[Closed] Dendra's Mind Thoughtulations

Good to see you blogging Dendra, good luck with those SnG's.

I too am grinding SnG's at the moment, but on Full Tilt, not Party.

Don't get disheartened by the swings, theres of lot of variance out there.

Looking forward to reading how you get on ♠_thumbsup:

Bart

A small update, so to say.

I am playing 1 table only which means my progress is much slower, or should I say my fall. The reason why I'm playing only 1 table, and will keep on doing so for some time, is because I make many mistakes now and I don't know which ones...

So,now I make those mistakes at one table at a time, if I play 4 tables, then I will make those mistakes x4. This way my bankroll can survive my mistakes and due to my slow progress I can analyse my game better and improve it.

So far, I am trying to figure out two things:

1. Is trapping viable? If I have a good hand, I make a small raise pre-flop, enough to scare away limpers but small enough to make someone willing to call and feel like he isn't losing much of his stack.

Let's say I have K-K, I will make a smaller raise there than for example with A-K, because I think A-K is a lottery hand and can be as crappy as Q-9 or any two random cards, since you will often miss the flop.

The flop comes X-A-X, and naturally a guy has A-7 or something and beats me - bad idea to slow play.

If I have A-A, it also happens the board is draw heavy, or whatever the term is. And yes, a guy calls me with a flush/straight draw and beats me. With blinds 30/60, I even had guys calling a 320 raise with J-To, ffs and yes, then he hits something and cracks my aces - which I overplay since I fire another bet on the flop.

So this whole slow-play pre-flop sux I think. Now the flop slow-play...today I had a hand A-K, blinds 20/40 I think, I raised to 240, 2 guys call.

The flop came 8-K-X, rainbow, the pot was already around 1000 and I bet 180 or so, why? I want to pretend I am weak and want to make a ridiculous continuation bet, somebody figures I could have A-J / A-Q and missed the flop so he can raise me and force me to fold - then I re-raise and voilla, I extract more money.

And naturally, what happened? A guy called and showed a set of eights...so I'm wondering, was my small bet good there?

Because I think in long run, when I have such a hand (A-K with a flopped top pair of kings and dry board), I will get more chips from my opponents, so small bet or even check-raise seems good to me. So far, this backfired a few times and my check-raise all-in ended up badly but I somehow believe this should work.

In the end, after losing because of this, I figured maybe it's just to bet your hands properly and be happy if you get the minimum value out of it. Also, I concluded the best way to play profitably, at the moment, is to follow the rule "tight is right", aka to play like a little camping **** I can't say what but it begins with letter B and I have an itch to tell it to you.

I was up to $25.60 or so, a new peak, but apparently my bankroll loves to hang around $10 - as I am once again swinging around $10, well ok from 10-17. I did have a few bad beats but I also messed up tables in which I started off damn well and then lost it all due to stupid plays.

Once I find time, hopefully I'll browse around to see how to import hands here like folks on the forum do, probably won't be anything spectacular, mostly questionable hands in which I'm not sure how to get away - because sometimes I do "everything right", I make the guy put all his chips in, I have him dominated, like pair of aces vs Queen high (Q-J hand) and then he hits queen on turn+jack on river and I'm like...yeah, nice hand.

Not to mention all-in with QQ on first hands, when 2guys are all-in, I go all-in and then another guy goes all-in with 22!!!! - and flops a set and busts us all out naturally. On the topic - I also had some insane luck so I cant complain about that much ♦

P.S. Totally forgot about this "So far, I am trying to figure out two things" - so here is the second thing, I will also hopefully find somewhere how to calculate odds of one hands against another - aka 99 vs AQ, or 4-6 vs three guys all-in AK-AQ-KJ, for example, stuff like that ♦ to know roughly where I am and how much chances I have to win if I put my chips in.

-since I can roughly tell with what hand a guy is raising but I'm like - okay, he has AJ/AQ, I got TT, do I feel like gambling? Yes I do, ok let's put him all-in.

1st page

good luck

Hey Dendra, just noticed ur blog while I was finishing the last table of my session. I kind of made it a small goal of my own to keep an eye out for new SnG players around here and congrats, u qualified

I went over everything u wrote and finished reading up just as I finished the last table. From what u have wrote so far I have a lot of recommendations for u and I hope u give them serious consideration. These suggestions will help u improve ur game to a huge degree, so please read through my post

OK first of all I'll ignore ur bankroll issues but if u can fix ur bankroll so u have at least 30buyins. It simply eases the mind a lot to know ur poker life doesn't depend on every other play u make. But considering u play the 1$ SnGs (not sure how much rake u pay for them on Party) I don't think it's the biggest issue as those should be a roll over for anyone with half a clue on how to play SnGs

And we come to the gist of things ... from the posts u have made so far I noticed that u don't really know what u are doing (excuse me being harsh but I hate beating around the bush too much :)). SnG and poker in general is all about math. If u want to seriously make a future post about adding a mil to ur BR it'll start today with u learning the basic math. Just as anywhere else in life lazy just won't cut the mustard and effort will be rewarded, even if not at the very instant u put it in. So try to learn to calculate pot odds for starters as mastering pot odds will make everything else a lot easier to figure out

Next I'd suggest u watch as many bronze videos as u can. Those are an absolute treasure of knowledge and experience, situations that u will find urself in but won't have to risk a cent to figure out what move would be correct to make and why. While math will always play a big part in ur poker career experience will play just as big, if not bigger down the line. And those videos hide a lot of experience that u just can't pass up on if u plan to make it as an SnG player. Reading articles will help as well, u don't have to learn them by heart, just read them a few times so u start to think about the important terms in SnG such as ICM play, ranges, playing on the bubble, etc... Everything else will happen on it's own.

I read somewhere that most ppl who do not have experience with online poker think that an online poker player simply clicks around a bit and the money either rolls in or vanishes into another guys wallet. In fact it is exactly the opposite. If u want to make big money playing either regular or online poker u have to work hard and study a lot. Put in the effort and be disciplined. Nothing in life comes easy, success least of all.

I hope what I wrote does not offend u and I also hope that u go after the wealth of knowledge that is hidden all over PS.com. I am sure that if u give the basic knowledge and principles of playing SnGs a chance u will build ur bankroll up a lot faster and be an immensely better SnG player Either way, I wish u the best of luck and a lot of success!

hehe not at all, i always appreciate honest opinion and errrm, nothing offending in your post ♦ critics cant get any lighter than that

I don't quite understand people who go all-in with 22 or 33 when 2-3more people go all-in before them. And yes then they get lucky, I always fold even up to TT if I see a guy is going all-in with some higher cards than that, just don't want to gamble - but then again, I guess going with AQ against 33 is even more gambling since the board likes to miss you when it hurts the most.

Regarding the videos and such, I just laughed out loud when I saw a new video on the main page - SnG $1 for Bronze - a sign from Poker Gods, I was lazy to find time to watch 30mins+ videos until now, but this one I simply have to watch ♦ Judging by the opening minutes I picked the wrong game to build up my bankroll but I think I'll stick to these $1 SnGs, anyway - I was on the ropes again, went down to $5 (a series of all-ins with QQ and such which ended badly and yeah, adios over half of my money) - shouldn't be a problem to get up again, and with this new video+some other possibly, hopefully I'll improve my play and decrease these swings that prevent me from reaching at least $30 for now ♦

For the record, I thought tribuncaesar played in that $1 SnG bronze like a lunatic, pushing around everyone - usually I'm scared to be that aggressive because I might run into a better hand or someone willing to gamble and lose my money for a stupid all-in.

OK so after his video I changed several things in my play:

1. I no longer play suited connectors and such hands, strictly best hands early on, ranging from 66 to AJ as lowest hands I shove in, depending on position

2. I no longer slow-play anything, shove shove get it over with, life is too short to play it slowly, errm yea something along that line.

3. I go all-in much more in later stages, I used to shove in only with hands I feel comfortable with to gamble, now I just go for anything, up to K5 and such.

What I noticed is that I rarely run into QQ and stuff like that when I shove so much, and even when I get sucked out - I cover up since I got some chips left, or I bust since the other guy was a bigger stack - but in the long run I win more hands than lose.

I start to shove when there is 5-6players - that is if I have a stack big enough to afford putting pressure on others. In HU play I also feel a difference, because now I shove much more and I'm willing to gamble it against the other guy, usually I'd play tight as a squirrel in a block of ice.

Regarding the profitability of SnG opposed to SSS lower NL limits - I would say SnG is much better because it doesn't depend on hands to the same extent. Action goes on a lot faster and when it could take you an hour to farm $3 in SSS NL 0.5/0.10, it can take you max 20-30mins to do the same in SnG.

I mean to have success with SSS, 1st you need to find a good table and then you need to have a hand to earn something and you can often have a cold deck for like an hour and a half or even more.

The minus of the SnG is the invest/earn ratio, if it was buy-in+prize then it would be cool, but this way while you might think you earned 4bucks, you earned 3. As that SnG video sais, I'm guessing SnG is much more profitable up from $11 and higher or whatever.

P.S. The problem with this highly aggressive play is that you can suffer from bad luck much more, though I've been running disgustingly well tonight so that won't be a problem - some hands even I was embarassed to win because yeah, the guy technically had the better hand - but, it's not over until the fat lady deals the last card to the board.

I have a small update, which is actually about stuff I learned yesterday and yeah, seems like I'll post it today, so anyway...

Before I jump to the somewhat useful experiences I have gained thus far, I'll first add a quick note about the blog.

You won't see any shiny graphs here, some detailed reports of my sessions and so on (at least for now), instead I will hopefully write here my progress as a fish, things I learn along the way, mistakes I made, etc. So if somebody in same shoes as me spots this little blog thingey in the sea of uber blogs, maybe something useful pops up which will speed up his or her progress.

The players in SnG $1 are bad and I am bad, which is pretty much the reason why I won't try implementing something fancy in here until I reach $100 and start playing $3 SnG.

So, here is a small report of what I learned yesterday:

1. How to play draw heavy boards? (or whatever the term is)

Blinds were 20/40, only few hands into play > I had 89s on the button, just limped in (no raises pre-flop) and the flop came 8-9-T rainbow.

One guy bets 180, 4-5more players make the call, I push all-in for 2k, two guys call, A-Q and Q-X (some crap like 4 or something). The turn misses them, but a jack comes on the river....and I'm busted

OK so what did go wrong there? My opinion was that there were too many opponents in play and with a shove I can isolate 1, max 2 players and have higher chances of winning - rather than seeing somebody stick around with a crap hand which then improves into a monster.

Another good thing is that I put at least 2 players on some type of a draw - so if let's say one has J-X and the other 7-X, then they reduce each others outs, because each of them has one card the other needs to fill up his straight draw.

OK, so what is bad here? I am in a coin-flip, two more cards need to come up and I'm at huge risk.

Self-analysis led me to this conclusion: I should've just called the bet on the flop and then when the turn was a blank, I should've shoved there - because then the other two guys would be drawing dead and I would have much more fold equity against them because they will rarely push on with just a straight draw if only river card is left to be revealed.

Yes, some players are just donkeys and they will still call me - but I think in most cases, players will fold.

So, on such dangerous boards with flush/straight draws, it is best to play check-call and then bet on the turn because of the fold equity (hope I'm using the right term here ♦)

2. How to make continuation bets?

If you have A-Q or something and miss the flop, and then you want to make a continuation bet - it is best to keep the pot small, so a 1/2 pot size bet seems good. Don't go for 3/4 pot or something, why is that so?

Because then on the turn, if you want to fire another bullet it will cost more since the pot is bigger - meaning 2 times 1/2 pot size bets can have the same efficiency as if you did 2 times 3/4 pot size bets.

Only difference is that if you keep the pot smaller, you can fold on the 2nd bullet if something goes wrong and keep more chips than you would if you bet more on the flop and then also more on the turn.

So, if you bluff/semi-bluff or have a dangerous board which could potentially turn your hand into crap - pot control is very important.

There are probably many things to add on such topics so yeah, this is as far as I got, so far.

3. How to avoid PS video producers?

Yes, this is a very important question, or should I say issue when playing poker on platforms that are also home to numerous others players, namely PokerStrategy video producers, coaches, their pro wives, etc.

Imagine one day you want to watch a video and then at one point you realise your name is in the video and a doombringing voice suddenly sais: "Hello PS people, I will play another session of SnG...and omg look at that donkey calling my bet, we will now suck out his entire stack for being such a donkey."

Naturally, the donkey-est part is not your poor play, but the fact that you picked the same screen name on poker as your name on forums here, for example. So yeah, don't let yourself be discovered and if one day your screen name is exposed to global-wide humiliation, you will not feel ashamed to the same extent as you would if everyone knew it was you in that video.

OK, so what if you already made a name and it's same as the one on this website? Well FML, or MLIA according to the latest fashion.

Don't despair, there is a solution to everything. So, instead of printing SSS charts, odds and whatever else, simply print out a list with all the names of video producers, coaches, limits they play, platforms, etc.

So, while some people might have a SSS chart on the wall next to their monitors, you will have this list to know if one of these pesky video producers is seated at your table - and who knows, maybe it turns out pretty useful one day. I don't think PS.com has such a list available for download, so I encourage you to make our own.

Regarding my progress - I was spinning around $10 for the past few days and now I'm around the $20, so a slight improvement

I was tempted to multitable, even did once 4tables (2x 2nd place, 1x 1rd and 1bust) but I will force myself not to do it, at least until I manage to build up my bankroll - I figured maybe when I reach $50 to do 2tables at same time and at $100 to start doing 4tables which I feel most comfortable with if I intend to multitable.

Right now I don't want to go broke, hence I'm playing it safely with 1table at a time - played 1.2k hands on Friday+Saturday, won 25% hands and had like 55-60% wins if flop seen. I seem to usually be around 25-30% hands won per each session.

P.S. Here is one sick hand for ya, my sickest bad beat up to this date:

Blinds 30/60, I raise to 240, 2 guys call.

The flop comes 7-7-7, I check, 2nd guy bets 510 or so, 3rd guy moves all-in, I call, 2nd guy calls.

I turn over AA, 2nd guy shows TT, 3rd guy shows X-7 for QUAAAADS!

OK now who the hell calls a raise pre-flop with 3-7o or something crappy like that?

Hey Dendra, nice to see ur making some progress

I'd just like to reply to some of the things u wrote. About how the 1$ SnG in the video was played, that's pretty much how u want to play them. Look at it this way, if u see someone going all in with his stack that is bigger or just slightly smaller then urs, are u not affraid u will bust out if u call? So u can be pretty certain the other players feel the same way when u push into them and will mostly call with good hands only. The key to this style of play is knowing when the player(s) u are pushing into will fold enough hands to make u stealing the blinds profitable enough (the EV vs. FE concept).

About draw heavy boards, what would u do on the turn when he would bet again and turn over QJo? Perhaps in the situation u described, only calling the flop and shoving turn, would be best, but u can not narrow ur oponnents range to 2 specific cards like AQo. I think considering the limit u played that hand just fine. There are bound to be way more fish looking to suckout around u then players holding QJ, better two pairs or sets and playing them as good as this. Also early stage u should simply fold any non-premium hands (AQs+, pocket pairs excluded) unless u get really good odds for a limp (3 limpers before u). That will help u stay away from some of the tough situations.

Point two is also a bit difficult to employ successfuly on ur level. I suggest u only bet when u connect with the board and simply check when u don't. As u've seen for urself u'll often find urself against a random hand which will hit the flop some way and make ur AQ type hand fall behind. Another option is also to check flop and cbet turn to maybe buy a showdown. But don't always play it that way not because it becomes exploitable but u don't want to create any big habbits for when u move up and players start to notice ur moves more.

Personally I came up against Unam (one of the top SnG players on PS and a video producer) in one of the tables recently and I was really hoping I'd end up in a hand with him. I didn't deviate from my normal play either. All this because I want to be mentioned and not for the lame fame but to hopefully hear some critique about my play and maybe by chance discover a leak I didn't notice yet. Don't worry about shame, if anything once u will be truly successful u can tell ur future fans to go check u out what a fish u were all those hands ago before u made it big Instead hope u get mentioned and hope u get a tip about ur play from a recognized pro for FREE! Will prolly be worth a lot more then wining 10 SnGs in the long run

I wish u to build ur bankroll fast and to enjoy poker as much as possible as well! Cya around

ty, hopefully I'll build up my bankroll but at the moment I'm focused on learning the game - reached $30 last night, then went to down 18 so hmm yeah, I'll get up again ♦

Regarding the videos - yea, I was just kidding about it, I'd be delighted to see a video producer at my table - though I wouldn't play "my game"(rolf, my game, fish game in translation ♦) - because then I'd try to make some play on him, confuse him or something and then see if I got any reactions from him when he publishes the video ♦

The purpose of creating this blog was somewhat similar to what you wrote about videos - so that one day I can look back and say - yeah, that's how bad I was

Anyway...

Yes it appears hard to make any rules and put people on certain hands because they will often play anything - yesterday a guy called my all-in early on with 7-4s and I had A-Js, results were obvius - pair of sevens for the win ♦

I'll try to play it more safely, like check the flop and see the turn - now I often continue with a bet and then I have 50% of my stack in there so I shove the rest on the turn with complete air (like missed flop A-K) and the other guy either folds or if he hit a pair of threes or some crap, he calls and I'm dead.

-and then I laugh when I see people who cant let go AQ and such hands, and I'm doing the same thing >,<

Back to work for me now and hopefully I'll do some games tonight and work my way up to $30+ ♦

Hmm, a small update

Naturally, I planned to update days ago and say Surprise!!! I got to $50! But then I went down from 36-7 to like 20 dollars.

Yes, finally today I managed to get up to 47, a bit over Unfortunatelly, I've been running terribly today, getting smacked by 43s vs my AT and such - adorable, I know ♦

Either way, I'm not giving up, cards can't dislike me forever, as long as I manage to connect a win here and there. Here are some things I learned so far and implemented in my play:

1. Thanks to Atoks I have modified a lot my play with AJ-AQ-AK hands.

I used to want to put in as much chips as possible pre-flop, because my hand is most likely going to be the best, but then I often end up going up against some fish who called with T9o, the board hits him and I'm busto.

So now, if someone raises I don't re-raise mostly, I simply call and wait for the flop, if it's bad, I lay down my hand and very rarely try to bluff.

My bets with these hands are also better now I think, because I try to raise enough that my hand pays off if I hit something but also not too much, so that I can fold and minimize damage taken.

2. This is pretty much a tell - if the board is draw heavy, you raise and a guy moves all-in, very often he will be on a flush or a straight draw. Yes, in $1 SnG, people just shove their stacks on such hands and want to gamble - I think in the long run, you get paid off more than they do.

3. Don't panic if you lose chips, you can make some sick, sick comebacks if you just focus and wait for a good hand.

I used to have problems with this - I see I'm down to 1.3k or something and I panic, I feel the need to get over 2k, do something, anything - then I shove at wrong time and lose.

Basically, always try to be as patient as possible - yes, sometimes you will fold some crappy hand, see that you could've tripled up and ask yourself - oh why didn't I go all-in here, and "I knew it was a good chance to do it" - wrong, if you fold crappy hand, you made a good decision, a good flop for it will happen once in a while, but most of the time you will just waste your chips.

Anyway these are some of the thoughts I collected so far, I probably, most likely, yeah definitely had a few more, but can't remember right now ♦

So if you want to climb in $1 SnG, be patient and wait for good hands - you can have 99 with 3people going all-in, is it a good idea to call in early stages? No need, just wait for a better situation in which you will have higher chances of winning.

It can often happen that you risk your entire stack on a hand like Q9 with top pair queens, the other guy shows QT+ and you're busted - if you aren't sure you have the best hand, just wait, a few hands later and you will get pocket queens or something and then double up without risking as much as you would have to in some earlier situation.

Also try to play at different times of the day and see when it suits you do the most, it can be sometimes very easy to play, sometimes you can have a hard time - this is useful for multitabling, if you feel the tables are easy and you have the bankroll for it, multitable.

If the games are going slowly and you're having problems - just play 1table and focus on your play and see if you can find some mistakes in it
- yes, you might not see mistakes right away, but you might watch some video or listen to someone's advice later and then remember some situation in which you made a wrong move - so focusing on your play can not only improve it at that time, but also in the future once you run those games through your head and spot new mistakes thanks to your better understanding of the game

R.I.P. my bankroll

From $48 down to below $1. After 3 days of running badly that's what happens, I admit I made a bad shove here and there but nothing compares to 90% of coin flips I lost.

Could probably make a whole album of bad beats with every possible "good" hand losing against 92o or something. Every time I called someone's all-in and was ahead, naturally I lost - example, K9s vs K8o, AT vs A4 etc. etc. etc.

Naturally, most of the times I wasn't hitting anything at all - event pocket aces got cracked nearly every time and I can't count how many times I was the bubble boy because the shortest stack survived 4-5 times with stuff like J7o vs AKs - awesome.

I'm not going to say party poker is rigged, I guess I was just a victim of too cold deck and combined with low skills+crazy loose donks = I'm dead.

Basically, all of my premium hands were busted by something ridiculous and only times I "would" hit something was if I played 64o - but how the hell was I supposed to know that 6-4-X would come on flop, or that I would make quads with Q4o? (X-X-4-4-4 board)

On top of it all, I was supposed to have a "golden bullet" - aka exchange party points for $5, but since the last update - the lowest package to get is 400pp=$10 and now I'm missing 2party points for that - great.

So - I will try to do some freerolls, get those 2party points and give it another try. It's possible I'm just way too tired lately and should probably watch some more videos to find more flaws but the painful thing is that I feel like I can play profitably and beat this limit but for that I need to get a hand from time to time :/

SnG has loads of coin flips and whether you like it or not, when people call you with anything, then it all comes down to pure luck and what comes on the board. By some laws of the universe you should get lucky as much as your opponents in the long run, but I guess my bankroll wasn't good enough to stand several days of bad beats -.- I'll be more careful next time or something, I'm not giving up on poker even though I must say this has kinda demoralised me a bit...

Especially when I see top pros playing final tables and doing exact same thing as in SnGs - all-in QTo vs AKs, cross fingers to hit a card you need and voilla, you're the champ if you get lucky, if you get sucked out - you can be the best but you're still busto.

Believe it or not, I'm back! Yes, you're probably not excited about it as I am - and to tell you the truth, neither am I that much excited about it.

Why? Mostly because of the bad beats and in general since I managed to climb once up from $10 to $48, I'll start celebrating when I at least reach that number again.

So how did I come back? Basically, as I said in the previous post - I couldn't exchange PartyPoints for cash, so I used some uber math skills and realised I could earn a lot more than $10 for 400 PP if I play the $500 freeroll (1PP buy-in) and earn at least $0.15 every time.

So I decided to start grinding freerolls and even though it might seem small...cent by cent I collected $2.90 in the past week or less (thank you FL Freeroll - finished 7th which was sweet since I usually get busted in that game long before money).

My idea was to patiently grind this way up to $50 in like one or two months but yeah...that would really be a pain in ***, so with my incredible bankroll I went to the $1 SnG tables again!

Can't say I was too sure about my decision but luckily for me it worked out fine and I pretty much won or finished in the money in the few SnG's I played thus far - which led my bankroll to its current $9.92 - which is pretty much a comfort zone for me since with ~$10 I can handle a few mini swings and avoid going broke.

Yes, I know it ain't the most exciting thing to do but I'm not giving up - this will be my 3rd or 4th attempt (depends how I count them) to earn money via poker and hopefully I will make it this time - the last attempt was kinda good since I stayed alive for a month.

P.S. The rake is high and I need to win a lot of games to make it profitable and I heard people saying (cough, vhallee, cough - like he knows how to play poker?) it's also pretty hard for a beginner - well yeah that's me, I pick the dumbest, hardest and longest road and just keep on going just to prove that it can actually work.

-actually I wanted to go for some easier and more fun road in poker and it just so happened that I (once again) picked apparently one of the harder possibilities to build up my bankroll - history repeats itself and you can't run away from it ♦

P.P.S. Nothing interesting happened so far in my "sessions", I'm having some trouble deciding on what range to push with - like if I have one of the bigger stacks at the table, do I push with JTo from CO and the position right before it, or is it too lose...

-I mean I'm pretty sure the PS coaches push with 92o there just because they can but yeah, I don't have 10k dollars on my account to afford swings based on lucky coin flips - which is from what I learned by now called LAG - donkey style ftw, raise it all the way and most of the time people will dodge you and if they re-raise from time to time, you simply fold

- I will try to use the more aggressive approach in some freerolls, but in $1 SnGs I think it's just not worth it because the players will make too loose calls and the point of LAG is to force your opponent to fold over 50% of hands and only call with a tight range? - and the other point of LAG is to get paid off when you actually have a hand, from what I understood ♦

WB Dendra I hope it goes better this time. But I really do advise u to boost ur bankroll even more ... if at all possible to over 25$. That way u'll be able to make all those pushes u see the coaches and other good players do without and dilemmas Either way, GL to u and I'll keep on following!

Here is a small update, so to say ♦

I've successfully grinded my way from $2.90 to $57, played $1 SnG until I had around 10-15 dollars, then I won some freeroll which boosted me to $27 dollars - and I decided then to risk it and play $3 SnG with that low bankroll.

Can't say I wasn't feeling nervous when I was down to $9 or so, but kept playing and worked my way up. I had trouble reaching $50 so I played some NL 0.5/0.10 SSS.

I have to say I was pretty lucky with SSS, hitting every time I went all-in and I think you can abuse the lower stakes a lot since everyone is too tight - but anyway, I decided to play SnG, so I won't start learning BSS now or whatever.

I got from $40 to $52 with NL SSS and played $3 SnGs along with it, whenever there were no good tables to sit at in the NL, or if I was waiting in the line - which is another reason why I prefer SnG, there is always action and you don't have to pick tables, just sit..and go!

Main problem with SnG is that you have to win multiple coin flips to earn money, whereas in SSS you just shove and 1coin flip determines whether you profit or not - and since you always shove good hands, in the long run you will have a more reliable and steady profit

I will add here my uber graph when sharkscope shows my roi is in +, right now I have like -5% ROI in roughly 500-550 games.

A small volume compared to other players but every 50games for me is like a 2k games session for someone else ♦
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Problems, can't live without them...

At the moment I'm having problems with the calling range, I think I'm way too tight, only thing that got sorta better is calling a SB push when I'm in BB - ace/king high is often the hand I'll call with if I see the guy is pushing any 2 cards. (ace can be like A8o, king I prefer to have something suited at least along with it, like K9s)

I've downloaded the ICM trainer and it helped me improve my pushing range a bit - actually I wanted to download a program in which I can insert some hand info and see if it was +ev to pushor not, from what I understand, sng wizard is the program for that, will have to check it out later
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Selling wisdom for cookies

Basically poker is a huge world which has evolved over the past (many) years and it might seem hard like - "oh my god, how will I ever learn all this sh***, I'll never get to the high stakes games, I'll never do this...that..." and so on.

The only thing you can do is just go step by step, experience will come along and so will the limits on which you play rise. You just can't rush some things, as they take time - I have already estimated that 1.5-2years will be needed before I become a decent, standard low stakes player.

When you learn so many new things and try to improve, things will often not go fast, you might even get stuck and lose for the same reasons over and over again - the important thing in such case is not to give up, if needed, take some rest but then return with new energy and motivation. Don't forget that sometimes Rest can be the most efficient Training...overplaying can create a negative effect

-for example, you dont know calling ranges and want to learn them all and you might think, "How am I going to learn all of that unless I put all my energy into it and study 24/7?"

It is important to see the difference here between being lazy and putting too much time into something to the extent that your head becomes heavy - yet you just keep on banging your head against the wall and hope a door will magically appear - if that is the case, take a step back, rest and take a look at the wall again, the door will often appear then, or perhaps a clue how to find them

Basically I'm more inclined to write some random "philosophical" talk rather than paste hands and analyse them here - so I'll try to focus more on the proper mindset and some things that might help people to climb up in the poker world, or anything for that matter since some things are universal

I think that with AA you can be a maximum of 86% favorite, so there is that 14 % chance you lose. It's not that of a bad beat. wait till you see your set of aces on the flop getting cracked by a 2% by runner runner straight.

My poker quest has seen big changes lately, namely I switched from SnG to NL BSS. A friend was kind enough to donate 50 bucks and a few tips to get me going and it seems that now I'm broke-proof, aka my bankroll should have a long and happy life from now on.

Basically the SnGs have too many swings and with those $1 sngs, the rake is just too high to make it worth the time - now I feel like I betrayed SnGs since I really liked the concept a lot, but oh well - maybe one day I get rich I'll get back to SnG $1 just to beat it for fun

Starting from 50 dollar scratch - NL BSS

So basically I've played close to 25k hands on NL2 on PokerStars in the last 3 weeks or so, started off slowly and then got up to $110, thanks to a few things I'll mention soon, I got down to $55 and now I grinded my way back up to $108 or so.

The biggest killers of my bankroll were big pocket pairs which always look nice pre-flop, but they can be damn hard to let go. Basically, with BSS you win half of the pots with cont.bets on flop, semi-bluffs and what not, it's mostly "smaller" pots as you rarely get your entire stack in. The problem is if you overplay a hand like KK, you can lose entire stack and lose everything you won in last hour or so ♦

Most of the time you will win pots with such hands but if you bet on let's say 9-6-2 flop and villain 3bets you, the situation is just crying for a flopped set or two pair sometimes, even if he doesnt have such hands always, in my opinion it's best to fold as it's not worth it in the long run as you'll lose more money than gain in such situations.

Another great thing about poker is, as Doyle Brunson said - that poker is about people, not the cards This is so true in NL BSS, when I began playing poker I was afraid of a flush every time there was a possibility of it on the board - now I bet first, see how opponents react and then try to figure out if they have it or not if they stay

There are more of such situations and I guess that's why it's important not to play with scared money, if you are afraid to "waste" money on a bluff then you should play something where you feel more comfortable.

-almost forgot to mention, I am seriously considering folding pocket kings against other big stacks on the table (like close to my stack size). So far I ran into aces 8 times in row with my kings and 7 of those times I was 99% certain I'm up against aces.

I'm supposed to never fold kings on these limits but eh, once they cost you over $40 it makes you wonder

I promised a graph in here some months ago, though now things have changed and my SnG graph is probably not a nice thing to look at - hence I'll throw in my NL BSS graph as soon as I get my lazy ass to find out how to put PT3 graphs in here

So here is my graph for the past 4+ weeks or so. I started with $50, dropped down to $32 with SnG/crappy cash game play and then I learned the basics of NL BSS and started playing NL2 - so the graph is missing a small chunk of my money from the beginning but oh well

- So far it was all going well and then I decided to play NL 10 with $113 bankroll, the good thing is that I found out I can beat it and the bad thing is that I got sucked out on major pots and dropped down to $50....then my bad beats continued and I went down even further to $22...

At this point it was hard to concentrate on anything since I was sad that one day ago I was up on 110+ and now I was sweating with ultra-mini bankroll. The main thing that got me going up again is the fact that I'll get to NL 10 again and this time I'll use proper bankroll.

So anyway, that "downswing" happened this weekend, as the graph shows I am now back up after 3-4days of grinding, here is my rollercoaster ride:

I've moved to Zagreb now (my hometown is Osijek), living on my own and more or less it seems I'm headed towards poker being my main income in life - should be fun if I make it to that point

So anyway, I can't put my entire graph here (which is roughly 130k NL2 hands played in 2-3 months) because I'm using laptop now and left my PC at home - though I did get my 22'' monitor here :)))

Basically, I first learned how to "beat" NL2 and did ok, minor profit here and there, but things really started going for me only 1-2weeks ago. I learned how to control my swings and I'll list here some of the things I learned that might help someone else start his NL BSS journey.

Note: I'm a donk who can't write short posts, addicted to essays, so errrm, anyway - these "useful things I learned" are listed far far at the bottom of this post so if anyone is just interested in that, you can skip the drama part below ♦

I'm in Zagreb for 3weeks now and it was last weekend that I finally found time to play some poker. It was a pretty good run, 16-24tabling on PokerStars 8-9hours of poker, 1st day +$40, 2nd day +$37.4 and 3rd day +$65 - which got me up to 200 or so. It wasn't some genuine heater, I had a fair share of bad luck as well as good luck, so just normal part of poker.
- not that profit matters on NL2, but it was sweet nevertheless:

After boosting my bankroll up to $150, I gave my friend $50 to start playing NL BSS himself (prior to that I also had to return $50 to the guy who staked me, hence my bankroll might seem smaller now than it should be if you sum up my previous posts+this one).

So my friend watched me play for some time and such, he tried NL10 SSS but it just fails and it's utterly boring and too much of a camping-nanny&lottery poker - gogo all-in and then go WTF!! when A2 beats your KK and blame bad luck...

BSS vs SSS (lesser luck factor importance gives an edge to BSS)

I'm not saying NL SSS has no skill in it, far from it, but BSS gives you much more freedom and you can prevent disaster, control pot when you might be losing, increase the pot when you're winning and such - it's just much more of a poker game when you're playing BSS.

-In SSS, you go all-in with KK, guy calls with A2 and hits it - awww bad luck.
-In BSS, you bet with KK, guy calls with A2, flop comes A, you realize more than half of the time you are beat...

-so basically while it's unlikely A2 will beat KK, in BSS you cut down the losses due to the luck factor a lot, because you dont invest more money in the pot when you know you're beat - and yes it can be annoying knowing he has AX rag crap, but that's poker and you gotta fold

NL BSS losses pretty much come down to your own mistakes, bad reads or pure bad luck - so the variance is more or less non-existent if you know what you're doing :PPP (I'm not trying to sell wisdom because I'm like NL micro-uber-micro fish, cant say how bss works on higher limits but I'm saying this from my point of view as an NL2 and now NL5 player)

Anyway, back to the story. So I'm proud of my friend - he is now on like $80-90, he learned how to control his emotions a lot more, he actually looks at cards on the board and modifies his play according to them, doesn't tilt like he used to, he isn't throwing keyboard around because of stupid bad luck and such because now he accepts it as a part of poker. So he has made some great progress and eventually, I want him+me +another friend to make tons of money in poker and just hang around, have fun and such

-it's a long journey but in time we will come to the point where we will all beat NL50+++ and that's enough to live in godlike mode - at least in Croatia.

A good thing about us learning poker together is that we talk a lot on ventrilo, which it's pretty useful for tilt control - you are far less likely to make stupid moves when you're on a losing streak if you got a friend backing you up and helping you pull through a bad day, sometimes even days.

Well enough about my friend(s), I'll update their progress here as well. Meanwhile, here is the rest of my story. So far I tried to beat NL5 3 times and every time I was knocked down to NL2 due to huge number of bad beats...however, when I compared it to my NL2 performance, I realized my profit must not depend so much on winning big pots, even if I lose them to bad luck, I should still be able to keep myself alive on the current limit.

So this meant that besides bad luck, I was also doing something terribly wrong. After 4 tries, I have learned that I need to tighten up my range, bluff a lot less and bet stronger my made hands.

The funny thing is that I play a lot tighter on NL5 and my stats after 5k hands are 17.15/10.72 (VPIP/PFR) whereas my NL2 stats are something like 17.50/9.50.

I know it's a small volume of hands so we'll see how my stats will look like after 20-30k++ hands.

I'll put the graph here for my NL5 thus far and then I'm finally gonna write something hopefully useful to someone new to BSS

OK, so important things about beating NL2 BSS? Here are the things I can think of atm:

--- You don't play NL2 to earn money, you play it to learn basics of BSS so don't bother yourself with how much profit you made for the day, if it's $1 or $10 or -$5, it doesn't matter - all you need to focus on is your game and finding leaks in it, etc. - you're bankroll will rise in time, if you focus too much on money, you won't learn so much - hence you'll earn less

Once you start a limit, dont be discouraged if you are running break-even or close to it - you are new to the limit and still dont have reads on your opponents, etc. It takes some time to adjust your game to the limit, here are some of the things I look out for first:

--- How often does my bluff work? Will cbet on flop be enough? Do I have to 2nd barrel on turn to make a bluff work? Will the guy call me all the way with some crap hand or complete air?

--- How tight are my opponents - what is their calling/betting range?

--- What hands do my opponents bet? Do they bet flopped set, two pair or just check-call or check-raise? Do they bet top pair, bottom pair, etc.? Do they bet flush draw on flop? Do they raise flush draw? With what hands are they willing to go all-in?

--- Betting patterns - do my opponents donkbet when they bluff or have a strong hand? Do they try to outplay me, aka bet into me if I check to them, etc?

These are just some of the things I like to write down on my opponents or simply keep in mind for the future - because it helps a lot to figure out what your opponent might have and it makes your decisions much easier - aka sometimes I will call down with 66 on AJxxx board, no matter what the villain bets - and other times I'll fold AJ on A72 rainbow flop, it all depends on opponents and how they play.

-yes, most of the time you actually play your game and dont need to track your opponents that much - but still, watching your opponents can help you make better decisions in many situations and in BSS you pretty much run into tricky spots all the time

--- On NL2 you are given a lot of freedom and you dont need to overplay your strong pocket pairs or flopped top pair because it often costs you less to fold and lose like 8-20cents than to call and lose $2 in the end or more.

So every time you are not sure about your hand and whether you are beat - just FOLD (don't fall in love with your AA) - I mean it's often a much smaller mistake to fold than to call.

This is basically the biggest mistake you can ever make - not folding QQ/KK/AA and stuff like AQ top pair A and such...yes it hurts to fold hands that are good in your eyes, but it hurts even more to lose an entire stack for not letting go of your hand when it's time to do so.

--- Eventually, you come to the conclusion that the biggest enemy on NL2 to you is yourself Be prepared to make mistakes and learn from that - as I said, this is just learning poker so don't stress yourself about money.

Also don't slowplay your hands - there is no need to do such things on NL2, you will simply get yourself intro trouble. NL BSS is tricky as it is, no need to complicate your life even more

--- Limping is bad - besides situations where you want to limp behind somebody or limp for whatever reason you might have...in general you are here to pressure opponents, raise preflop, cbet flop and take it down right there. In order to do this successfully you will also have to know when the flop is too bad for you to bluff:

You have AQ, 2guys call you and you miss the flop - you're oop and what to do - while you can often cbet and take the pot down right here, you can also just check it - you cbet here if you have a reason for it, not just for the sake of making a cbet - aka, if you know ur opponents fold a lot on flop, dont call down with bottom pair and such - because bluffing a guy who calls with any2 makes no sense.

If you are let's say in the similar situation, you have AQ, but this time ur in position to one guy and he checks flop - you can more often bluff here, at least I usually stop counting that 1st guy as someone who is in the pot - he becomes dead money to me, someone who folds to a bet. So in this case I look at the situation as if I was 1on1 and only have to bluff away the guy who plays after me.

-there are players who will check-raise with good hand or slowplay sets and such, for this you got your notes which will help you a lot - because it's not often that players go for a check-raise.

--- When to bluff? If a flush draw hits the flop, you have to be prepared for some guy chasing a flush no matter how much you bet - so what to do here? I prefer making a bit smaller bet than usual, in order to control the potsize - this allows me to fire 3 bullets and not spend too much money on it

- because the guy will call me anyway flop/turn, and then my 3rd bullet costs too much money if the pot is big - and there is no need to increase the pot here, as any bet will work just fine should the villain miss his flush draw - and if he hits, you again did well, aka you lost less money.

One thing you should watch out for is top pair - as people will call you in such situations most of the time either with a draw or some strong pair and the fun part is that in time, you will be able to differentiate often whether someone has a pair or a flush draw - call it 6th sense :PPP

--- Don't lose faith in yourself/the strategy you're using - people will often try to go for the fastest solution, easy money, etc. If you are playing NL BSS and cant win - dont fall into despair and go try your luck in some random SnG, tournament or some SSS run - focus on your BSS, see if you can find any mistakes and just believe in yourself, the worst thing you can do is switch to another type of game or strategy

-yes you might momentarily win there, but you'll hit a wall there just as you did here, so better stick to what you started with and pull it through - ofc if you dont enjoy bss, dont do it, do what suits you the most

Poker player's confidence is just so fragile - if you win a lot, you're like godlike!!!!! nobody can touch me, im the king of the world...and then when you start losing you turn into a: omg im so unlucky, what am i doing wrong, i suck so hard, i'll never make it, why did i ever try this, there must be another way to earn money

--- There is no easy way up, so just keep focused, dont do random stuff like watching tv while playing poker and give yourself some goals - they dont have to be about money. You can start by saying - I want to learn what hand range I can play in what position - and once you achieve that, you move on - so money in poker is just a prize, everything important is in the game itself and yourself

*gonna edit this double post to avoid spamming my blog - so basically this post is for today, 3rd of December*

Update on yesterday's action:

I played around 3k hands and I have to admit I really felt like I was in control. Basically, when I played on NL5 before, it was like landing on some weird planet where everything is new to you and you're just walking like 1meter around your spaceship because you're too afraid to go any further.

Yes, I'm pretty sure many will say - don't make a big deal out of NL5, but at least for me, it was a quite big change from NL2. The pots are bigger and players slightly different. So it wasn't just about having enough money to play NL5 but also about modifying my play to beat the new limit.

Even though at first I thought I was gonna play like a nit until I learn enough about my new opponents (though seeing some NL2 regulars at your table was quite encouraging, it made me feel at least a bit more like I'm at home ♦), apparently that plan is falling apart...

In these 3k hands my stats turned into 18.31 vpip/12.91 pfr - so yeah, it was a pretty wild day for me, lots of action, but I felt like I can afford playing a variety of hands and not overplaying them post-flop or making too many mistakes ♦

This is also the first time in a while my non-showdown winnings were above zero ♦