This week I'm going to be taking my first shot's at 50NL and I'm very excited. My small sample of SH 25NL has gone well. I've continued to play FR in addition to SH and have been pleased with my results in spite of the games getting tougher. In addition to moving up to 50NL I've decided to incorporate a significant amount of HU into my % of hands played. I feel like as a result of 12 tabling lately I've had success, but my skills aren't improving as much as they would be if I was playing less tables. This was somewhat intentional since I have an edge at 25NL and I was looking to grind to 50NL before I reduced the number of tables I was playing. I believe playing HU will improve my hand reading ability signicifantly and help me to develop faster as a player while still being able to post decent hourly winnings with a few tables. I'm shooting for 125k hands from 4/28-5/31 with 75k being 50NL HU and 50k being an even mix of 50NL SH/FR. School has been killing me lately (about 3 more weeks til college graduation) and I was out of state this past weekend, but I just got a bit of breathing room academically so I'm looking forward to getting back to the grind. I would definitely recommend CPar1 and Markuis to those looking for good HU videos on CR. Both have very strong win rates on PTR and explain their thought processes well. Hopefully, I'll have some good things to report from my 50NL play. I'm looking to have a big sample to discuss before my next post so until then good luck at the tables.

So Pokerstars just had an update which instituted some new buy in limitations for tables which I'm sure most of you know about. It seems like 25NL FR games I've been playing in have instantly gotten a lot more nitty and most of the fish have left to the 20-50BB tables. Unless I just happened to get on at the wrong time I've of day I'm planning to start playing 6max primarily to expand my game so that I have more quality tables to choose from. I'll probably play some more FR at the beginning of next month when I move to 50NL. I'd be interested to here if others are having the same experience at their limit as a result of the change. Since I may not be playing much FR over the next few weeks here is a graph of the last 6 weeks or so of my 25NL FR play. Good luck at the tables till next time.

It has been a little while since my last entry. Everything is going well in life and poker. Just had a little family reunion of sorts yesterday with some members of my Dad's side of the family that I hadn't met before which was a great time. My grandmother recently passed away so it was nice to see my grandfather so happy that everyone was together. Hopefully everyone will be able to keep in touch. I'm very excited that college graduation is approaching. I've been thinking to myself what it is going to be like having no homework to do and being able to spend my time on what I feel is important. Having gone to school since I was 5 years old it's hard to imagine life without homework, but I can't wait.

Things have been pretty crazy lately and I haven't been sleeping much. A couple part-time jobs, full-time school, recently engaged, homework, and trying to grind as much as possible. Spending more time with family, sleeping, exercising, and grinding is what I'm looking most forward to when I graduate. I feel like homework has been getting in the way, but I've still been able to put in a lot of hands.

My style of play at the tables has been evolving a great deal and I'm still adjusting. I've gone from 13/11/3 (VPIP/PFR/3Bet) to 16/14/5. I'm shooting for ending up around 18/16/5 and for solidifying my 3bet% as it is stil a bit inconsistent. I feel like my hand reading is improving a lot and I'm still running around 7BB/100 over the last 70k hands. I've been taking a lot more time with post session self-analysis through HEM and it has been paying off, but I still feel like I make a few big time donk moves during each session as well as many smaller mistakes that are keeping me from 8-10BB/100. I've got another lesson scheduled with a poker coach today and I've got tons of marked hands and questions to go over so it will be productive and if the last lesson is any indication I should see immediate improvement. I'm knocking on the door to 50NL right now so I'm hoping the transition will be smooth and I won't have to move back and forth between limits for any length of time. Good luck at the tables till next time.

After a 10k hand streak of breaking even where I ran 2 BI's below AI EV I finally had a nice session today. It was 4 hours, 1532 hands, and a win of about 5.5 BI's. Following a quick post session review I feel as though I left 2 buyins on the table due to bad decision making. Most were small pots, but there was one big preflop decision which was marginal that I made a bad call on and ran my AK into AA against a 40/4 passive fish. However, outside of those mistakes I've made great strides since my first session with Fooz as I've been attempting to implement his advice. For the session I ran at 15/12 instead of 13/10 and 5% 3Bets instead of 2.7 so my stats were much more resembling TAG as opposed to NIT play.

Things I felt I did well with were knowing when to 4Bet bluff I got all of them through during this session and there were a few. I did a better job of attacking unraised pots with 1 to 2 barrels. I've slightly improved my flop cbetting which was already fairly solid, and my cbet and value bet sizing also improved a bit. I did a better job of looking for thin value without going over the edge and my hand reading was better.

Much improvement has resulted from my first coaching session and I'm looking very forward to the next one. I'm going for 90k hands this month to boost my bankroll to well over 40 BI's for 50NL so that I can move up around the mid point of the month. I'm hoping to increase my monthly income through poker so that I can do weekly as opposed to bi-weekly lessons. I hope everyone at CR had a great spring break and good luck at the tables.

So I just had my first coaching session with CR sponsored coach Fooz and I was definitely amazed with the amount of quality instruction I recieved in a short period of time. He has already opened my eyes to a lot of flaws in my thought process and showed me things I can implement right away to start increasing my win rate.

We talked about using PokerTableRatings effectively as a study tool and the importance of post session hand reviews and how to conduct them effectively. He also walked me through some HEM leakfinding which was very useful, and showed me a program called All In Expert which was eye-opening to say the least. The coaching was personalized to my style of play and was well executed. We also went over hand examples for certain common situations that will come up frequently where I could improve. He also recommended a couple of good videos to watch on CR prior to our next session. We went over some other good stuff as well. Overall, I'm extremely pleased with session one.

I'll be playing a lot over the next two weeks until our next lesson to implement the things we went over and to continue building the bankroll so that I can move up to 50NL and still have money for lessons. I hope everyone has good luck at the tables till next time.

So I went to Cancun for spring break and I got back yesterday. I went with my friend, his girlfriend, his parents, and my fiance. We stayed in a suite at an all inclusive 5 star resort and it was a great time. The food was great and as expected the scenery was amazing. The one downside was that the internet was terribly slow and I didn't have access to a computer to get any hands in, but I think the time away was a good thing. Sometimes you just need to get away from the stresses of life and re-charge. It was nice to spend some serious quality time with my fiance as well without school or work distractions. I find that I always have a difficult time relaxing because I feel quilty in the sense that I should be doing something more productive. The vacation was great because I had no choice but to relax and it was a great time.

There was lots of beach volleyball, water polo, water volleyball, and football. The restaurants were great and I tried sushi for the first time which I enjoyed. Hanging out with my good friend and his family is always a good time as we've known each other about 7 years. My fiance and I had a great time together whether it was playing volleyball or just relaxing on the beach and talking. It was also nice to be able to order room service 24/7 for free. Overall, it was a great experience and we talked about doing something similar next year in the domincan republic. That resort has a casino with poker tables so I'll be pumped for that trip if and when it happens.

As far as getting back to poker I was planning a marathon session for today, but between unpacking, picking up my car that was fixed over the break, and getting over a cold it's looking like it will be a short session today and a good night's rest. The most exciting thing going on right now poker wise besides the growing bankroll is a I set up my first coaching session with one of the CR sponsored coaches before I went on break and our first session will be tomorrow so I'm looking forward to making greater improvements by getting specialized advice as it relates to my game and what I need to work on. I'll be sure to report back on coaching and current events, but until then good luck at the tables and I hope you guys had a great spring break.

Just finished up a marathon session of 5078 hands over 11 hours. I liked the way I played for the most part. I made one mistake that cost me $10 which was a 3 barrel bluff that I tried for absolutely no reason and regretted immediately. I've done a good job of eliminating these blowups so hopefully this is the last one. Other than that I think I overcommitted with two pair on the flop in one hand during the session. Outside of these two instances there weren't any glaring mistakes. What I was most happy with is that my VPIP/PFR/Squeeze/3Bet number were much more in line with what I would like and have strayed from nit numbers to tag numbers. Solid tag numbers is what I am going for 16/14/4/4 respectively i think is a solid winning strategy for 25NL. As for the win it was my biggest yet $185. I'm hoping for some more good results over the next 6 days of marthon sessions. Till my next entry good luck at the tables.

So I just had my biggest winning session. It was today and just under 7 hours in length consisting of 3094 hands. I really liked the way I played though I was dissapointed that my VPIP/PFR/3Bet/Squeeze %'s went down as I was happy with where they were moving up to so I will have to work on that. Outside of that though I was very happy with my hand reading and focus throughout. CR has been a great resource for me and I'm happy to be a part of a community full of skilled poker players like yourselves as I think it is what I needed to take my game to the next level. The take for the session was $130 and I'm looking forward to posting bigger wins in the future. I did run in to AA twice when I had KK pre flop so that hurt my bottom line for the session. I'm going to be playing a ton the rest of this week and the early part of next week before I head off to Cancun as PlatinumStar is the goal this month and I've only got 3 weeks to do it. I'll report back with anything interesting, but until then good luck at the tables.

So the last couple weeks have been going well. I've been playing a bunch of Poker and have been busy with school and work also so I haven't had free time to blog. So far in the first week of march I've played 20k hands and in my last 30k I'm running over 10BB/100 so my bankroll is increasing. I've been having a lot of fun experimenting with different parts of my game trying to get better as my bankroll nears the point where I'm going to move up to 50NL.

3 betting, squeezing and stealing were 3 things I mentioned needed improvement and over my last 5-10k hands I've been much happier with these numbers. I've made some adjustments and have become much more comfortable in 3 bet pots and much more aware of when 3 and even 4 betting at times is the best option. Now that my bankroll is much more stable I plan to experiment even more with my game to continue improving. I think an area where are I can definitely make some improvements is knowing when to 2 and 3 barrel as I continue honing my hand reading skills post flop. I've been watching the 25NL/50NL FR videos and the Matt Doran 25NL 6 max series which have all been very helpful to my development and current success. Posting hands on the forum for feedback was also very helpful during the downswing to help me see some of the mistakes I was making.

The goal this month is to hit PlatinumStar as I hit Silver & GoldStar for the first time last month. I'm going to a 5 star resort in Cancun during spring break :) with my fiance and my good friend and his girl + parents so March is a 3 week month for me essentially as I can't play poker during that time. That is going to make PlatinumStar difficult, but I've planned ahead and I am ahead of schedule to get there at this point. I'm hoping my bankroll will end up around 50 to 60 buy ins for 50NL by the end of the month so I can move up and buy a few coaching sessions with one of the coaches on CR to make the transition smoother and help me to move through 50NL to 100NL and beyond. I'm graduating college in 2 months and ideally I want to have financial success through poker upon graduation so I am playing a ton right now. Things have been going well and hopefully that continues. Until next time good luck at the tables.

So the last few days have been pretty interesting. As I've said in previous entries I hit Silverstar for the first time this month and had a goal to hit GoldStar this month as well (VIP levels on PokerStars). I figured this weekend I would play the necessary amount of hands and would easily coast past GoldStar for the month. You could understand my disappointment when my internet stopped working this past Friday morning due to some power line mishap resulting from inclement weather. AT&T said that the problem wouldn't be fixed until Monday, March 1st so my goal for GoldStar was in question. I decided that I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to hit that level this month so yesterday I drove to my older sister's house which is about 30 minutes away and played 9 to 12 tables of 25NL FR Cash games from 9am to 3am with few breaks. I ended up with 900 VPPs for the day and finished slightly ahead and hit GoldStar for the first time!

On the poker side of things I played 10,174 hands which brings the total for the month to over 30,000. My previous longest session was 3900 so I blew that away. The beginning of the session I didn't play very well. I've tried 12 tabling a few times and generally my quality of play decreases and I'm not able to table select as well. With 9 tables I feel like I have full control of what is going on and adequate time to make decisions and table selection is also solid. So I began getting stuck a few buy ins and was fluctuating 1 to 2 buy ins down for the majority of the time. Towards the middle part of the session I really hit my stride and began clawing my way back to even. The last few hours of the session were probably the worst of the day. I was noticeably fatigued, but wouldn't stop short of the goal so I tried to play as straightforwardly as possible. I made some good plays as well as some bad ones and was lucky enough to finish ahead for the session. It was definitely an interesting experience playing for 18 hours straight. I've been trying to play longer sessions to condition myself to be able to play well for long periods of time. I'm definitely encouraged that I was able to finish ahead though slightly in spite of the mistakes I made. Looking back through the session in spite of some bad luck and a couple coolers (Set over Set, Full House over Full House) I think there was a lot of money to be won had I not made so many mistakes so I learned a lot during this session.

The most important lesson I learned was that I need to space my playing time out over as many days as possible so that I don't have to play 18 hours straight. I definitely think there is a place for grinding really long sessions, but I think I should keep it between 10-12 hours for now because my mind was definitely playing tricks on me toward the end of the session to where I was looking for marginal situations that would usually be easy folds for me. Overall, I'm happy to have hit GoldStar and looking forward to learning from all of the hands I played and getting back to playing quality poker at 9 tables for the time being. Goals for next month are PlatinumStar and a bankroll at months end ofr over $1,000. Hope everyone had a great weekend and good luck at the tables.