Hey everyone,
Just some background of myself. My name is Tommy and I am a pharmacy student where I will graduate next year (so pumped). The next year I will have a ton of time to grind, so the past few months I have been trying to learn micros. I started a roll of $20 playing 5NL on ACR and within 10,000 hands (3 weeks) I am up to $60. I started playing so that I could become better in live, but I fell in love with this and want to move up in stakes eventually. I am trying to spend 1 hour a day reading up on my game.

The reason I am making this is to stop making stupid calls that I know I am going to lose to hope to catch a dumb bluff. You will see in my graph exactly what I mean with huge trenches. Overall, I am running about equal to my EV, showing myself that I just make stupid calls when I know I should be folding.

My goals are to reach a bankroll of $200 and move up to 10NL. For right now I am comfortable on ACR, but over the summer I will be buying a PC at home where I will be okay getting different a HUD and playing on different sites. Eventually with this PC, my goal is to start streaming on twitch for a little and also getting some quality coaching. I am using this thread to motivate me in grinding my bankroll up, and hopefully not making dumb calls knowing people will be watching my progress.

I welcome everyone to follow along and join the ride!

Update 1:

So the night after I posted this I had some run good and went up 3 buyins within 400 hands. Came back home from college for the weekend and ended up going to Mohegan Sun to see how my online game is transitioning to live. Felt like I was one of the better players at my table at 1/2. Bought in for 200, got my stack to about 500, but cashed out at $400.

Only notable hand was on the BB with KK, there was a raise to 15 with 3 callers, I raised to 50, got one caller. Brick flop I jammed as he had about $70, he sign called and I won. Other than that just small pots. Really happy with my game but felt bored getting 25-30 hands per hour.

I'll be back grinding online tonight so more updates to come.

Just to add to the story for completeness, I am 22 years old. I started live the day I turned 21 and would go maybe twice a month. Was down close to $1000 due to mostly scared money. Within the last 4 sessions (all since I started grinding online) I am now down only $73. I am so happy with those results and I feel as if I am playing well.

Update on the last 2 sessions. (No hand reviews, but from now on I will try and save hands to post here and have at least one a session)

Session one: Went down 6 buy-ins and by far my worst day ever online. The day started off fine with me being up one buyin ($5), until I ran KK into AA, and then went down hill. I signed off after being down 2 buyins, but went back on later that night. I found the best table where everyone had vpip 50/7 stats. I had a few bad beats, but the worst was all in on the flop and ahead 99.7% and the guy hits backdoor quads (I think, or boat). Either way, that tilted me. The rest of the night I did not play bad, but was not playing good either. Ended up going down 3 more buyins. Felt gross, but my all-in equity graph made me feel better showing that I should have been down much much less. Sigh and move on.

Next session: Not much to update. Went up about 3 buy ins. Cracked AA with my JJ all in pre which was lucky, but nice after running so poorly.

Overall: good lesson as I have never had such a bad session before. I think it was needed and put me in my place to not spew with other fishes. We learn and move on.

Its been a few months, wtf happened during that time?

Not much to be honest. Played a few live sessions (3 to be exact). Session 1: +450, Session 2: +210, Session 3: -400

Session 3 was brutal, there was a huge HHJP going on, and I did not adjust properly. I immediately was up about $400. I really liked my play this day, but was running into so many flushes due to people playing all suited hands. I realized a lot of the time when put into spots I was not asking myself what the person was really representing. I went 3 streets with AA and got raised on river and called which was dumb. I was really happy with a bluff I made even though it did not get through, I asked others and they thought its profitable.

My online sessions have slowed down. I do not think I have put in much volume online as I have been purchasing a PC. I have it all set and will build it once home from school. I am hoping to install flopzilla and snowie almost ASAP and really start studying. I am planning on spending at least 2 hours a day on poker, with at least 50% of the time going into studying (Probably more though). I just finished my last college classes ever. I have 2 finals to take, and then all of next year will be clinical rotations so I will have much more time to work and focus on that rather than Therapeutics and Pharmacology.

Overall: Im still running well and way ahead and recognizing mistakes. I am hoping to bring this thread back so I can update about my online play. Hopefully I will be in full swing by next Friday!

Hey everyone, I am currently on twitch if anyone is interested in following. Thanks in advance! I am looking for any feedback (poker or strean related) so let me know whats up!

https://www.twitch.tv/tealfeels

4 month update:

Not sure anyone reads this or remembers, but I forgot that I post these for myself. Have been super busy lately with pharmacy rotations, but post-november I will be off till late Jan. In the meantime, I have continued playing with little study (Sad).

Live: I have been crushing 1/2. Not sure if its because I am so young and everyone thinks I am a fish, or if it is because live is so soft, but I am up $1000 within 7 sessions or so. Really focusing on putting people in tough spots. I have such a tough time opening my range of hands, so I continue to work on that.

Online: Took ~1 month break to refresh, but the day I came back I won a $2 sit n go for $200. Since then I have been playing more. I jumped up to 25nl. Probably not super bankroll smart (~$350), but I can replenish my roll at any time. My thoughts was to get my mind going about what I need to do so come Nov I will be comfortable and willing to grind. I have been working on increasing my opening range from 21/19 --> 23/21ish.

Life: Getting close to graduating in May as a pharmacist. Can't wait. Family is great, girlfriend is great. Life is going well, just have to get through these rotations. This whole working and not being paid sucks, but it will be worth it.

One month update:

Found a new site with low traffic but the players are awful. Everyone would laugh at my bankroll management however, the shot taking has been working well. Only playing two tables of non-fastfold/zoom/zone so I am only getting ~150 hands per hour at these stakes. Deposited $50 and currently up to $525.

I fully know that variance can kill a player even in the softest games, and I am staying realistic about the future of this site and wont be shot taking any higher than the stakes I am at now for some time. The only reason that I am okay with continuing here is that I am playing so tight.

Anyways life is great, will be posting more after rotation is done next week. Just wanted a quick update to share my new experiences

Hi,

That's cool, the more awful the players the more edge you get the more profitable it is to
play with this edge over the field of those players.

Don't stress it, celebrate, you've done great! If you got from $50 to $525 just keep playing this stake all the free time that you have for this and let it grown to $1k, to $2k-$3k, maybe more, just keep the momentum going! You can climb in stake up when you've reached whatever you think a good BRM is, say, I dunno soft site, table selection, 25bi seems good BR to me.

About being worried, don't worry, just set where you will drop out. Say you are $525 from $50 but you still play reasonably high, I dunno, you're probably playing $50 stake. Decided, say, you gonna move down to micros at $250 may you run bad, it's still 5x and an ok br for micros, if you will. What I mean is, if you start losing and hit $250 don't be angry and try climb back to $400, be happy you 5x'd, take a step back, develop a new BRM and play lower

Hey I really appreciate the advice! It is 50nl so obviously under-rolled but also its not like I only have this money to my name. I really like the stop loss idea. It will take the pressure off myself and I will still be very happy with the results. For now I will keep doing what I am doing, and reassess as I continue! Thank you for the words of wisdom and sort of believing in my ability. I was more expecting people to comment saying that I am crazy and need to stop due to variance alone, but hearing this helps so much!

Hey guys, some update!

I finished 4/6 of my rotations and now am on break until mid-February! Unfortunately I went to play live 1/2 and got crushed in two sessions, losing $400 each session (Yikes!). I played well though, got the money in good and I am actually happy with my play. If anyone is curious, I have a few interesting hands saved.

About the crazy online sun-running. It came to a quick end, which i knew it would. Thankfully, because I was prepared I cashed out $200, and left $100 in to play 5nl. I then took the $200 profit, and purchased upswing lab. I have been enjoying this, and actually have played very little poker while I catch up on studying.

My plan and thoughts on Upswing: I really enjoy the software and Doug so far. Everything right now has just been a review, but I needed it! I really have not been playing as much as I should along side the studying, but I personally think I need to get into this mindset more that studying is good. Once I get into more of the abstract, complicated sections of the lab, I will probably be playing more and more just to fully understand the spots, and put them to memory. Until then, see you in the books and 5 NL tables

Life and Goals: I am working 2-3 days / week which is perfect for myself right now. My goal is to make a deposit of $500 onto a site and play 25nl. 20BI may be small, but for the volume I am playing, it should keep me busy for a very long time. Not sure whether to deposit on ACR or ignition. Hopefully this deposit happens by the end of this month! At that time hopefully I will stream some on twitch.

When that deposit happens, I will be outlining some very strict rules, and also will be outlining goals for myself and will post them here. Overall though, I am happy with what poker has brought me. It has been a stable hobby for about 2 years now, and it has been about break even for me! (Maybe +/- a few $100, but still, I spend 5x that amount in golf a year, and have friends who have no problem spending more.)