Poker Blog (Feb 10 - March 11)

Hi LiquidPoker,

I started playing poker in October 2013. At that time I didn't know what to do after work, other than playing starcraft 2, and the game really pissed me off because of shitty balance. So I drifted off onto other things. I know that Boxer (one of the starcraft gods) switched from starcraft to poker, made me wonder what is the beauty of poker to the starcraft pros (looking at Jinro and Fayth haha). As it turned out, I really enjoyed playing poker! It is competitive and hard, and more importantly you get some money on the side haha. So I decided to play seriously.

Started to read some books here and there, and played quite a bit on bovada. However, I lost my deposits very very quick, until February 2014, I was going to Hawaii for one week for vacation, and deposited 0.15 bitcoins to SealsWithClubs, and started playing then. After the week, I was stuck 20 chips overall, then I started using FPDB to track my winnings. Here is the graph:



Not looking that good, huh? At first I was playing pretty spewy, and overly aggressive on some of the hands. I posted hands I lost on here and people gave me feedback like "don't play like that", "fold pre", etc. I didn't understand why they said it at first, until devon said this:

On February 19 2014 23:40 devon06atX wrote: A word of advice. Stop playing like this, it will stunt your growth as a poker player massively. I said that you gotta get over this mind-set because you're posting hands that are basically bad for you in the long run. That's why you're posting them. People typically post 'boo hoo, poor me hands' or 'look at this shit, I rocked him with a stupid hand I shouldn't have rocked him with!' and as a relatively new player (in my guess), you should be playing STRICTLY ABC poker. Nothing wrong with a qjss 3bet from the button vs an aggressive cutoff or whatever, but before you go fucking around you should know the basics. TLDR - Don't play like a tit at low stakes. Not the time, nor the place.

Then he gave me this awesome offer:

On February 20 2014 23:54 devon06atX wrote: If you're serious about getting better, I have no problem discussing any/all of your posted hands with you, but I want to know beforehand if you have the drive and commitment to be serious. I haven't offered this before. FWIW, first thing I will do is link you to books. And also suggest you watch a couple series off of deucescracked. To learn to beat the game will take countless hours of hard work OFF THE TABLES. If you don't have the discipline for that, then you best take your cash to the slots. A sober Devon will probably regret this tomorrow. edit - I mean this btw. I've had an extremely insightful night and am feeling quite generous. Take it if you wan't it. But I will be tough as fuck on you.

After Devon's words of wisdom, I started to play a lot more carefully. I started off by playing almost only premium hands in position, and I started to realize that this is a great way to win at poker, at the very least, at my level. There is no need to get fancy, no need to go overly aggressive. I started to fold some of the hands that I would have never let go months ago, and the results were pretty decent.

The 2 big jumps were actually from taking shots at 50NL. It was pretty scary, but I managed to win a couple of big hands there, which is fantastic. By the end of last week I finally broke even for the month! And tonight's session was great too (almost 1k hands with +22 at the end, playing 10NL and 20NL).

In addition to that, I went to a B&M cardroom for a NLHE tournament (40-man MTT, $55 buy-in), and I managed to stay at the final table even though I was stuck at 5bb for a long time (15 min levels and the blinds shoot up quick). When there were 5 people left, 4 of them wanted to chop, so I said okay, let's chop it up. Each of us get $370 back, which is great.

I play some home game with my coworkers too. I am still break-even on those home games (20NL) (I lost to this one LAG guy a lot, I need to play super nitty vs him next time). Here is the graph with the live winnings:



I hope I can keep up the trend and get better at poker slowly but surely!

0 votes

I don't know what your bankroll situation is, but if you are struggling/still learning at 10NL, taking shots at 50NL isn't the best idea.

On March 12 2014 04:43 lazymej wrote: I don't know what your bankroll situation is, but if you are struggling/still learning at 10NL, taking shots at 50NL isn't the best idea.

when i read this line I had the same thought: like dafuq BRM??
you are playing B/E, slightly loosing and then jumping right into NL50 ??

So, basically you are break even because you got lucky screwing around at 50NL? I don't see why you don't just play 2NL.

why the fuck would anyone play 2 nl. holy shit. if u cant figure out how to play .10/.25 there are so many better things to do than play poker for prob - winnings + the opportunity cost of your time.

seriously go to france, and spend all your time that you would have played future into learning the language, getting a job and chasing girls. god why do ppl play micro poker.

This is not the first time you've posted some hatred for poker post. Seriously get the fuck out if you don't enjoy it. I'm sure you crushed 25NL+ when you first started, but not everyone is you. Fucking ignorant people.

On March 12 2014 04:43 lazymej wrote: I don't know what your bankroll situation is, but if you are struggling/still learning at 10NL, taking shots at 50NL isn't the best idea.

On March 12 2014 09:34 punix wrote: when i read this line I had the same thought: like dafuq BRM?? you are playing B/E, slightly loosing and then jumping right into NL50 ??

I got about 380 so I think I am good with 10NL 20NL by the time, but when I started taking shots I was at about 450, so I got about 8-10 BI's for it. And I was like 13/10/3 in NL50 for that few hundred hands while normally I go like 18/13/5.

Now My BR is at almost 600.

It is not that easy to find tables to play on that website, so I either got stuck with 10NL most of the time. very few people play 20NL there, which is what I could play. I have been playing 10NL and 20NL the past 2 days so I was good. Not going to take another stab at 50NL till later.

On March 12 2014 15:58 Trav94 wrote: So, basically you are break even because you got lucky screwing around at 50NL? I don't see why you don't just play 2NL.

Haha, I couldn't that's why. Living in the USA doesn't give me many options, especially I am at a state where real money online poker is illegal. Playing with bitcoins at seals at the moment.

I would really love to get a computer up in Canada and remote into it and play some pokerstars if I can.

On March 12 2014 18:39 lhr0909 wrote: I got about 380 so I think I am good with 10NL 20NL by the time, but when I started taking shots I was at about 450, so I got about 8-10 BI's for it. And I was like 13/10/3 in NL50 for that few hundred hands while normally I go like 18/13/5.

8-10 buy-ins isn't much. I like at least 20 when taking shots at a new limit.