Learning to beat the micros - A poor student's poker diary

Time for a weekly recap. I'm pretty tired so I'm just gonna do this quickly.

- Low volume this week
- Played ~1200 hands in NL10 (100 because of the challenge, rest of them because it was going quite well)
- Lost some money doing not-cash-game challenges on PokerStars
- Got only tickets from the promo
- Studied math a lot
- Hit SilverStar on Stars
- 48k hands this year so far - 50k graph next week
- Trying to keep playing NL10, hopefully can stay there

Week 7
Starting bankroll: $50
Current bankroll: $202,5
Hands: 4115
Profit: +$14,5

Our mini-vacation is ending tomorrow and in the morning we'll be heading home. To be fair, it has not felt like a vacation at all. There has been way too much stuff to do. Fixing my car, doing some legal bullshit etc. Although it's always spend some time with the family. Still, it really feels good to head back home.

Oh and my shoulder is still not fine. It healed pretty quickly for the first month or so but in the last 2-3 weeks there's been little to no improvement. Gotta go check it with the doctor on thursday. I really need to get back in shape so I can find a job for the summer. Preferably even earlier. But right now I can't even lift anything with this shoulder so I just gotta get it fixed first.

I've been playing a little over 3k hands in NL10 and it has been going pretty well. I feel like I play better than in NL5 but there's still a lot of things I need to work on especially on the non-sd side. Might be just variance though but it feels like I'm leaking a lot there. The other factor might be that the promotions on PS has been bringing extra amount of fish on the tables so versus most of them the money comes from sd-winnings.

Anyways, reached 50k hands on the last session. Here's the graph for the year. Hope you like it

Came home yesterday, took a little longer than expected 'cause the repairing of my car took 2-3 hours longer than it should've had. But the most important thing is that it's fixed now. Hope that my shoulder gets fixed too, I have the doctor's appointment tomorrow. He's probably going to re-evaluate if the surgery is necessary.

I'm on a huge heater at the moment. I moved up to NL10 kind of accidentally and these last 4-5 days have been overwhelming results-wise. I know I should be playing more when I'm running well but I just have to tone it down for the rest of the month. There's two points why. First of all, I'm only able to enjoy the benefits of being a gold-member for the rest of the month. I have a huge amount of videos I just have to watch. The second part is that although I've been doing a good job studying, I have a little bit of catching up to do because of the vacation.

Had an interesting hand in the last session of the day. I'm not 100% sure what to do in 4b-pots and this is a perfect example of it. I think my 4b might be a little bit too small. OTF I don't want to c-bet cause I'll probably only get called by better hands. OTT I should probably be stabbing. On the river I almost made a no-brainer fold until I realized this is a perfect spot for the villain to be overbetbluffing. My range is capped and the board is pretty scary. I started thinking about what he'll be doing this with for value. He shouldn't have any flushes, why would he check the turn with them? After a minute of tanking I decided to call.

PokerStars - $0.10 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 194.4 BB
SB: 109.9 BB (VPIP: 18.75, PFR: 13.75, 3Bet Preflop: 6.06, Hands: 84)
BB: 127.8 BB (VPIP: 31.43, PFR: 24.29, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 70)
UTG: 98.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 5)
MP: 137.7 BB (VPIP: 13.51, PFR: 5.41, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 37)
CO: 105.4 BB (VPIP: 21.05, PFR: 7.89, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 76)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A♦ 7♦

fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.2 BB, fold, BB raises to 10 BB, Hero raises to 22.2 BB, BB calls 12.2 BB

Flop: (44.9 BB, 2 players) 6♠ A♠ Q♥
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (44.9 BB, 2 players) J♦
BB checks, Hero checks

River: (44.9 BB, 2 players) 8♠
BB bets 64.3 BB, Hero calls 64.3 BB

BB shows 9♦ 6♦ (One Pair, Sixes)
(Pre 37%, Flop 18%, Turn 11%)
Hero shows A♦ 7♦ (One Pair, Aces)
(Pre 63%, Flop 82%, Turn 89%)
Hero wins 165.7 BB

I'm just gonna post this week's results and modify them if I end up playing more this week. Also going to post a monthly review on sunday or monday. Oh, and I'm probably gonna be on a new metza-video if you know what I'm talking about. That's awesome

Week 8
Starting bankroll: $50
Current bankroll: $283,45
Hands: 3835
Profit: +$80,95 (including $10 RB)

Originally posted by inceptioner
I'm on a huge heater at the moment.

Such a big heater you forgot about to update us that you already play NL500 by now? What's the BR doing now?
Let us know how is it going in the challenge - actually came here to look for an update for our weekly news :-)

CU,SvenBe

Hi guys!

It's been awhile since I've posted here. First of all, I have no idea why I didn't leave a post here that I'm taking time off poker. Sorry about that.

Okay, I'll quickly recap the last 9 months of my life. I got admitted to the university and I got a sweet summer job. That's pretty much it. I started in the university two months ago and I've been pretty happy with my decision to go there.

I took time off poker because it didn't feel fun anymore. It got exhausting and I was constantly stressing about it, even though I was doing quite well. So I decided to take a break, and that break is over now (at least for a while).

I'll be starting with ~$50 again. The only difference is that I'm skipping NL2 and going straight to NL5 'cause fuck it. Zoom and/or regular tables, depending on the results. So probably regular tables

Ciao!

Hello inceptioner,

Welcome back. How is your shoulder and studies coming along? What are you studying?
Looking forward to reading how you get along with your BR.
Are you going to re-join the bankroll challenge again?

Good luck at the tables.

Regards

Matt

Originally posted by metalmonkey80
Hello inceptioner,

Welcome back.

Thank you!

How is your shoulder and studies coming along? What are you studying?

My shoulder is fine by now. It still hurts once in a while but I've been able to hit the gym etc. I don't think it's ever gonna be the same but I'll survive. And yeah, I'm studying math

Are you going to re-join the bankroll challenge again?

Yeah, I already opted in the minute I decided to start playing again!

Good luck at the tables.

Thank you dude!

The first two days have been pretty rough. The results are about breakeven after 10k hands. I've played 5k hands in Zoom and 5k hands in regular tables. At least for now it seems like Zoom is going better. In the regural tables my red line is going down like a motherfucker. Need to check up some leaks I guess.

Bye!

This week's games have been played. I'm gonna visit my parents this weekend and I'm leaving tomorrow after school.

Pretty gross ending for the week as I managed to spew $10 in the last session for no reason at all. Gonna have to keep my mindset balanced when playing against more aggressive regulars. They're not stupid, they're just aggressive.

Easily the toughest start to a bankroll-building -project I've ever had. Managed to get some profit though.

Week 1
Starting bankroll: $55
Current bankroll: $88
Hands: 17385
Profit: +$33 (including $10 RB)

Welcome back to the BR challenge!
Long time no see...
SvenBe