MY Goal from Online Loser to ONLINE HIGH STAKES CRUSHER!
Hi all,
Last September I began my poker journey during a pretty depressing space in life. Poker felt refreshing, challenging, and gave me a sense of pride whilst playing against other regs and winning hands. When I started I had absolutely NO understanding of theory, never thought of using solvers, and over the course of the next year, lost a **** load of money teaching myself how to play (4k+ between 10, 25, 100NL, lots of random stake jumping/tilt problems).
I took some time away from the tables this summer and have now saved for a proper bankroll of $800 for NL25/NL50. After saving for the bankroll, I left my job working in a local factory to focus on poker full-time before the holidays and before I go back to school in January. My dream is to one day go pro and play for a living, and I feel that now is as best as ever to shot take while I have the resources and time to do so.
Since the first of November I've played 23,506 hands of NL25 and NL50:
After 10k hands I ran into some shitty beats, which of course parlayed into shitty playing/tilting/etc. I've always been self-conscious and I think I really let those negative emotions get the best of me. This is what I think my biggest weakness is as a player.
I want to use this blog as a form of personal accountability and reflection, and so that I can document this journey by sharing hand histories and talking strategy with the community here.
Here are some fun hands I've played over the last week:
AA vs JTs:
A9h vs 76s:
KK vs QQ:
AA Multi-way 😡
Some bluffs:
If you enjoy this thread please subscribe as I'll be adding more and updating each day. Cheers 2p2 :p😃
8 Replies
Greetings everyone,
Long time no see 😀
Things were going well for me after graduating school and after applying to a bunch of different places I was hired onto the team of a large auto company. However only about a month later I was let go because of the automotive tariffs affecting the industry (yuck!). This was a dream job at a dream workplace so I’m definitely a bit crushed about losing it.
Now that I have some time on my hands between work, I’m planning to go play some live 1/3 at my local casino in hopes of building up a bankroll and to help with expenses.
I want to play my first session this Saturday and will be keeping track of every session from then on. I will try to update with as much info about profits/losses, hand histories, strategy, pictures, and anything else I can while playing!
One of the main things I hope this blog will do is help as a form of personal accountability for myself. One of the main things I struggle with is low confidence and tilt. I feel by sharing these feelings here and hearing feedback on it it will help me keep track of these problems so they don’t build up as much moving forward.
I hope that you will follow along on this journey with me 😃 cheers 2p2
Well todays the day! My first session.
I’m usually the youngest guy in the whole place (I’m 28) when I go, especially at this time of the morning. Right now it’s 8:30am and I should be there by 9:15am or so ready and waiting to play for 10am. This way I don’t need to wait longer than 45min to get a seat so long as I’m there before everyone else.
I didn’t get the best sleep last night. Wasn’t nervous or anything, but my sleep schedules been a bit out of whack lately since I’m not on any kind of solid working schedule. Still feeling good, definitely going to indulge in some free coffee once I arrive at the casino 😃
The plan today is to play solid ABC poker - not go too crazy with value against OMC opponents who I perceive to be tighter than usual and value bet my ass off vs. the looser players. I would also like to work on developing notes for certain players, so practicing my reading abilities is going to be of focus too.
It’s a beautiful day today, good warm Southern Canadian weather. So nice after the last 7 months of gross weather
Will post follow up details after todays session. I’ll try to check up on this post if anyone has any questions or anything while I’m there. Okay guys please send your run good energy for me today!
Cheers 2p2 :p
Thanks. I just graduated 4 months ago so everything’s still kind of fresh
I have been applying to other places lately and while it’s probably gonna be a while to find something decent again, I’m fine with it. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I’m probably not going to find something as good as my last job anytime soon.
I was the tenth person on the list this morning so I think I may have to wait past 10am FML. Oh well at least I got my coffee
Good 4 hour session today, was able to get a seat when the room opened at 10am and played through until 2pm (minus a few small breaks in between)
I think I played well, for the most part played pretty tight except for one special hand haha
Hero raises to $12 JTo in the CO, folds to SB OMC. This player has been leading in to people randomly, even with hands for 2 or 3 streets with as weak as A high, has close to 100% vpip while at the table. We’ve played before, nice old fella. He calls BB folds
Pot: $27
Flop: 238r
SB leads for $6. My first thought is that he’s going to do this with all his weak pairs and 8x that just wants to take it down now. I also had a read that he is folding post flop facing aggression, and blocking 2 overpairs (TT and JJ) we make it $20. Villain calls
Pot: $67
Turn: 6d bringing in diamond draw. SB checks and we bet $45, he thinks for not long and eventually calls. At this point I’m putting him on underpairs to the board like 44 and random 8x like 98o, as well as 6x. We still have a really strong range advantage given action and given villains range I’m pretty confident betting and would play my value a similar way.
Pot: $157
River: 2d
Here’s where it gets interesting. Villain snap leads the river for $70. I felt that he was really weak given the way he bet and again a spot where he just wants to get a cheap showdown. After thinking for a minute, we put him all in for another $90. Now, versus a normal opponent I would never make a play like this, but because of the read I had on the way he bet, and also the fact that we are never really going to have bluffs in this line and his range is most likely just going to be weak pairs, we can probably get him to fold. So we jam and after tanking for a minute, we get the fold! And just like that, we take down a $227 dollar pot with no pair no blockers 😃
In for $300, out for $462
Expenses: $40 for Uber, $20 on drinks
Profit: $100
Good 4 hour session today, was able to get a seat when the room opened at 10am and played through until 2pm (minus a few small breaks in between)I think I played well, for the most part played pretty tight except for one special hand hahaHero raises to $12 JTo in the CO, folds to SB OMC. This player has been leading in to people randomly, even with hands for 2 or 3 streets with
That's not an OMC, that's just an old man. I think you should go bigger on the flop if you're trying to blow him off a pair or whatever but this may not be the player type to even try this against. That being said I think you should raise to $30 on the flop. Nice bluff on the river, this feels like spew though, I don't know. I wasn't there I didn't have the feeling you had but just reading the hand history it seems fortunate you got a fold there. But again, I wasn't there so I'd always recommend trusting your gut in any situation so good job. Live poker is much easier than online. Good luck.
That's not an OMC, that's just an old man. I think you should go bigger on the flop if you're trying to blow him off a pair or whatever but this may not be the player type to even try this against. That being said I think you should raise to $30 on the flop. Nice bluff on the river, this feels like spew though, I don't know. I wasn't there I didn't have the feeling you had
Oh it’s definitely a spew I just tried to reason it as much as possible haha, I’m fine with my read though that he was not nutted in this spot as he let out that he only had a pair which I think we can still always get him to fold
Forgot to update from yesterdays session
In for $600 and out for $485, with travel expenses profit for the day is -$165
So I think I’m raising slightly too large in some spots post flop. There was a river spot I raised $135 after v bet $40 however having played with this person before I decided to go a bit larger here. Think 2.5x or around 110 would have been more appropriate. Another hand on flop raised to $115 in position after EP bet $35 and another caller, so I think I should go cheaper or even slow playing with value here (flopped middle set)
Lost a buy in a pot where I was 3 bet on a very wet board and got it in with bottom set vs. the straight on 956ss, thinking I should just call or even considering folding vs the action here and because one person bet in front most full house puts were most likely dead already. Limped pot with fish, not a huge mistake IMO but it is gonna just print to find the folds here vs tighter opponents
All in all okay session !
