[Closed] My poker journey... maybe this time I can get it right!

It's 4am here and I'm exhausted after finishing a big session tourney session. I started the two late doubles (75$ each), 28k guaranteed (26$), and the fifty/fifty (55$) all at once. After 2 hours I had busted out of both late doubles and the fifty/fifty, all three on hands that I was ahead at least 65/35. All that was left was the 26$ 1186 person tourney. My luck went a little differently in that one

I maintained a pretty much average chip stack for a couple of hours playing pretty tight until we got to the money bubble. From here on in I stayed tight, but added in bluff 3 bets when the situation was right preflop. Overall things just went my way. I got a couple of huge hands with around 14 people left and doubled up 2 hands in a row, giving me a solid stack to cruise to the final table. There 3 people were eliminated very quickly and then with 4 players left I picked up kk and knocked someone out, giving me a pretty big chip lead 3 handed. A little bit later I knocked off the short stack with 55 over A8.

Going into heads up I had just over 2-1 chip lead, which quickly vanished when I ran top pair into 2 pair. After this I hung on for quite a while battling back and forth. At one point I had gotten back to even, but the I picked up AK and got all in preflop against his A8 which hit an 8 on the flop and that was the end of it. I think i played the heads up the best i could, and don't have any hands that I really regret.

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2 place paid out 3984.96$ which I will gladly add to my bankroll ♦ ♦ Before this tourney I had lost a couple of other mtt's and 1.5 BI's at Nl100 so overall my BR is now-

$8315

Cheers!
Georg

September Summary

I think I’ll start this post with the same thing I wrote at the end of August as it is still very appropriate: ‘I’m on the happy side of poker, hopefully this will last!’

Here’s a recap of my goals :

Win montly leaderboard- Didn’t even place in the top 10…but I think it was smart for me to quit this goal midmonth because it essentially would have meant that I need to grind a lot. I’ve realized that I need to focus even more on my play now that I’m trying Nl100, and that means playing less tables at a time. Also I wasn’t in a good mental state for grinding after starting this limit with a 15 BI down! Failed

+win rate for Nl 100 Sh- I’m currently down 8buy-ins at Nl 100 Sh. I think now that I’m playing with stats I’m playing above break even, but it will still take sometime before getting out of the red at this limit. Failed

Identify and fix leaks- I’ve spend a ton of time analyzing hands/stats/other players in the past two weeks to identify areas in which I’m going wrong. I think I’ve really improve my game, and the use of stats while playing has also really helped. Achieved

Avoid tilt more effectively than last month- I’m really happy about my attitude towards poker this month. At one point near the beginning of the month I was down 1500$ (1200 in Nl100 Sh and 300 tourney entries) which represented just under a third of my bankroll at the time. At this point I definitely wasn’t happy about what had happened, but I wasn’t panicking, I didn’t played on tilt (although I went on tilt a few times, but immediately stopped playing) and i was still pretty positive about poker and confident in myself. I know that I’m going to face much worse downs than this, and hopefully I’ll be able to get through them as well. Obviously winning 5000$ in tourneys just after a down is a nice way to regain confindence and not tilt, but I believe that I would have made it through with or without this luck. Achieved

4500$ BR- my bankroll is now just under 8400$. Achieved

Overall I'm incredibly happy about this month in terms of bankroll growth (obviously I enjoy doubling my bankroll ) I do wish that I could have done better on the cash tables, but I think I've learnt a lot and I'll continue to try to improve this part of my game. Hopefully next month will be a different story for cashgames.

I have a little excel graph that I'm using to track my overall BR progress, so here it is (I know it looks a little fun because I just copy pasted it here)

Month bonuses sng's cash mtt's withdrawals BR end of month
June 50 200 0 0 0 250
July 550 0 565 250 0 1615
August 870 0 200 1000 0 3685
Sept 77 0 -800 5430 0 8392

*edit: ok that table is practically unreadable...but I don't feel like changing it, so to sum it up this month I'm up to 8400 in BR with 5400$ mtt profit and -800 Nl100 Sh

I'll post some new objective for next month in a couple of days.

Cheers ♦
Georg

Time to get things started for a new month. I’m really happy because I just transferred part of my roll to Ladbrokes poker in order to finally have an account linked to PS. Soon I’m going to be a real PS member! (1000$ bonus + rakeback is a nice also) For the most part this month I’m going to focus on Nl100 SH and making sure I clear the 1000$ bonus on Ladbrokes. I’ll also play some mtt’s on full tilt when I’m not feeling cash games. Here are my goals.

October goals:

-Have a +BB/100 hands at Nl100 SH: My main goal is to have +BB, but I’ll add on a side goal of having a positive win rate including last month (so be up at least 8 BI in october)

-Clear bonus on Ladbrokes: With the 1000$ bonus and rakeback, this should give me a minimum 1450$ bonus in october.

-Become platinum on pokerstrategy

-Watch every Nl SH and mtt video available on pokerstrategy at least once up to platinum.

-Read every article about Nl cash games and mtt’s at least once up to platinum.

-Post at least 20 hands in the hand evaluation section of the forum once I’m gold and have access to the appropriate forum.

-Only start mtt sessions if I’m pretty sure I’m ready for it. Last month I think I wasted a few mtt buy-ins because I started a tourney and then didn’t feel like playing a half hour later.

-Do at least a little a bit of review of my game after every session and stick to 4 tables at a time (only exception will be if I’m close to running out of time and want to clear the bonus…but I think I’ll have more than enough time 4 tabling)

-Don’t play above my skill level: Basically what I mean is that even though I now have 40 buy-ins of Nl200 Sh I know I’m not skilled enough to beat it yet. I think the only way I’d be taking any shots at Nl200 in october is if I played like 20k hands crushing Nl100 Sh. Unless this happens I’ll be sticking to Nl100 Sh and trying to gain some solid playing experience while constantly improving my game. This same rule obviously applies to mtt’s, so I’ll be sticking to a 100 BI rule (maybe a rare exception to try out some 100$ tourneys on full tilt, but only once or twice so that I can get an idea of the level of play in these tourneys)

-Maintain in control of tilt- Same as last month, either control my emotions while playing or take a break. This will be much more important this month because I’ll be trying to generate enough rake for the bonus, so I'll be more tempted to play on tilt.

-My BR goal will be to make 10k by the end of the month, which is just a little more than I should get from bonuses alone. As usual I’m going to try not to focus on my BR through the month.

Well this is definitely the most goals I’ve ever had for one month, but I think it’s appropriate because this is the first month that I can finally really use pokerstrategy and make a big jump in my game. I realize that I’m at a point where I need to put a bigger emphasis on learning as opposed to grinding if I want to keep moving up from Nl100 on my way to becoming a solid player!

Cheers,
Georg

I really enjoy the way you structure your blog with goals and reviews of the goals. Its always a pleasure to check out how you are doing

Congratulations on the great last month - and best of luck in achieving your new goals! Good to see you have a tracked account as well now - hope to see you become an active part of the higher limit hand evaluation section

Hey SoyCD,

Nice to hear that someone's enjoying my blog even if its pretty boring because I'm doing it mostly for self review. I'll definitely become an active part of the hand evaluation section the second I become gold!!

As for poker, I haven't played at all the past few days because of lots of working... but this weekend I'll definitely be hitting the tables at Ladbrokes for the first time.

nice blog

Thanks fun101rockets!

I've played my first thousand hands on ladbrokes now and I'm up about 3 buy-ins. I'm slowly getting comfortable loosening up more and more preflop, and my stats are now something like 15/19. I think I've played well so far, except for one hand that I made a terrible play (trying to be too aggressive in the wrong spot) which cost me a stack. I've only been 4 tabling so far, which has really helped me focus on playing well and not just grinding.

I'll post some graphs/stats when I've played something like 5k hands.

*edit- BR at Ladbrokes $3692, at other sites $4994

I've played 4k hands now, and I'm up about 4 buy-ins total. I feel like I've really improved my play from before, but I'm still making a ton of mistakes. I think the biggest mistake I still make is being overly aggressive sometimes in the wrong spots, and bluffing fish (obviously a dumb move most of the time )

Here's my graph of Nl100 so far

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The one thing that I'm really happy about is my non-showdown winnings are almost break even. After my first 4k hands on AP I was down more than 500$ in non-showdown pots, so I think this is definitely a sign that I'm in the process of plugging that huge leak.

my stats are about 18/14 now, so I'd like to keep finding spots to be more aggressive preflop.

BR- Lad-3793$ others- same as before

I played another 2k hands and I'm up another 4 buy-ins. Nothing really special has happened lately, but I have come across quite a few interesting spots that I'll post in the hand evaluation section once they update ps points and I'm gold. I'm still working on loosening up preflop, and being more selectively aggressive on the flop.

I'm almost 1/3 of the way to collecting enough points for the 1000$ bonus, so it shouldn't be a problem clearing it this month.

BR- Lad 4225$ others- same as before

you're a sick man
awesome progress

thanks finchybg!

I won a seat in the 750k guaranteed on full tilt today, so I'm taking a break from the cash games and trying my luck (the tourney just started)

As for cash games I've played another 2k hands pretty much breakeven. Today I didn't feel that I was playing too well which is why I decided to switch to tourneys.

Cheers,

I just busted out of the 750k guaranteed...only lasted about a half hour. But hey, can't complain since I lost KK to AA, and didn't make any stupid mistakes.

Hey, good to see a fellow Canadian. I'm from Grand bend ONT. If you know where that is. Interesting to read your progress. Keep up the good work.

U have more than 45BI on NL200. Why aren't u playing NL200 ?

hey hellyeahent,

I want to play Nl200, but most of my roll has come from mtt cashes and bonuses. Because of this I want to make sure I'm crushing Nl100 before I move up. So far this month I've played 8k hands up close to 8 buy-ins. If I continue with a winrate like that for around another 10k hands then I'll definitely be trying Nl200.

I think I'm a better tourney player, so I want to me careful moving through the cash limits.

@ave27- thanks! It is nice to see other canadians on this european filled site!

I've played 9k hands now and am up 10 Buy-ins.

My stats up until now are about 17/14. with 20 WTSD, 52 W$SD, 4.5 agg factor.

Here's my graph so far.

[URL=

I'd like to break even in non-showdown pots eventually...

I played 1k of hands today up just over 2 buy-ins. I found that it was an especially interesting session as I was at 3 tables with a lag who seemed pretty solid postflop and played 42/26 preflop. I've come across quite a few lags, but this guy was the laggiest I've seen yet. The interesting thing is that I 3bet him pretty loose and he never once raised my 3bet (often called) and he played postflop pretty passively. I think I adjusted my 3bet range well against him and took a lot of medium sized pots from him.

It's nice that I have a linked account now too! I've started posting some hands now that I'm gold and I can't wait to get some feedback. I'll wrap this post up since I've got a lot of videos to watch if I want to accomplish my monthly video goal ♦

Cheers,

BR Lad- $4614 others- $4900

Played another 1k of hands and went up another 3 buy-ins. I think I'm officially running hot ♦ (I hope I didn't jinx it...)

Played another 1k of hands today up 4 more buy-ins.

I've also watched quite a few of Sebra's video's and they're great. Every time I play I feel like I've improved from the last time because of them! I'm also doing quite a bit of hand analysis and posting hands I'm not sure about on the forum. I love having a linked account now!!

BR Lad-$5300 others- same as before

Nice man! Your blog really motivates me.
Keep up the good work and Gl at the tables