Another $20 to $1000 NL Microstakes Challenge (2NL->25NL) & Some Live Tournies
Poker Background: I've been playing poker for about 3 years, a mixture of online microstakes, some home games with friends, and maybe 400 hours live cash & tournaments. I've never taken online that seriously though. I think microstakes was too little amount of money for me to care that much about (I would rarely play bigger than 25NL), and I just lacked the discipline to play well. I also always viewed online as more practice for live games, since online is so much tougher than live poker even at the micro stakes level.
Why do this challenge now? As dumb as it sounds, I want to prove to myself that I can beat microstakes poker, for a decent win rate over a decent number of hands. I also want to have more of a plan as far as getting better at poker, and I think a challenge like this will force me to take it more seriously, especially posting it publicly on a forum, to hold myself accountable and get feedback. I also finally downloaded PT4 a month ago, which has made a hugeeee change in online poker for me. Partially, it made it far more obvious who is VPIPing too wide, but also I found the graphs to be addicting! Before PT4, I would make bad calls where I thought I was behind but it was so little money, that I wouldn't care that much, but now I want my graphs to look good overall! Also, all-in EV is so helpful in actually seeing how good/bad you are running.
Challenge Format: I'm going to try and play at least 4 hours a week, multi-tabling up to 4 tables. My goal is to have at least 20 buyins saved before I move up a level, and a comfortable win rate over a number of hands (ideally at least 5bb/100 over 10k hands). I'm going to play 9max on ACR, since this is what I've always played (people always say ACR has some of the toughest cash games too). My end goal is to play more live cash and live tournaments, which is why I'm doing 9max vs 6max, but if there is good reason to switch to 6max, feel free to say so below. I will flag hands I'm unsure about as I go along on PT4. I will post them here and write a short analysis on them, and also look at them in GTOwiz to see what a good baseline for them is. A big goal on this challenge is to continue to plug leaks and increase my game, and using played hands to analyze how I played certain spots.
Current Bankroll: So, I'm making this post a little late, since I started this challenge around November 1st, when I got PT4. Currently, my ACR bankroll is at $192.54. So now, I am mainly starting to play 10NL when it is available (since ACR doesn't always have 4 tables of 9max games available, sometimes I will continue to play the lower stake games as well).
Here are my stats from 2NL from Nov.1st:
Here are my stats from 5NL since Nov. 1st:
And here are my 10NL stats (I did some shot-taking earlier, and some terrible calls when I was not mentally playing well, as seen from the big swings early):
I'm quite happy with my win rates at 2NL & 5NL over the sample size. I will post updates after every session that I play. Any comments/feedback will be appreciated!
5 Replies
Here are the hands from today. I played decently well, other than a couple of mistakes, and ran not great in some big spots.
Here is a huge hand, I think I misplayed. Villain was a LAG nit. I think they had stats like 41/11/5. They would play a ton of hands in position and would stab alot if checked to, but they would never put in stacks light and I never saw them do any crazy bluffs. There was a previous hand where I 3b and they cold called on the button. I flopped top set dry board. Checked to them on flop, checked through. Turn came and they turned a set, I bet, they raised immediately, and I jammed. I guess point is, not many people are putting in stacks light. I think my flop 4b size could be a little smaller. I think I could honestly even fold this flop. There are just so few 4b raises on flops like this that are a bluff, especially multiway with a player left to act. I just discounted lower sets bc they 3b me (although it was an insanely small 3b). Oh well, you live and you learn. I feel I should just auto-fold to bets over 50bb without 2pair plus and that would just print money lol:
Hands from today. Poker has felt a lot easier in the last couple days. I took some time off, so maybe that is why. I think I'm folding more when people put in huge bets, it feels easier for some reason though:
Still running not that great, down like 6BI under EV on my new computer.
Here is a hand from today, I'm thinking about. After it checked to me on the river - is my bet too thin? When I didn't get jammed on the turn and since the flop was not 3b, I really thought one of my opponenents had a flush draw that missed, and the other had a Jx which I beat. I really though most 9x would x/r on the turn. That villain that just smooth called was extremely passive though, so maybe I should have been that surprised.
Maybe going for thin value is better than being scared and checking back? I could have gone smaller and snap folded to a raise. Oh well:
My current w/r at 10NL is 6.6BB/100 9 handed, which feels okay (it would be ~12ish if I was running at EV though). I'm also continuing to learn and playing more and more. My current BR is finally close to what it was when I started this blog lol its at ~$179, since I stupidly shot took before I was ready at 25NL and it went really poorly. I said I would move up when I have 20BI saved (which is $500), but if I play like 50k hands at 10NL and am a proven winner of at least 5BB/100, I may just move up anyways and just add to it with my own money instead of waiting for BR to increase.
We need to size down on the turn and river as we want to keep betting. In this way, opponents call more of the weaker Jx.
In your case, opponents come to the river with a fairly narrow and strong range, so I favor a checkback on the river.
We need to size down on the turn and river as we want to keep betting. In this way, opponents call more of the weaker Jx.
In your case, opponents come to the river with a fairly narrow and strong range, so I favor a checkback on the river.
Thanks for the advice. My thinking was that since it was multi-way and since both opponents are OOP I would likely have gotten x/r on the turn with all 8x and T9 holdings, since the river will check through a lot. When no one led the river, I thought I could go for some thin value, preparing to bet-fold. I still think that is the correct thinking, but I definitely should have sized down more.
Agree with the above about bet sizing. In this hand I would flat flop with the AJ multiway, board is very dynamic meaning there's so many turn cards that are bad for us. Any club, Q K 9 T even 6/7 aren't great. We don't want to bloat pots like this with single pairs and little redraw potential. We are also potentially raising/barrelling off vs the nut straight/sets/2pairs on flop. As what happened in the hand even supposed good cards for us often aren't when up against multiple opponents. Prob some other reasons not to raise but those are the main ones that come to mind. GL with the grind
