NL 10 to NL 50 in 12 days

another thing, I get extermely mad when I lose.

Wanted to post an update from day 2. Played pretty well today. Will play more later...

Solid morning, learning more theory and the work with the solver has been paying off loads with my intuition

Quick update over the past few days

Wanted to update this thread as I started playing NL50; which was a goal of mine when I first started playing NL2.

I have been running pretty good. I noticed the competition is better at NL50 then NL10 or NL2, which is understandable, but not nearly as much as I thought. The better players are better but there are still quite a few players I notice that I tag as untheoretical players (which makes sense as not everyone studies theory).

I have been mainly been playing one table at a time as I like to think about my ranges and my opponents range during each hand, counting the combos, trying to balance my value with my bluffs with the odds i give the other players.

As far as the theory goes and what I have been studying, I am really just at the beginning of and I realize this, which leads me to wonder as I progress in my studies how far this can go... more to come.

nice results, gl mate

Wanted to update this thread as I know I haven't posted since I made the just to NL 50.

So I made the jump and was fairly successful (I am on my laptop now and my pokertracker is on desktop so I can't screenshot right now) but I ran fairly well for the first 20k hands taking my bankroll from 50$ or so to about $800+ in id say 20k hands give or take 5k. I was primarily playing on pokerstars and then pokerstars sunset their software and there was a time period where I needed to play on a different platform so I played betmgm. While playing there things just didn't feel right, there were a lot of strange decisions i was noticing and I lost a good 500 or so of my roll. I also think I could have been playing worse as I changed my study habits a bit so I can't put my finger on it.

After Pokerstars merged with Fanduel I went back to Pokerstars and have been playing some NL50, NL100 and NL200. (I even played a guy heads up for 1 hand of $2/$5 and lost $350 on a hand I played perfectly in theory which made me realize I was trying to climb the stakes faster than my bank roll has allocated. That being said as of now I split my time between NL50, NL100 and NL200. I am trying to get my bankroll in the 3-5k range hopefully in the next month or so. I know it is ambitious but I think that I am progressing at a rate that makes that goal achievable.

I finished Modern Poker Theory by Acevedo and found myself having conversations with him throughout the book which I found fascinating because normally I am not as engaged with books in general but this one about poker theory struck something in me. I ordered another poker theory book and am looking into getting The Mathematics of Poker by Chen as that supposedly dives deeper into the math of the game than even MPT did (which i enjoy).

Moving forward I think at this point I have a good enough understanding of GTO concepts whereas my study time should be more spent on range v range EQB analysis and understanding what the solver likes to do size and frequency wise with which hand.

On a personal level after reading the book I have to say that I am very pleased with myself because the book was dense but after reading it I feel like I have a much more intuitive approach to many spots as I now know how and why the solver would pick what it does for bet size and freqs a good bit of the time.

One thing that I do think I am missing is some sort of community of people/players that really like to discuss the game, especially on a theoretical level, as of right now I only discuss it with my dad who knows poker but just from watching on TV. I think its kind of funny that because I regergitate so much of the information that I learn while reading to him that for someone who hasnt played a poker hand in 30+ years he has an understanding of GTO that probably surpasses the average player who plays alot but doesnt study.

That being said if anyone reading this is as obsessed about becoming the best and loves to talk poker, feel free to drop a comment on this thread and we can connect and discuss hands. I also think I will start creating videos on youtube where I review the hands that I find most intersting from my week of playing so if you would want to watch them (I am sure the quality will be top ass at first) just drop a comment and I can send you them!

Cheers,

DirtyStac

Solid day today, win rate at a decent clip, most of this was done 2 or 3 tabling NL 50 today. Made a bad bluff at the end of my session on the BTN vs SB. Should have checked it back and taken the loss or if I was going to bluff should have went with a higher sizing to give him worse odds. I think it was like a 40bb pot, Axx paired board w/ busted flush draw and 2 straights, I bet 55bb into 40 giving him 55/150 giving him about 33% odds and I should have about 2:1 value to bluff. We were deeper so if I really wanted that line I should have B125 on turn instead of B75 and then jammed river with 150~bb effective. I would have been sick losing that much, but I think thats what needed to be done to get that bluff across, he called down with A3 off which he shouldnt have had but either way

Another solid day. Trying to keep this compounding

Have been seeing that many of the top players use single sizing on flops and even some turns to simplify and free up mental ram for other aspects of the game, especially while multi-tabling. I wanted to see if anyone has attempted to consolidate their nodes to single sizings on flops and turns (especially turns). I know in theory the loss on the flop is minimal (anywhere from .01-.02bb on the most marginal flops) but I haven't investigated how much EV is lost on turns and subsequently rivers by going with a single sizing and how it has worked for anyone in practice.

Cheers.

Imo do what works for you and always try to simplify, we’re humans not robots, no stress + long term sustainability will be always better

Fair enough, currently I am only working on flops and until I have them properly built out and understood in buckets I am not gonna worry about the turn sizes. Thanks for your input

I would say most regs simplify especially the flops and most turns to just one size for each board / run out, then split sizes on the river. That's what I do at least. Deviations based on villain profile.

thanks for the reply

Wanted to update the thread and be transparent, its extremely difficult for me to manage my emotions, the highs and the lows really take their tole on me, I dont really get much joy from winning but i get a lot of anger from losing. Not losing when I know I made the right play perhaps but more or less when i get in a situation where I know, that I don't know what to do. In those situations I seem to bleed money and that really gets me upset. Like for example today I tried playing NL100 which I said I would only do after beating NL50 over 50, 000 hands, but either way I did and i won a preflop all in KK vs AQ which was nice and then i slowly lost it all over the course of about 300 hands. The part that gets me upset is that in Pokertracker it says my frequencies are around optimal

yet I continue to lose money.

I noticed a huge SB leak i had which was an easy fix and saved me a lot of BB which is great but overall I just hate the fact that when I go up in stakes there are guys that I play against that seem to check raise me in spots where I dont have it and then I just have been losing a bunch. I know I am venting and probably sound like a soft ass B****, which i am being this week no doubt.

Overall I guess currently I am just really down because I know I am a smart guy who picks things up quickly and have been giving poker my all these past 4 months and in my humble opinion I should be beating NL100 by now, not barely beating NL50 if that...

Feel free to respond and be as critical as you'd like, I am really looking for someone who is better than me to tell me what I am doing wrong. THanks

Also i feel like mentally my framework of working through each hand is just wrong, like preflop i follow my ranges, post flop my framwork works something like this, identify the flop (rank, texture, paired, connected), try to recall any knowledge of sizings and frequencies used on these type of boards, then I try to imagine the ranges in my head and think of what the actual grid looks like and can see the overlay of both ranges (if i know them) then i use an rng on the flop based on my limited knowledge or guess work what it would be based on perceived equity distribution I will create in my head if I dont know the sizings already. Then I will see the turn and try to repeat. I feel like I am missing something... I would love if anyone could tell me what it is im not doing right

I notice sometimes I will think in my head, which hands from their range would call this bet or check this so i create those ranges based off the other ranges but not every time

Wanted to stay transparent, I ran up a thousand or so the weeks before this but since the month started this is what I have been doing. I dont even want to give the excuse of running bad, I think my play is just really fucking weak to be honest. I dont do nearly a good enough job thinking about all the combos of a range as I am playing.

Overall I am pretty down in the dumps mentally because of how poorly I have been doing.

The worst part is I study ever day and I doubt the other guys that play at this level are studying nearly as much and they are still beating me. Really unfortunate. I am at the point now where I really dont know what is next... I study my ranges every day and feel like I do a decent job with them, I work the trainer and know what to do seemingly most of the time while studying (but this can't be correct because my numbers are horrible)

I really am hoping to have a breakthrough here soon but as of right now it feels hopeless...

Take a few days or a week or two off even. Come back slowly, maybe drop down a stake just to build some momentum and start to feel good again.

Absolutely agree with Ice, you need to allow yourself to take some time off now.

How do you study or what do you study btw? To build solid base what GTO suggests is great but remember exploitative poker will be always more profitable so probably i would suggest you to mix things up and work on your playing style and strategy that will work for you.

I appreciate both replies, thanks to both of you.

Blazar in answer to your question, my current studying looks something like this, I learn a new range (say BB vs CO open), learn all the combos for that range, practice getting them right, then i play that spot (CO vs BB), get a feel for the ranges a bit and then write down some heuristics I find.

So here is what I did last night, I put all my remaining role onto a NL$100 table, I told myself I will play this as close to the solver as I can, no floating, no calling hands that I shouldnt and what I found was that when I play that way, I can feel my opponents making plays that are not solver approved (either sizing or frequency) and can adjust accordingly (for example last night it was a few overly agro guys and I know that if I checked back top pair mid-kicker on this board (normaly about 50% check 50% bet various sizes) that if i checked they would come over the top. Normally I would just try to play it as close to gto as possible and use my rng. But the combination of these two strategies, as well as only playing on one table at a time, allowed me to go from 80 --> 250 in 2-3 hr

I think the thing I realized most was that when I play extremely discipline, I dont leak as much money at all, my graph stays pretty flat inbetween big hands which was something I had struggled with before.

Overall I am going to continue to play NL50 because I know that I am better than these guys. When I play my best game I dont think I will lose very much. I am going to be one of the best one day and I want to compete against the best guys my bankroll allows.

Moving forward I will only be playing one table at a time instead of 3-5. I know some guys can do that much volume but for me, at this stage, I cannot.

Will keep you guys updated as how the rest of the week goes.

I am really thankful that you both replied so thanks a million to both of you.

Just wanted to follow up on this thread, its been a few months now. I am super happy to say that I am much better overall now and my winrate at NL50 is +20bb/100 over a long enough time now where I do think the move to Thailand will be a probable thing. I think I will be moving this Fall. I need about 20grand in a bank account before I go for Visa purposes. I went to the Casino in philly and turns $300 into $1.4k the other day which is cool but also I just dont love needing to go to a physical location to make money. I have won a few smaller tournaments and cashed multiple times now in larger ones. Even though I dont study tournaments or ICM at all, being good at cash now and then adjusting based on my limited ICM study has gotten me pretty far.

I am very optimistic moving forward and will continue to play NL50 and NL100 until my roll is about 10k or so. I got the roll up to 2k a few weeks ago from $100 and that took me about 3-4 weeks but I took out $1.5k for expenses and then left in $500. Over the past 2 days I have played about 2k hands and make about $500 or so so if I can continue this trend or even a little less I think I should be on path to hit my goal sometime in late July.

I am also in the process of designing and creating my own relation database with solver solutions so that after each session I run python code and my hands are analyzed and I can see where my biggest leaks are not compared to populaiton like I see others do but to actual GTO solutions.

If anyone wants to know more about the latter topic just let me know.