Reaching for the Sky - Building my Bankroll

GL was it Grosvenor casino ?

Today I started off pretty well over the first 3500 hands and was up around $12 before I decided to finish off the day with an extra 500 hands which effectively lost me 4BI over those 500 hands. Looking back at it now I made a lot of mistakes that cost me at least two of the BI's the other two came from AK all-in preflop flips against AA & JJ, which I believe I played fine looking back at those hands.

I was probably to blame for opening up the tables when feeling tired and that resulted in the downswing more so than anything else. In future I will aim to stay away from the tables if I am not feeling fully awake, instead reviewing my sessions and working on learning more.

The hand that I lost most with that was down to me playing badly in my opinion is this hand:

Poker Stars, $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

SB: $2 (100 bb)
BB: $2 (100 bb)
Hero (UTG): $2 (100 bb)
MP: $2.17 (108.5 bb)
CO: $1.13 (56.5 bb)
BTN: $2.05 (102.5 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q Q
Hero raises to $0.08, MP folds, CO calls $0.08, 3 folds

Flop: ($0.19) 6 3 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.11, CO raises to $0.22, Hero calls $0.11

Turn: ($0.63) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.40, CO raises to $0.83 and is all-in, Hero calls $0.43

River: ($2.29) J (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results:

Here is my graph for 30/10/15

Today's Starting Bankroll: $14.13
Today's Finishing Bankroll: $19.34

Originally posted by churchilland
GL was it Grosvenor casino ?

Yeah it was the Grosvenor last Friday when I was in, going to try and go in again for the same tournament next week.

Hi, hopebu like the course, so far it seems that u are doing fine in that QQ hand i am shiping all in the flop since there isvno reason for him to play this way Fh and evem if he does there is plenty over pairs that he is going to play this way as well.

Btw if u think that he is bluffing the flop there is no point in leading the turn because u dont let him finish that bluff Hope it make sense.

Are u from Glasgow? I ve been there for almost three weeks a year ago and it is very nice city...

Nice to see other law students here GL with your game, I'll start following your blog

Originally posted by confidant91
Hi, hopebu like the course, so far it seems that u are doing fine in that QQ hand i am shiping all in the flop since there isvno reason for him to play this way Fh and evem if he does there is plenty over pairs that he is going to play this way as well.

Btw if u think that he is bluffing the flop there is no point in leading the turn because u dont let him finish that bluff Hope it make sense.

Are u from Glasgow? I ve been there for almost three weeks a year ago and it is very nice city...

I really like the course, it has been great way to ease myself back into cash games. Going to watch episode 6 in about an hour, going to do another hour on the tables to make sure I'm completely comfortable with everything so far before I expand on it with the next lesson. I was thinking about just going all-in after his raise, not many combinations could of hit that flop. It's something I can try if I'm in a similar spot in the future.

Yeah I live just outside of Glasgow, it's a lovely city just moved back after a few years away in London and LA.

Originally posted by la55i
Nice to see other law students here GL with your game, I'll start following your blog

Thanks for following my blog Good luck with yours too, I'll stop over at your blog and check it out

Today went pretty well again, I played around 2,500 hands today. Never got much sleep last night so I started to get tired earlier and never had as much time where I felt that I could completely concentrate on the games. Finished the day off with another losing session ~350 hands, I believe I played the situations well and the cards just weren't going my way, hit a set on the flop and the river gave them a straight after being all in on the turn. Which is unfortunate so I decided to call it a day so that I don't make mistakes and cost myself more money.

Completed another lesson in the course today to advance my pre-flop strategy and I feel that my pre-flop strategy is getting to a point where if I keep on learning and fine tuning my play I will be crushing NL2 in no time and moving up to NL5 by the end of the month (Conservative estimate I think I will be able to get there by the middle of October or so)

An updated graph including my first 6,500 hands at NL2:

Today's Starting Bankroll: $19.34
Today's Finishing Bankroll: $26.45

Today's questionable hand:

Poker Stars, $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

Hero (SB): $2 (100 bb)
BB: $1.90 (95 bb)
UTG: $10.38 (519 bb)
MP: $1.77 (88.5 bb)
CO: $2.20 (110 bb)
BTN: $2.22 (111 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with J A
UTG calls $0.02, 2 folds, BTN raises to $0.08, Hero calls $0.07, BB folds, UTG calls $0.06

Flop: ($0.26) J 5 6 (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, BTN bets $0.18, Hero raises to $0.46, UTG folds, BTN calls $0.28

Turn: ($1.18) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.46 and is all-in, BTN calls $1.46

River: ($4.10) T (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results:

Nice red line, how do you manage not go minus on shutdown? On the hand that you posted why didnt you 3bet with AJ on preflop? Quite risky play on turn too, he always would call such big bet on flop with strong hands and since we didnt 3bet him we dont know what really he have and AA KK QQ JJ 56 can be in his range

Originally posted by churchilland
Nice red line, how do you manage not go minus on shutdown? On the hand that you posted why didnt you 3bet with AJ on preflop? Quite risky play on turn too, he always would call such big bet on flop with strong hands and since we didnt 3bet him we dont know what really he have and AA KK QQ JJ 56 can be in his range

I don't have much of a range at the moment for making a 3bet in SB/BB which I need to start adding into my range. AJs would definitely be one that I could add in there and start doing, people are attempting steals near enough everytime on zoom and fold too often to 3bets so definitely something I have to work on.

My red-line, I really have no idea how it is looking good. I generally only play my stronger cards and I'm not putting much in the pot if I have little or no chance of winning. A lot of the time I'll be double barreling with strong draws, I find that a lot call your cbet but fold to your double barrel more often than not if they don't have anything good. So my non showndown winnings are outweigh my loses in those situations just because I try and make the pot big if there's a larger chance I'm ahead.

Today has been my best day so far completing another 3,500 hands in NL2 zoom making around 15$ in profit. Everything I've been learning has seemed to fall in to place today and I was enjoying being at the tables. I just need to keep working on my game and improving it further. There's always something to learn and I am willing to learn. One step at a time I'll move up the limits.

Here's my graph as of today:

Today's Starting Bankroll: $26.45
Today's Finishing Bankroll: $41.90

Another great day at the tables played just over 5,000 hands today, just over 8 hours worth of grinding. I just felt everything I have learned so far about 6max has clicked. I'll change the way I was posting graphs, before I was just posting the overall graph from when I begun. I will include the graph for today only in this post and update the main post with the overall graph. I will definitely move up to NL5 by the middle of October or sooner if I keep up how I have been doing so far.

Here is today's graph:

Today's Starting Bankroll: $41.90
Today's Finishing Bankroll: $66.95

My hand of the day:

Poker Stars, $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players
Poker Tools Powered By Holdem Manager - The Ultimate Poker Software Suite.

Hero (SB): $2 (100 bb)
BB: $2.33 (116.5 bb)
UTG: $2.07 (103.5 bb)
MP: $2.35 (117.5 bb)
CO: $2.11 (105.5 bb)
BTN: $2 (100 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with J J
4 folds, Hero raises to $0.06, BB raises to $0.10, Hero calls $0.04

Flop: ($0.20) J J K (2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $0.02, Hero raises to $0.14, BB calls $0.12

Turn: ($0.48) Q (2 players)
Hero bets $0.30, BB raises to $0.60, Hero raises to $1.06, BB calls $0.46

River: ($2.60) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.70 and is all-in, BB calls $0.70

Results:

Never played much yesterday or today as I have been really unwell and it would just be to much of a risk for me to sit down at the tables while no feeling completely well. I also withdrew ~13 so my bankroll is sitting at $53. I will get back to the tables tomorrow when I'm feeling more up to it.

Decided to try the $2.20 turbo knockout that was running this evening. I finished 44th out of 6,040, pretty happy with that result. I got $21.51 in knockouts and $11.76 for my finishing place. Taking my bankroll back up to a healthy $78.16. No graphs today as no cash games but I'll be back to the 6max NLHE tables tomorrow.

Nice progress man !

Originally posted by churchilland
Nice progress man !

Thanks I haven't played any real money games in almost a week now which is annoying me as I know it'll effect my game when I get back to the tables being a little rusty. Was told by the doctor today I have tonsillitis, I guess that's fairly unusual as most people have it at least once when a child and I've never had it until now. He said it is pretty serious and that's what's causing me to feel very unwell. Hopefully the course of antibiotics will have me well enough to be back at the tables by the end of the week.