Hey everyone.

I started out playing online poker about 6-8 months ago on CakePoker. I was a losing player. I played 25nl underrolled..... lost a few hundred and kept at it as I thought practice and persistence was all I needed. Wow was I wrong.

Fast forward 2 or three months later after discovering this site and I turned into a marginal winner / breakeven player. I am then playing 10nl full time... grinding out a small winrate over a large sample..... but I also was prone to tilt and other large swings in my game that kept me from ever being able to cash out any decent amount of money.

Money got tight... I had to cash out and get my life back on track.

Fast forward to last week and my money situation for the time being is solved so I figured I would get back into poker and try and do it the "right" way.

I signed up on fulltilt poker and made a small deposit to get back into the swing of things. I was winning... winning... and then bam a downswing hit and I didn't know if it was because of my game or because I was just the most unlucky player in the world.....

I took 2 days off to really study my game. I purchased HEM and imported my hands and started going over my stats and comparing them to every piece of information on here I could find....
Read every sticky and beginner thread there was and really started applying myself to my game.

My game improved tremendously.

Here is my current graph at 2nl... with the early winnings and downswing documented.



I am currently beating 2nl for 22.70bb/100 over 13.5k hands.. downswing included.

I know its a short sample and its possible I am just "running hot" but after plugging a few major leaks the game itself has become literally easier to understand....

I tilt less because I get in less bad situations that I feel like I've been "sucked out" on.

Some of my biggest leaks were some that I am positive others on here especially in the beginner forum suffer from also.

- Learn to cbet. I don't mean just fire a cbet at every flop.... because that is what I was doing. "THEY ARENT FOLDING TO MY CBET DAMNIT" and I would fire a second barrel on the turn only to find out he's really got a hand... great I just pissed away 40bb's trying to win a hand I could have let go on the flop.
Putting villain on a range and applying that knowledge to the board texture at hand is CRUCIAL for becoming a winning player. Out of my 13.5k hands if I saved .08 100 times on cbets that would not have worked.... that's 8$... huge at 2NL.

-Do. Not. Bluff.
This has been stated over and over on these forums for the micro stakes....
I didn't listen.
It cost me a lot of BB's.
Bluffing at the micro stakes against a fishy player just isn't profitable in anyway shape or form. They can and will call you with anything. On the bright side of this equation you can and will extract massive amounts of value from them when the time is right...

- Value betting
Another piece of advice that is spouted on this forum for the micro stakes....
It's true. Make your hand,and bet it until your entire stack if in there and is villain has ANY possible piece of the board he will be calling.

-Set mining.
Folding pocket pairs sometimes feels terrible.... but how often do you really hit a set? And whats even worse than set mining? Hitting your set and not making a single dime with it because villain wiffed the board. There is a ton of great knowledge on this forum about playing mid to small pocket pairs.... reading it improved my game tremendously.

-Top pair... it's ok to fold.
You have AJ and open. Flop comes J109. You bet. Villain calls. You bet on the turn, villain raises..... LEARN BALUGA WHALE.

After discovering this theory and applying it I feel like I have saved so much hassle and trouble just by clicking the fold button. One of my biggest leaks was overplaying top pair... and honestly it still is. I lose more money with one pair hands than anything else.... but the leaks getting plugged slowly but surely.


-Tilt... do whatever you can to prevent it. If you look at my graph near the top of it there is a major downslope of 4 buy ins. I got coolered on 2 tables, AA over KK on another and set over set in the spam of 10 minutes. Enough to make anyone throw their mouse across the room. I took a hour break... ate some food.... read the forums and went back at the game and I was able to block out most of what had just happened and continue my game to grind out most of the money I had lost back. After losing a bunch in a row it's always harder to win it back it seems but thats just how it is.




In conclusion I want to thank everyone for taking the time to read this. Is it a brag? Maybe. The feeling of improvement is the greatest there is. Seeing the results is just icing on the cake. Do I want to help others that were in the same situation I was? Definitely. Reading and studying these forums has been great for my game and I want to give back in anyway I can as I (hopefully) move up the stakes and keep winning.


Take care,
Brandon

IB4Busto in 2 weeks

Good post, its not bragging at all in my view.

Its living proof for people still struggling at the uNL that it can be done, from loosing to break-even to winning player.

Happy grinding at higher stakes, and keep posting your story as some might find this quite usefull.

Congrats.
Rob

2nl is easy has hell I beat it for 40-50bb/100 13k hands.

Brah, I beat it for 80bb/100 over 13k hands.

nice post. grats op!

whats the baluga whale theorem?

Well I took a shot at 10nl today with my bankroll.
I ran 9 buy ins under EV in just over 3k hands. Absolutely decimated....

I got my money in good ALL the time... yet none of them held up.

Pretty sick.

So I moved up to 10nl after getting my roll right from grinding 2 and 5nl.

I got absolutely crushed. 9 buy ins under EV. Every single draw got there, every single idiot that called a 3 bet OOP with crap ended up with a straight..

Worst downswing of my poker life that is for sure. How is something like this even possible?

this is one of my biggest leaks. firing a ton of c-bets, then getting stuck on the turn OOP.. i guess it doesnt hurt to c/f once in a while

Try a search: http://www.google.dk/search?q=poker+beluga+whale

Those are exactly the kinds of gaps I'm trying to address in my game, OP, and that's exactly what I need to hear at the moment - congrats.

Hi Mercury,

That sucks.
However, I don't think it could be all bad beats - you gotta have some leaks which, if plugged, could at least help you loose less in bad beats, and probably get you on track with the rest.

I suggest you make a new thread and post 4-5 of the hands you think were bad beats, and let the community help you out.

Pls. post a link here to your thread.

It's unusual, but it happens, play around with a poker variance simulator and you'll see what i mean. Sucks that you ran into this when you tried to move up, but better at NL10 than NL1k

It's probably better to have a tight stop loss when you're taking shots, e.g. 3 BIs or so.

Why jump from 2 to 10? Try out 5NL.

Seems like your biggest leak now is your lack of BR management.

Are You getting all in w/ lower pair 100BB deep???
Or am I getting those HEM stats wrong (I use PT3)?

Those were read specific plays based on people that were being hyper aggro with any two cards.

I was ahead both times... albeit a coin flip on one and 65/35 on the other

AIPF with 22 is ******ed vs anyone

You seem to have learned a lot, although don't underestimate the dangers of overconfidence. 13k hands is getting towards significant, but wait for 50k hands before drawing any firm conclusions.

That said, with the right amount of intelligence and dedication I don't think it's particularly difficult to start beating microstakes. Which isn't a put-down; most people just can't do it, think they must be able to win at the lowest levels 'cos they crushed the last 3 home games they had and never admit that they need to put the work in. Anybody who can intelligently improve over a few months and dedicate themselves to understanding the game better (without ego!) has what it takes to turn themselves into an excellent poker player.

good work man imo the reason most people regs or decent players fail to move up past 50NL is because they cant handle tilting, once u get that under control and u can beat 10nl i honestly think its not that much of a jump to 50nl

im down 6I in 2 days. its been really really sick. I mean coolers with me playing bad and me being a 3/2-1 fav everytime I get it in.

I know If I keep doing the right plays I will end up a winning player but its soo damn hard when your ona downswing