From Micros to Midstakes: Slow and Consistent Wins
Hello, first of all, I want to skip major introductions, only because I had a thread before (that I allowed to die) where I wrote a big one. You may check it here if you would like.
I consistently let threads die, and I believe this is both A) a mental leak, and B) it can be plugged with deliberate effort. Now, achieving B), that is, winning over what is probably an attention span issue, especially when the entire modern world seems to be conspiring in order to keep us stuck in it, will be a major battle, but it is worth trying, and succeeding will definitely translate into benefits in other life areas. Win win.
What are my other goals?
1 - To reach midstakes, and I will loosely consider 200nl as midstakes, as it probably is nowadays given how higher stakes are so dead (at least on pokerstars, my main site). I play all the upper microstakes limits, 10all the way to 50nl, with my main one being 25nl. I am winning in all of them, and even at the limit I have the smallest sample, 50nl, I feel I am a winner, and I have good reasons to believe this is not pure arrogance.
Graphs and limits:
2 - To be patient. No, I am not keeping more than 300 buy-ins for my average limit of 25nl. Without telling exact numbers, but almost doing it anyway, I want to use 50 buy-ins + 5 for shot taking the higher ones, and have the discipline to both move up when I have the roll (assuming games are running and not too bad at the time), move down if I lose the 5 BIs allowance, and not be constantly thinking about move ups and move downs the other 99.999% of the time. The focus is on making good game decisions, study, and put the volume in.
3 - Volume. Nothing outlandish, 30k hands/month reg tabling on stars while 4 tabling, pretty doable but still requires a discipline I am not showing these last couple of months. For the rest of september, 1.2k hands/day average=8.4k hands with 2 days off is my goal.
4 - Study. I already do, this is the easiest, just need to be more methodical and organized and 100% consistent. This is the part I like the most nowadays, by the way.
5 - To update this thread every single day that I play, with a graph proving I achieved my volume goals.
Cheers
Day 1, mission accomplished:
When I mentioned in the point 2 above that I am not keeping more than 300 buy-ins for 25nl, I meant that I am not keeping everything I won online (the ~8.7k usd), I cashed it out long ago 😃
In our current boring world of rules, regulations, limits, I think it is important to keep enough online so that we do minimize, to a reasonable level, the chance that we might need to top it up, always keeping an eye on the times and limits and planning things carefully. Not for the lowest stakes when everything is peanuts, but at smallstakes+, this looks important to me. On the other hand, trusting a poker site, any site, with anything more than what is strictly necessary, seems pretty reckless to me, to be completely honest.
Cheers!
Finding the motivation to play poker consistently, to blog consistently, to do almost anything consistently, is hard. One of the factors that makes those things hard is the eventual feeling of boredom that inevitably comes. Other detrimental feelings and emotions also come. Motivation, especially when it has to come from inward, is something I am still trying to figure out.
I can come here and confidently say that doing pretty much anything because we want to feel good, to feel rewarded, to feel happy, to feel satisfaction, is a losing proposition. Not because those things do not exist, but because they are temporary. They come and go. Worse, getting the same "high" again is harder than getting the first one. After a few years playing poker, I can absolutely say that getting anything from it, other than the eventual frustration when running bad, is almost impossible. So, using those feelings as a motivator is a sure way to get stuck in a never ending chase that will constantly lead us to the start line, while constantly increasing the difficulty of the race. Permanent happiness, permanent satisfaction, etc, simply do not exist.
I don't have a solution though. If I find one, I will definitely come here and tell you guys. But I have an indirect hack that seems to work ok as long as I keep the required discipline. It is combining the acceptance of what I wrote in the 2nd paragraph, with not succumbing to any easy dopamine hit. It's either doing the job, or deliberate boredom. And daily meditation 😀
Cheers
Day 2:
Most of my lifetime volume was played on full ring tables, 9-max. Nitring is the format I like the most. People always questioned me about this in my old threads, usually saying things like 6-max would have turned me into a better player quicker (I disagreed back then, and still disagree today, maybe this statement was/is true for the colleagues who made this suggestion, but to me, what makes me improve the most is studying off the tables and doing drills, not playing), or asking me if I could even play 9-max, as they thought it was just dead back then. I guess the latter finally became true in 2025. It is not 100% dead, but the combination of the lobby having been removed with the low traffic just made it ungrindable. So, against my will, I will play exclusively 6-max from now on.
Cheers!
Plugging Leaks:
Just imported my last 100k hands played into hand2note, where I have my stat check pop ups ready. I am positively surprised that I am not overfolding anymore as OOP SRP PFC facing a small cbet. This was a leak that literally took years for me to solve. Thanks hand2note, gtowizard and coaches.
There is one problem though. I am over checkraising vs big flop cbets. This is a leak, a decent one. It should be the opposite actually, or at least, it should be equal to the solver numbers, not above, and never ever above by a decent clip.
IP as the SRP PFC, which reg vs reg will usually be BB vs SB, I am still over folding by a big margin. Facing a ~30f, solver folds about 26%, I am folding 34%. The good news is that the leak is not that I am not checkcalling enough, but the super obvious massive underraise. Won't say the number as even seeing it myself already makes me feel embarrassed, telling you guys what the number is will make me run away from twoplustwo for years 😃 Jokes aside, we have something to work on here.
So, course of action for my focused studying, and reevaluation after I play my next 30k hands batch:
- XR less vs big flop cbets, including 50f.
- R more IP as the BB PFC.
Cheers!
move up to where they respect ur raises.
10nl-50nl is weak tight enough, I get all the respect I need playing those limits, too much to be completely honest, sometimes it is frustrating 😃
Day 3:
Cheers!
Good luck! Results in 9handed look nice!
Day 4:
Think I might have overreacted a bit about FR being ungrindable. It is not. Might still be at small stakes, but lowstakes, it's doing fine. It is the game I like the most, and I'd rather do what I enjoy even if sacrificing some future EV. Worst case scenario, I won't be able to move up that much due to the lack of games running. So what? I might then pull a ZKesic (challenging myself to make 100k USD playing lowstakes).
One of the biggest drivers moving me to still push for higher stakes, and a change of format to the still more popular 6-max, is a certain fear that getting stagnated might make me work less, with working less leading to myself losing winrate even in my own comfortable stakes. Obviously, there is no universal law saying I can't work in my game while still playing the same stakes for 500k's samples, but the ambition motivator is more powerful haha
Anyway, I am optimistic I will solve this internal conflict and figure out what is best for myself.
Cheers!
Guess I have a few more urgent leaks to solve. Even my BB defense (as shown by the stat check I did yesterday) is off, I am overdefending. Which is not necessarily a big problem or even a leak depending on the circunstances, overfolding is the actual leak, but I wasn't doing it deliberately, I just stopped practicing preflop at least once a week, as a matter of fact I stopped all preflop the last 2 months, and this my friends, is a problem. The laziness leak, insidious, comes without being noticed, settles and then it's work, work and work to get rid of it again.
Day 5:
Cheers!
Day 6:
Redlining today FTW :p
You dont have access to GGPOKER?
Yes, I do. It is the plan B, or C, but I would absolutely avoid it if I have other options with more reasonable rake, a little more transparency and more balanced ToS.
I'm constantly debating building a roll over there just in case, might do it reaching NL100 or so.
Day 7:
Bloodbath
Although first part of the graph was a 50nl shot that went wrong. In bbs it was a bad day, but still in what a standard bad day should look like, really.
Cheers!
Sounds like you have a solid plan/mindset, will follow 😀
Gonna post my drilling studies here, for accountability:
BB vs BTN facing a b33:
BB vs SB facing a b33:
Day 8:
The recovery after the bloodbath.
Cheers!
GL
Whats your training routine?
3BP IP PFC BTN vs SB facing a flop b33:
3BP OOP PFC CO vs BTN facing a flop b33:
The reason why I can't become lazy and stop training. This particular spot is already, very likely, my weakest link on the flop. I wasn't training it for a while, and BAM, mediocrity 😀
Hey! For training, drills. Developing and improving heuristics, improving speed of execution, improving speed of thinking. I believe GTO trainers are the nuts for training ainec.
Cheers!
Also, just freely playing against the computer in a simulated ring game is a great, and cheaper, way of finding what we don't know yet.
