Hello all,

My name is Bogdan, I'm from Romania and I'm here to record my journey into poker.

Background
I have been playing poker as a kid with my friends. I remember having a lot of fun playing poker with Monopoly money
Did go to college and I also went to University. Now I'm working in QA.
After earning my degree I went on searching for a job that took me 2 years to find (not a smart person ), but in the meantime I took a starting bankroll from a strategy poker site and tried my luck in playing online poker in my free time. Played until I got that job and then I just withdraw almost all my money made (almost 600 dollars lol) and poker was all over for me as I didn't had any time for it. That was about 5 years ago.

Present
Remembered I still have some cash deposited on the poker site (Pokerstars) and free time from time to time, I thought about giving poker another chance.

I don't know anymore what is going on in poker in general.
Because I don't have much time for poker I'm playing cash game, like I did in the past.
I will start with NL2 6max and play Zoom as I don't want to make table selection. And also I want to improve my game a little bit faster, and Zoom as I heard is tougher.

My goal for now is to play at least 20k hands per month, though I probably will pass that easily, and we will see from there where I could go with this.
This is the only poker strategy site that I remember from 5 years ago, so I thought about making this thread to record my journey. I tried to see if I have an account, but turns out I didn't.

I've already played some hands but I will start fresh.

Starting Bankroll: $59.44
Limit: NL2 6max Zoom

See each other out there !

I've been thinking today about what kind of goals to set for myself and came up with some that probably will help me in the near future. Probably I will adjust them after some time.

Short terms objectives:
Poker related:

• Play 20k poker hands/month
• Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions)
• Study at least 10 pages from a poker strategy book

Other objectives:

• Walk/Run at least 4.5km per day
• Work out every day (full body exercises)
• Stay positive
• Post at least once per week in this thread

I was going to mention the book that I was studying and the work out that I would have used, but I don't want to promote something that I shouldn't.

Have fun y'all !

Want to start an interaction with you, the one reading this.
I'm going to post some hands won and some hands lost and classify them in categories.

The hands lost in the following ones: Bad play, Bad beat, Bad luck.
The hands won: Bad play, Good play.

Hands lost:
1. Unknown player with 32/26/20.0/20.0 in less than 50 hands. Preflop 3B is also an option, but villain being an unknown I think the best play is to call.
On the flop I should have raised with that coordinated board. This is the first mistake. The overbet on the turn could mean only two things, like always: a bluff or a very strong hand that he wants to protect. A raise is this point would have been good as well, but I'm really passive and elect to call again.
Another overbet on the river. I think I misplayed the hand on the previous streets and now on this spot with the actions I took, fold is a good play, but AQ is one of my best hands to call with. I don't think raise is an option. I classify this as a Bad play.


2. Villain again unknown. Nothing on him.
I want to play this hand and 3B is the only option in my opinion. The cbet is quite standard vs an unknown on this board. I also have potential of a some backdoor FD and SD. Turning a OESD is good for a Cbet, the sizing could have been bigger, but it's good for a River shove. The Ace on the river it's one of the best cards for bluff but I chickened out and check. With the given categories this is a Bad play.


3. Again villain unknown. Standard preflop. Flop is 50/50 between Cbet or X behind. I get value from lower pairs (JJ, QQ, maybe some combos of TT). Check turn standard. I overplayed my hand on the river though and I think I should have folded. The sizing of the bet seems like a value bet. Bad play as well in my opinion.


4. Villain unknown. Call or 3B preflop are both viable options. Elect to x/c the flop because I want to give a chance to the BB. Check raised the turn quite big because we are deep stacked. The river is quite a bad card because he can have several 4x type hands in his range. If not for the 4 I would have overbet shoved the river. Now I just bet small to get a call from worse hands.
I think I played ok this hand and I would put this under Bad luck category.


Any thoughts about the hands or anything else ?
I would love some feedback. I will bring more of this type of hands in the future. Maybe I would also run some deep analyses on them with range construction once I have the time.

I'm going to change a bit my objectives because some of them were not that realistic.

Short terms objectives:
Poker related:
Play 20k poker hands/month - 2.6k/20k
Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions) - done last week
Study at least 10 pages/week from a poker strategy book - done
Other objectives:
Walk/Run at least 4.5km 5 times a week - done
Work out at least 5 days a week (full body exercises) - fail 3/5
Post at least once per week in this thread - done

No hands to post today. Pretty easy spots. Identified some obvious mistakes.

Song of the day: Hanni El Khatib - Can't Win 'Em All

Bankroll update: $63.02($59.44 + $3.58)

Lets do an update as the week is over for me in terms of poker.
First of all I want to add a mid term objective and that's Reach and play NL10 by the end of the year. Well, it's more like a Challenge that hopefully will motivate me to return at the tables more often.

This week I have been away from the poker tables more than last week in terms of number of days (the volume of hands I've mostly covered yesterday), but I have been thinking a lot at poker. I had time to look a bit through the hands that I played last week and I've noticed that I'm going to much at showdown and not always with hands that I should.
I think I'm playing a bit too complicated for NL2 and decided to adjust. I think there is a term for the kind of poker I want to play at NL2 and that's fit or fold poker. Well, I'm obviously gonna try to adapt to the reads I have on the opponents but I'm gonna be more careful when I do that. Been losing a lot of big blinds calling too much.

Also, I opened a reward chest this week and received a Spin & Go ticket. I got lucky to enter in a 10x prize pool and won it.

Another thing that I did wrong was that I played sometimes at 4 Zoom tables and I didn't react in time in some spots. I've reduced to 3 and there is plenty of time now to decide what to do.
Ohh, and as I wrote at the beginning of this thread I was gonna play only Zoom tables but yesterday I've played two sessions at regular tables.
Took a lot of time to table select and that's the thing I don't like to do, but it was good for a change. Played 4-7 tables.

I've also spent a lot of time going through https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...5/index45.html. Very inspirational. Still 20 or so pages to go through, but it's a treat.

Okay, that's it for this week. If someone is reading this wall of text (Hello ! ), thank you for being here. Have a productive week.

Goal for 2019:
Reach NL10 (with proper BR) - in progress
Play 20k poker hands/month - 12k/20k
Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions) - done
Study at least 10 pages/week from a poker strategy book - done
Walk/Run at least 4.5km 5 times a week - done 5/5
Work out at least 5 days a week (full body exercises) - done 5/5
Post at least once per week in this thread - done

Song of the day: Ben Howard - Promise. This song is great

Bankroll update: $74.75 ($63.02 + $11.73)

Nice thread! Keep it up good work and good luck!

Thanks you. I will definitely give my best.

Had some tilt moments at the tables last 2 weeks and I'm trying to control that in the future. Some were just bad run outs. I was getting really tilted when the villain was getting his two outer on the river over and over. I don't want to complain to much, as I'm sure you are used to it.
I didn't spewed away stacks of BBs, I just threw my hands into the air and swore. Other times I just laughed at it. Not fun moments, but have to figure this out and not be tilted anymore after that.

The software is tilting me even more. I went through all the settings and can't find how can I activate my timebank automatically. Is there something like that ? I'm tilting every time. When I'm not invested into the pot and comes my turn, the software just folds my hand when it should (imo) activate my timebank. I know that it's better for the game to actually be played faster and not stall it for the other players, but when I already selected the table, I've selected the amount I want to raise, I'm ready to press the raise or call, why does the software folds my hand ? It's frustrating sometimes and tilting as hell. So, is there a setting ? Or that's only for micros or something ? Ah, and I know I can press the timebank button, but I don't press it every time, I want the software to do it for me. Is it just me ?

This week I've spent less hours playing or studying poker.
Got a legal holiday and I've also taken some extra days off work. Went on a mountain hike and the rest of the days I spent with my parents helping them with some things.

As I didn't have my setup with me I tried playing 1 table on my laptop and I enjoyed it. Didn't play much, only like 800 hands but were quite ok and relaxing.

I'm trying to decide when to take a shot at NL5.
I have narrow it down to 2 options:
1. Once I have one buy in over 15 BIs for the limit, meaning that once I have over $80 I might add a table of NL5 among the other 1/2 tables of NL2 and another table if I pass $85 and so on.
2. Reach $100 and take a 5 BI shot at NL5. (20 BIs in total).

At NL10 I will increase the BIs needed when taking a shot (maybe 25). I will see at low stakes what will be the approach.

Reach NL10 (with proper BR) - in progress
Play 20k poker hands/month - 15k/20k
Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions) - done
Study at least 10 pages/week from a poker strategy book - done
Walk/Run at least 4.5km 5 times a week - done 4/5
Work out at least 5 days a week (full body exercises) - done 3/5
Post at least once per week in this thread - done

Song of the day: Ruby Velle & The Soulphonics - It's About Time

Bankroll update: $87.45 ($74.75 + $12.7)
Limit: NL2 6max Zoom

Took a shot a NL5 at the start of the week. I opened one NL5 table instead of one of NL2. Ran pretty bad in both limits and dropped 11 BIs in total after only 2k hands. I wasn't playing really bad, only variance was against me. At NL5 I actually didn't lose any pot larger than 85BBs but the ones that I lost were many. So I dropped back to NL2 were I lost again lol.

I wrote that I wasn't playing really bad because I ran a review on the hands yesterday and the day before and weren't many spots where I could do anything. Obviously I have played some of the hands bad, but that's why I review them, to learn from the mistakes.

I feel like I'm adapting to the tendencies of NL2 field and I feel confident that I can beat it. NL2 lol. I know that sounds really dumb, but it's the first step to building a bankroll.

Anyway, recovered yesterday and today and maybe starting next month I can take another shot at NL5.

Reach NL10 (with proper BR) - in progress
Play 20k poker hands/month - 23k/20k - done
Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions) - done
Study at least 10 pages/week from a poker strategy book - done
Walk/Run at least 4.5km 5 times a week - done 5/5
Work out at least 5 days a week (full body exercises) - done 2/5
Post at least once per week in this thread - done

Song of the day: Dreaming bull - No use

Bankroll update: $90.27 ($87.45 + $2.82)
Limit: NL2-NL5 6max Zoom

I'm going to post today the results of this week although I'm going to play also tomorrow. The reason is I also want to post the monthly graph.

This week started good and ended up like a hammer drop. I couldn't win a single pot today. I also played tilted and I think I dropped one or two BIs because of that. I will see tomorrow when I review the hands.

Here is the graph and stats:


Reach NL10 (with proper BR) - In progress
Play 20k poker hands/month - 33.5k/20k - done
Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions) - done
Study at least 10 pages/week from a poker strategy book - done
Walk/Run at least 4.5km 5 times a week - done 4/5
Work out at least 5 days a week (full body exercises) - done 2/5
Post at least once per week in this thread - done

Song of the day: Old Man Canyon - Phantoms & Friends

Bankroll update: $91.08 ($90.27 + $0.81)
Limit: NL2 6max Zoom

Had a good start of the month from the volume point of view. Played 16600 hands, but couldn't win. Mainly because I have too much leaks in my game. So, I decided to start building a solid foundation for my game. I will not give up on playing, even if I will be break even at NL2 until the end of the year.

Believe it or not, I didn't have preflop ranges defined until this week. I spent two days making them. And I think they turned out pretty good and solid. I will see how much it will help me in the next 4 months (until the end of the year).

Next thing I want to do is to define kind of a postflop tactic. Probably I will start doing it next weekend when I will not be playing that much.

Holdem manager is not importing hands affected by the Cashout feature, so until they fix that I will have to write down after every session the bankroll.
I don't know what to think about this Cashout feature though. Is it good or not ? Maybe I will use it when I am 80%+ favorite to will the pot to protect my loses if I get unlucky. What do you guys think ? Is there any math already done on it ?

Reach NL10 (with proper BR) - In progress
Play 20k poker hands/month - 16.6k/20k
Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions) - done
Study at least 10 pages/week from a poker strategy book - done
Walk/Run at least 4.5km 5 times a week - done 5/5
Work out at least 5 days a week (full body exercises) - done 2/5
Post at least once per week in this thread - done

Song of the day: Amy Winehouse - Back To Black

Bankroll update: $93.62 ($91.08 + $2.54)
Limit: NL2 6max Zoom

Good start of the week. Reached a milestone for the BR.

Took my second shot at NL5. After 5.5k hands I lost a part of the BIs of the shot but I'm still playing NL5 which is good thing. I expect to be loosing or break even at this limit in the next 4.5k hands as well, but I hope I can at least play that much until I go back to NL2. Started defining my postflop tactics/play.

Reach NL10 (with proper BR) - In progress
Play 20k poker hands/month - 25k/20k
Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions) - done
Study at least 10 pages/week from a poker strategy book - done
Walk/Run at least 4.5km 5 times a week - done 5/5
Work out at least 5 days a week (full body exercises) - done 4 /5
Post at least once per week in this thread - done

Song of the day: Willie Davis - I Learned My Lesson

Bankroll update: $85.52 ($93.62 - $8.1)
Limit: NL5 6max Zoom

Continued to lose at NL5 as I expected and dropped back to NL2 yesterday.
I'm happy that I played 12k hands at NL5 before dropping to NL2 because now I have an idea how the games are over there and I can't wait to return.

Regarding postflop tactics:
Because most of the time I'm the preflop aggressor I started to learn how to act as the aggressor. Flop play I think I master pretty good. I'm still not sure how to play some of the weaker hands like 2nd, 3rd, 4th pair on the flop. Turn and river plays are usually more rare, but I have an idea how to play on them. Still a lot to go through.

I realize my first objective is not that good, because it is result oriented and I can't predict what will happen with variance and such. I will still have the same objective but I'm not thinking to reach NL10 by the end of the year. If I reach it, good, if not, that's ok. I will follow my bankroll management.

Reach NL10 (with proper BR) - In progress
Play 20k poker hands/month - 36k/20k
Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions) - done
Study at least 10 pages/week from a poker strategy book - done
Walk/Run at least 4.5km 5 times a week - done 5/5
Work out at least 5 days a week (full body exercises) - done 3 /5
Post at least once per week in this thread - done

Song of the day: James Brown - It's A Man's Man's Man's World

Bankroll update: $83.34 ($85.52 - $2.18)
Limit: NL2 + NL5 6max Zoom

Good luck!

Regarding Stars' cashout feature, I chose to always use it. In the long run, it's losing a bit of money, since Stars takes 1% rake on those pots. But it turns poker into more of a skill game (by eliminating one source of luck). So your results will converge to your "true winrate" quicker.

And there's another benefit. It can eliminate tilt caused by running bad (or even good) in all-in situations. That is huge (if that's a problem for you), and will more than make up for the small bit of rake Stars takes. So as you can see, I'm a strong proponent of cashing out lol.

And for what it's worth, PT4 can handle those hands to some extent. The green line doesn't work properly, but the all-in line effectively becomes the green line.

Hello and thank you. Good luck to you too

It's nice to hear other people's opinions about the cashout feature. I did a bit of research and I don't think I will use it at the stakes where I regularly play if I have enough buy-ins. I'm thinking about the fact that I don't even have a good winrate. If I use the cashout, I will lose even more on the long run.
The only thing that for me it makes sense is to use it when I'm taking shots at the next limit where it protects me from bad beats and I can reduce the variance on the short term.
The fact that it can eliminate tilt I guess this is true, but I don't think it will help me.

I read that PT4 behaves differently with hands where cashout is used. But I'm using HM2 because I have a Small Stakes license so it would be shame not to use it.


As a bit of an announcement, I'm trying for the next couple of days regular tables.

Had a really bad start of the week. I was losing so much small pots that I went 8BIs down. Decided for the end of the week to play regular tables and it went pretty good. Maybe I'll switch to regular tables for a while. Feels great to play against 50+ VPIP players.

Reach NL10 (with proper BR) - In progress
Play 20k poker hands/month - 45k/20k
Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions) - done
Study at least 10 pages/week from a poker strategy book - done
Walk/Run at least 4.5km 5 times a week - done 5/5
Work out at least 5 days a week (full body exercises) - done 2 /5
Post at least once per week in this thread - done

Song of the day: The Heavy - Short Change Hero

Bankroll update: $87.62 ($83.34 + $4.28)
Limit: 6max NL2 (Reg Tables + Zoom)

Played only regular tables this week. Because of that I have a low volume.
Will not update this thread for the next 2 weeks as I'm taking a break. When I'm coming back I will update some of my objectives.

I'm currently taking my 3rd shot at NL5. Hopefully this will be the last.

Reach NL10 (with proper BR) - In progress
Play 20k poker hands/month - 6.5k/20k
Review at least 5 hands per week (marked during the play sessions) - fail
Study at least 10 pages/week from a poker strategy book - done
Walk/Run at least 4.5km 5 times a week - done 7/5
Work out at least 5 days a week (full body exercises) - done 2/5
Post at least once per week in this thread - done

Song of the day: Phantogram - When I'm Small

Bankroll update: $115.71 ($87.62 + $28.09)
Limit: 6max NL2 + NL5 (Reg Tables)

Back to the tables from today. I've been traveling for the past two weeks through north of Spain. I'll post some picture if anyone is interested. Even away from the tables I still consumed some poker related articles and videos.

As I wrote in the last post. I will change again my objectives/goals.

First of all, because I played both regular tables and zoom I don't think the objective with the number of hands played per month is good anymore because I can't control the amount of hands played. So, I want to have an accountable target entirely under my control. Also I will set my goals depending of what month I'm in. After some calculation with the time I have, the goal number one for November month will be to play 3000 minutes.

Next one is about the time dedicated to study. This will be split into two.
a) Time spent on training videos / articles / books / podcasts / live twitch play and those sort of things. 400 minutes of study for November.
b) Time spent on reviewing my own play. This will include reviewing hands noted during the play session, taking notes on villains (not during play session), reviewing custom filters to potentially find leaks, etc. 1000 minutes of reviewing my own play for November.

Fourth objective is regarding the stakes climbing and this one does not have a set time frame to be completed in. Because I'm currently playing NL5 I will have the following bankroll management plan:
Move up to NL10 when reaching 20 BIs.
Move down to NL5 when dropping to 15 BIs.

The next goals are about the other activities away from poker. I want to maintain a good relationship will the people around me.
I want to be physically healthy, that's why I'm gonna keep the Walk/Run goal. I want to have at least an average of 4km per day. That means 120km of walking / running for November.
I also want to exercise at least once per week (an average of 2 hours). I can go to the gym, play a sport, go out with the bicycle or any other sort of exercise. 8 hours of physical exercises for November.

Updates I will make when I feel to. It seems I'm lacking communication skills for forums so I don't know how to interact with you guys to make it more interesting.
Anyway, I will try to post at the end and at the beginning of the month. Post the results of the month and the next month goals.

Until next time. Good luck & Have fun

I'm in this seat cause it was the only one I could get at this table. I have a loose aggressive player in MP and the two players from the blinds are recreational. SB has just joined but I've noticed in two hands already that he has the call any bet / call bet checkbox ticked and played fit or fold on the flop in one situation. BB is playing 71 VPIP 25 PFR and is passive postflop.

Now, would you ever open shove in this situation ?

Still here, still going. Slowly though. I'm not feeling motivated enough, but I'm still returning to the tables.

Been a lot of days from the last update so a lot of things have changed.

Last time when I updated this thread I was playing NL5. My third shot there went well. I didn't checked the results for a month and a half and it was a nice surprise when I saw that I can take a shot at NL10.

Play 3000 minutes in November - 2334 minutes FAIL
Study 400 minutes in November - 405 minutes DONE
Review own play 1000 minutes in November - 380 minutes FAIL
Move up to NL10 when reaching 20BIs - DONE
120km of walking / running in November - 138.3 km - DONE
8 hours of physical exercises for November - 10 h - DONE



Bankroll update: $238.31
Limit: 6max NL10

Tomorrow I will post the December objectives.

In December I don't think I will be able to play too much. I still want to at least play half the minutes that I played in November.

December objectives:
Play 1200 minutes
Study 200 minutes
Review own play 200 minutes
Move down to NL5 at 15 BIs
Move up to NL25 at 50 BIs
120km of walking / running
8 hours of physical exercises

GLHF

Played more and studied more that I thought I will this month. But it turned out to be a good month so I'm really glad I did it. I will try to figure out some objectives for 2020 and for January as well. Will post them in the next days.

I will take my first shot at the low limits next month (NL25). Hope it will turn out to be ok and don't have to move down.

December objectives:
Play 1200 minutes - 3117 minutes DONE
Study 200 minutes - 350 minutes DONE
Review own play 200 minutes - 350 minutes DONE
Move down to NL5 at 15 BIs - Not necessary
Move up to NL25 at 50 BIs - Almost there
120km of walking / running - 148km DONE
8 hours of physical exercises - 11 hours DONE



Bankroll update: $489.51
Limit: 6max NL10

Tomorrow I will post the December objectives.

Graph and stats for when I started this thread:



Hope you had a great year and next one will be better.

2020 Objectives

- Play 30000 minutes
- Study 4000 minutes
- Review own play 4000 minutes

Move up to NL25 at $500
Move down to NL10 at $375
Move up to NL50 at $1250
Move down to NL25 at $1000
Move up to NL100 at $3000
Move down to NL50 at $2500

- 1440 km of walking / running
- 100 hours of physical exercises

I want to have a steady climb this year in terms of play and study, and with these amount of minutes invested I hope I can achieve this. I don't have expectations regarding moving up in stakes but if that happens I will manage my bankroll following the above direction.