Long time since I've blogged, but I thought I would start blogging again about my new project. As the title indicates I'm going to try to make my way from Nl50 to NL1k and see how many hands it takes me.

I'm going to use aggressiv bankrollmanagement and start with 20bi for Nl50, that's $ 1000. I'll move up when I reach 20 bi for the next limit, and move down if I drop down to 15bi and grind my way back. I'm going to play 6 tables until I reach Nl400, and then I'll most likely going to just play four tables.

As the project moves forward,I'm going to post stats, results and hopefully also some interesting hands.

I think this will be an very interesting thing to do, and hopefully I can also take something away from it and become a better pokerplayer. Another reason for doing this, is that I think that to many players are to conservative when it comes to moving up the limits. If you're a recreational player and for some reason don't want to move up, I think it's totally fine not moving up or taking it slow. Being not confident in your game or a tiltmonkey are also reasons not to move up.

But the fact is that the difference between Nl100 and NL400 is not that big, and alot of players should take the chance and get the experience of higher stakes. A decent player can make a quite substansial amount of money at NL1k or even Nl400 compared with playing at NL50 or nl100. Don't be just another NL100 "pokerpro" wasting your time grinding it out and bragging about your winrate in bb...

I hope this project will show that you if you have a solid game you can move up pretty fast, and that this will give some NL50 or Nl100 player out there the movtivation to put in the effort and get their game to a higher level.

NL50: done!

Since I haven't had the motivation for blogging in a long time, I've already put in a decent amount of hands at NL50, and are now ready to move up to Nl100. I'll write some more about how I approach the game at Nl50 another time, but it's really standard and I'm happy with my results so far. Simply play tight preflop (no fancy 3-betting), con.bet almost any flop, and give up 90% of the times if called or raised when you don't have a hand. Valuebet hard and don't slowplay with your strong hands and you'll be more than fine.


Anyway, here are the stats for NL50.

I ended up about 3k (not including rakeback and bonuses) in april and played about 30k hands on Nl400 and Nl600. Not the results I'm looking for obv, but still I'm very happy about my play.

Overall I think I played solid, and improved a lot on my play in pos. I think the standard TAGs fold too much in pos to con.bets on the flop, something I certainly was guilty of myself. I think I fixed this leak to a certain degree this month, and I'm very happy about it. The goal for next month is to focus on 3-betting in pos, which I don't do as much as I think I should.

So, why the poor results? Well, HM says I'm down around 4k in All-in equity this month, and I do feel that I ran somwhat bad. But sometimes I think the all-in equity-stats makes me play worse. Somehow it makes me feel that when I'm running bad, I too deserve to suck out on people and therefore I make some really bad plays that I normally would not make.

One thing is for sure, poker is really about the long run for people like me that only have the time to play 20-30k hands a month. When a player like CTS can play 100k hands and break even, I don't really like to think about what kind of variance that "normal" players like me can experience.

Later!

So, haven't updated my blog in a while but to sum up march, it basically sucked. Think I'm down about 4k totale after a shot at 5/10.

I don't know but it seems like how you run in life general affects how you run and play in poker. I certainly ran and played bad most of the month, and it was def not the right time to take a shot at 5/10. Well, I'm not going to the same mistake again, and hopefully I run really good next time I take a shot both in life and at the tables.

Anyway, just going to build on my bankroll this month, maybe there is a heater waiting.

Cheers!

Hi,

Feb been great pokerwise for me, been running very well and I feel I have improved my play a great deal. Had my first 10k winning month and it feels really good. Even played a bit nl600 and while I think I'm a winning player at that level with good table selection, nl400 will be my main game the next months trying to build a bankroll big enough to take a shot at 5/10. I'm not in a hurry to move up because I know my game is not as good as it should be. Still think I need to get more aggresive, and work more on my ranges...

Graph for Nl600

Nl400

Included showdown and non-showdown winnings, Nor sure what I can get out of these graphs. If anyone have some ideas about what they say about my game, please let me know.

Hope you all have a great weekend! Cheers

Things going well so fare this month, been playing mostly nl400 and some nl600. Going to post graf in the beginning of march, but obv running over expectation.

Got holdemmanager this month, and the program is just brilliant. So much better than pokeroffice, and I just can't see what pokertracker 3 will offer that holdemmanager don't (but I have no experience with pt). And just great to see the developers constantly improving on the software and adding new features.

Next site to be supported is everst, and I'll probably start playing some nl400 there in march.

I'm kind of a bankrollnit, and like to have a bankroll of at least 50 bi for the stakes I'm playing, so I though I'd take do something with a small part of it because it dosen't do any good in my neteller account. Found this site for microcredit, kiva.org

I'll just copy/paste from their website:

We let you loan to the working poor

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. By choosing a loan on Kiva, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the entrepreneur you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back."

For general information of microcredit

I contributed to a small loan to a group of women from Uganda, and I'll see how it works out before puting more money into loans. Maybe something to consider if you're a bankroll nit like me...

I just don't get it... so sad.

Got me to put up this, long time since the last time I listen to A tribe called quest, but it's classic

And this guy of course

And I'm running sick good at 2/4 in feb...

Cheers

Finished January with a winrate of about 2,3 on 21k hands on nl400. Happy that I'm winning, but my play have been far from where I want it to be...

The graph from my last blog included hands from 2007, but this one is all 21k in January,

Huge swings and I guess I can't expect anything else with such a low winrate, so I'm going to work more active with my game. Goals for Feb are to be better at the things I put up as longtime goals for 2008, and to analyse whole sessions of play, and post some hands in the forums.

I also thinking about purchasing holdemmanager as soon as it supports ongame where I usually play. It looks really good and pokeroffice is falling behind in the development I guess.

Not much of a blog, but I have to pack because I'm going away for the weekend, okay with a break from poker, and just relax some.

Cheers!

I have a goal of updating my blog twice a month so it's really about time..

Looking back to my last blog I can't really say that I have been able to follow the guidelines for myself that I put up entering 2008. Been playing too much, and without proper concentration. But just bought guitar hero so I guess it will be easier to avoid play poker just to have something to do in the future.

In January I've been playing mostly nl400, and I will try to post my graf here.

As you hopefully can see I had some pretty big swings, and it wasn't easy going from a very good start into a big drop which I think was about 15 buy-in or so over only 5k of hands... I really think 70-75% of the drop was due to variance and not me tilting or playing bad. Sometimes it will just hit you so unbelievably hard (you get two-outerer and such, almost never getting good hands and when it happens no action or huge coolers, being constantly played back at when you're bluffing etc...all at the same time).

A 15 buy-in drop can be mentally draining so I've been thinking and reading a bit about variance lately.

This post from 2+2 was quite good ( didn't read all the responses)

And this site has a calculator that is real funny to play around with (some simulations can show how sick variance can be)

The 12k of hands I've played in 2008 is of course a too small sample size to establish my winrate. (i'm running at 2,8, but with this sample it's a 95% chance my true winrate could be from -5,4 and +11 (sd. 45 ).

If I add my hands at nl400 from 2007, I have totally 27k at a winrate of 2,4, making it a 95 % chance my true winrate is between -3,1 and +7,9

This shows that I not have enough hands to know anything about my true winrate at nl400, for all I know I could be a loosing player. (eg: at a winrate of 3, you need over 90k of hands to establish that you are not a loosing player...)

Anyway, I think a lot of players underestimate how sick the variance can be. Especially, people that don't have time to play a lot of hands like myself. If you think about it, you only need 10-15k of hands running good before you have a roll to move up the limits. Hitting a huge downswing when you just moved up, can really damage your game if you're not confident about it and experienced big downswings before. On the other side it's always the danger that you blame variance, when you're in reality playing bad. Okay, I'm rambling so I'm going to quit writing...

Good luck at the tables!

End of 2007, and a bit disappointed that I didn't reach my December goal of 75 buy-ins. Haven't played good enough, and not put in enough hands. But I guess now it's a good time to look forward and set new goals.

For poker my goals for 2008 is first of all only to play when I feel I'm playing my A-game or close to it. I'm going to quit playing four tables in front of the tv while browsing pokerforums, been upset or something etc. Quality over quantity ftw.

Second, I'm not going to be better at separating poker from other aspects of my life. I guess it's a bit related to the first goal of not playing without concentration. Going to set up a time schedule or something to help me with this. Maybe I'm going to put in fewer hands every month, but that's okay. I got a lot of other things to do anyways.

Third, I'm going to continue on working on all the aspects of my NL 6-max game. In this I include starting to work out more. At least tree times a week, this year it's only been one time a week and that's no good. In the last year I've read a couple of poker books. but I'm not sure I'm going to spend time reading more. I think it's better to watch videos, and post in the forum.
I just finished reading Mathematics of poker, and despite it's a interesting read, I don't think it's that useful for NL, maybe more for limitplayers. The idea of incorporating game theory in your overall strategy is very important imo, but I been think along these lines about my play since I read the part of game theory in Theory of Poker.

Anyway, I think the concept of balance is important to all aspects of poker, not just the way the cards are played. It's important when it comes to tilt, bankrollmanagement, and poker and the other aspects of life. So i guess my overall goal for 2008 is to find a good balance for poker, and I hope the three points listed over will help me with this. Hopefully, then I can continue to move up the stakes.

Finally, I'm very happy that my ongame account is open again. I have a big part of my bankroll on ongame, and it's good to have the funds available for play. But I'm still going to withdraw a part of the funds, don't want to get in the same situation ever again.

Happy new year everyone!

Half way through December, and I figured it' was time for a short update. I've moved back up to Nl400 after my downswing ended and I got my head and my play back on the right track again. Been doing okay, and I think it's possible to reach my bankroll goal for 2007 as I'm almost half way there.

During the downswing I watched a lot of the older GP videos. In the past I've mostly watched BTs videos, but I really like GPs videos as well. Even though the action on the tables is slow or he's carddead, the videos are still very informative. Def learn a lot, and I'm confident that I'm a better player now than before the downswing started, Also been reading a lot on the forum, and I picked up a lot from the regular posters. Just seems that downswings are the thing that motivates me the most to work and improve on my game.

Hopefully my account at ongame will be opened again soon, so I can continue to play there. The last month I've been playing mostly at ftp, and the competition is def harder. So the last week I tested Nl400 at stars and prima. Both sites also seem a bit softer than ftp, but with no rakeback at stars and too few tables at prima I'm going to keep playing at ftp.

see you at the tables :-)