25nl to 100nl?
Hi! This will be a challenge blog. I plan on updating one a week. I've been playing poker for years, but more regularly since 2021. I've been cruising at 25nl for a while now, and would like to see if I can push through the stakes, up to 100nl. I also have a personal challenge I would like to complete within the current year.
I've been playing on 3 websites : OK poker (main), Pokerstars (occasional, when good bonus/promotions) and Ipoker (lately). Here are the results as of July 2024 :
OK Poker
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Very-very soft pool ; minimal rakeback though. It's not possible to track hand histories on OK poker, but I've been keeping track of my results by session since I started playing 30nl (second half of 2021). I do short sessions (1h30-2h), on up to 6 tables (pool is very small, often times there aren't that many tables running), whick makes around 500 hands per session. I'm guessing the total hand volume displayed on my 'graph' is somewhere between 1-1.1 millions hands. Winnings are 23 831.89 CA$. Second picture shows total winnings on the left and total hours played on the right. Before 2021, I had a little under 1000 hours played for a few thousands won. Even then, the hourly rate since 2021 is below 10$/hour.
Now, I know it does look like some sort of blackrain99 syndorm, but there isn't much traffic at 50nl and the traffic at 100nl is a) mostly full-ring tables, which I don't like and b) almost exclusively on BBJ table, which charge a 0.50$ fee per pot that reaches flop (!!!), which I don't like. So I'm kind of stuck at 30nl (and 50nl when it runs. I'd say my volume so far has been 90% 30nl, 8-9% 50 nl, and 1-2% 100nl.
Pokerstars
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I typically avois PS, but sometimes it has good promotions, and I had a good bonus offer lately. Second picture includes rakeback. This is mostly 25nl, with a little bit of 50nl that hasn't gone well.
Ipoker
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I've been trying Ipoker in the last few weeks. Mini volume so far, ran well.
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OK poker has by far the softest pool of the 3. I think PS has the hardest. So, I'll play on OK (2/3 on my volume) and Ipoker (1/3).
The challenge will be for Ipoker, since I can't really climb the stakes on OK poker. I play 6 tables. My bankroll there is currently 505 euros, having played 20nl exclusively. BRM will be somewhat aggressive. Rules are :
400 euros and less : 20nl
500-600 : 1 50nl table / 5 20nl tables
600-700 : 2 50nl table / 4 20nl tables
...
1000+ : 6 50nl tables
Then I'll had 100nl tables starting at 1500 euros
1500-1750 : 1 100nl / 5 50nl (go down if BR goes below 1250 euros)
1750-2000 : 2 100nl / 4 50nl
...
2750+ : 6 100nl tables
Ultimately, the goal is to see to what extent I can't still improve and compete at higher stakes. I've been having trouble with finding spots to study lately, because at this point I'm accustomed to most of what that happens at 25nl. So I'm not studying much right now, and thus not improving. Hopefully thing will improve when I get destroyed at 50nl 
Personal challenge
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I've never been very good at math, but I still think that it's important to be somewhat decent at it. So I bought exercise books a few months ago that cover the whole secondary school cursus (high school basically ; I'm from Québec). My goal is to assimilate the basic concepts. I don't know yet to what extent it will help me poser-wise, but it can't hurt. We'll see.
The challenge is to work at least 4 hours per week on those books. First one (blue on the top, secondary 1) is done!
P.S. Excuse my French 😆
9 Replies
PlayNow/OK not even comparable to iPoker/stars. Playing exclusively OKpoker is totally viable once you can get enough volume on the site.
PlayNow/OK not even comparable to iPoker/stars. Playing exclusively OKpoker is totally viable once you can get enough volume on the site.
I agree! I'll still do the majority of my volume there. It's just that, in practice, there isn't much 50nl going on there and that I dislike the format at 100nl (full ring, BBJ) ; so I'm stuck at 30nl.
Week 1
Poker
Even-ish on both sites for the week! I'm assuming some hands didn't import on HM3 from Ipoker, because my actual outcome is about -20€, whereas on HM3 it's -7,39€. Go figure... I also got 15,32€ in rakeback, so my balance on Ipoker is now 500,94€. Still, so far I kind of like it! Compared to PS, players seem to VPIP a bit more and bluffcatch a bit lighter, which I quite like.
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I'm not going to post weekly results from OK poker, since that's not part of the challenge. Once a month seems good! And so, let's say that months will end on the 20th of each month :
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Hands : 28 253
Net : +1038,11 CA$
Study
Studying is a bit an issue for me. My discipline is routine-based, which is good for things like sport, but I've never been able to plan an effective study routine when it comes to poker. I suspect it should revolve around drills. I think I could soon take a month subscription on GTOw and drill common preflop spots (especially strategy vs 3-bet), as well as c-bets in 3-bet/4-bet pots and strat vs c-bet in 2/3/4-bet pots.
For this week, I activated the free month trial for freebetrange and spent an hour per day drilling BB defense versus the other 5 positions. I made some observations, but overall I'm not sure it was super useful, especially when it comes to 3-bets. At the end of the day, most people I play against don't like 4-betting and often call more than solver outputs, so my actual 3-bet strategy is a lot more linear than what I drilled this week.
Personal challenge
I ended up working on my math book during 3h10 this week. So, 50 minutes short of my goal! I could do it tonight, but I don't really feel like it. The week has been kind of long. All the work has been done on a chapter called 'The area of plane figures' (I'm translating from French). It's not done yet. I worked on the international system of units, the area of triangles, rectangles, parallelograms, trapezes and rhombuses ; and the square roots of numbers.
Week 2
Poker
Another fairly rough week. Doesn't necessarily look like on the graph, but lots of coolers imho. Value hands were unlucky, either getting zero action or getting action from the nuts. I'm not going to complain, though, as the results are still OK! I got 15,80€ in rakeback this week. My balance is now 595.76€.
Study
That's my main concern, for now. I use a solver, but not consistently, and I'm not being methodical with it. As I stated previously, my discipline is routine-based. I really think that planning study time on specific drills could help my game. I could do it on my solver (GTO+), but my databases are 'meh', and GTOw training feature seems great. So I'm almost certainly going to subscribe to GTOw for a month. I plan on focusing on preflop/flop nodes. More specifically : 1) vs 3-bet (preflop) ; 2) c-bet in 3BP (flop) ; 3) vs c-bet in SRP/3BP (flop). Because (1) I overfold against 3-bet, (2) I'm less comfortable with flop c-bets when playing 3BP than when playing SRP, and (3) I tend to start overfolding on the flop whenever I run a bit bad. Like, folding pairs and gutshots versus small c-bets ; that kind of non-sense. I think it will help me to be able to observe the EV loss that it causes while drilling.
I would also like to train for cold 4-bet spots, but I'm not sure how to set this up generically on GTOw.
The reason why I don't want to drill for turn/river spots is that the outputs seem unreliable at that point. No one that I play is landing on rivers with ranges that look like a solver, or have turn/river strategies that look like a solver.
Any other drill suggestion for preflop/flop on GTOw is welcome!
Personal challenge
I did it! 4h10 this week! I finished the area of plane figures chapter, and now I'm working on circles (the area of regular polygons, the components of a circle, circle and circumference, the area of a disk).
Poker
Very bad week, especially on OK poker! I recovered a bit in the last few sessions of the week, but it still hurts. Overall 11k-ish hands. Dozens of coolers, hundreds of painful folds. Every nits and stations turned into maniacs. Sets are garbage. Flushes are silly. Rivers are evil. Etc., etc. Got 15.51€ in rakeback this week. Balance is now 504.44€.
Study
On a brighter note, study went quite well this week! I did subscribe to GTOw (starter) for a month and spent about 6 hours testing drills. For the coming week, I plan to emphasize on strategy vs c-bet in 3-bet pots. I'll probably put a filter to play specifically pockets below the top card for high boards, and A-high for low boards. Because they're dominant hand classes for the 3-bet caller ; and they're a mix of calls and fold most of the time, which seems to me to be a big deal. If some villain is simplifying by always continuing (or always folding) with these hands, they're overcalling/overfolding to a greater extent than if it were, say, gutshots, or BDFDs.
I also plan to build reliable databases for 3BP in the coming month on my solver (GTO+). My computer isn't very powerful, so I won't make huge ones. I decided to use the 111 flops subset. Will solve to 0.5%. For the settings, I plan to use those recommended [COLOR="RoyalBlue"]in this thread[/COLOR....
Personal challenge
I only worked 1h25 on my math book this week (central angle, circular arc and circular sector).
Week 4
Poker
Another brutal week, this time on ipoker (ran well on OK poker). My valuebets are getting screwed. Bluffs are doing all right, but it's not very helpful. I'd rather villains have the nuts when I have air than when I have the second nuts. So, discouraging outcome considering that I'm truly doing my best, but it is what it is. I got 14,08€ in rakeback this week. Balance is 309,54€. Needless to say that I'm solely playing 20nl right now
Study
I kept on drilling for about 45 minutes per day this week on GTOw. GTOw is a bit like KD though (canadian Mac'n'cheese) : seems like a good idea, first bite is quite good, but then you realize that it's meh, and you regret your buy. I prefer my solver, to be honest. Nice thing though is you can export ranges from GTOw to a solver, and since the trees are solving a lot quicker from turn/river, I can just use GTO+ to do nodelocks.
My 3-bet pots databases are on their way! SB vs BTN and BTN vs CO are done. BB vs BTN is on the way. Then I'll do SB vs BB, which I think will be quite long to do.
Personal challenge
Didn't do any work on my book this week. Been studying a bit more though.
Hello. Bumping thread, you have software to track hands at OKPOKER?
do you play 25$ spins and nl100 on there?
