Improving as a player and advancing through the limits

DannyHorsley · 2018-06-27T19:18:19Z

Hi all, So I won't be offended if nobody reads this blog. The main purpose for me writing this is to track my progress and keep my mental game sharp. Whilst reading 'Jared Tender's - Mental Game of Poker', he pointed out that reviewing how you played both strategically and mentally can do wonders for your progression. So if all goes to plan, I hope to give a brief review of my sessions (maybe not daily) and see how I progress over time. At the end of Jared's book, he provides a questionnaire that has helped many of his clients recognised their own mental game problems. I think this would be a great opportunity to complete the questions to give you all an idea of who I am and also help me build some recognition of my own leaks. So here goes (sorry about the length, again I won't be offended if nobody reads this). 1. First share a bit about yourself (education, interests, family etc): My name is Danny, I am 22 years old and I have lived in the United Kingdom my entire life. I live with my girlfriend and am moving house hopefully by the end of next month! I am very close to my family (Dad, Mum and Sister) who live just a few villages away. My Dad started to develop a big interest in poker recently but has stopped playing as much due to variance (I think he feels that poker is unbeatable and only very few people can be winning players). I graduated from university back in 2016 with a First Class Honours Degree in Psychology. I quickly went on to work in a social care setting, looking after vulnerable young people looked after by the local authority. 2. Briefly Describe your poker history. How would you characterise your progress? What game(s)/limit(s) do you play? I started playing poker when I was about 20 years old, however I was quite a big fish and after a few months of small losses, I stopped playing. I started playing again towards the end of February of this year. I started off playing a mix of MTT's, SnG's and cash games, but for the past 3 months or so I have played mostly cash games at NL2 and NL5. I was a beating NL2 for about a month and so decided to go up to NL5. I was then breaking even/making a small loss for a while until I had won a small tournament (50c entry and $46 first place prize). From here I went from a bankroll of $97 to $150 whilst multi tabling (4 tables) at NL5. I then decided to try NL10. I won 3 buy ins before going on a huge tilted session and losing 12 buy ins. I went back down to NL5 but took a huge hit to my confidence and eventually lost the lot. Since then I have been making a very small loss. I tend to win a 3 or 4 buy ins over a couple of sessions and then lose them in the next few sessions. I am now playing 6max NLHE at NL5.My graph looks like this: 3. What are your goals in poker? Short and long term. If I was dreaming, I would say I want to one day quit my job and become a full time pro. However, I want to be realistic and say that I am a recreational player that plays most days when I am not working. I want to slowly work through the limits and make a small profit. I'm not sure what I'll do if I reach higher limits like NL100. In the short term I just want to get back to that period when I was beating NL5. I can't tell if I was just getting lucky or if I had found out how to win at NL5 during that short time period. 4. What personal goals does poker support? I don't think it does support any personal goals really. I look forward to playing poker most days and it passes a lot of time when I am home alone (I work shifts, so often spend a lot of my time alone whilst friends and family are at work). A lot of my close friends and family believe that poker is a waste of time, its gambling and have a negative view of it. I'd love to prove them wrong and start making some money from it. Nothing big, just enough to prove that poker can be beaten and become a hobby that pays for itself. 5. List and describe the problems in your mental game. List them in order of important to you or by severity. Give as much information as you can, including the triggers, signs and what you believe are the causes. This is a difficult one, as I feel that I have many mental game leaks, though I've plugged a lot of them. I would probably say that desperation tilt is my biggest leak. I am constantly refreshing my PT4 result to see how much my winnings/losses are. If I am in a profit, I am scared to lose it and if I am in a loss I am eager to win it back. I don't think however that I will ever go on a tilted session again and lose my entire bankroll (but I guess that's what they all say). I feel that I am good at handling bad beats, regardless of who my opponent is. If a fish sucks out on me on the river when I am a 20:1 favourite, I just tell myself that its variance and I'll win the next 19. I think I have also cured my overconfidence, as there was a time that I felt unbeatable, that I deserved to win every hand (m...

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VorpalF2F

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Joined: 02.09.2010

Posts: 45,056

01.04.2021, 17:34 0

Could be worse -- slow and steady wins the race.

Best of luck :gl:,
VS

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Zaratras

Joined: 03.01.2009

Posts: 320

01.04.2021, 22:35 0

Good luck on the tables!

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