DONE!!! / NL25 finishing blow together with Thor - help me deliver it!

Thats what ROFL looks like: ,,Ahahahahah my boss just lost 220 bb stack all in with AA against AK who got his straight right on the flop, ahahaahahha"

Overall, good week. +$166, back to normal tables with my improved game. As much as speed format is exiting, I have to admit that poker is about exploiting other players - and at regular tables you collect much more statistics about their game which allows to exploit them much better.

Any thoughts about this speed/regular dilema? Which one you prefer at micros?

I know I've told that one of the purposes of this blog is being self-accountable, but is anybody reading this ?

One more good week, $100 closer to my goal!

Originally posted by Erniastukas
is anybody reading this ?

maybe

Well, a "maybe" is still ok

Well, a glass of wine during session is fine.

Three - makes quite a dip in the result of the last week.

Whatever. Life is meant to be fun, we'll make them back this week

...and we did

Starting to show some real profit in overall challenge performance (after a huge dip down and almost losing all my challenge BR) and the whole thing again seems achievable.

Great blog. Keep them coming.

Things are getting better - I fell more consistence in my play and the results of recent period is quite pleasing, but not as good as I want (~3bb/100 @ NL25).

But maybe it's also a time to take a little break - I find myself too anxious to win big pots, but short on patience to wait for them. Somehow it became quite hard to endure longer than 1h sessions, so I think I'll take several days off next week.

Very nice week!

$222 to go to finish the challenge!

Quite demolishing setback again.

I find myself on a real waves of going good and bad, and they influence my play a lot. Looks like it's the single component left for me to come over if I want to succeed in the challenge of poker overall.

Doing good - going reckless a la "I'm the King of today" and BAM, I've just burnt my 50bb/100 session to zero.

Doing bad - well, you know the scenario, of course I need to win them back.

Guess that's the most beautiful part in poker - becoming a better person overall while learning it. Discipline. Discipline. Discipline.

Now THAT'S demoralizing. A blow one can barely withstand. A real, fierce downswing. It's possible to endure when you know it's your fault - but how do you guys go through it in such cases?

-$321, that's -13 Buy-Ins. 11 of them are from running below EV (!!!).

Every single time I was ready to start building the pot and really wanted to get it in - they showed something better.

I mean running set into higher set happens.
But running QQQQ into KKKK DOESN'T !!!!!!!

Half-a-year to beat this challenge is A LOT, I think (since I'm really putting at least an hour or two daily into playing/learning). I'm doing something fundamentally wrong, I seems to work on my tactics (small moves in particular situations), but somehow I miss some strategy issues, I guess.

That makes me DONE. No, not with the Challenge. With the current way I'll beat it. I'm looking for a coach. Now here's where you guys come into the picture. Anybody to recommend?

So, I did took a first private coaching lesson in my poker life. I guess I might have found what I needed, would have taken A LOT of further playing and learning by myself to discover some major leaks I had in my game.

After the first lesson I've got some serious insights about my pre-flop play flaws. Doing my homework currently to correct them before the next session with the coach.

Overall result of the coaching session is very good - I became much more aware of the game I play. I guess it might have that so needed effect of switching from "playing to win money" to "playing to spot and correct mistakes".

From now on I'll add bb/100 stat to my weekly update, we'll see how it changes over time. 8.6 from the last one!

bump!

Thanks so much seranpoker for contacting me personally and giving some new inspiration and dedication to learn further. And to keep updating this blog ;).

As I promised you - here's what we've found with the coach:

A) I steal too little. You should really add "stealing with any two cards from the BTN" move to your arsenal. When to do it? Use "Fold-to-steal" stats of the opponent.

B) I lose too much in the BB. It's supposed to be around -30 bb/100, mine is -60 at the moment. That indicates, that I TRY to defend it, but lose even more while trying.

A was easy to correct and implement into my game. B is another story, still trying to find a proper way to do that.

WOW. Terrible week it was. One massive unlucky session made me a break-even at NL10 again.

5 all-in bad beats in one hour. AA lost against KK, KK against 99, AA against AKs (went to flush by getting hearts at both turn and river), KKK against QQQQ, nuts full-house against 4444. In one session. -7 BI.

Nevertheless, I allow me only a single thought - if I'm only 0.24bb/100 over 27k hands - there are still A LOT to correct in my game. But it takes so much stubbornness to go through those unlucky periods of game, I guess that's what separates winners from losers in poker.

On the other hand - devoted some time to dig deeper in some variance-related studying. There's a 31% chance that a +10bb/100 player will be a loser over 100k hands. Makes you feel pretty deep in the woods

At last things are improving at my front.

First, I took a break for a couple of weeks.

Second, I reduced my tables to 4-6 (from 9). In the beginning it was soooo boring. But then, as I had so much time at the tables free of thinking and more of it left for critical decisions, I started noticing much more opportunities to make profit WITH EVERY SINGLE HAND.

That kind of differs from just pushing through time with all the mediocre junk, waiting for your top hands. And when I get them, I often overplay them (since I felt like I'm already entitled for the pot).

So, FOCUS is the King. We'll see if the results of this mental switch will last long-term.

Seems I've got the results I wanted (still too little time to call them long-term changes). Decided to dig deeper into mental side of poker and read two books, covering that topic - "Mental side of poker" will be the first.

I've managed to lift my winrate in NL10 to 1.7 and with a little addition from cashing 7 in a freeroll tournament I've reached $500 - my limit to start playing NL25 again. We'll see how it goes.

I also decided to split my list of weeks (this challenge is taking waaaaaayyyyyyyy more time than I expected) into periods, defined by major events in my challenge (drop/going up in stakes, coachings, books red, etc.). I will try to document all the details along.

As every week - post#2 updated!

Dark times came to visit me I was up to almost $850 in my challenge, NL25 tour seemed to be such a success, like walk in the park. Maybe I realxed too much, maybe I misapplied some freshly learned concepts (or applied them too much) - in any case, I lost more than $400 during 3 days, so I'm back to NL10 now.

No matter what I did I just can't win a single hand for 3 days, even against complete fish. I think I'm getting good at withstanding these tricks of the variation though, it seems it doesn't influence my game that much anymore.

Anyway, back to the old hated NL10 (even the rake here is largest of all the limits at Stars) - I find this limit extremely hard to beat. In NL25 you can clearly separate between regs and fishes and concentrate on the later ones. In NL10 is all mixed up and players are very random, maybe that makes it so hard to beat for me - you have to adapt for so many different playing styles against different players at the same time.

Hey mate, nice blog will definately follow! keep focussing on improving your own game and not on the results, they aren't important. (playing better will lead to better results anyway)

Btw really beautiful dog you have!

Thanks for the support It was about "Growing as a player together with the dog", but the dog is already fully grown up and I'm stuck at the dreaded NL10

Whatever. I'll do it. And I admit - focusing on the results is a real distraction and I'm really guilty of doing that waaaayyyyy too much.

On the other hand - keeping track of the results keeps you accountable and aware of the situation you're in. So there's a fine balance line between those two.