day without my ChipEV suffering.

I'm hoping in the future to be able to play ~100 Spins a day (which adds up to 2000 a month, if I played full time - weekends off).


Regarding the picture, I'm not sure how else to upload the pictures. The images are working fine on my computer, when I use the "direct link" from imgur. Please elaborate

It's fine, it was about the first post and then I realized you can't edit first post, so that's why. Now it's all good and rainbows'

That's a bit low volume wise.

In 4 the snake on $15s, gl hf crush 'em!

Iirc if you can maintain 60cEV you you're winning solidly in $15s but a lot of regs push higher cEVs, say 70+

Yeah, my volume very low compared to other players. I run into regulars that play 6+ tables on the 7s stake, but I don't think they are very good. They don't pay attention to me at all, so I can massively exploit them - sometimes by making the same move over and over again.

So its not a big worry of mine. I'd rather focus on getting better than increasing my volume. But I will try to add the third table by the end of the year without it having a serious impact on the quality of my plays!

Thx for your inputs !

They are prob. better than you but have to lose part of their play in trade for volume. Not sure why they haven't removed themselves from player search tho', seems very amateur-ish to me.

Not to say bad about you, but you just can't 6-table spins many hours a day whilst still maintaining 55cEV+ in $7s, while being a bad player and / or not prepared for the game. You can compare what they're doing to 4-tabling micro cash with hotkeys, sometimes it's better to just not bother and auto fold to the rare aggression instead of risking disappointment and probable tilt from getting stacked badly, you can still steal everybody and 3bet bluff all the weak people in the stake and do other plays that net you a steady winrate that long term is about as good as it gets.

$15s is a considerable difficulty jump, be prepared and after that just keep beating 'em and getting that for $30s roll done. :P

Hmm. I don't think I agree with you. Sure, it's difficult to multitable, but I would always choose to play less tables and think more deeply about my plays, than mass grind the low stakes, just to grind out a higher hourly. You can mass grind, when you get to the 60s and 100s, right.

Whether they are better than me or not, doesn't really fit any point (though I doubt that they are much better, since they still play 7s, right?). It's more about how to approach the game - and I don't believe multitabling the low limits is the way to go, if you want to be one of the best.

It depends. You can do your approach if you feel it's good. It's not bad, your consistency with BRM, for example, has been admirable. A $7s mass grinder could grind hard & then have more roll for $15s and get really quality coaching from his 2.25x higher hourly + more hours per day put in. Assuming he's one of the people with low budget moving up the stakes.

If you want to be one of the best and are ready to put in the work I expect you obliterating $15s)

Hey grinders!

I just wanted to give a quick update on how I'm doing. I'm not gonna share CHIPev and all that. You will have to wait for the longer more in depth update when June has ended.

But I wanted to share this graph to show, how the shot has been going. It's pretty swingy, and I really need to keep my head clear to not lose my nerve, when my bankroll is approaching the zone, where I might have to move back down.

Now for the graph!



Soooo we're currently back up. And I'm actually up 2 buyins, which gives me a 32 buyin shot onwards.

I'm a little unsure whether my rakeback should go towards the shot taking. I currently have around 2000 starcoins, but I don't know if I should include it in my 15s bankroll. What do you guys think?

I will also share my thoughts on 15s compared to 7s in my longer post in a few days, so stay tuned for that!

Btw, I'm thinking about going back to streaming, but my summer is going to be busy AF, so I will only stream again, when I know I have the time for a steady routine, and not before that. But I'm definitely planing on getting back (I've gotten a new setup, which is more suited for streaming now!!), so if you want to be ready for my return, you can follow me on twitch.tv here: www.twitch.tv/skorfix

See ya in a couple of days!!

Hi! Yeah, the difficulty gap is significant, although 1% less rake and thus more often 4x helps a bit if you run good enough in multipliers to feel it.

Don't include startcoins to BR.

In for the full update later on!