Hey caltabiano,
Welcome to the 'Get Rich or Die Tryin' bankroll challenge. we will be looking forward to your first update which you should post by Monday of each week in Get Rich or Die Tryin' - The Bankroll Challenge - Reporting thread.
Have fun 
Laz
brasileiros modafócas ♦
go2spins, quiá quiá
BTW, GL @poker @life !!!
aLO [hELLO] Nohara
Hi caltabiano,
welcome here (btw, you are invited to duplicate your challenge to our Portuguese community,too Link)!
I am sure you will make it - 10BB/100 is an ambitious goal! Make sure to check out the strategy forums & our videos to get up to date with the game...
Also, obviously looking forward to your first report for the challenge - will it be 10bb/100 or not?
CU,SvenBe
Hey people! 'm starting my first session today, so I guess tomorrow I'll make my first report, and from then on I'll be updating weekly.
SvenBe, I know it's an ambitious goal, but for the amount of volume I''ll be able to put in I'll have to maintain this winrate, or I won't make it to $1000, which i the minimum, right?
I've got a deposit bonus to help me out though 
Update coming soon!
Hey, what's up people?
So, yesterday I finished my first session. It was really fun getting back on the tables 
I'm playing on an old macbook with a small screen, but managed to play 12 tables, although I would timed out from time to time... but I think it's just a matter of getting used to it. I still don't have a tracking software, so I don't really know how many hands I played. Now, on the other hand, I did buy holdem manager once so I guess I'm still entitled to it right? I'm gonna e-mail them to see if I can install it in my new computer... I still have the serial number.
Ok, so how did I feel about getting back on the tables?
- First of all, I had a lot of fun
- I took a few hands to get used again to the starting hands, but I quickly dismissed the starting hands chart, as I started remembering how to play.
- NL 2 is awesomely fishy, gotta value bet like crazy. Most players are pretty obvious about their hands, so it's easy to thin value bet, since there's absolutely no need to balance our betting range. Bet small when you want a call from a week hand, bet big when you want a call from a big hand. Easy as that.
- Exploit people's leak as much as you can. There are clearly some regulars on the tables who know about plays, such as squeeze, 3-betting looser against blind steals, etc. And at the same time, there are others who are completely straight forward. Of course that's not different from higher limits, but I guess here in this limit they won't really adjust, so we can exploit these patterns that each player develops. "Exploit the until they adjust", but the good news is that they will rarely adjust.
- One important thing that I remembered, and I guess today I understand this even better than back in the day: AA is not the nuts. Position is the nuts.
Alright, I'll write more about these strategy concepts as I remember them and improve them in my own gameplay. I'll be very happy to hear about all of you people's point of view about strategies on the micro stakes (and on higher stakes as well). I'll try to be active on the forums and to be as often as possible discussing strategy and reviewing hands.
Alright, now for the overall of my session:
Net won: $6,46 (Yay \o/)
Present Bankroll: $56,46
I initially lost 2,5 BI on NL5, BR went down to $38. So I moved down to NL2, and made 9 BI and a little bit. So, in bb, I guess I made something around 650bb. It's a pretty good result, let's see if I'm gonna keep it up.
I move up to NL5 again at $60. My bankroll management will be:
NL5 at $60 <<>> Go back to NL 2 at $40
NL10 at $120 <<>> Go back to NL5 at $80
NL25 at $300 <<>> Go back to NL10 at $200
NL50 at $600 <<>> Go back to NL25 at $400
NL100 at $2000 <<>> Go back to NL50 at $1200 (here I start moving to a less agressive BRM)
NL200 at $10000 <<>> Go back to NL100 at $4000
And from then on Il'l see. My goal is to be at NL50 by the end of the year and to be playing NL100 / NL 200 by July 2016. And I plan to cash out some money in between. I'll will work to make this possible. Let's see if I'm gonna be able to study, work on the farm and play poker. Time management FTW =D
I gotta go and have lunch with my dad now, and then go back to my farm to work, because it started raining these last couple of weeks, and I'm planting beans, cassava, squash, sweet potato, tomatoes, corn, radishes..... I will post pics of my farm soon enough.
Oh yeah, I hope to be able (With poker winnings) to set up a small poker office in my farm. I just have to earn enough to be able to pay for the internet there, and then I can play at home, which would be absolutely awwwwwesome. =D
Alright people, see you at the tables and at the forums!
Peace!!
I dont wanna crush your hopes or anything but HEM is pretty outdated, I think it's 1,5 year ago now that they stopped making updates for HEM1... so I'm not sure the HUD would even work if you had it installed, since updates usually cause HUD's to stop working which is then solved by a HEM update... You can probably get at least a trial for HEM2, though!! GL 
Originally posted by vonki
I dont wanna crush your hopes or anything but HEM is pretty outdated, I think it's 1,5 year ago now that they stopped making updates for HEM1... so I'm not sure the HUD would even work if you had it installed, since updates usually cause HUD's to stop working which is then solved by a HEM update... You can probably get at least a trial for HEM2, though!! GL
Pretty outdated, but still pretty useful! I've been using HEM1 as my software tracker and HUD for the last 2 months and crushing with it
But then I do think I'm gonna crush your hopes, it seems stars banned HEM1 from today because of a silly 3-color HUD rule or somethingor so I read in 2+2.
I already downloaded PT4 and it looks fine (HEM2 is so a downgrade - not update - I used it back when I was a "pro" and it lagged the PC opening many tables. It also doesn't have anything significantly different from HEM1, I didn't see the necessity to update then and definitely don't see it now... except for pokerstars banning HEM1 that is... but PT4 is updated regularly so no problem...)
But wait, there is more, it really seems that stars is thinking on banning the HUDs altogether, or at least ban more software than it does now. They will anounce this month. (Daniel Negreanu said on twitter Stars was going to ban seating script software and HUDs... and he might have some inside information, being like the face of pokerstars... )
Hey people, what's up!
So, this week I managed to play twice which was pretty nice. I have no idea how many hands I played though
I moved back up to NL 5 and then to NL10, where I broke even (or lost something like $0,60). I did notice that when I moved to N10, I got a bit money scared. But I think I can fix this little problem just by conscious realizing it. Nonetheless, I'll pay very attention to the next sessions to make sure I don't mess up my game because of it.
This week I stumbled upon the Tankroll article, which was pretty cool. I thought I was going crazy aggressive BRM, but then realized I could go even more crazy! 
So I was considering taking shots on NL25 and NL50 at a lower BR, but then I realized that I'll have to lower the number of tables I play, because with 8 - 9 BI, I can't 12-table right? =P
But I guess I could 6 table instead of 12-tabling, because:
1 - Higher limit = higher $$/100
2 - Less tables = more A-game >> higher bb/100
So if I join 1 and 2, I guess I could make the same amount of money/h by playing 1 limit higher, but half the number of tables. Now I'll just have to make sure I don't get money scared by playing with 8-9 BI. So, with that in mind, I will take a shot at NL25 with a $200 BR, and at NL50 with $400, having a 2BI loss stop limit, so that I can move back down to the lower limit with at least 12BI. And I'll follow the "defense line" of 20 stacks for NL5, which is pretty safe, especially since there is still NL2 in the case of a disaster.
So, my current BR stands at $126, meaning I need to make another 7,4BI to take shots at NL25. Hopefully in the next couple of sessions I'll be able to do it.
The intensive grinding week is coming up, I don't yet know exactly the date, but it'll be in 2 or 3 weeks probably, because then I'll be on summer vacation from school. I just need to make sure there'll be somebody to look after my little farm while I'm grinding.
You know, I've been noticing some changes in my game (in comparison with how I played back in the day). The biggest difference I see is that I'm playing a lot more post-flop. Apparently we can exploit people a lot post-flop in these low limits. I've been seeing a lot of re-steals and squeezes. Most players have already acquired a notion of these pre-flop plays, but they don't know what to do post-flop. So I'm really striving to take the game post-flop, by calling in position a lot of hands I could 3b or 4b. I hardly ever shove AK pre-flop... I really don't think it's as profitable as calling it IP. By calling a lot IP, I've polarized a lot my 3b and 4b range, so I'm either at the top of my range, or I'm holding those pretty A4s, 86s, Q9s.. Q9s is my favourite hand btw. I don't know why, but I just love it, I have to 3b it every single time
Anyway, it's been pretty cool to play post-flop and I've been experimenting with some different betting patterns. I think it's very important o experiment, in order to prepare ourselves for the higher limits, where we NEED to be comfortable playing post-flop and we need to have a wide arsenal of creative plays to exploit the others at the table.
Alright, that'll be it for the day. Unfortunately I don't have to time to update this blog as I used to back in the day, but that's that I guess =/
I'll do what I can
Cheers, everyone
Just finished this week's session. Ran pretty bad, but I think I managed to maintain my mindset until the very end, when I decided to leave because at that precise moment I realised I couldn't make proper decisions anymore. You know when you get to that point when you're certain that if you haven't been sucked out already, you will be in the next street? If you haven't stopped playing yet, this is the moment...
It's really crazy because I was actually hitting flops like a maniac.. flopped a gazillion sets, but never got payed, and then flopped bottom straights vs upper straight and otras cositas más....
But like I said, I think I managed to keep up my a-game, didn't get money scared despite knowing I was down by quite a bit during the session. There were some pretty interesting hands, but not having a tracking software really sucks because it's a lot harder to review hands I still haven't figured out how to mark hands in poker starts. Could somebody help me out I'd love to post some hands in the hand evaluation forum and also here in the blog.
But all in all, I think I'm getting back the rinding rythm and am improving my game. Like I've already mentioned, I've been really trying to get into a bunch of post-flop play and really diversify my post-flop game.... it seems that most people have already acquired the bascis of pre-flop play, but lack post-flop experience. So there are a bunch of situations in which I think we can exploit the average player by taking him to a post-flop scenario where he'll feel completely lost.
And it just gets more and more obvious, even though I had already some decent experience with poker, and have already know this for quite a while, but still it becomes more clear: position is the nuts. I was even thinking that it would be pretty cool to do a session where I could not see my hole cards, so that I'd only be able to play position and the board. But I need a healthier bankroll before trying something like that. Still, I'm definitel gonna do it, because I think it'll be an awesome training.
So my bankroll sits now at exactly 76,89 and I've already realeased $30 of my bonus which puts my overall winnins at exactly -$3,11 =D
I'm pretty sure I'm up in bb though 
It happened a couple of times of moving up limis and then being destroyed, and then having to recover on the lower limit.
In today's session I $50 in NL10, recovered most of it in NL5 and then lost it again, haha. Gotta love
I think I'm gonna be able to put in more volume starting next week, because next wednesday I'm on vacation from school \o/ I still have to work on the farm, but anyways I'll have some more spare time. And my intensive grinding week is coming up soon soon soon I'd love to be able to start it in NL25, but for that I need at leaast $250 in my bankroll. Let's see how that goes.
And on a sidenote, I stumbled upon this blog https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=2187971#post2187971 and I must recommend it to those who have not seen it, since there's a black member experienced in higher limits playing on the low stakes and giving his comments which is a great opportunity for everyone who's playing micro and small stakes to learn.
Cheers everyone!
When reading your last post I was going to recommend you that blog! But u already found it; yeah ir's pretty cool (even I learn from it, being a "nit" FR player 
)
Awesome tutorial, but let me ask something. Is there a way to mark the hand while I play, so that I can post it in boom after I finish my session? It's tough to open browser while 10-tabling
Hello caltabiano,
Nice blog and look forward to reading it all and your future posts. 
Regards
Matt
Originally posted by caltabiano
Awesome tutorial, but let me ask something. Is there a way to mark the hand while I play, so that I can post it in boom after I finish my session? It's tough to open browser while 10-tabling
I'm afraid it's not possible to mark the hand
I just clic the boom replayer and leave the browser tab open until my session ends.
Yeah, I might try that. On the other hand, I downloaded the trial version of PT4. Do you know if there's a way of marking hands there without having the HUD open? I don't really want to play with a HUD right now... Otherwise I could just set up a really simple hud just so that I can mark the hands.
Quick update today because I gotta get some sleep. Grinded quite a bit of NL5, and thank god made some profit. It was full of ups and downs though 
Finished $20 up, so my present BR stands at $96. I will keep on going in NL5 until $120, then I'll move back to NL10. Now w/ PT installed, I hope to post some hands here.
Probably in 10 days or so I'll start my intensive grinding week =D Looking forward to it!! 8-10h of daily grinding + daily updates here in the blog. It'll be pretty awesome I think.
Alright people, peace! Next week I'll write a longer update.
8-10h of daily grinding + daily updates here in the blog. It'll be pretty awesome I think.
Alright people, peace! Next week I'll write a longer update.
Seems you are enjoying more the summer in the south, do you ?
Quick link for the BR challenge report: https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=326222&page=73
CU,SvenBe
Originally posted by SvenBe
8-10h of daily grinding + daily updates here in the blog. It'll be pretty awesome I think.
Alright people, peace! Next week I'll write a longer update.
Seems you are enjoying more the summer in the south, do you ?
Quick link for the BR challenge report: https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=326222&page=73CU,SvenBe
I wish.... been loaded up with stuff to do from school... I'm supposed to be on vacation though, but apparently am not, haha. But worry not sir, I will do m intensive grinding week before the year's up! Sorry for not updating the challenge, I didn't have access to the internet till today.
Ok mates, I owe a longer post (I owe it to the community AND to myself, and now is the time for it
I'd like to thank metalmonkey (and others, but especially metalmonkey) for his inspiring blog. I liked the sistematic way in which you are organising yourself, and I think I need a little bit of that right now...
So, this post will be not only about life at the tables, but also life.
My mind has been really jammed lately, and I can't really organise my thoughts too well. This is due to too many commitments I take up with myself. I guess the biggest one I took up lately was school... And then not only there are the classes and school workrs and all that, I started working on my final project and of course I took up a pretty damn extensive and demanding project. I have 1,5yr till graduation, so I have that time to work on it, but I'm working with soil microorganisms, and they're really demanding pets Then there's my farm, social life (including family and friends) and now poker.
Although this post might have started sounding like a FML post, it is not at all, but rather it's meant to be a motivational post.
I'm in seriously need of some proper time management and some peace of mind (remember lennon's work "I'll give you anything I've got for a little peace of mind). Peace of mind is unpriceable and we often don't realise how much a clogged up mind really drains our energy and takes out our potential as people and as poker players.
Ok, so here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna organise myself. I've never been a big fan of too much planning, because I think that life's demands flow just like life itself and so it's hard to plan in such a dynamic environment. I learned that in the farm, because I often planned to do something, but the demands turned out to be completely different from what I planned. But still, I think we gotta plan, and I should include some more plan in my life.
Life for me, at the moment, has 4 main branches I'd like to devote my time with:
- Farm work
- School work
- Social
- Poker
I'm gonna quickly summarize where how I feel about where I stand regarding each of these branches and try to come up with ways to improve.
So, the work at the farm is most certainly number 1 priority for me. It's what moves me, it's what I most love and what makes me happy and gives me a great lifestyle. I do have however a bit of a problem regarding the money-making aspect of farm work... I have a really hard time selling my products I don't like selling, I feel bad, I feel guilty for taking money, which is SUPER silly, I know, but that's something I have to fix, I could say it's a big leak in my gameplan, haha. The products I usually sell are mainly food conserves, stuff like jam, chutney, pickled vegetables. And then often it happened that I work hard to plant, harvest and then make the conserves, and then I suck so bad at selling that I end up losing part of what I produced, because it gets old. Most of what I sold till today is due to the help of my mother and other people who sell it for me... hahaha So I really have to work on my post-flop game here...
The crappy thing is that it makes me really unmotivated when that happens... I know I have to produce, I want to produce, but then I know that when I have the product finished, I'll suck at selling. I've even tried getting some friends involved in the sales part, so that I didn't have to deal with it, but I'm yet to find someone really interested. But the best thing for me would be to really find a way of selling it myself. I think that one of the best ways of doing it would be to have a facebook profile or a blof where I could sell the products. I've been wanting to create this profile or blog for a long long time, but haven't really gotten to really doing it. And now it started to rain again, so things are growing and I'll have raw material to turn into conserves. So I'll leave myself with a goal to be achieved till the 31st of december: *CREATE AND CONSOLIDATE A FACEBOOK PROFILE OF THE FARM*
It feels pretty good to set a goal. I guess I'll try to include more goals in my daily routine and I'll use this blog to keep track of my improvement goal-wise. =D
Now, just a couple more pictures before I move on the the next topic
SCHOOL WORK
WTF is that, dude? Those are soil yeasts and molds captured from my farm, and now I'm busy isolating them and identifying them. It's all part of my final project. The theme will be something like "The influence f different levels of fertilizers on soil microorganisms" or something like that. I know exactly what I want to do, but I haven't really found the perfect title for it. I have till now isolated over 60 samples of molds and yeast, and I'm not even done yet with them, AND I still have to deal with bacteria, mycorrhiza and actinobacteria It's somewhat a fun work though. I don't really like laboratorial work, but I gues I have to do it to achieve what I want, so lez do it! I'll try to take a picture from the microscope view of some pretty-looking yeast or mold. It really is amazing to see them in the microscope , they're just so beautiful and perfect-looking, it looks like a drawing from the most awesome of all the artists... and I guess it is, right? If you now what I mean...
So actually, the school work is going somewhat fine. There's the field part of the work as well, beside the laboratorial part, and this field part will begin next week. This weekend I have to do some math to figure out how much fertilization I'm gonna need and then start preparing the soil and then plant! And then observe for 1.5yr how the microorganisms are going to respond. My hypothesis is that the more fertilizer you use the less beneficial microorganisms you have, but then I believe there are some critical nutrients limit, both a low limit, below which the microorganisms fail to exist, and a high limit, in which pathogenic microorganisms begin to act as pathogens.
Anyway, I don't want to burden the blog with the intricacies of my school work, because it probably doesn't interest most
So, on to the next item!
SOCIAL LIFE
It can't get much more social then that, hehe. Be mindful when you're walking in the middle of banana plants, these guys really love to build their homes on the bottom face of the leave. And it's not exactly pleasant meeting them intimately. Although there is something to be said about the beneficial effects of their venom on our body. When you get stinged, when the pain starts to diminish you feel a really relaxing effect on the surrounding muscles. I don't really know what happens, if it's just a matter of contrast to the pain, or if it really has some soothing effect on the muscles, all I know is that it feel good for a while. And then after that you get really swollen on the spot, which doens't feel nor looks good, hehe.
Ok, I live alone in the farm. At the beginning, it felt really awesome and it really made me grow as a man, this experience of living alone. Spending a lot of time with your own self, really helps you getting to know yourself. Afterall, city life is just so noisy and flashy, that it's hard to listen to yourself, to your body, to your mind... So for the first 1.5yr I just felt awesome living by myself. Every now and then a friend spends a season there, helping me out and etcetera, but for the most time I was alone. I had a girlfriend back when I moved to the farm, and although she didn't live there, it was always comforting being able to call her in the end of the day. It helped not making me feel TOO lonely.
As time passed by, I started feeling the need of more social interaction. I always tried getting my friend to go to the farm, I'd always schedule stuff like bonfires and lunches, and would invite them to spend the weekend and all that stuff, but everyone is busy doing something, and my farm is 50km from the city, and it's not really that type of super comfortable "country house of people from the city". I really try to make the place as comfortable as possible, but due to the way I like to deal with the ecossystem, and to the fact that I'm my one and (often) only worker, things change slowly, but surely. And so the environment is not exactly the most comfortable for most people, and I perfectly understand that. Also, I don't have a refrigerator, or a gas stove, or a television... so you get the picture. I do have light and an electrical shower, but not for long, because there are a couple of trees reaching the energy wires, and I don't plan on cutting them down, so I guess I'll have to shut down the power and start generating my own power, which is on my plans. I'd like to have a biogas and/or an ethanol generator, since I can produce both fuels at the farm. But that's talk for another time.
I was talking about social life. This part of life is something I'm really not sure how to approach. It's funny, you know? I've been trying to be really active lately (at least for my standards) but it's something that really seems to mess up my life a bit, because it's hard to include it in a schedule... I usually just accept invitations from friends and social gatherings don't really have a specific day of the week, and then some weeks there are a million birthday parties, and then suddenly there's nothing for a few weeks, and it's just hard. One thing I guess I could do is to set aside 1 day of the week to be a "rest day", where I could be free to meet people up and do whatever I please. But 1 day of the week is just a lot, haha. 1 in 7, that's like, 14.3% right? It's a lot... But I guess its really important. There's a big friend of mine who tells me: "You've got to put more fun into your life, you gotta chill more, lie down on the hammock for a while, have some fun, don't work o much..." And although work for me is fun, I guess it's important not to be too much into it for an extensive period of time... it's always good to periodically change environments.
Ok, so this is pretty interesting, I liked this thing of setting aside 1 day of the week to come to the city just for the sake of being social. Let's see how that goes. I'll give myself the freedom to do stuff like have 2 days in one week, but then I have to make up for it next week or vice-versa. And there's a rule: I have to participate in a social interaction on this day, of any nature, be it family gathering, friends gathering, or people that I don't know gathering, haha. But I'm gonna do it, to try to balance my being alone/being social ranges I will try however to not extend the social interactions too late into the night though, because it really messes up my biological clock, which is something I have to keep in shape in order to maintain my energy level, WHICH btw is something which I haven't been able to maintain and I really feel the need to fix. I've been really tired lately, not being able to recover my energy with a good night of sleep. I wake up tired, feeling like a truck ran me over, even though I slept long enough.
And speaking of social life, I really need a female companion... but a COMPANION. And I know my lifestyle acts like a pretty damn thin filter for finding a true companion. I think I just need to be patient for the moment being. Right now I can't really include in my life having a girl who's not willing to be with me in the day to day of the farm, because I can't devote an extra time just for a relationship... it has to be included in my life, if that makes any sense. And that's why I say I need a COMPANION and not just a girlfriend...
And mind you, being social also includes participating here in the forum. I'd like to thank all of you people. I really like being here with you, even though it's a virtual interaction, I always felt good being here, and still do. I really appreciate being part of this community. I miss some names here who used to hang around back in the day... Mr mindfucker TwiceT, where is he? The shortstacker master Gerv... and others. They are the first who come to my mind, there are many others though. Vonki is still around, and she's a pretty familiar face.. Cheers vonki! =D. Anyway, I just really appreciate this community, TYVM:f_drink:
Ok, now for the last and I guess most important topic, since this is a fucking POKER BLOG, right?
POKER
Ok, poker. So, my return to he poker tables hasn't been an easy one. It's been pretty swingy and I'm really having to adapt a little bit because the games have clearly changed sine I last played in 2010. Although I have had my deal of running bad, I have had my deal of mindfucking myself, hahaha. I think that I took long to develop a proper gameplan and then adapting myself as I went along. I came back with the wrong mindset of "I used to beat NL100, NL2 - NL50 is going to be super easy". That's really silly, if you consider I hadn't really played for 5 years.
So, I've probably played about 30k-35k hands. It's been really swingy, especially taking into consideration that I'm using a pretty aggressive BRM, which adds a lot to the swings. Not devoting enough time to studying since the beginning was a pretty big mistake, but it has been fixed already. I have started seeing videos, specifically double2's videos. I really liked his way of teaching btw. Right now I'm watching the "10 tips to get out of the micros" series. Really really love the way he thinks about the game. I'd like to express my appreciation for him.
I'm pretty confident I'll move up limits in the next 50-60k hands and manage to build a $1000-$1500 roll be able to comfortably work on NL25-50 and then plan my move to the small stakes again. Hard work will pay off, because it always does.
A few goals pokerwise. I'm not gonna set goals like winrate or money won, but rather study goals.
- Watch at lesat 1 video weekly
- Choose a weekly theme to work on. (I can extend a specific theme for more weeks if I think it deserves it)
- Post some initial consideration about the topic in the beginning of the week and then in the beginning of next week I'll summarize my thoughts about it during my play, conclusions I came to, and I'll post at least 3 hands specifically about the theme.
- Comment on 5 hands weekly
- Post 5 hands weekly
- Grind 6h weekly (6-12 tabling)
Ok, these are pretty solid and achievable goals I guess. Let the dice roll.
Where I stand at the moment:
Current bankroll: ~$140
Current limit: NL10
Next move: shots at NL16 at $160
Choice of theme for the week: Playing from the BB against CO; BTN, SB steals.
Since for the moment being I have to come to the city to play poker, and I have decided to take day to be social, I'll try to do both things at once and spend the weekends in town. That's also good because weekends are the best days to grind. And there's family lunch every sunday, meaning I can see everybody when I want to.
So, specifically this saturday I won't come, because I have scheduled with a friend to go to my house tomorrow, so I'll be there, but then that counts a bit as social points. But then I'll come back saturday night. But as a general rule, I'm gonna come to the city on saturday for lunch, and be here until sunday night. I have all this time to grind/be social/plan the week to enter. And then during the week, I have to be intensive about working on the farm. I'll make an effort to keep track of farm goals as well on a notebook, and maybe I can even keep on posting them here.
School is close to the farm, so I can continue my school work on weekdays.
Before this gets too long (as if it hadn't already done so, hahaha), I'm gonna summarize what I have realised in this post.
FARM WORK >> Gotta set up internet profile for purposes of being able to make commerce!
>> Intensive work monday thru friday!! "Rest on weekends"
SCHOOL WORK >> Just keep on working, not much to be added or taken. Gotta take good care of my yeasts, and then part of the work is happening together with farm work
SOCIAL INTERACTION >> Weekends will be spent in town, and I have to participate in at least 1 social interaction, being careful not to extend late into the night, in order to protect my sleeping routine.
POKER >> The weekly goals are set above. Minimum of 6h of weekly grind, but the ideal would be 8h - 10h, it'll be week-dependent, and the grind can be spit into saturday / sunday sessions. And then there are the study goals as well. And very importantly: WEEKLY POST on the blog
Guys, I'm sorry for the huge post. Please understand that this post was also a way for me to organise my thoughts. If you read it till here, I thank you for the attention. If you read only bits of it, I still thank you for the attention. If you didn't read it at all, still I thank you =D
What to expect on the next posts:
Summary of the weekly sessions
Thoughts on the weekly theme
Hands of the week
General thoughts and happenings of life outside poker.
I'm gonna make an effort to make this blog work. It'll be good for my own organisation and I think it might be interesting and inspiration to others.
Thanks a lot people. I'll leave you with a beautiful picture, and food for thought, because a picture speaks more than a million works, and we, as human beings, are equipped with internal intuitive and holistic understanding, and thus are able to reach complex understandings, too complex for the rational mind, but beautifully simple for the spirit, just by looking at nature. And know that the laws of nature flow on the poker tables, and the laws of the poker tables flow in life and in nature, and that's one of the things that really makes me like this game... I learned a lot about life by playing.
did not read all, bit too long I think. BUt I like that part where you said you need a girlfriend as companion, not just relationship, for time saving. For me also it looks like when I go do smth with girl, I am wasting my time, but I am doing this because just to spend time with girl. But would be best if you can do what you like most and at the same time spend time with girl.
You said you have girlfriend? Did she left you once you moved to farm? This is interesting part about relationships also. Once you are in one, its kind of like, you are not free to do what you want most, or you have to divorce. Or maybe in these days relationship should not be about spending time till death, but spending time till we fit each other.
Oh and btw its weird that it passed 5 years since you played 
how fast time goes. I remember this blog was so popular and it looked that at most it passed 2 years since last play
Yeah, I had a girlf, and we broke up like 1 year after I moved to the farm... lifestyles didn't really match anymore. But it's exactly like you said, it just sucks that being with a girl sometimes has to be something apart from life. I think a relationship should be about living stuff together, so lifestyles need to match somehow... and yeah, there's no need for "to death do us part" bullshit. Sometimes relationship are good for 2 months, and that's it. Sometimes they're good for 20 years, it doesn't matter. I think it's all a matter of knowing that your hand is good till the flop or turn, but maybe you have to let go on the river, right? And knowing when to do it is really important. In this relationship I spoke of, it would've been much better to have let go a lot sooner, but we get attached and all that... but it's all part of the learning process I guess.
I for my part really want to have children, so I need a woman who has a similar lifestyle in order to do that in a healthy manner. And I have no problem divorcing after a while, if that's the way it has to be. Like you said, nowadays it's just different, and I think we have to adapt to the new games, right? haha I love making life comparisons with poker, and that's really what I most love about this game, haha.
Yeah, time goes by really fast, man, it's amazing...
Alright, soon I'm gonna make a this week's update, but first I'm going for another 3- 4h session in NL16
Cheers
Whattup fellas! So, I have begun my new weekly routine and as promised, I came into town on saturday for poker + socialization and here I am. Had lunch with the family, grinded a bunch, and have the brother here by myside 3-tabling NL5
Yesterday I grinded till 21h, then stopped, had dinner and went to bed. Managed to sleep well and wake up rested at 6am. The goal is to wake up at 5am, but Im getting my body back in track, so I need to take it slowly.
As I had reached a $180 roll, I decided to shoot NL16 yesterday, but broke even. Then today again I logged in hoping to shoot NL16, but the action there is so low, here are too few tables... so I checked the "Tankroll Management" to see if I was allowed to shoot at NL25, and yay! I'm allowed to do that.
Talk about getting insta-crushed
Oh well, back to NL10. It's always harder to recover on the lower limit, but I guess that's that, right? Overall, this week was like this:
Not too bad I guess... I played a decent amount, which is good.
Ok, now on to the goals I had set for myself, there are 3 weekly goals:
- Grind at least 6h
- Select a weekly theme, comment on it in the beginning of the week, and then in the end of the week, post some hands about the theme.
- Participate in 5 hand evaluations in the forum
Since I set these goals on thursday, and I messed up my marked hands for this week's theme, and I didn't make any initial considerations on the weekly theme, I'm gonna do that today and then next sunday I'll post the hands
So, the theme is: Playing the BB v SB, BTN & CO
This is a pretty interesting spot I believe. When we're in the BB, we were forced to invest a big blind, so we instantly get better pot odds when facing an open raise, and this makes us HAVE to call looser. On the other hand, we're OOP v BTN an CO, but have position on SB.
I've noticed that there are a lot of people minraising or making 2.5bb on the button and sometimes on the cutoff too. Players that do that are often regulars who have a decently wide range on the button, and thus we need to call more often because we get great odds. Also, I've noticed people making pretty bad calls pre-flop against 3bettors, like Axs, 98s and that kind of stuff, which makes no sense in my understanding, at least not for 100bb stacks. (I've even seen this OOP).
And then there are those players who just fold a lot to 3bets. I'm not really using a hud, so I just have to pay attention to the tables and take lots of notes, which is a really good practice, I believe.
So what I'm trying to use as a strategy for pre-flop ranges is: depolarize a 3betting range vs people who're calling too much, so I 3bet a wide range for value and don't really 3b bluff, at least not too frequently, unless I want to get some sort of dynamic going against a specific player. So stuff like AJ, KQ, 99, ATs, KJs all become value 3bets. (this would be vs button, vs CO it should be a bit tighter) And then stuff like ATo, J9s, JTs, QJs - Q9s, QJo, A2-A5s, T9s are all calls pre flop. And then if we want to throw in some bluffs, it could be 57s, 86s and the like.
Vs people who fold a lot to 3b, I just polarize my range, so I 3b a bunch of "playable trash", call a bunch of valuable hands, and 3b my monsters. Depending on how much a guy folds, I might 3b almost any2, as it has happened with one specific player this week He opened A LOT of hands and folded hand after hand to my 3bets, so I just kept on going.
Vs small blind of course, we have to play back a lot, when they open too loose. So in such a spot TT+, AQ+ are standard 3bets/ship it in (vs the button as well), because people 4b a lot! I'm really amazed at how much they're 4bet bluffing. But I like to call a lot on the BB, even some pretty marginal hands, just because SB has such a loose range and we have position, so we should really give them hell. Call a lot, float a lot, raise a bunch of flops, 3bet a lot pre-flop. I really haven't been doing that enough, so I guess next session I'm gonna try to get into as many spots as possible. I'm even gonna call a but looser than I'm used to, just to get into spots. I think this is important in order to move up stakes, even if I get into some marginal situations where I don't really know what to do and end up making some -EV moves, its really good for the learning process. I think we need to climb the stakes getting more comfortable post-flop, because that's where the game really happens.. pre-flop is just a matter of learning how to balance ranges and all that. Most people have understood that by now, even though there's always things to improve.
So that's it, that'll be the goal for next session: Playing the BB v steals, let's defend our blinds
And now on a sidenote on life outside poker... rain has been scarce this year.. normally it rains a lot in november/december, but it has been raining one day, then we get 5 days of hot sun, another day of rain, 3 days of sun. It's making things tougher at the farm. See how my corn and bananas roll up their leaves under the hot sun after a few days w/o rain:
Well, I guess the times they are a-changing indeed... climate has been changing a lot, maybe some rough times are to come, but it's all about adapting ourselves, I guess. I try to practice an agriculture that creates systems that are as resilient as possible, so in the long run, we get safer and safer against these crazy climate downswings
Ok, so since the poker goals are already estabilished, I'd like to set a farm goal for myself this week:
>> Go through every photo I have of the farm, and make a selection of photos in order to start building the virtual profile of the farm.
Alright fellow, see you next week I guess.
Cheers!
