It's been awhile since I posted last. Got a new job and didn't have enough time to play or study much so basically took
swerbs22Highlights of 2024
Stakes Progression: Started the year playing 10nl and moved up to 100nl, essentially 10x-ing my main stake. I’ve dabbled in 200nl, and while it’s going well, I’m not quite ready to call it a full 20x jump yet.
Volume: Played more volume than I ever thought possible, especially while working a full-time job for most of the year.
Community Contribution: Founded a Discord study group for micro-stakes players. It grew more active and time-consuming than expected, so I eventually left it in capable hands. Best of luck to everyone in that group!
Memorable Hands: Played the biggest pots of my career (still micro for some, but meaningful to me). A few late-night hands at 200nl stand out, where I turned a downswing of $700–$800 into a profitable month. It felt a tad surreal to sit at a table with more money than my starting bankroll this year ($600).
Career Shift: Quit my job (layoff) to focus more seriously on poker.
Skill Development: Made notable improvements in technical areas like Tracker Efficiency, Hand Analysis, HUD Usage, and Mindset Work.
Challenges Overcome: Managed to balance poker with a demanding full-time job, navigated multiple 20+ BI downswings, and left a study group I was deeply invested in—all while staying committed to my growth.
Reflections on Poker
Admiration and Stage Fright:
I look up to players at higher stakes as role models, almost seeing them as invulnerable. This inspires me, but it also brings feelings of inferiority and stage fright.
Mixed Feelings About Lower Stakes:
Lower stakes feel like a waste of time, but the games are so soft it’s hard to ignore the profitability. I’m also wary of downswinging, as it could cut my hourly in half or worse if I have to drop stakes. Luckily, I avoided massive downswings this year, with the largest being around 20 buy-ins.
Loneliness:
Despite joining Discords and making some friends, poker remains a solitary journey. It’s also made me realize how much I dislike traditional 9-to-5 jobs. Returning to one would feel like a massive step backward.
Technology Woes:
I wish I could grind anywhere—like outside on a sunny day. Poker feels constraining in that sense, though I appreciate the freedom it offers in other areas.
Results and Consistency:
I’m averaging an 8bb/100 win rate and roughly $11k in tracked winnings this year. With untracked winnings and bonuses, my total profit comes to about $20k. While this exceeded my expectations, consistency remains a big challenge for me.
Goals for 2025
Play 500k+ Hands: Track at least half a million hands this year.
Earn $30k+ in Tracked Winnings: Before rakeback and bonuses, aiming for 3x my tracked 2024 results.
Establish 200nl as My Average Stake: Take shots at 1k NL by the end of the year.
Structured Study: Dedicate a set number of hours each week to studying poker, reviewing hands, or working with solvers.
Take Risks and Overcome Fear: Push through discomfort by taking at least 10 deliberate risks or bold actions in poker and life.
Promote Balance: Incorporate physical health, hobbies, and a balanced routine to support my poker focus.
Focus on Mental Health and Growth: Eliminate depression, foster development, and maintain a positive mindset.
Gratitude and Vision
Looking back, I’m grateful for the progress I’ve made and the challenges I’ve overcome. By the end of 2025, I want to be a confident, consistent 200nl+ player with a strong support network and a fulfilling balance in poker and life.
Missing about 10k hands or so from losing my DB (hopefully support sends the missing hands)...
swerbs22What's happened the last 6 months.
- Quit my gravy gig that I left the Field for because couldn't take it anymore. Decided to go back to the Field and turned out to be not so bad honestly. I like to work hard, obviously love being outdoors.
- Wasn't able to keep up with poker as much. Can't complain though as steady paychecks every week plus bennies is very comfortable. The real reason I couldn't keep up though is because it was very exhausting. Most days coming home to shower/eat/crash and wake up to rinse/repeat. It didn't take long before I became very very bored of this routine. I'm not sure how much of the job circumstance etc influences that feeling though. Some jobs feel fine and some are so miserable for a number of reasons that you just don't want to get up and deal with these clowns.
- Found out going to Community College could actually be much cheaper than I thought. I have credits from the apprenticeship so I can toss them towards an Associates, which isn't much but it's better than just being Journeyman. I ended up having dinner with some friends of friends/family and talked for a while about career and progress. It's looking like I will at least finish the AD and try to leverage with that in the future. Hopefully I find a way to stay out of the business but fail safe is never bad.
- Had some **** go down at work that I don't want to tolerate, I don't want to be a pushover and be exploited too much. Mostly communication issues, safety issues, etc. I'm not gonna lay it all out unless someone really wants some drama talk but short story is dude's a meathead, company is corrupt and toxic. Shame because we are like the bottom of the barrel in the trades and they all love it, they eat that **** up. It's so weird. Anyway I ended up taking a lay off in the middle of the week after watching my Foreman be threatened by the GC Safety Rep to be taken off the jobsite in handcuffs lmao. Does anyone want to be a professional anything anymore?
Now unemployed. Well not completely. There is Poker.
What's the plan now?
I'm not too sure. I can't think of a job that I can see myself doing for any extended amount of time without eventually being bored/annoyed/done with and wanting to move on and it makes me feel like a big failure or on the way to being a big failure. I'm now wondering when it's going to happen to poker. I don't feel burnt out or anything and poker is nice in the way that it seems to always offer something else to brush up on or improve/learn. Which leads me to my next thought.
Turns out, I'm not as good at poker as I thought. I was getting pretty cocky (which is normal for me, I think it's a trait I've always had) and obviously those moments are always terribly embarrassing looking back. Kinda funny though. Good news is, I'm not terrible either. More good news is, I'm still winning, I have not gone broke. Like I said, I was making good money from my job and no stress to really produce winnings from poker. This let me try some new things, not worry so much about results etc. I think it developed some good perspective that I can carry with me down the road, detachment but not entirely. But it may have also led to some other bad things/habits that I have to plug now. I can't complain though, it allowed me to really get out of comfort zone. My biggest problem atm is I don't care if I spew off because I know I can just go grind it back. This can be a little frustrating as now I've experienced the biggest swings for me yet. I would maybe rather have hoarder mentality to amass as much as possible, who knows.
I am in a spot now that I have about 6 months freeroll to try out poker. Obv the goal here is to break free from 9-5 completely (well in my case 4-2 and I hate waking up early). I still put in quite a bit of time studying and trying to improve and it seems like everyday I find a new leak or something. Perfect Poker seems very very hard to achieve. I'm going to shoot for something like 60k hands/month. Ideally I would like to push 100k but I think better to work towards that than start there and burn out. It seems so long ago that I was grinding 10nl and 25nl but it's not like I rocketed off into space 2knl. I'm still down here at 50nl and 100nl. I have taken some shots at 200nl and it goes okay. Basically zero volume there but I do chase some fish when they end up there. I try to ignore stakes and just focus on making decisions for BBs and such. Not always easy when you get smacked at higher stakes and forced to grind back lower. I have to say I'm proud of myself for making it at least this far. Ideally at the end of this year I will be sitting 200nl regularly which would be cool but I'm not putting too much pressure on it atm because I feel like I make a lot of progress literally each week. December 2023 I was building my roll to 20bi for 10nl on like 3-4 sites and not many months ago wondering if I was even able to beat 50nl. So let's see how this goes.
Poker still mostly a lone wolf endeavor for me. Yes, I have found friends and community throughout the time but there's something still missing there. I imagine a good bit of it might be due to my own attitude and personality.
Anyway I also am getting close to 500k hands tracked, def way over with untracked but that was cool to see.
Here's some graphs then
480k hands graph, this is basically start of 2023 at ACR 10nl blitz to recent
10nl
25nl
50nl
Since taking layoff, had last month to grind all poker (now I'm embarrassed about volume)
and also tournaments last month
...
swerbs22Don't got much this time around. Really ended up having like 25k hands or so for Oct, made a small amount from RB. Sadly I'm underperforming recently on main networks.
Biggest takeaways last month
-sit down and grind even if you only grind 10min, starting is usually the hard part
-trust yourself
-poker is something
I've been using blitz as a fill-in/warmup routine and it seems to be going okay.
...
Cya next month...
