KinglyLion

It means no worries for the rest of your days
It's our problem-free philosophy
Hakuna Matata!

I've stumbled across the game of poker as a teenager. There were some ads that said something along these lines: "WITH THIS SIMPLE TRICK YOU CAN WIN MILLIONS AT ROULETTE!!!" or something like this. It was about the so called "Martingale betting system", and simply put: it doesn't work. But my spark was ignited. There HAD to be a gambling game where you can win through skill.

Thats how i got into poker. I was still a young naive kid, and even though i've read up on the basics, a few books and beginner content on the internet, i couldn't beat 2nl on stars. I would play the occasional game here and there, lose some of my pocket money each month, but thats it.

Fast forward, it's the end of 2014. I am tilted because god knows why, so i decide to put my whole bankroll on a table of 25nl. Of course i go on a heater. The 2nl peasant suddenly sees himself having a 150$ bankroll. And the shark in me smelled blood. Of course i lost most if not all of that money, but that didn't matter.

On January the 1st 2015 i've deposited around 50$ on stars, and started taking poker more serious. My main game always was 6max NLHE Zoom. I've read through many posts on 2+2, pokerstrategy etc, and really tried to be good. Thats how my real poker journey began.

I climbed through the limits, crushed 2nlz and 5nlz, struggled above for quite some time, but managed to win at 10nlz and 16nlz too. Up to this point i've never managed to get a large winning sample for 25nlz on stars.

Besides playing online i also took a shot at live poker. The lowest stakes in my area are 400-500nl, and of course i wasn't rolled for that. But i wanted to try out the whole thing, just to get a grasp of the atmosphere. Long story short: i ran up 200€ to 4500€ at peak, and stopped at 2500€. That money financed my 11 day trip to London together with my GF. Felt and still feels pretty baller to be able to say that.

After i went through most of the stuff you can find for free online, i decided to get coaching. I got coached by

@w34z3l for a few months, and learned a ton. Then i took a break from poker because i lacked motivation, but a few months later i picked it back up.

This is pretty much where i am right now. My reallife situation is pretty chaotic and messy at the moment. That's the reason i didn't pick up coaching yet, as i feel like i can't devote enough time to studying as i would like to.
Once the dust settled i definetely want to do so though.

A big change in my pokerlife happened just a few weeks ago. I finally found the courage to leave stars. Even though their software is great, zoom just wasn't good for my confidence, i would find myself questioning my skills more and more. A friend of mine recommended the MicroGaming sites to me, and told me about the rakeback offers from PokerVIP. So here i am, a new reg at the 20nl tables of StanJames.

Here is my current sample for 20nl on SJ
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Occasionally you can find me streaming over at twitch , where i am part of the streaming team LetsGoPro, which revolves around the streamers KomodoDragonJesus and Pokertips.

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Alright, that was the journey up until now. But there is more to come i hope. I wanted to use this blog to kind of incentivize myself to get to where i wanna be in the future.

These are the goals i want to set myself for the near future:
1) Get a solid, non-chaotic reallife again.
2) Grind up the bankroll, and start being a winning reg at 50nl.
3) From my winnings at 50nl i want to finance:
a) coaching sessions
b) shots at live poker
c) my life as a college student (which i'll be in a few months if everything works out)

I hope i post here as regular as i plan to, and i hope you guys can find some enjoyment in my story!

Last Post 7 years ago by

Jon-PokerVIP

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https://www.pokervip.com/thread/view?forum=my-poker-journey&slug=hakuna-matata-kinglylion-s-blog&nav=57fb6627d39043546a8b4568

Purely because The Lion King is one of my all-time favourite films... subbed!

Where are you from btw?

from germany

Epic intro and a really cool story there. Deffs baller to be able to do that with your GF - what were the highlights of the trip?

One thing is it seems like you have your head screwed on and are doing a lot of things correct. You have a great coach and play on a great site first of all so those are 2 huge ticks. Also streaming on twitch, blogging and studying will be huge ticks going forwards.

Can you post up the next time you are live on Twitch? Would love to check it out!

The whole trip to london was pretty cool. Highlights were meeting my au pair girl i havent seen in like 10 years, and (of course) playing some live cash in the hippodrome.

Will update when i decide to stream again.

Just finished todays session. Felt like playing my B game after half of it, but didnt want to leave because my tables were so juicy. I am probably still profitable on regular tables playing my B-game, but currently i want to maximize my winrate and reduce swings on the side, so i'm not sure if that was the right decision.

Made some questionable moves later on, like calling a 2x overshove vs my missed cbet from a shortstacked fish on 666 with AKs, but overall i am still happy with the session

Quick update regarding the site i play on:
i actually managed to get back on BV with the rakeback deal. AWESOME! BV is so much better for me because the poker roll is in € so i dont have to pay some dumb exchange fees when depositing or withdrawing.
Very hyped to start crushing the games from BV again

after not running too well vs fish especially regarding hand distribution in the last days this happened:

Hand Conversion Powered by WeakTight Poker Hand History Converter
$0.10/$0.20 No Limit Holdem Prima
6 Players

Blinds $0.10/$0.206
UTG Player 4 $9.37
UTG+1 Player 5 $40.82
COHero $20.30
D Player 1 $18.13
SB Player 2 $21.52
BB Player 3 $48.90

Preflop
6$0.30Hero is COTT
Player 4 raises to $0.60, Player 5 raises to $1.60, Hero calls$1.60, Player 1 calls $1.60, 2 folds, Player 4 goes all-in $8.77, Player folds, Hero goes all-in$18.70, Player 1 goes all-in $16.51

Flop
3$49.68, 3 all-in KA6

Turn
3$49.68, 3 all-in Q

River
3$49.68, 3 all-in 8

Final Pot $49.68
Player 1 shows 78 Player 4 shows 99 Hero shows TT
Hero wins$46.89 (net +$26.59)
Player 1 lost $18.11
Player 4 lost $9.37
Player 5 lost $1.60

I don't mean to sound too harsh or rude, was this hand from your C Game? Term fish slightly overused when YOUR getting in Tens versus 1st pos.

not sure that that decision is too bad vs a shortstack who shoved to collect some dead money and showed up with 99.
with all the dead money i think the decision is at least closer than you might think

results havent been too great in the last days or even weeks. i definetely made some dumb mistakes, but i still think i am profitable in the games. but even though i think i am on a rough downswing, i still got many leaks and mistakes i gotta work on. at least the rakeback is keeping me alive.
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currently sitting on a -14bb/100 redline. i am definetely improving here, but i think its still not enough. not sure how much of a factor the downswing is regarding this.
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regarding getting better: gonna have my first coaching session with

@w34z3l in months this monday, really looking forward to improve faster again

had a sick sunday grind today, very happy with my steady performance for the day even though the grind was long. i feel like my volume per day is getting better and better without my play being notably worse, very proud of that. especially since i quit zoom it felt tough to get the hands in, seems like that is changing now without crippling my game quality. FeelsGoodMan

sunday graph:
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Finally had a coaching session yesterday. Because i didnt take these for a long time we did some fundamental stats checking and found some obvious leaks i can work on. Great to be back on track again!

my second session since i had coaching yesterday, tried to implement some of the stuff we talked about in coaching yesterday, but obviously also ran pretty hot.

in a few days i can review the coaching session again via video, and i will write down everything we talked about so i can focus even more on improving every leak we noticed in my stats. feeling great, daily volume is still very good right now, and quality is improving.

usually there is a saying "study more than you play" or something along those lines, but i wonder if that is really the best for me right now.
i feel like i improve the most by getting used to slight range changes and autoprofit spots so that they become part of my unconcious competence, before i focus on analyzing other spots. so in my case i think its best to just grind a lot for now.
a problem i had a lot when trying to "study" is that i just looked at many different things in a row and didnt really get to train all the things i tried to learn. so this time i will try a different approach.

maybe i should still use some time analyzing the spots i try to improve right now to see if i dont miss any, so that could be a way of still studying while trying to implement the new stuff into my game.

EDIT:
to make it easier to follow my journey moneywise i'm gonna start to update my current bankroll at some points where it fits in. that way:
-you guys can have a clearer picture how good i am doing
-i am forced to not only show my good graphs and pretend like i am crushing, even when i am maybe not

i am still debating if i will pay for coaching from my bankroll or my reallife money. i should probably pay from my online poker br because money is short in reallife and i will need that for when i will move. maybe i will pay for it from my rl br but if i need money i will be open to withdraw money from online. that should probably be the most +EV move, to not stop my bankroll from growing when i still have some room to cover expense from money outside of my bankroll.

my bankroll started out with roughly 550€ when i deposited on BV again. Lost a lot through currency exchange after withdrawing from SJ, but i was close to 30BIs for 20nl pretty much all the time.

CURRENT BANKROLL: 700.76€

So i had a day off work today, and decided to massgrind a bit because i felt good and didnt have much else to do because the coaching video isnt up yet so i couldnt review that.

All in all i grinded 8 hours in 2 sessions, with a food and shopping groceries break in between.
That resulted in 4k hands while 6tabling reg tables. Holy shit, what a volume.

Sadly todays session went under the theme "who needs to win all ins anyway" with several 90%ers i lost. Still happy with the session, will review my biggest losses though. I remember one hand where i raised an oesd in a 3betpot on a two tone board and had to call villains 3betshove because i priced myself in. Call was correct imo, but the raise probably wasnt. He blocked my outs with an overpair aswell..

Without further ado, here is todays graph:
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CURRENT BANKROLL: 644.85€

At first i wanted to start this post with some bold statement like "i never ran that much below EV" or something along those lines. But if you think about it, running 9BIs below EV shouldnt be that rare. I probably never ran that much below EV moneywise, but thats it.

There is a saying i really like that can be applied to my current situation: "If you dont get it in good, you cant get sucked out on."
That is the title of my current poker game.

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In addition to the runbad regarding all ins i feel like being at least a bit on the bad side of card distribution right now.

Hand Conversion Powered by WeakTight Poker Hand History Converter
$0.10/$0.20 No Limit Holdem Prima

6 Players

Blinds $0.10/$0.206
UTG Player 4 $46.22
UTG+1 Player 5 $30.29
CO Player 6 $20
DHero $36.06
SB Player 2 $10.07
BB Player 3 $15.19

Preflop
6$0.30Hero is BTNQQ
1 fold, Player 5 raises to $0.60, 1 fold, Hero raises to $1.80, 2 folds, Player 5 raises to $4.20, Hero calls$3

Flop
2$9.90JKT

Player 5 bets $4, Hero calls$4

Turn
2$17.90Q
Player 5 checks, Hero checks

River
2$17.90K
Player 5 goes all-in $21.49, Hero calls$21.49

Final Pot $60.88
Hero shows QQ
Player 5 shows KK

Player 5 wins $60.28 (net +$30.59)
Hero lost$28.49

BUT even if thats the case, there is no excuse for just being mad at the game. Even if i lose the big hands because of variance, i need to make sure i win the other hands because of skill. The upswing will inescapably come, so i gotta make sure that i make the best out of my current sitiation, and that i will be able to make the best out of the upswing aswell.

I already feel better equipped since the last coaching, and got a better understanding of basic things i didn't care to think about before.

All in all my mental game seems to still be strong no matter what bad beats i take, and i am proud of that.

Results will come, as long as you dont chase them!

CURRENT BANKROLL: 653.17€

Well now I have hakuna matata stuck in my head... THANKS

Nice blog man and gl! I'm looking forward to seeing that graph go up and up and up!

admire guys that can play 4k hands in a day. keep going!

realgold: admire guys that can play 4k hands in a day. keep going!

thanks! i was surprised myself that i powered through that. it helps that i only work 10h a week at the moment though, couldnt do that
if i worked more...

Komododragonjesus: Well now I have hakuna matata stuck in my head... THANKS

Nice blog man and gl! I'm looking forward to seeing that graph go up and up and up!

just continue reading this, i got what you crave for

So this is what sunrunning while playing soft saturday evening/night tables looks like:
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CURRENT BANKROLL: 780.73€

Was on a rough downswing in the last days. Even though i want to pretend i dont care i start to feel that it still affects me.
Right now poker is the only thing i am passionate about in my everyday life, and even though my brain knows that it is still all in the realm of variance, it still sucks. Just a few days ago i was peaking (including rakeback), and right after that i lost 10 BIs.
I know i am doing mistakes in some bigger pots, but its hard to review those when i am still working on my basics. Its also hard to just ignore them as i feel like they make up a big part of my recent losses.
Anyway, i still dont feel like tilt is screwing up my game. Behind every decision i make is a well thought out idea. Of course my reasonings for certain actions cant be the best all the time, i feel like i am still in the drivers seat of my game.
I am not sure what to do right now though. A break would probably be best for my mental state, but powering through seems a bit more appealing to me. I still feel like i am +EV in the games, so it would feel like throwing away money if i just took a break. It is starting to influence my volume though. Only slowly at the moment, but i gotta keep my attention on that. Just yesterday i stopped playing after maybe 1.5k hands because i noticed my mood got bad after i lost 4BIs or so. If my mood was better i couldve probably played at least 500-1k hands more.
Anyway, just a little rant to get this out and not keep these thoughts just for myself. Sometimes only writing or talking about bad stuff happening is a good step in the direction of caring less about it.

As you can see, i am losing since about 40k hands. Big part of that is being 10 BIs below EV though, so i guess i cant be too mad. Whatever. I put out the rule of not only sharing the positive moments of my poker life, so here is the other side of it:
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PS: Even though this is kind of a money goal, which are mostly bad, i feel like i can reach it and i want to share it here. I want to grind up my bankroll to 1.5k and take a 10 BI shot at 50nl then, and i want to do that until the end of the year. I hope i can reach that goal. Should be very doable if i keep up my current volume, as my winrate gets boosted hard by rakeback and rakerace so i am winning even if i get screwed over by variance.

CURRENT BANKROLL: 669.95€

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