The Grind to 50€/Hour: Story of Phili
Hi everyone,
My name is Phili.
I started Poker when I was 19, grinding my way up on Pokerstars back in the day. I managed to become a regular at 60-100$ 18man SnGs and MTTs up to 215$ and lived off of Poker for around 7 years. My biggest accomplishments are the status of Supernova with around 450k points (so almost halfway to SuperNove Elite) and a 4th place in the Sunday Million for 73k$.
Shortly after that I quit and did others things. I studied acting, started a band with my now wife and found my love for arts. All of this still to this day wont pay my rent and my passion for poker never dried up so a few weeks ago I decided to give it a shot at my nearest casino and play some 5/5 cash to see how it goes.
I guess Im not the biggest crusher at those stakes, but I started studying GTO and bought Charly Carrells Masterclass which Im working on right now. Also I dont know how many exactly, but I guess I should have crossed the 1 million hands played in my active career, so all of that combined give me hopes to make above 50€/h (I live in germany) longterm at some point. So far we had a pretty good start after 13 sessions and we are above of what we aim for longterm. I like!
This blog is here to document my numbers and overall journey hopefully to all your entertainment. We can also discuss interesting hands and learn together. Of course you can comment on things, ask questions and we can also talk arts, life etc. Everything is possible.
I will also jump into small live MTTs from time to time, just because I still love to play them and they can give a good boost to the bankroll should I bink one at some point.
In the next post I will update my progress over time so we can see how it goes. Hope thats interesting.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
9 Replies
As of today (6th of May 2025) we played 13 sessions and a mix of 2/2 and 2.5/5.
Overall hours played: 70
Profit: 4840€
Hourly: 69.14€
Breakdown of sessions:
Number of session, Playingtime, Profit, Overall profit
April 2025
1 / 7h / +270 / +270
2 / 7h / -20 / +250
3 / 8h / +560 / +810
4 / 4h / -210 / 600
5 / 8h / -615 / -15
6 / 2h / +295 / +280
7 / 7h / +290 / +570
8 / 1h / +140 / +710
9 / 7h / +2400 / +3110
10 / 3h / +510 / +3620
11 / 4h / +1350 / +4970
12 / 5h / +250 / +5220
13 / 7h / -380 / +4840
April 2025 numbers:
Sessions played: 13
Hours played: 70
Overall profit: +4840
Hourly: 69.14€
Winning vs Loosing sessions: 9 / 4
To give a bit of insight to what games I play right now - I live in northern germany and outside of Hamburg. In Hamburg are two casinos which offer poker, Esplanade and Schenefeld. In my active times I used to play in Esplanade from time to time, and I liked it, but now I started to play exclusively at Schenefeld.
I already know pretty much all the regulars there and the field is pretty much 100% recreational players. Which is good on one side - I can make a good winrate. On the other side, there is really nobody there to really talk strategy and dive into some analysis, because.. yea, they dont really know anything about it. Well, thats also why Im here now.
My plan for this week is to play one session 2/2 in wednesday in Schenefeld and on friday drive 6 hours to the Kings Casino in Rosvadov to play a 300€ 1m€ guaranteed MTT and some cashgames over the weekend. I have never been to Kings Casino before. Heard good and bad. Looking forward to that experience.
Have a great day everyone!
Hey thx for following.
Did my first small session yesterday, only 3h. Not a lot happened honestly, but I think I did one pretty big mistake I want to talk about.
We are 7 handed and got As8s utg. All players are really bad and BB is playing 100% vpip and is drunk. I open to 8€.
UTG1 calls, BU calls, BB calls. Pot is 34€
Flop is Kd6s7s
We cbet 16€, only UTG1 calls. Pot is 66€. UTG1 has about 140 behind.
Turn is Ts so we got the nuts.
And here is where I think I blunder pretty bad. I check, because I think if he calls 4way on the flop I give him at least a K.
I think what I should have done was bet small again like maybe 16€. I keep his Kings in the hand and I get everything from his flushes anyways.
Well it goes check check on the turn - where I already regret checking lol.
River comes 3s. So 4 spades on board and here is where I also dont really know whats best. What I think is either bet super small to induce (like 10€) or super big so it might looks bluffy and he can call a middling or higher spade. I decide to go 60€ and he insta folds.
Dont really know what to make of it but was overall not happy how I played it. What would you guys have done there?
Also pls tell me if my hand description is readable this way or how to make it better.
Session: 14
Hours played: 3
Profit: -60€
Profit May overall: -60€
I will go to Kings Casino tomorrow. 2/2 and 2/4 will be played besides the 300€ MTT. I will update from there.
Thanks for reading 😀
And is it a thing that you cant edit a post after some hours?
I wanted to update the second thread after every session, damn. Gotta do it in the most recent one then. Anyone got tips?
GL in the tourny this wknd PHILI
