Well this is dope and one of the best op's i have ever seen!

So ofc perhaps not the most strictest bankroll management we have ever seen but stop losses, dropping down and one epic spin up! I love the story of how you played your final Spin & Go, won it and that's what gave you some hope and you are now peaking. It really is amazing what can change in a day. You should feel incredibly proud of yourself for that mindset and getting to this stage!

Do you think if you drop to $60 you will actually drop down again? Are you at the stage now where you won't F up again?

Yes welcome Awesome OP.

Wish you the best on your poker journey!

Hi there dodger!

Playing regular tables was a good move, you will learn so much there and the games are usually softer.

A little advice which you may find useful. Table and seat selection.
If you find the games are full of regulars with full stacks, no limping, that sort of stuff and passing the blinds round and round, try using the 'filters' option to set the 'Plrs/flop %' feature in the lobby. I used to set mine to 25% of players seeing the flop which meant lots of loose games and less nitty regulars. Huge advantage, huge.
I also set the games to have at least 3 players.

This is seat selection basics.

Now you've got your table selection set up, sit where you have at least two casual players on your right so the regs are on your left and you get first go at the casuals. I used to look for short stacks as well. If the table doesn't fit, just sit out and find one that does, there will be plenty. You can see the table in a little window on the right of the lobby to help you decide if a seat is good or not. Easy game!

Take millions of notes and go crush them games!

Welcome and gl!

Will be following this Keep us updated with plenty graph, beats and brags!

Ok it's been one week, I thought I'd make an update on what's happened.

I gave 5nl a shot and through multiple points where the green line goes down, and the orange one up I went from $87 to $60. I also didn't always play well, but I thought of it as of a lesson and decided to drop back to 2nl and grind it back up. Next day I played 4 hours and made $4.50, then lost AA against TT twice (!) preflop AI, netting a +$0.23 session. Them two happening within 10 minutes made me take a break to avoid making some decisions.

I clicked on Poker in Twitch and noticed "PokerTips" Poker In a Box stream, which I have not watched before. The first thing I heard was "ok guys, this is the last call in for the giveaway, remember only those who participated in the chat in the last 15 min will be enrolledd". I never really won anything like a lottery before, but not making the effort seemed kind of reckless, and I typed "chatchat" into the chatbox. 1 min later my name was on the screen and I won $10, which the streamer offered to send to my PS account. Shout out to Mike Gano, that totally made my evening.




That boosted my BR and made me forget about AA vs TT completely, as losing them and taking a break turned out to be such a +EV.

Today for some reason I got bored playing regular tables, making notes, and waiting, so (despite of my earlier disapproval of) I jumped into Zoom and played for like 2h. In those 2500 hands I learned something I knew already - one should avoid any sort of fancy play at that level. I won some money by value-betting, then tried bluffing someone and ended up being called by 3x with
second pair. People will call big bets on JQK8A with no T. I won an occasional big pot, then in the next 10min I donated all that money to a guy who flatted a 3b, called two 80%pot bets with 6 high and runner-runner rivered a straight: AQ vs 56 on Q8A47. This, and less tragic, but annoying runouts such as AK vs A3 with A8A43 (Turn All-In) made me take a break (didn't win any lotteries this time ) .

These are more of bad beats, textbook variance examples, but on many occasions you represent something, you make a move you saw in that cool 100nl stream two days ago, and people generally don't give a F, they will call you to find out what is it that you have.

Next two hours I restricted myself from betting with things that I normally would. I cringed, but folded many connected and suited beauties preflop, and went from 24ish vpip to something around 18. It is easier, as with 4 zoom tables you see a lot of hands, I can't imagine myself doing it at regular tables. I also decided to cbet only once if missed, only dry boards, and give up to any kind of aggression from people with big gap between VPIP and PFR.

Finally, I still retained 3betting my sb and bb BTN steals with any two cards vs anybody with VPIP lower than 25 and F3B >50. This worked surprisingly well and I made a bit of money in the next 2000 hands.

At the moment I am at $75 and will not take another shot at 5NL until I have $100. It is $20 higher than my last 5nl shot BR, but I want to give myself a little bit more room to spread the wings and a little bit more cushion, should the variance be unkind to me. Having said that, I am 50 VPP away from my next $10 bonus, and 250 VPP away from affording to buy $10 through the VIP store.

Finally, will post a "welcome to my life" kinda moment, a hand, which I did not manage to fold.

Shortstacks are people too! Pretty much my emotional sequence through the hand I wouldn't do it vs anybody with a normal stack size, but here I just felt like shoving over him.




I am using software that converts my cents to BB btw.

Nice session today, running hot, but also making some tough folds.




Got a Royal Flush in one of the last hands, and actually managed to get paid off for it a bit. 10JQKA



+$16.69

BR: $91.65

Really nice upswing there at the 2k hand mark and making royal flushes is always fun. How many have you made this year?

Nice suck-out with the quads And then a royal flush to top it all off!! Looks like things are going well for you. What is the program you are using to convert the money to bb? Making tough folds at these limits is the best thing you can do!

Did you play the all of those 4K hands today?

@Jon, maybe 2-3, only one came to showdown.

@BarraBod, well they are going well today. It wasn't great 4 days ago, and that's poker, I guess

I'm using StarsHelper. It lets you convert money to BB. It's cool for when you're moving up stakes and keeps your mind away from "bigger pots". Also, it lets you even add prefix. I have $ in front of my BB, so it actually looks like I am playing 100NL lol. I'm not doing it to feel important though, I noticed it helps me bluff less, which is helpful on this level, by reminding me that the chips in the middle is indeed money.

Kind of sick, I'm using software to remind me that it's real money, and at the same time distract me from how much money it is!

Yeah, I played it today, got around 14k in the last 3 days.

I moved up recently and a big problem was bet sizing. All the pots looked massive!! I'm going to add the $ also. Just to make myself feel better I'll check it out anyway. Thanks.

I don't think I've ever played 4k in 1 day! Hopefully your next move up will happen soon.

Played 1.5k on 5NL again. Started off with a




500 hands later got into this




Ended up -$13. Cleared my $10 bonus to sooth the pain, but still feel pretty salty. This is my 3rd A high flush loss vs things other than full house (see first post) withing a week, annoying to say the least. I am starting to value this hand somewhere around one pair-two pair, based on how it is working out for me.

BR: $87

I don't mind taking a downswing when I'm playing bad at the new limit. Nevertheless, why the fuck is this happening exactly at the time when I'm grinding up for a new "shot at 5nl", and finally giving it a go.




I'm not even mad, or tilted, I understand it happens, but why can't it happen when I've played a bit on the new level and these -$5 bullets don't send me back to 2nl ...

Aaand we're back to 2NL. Apparently the universe doesn't want we playing at 5NL anytime soon.

Nice call there on the turn with a gutshot:




A textbook TQo flat 3b and cbet call over here:




And, finally, just an icing on the cake:




BR: $60
6000+ hands today, great results! 2NL, here I come

Is there a reason we are jamming things like $6.34 into pots of $1.18 with sets. We possibly need to look at how we are playing hands mate rather than the fact we are getting unlucky. I would be interested to see the way the hands played out in the pictures and see if you overplayed them.

It might not be a case of just getting unlucky,it looks that way by the posting the final results screenshots but show how the hands played out as if they are like the last hand shoving 6x pot on turn then we may need to look at your game rather than the fatct your getting unlucky.

How did the action go on these 2 hands? Huge chance it was impossible to fold but maybe villain gave it away and we knew we was actually beat but still called?

Hello @dodger. Poker is a game of small edges and it's best to get into a habit of trying to increase your edge where others might miss that opportunity. Here's the thing, everyone has bad sessions, bad beats happen and while you simply can't get away from set vs. overset spot 100bb deep on a dry board you can work on how you react when something like that happen. Most people treat bad beats as justification - "see my skill is high, but those pesky bad beats won't let me make any money!". In reality, big pots are relatively unimportant when it comes to your win rate in the long run since they mostly happen when players run into each other holding the very top of their ranges and you'll be on the receiving end of a "bad beat" roughly as often as you'll be giving one. While it's best to pay attention and make sure you're not spewing money in big pots it's best to prioritize medium and small pots when it comes to analysing your game since what you do with the middle and the bottom part of your range often decides if you're a winner at the game or not. Besides, dwelling on your misfortune can poison your mind and be really bad for you from the mental game standpoint.

Hope that helps, don't give up, stay consistent and don't let the variance get to you. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Good luck!

Thanks for the replies guys!

@SirLaunder, the reason I was doing that is because I find that sometimes this extracts fat value at this level. People overvalue TPTK so much that in my opinion shoves with sets are +EV as people are reluctant to give credit to anyone when they're holding TPTK AK. When there are 2-3 high cards on the board and I have a set it works even better, as people with broadway two pairs will call you 100%, this is why I shoved. Thank you for the input though, I appreciate it.

@Jon-PokerVIP, as suggested by SirLaunder I think I will post hand histories from now on to avoid confusion! In the Aflush vs quads he raised me on flop, bets small T, and I shoved R hoping he had a set he couldn't let go of.

The Aflush vs straight flush was I was aggressor: bet-call, bet-call, shove-call, again, aiming for fat value vs overpairs, trips, straights and lower flushes.

@MattVIP I appreciate your advice, it really got my thinking about the big wins losses vs small/medium ones. I realised that 100bb decisions only come that often, and, more importantly, often don't really depend on you.

However, I thought that those 30bb pots that aren't given as much attention to happen every other hand. And guess what, three of those = 100bb pot. This will affect the way I'm thinking about smaller pots. I am also considering how these nuances can help alleviate tilt, as well as be used to exploit other players. Very thoughtful advise there, thanks again!

---------

Played a bit yesterday, within ~300 hands got 2 bad beats and went -$4, ending the session.

Today played for 2.5h, 2 tabling zoom, 1063 hands later got +9.41, decided to call it a night.

29-30 Nov graph




Will post a hand that I slow played and got punished for it in full.




On the Turn I felt too confident with top set + gshot + Royal draw, and I thought anything that isn't an ace will fold (ignoring 3 spades + FH possibilities), so I checked and got Royally fucked over it, well deserved.

BR: $66.00. Slow climb back to $100.

Chilled session for just under 2h, while listening to a podcast on the other side of the screen. Pretty interesting 3-way discussion with Negreanu, Anksy, and Joe about the changes on stars, boycotting and such.



Made +$1.69, in 877 hands definitely will stick to 2 zoom tables for now, it's less robotic, which a) makes me more entertained because I engage brain into decision making more often, b) actually feels like a better approach within the 'quality vs quantity' argument. Made a couple of cold4bets with like 34o in BB vs SB (high 3b in sb) attacking wide range buttons, felt like Doyle Brunson while scooping those cents in.




Also just noticed




so another 27 VPPs and I can get $10 from Stars.

BR: $67.69