Proving I'm profitable before moving up in stakes

I have about 20k hands left so I will just do this as a mini challenge now that I'm playing reg tables since they are so different. Goal is to have 10bb/100 winrate after rake. I honestly think it's
doable since the games are so soft. I bought H2N small stakes but can't seem to get it to work so GG graph will do. Ran way under EV but so far safe to say we are doing better than 10bb/100.

Also got $20 in rakeback spin so the GG account is at a new equity high yay. Just have to keep grinding until 1) challenge is done and 2) 30 BIs for 25NL then we go hard in the 25NL nosebleeds.

3200 / 20 000

OP close to completing the challenge?

Here's what happened: I reached 50k hands but I don't think my wr was 10bb/100. I learned that there's way better sites than gg so I played partypoker for a while, then pokerstars 10-50NL for like 100k hands. I eventually found a geolocked site which is the softest one I have ever seen so I only played there. I became a solid winner at 50NL but eventually just got bored, took some shots at 100NL, lost a lot, got demotivated and withdrew my roll of a little over 1000€. I didn't really even need more money so I saw no point in playing.

However, I recently had to get a real job. Now I realize that playing poker is way better than sitting in a cubicle and I could legit make more at 50NL against a soft playerpool than this office job. Both things are just sitting in front of a computer clicking buttons so it's barely any different really. It's my first office job and I don't really wanna be here for the next 40 years so I should at least try right?

So I'm going to run it back now from the lowest stake available, 4NL. I apparently had 61.33€ left on this site for some reason, maybe some rakeback bonus or something. 20BI bankroll management, moving back down if I go under 15BI. For 50NL I'm increasing the BRM to 30BI, moving down if I go under 25BI. Maybe 40BI for 100NL but we'll get to that later. No random shot taking.

I have played 8067 hands so far and am up to 143.56€ on the roll, winrate of 25bb/100 lmao. Here's the most important things I have learned in my poker journey:

1. Poker is about taking the money from the fish. There's no glory in being the best reg at 50NL or whatever. Just bumhunt to the max. Site select, table select.

2. Everyone is way worse at poker than you think. The fish are playing extremely face up. The shitregs that beat 25NL 4bb/100 are playing face up. If they x/r flop and bet big turn just fold. Massively overfold vs confident aggression. Massively overbluff vs passivity. Thinking your opponents are smarter than they are is a big trap.

3. Even if you are good, without proper brm you will never win longterm. You wont have the balls to make the +EV river jam if you have 10% of your bankroll on the table. Just commit to grinding out for a few weeks more instead of "taking a shot".

4. This one is kind of personal to me, I have found immense value in strategy simplifications. Things such as removing cold calling preflop from your game, always having the same betsizes postflop, etc. It makes your life so much easier when instead of 200 options you have 2. You barely lose any EV anyway and if playing vs a huge whale you can always take the max exploit route if you really want to ofc.

Next step, 10NL at 200€ bankroll. Lets go!

Played 2634 hands today. Funny thing is my first ~1000 hands I played really bad and lost 1 buyin, although I also ran kinda bad. I did a full mental reset, cleaned my apartment etc. Then I came back and won 14.5 buyins in the next 1500 hands lol.

roll 196.96
hopefully 10NL tomorrow
boring to grind it out but I have to earn it. I can't just shot and hope to get lucky. 25NL by the end of the month, leggo leggo

Welcome back. Those observations are good and also true. About the office job vs. poker thing. I recently heard someone say something along the lines of "If you go for your dreams and fail, the worst outcome is the life that everybody else is already living." It's a good way of looking at trying to follow your dreams or trying out something and just enjoying the ride.

I think in poker, it's quite easy to get "lost in the sauce" thinking about different strategies, bet sizings, frequencies etc. because of the massive game tree and the options you have, but at the end of the day, most of your winrate will come from the recs/fish and even the "solid" low-midstakes regs won't have the energy or focus to observe how simple you are playing (i.e. you could probably rangebet everything and they will still under xr/raise) when they are multitabling for leaderboards or rakeback.

I also think one of the biggest, if not THE biggest hurdle for success in poker is the stuff outside of the actual technical gameplay. Especially playing with intent and staying focused + tilt-management are so so important. This article from Patrick Howard imo hits the nail in the head

https://www.mobiuspoker.com/articles/the-reason-you-are-losing-at-low-stakes

Mobius Poker

The Reason You're Losing at Low Stakes

by TheShy m

This article from Patrick Howard imo hits the nail in the head

https://www.mobiuspoker.com/articles/the-reason-you-are-losing-at-low-stakes

Mobius Poker

The Reason You're Losing at Low Stakes

when it comes to low-stakes. Treat it like its your job to succeed, keep grinding and the results will come. GL!

Hi again and thanks! I really think that I am like the overachiever in that article. I have no problem playing a lot for like a few weeks but then I have a tendency to kind of just... stop, lol. It sounds really dumb but it's honestly something I've done in most areas of my life including studies, competitive gaming, everything. Like I play to get results and prove myself, right? Then once I have the result, I know I'm good so no more reason to play and I just quit.

I have a tendency to think "if I get X then I will be happy and motivated", like "once I hit 50NL and have a 30€ hourly then I will grind hard". But now I am learning how to approach the game from more of a "I play to learn things and enjoy the process of just being in the moment and figuring things out" instead of playing specifically to win or to move up in stakes.

The moving up in stakes part is automatic, focusing your energy on it is paradoxically a hindrance to it happening. I already know I'm good enough to crush microstakes fish for a really high winrate, so I'm just focusing on my breath and being in the present moment now.

The move to 10NL is going well so far. Played 4026 hands today, up about 15 buyins on 10NL. Roll at 349.69€.

One thing which is annoying is that the best times to play BY FAR are 6pm and later. But I really like to focus and work more during the morning/day. I've been wondering if playing on asian or south american apps is still a thing? It would be nice to be able to play when fish are drunk in asia but it's like 1pm here in europe. Anyone know any good apps/agents?

I will of course finish my current mission first but once I'm a bit more established I want to look into this.

Played some hands, roll down to 312.78. I just played really badly. Saw this 2000NL reg on youtube say he goes for a run before playing so I guess I will too. Definitely need more exercise and it can't hurt my playing. I need a pre game routine for sure.

Running made me feel better but I'm still playing like ****. Just making these calls that I know are trivial folds vs weak opponents. Also lost two flips and got set over set but whatever. Gonna quit before it gets worse, roll at 298.01.

The difference between my A game and B/C game is really big because of two things that I don't yet have in my unconscious competence: folding vs big aggression and pulling the trigger on bluffs vs passivity. Overfolding a lot vs 3bets, 4bets, flop x/r and turn barrel, triple barrels, etc. Pulling the trigger on the river 70bb overbet when villain is capped. These types of things. If you can do all that correctly the edge you have is really big but I can only do it when I'm really at my best.

I definitely think I can get to a place where I'm playing my A game far more often, there's some low hanging fruit that I can fix in my lifestyle. I got myself a pre poker routine too, gonna try it out tomorrow.

I guess I actually tilt really easily.. bankroll down to 250. I just don't really care. Like I lose 5 stacks and it is just mildly frustrating but whatever. I wish I would get angry because then I would at least care. You could take my entire bankroll it wouldn't really mean anything to me. Maybe I don't even really like playing poker lol. It's fun when you sunrun but as soon as I lose I just want to quit

yeah......... I played honestly really bad and still won a bunch somehow, roll 341.81

I will play sunday because it's a good day but I won't play before 18:00. I think my problem today is that I grinded vs a bunch of shitregs for like 6h before the games even really started lol. Played like 5k hands today. I am taking monday and tuesday off next week so I can come back with more energy. I need to pace myself or I will just burn out (if I'm not already).

I decided to play some more, roll 399.50. Don't play whie talking to ur friend on the phone guys, I was up to 430 then lost 3 stacks in like 5 min. I have now played over 7000 hands today lol.

It is insane how much softer the games are in the evenings/at night. Legit free money from some of these players. It's almost like playing before 18:00 is a complete waste of time in comparison. I really want to get on those app games so that I could play in the afternoon for me but when the asian ppl are drinking and so on. Would be so good.

At least I can happily report that I have stuck to the BRM completely, I haven't considered for a single second to take a shot at 25NL. So that's good. But frankly I don't know if 500 will be enough for 25NL with how massive my swings have been. It should be okay since I will obviously move down if I lose 5BI.

Before playing today I'm actually going to spend some time studying poker. Crazy I know. Specifically there's a lot of spots where I think I'm playing too aggressive, especially OOP. It seems that generally when IP and preflop raiser you can bet a ton on turns and rivers but OOP you need to be more careful. I need to get better at x/f-ing turns and rivers, even flops too. It feels bad because it feels weak but sometimes it's the right play. Like in 3bet pots OOP I have a tendency to stack off with AQ, AK, etc. Often I just get snapped off by like T9s or something that made top pair. Great spot when you have JJ+ but I gotta chill out with the bluffs.

I have noticed this pattern in my poker career that when I stop putting myself in sick spots everything gets easier. You can actually just X/F sometimes. You can also fold pre. A lot of these plays I'm making preflop like cold calling 22-66 from the SB facing a BTN open aren't necessarily even profitable due to rake but it's easy to convince yourself to do it because "I have postflop edge", whatever that means. Same goes for things such as opening J9s, 77, A6s and getting 3bet from IP. Calling 3bets OOP sucks big balls.

So today:

- X/F, especially OOP, when you have air and don't think villain is clearly going to overfold to a bet (mainly 3bet+ pots and OTT/OTR).
- Zero cold calling preflop except from BB
- 4bet/fold facing 3bets OOP

These are things I've done before and done well with. I don't even really know why I stopped, just poor discipline I guess. High winrate > ego calling preflop and ego bluffing postflop.

You can and imo you should shot-take aggressively in micros/lowstakes, as long as you can stick to your BRM and know when to drop stakes if you happen to lose a bit. For example, if your winrate is 12-15bb/100 (sample size matters), you can play with a ~15BI roll while having less than 5% risk of ruin. So taking a shot with a 20BI roll for the stake is not too crazy. Of course, for some folks it can be more to handle on the mental side or if the poker bankroll you have is the only money you can afford to play with (and will affect your gameplay), then I would 100% stick to a more conservative approach.

Keep grinding!

Thanks for the encouragement! I lied, I didn't start at 18:00 today I started at like 14:00 and grinded all day. Roll 501.31.

10NL stats: 299.65€ profit over 20 196 hands = 2996.5bb / 20196 * 100 = 14.8bb/100. Definitely could have been a lot better if I didn't have those 2 days where I tilted off god knows how many stacks.

I will now shot 25NL as sunday evening is a good time. If I drop below 15BI (375€😉 I am going back down to 10NL of course. Lets go!

Update: down 1 buyin on my first hand LOL

Got instantly destroyed. Guys calling 3bets OOP with 97o and flopping a full house, losing flips, etc. Back down to 10NL we go, but I'm done for the day. Roll 422.51. Feeling pretty tilted again even tho I know losing 3 BI is like totally normal. Taking tomorrow off so I can focus on other things.

Okay new week, let's make a plan. I want to play 12.5k hands because that would be 50k hands per month which I think is reasonable. Let's say someone played 100NL with 10bb/100 winrate and 50k hands, that's 50 buyins a month = 5k. I think it's a completely realistic goal to aim for as long as you have access to soft player pools. At 500 hands per hour (6 * 6max tables) that's 25 hours per week. But obviously games aren't always available and unexpected things happen so you kind of have to assume there's going to be some friction.

But that's all way in the future if we ever get there. For now I want to establish myself at 25NL this week. I'd like to get back to 25NL and then win 10 buyins there. So first going to grind 10NL and then shot take again at 500€ bankroll. I will also get my first rakeback this week, 10€ poggers.

Hands = 0 / 12 5000
Bankroll = 422.51 / 750

One more thing for this week: I identified 9 things in my lifestyle that I can change to perform better in poker. It's kinda weird when you have done some honestly pretty dumb **** for years, you have this learned helplessness like "oh it's impossible to change" but I also used to think that way about responsible bankroll management and now it's been no problem. So it definitely is possible to change. I'm not gonna try to do everything at once but I'm starting today.

This is pretty much me:

POV you just moved up to 25NL:

This is the real endboss stake it seems lmao

Okay the second 25NL shot went much better. I have said it before but I'll say it again: games are insanely much softer during the evenings/night than during the day, it's insane.

Hands played 4300 / 12500
Roll 631.97 / 750

I'm already feeling the swings for sure. Will stay in 25NL for a long time to come. Idk if even 30BI will be enough to shot 50NL. We'll see. But it's nice to already be playing for real money.

I just got a warning from the poker site that I have been using very much time playing lately, like thanks I'm aware lmao

Left my job early, hope I don't get in trouble. My boss wasn't there and I was pretty much done so you knowwwww.

When I last played on this site there was this legendary fish Jmmmm who played 25NL, like 4-6 tables, always sat with 50bb, and lost probably -20bb/100 at least. I haven't seen him so far but I have seen a new guy who acts exactly like Jmmm used to. I just took like 3BI off him in 40 minutes lol.

Weekly goals:

Hands 4900 / 12500
Roll 737.68 / 750

I feel a bit more secure playing 25NL now that I almost have 30BI but the swings are still pretty big for me tbh. At least I know I won't hit 30BI for 50NL for many weeks so I can focus on just getting used to 25NL for now.

How are the games on GGPoker? Never played there.