Grinding my way out.

Took a shot at 10nl, like I said I would. I dropped 5 buyins, leaving my bankroll at about $150. So I decided to grind out 2nl and 5nl to get back to $200. The main change I did was changing from 6-max to full ring, and just nitting it up, and table selecting as best as I can. So I grinded it out for about 15000 hands and made my money back. The corresponding graph for this is seen below.

I think I was playing scared at 10nl, and playing too weak, slowplaying when I should have been value betting, and bet/3b jamming, when in hindsight, I should have been bet/folding. Playing 16-24 tables of 2 or 5nl eliminates my ego from the equation, and I just make as many profitable decisions as I know.

Regarding moving up in stakes, instead of taking another shot immediately, I will keep grinding 2nl and 5nl until I reach $300, then start with 2 tables at 10nl, and keep doing what I was doing. I don't imagine 10nl will be significantly harder to beat, but I just have to remove my fear of losing.

I have also signed up for a 3 month subscription to GrinderSchool.com. I will watch their videos and try to learn new things. Maybe one day, I can make some real money.

A little milestone for me.

I managed to double my bankroll in just over a month. I am proud of the progress I have made with my mental game, and have been tilting significantly less.

My results graph in big blinds

I had eliminated any hands from my database from when I was donking off chips in a tilt-fueled rage. The first 20,000 hands above were from a stint at 2nl where I was clearly not giving enough respect to flop and turn raises. Luckily, I stopped fucking around and managed to break even in that stretch. Afterwards, I moved back to 5nl, since I still had a sufficient bankroll for that level. I always kept in mind that the game does not owe me anything. I have made some folds that I would never had made if I wasn't actually thinking about the game.

I am feeling more confident, and more capable than ever. I will continue playing 5nl as well as trying to make a transition into 10nl by adding a table or two as I go along.

Wish me luck!

A clear mind.

When I am feeling well, I don't take anything too personally. I can put half of my stack in the middle, and fold on the river, knowing I am beat, and feel good about it. I have been able to see when value betting middle pair is okay. Maybe it is because I was using a different laptop for a few days, not having my HUD available, and as a result, was forced to actually pay attention to the tables I was at, rather than just waiting for stats to converge. I guess there is merit in datamining, as long as you know what to do with the data, but I think the last several days have shown me that I do actually know what I am doing.

Except on Black Chip Poker, where I have been doing terrible. Really low traffic on that site, low number of tables available. I get bored very quickly and start doing stupid shit like opening 53o UTG. I am down to 67USD from an initial deposit of 100USD. With BCP and PS, I am slightly up overall.

I will try to apply some Leatherass wisdom, and spend 1 hour reading for every 4 hours played. Gotta spend time studying, but not so much that you don't even play much. Gotta play to actually win anything.

Wish me luck.

Terrible

I am such a bad poker player some days. I cannot 24-table. Why do I keep trying to do that? Sigh. I cleared a VPP bonus, so I am now at about $123.93. If you consider that I have cleared 2 $10 bonuses, I have only really won $3.93 from actually playing poker. My progress has been painfully slow, and for that, I am ashamed.

Perhaps I have not improved my tilt. I just pretended I did. They say fake it until you make it. That may not be enough in this case.

Adjustments to be made.

Lately, I have been trying to do more table selection, and adding on to my stack if a fish at the table manages to get a stack of 150bb or more. This led to some small successes, but some large losses too.

I also recently signed up for Black Chip Poker, where they have 27% rakeback. I don't know if that is a good amount of rakeback, but I have never had it before, so I was a little excited about it. Anyway, I was being a little cheeky and decided to play a little bit of 25nl, and lost my temper on a fella who 3bet my CO steals 3 orbits in a row. I called a 3bet of his with KJs, and shoved his cbet with TPGK. He flipped over AJs; and held up to the river. I left the table immediately.

I am reminded of one of my classmates from Brock University, who would study like crazy, and when the results of a test were not perfect, he felt like he was being cheated; that he was entitled to 100% because he struggled so hard. I guess I have the same problem; thinking that because I spend so much time reading and studying poker, that I should be crushing the games. What you end up with is me double barreling a 4-flush board with two black aces, and shoving over a turn raise from a loose-passive player. And I wonder why right now I am breaking even.

I will adjust to playing pseudo-static opening and 3bet ranges, and no deep stacking at 5NL until I have a 50BI bankroll (250USD). Deep stacking at 2NL is acceptable.

Anyway, I have a presentation to prepare and a midterm to study for.

Wish me luck.