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New monthly goals: May 2021 After a solid performance in football, the coach doesn’t need to make any changes of the starting line-up. The April monthly goals were perfect for me, kept me disciplined and focused and I performed near my best during most poker sessions. So there is no need to change the anything. However, as the new regulations in Germany will happen in two months and this will probably mean the death of online poker in the country (thank you, politicians!), I will add one more goal: UO goal: Play 30 UO qualifiers. Play 5 Supernova qualifiers (10€ buy-in) SNG challenge: Don’t play any 25€ SNGs. SNG challenge: Play at least 200 SNGs 5 seat SNGs at Unibet with 4€ and 10€ buy-in 9 seat SNGs at the other poker room with 5$ and 10$ buy-in I want to play maximum 3 tables at once. A fourth table produces way more mistakes for now. HexaPro and Spins goal: Don’t play any of these!!! MTT challenge: Don’t play any MTTs (except the Supernova xD) Study goal Read my notes for the SNGs at least once a week (it takes me like 15-20 minutes to go through the full notes); Make at least one session (30 minutes) of studying my own play and the play of my opponents (hand replayer) and add something to my notes; Review my notes on the satellites strategy at least twice this month. · Try not to look at the results too much. Update the results at the end of the month.

Evaluation of the monthly goals: April 2021 UO goal: Play 30 UO qualifiers. COMPLETED Exactly 30 UO qualifiers played. I was very close to win one 50€ ticket, but my QQ pre-flop shove was called by 24s from a maniac and he got a straight on the river. I was also close to one 250€ ticket, but no luck there as well. SNG challenge: Don’t play any 25€ SNGs. COMPLETED SNG challenge: Play at least 200 SNGs COMPLETED 5 seat SNGs at Unibet with 4€ and 10€ buy-in 9 seat SNGs at the other poker room with 5$ and 10$ buy-in I want to play maximum 3 tables at once. A fourth table produces way more mistakes for now. COMPLETED HexaPro and Spins goal: Don’t play any of these!!! COMPLETED I played 2 HexaPros with the tickets won from the challenge points system. So this part is still completed. MTT challenge: Don’t play any MTTs! UNCOMPLETED I broke this one twice: I played the MoonWalk at Unibet once (10€ spent) and a 11$ tournament at the other poker room. Study goal Read my notes for the SNGs at least once a week (it takes me like 15-20 minutes to go through the full notes); COMPLETED Make at least one session (30 minutes) of studying my own play and the play of my opponents (hand replayer) and add something to my notes; COMPLETED Review my notes on the satellites strategy at least twice this month. COMPLETED · Try not to look at the results too much. Update the results at the end of the month. PARTLY COMPLETED

@P0kerM0nk don't know what the feeling is to lose so much money in such a way. Just think it as buy-ins, when you play NL100 these are 15 buy-ins, so nothing tragic. And when I see your hands it is mostly bad variance. I know it is very frustrating, but be glad, that these fishes/whales still exist, because poker is profitable game thanks to them! Stay calm and I am sure you are going to recover the losses!

As I did review my hands after my sessions, I picked some of them up to show you. HAND 1 9 seat, Low-Blind Play (LBP), blinds 10-20, 9 players. I am MP1. I raise first in (RFI) to 50 chips (2,5 BB). MP3 3-bets me to 90 chips (4,5 BB), B and BB call and I call as well. 3-bets like this one are always weird. These are mostly premium hands from players, who want to get more action (poor play thought, because you invite more players to see a flop). I excluded 66-TT, because this is mostly a call during LBP. 397 chips at the middle, flop comes 3s7s4h and I lead with ½ pot bet (200 chips). MP3 raises all-in, B and BB folded. JJ-AA should never raise all-in here, because I am doing the betting already. So I am up against two overcards and/or flush draw most of the time. I call, turn is a disaster, the river saves me. HAND 2 9 seat, LBP, blinds 25-50, 9 players. I am EP3. I RFI to 150 chips (3BB). Only the BB calls. 379 chips at the middle, flop comes 9hKsAc. BB checks, I make a c-bet (47% pot c-bet) to get some value of my top 2 pair. BB calls and decides to lead the turn (7h) with ½ pot bet. Nothing to be afraid of here, I lose just to a set of 9 or 7, which makes no sense to lead here, when I am the aggressor. I just call the bet and then call his all-in on the river (Jc). In my notes from the “Sit ‘n Go Strategy” book is written: “LBP AQs, AQo: these are solid, but not premium hands. Tend to fold if someone has raised already. This is because if the raiser has a better hand, you will often lose all your chips on a seemingly favorable flop.” As I read it in the book I was sceptic about this one. Folding AQ was way too tight in my opinion. I was in the opposite side of the HAND 2 several times and I learned, that Moshman is absolute right about this one. I see it way too often how people end up 9th or 8th with AQ or JJ for example. HAND 3 9 seat, LBP, blinds 10-20, first hand of the tournament. MP1 open shoves, no information about him at all. In such situation I am calling just KK-AA. Once again: 6 months ago I was calling with AKs, which is a small mistake. Doubling up early only doubles your chips, not your tournament equity. Maybe too tight, but I am confident, that I have an edge over most of my opponents and can outplay them later. HAND 4 9 seat, LBP, blinds 15-30, 9 players. UTG limps, MP1 raises to 3,5 BB. I decide to slowplay my monster hand, but as it turned out it was a mistake. The blinds and UTG completed. 561 chips are in the middle, bad flop for me. The original raiser makes a c-bet of just 105 chips, so we all call. Turn is a dream one for me (at least I thought so at this moment) and chips go in the middle… A 3-bet pre-flop can eliminate both players from the hand. Weird hand, not necessary a huge mistake, but 3-betting the monsters in LBP pre-flop is a better play. HAND 5 9 seat, Mid-Blind Play (MBP), blinds 60-120, 6 players left. Player 1 is a reg and open-shoves his 9,3 BB pre-flopfrom the CO. Very often this is an attempt to steal the blinds with speculative hands. Easy one to call. HAND 6 5 seat, Bubble play, blinds are 100-200. I am chip leader with 5232 chips (26 BB), the player in BB is very tight and passive and was folding almost every hand, trying to get into the money without risking. I started pushing any two against him and started the HU with more than 8000 chips. I won the tournament. 6 months ago I was folding more than 30% of my hands in this situation. HAND 7&8 5 seat, Bubble play. These two hands are from the same SNG. The one player is sitting out the whole tournament. I am huge chip leader and decide to be a bully. Even the weakest HU starting hand 23o is a correct shove, giving the fact that it was a decent player and not some maniac against me. HAND 9 9 seat, Bubble Play, blinds are 25-50. Player 2 opens to 100 chips (2 BB), I call with AJs, I don’t want to end up pushing/calling pre-flop, because we are still deep stacked. Player 1 calls as well. I flop the second nuts, the original raiser bets ½ pot, I call, Player 1 folds. Turn gives me the nuts and goes check/check. Player 2 checks the river. Well an A calls my bet regardless of the size. I don’t think I can get value from any other hand, even a flush is a fold here. I decide to push all-in (2,6 x pot bet). Instant call and a maximum value for me. HAND 10 I shoved the flop and was so happy to see that I am going to double up. Biggest bad beat of the month.

April 2021 Starting Bankroll: 1500 € SNG 5 seat 4€ buy-in: 65 played (21 wins, 14 other cashes), profit: 94,69 € 5 seat 10€ buy-in: 58 played (13 wins, 14 other cashes), profit: 53,33 € 9 seat 5$ buy-in: 68 played (6 wins, 10 runner-ups and 13 min-cashes), profit: 22,18 $ 9 seat 10$ buy-in: 30 played (6 wins, 3 runner-ups and 3 min-cashes), profit: 80,70 $ For the next few stats I convert the $ in € like this 1 $ = 0,83 €. I played 221 SNGs with an average buy-in 6,20 €. I made a profit of 233,41 €, which means 17% ROI. UO Satellites UO Ticket Bankroll: I won't have time to play anymore this week, so the poker month is over for me. April 2021 Ending Bankroll: 1767,82 €

Don't expect the majority of the players at the micros/small stakes to take any attention to what cards you showed or played before.

Hi @bapfel ! I am tagging the mods for you @Stubbe-Unibet @ReCorpH @Andy-Unibet

Congrats @nightshopper ! 2500€ is an important milestone, I hope to reach it myself in the near future. Bankroll management, self discipline and control are so important in poker, your blog shows it one more time. Keep up the good work and I wish you much succes at the poker tables!

These river value bets in your last hand example are so important for the long term profit, especially in cash games. It is a big leak in my game as well, I often miss to value bet the river in the low blind play at the SNGs/MTTs, which is also very important. Those few bucks/chips more could make a big difference. Overall congrats on your approach to the game. I wish you to keep on growing as a player, keep the good work and hope you will run good at the tables. I find your blog one of the best in this community, very nice content and those hand examples with your explanations are very interesting!

UO goal: Play 30 UO qualifiers.SNG challenge: Don’t play any 25€ SNGs.SNG challenge: Play at least 200 SNGs5 seat SNGs at Unibet with 4€ and 10€ buy-in;9 seat SNGs at the other poker room with 5$ and 10$ buy-in;I want to play maximum 3 tables at once. A fourth table produces way more mistakes for now.HexaPro and Spins goal: Don’t play any of these!!!MTT challenge: Don’t play any MTTs!Study goalRead my notes for the SNGs at least once a week (it takes me like 15-20 minutes to go through the full notes);Make at least one session (30 minutes) of studying my own play and the play of my opponents (hand replayer) and add something to my notes;Review my notes on the satellites strategy at least twice this month.Try not to look at the results too much. Update the results at the end of the month.

One quarter of the year is gone, so this is a good time to update my blog. It wasn’t a good quarter for me at the poker tables, mostly because of the lack of discipline. I played formats that I know, that I am not good at and I should stay away from (Spins, Hexas). I also broke my bankroll management rules several times and let tilt moments affect my game and decisions. I will try to focus on the positive things though: I always recognized the tilt moments and I also managed to leave the tables most of the time, when tilted, but sadly not always. It made me realize how important the mental side of the game is one more time.I did finally finish the Sit ‘n Go Strategy book from Collin Moshman, made very good notes and now use them with success. I also reviewed hands after busting some SNGs and tried to figure out what I did wrong and what I did right. Overall the studying part went well. My improvement as a poker player continues, which is the most important part.The overall bankroll is something around 1500€ with around 150€ in opened sports bets and 66€ in bonus points (UK Tour tickets converted), so it was a breakeven quarter. The money is still not so relevant, I am still away from the 5-figure bankroll and possible withdrawals, so the main objectives are improving my game, building a larger bankroll and moving up the stakes. Next big milestone is 2500€. This bankroll will allow me to start regularly adding some 10€ and 25€ MTTs to my schedule. For now the SNGs and satellites are my main game.

I'd prefer two days.

Hey @SkilfulPoker ! I know lots of guys already wrote about this topic in your tread, so I will maybe repeat something in my post. Two words: bankroll management! For me this is the most important thing at poker these days. With all respect you are going to go broke at NL200 with your now 9 buy-ins. My advice is to consider this and follow more strict rules about bankroll management. Don't know what the rules are for cash games, but everything under 25-30 buy-ins seems to me way too small.

Hey @Dennis__ ! Why don't you try not looking at your results daily? Maybe this could help you to stay more focused on the right plays/decisions, don't know if bad results affect you. After all in the long run it doesn't matter if you had a small loss/profit on day X, or if you won/lost your first 2-3 games on day Y, but it seems to have an impact on you (for example you wrote in a post this month, that you ended your session early on after few bad games).

Hey @WuDu ! Thanks for your reply. You are right about the massive heater, it was actually in the first 200-250 games, where I had a ROI of 20-25%. In the next 700-800 games my ROI is about 3-5 %. I agree that my 45% ITM is a bit low, the amount of 4th and 5th finishes should be reduced, if I want to cash more often. About the HU: my stats don't tell the whole truth. One important factor isn't accounted - the HU starting stacks. I didn't write them down, but for sure I was more often the bigger stack, which gives me more chance to win the HU battle. I recently started to write down the HU starting stacks, I will add the numbers in my next big sample update. Good luck at the tables (not against me of course xD)!

I haven’t updated my blog recently. There are two main reasons: first I had a lot to do for my regular job and there were weeks with no time for poker at all. The second one is a downswing, that I am currently in. Nobody likes to write about their losses, right? In February I played my № 1000 5-seat SNG with a 4€ buy-in at Unibet. It is a good sample to look at some more details of my results. A ROI of 11,47% is a solid one. The sample is yet too small to know if this is my true ROI (1000 games is a 66% true indicator). According to different sources online the maximum possible ROI at this stake is 20%, so there is still room for improvement. Let’s now take a look at my finishing positions. As you can see I won 252 games. My longest winning streak was just 5, which I only achieved once. There were several streaks of 10-15 games without first place, which is a combination of bad variance and some leaks in my game. I do decent at HU (won 55,7% of the HU battles) and on the bubble (out of 651 bubble situations, I was 199 or 30,6% the bubble boy). I can improve here, for example by using some tool for bubble spots, which I never used so far and by studying HU more. The amount of 4th and 5th place finishes is the biggest leak in my game in my opinion. I definitely make very stupid mistakes at low blind play. Now that I finally finished the “Sit ‘n Go Strategy” book and made lots of notes, I am certain that I can reduce the amount of these finishes. This will give me the chance to play more bubble spots and to cash more often. Note: I have currently reached 1070 5 seat SNGs with 4€ buy-in. The last 70 are not included in this update (big downswing) and will appear next month. 9 seat SNGs (turbo) with 5$ buy-in The “Sit’n Go Strategy” book is based on this format. I decided to give it a try at the other poker room, that I am playing. So far, so good, I had an upswing there and won 80,56$ after 53 games, which of course made much more fun then getting bad beaten time after time at the 5 seat SNGs. There are lots of regs at the 5$ level, but their level isn’t something extra special. I see lots of mistakes from them in all phases of the game. I can apply the strategies from the book, play tight early on and wait for my spots. At the 5 seat SNGs the blinds hit you more often, blind levels are shorter, so you end up playing more speculative hands, more marginal spots and I am not 100% sure, that I am always doing the right thing. Often there is a bubble play with very deep stacks and I find it strange to call 50 BBs shoves. The presence of more fishes at Unibet is of course a good thing for your winrate in the long run, but the bad beats are more brutal (49o call for his life on the bubble), which tilts me a lot and the result is bad plays from me in the next games. Not sure what format I am going to play from now on. The short-term results at the other poker room might be just good variance. Maybe I will mix them for some time.

First of all thank you @SkilfulPoker for this one! I have the following questions: What is the name of the tournament? Did any of you guys receive the password? Are players with german accounts allowed to join the tournament?

@nightshopper nothing to be ashamed of! Chasing losses is a big issue for many players (for me as well). Talking/writing about it can only help. I don't see any point in not mentioning it in the blog, because you are only going to fool yourself. I try to write about this stuff in my blog, because it is the truth and it can only help me. There is no poker player, who is perfect, and which "career" always goes in the right direction without any mistakes. We are all humans after all. Keep your head up and try to not chase the losses for as long as you can and if/when it happens again try to realize it and stop it! Good luck at the UK main event!

Hello @Dennis__ and welcome back! First of all good luck with all your activities! As you were a regular at the 25€, 50€ and even 100€ 5-seat SNGs at Unibet last year, and you also have much more experience than me at the format, I want to ask you a question: how do you find the 4€ level? Is there a big difference between the 4€ and 10€ level and then between the 10€ and 25€ level? Are the players much better, do they play the bubble different, are there much more fishes at the 4€ level? I am curently beating the 4€ level without big problems, but my attempts on the 10€ level were disaster. Of course I just played about 100x10€ SNGs and all could be just bad luck/variance, but the player pool definitely seems to be tougher.

Hello, can I get all my results from the 5-seat SNGs with a 4€ buy-in from 01.01.2020 until 14.02.2021! Thank you very much!

Very happy to read that you are enjoying all the stuff! Keep enjoying it and keep having fun and stay healthy :happy:

Welcome back @OmahGAWD ! Good luck at the tables, the 1€ SNGs at unibet are nicely soft, stick to the basics and you will beat them easily!

UK Tour goal: Finish the month with at least 10x5€ tickets!UO goal: Finish the month with at least 10x10€ tickets!SNG challenge: Don’t play any 10€ or 25€ SNGs!SNG challenge: Play at least 163 5 seat SNGs with 4€ buy-inAn odd number, but this will bring me to a total of 1100 games on this levelHexaPro goal: Don’t play any of these!!!MTT challenge: Don’t play any MTTs!I want to focus on the satellites and SNGs this monthStudy goal: Finish Collin Moshman’s “Sit’n Go Strategy” book”Well it takes me forever to read the whole book. It is time to finish it!

January 2021 Starting bankroll: 1541,24 € This month could have been the best in my “poker career”. After getting my biggest ever cash online in the first week of the month, I did lots of stupid things. I didn’t set any specific goals at the begging of the month, which was a very big mistake, because I played all kinds of games, without having a decent plan. Let’s just look at my results. SNG The 5 seat SNGs at Unibet were still my main game. I manage to play 84 games (17 wins, 24 runner-ups) with 4€ buy-in. 6 of these were played with tickets, bought with bonus points. So the total profit is: 55,31€. My overall graph after 937 games looks like this (ROI 11,5 %): Things were going great, bankroll was big, so I decided once again to try the 10€ SNGs. I didn’t run hot for sure, but I also did lots of amateur mistakes. And the competition is stronger on this level, which meant that I constantly lost money. I played 22 games (5 wins, 1 runner-up, 9 times bubble boy), overall I have played 84 games on this level and I am currently 11 buy-ins down. Well who knows why, I also played some 25€ SNGs (6 played, 1 runner-up, 3 times bubble boy)... Here I ran terrible (JJ<AKo, AA<KK and KK<ATo were the hands on the bubble). It didn’t stop there unfortunately… Next up were the 5€ HexaPros, then the 10€, 25€ and even couple of 50€ ones in some major tilt moments… Bottom line I lost couple of hundreds € playing this format. Poker teached me once again some important lessons: respect bankroll management, quit sessions, when tilting and just never ever load this “bingo” tables! Hopefully I will learn them this time! Enough moaning! In the second part of this post there is some pretty good news, which made the month even a profitable one, despite the big tilt losses. Satellites I invested some more money in the UK Tour satellites (flips with 0,05€ buy-in) to boost my ticket bankroll for this event. I will try to win some 50€ UK Tour tickets, exchange them back to 10x5€ tickets and build a ticket bankroll, which will allow me to skip the 1€ level completely. As a new rule I will play a 5€ buy-in satellite only when I have at least 10x5€ UK Tour tickets. Unibet UK Tour bankroll: I didn’t play many UO qualifiers this month. Tickets are not going to expire soon, so no pressure here. Unibet Open bankroll: I played also some MTT satellites and won 2x50€ tickets for the Neptune in the first days of the month. MTT The Neptune is a very nice MTT, but 25€ and 50€ buy-ins are still a bit higher for me. As I had one 50€ ticket from a community promotion for this one and I added few more tickets through satellites, I was able to play the Neptune twice this month. The first time I reached the final table with a medium stack. 8 places were paid. After ridiculous outcome (5 times the short stacks survived with less than 20% equity, twice against me) I finished bubble boy. My AQs was unable to hold the preflop all in against AJs in my final hand (I shoved my 10 BB stack). In the second one I won almost every single flip and my hands always held, which secured me 3rd place finish for more than 700€. Below is the list with my significant cashes (more than 20€) in the MTTs during this month. 708,36€ 4000€ Neptune Rebuy (3/43)155,87€ 750€ MoonWalk (2/67)86,34$ 500$ Deepstack (2/107)26,10€ 5000€ Christmas Freeroll (38/372)23,88€ 750€ MoonWalk (8/71)Sports Betting I invested 100€ in long term bets (football champions). I won’t give away, which teams I picked or from which championships. Let’s hope that it will be a good investment. From now on I will use a maximum of 1,5% from my overall bankroll as a betting limit for a single bet. Minimum odds are going to be 2,10. Betting is not my priority, but as I am a big football fan, I will bet from time to time. Witdraw money? I withdrew 500€ from Unibet and deposited them in another poker room. As much as I love Unibet, the MTT schedule isn’t perfect, especially during the early hours. My plan is to start withdrawing money once I reach 5-figure bankroll (if I ever do). January 2021 Ending Bankroll: 1641,68 €

Hello @MetalWolf and welcome back! Congrats on the good news and I wish you all the best at your new place. Your blog inspired me to start my own one here one year ago! Glad that you're back at the tables and hope that you will update your blog with some nice numbers! I hope we can meet at some Unibet live event soon!