Hi everyone,

I would like to have a bit of help with my poker game. Just to give you guys a bit of my background. I started enjoying poker when I was 17-18. Used to follow the pro scene, big tournaments, high stakes poker.. the lot. Used to play online but never took it very seriously. Studied a bit of strategy and was pretty decent at 10NL and 25 NL but that was almost 10 years ago... Around june of this year, I went to the casino to play some 200NL for ****s and giggles and came up 800$. Quickly realizing how much I missed and love playing this game and that winning 800$ came in handy!

I have a pretty good job but pays enough to survive but not to my desire. I want poker to provide a side revenue and I am willing to invest 20-25 Hours per week. So I decided to invest time and effort into the game but at first I went onto pokerstars guns blazing thinking that I would easily beat 10NL. I quickly lost 1K and another one after that.The general player population has become WAYY better then 8-10 years ago. Emotions, tilt, not knowing what to do got the better of me. I decided to read up on articles, watch videos in order to gather more knowledge about the game. At first, it felt that there was way too much information to digest. Did not know how to integrate all that information into my game. I still continued losing for another 2-3 months ( Donw total 8K or so). Never gave up on my hope and dream to get a stable revenue out of this and also because I enjoy this very very much. I used to be obsessed with competitive video games ( Starcraft ), and once I put my mind into to something.. I don't quit it until I reach the level that I want.

For the past 3 weeks, I would say that I am not losing but I am not winning either. I have identified several leaks that I would like to identify ( amongst many that I have ) and I would hope that some of you can shed some light on them.

- I am always unsure on when to 3bet or when to 3bet light. I often find that when I 3bet light, my outcome is more profitble then its not but I had cases when I put myself in a trap.
- This may sound stupid but ... I have a very hard time FOLDING TP TK and overpairs... I have lost a huge amount of money with that but I also won.. I know this very case by case / hand by hand.. but I feel I have little instinct on when the villian cought 2 pairs or hit a small set.
- Finding the right amount of tables / hands I want. I found lately that I do enjoy playing 800-1k hands per hour. I find it keeps me entertaining and it suits me because my VPIP is around 18 so its not that hard to multitask 4 zoom tables.
- Discipline is an issue as well. My head tells to fold a hand because he must of hit it... but my emotions often tell me otherwise. I truly need to learn how to follow my instinct more then emotion.

Any advice is greatly appreciated and I would love to find some studying partners or just people to discuss poker with!

You lost over 300 buyins?

No harm done really since it sounds like you can afford it, but NL10 is pretty competitive these days. I'd suggest you move down a couple levels still and just try to get a feel of the game and focus strictly on aquiring a good EV result (don't bother with the actual money, what's important is that you become a mathematical winner in the games you play).

You need a tracker for that, and you need to learn the art of bet/folding which is key to beating these games. I'd also suggest playing maximum 4 tables since anything above that will damage your learning curve (and learning is all that really matters when you're playing for peanuts imo).

Identifying areas that can be improved is critical. Poker is full of capable and competitive people. These traits sometimes make it hard to admitt weaknesses.

Of the ones you mentioned, laying down a hand when you believe you are beaten is important and a common theme among two of your points.

Investigate why you may not want to fold even though you think you are beaten. For some it is competitive/ego: Not wanting to be "beaten" THIS hand and learning to focus on long term results as winning and not individual hands. For some it is about self-doubt and learning to have enough confidence in the read to act on and not question.

Poker is a game of information and thus should be focused outwardly. But, to improve it requires introspection too.

Poker is not at all like it was 10 years ago, do not be fooled.

Set yourself up with a tracker, look into Pokertracker 4 or Hold Em Manager 2.

honestly, if you have the money and it sounds like whether you do or not your spending it given you're down 800 buy ins or 8k, rather than learning the hard way which doesn't sound like it's working for you hire a coach. Head to the coaching forum, there are coaches for all levels of play and they will at least help you get ahold of the fundamentals which it appears you are lacking.