Hi Guys, it’s mypokerphd here. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m the fish that has lost over $4000 on pokerstars and skypoker since 28 Nov 2012 to this day playing SnGs, MTTs and now cash games both 6max and 9mans. See my numbers below:



I know someone is looking at these numbers and giggling to themselves because I suspect the average reader on this forum is at least a break-evener or better BUT let me tell you something bro, out there more than 80% of poker players if not +85% are outright FISH, money losers like me. I reckon more than 90% of poker players have never cashed out winnings, but I guess that is to be expected as most are recreational players just out to have fun – at least that’s how I got into it. Poker as we all know is a brutal brutal game that will punish you every time you play badly and occasionally punish you even when you put in your chips good, it’s just the reality. Unfortunately most fish don’t want to admit they are fish, they would rather blame it on bad luck, other players playing horribly, having ‘a bad run’ etc etc basically anything that can be blamed, they live in denial and keep on losing tonnes of cash online or at the casinos on a daily basis. I’ve been there and I have -$4000 to prove it, but all is about to change. To all the sharks that have been siphoning my hard earned cash, I say no way hose; it ain’t happening again, this fish has woken up.

So without further ado, allow me to lay out the plan.

1. Bankroll management - I will not play in games I can’t afford. With a starting bankroll of $40, I will only play the 2nl games until I start beating this game and will only move to 5nl when my bankroll is $100. My bankroll rule will be simple, if I have more than 20 buy-ins in my roll, then I can play the game, less than that I drop down to the lower game. Ultimately, I hope to move up the stakes using this approach.
2. I will only play 6max no limit zoom poker on stars (specialization will be key especially being a fish, I want to swim in a pond I’m familiar with) so no MTTs or SnGs until the challenge is complete.
3. I will play all evenings if I can and also get some off table studying time. If my game is not improving, I might have to get a coach or something like that.
4. I will post updates on this forum daily, my current bankroll with the daily graph, my best hand and my worst hand with a summary of how my day went.
So I hope you guys will enjoy this thread as much as I will enjoy posting, please feel free to contribute or leave comments.
Thanks

BANKROLL TODAY: $38.00

Best of luck to you mate, going to keep an eye on this story.

Great news already fellas, I've put in 100 hands just to test my set up and my HUD for the challenge and bankroll is already up by $1.00 (YES!!), so now supper motivated to get this thing going.



BANKROLL TODAY: $39.16
SESSION LENGTH: 112 hands
PROFIT/LOSS: + $1.16

And by the way, a quick snap of my HUD:



I only started using HUD last month when I was prepping for this grand challenge but it's made such a huge difference to my game. Tell me what you think about this HUD, I'm finding fold to 3Bet % particularly useful at $2 even with a small sample size, I'm easily finding success 3Betting villain with 100% fold to 3Bet with pretty much any two cards when the spot is good, maybe this will change if i move to higher stakes.

I'm hoping to put my first decent session tomorrow evening and will be posting the updates. Thanks for reading, gl at the tables.

Thanks pal, i'll need all the luck with this.

I like your attitude. Humility is the first step to improvement. You got this.

nice to see you change things around,
hud looks overcrowded with stats for 2nl but hay its not me using them.

GL

Hi Everyone,

Very quick update, today I had my first big session +1.8K hands in +3hrs and I absolutely received a beating, See session summary below:



Man if you're a fish there's no survival in this pond, every shark was after my $$, even some tuna in the pond were feasting on my $$ today and i didn't disappoint them either. They made me chase my flush draws, paying over the odds and then bricking rivers. When I got top pair I was like a kid holding a candy, just couldn't let it go and they made me pay for it. So, yeah, seems surprising that I lost so much in one session but don't let this surprise you, this is just another day in the office for a fish like me. That's how we get on with things, the more we get beat the more we want even more.

Anyways, lets not waste your time and roll the results, today the target was to make a $2 profit but we made a $14 loss. Ok it sucks being us but we're not dead, bankroll is at $25 and we're about to unlock $50 stella rewards (903/1000 vpps) so YEAHHHHH!!! some light at the end of the tunnel.



BANKROLL TODAY: $25.10
PROFIT/LOSS TODAY: -$14.02
PROFIT/LOSS SINCE CHALLENGE STARTED: -$12.86

My big take aways from today's session:
1. I'm calling too much with suited connectors and then having to chase some juicy draws that never hit, I need to stop calling. Will try putting the suited connectors into my 3Bet range in tomorrows session.
2. I'm always calling 3Bets with baby pairs, i'm not yet sure what to do here, maybe I need to fold and only call if the 3Bet is small enough to give me some reasonable price.
3. I'm chasing too many flush draws at wrong price and also failing to give up TPTK when action heats up, i really need to stop this. This is where i've taken most of my loss.

Finally, a hand that sums up my evening - note that this was probably a bad beat but the truth is that the hands that really killed me were simply misplayed hands, error of judgment on my part and absolute fishy play driven by stubbornness to not want to release a pair or curiosity to see what villain is making all the fuss with



Thanks for reading guys and good luck at the tables. Tomorrow this fish hopes to post some good results!!

Thanks buddy, i however need to back up the humility with solid decent results, no point in being a humble fish, i need to improve and improve now



Thanks, you're probably right the HUD is crowded for 2nl but the plan is not to stay at 2nl, i hope to move up pretty quickly but looking at todays results, we may be at 2nl longer than i had hoped for lol...

My thought process on the hand posted ^^

Greetings good people, it's only been less than 12hrs since that horrible session and this morning i've been back on the virtual felt. i got some great news.....we run like a poker god!!! i owned pretty much every hand i got involved with, OK it was only a 100 hand session but man I felt like kingkong crushing it left right and centre like no ones business. So in those 100 hands here are some results:

BANKROLL TODAY: $30.21
PROFIT/LOSS TODAY: +$5.11
PROFIT/LOSS SINCE CHALLENGE STARTED: -$7.75





In terms of hands, nothing too special i've just pulled out this flush draw, let me know if you think the jam was the best play:



Lets hope the good run continues tonight, good luck at the tables

Hey,

the AA Hand - I'd rather that you open 3x. Selective memory plays a big part here making us want to believe that certain things happen when we do certain things, but fine.
On the Flop - there are merits to flatting and raising. I might just flat here too.
OTT- After BTN raises we are behind very often. 56 got there. You can make an A game fold and feel pretty good about yourself. Getting it in is kinda terrible here.You might wanna call and evaluate river. If you see action otr, then it becomes an easy fold.

AKcc hand,

I would love to raise a little otf and not Jam, cos we have such great equity vs villains range when he donks. As he is a shortie you could probably gii too.

gl

gl what are you using to study?

Hi guys,

A real quick update on progress, it's been a somewhat up and down 24hrs for me, losing big pots but eventually winning enough through the several sessions I had to make sure i close my day with a huge profit!!! Turning my $30.21 bankroll to $40.95 through a few small sessions, the best of which I've posted below. |So after a lousy start to the challenge, i'm feeling good about myself. I'm also feeling super great because I'm now at 929vpps/1000vpps so soon (hopefully by end of next week) I should have unlock my $50 VIP stellar reward. That will boost my bankroll to $90 (assuming I don't go on a downer meaning that I will be very very close to my $100 target to start playing 5nl. The other thing is that tomorrow I might play just a little because I want to try to study my hand histories a bit, i'm not good at it - fish are not suppose to do that kind of stuff but THIS fish always pulls surprises lol. I especially want to see how I'm performing with suited connectors 78s up to JTs, it looks like in play I'm just playing them so bad and I don't really know what's the best way to profit from them. Anyways no time wasting, straight to the result card:

BANKROLL TODAY: $40.95
PROFIT/LOSS TODAY: +$10.74
PROFIT/LOSS SINCE CHALLENGE STARTED: +$2.95



And a snapshot of one of the sessions from which I profited the most:



As I said earlier, in some of the short sessions I lost quite a bit so things could have been better.
By the way, I haven't posted any graph so below is the graph since the start of the challenge, you can see how much of a yoyo this fish is



Here are a few interesting hands from today's play:

This hand really traumatized me like hell, for villain to check down until river with such nuts and then do that? hats off to villain, you're my hero hands down. And as if it was a written script, i needed to hit my flush for free and then pay the ultimate price for it,



And this hand below just explains why I'm the fish I am, surely if I keep playing like this i will not be hitting my targets soon. But do you guys think if villain does not have king he's folding to my shove here with all other houses like JJ, TT, 99? That was my thought process but looking back i admit this is just awful fishy play by us.



And finally, when santa brings the presents before christmas, you just gotta sit back chill and grab the goodies lol



And a few shout outs below:

Thanks Squanderer for the great advice, it really feels good to read such invaluable stuff, i truly know better after reading your comments i'm really grateful, will take it on board that's for sure

hi mate, at the moment I haven't been studying a great deal but I really need to start doing it especially when i unlock my $50 stellar and reach my $100 for moving to 5nl. My study right now is basically watching free videos especially the ones by james splitsuit sweeney, although he talks mainly about full ring, the guy is in my opinion simply the best at explaining poker. I also watch and subscribe to Felix xflixx Schneiders website following his grind it up challenge and i'm learning a lot, such a natural poker talent he is then of-course i watch nanonoko the wizkid, is he really human or he's a programmed poker machine in a human body

Apologies to my followers I haven't been posting things are not going well. Hands like the one below just make me sick, but that seem to be the norm for me just another day in the office

No more posts ?

I think the problem with your challenge might be, that you did start with only 40$ and only 20BIs. (I also think i am like you. I was always reluctant to good BRM even though i understood the fundamentals of it.).
--You need more BIs for security of not tilting after bad session(s). You might encounter bad run of 10BIs+.
--You need more money at start, because soon or later you will put that amount of money anyway on your account (didn't you lose 4k$ , which is pretty standard btw?).

So you should maybe start with 200$ or 300$ to grind NL2. 100BIs+ is not too much (even for me). It provides mental strenght for long term poker.

My two cents.


GL on your road.

GL. Interesting topic so far.