Great explanation there. Thanks for that. I might start a similar challenge as you did but i'm still having doubts regarding Zoom poker. Maybe it's a mindset issue when variance is just killing me.
It seems to me alot of players are just nitting it up and waiting for their small pocket pairs to turn into sets. NL10 Zoom seems tough to me, but do you think overall that an ABC approach is fine? Play in position, don't bluff villain off top pair, make disciplined folds and bet value hands big?
Just like to add that i put your blog on my favorite list :-) would love to follow this and maybe learn as well!
Seems like it is a long time ago now, but gratz on completing that goal, nice job. Saw it on the front page 
GL with the new goal, will be following
Thanks, guys.
I went all the way from 2NL to beating 25NL now with ~8bb/100 winrate. 2NL is beatable even if you play terrible. 5NL and 10NL were the toughest so far - but they are beatable by solid ABC poker. In fact that's the way I passed them through. 16NL feels more like 2NL to be honest and 25NL seemed a little bit tougher - but it's actually not. I might just be lucky and on a heater of course lol. Or maybe I got the clue how to play this game at last...
If you have decent roll of around 500-600$ and some average skills - I would recommend starting with 16NL Zoom, 2 tables, nothing tricky. It's a special limit, people are fancy there, tons of fish, few regs, for me it feels like this is the limit I'm gonna go back to rebuild if I have troubles on higher stakes. Otherwise - invest just around 30-50$ and start with 2NL, you can build up from there step by step with solid gameplan and bankroll management system.
As of everyone's nitting up and waiting for nuts. Join me on a stream someday - you'll see it's far from true. There are nits, as everywhere, but they're easy to exploit and there are not many of them. I'd say less than 10% of the population at most. Another less than 10% are the "good regs" who are strong, winning players. Most of the regs are "weak fish-regs" though who are also exploitable. And a huge percentage of the players are just play fish. I'd say fish-regs and fish are around 35-40% each.
So yeah, good luck and feel free to ask question, add me on Skype, join the Twitch etc.
Followed your advice and i'm playing 16NL at the moment. With a mix of 10NL on 888. Wow, 16NL just seems so easy compared to 10NL or 5NL. People are bluffing all the way against my nuts. Calling 3-bets with top pair - weak kicker. It's just amazing to see.
There are quite a few rakeback grinders on there as well. I think you know who i mean maybe. Supernova guys. I'm not much of a screenname sharer on forums. Really would like to chat some time on Skype if you like. I'll PM you!
Week 22 (including weekend)
Another long week... I start off decently but then everything fell apart. Analysis shows some mistakes but mostly - it's variance. There were some ridiculous coolers and bad beats and not much I could do. Plus I was nervous about the Friday trip to Hamburg. The interview went find I think so I'm expecting a call today - they will let me know if I got the job or not. It's extremely important to me right now and it will have a huge impact on my life either way. So wish me luck...
Here are the stats, graph and the bankroll challenge report.
Played at Zoom 25NL and 50NL 6 max: 7805 hands
Net result: -211$ and -166$ by EV
Current bankroll: 1214$ (+9$
)
Rough week. But hopefully you get the job! Don't let variance get the best of you and keep crushing those stakes :-) GL man!
Hey guys. Thank you very much for your support. It was the longest weekend in my life. And this Monday - freaking longest day in my life. Woke up around 8 and was waiting for a call for 10 hours - couldn't do anything to be honest. And I just got the call - they want me there! Starting April 4th I'm going to start a new life. I barely can speak right now... Gonna think about the future and will keep updated.
Week 23 (including weekend)
Is it just me or time flows even slower these days? Had a decent week though, can't complain. Packed most of my stuff up, just one more long week left - and I'm gone. Will try to summarize and report before I leave though. I almost make up my mind about poker - I am going to quit it for now... again... I'm thinking to keep blogging here or maybe I'll move to another site because that's gonna be a diary type blog. Maybe even a videoblog on YouTube, not sure yet. Speaking of which - I do have a channel - feel free to check out some music records if you haven't yet and let me know what you think. Anyways - gonna still think about it and report next week.
Here are the stats, graph and the bankroll challenge report.
Played at Zoom 25NL 6 max: 6856 hands
Net result: +215$ and +255$ by EV
Current bankroll: 1436$ (+11$)
You don't have to answer and not here if you don't want to, but why quit now that you're starting to reach the success you've worked hard for? 
Yeah, Vonki, no worries. That's a nice question and one I've been thinking on for quite some time. The job I got is not an easy thing to me - it's a lot of hard work, 8 hours a day, programming stuff - basically I'm gonna be dead tired when I come back home, mentally of course. And even when I am back home - I'll need to focus on learning German and new programming languages most of the time. So I have no idea if I will be even in a shape to think about playing poker. Not mentioning the study and learning part. Moreover - if I'm going to spend time and energy on poker - that might jeopardize the job itself. So basically it's a matter of priorities right now for me. If I'll have time to relax or for hobbies - I'd probably do something less mentally intense, you know...
But that doesn't mean I'm gonna quit poker forever or anything. I'm just going to focus on the job for the following months and later if I feel I have enough energy again - I'll start playing again. At least that's the plan. But right now at this moment - I can't afford to fail at the job. So I'm just preparing myself to get rid of everything else and dive in. I hope that makes sense...
Week 24 (including weekend)
OK guys, so this is it - the last week. Just done streaming the last session and gonna post some graphs. Tomorrow I'm gonna do the monthly report and summarize the whole experience I guess. And will try to lay out some plans for the nearest future.
Here are the stats, graph and the bankroll challenge report.
Played at Zoom 25NL 6 max: 4561 hands
Net result: -18$ and -79$ by EV
Current bankroll: 1447$ (+3$)
2016 March results
OK, guys, gotta do it quick. Didn't realize how little time I will have - doing it all the last minute. It was probably the toughest and worst month in my whole life overall. Poker-wise though - it was fine. I was playing as much as I could, put it a decent volume and results are decent. Played most of the hands at 25NL, couple of sessions at 50NL with the coach. Bankroll reached almost 1500$ point and I'm pretty happy about that.
Unfortunately I didn't do anything else - really had too much stuff to worry about. Almost no programming, no sport, no learning German. Been playing guitar a lot though recently. It made me feel better. For some reason - went back to Paganini again. Anyways, here are the results.
Current bankroll: 1450$
Played at Zoom 25NL and 50NL 6 max: 32960
Net result: +285$ and +201$ by EV
Workouts days: 8 of 20 days
Deutsch study: 3 of 20 days
All stakes stats
All stakes graph
So what's next?
What a great question... I've always been a planning person. Tried to visualize and plan as far ahead as I can. Now - for the first time - I have no clue whatsoever what's going to happen to me next. Tomorrow morning I'm going to sit in my car and drive towards Hamburg. It's a 6-7 hour trip and I will arrive in the evening. I have a place to stay for the first couple of days/weeks. And I'm going to start working Monday.
That's it. Anything further than that is a complete blur.
I felt blessed for whole my life... It start off with my parents which are the best in the world. I was happy kid. I survived a hostile environment. Looking back - I wonder how did I stay alive in some situations. I went to the University - it was a lucky hit too. After couple of failed attempts and broken hearts - it seemed that I had found my other half. We were truly happy for a long time. I had great friends. After some troubles trying to find myself in physics - I almost accidentally ended up in the office that shaped my future career - and it was a dream career for any physicist. When I was desperate and thought about giving up on the guitar and the music - I found a band, again, accidentally. It fueled my passion and gave me strength. I discovered Go and dove into it, found new friends, new horizons. I found out about poker and it wasn't too cruel to me...
Then my son Rin came into my life. At first it was a mystery. Then it became the meaning of my life. For him I happily quit my job, gave up on my career and sacrificed a lot. I kept sacrificing a lot. He is the whole point of my existence. I re-evaluated my life. I gave up on my personal dreams - just to be there for him and make his dreams come true some day. Like a fruit falling down from a tree, full of juice - just to dry out and give it's all to the seed, so it could grow strong and healthy - that was the philosophy I have adopted.
And I trusted her... I thought she can see and appreciate it. Not many of men I know would do that. Would be selfless and brave enough. But you should never expect others to understand you. That's the lesson I've learned. I feel betrayed. And I feel that am betraying my son myself. Those nights when his mom were away for a week or two... he was crying, scared that he'll never see her again... I was there to comfort him and promise him that I will always be there for him... so he could fall asleep... And now... I am going to leave him and that's just killing me... it was killing me everyday for the last weeks and it didn't disappear or get easier. I can't stop my tears right now... I kind hoped I will be able to just get over it... but I guess I never will...
People who care about me - they say I did my best and I shouldn't blame myself. I know their intentions are good. But I also know that that's a lie. I fucked up. I let my son down and I gotta live with it now. How? I don't know. I will never forgive myself for that. My only hope is that he... he might forgive me... someday. He's too little to understand what's going on - but I feel his endless pain. And I am the one who's causing it. God... I... can't... take this...
I had it all - I was blessed, as I said. Now - I've lost it all. Tomorrow I'll have to say goodbye to my son - I don't know how will I go through this. How will I look into those little brown mirror eyes - I don't know. What I know for sure - that is going to be the worst day in my whole life. Then I will leave. And there will be only one way out of this - up. I'm going to start a new life and do as much as I can to redeem myself. I'll work as hard as I never did in my life. And will do as much as I can for my son. That's the only way I can imagine.
And I wanted to say - thank you guys... for all your support... it was another blessing I got when I didn't expect it at all. People who barely know me care about me more than a person who I thought would care about me and support me. She didn't care - but you did. You kept me afloat these days. I can't thank you enough...
And - goodbye! I've decided to take a break from poker for a while - for the reasons I've explained couple of days ago. Going to focus on rebuilding my life from scratch and... we'll see how it goes then. Hopefully I'll come back to this forum with a new poker challenge and we'll have some fun. Until then - I wish you all a good luck in your journeys, be it poker or life itself. Keep your heads up and work your fingers to the bone - that's how things are done.
Thank you, goodbye, take care!
Peace,
Jay.
I haven't put my comment here before, but your blog is one of my favourites.
Man, wish you the best of luck and just give your best! In fact, we all know that luck is even not important in the long run, so giving your best would be just enough! 
first time commeting here man, what a heartbreaking story. Got a 2,5 years old son and can't even imagine what pain u most go trough now saying him goodbye.
Stay strong and i hope it works out for u in the end!
