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MathrimC's poker journal


MathrimC

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Hi all,

In this topic I would like to keep some sort of poker journal, posting about the progress, goals and failures in my poker game. My primary motivation for this is to force myself to work harder on my goals, since I don't want to fail in front of a crowd. My secondary motivation is to get feedback on stupid things I do or to get good advice in general. I already have a similar topic in a local Belgian forum, but thought I'd also post here because this is a fun community and I might get more feedback or involvement from other Unibet players. This first post is an introduction with a bit of introspection and background information about my poker game.

My poker history

I first learned to play NL hold'em 10 years ago, but never learned any strategy, and didn't play online for the last 7 years. I started playing online again one year ago, and this time seriously dived into strategy articles, videos, podcasts, etc. In the last year, I've built a €650 bankroll on Unibet and won myself a seat in the UK Tour Glasgow, all without making a deposit. My main games now are 10NL and 25NL cashgames and UK Tour qualifiers.

My personal disadvantages

  • I have a fulltime job and other interests, so have a limited amount of time left to invest in poker
  • I don't want to invest any money from my liferoll into online poker, so I'll have to grind up my bankroll if I want to move up (however, this doesn't count for live poker, buying studying material, and exceptions to this in the future are not excluded)
  • I don't have a car, and not planning on getting one. This is a drawback for playing live events.


My personal advanages

  • I have an analytical mind, I'm good at math, I like to study
  • I have a fun job and a healthy financial situation, so I have no monetary expectations from poker, no pressure to be results oriented
  • I'm very calculated and risk averse, so will always carefully decide which games and stakes I play (however, this might also slow me down sometimes)
  • I'm good at dealing with and learning from critisism


My current resources and aides for learning, studying and playing poker

  • Articles: free articles on pokerstrategy.com, redchip poker, 2+2 forums
  • Podcasts: I mainly listen to the Red Chip Poker podcast, Postflop Poker podcast, Thinking Poker podcast, Tournament Poker Edge podcast, Jonathan Little's weekly poker hand and the 2+2 poker podcast
  • Videos: free youtube videos of redchip poker and the pokerbank
  • Applications: I have Equilab and Flopzilla
  • I constructed some range tables and push/fold tables
  • Books: so far, I've read 'Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em' by Ed Miller & co and 'Moorman's Book of Poker'. I'm currently reading 'Crushing Low Stakes Poker Volume 3: Hyper Turbos' by Mike Turner and 'Applications of No-Limit Hold'em' by Matthew Janda. That last one is a rather theoretical book that concentrates on GTO play. I realy love those kinds of books, the math and analysis is really what interests me about poker. However, much of the concepts are probably a bit too advanced for the stakes I'm currently playing.
  • Twitch channels: I regularly watch the Unibet poker channel, and sometimes some other streamers to see some good tournament or cash players in action. For cash game strategy, I find AndyTheTimid's twitch stream really good, he explaines his thought process really clearly.
  • I sometimes record my own sessions, it's a great way to review my hands afterwards because Unibet doesn't have a downloadable hand history.

 

My yearly goals

In March of this year, when I was still 2-tabling 4NL, I set myself some goals for this year. Here they are, with an update of their current status:

  • Move up to 25NL cashgames online.
    • Current status: I mostly play 10NL with occastionally some shots at 25NL.
  • Get live experience.
    • Current status: I attained this goal by playing about 5 small-stakes live tournaments in my area in the past year, and participated in the UK Tour Glasgow. I'm still on the lookout for homegames in my area.
  • Play at least one serious live event (at least €100 buy-in).
    • Current status: I attained this goal by playing the UK Tour Glasgow event.
  • Multi-tabling: learn to play at least 5 cash tables.
    • Current status: I mostly play 4 tables now. I can handle 5 and do it sometimes, but need some more practice before I can easily do it while also watching streams etc.
  • Go play a cashgame session at Viage casino in Brussels

As you can see, I'm really close to completing all of my goals for this year, and there's stil one and a half month left, so I'm very happy with the progress I made over the past few months.

I also set smaller monthly goals each month, which I'm going to talk about in my next post.

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Good luck on your goals!

Also, why are you not planning on getting a car? Is it because you live in an area where everything is close to you so you can just walk everywhere?

I debate
Should I smile like everything's good and pretend that life is great
Or should I let the world see the real me and not hide this pain
I tried to be like the rest of y'all, sorry I just can't
I'ma probably die this way
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@Magicadil wrote:

Good luck on your goals!

Also, why are you not planning on getting a car? Is it because you live in an area where everything is close to you so you can just walk everywhere?


Yes, I live in the city centre, so everything is close by, and to go to work the train is a much easier option. So a car would just cost me a lot for using it maybe once a week, if that. I really don't miss it, except for a few times a year when I want to stay somewhere late and don't have public transport to go back home.

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Thanks for the kind words everyone. Here are the monthly goals I set myself at the beginning of November:

Monthly goals: November 2016

  • Cashgame goal: play at least 15 hours of cashgames
  • MTT goal: play at least 20 UK Tour qualifiers
  • Study goals:
    • Review one hand a day in Flopzilla
    • Read 'Crushing Low Stakes Poker Volume 3: Hyper Turbos'
      • Picked this ebook up for $1, and it focusses on hyper turbo strategy, which is quite applicable to the UK Tour qualifiers. It seems to be quite basic and low-level, but maybe I'll pick something up.

 

My current bankroll status:

  • Cash: €651,81
  • MTT tickets: €266 (all UK Tour tickets)

 

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@ArtyMcFly wrote:

I think I have a similar attitude to you, and we play in the same games sometimes. Good luck with your grind!


Thanks!

I'm following your topic on 2+2, very interesting and entertaining. I think you're way ahead of me. I'm starting to have decent theoretical knowledge about how to play, but still make the most stupid mistakes at the table, so I need a lot more time to internalize everything into my game.

Also, I overfold the river since people generally don't bluff it enough on the low stakes, but I guess when you're in the pool I'll have to start calling when someone overbets the river :haha:

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I'm quite good in theory, but pretty terrible on the tables. I haven't played much cash recently, so I've got out of the overbet habit. I'm mostly just doing a couple of tourneys for lolz each day. I sometimes see you in the UO satties. I play like a super-nit in those, unless I have a massive stack. Which is almost never. ;)

See you around.

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Won 2 €25 UK Tour tickets this evening, to get my UK Tour value back up to €200. I might play another final next weekend.

My bankroll rule for grinding those qualifiers is that I need have at least €50 in tickets left if I bust a qualifier, that's a safe margin to grind it up again. In other words:

  • Under €75: only play €4 qualifiers.
  • €75 or more: play €4 and €25 qualifiers (so I will have at least €50 left if I bust a €25 qualifier)
  • €150 or more: play €100 finals (so I will have at least €50 left if I bust)
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Won 2 UK4 qualifier and lost 1 UK25 qualifier this evening. Total ticket value increased to €220.

Also practiced some 5-tabling on 10NL this evening. Bankroll went up and down and up again, to end just about where it started: €811,55 😃

Entitlement tilt is my biggest leak. And when my overplayed hand does turn out to be good, karma hits me in the face:

(I'm Didelidoe)

JJbadbeat.jpg.e9e61d158beb0896f0540741caec4e6a.jpg

 

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Played quite a bit of 10NL today, for the first time ever on 6 tables. Bankroll down to 766,78. Saw some tough river cards.

Won another €100 UK Tour ticket, bringing my total value up to €250, so I can play 2 more finals before the event in Manchester.

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