19 yo's nl200 challenge
Hello all,
I am a 19 year old American with a dream to play poker professionally. But in the beginning of July, I entered a terrible downswing that crushed my mental game, "preventing" me from playing until today when I returned.
Reasons for starting the challenge/blog:
1) Accountability.
2) I love poker and talking about poker
3) I am only half-way done with my yearly rake back grind (elite benefits)
4) I need to break my TFT addiction
Goals:
1) Win at 4/bb EV
2) Play (at least) 1k hands every single day for 100 days
3) Study 1hr/day
4) Make the $250 leaderboard reward tier every week
5) Meet people with a similar love for poker as me
Thank you for reading! I will try to answer all questions.
9/7-9/30:
ACR results: +5032 playing + 1074 RB and leaderboards
Untracked: +26,430 App games + -445 global poker
= +$32,091
These last few weeks have been the most profitable of my poker career. I just busted my big $2650 tourney ticket for a $6600 finish in 45th-ish (coming into day 2 I was sixth biggest stack but couldn't really get anything going). Playing in this tournament has been an amazing experience, trying to compete with the best was eye opening and very motivating (my bust-out hand was AJo vs Barak Wisbrod's 99 for 60BB). I have not posted in a while because all of my volume has switched to private app games that I am completely destroying. They owner is trustworthy and the games have never been better. Over my 7k hand sample, I am winning at 90 BB/100 at 400nl and 300mixed with a 330$ hourly, thus there is simply no value in expending the energy to play in the tough nl200 ACR games. To discredit my winrate a little bit, half the hands are straddled, everybody buys in 1k deep and opens 3x, and there is 72o game on so it really plays closer to a 1k or 1.5k nl live game which is why my BB/100 can be so high.
I have also taken on a poker student which has been quite refreshing. I find myself very invested in his success as we tackle the wild streets of 10nl rnc together.
Cool hand: Blind v Blind w/ top pair in tournament
Villain has infinite pair + straight blocker or single club hands to choose from it almost feels innevitable he will overbluff. The story of my tournament was hero calling spots that seemed overbluffed and sunrunning flips on the first day.
I would post some crazy hands from app games but then I would have to block out all the names and stuff and that's too much work so I will recap a couple from last night:
Blinds: 2/4/8 -- HJ 3x, CO 3b 12 str, HJ 4b jam 200 str eff, CO SNAP calls --> HJ: AQs, CO: KJs (3600$, 900 BB pot BTW; I wasn't in this hand I just wanted to show the state of it LOL)
Blinds: 2/4 -- UTG 3x, HERO (HJ with 72o with +14bb 72o game on) 3b to 12bb, CO 4b 25bb (140 eff), UTG cold call, Hero calls.
FLOP (74BB) : 776s -- x,x,CO b75, UTG rips 350bb eff, Hero calls all-in, CO calls all-in
Result: Hero scoops 3.7k pot (900BB) with 72o, UTG had QQ, CO had KK
Blinds; 2/4/8 -- HERO (CO 120 str eff with AKs) opens 3x, BTN cold call, BB 3b to 14 str, STR cold 4b jam 120 str, HERO calls all-in, BTN and BB fold
Result: Hero scoops 2k pot with AKs vs STR's ATo, board ran out 872KA
P.S. - do not ask me for info about the private game, never will I compromise the quality of this game.
Playing 10/25 tonight live private game, wish me luck! 😀
Oct 1 - Oct 21:
My total app game results:
What can I say, I'm an accounting major and love excel (sheets) and meticulously tracking my data. I'm making this post amidst a bit of a downswing/stagnation. After winning at 80 bb/100 for the first 12k hands, I am now only at 44 bb/100 after 17k hands. I know that I have been running poorly recently but I'm trying to figure out where my true win rate should be sitting at. I feel as though it should be around 50 bb/100, but only time will tell. Side note that the games have gotten tougher recently because the big whales go through periods of high and low activity, but even the "regs" I am battling against would be considered big fish in 200nl ACR. I'm most concerned with my heads up results because I think I should have a significant win rate at the 300nl heads up (it's all against the same guy) but I did lose 5k (17 buyins) one night when I lost 24 straight showdowns in a row. It's like watching the number one seed in basketball having a competitive series against the eighth seed. Every game I win I absolutely crush the guy (stacking him when his money has no business being in the middle) and when I lose the games are super close (pre flop setups, him calling 3bets with 95o and flopping 2p, etc.) But enough of bad beats and complaining, I definitely do not want this thread to turn into me moaning about 5k hands of runbad lol.
On another note, the 10/25 game I played in turned into 10/25/50 before the first chip was dealt, and 10/25/50/100 an hour in (not officially but people who didn't str to 100 had to take a shot lol). Ran super pure: In for 10k, out for 26.5. Stack peaked at 35k but dwindled down over the last couple hours, which coincidentally means that this session doubles as my largest single-session downswing
Overall, very pleased with my results, content with my play but admit that it could certainly be better, and optimistic for the future with a few underlying concerns. Just started studying heads up (250 bb deep) so hopefully gonna see an uptick in results. Most interesting finding so far is that there is no flop raising in SRP vs b66 (villain's only flop size) on many boards which probably applies to a degree to 6 max as well.