Starting the grind with $20
About me:
I'm 20 years old and have been playing poker recreationally for a mere couple of months.
I've been playing online MTTs mindlessly without studying any theory. I've always felt a natural aptitude to poker and have recently found great passion in it.
for the past couple of weeks I've been studying a lot, trying to wrap my head around basic concepts of poker theory and I'm more keen to improve now than ever.
In fact my passion for the game paired with my personality has made me realize that this is something I want to turn into much more than a hobby.
I work as a video editor for a couple of Youtube channels in my country (Finland), but I don't particularly enjoy my job. The upside is that I can work from home, very few hours per week, allowing me to put a lot of time into studying and playing poker.
The "challenge":
I decided to steer away from MTTs for various reasons. I just find cash games to suit me much better.
I've decided to reset my bankroll to $20 (well $19.99 to be exact) with the iintention of starting to build my bankroll up all the way from 2nl, eventually reaching high stakes (I might need to reset my bankroll at some point and I will do that if needed ofc).
I'll start of playing regular 2nl aswell as 2nl zoom on pokerstars (my PS name: Meepmorp88) with the goal of building my bankroll up to around $75 before moving on to 5nl. Then repeat a similar process increasing my skill level and bankroll in the process. I'm currently studying theory for 3 hours/day and playing 2nl ~6 hours/day atleast 6 days/week
My goals:
Short term:
- Start playing 5nl in september
- keep up my study/play schedule
- track my progress through updating this thread on a weekly (daily? weekly? monthly? we'll see) basis.
Long term:
- become a high stakes reg
- play poker full time
- move to a different country/countries?
- Also to reach 100nl by the end of 2025????
The reason for making this post is to have some external accountability and to keep tracking my progress here.
I don't have any graphs to show at this point since i just moved from GG to PS because of rake. I also just yesterday downloaded Pokertracker 4 (14 day free trial. will be purchasing full version after trial). I will be posting graphs in the future though ofcourse.
Also I would appreciate any advice regarding pretty much anything.
Some advice/insight I would appreciate:
- how does regular cash game on PS compare to zoom in general? is one "better" than the other?
- your best studying resources/methods. (I currently use RIO videos, GTO Wizard, some books, equilab and free videos for studying)
I'm not sure when I'll be posting my first progress updates. Shouldn't be more than a week or two. I just finished my study session and am now starting the grind.
Current BR: $19.99
today has been... volatile
Atleast I'm break even and not in the -
At that stage, when you're just getting used to the player pool, I wouldn't set too many expectations, especially such a small sample. I would say that during a 100k hand you will see how the variance works and only then will you see the real winrate. Some say that even that is not enough, but I would say from experience that it is pretty close to the truth if you don't get really sickly lucky one way or the other.
Myself, yesterday's games were almost +-0 over 5k hands, although I think I played well. All losses came in the same session. 4x KK vs AA and they all where Pre Flop All ins. Of course i always had KK and i never folded preflops just coz i play so aggressive and loose style so i can't really find preflop folds 100-150bb deep with KK.
At that stage, when you're just getting used to the player pool, I wouldn't set too many expectations, especially such a small sample.
Yeah I know. I'm not putting any real weight on results from such small samples.
I've made good profit over ~10k hands, but I'm fully aware that that doesn't even mean that I'm for sure a winning player.
Anything under 50k or so I'll take with a grain of salt for sure.
Nice to see someone starting from the ground floor and studying as well. Rooting for you!
Feel like playing some mtts rn.
I'll probably play ~$1 ABI tourneys until I cash decent. On a downswing atm in mtts.
I'm officially running BAD:
Orange line = All-in EV
Green line = winloss
usually the ev line is either level or a little under the W/L line...
Been entered into the GGcare flipout like 3 times in the past few hours.
Can't wait to dig out of this
next update will be when I reach a new high.
(T$ = money you can use only for tournament buy-ins)
Guess we'll be playing some mtts
I'm currently going through a ridiculous downswing in cash games. Disgusting
I'll take a break from posting here until I'm back up a good amount...
demotivating
Subscribed, hmu on discord if you want to talk, we have similar goals😀
karimo22#6794
Subbed, GL
I appreciate all the comments!!
Don't worry I'm still playing and studying. With even more focus than before.
The only way from here is up 😀
I was about to make a comeback post soon.
I suffered from a downswing and took a little break for some personal stuff.
I came back to poker a couple of weeks ago. I started fresh with $50 playing 5nl zoom on Pokerstars.
I grinded my bankroll up to $113 in about a week.
Today... I suffered the worst run of my life. It seriously can not get much worse than this even if I all in every hand pre flop.
I'm down over 14 buy ins in about 5 hours. And my game has felt pretty solid.
See ya. I'm gonna go kill myself now.
(That last part was a joke)
I'll be back once I've climbed out of this ****ing bullshit downswing.
Some might say I'm a losing player... and that might be true... but losing -50bb/100? Nope.
yesterday's bankroll
today's bankroll
This is actually so unbelivable. It seriously can not get any worse than that.
I'll make the needed adjustments in my game tomorrow and do my best to grind a ton of volume and get my bankroll back up.
Just gotta be patient now
Next update will be once my bankroll is up to $200-$250. I'll then be ready take a stab at 10nl.
Hey, man. Losing can be extremely frustrating, but it's a very important part of poker that you learn how not to let the losses affect your mood, just think of your long-term goals. You seem to be a good player in these fields, especially considering the fact that you haven't really played poker for that long.
Sometimes it's also not a bad idea to quit playing when you feel the way you did today. The volume you put in won't work in your favor when you are emotionally affected while playing. Take a couple of hours (or as long as you need to) in order to refresh your mind, and come back playing your A game. After all, it is one long session, and a few buy-ins swings within ~1k hands is absolutely nothing. Variance is brutal anyway...
... so rest assured it could. It gets uglier than you, me, and most people who haven't played millions of hands think it can.
Think about what sparkled the passion which you mentioned in one of your initial posts, use it as motivation and don't let running bad force you to play bad. Keep doing the right things and eventually you will get rewarded. Look at/post/update us with graphs on a larger sample so that you don't get attached in anyway to short-term results.
Keep studying, review big spots or spots that you feel lost in, and winning will come naturally and inevitably.
GL&subbed. I also currently play micros R&C so I'll be interested to follow your journey.
It's a gift that keeps on giving...
I'll be sticking to playing regular 6-max cash tables on Stars.
I've been playing Zoom/RnC pretty much exclusively and that might not be the smartest moves.
First thoughts of playing regular cash games: Damn the tables are so much softer and less nitty. I should've made this move sooner.
(playing 3-4 tables currently)
