Hey CR,

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place, if it's not please let me know and I'll remove/edit. I basically just don't trust the "general" populace of 2+2 to handle this.

Basically I have $130 I'd like to move from FT -> PS, SN is "yomatta" on both.

Let me know if you're interested (PM or comment) :)

Cheers!

Matt

I'm writing this relatively early, and fully intend on playing more hands, but wanted to get an update out. In the last 2 days I've had a couple sessions with a coach; and although he's new to the coaching gig, I'm even more new to the game of poker.

Being able to talk about some things and have him analyze my play (via 2 sweat sessions and limited HEM review) has had an immediate effect on my play in a positive way. I'm also likely to be working with another coach this weekend and it will again be interesting to get a different point of view on things.

So I know I'm keeping this short, but I wanted to give a bit of a visual demonstration of the effect using a coach is beginning to have. Note that only about the last 300 hands have been played with a coach, but I definitely feel as though I was actually being more aggressive and putting my bets in at the right time for a much more appropriate amount. Maybe I'm just rambling at this point...; so here's the graph:

Another day another dollar. Although today it was more like $14... UP that is. Yep the 3rd day is finally the first day I have ended in the green after roughly 400 hands played (I know that my hands played probably seems abysmally low compared to some others, but working I spend the majority of my "poker time" watching videos and reading up on the forums - this will obviously change as I get a bit more experience)

Today I finally decided to just throw some money into Full Tilt. I deposited $80 into PS a few days back which I promptly tanked down to around $40, and responded with a swift deposit of $400 into FTP. The main reason I did this isn't to go on hardcore tilt or anything and decide to gamble all of my money away, rather it was at the suggestion of a player who will likely be doing a few coaching sessions with me. From what I've read there can be quite a bit of a play difference between the micro and low stakes games; I guess I've had some confusion as to whether or not that implies that the low stakes are "harder" than the micro stakes, or if they're just different in nature (more LAG players rather than everyone puckering up, etc). I would expect the players at the low stakes to have a bit more experience for sure, which will present a bit of a challenge given my experience extends a total of about 1600 hands of extremely subpar play, but it is a challenge that I welcome.

Tonight I also continued with Brystmar's SSNL series, I have completed the 2nd video and will likely watch at least half if not all of the 3rd video after posting this before I crash for the night. It has been quite informative, and I thank the players who posted in my thread in the Micro forums for giving me many great suggestions on where to start; everyone on CR so far has been incredibly helpful and I welcome and embrace the community that is so open and free with the knowledge and experience they have gained.

Tomorrow will be the usual work day followed by some time at the gym (which I've neglected since Sunday) and then followed by watching flops until the girlfriend gets home. I'm looking forward to this weekend when I'll (hopefully) begin some coaching sessions and (hopefully) will witness some solid improvements in my game. It's definitely interesting rocking the $2-$5NL games with a total FTP bankroll of about $415 ;); but I guess everyone pays their dues.

I've also recently thought about playing some MTT's this weekend, but I really do want my focus to be the cash games as the MTT's do have a lot of variance seem to be pretty hit or miss on whether or not you cash. My real experience so far was 2 sundays ago: I had gained entry to some Sunday tournie on FTP (I forget the name) via a $0.30 satellite (the tournie was only $1 anyways) and had a total of about 55k entrants once all was said and done. I unfortunately busted out right around 11,000 place, with 7,500 places paid. Not terrible for my first real MTT experience, but definitely annoyed that I got sucked out on a runner-runner-flush after a pre-flop shove with a set of jacks. The payout on the MTT's is so ridiculously amazing, however, which is what is really pulling me back ot them ;) . And hearing about the random people who happen to place first in their first ever MTT and take down a pot in excess of $1k has really got me wanting a big payday for my bankroll (so as to be able to put it right back into the cash games of course ;)).

OK, that is enough wall of text for one evening. As always, good luck at the tables!

So it's the second day since I decided to actually push seriously, and while it was better than day 1 (read: not as bad). I was down about $12 on the night when I thought I was finally starting to catch a decent run.

I ended the night with a nice little diddy: I flop top/bottom pair. Hit the full house on the turn (6's full of deuces), call all-in on the river, and of course UTG (who had limped into the pot and was a calling station) had hit middle set on the flop and had a house 6's full of 4's.

Haven't won a single shove since upping my bankroll yesterday, but such is life I suppose. I'm not terribly concerned about the money for the time being (maybe this is the wrong attitude to have?) as I'm playing way under my means, just attempting some different things to find out what really works for me. Tonight I attempted to play much tighter than I had yesterday, was running about 21/17 on the night which definitely resulted in me losing less money, but definitely showing that my post-flop play is in the gutter (mainly, I call shoves where I clearly shouldn't be, or I'm just getting some bad beats, such as backdoor flushes after a shove ><).

Such is life I suppose, going to start working with a coach soon and hopefully that will help me to plug some of my bigger leaks. For the time being this week I'm just going to try to play conservatively and get as many hands in as I can (so as to better see patterns that are forming, etc). I've also made a point of watching 1-2 videos a day for the last few days and really paid attention to them along with taking notes. Hopefully this dedication will pay off in the end!

Good luck at the tables!

See my first blog post for where I'm starting from :).

So I ponied up the additional $80 to bring me to $100 on my PS account.

Withing the first few hands of $10NLHE this coolered the hell out of me... it was all downhill from there...

***** Hand History for Game 41179575801 ***** (Poker Stars)
$10.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, March 14, 09:50:23 ET 2010
Table Santana II (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: pokerdally ( $3.40 USD )
Seat 2: s1rsc00pal0t ( $10.70 USD )
Seat 3: JC Rdz ( $22.20 USD )
Seat 4: jsmith14358 ( $11.60 USD )
Seat 5: yomatta ( $10.00 USD )
JC Rdz posts small blind [$0.05 USD].
jsmith14358 posts big blind [$0.10 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to yomatta [ Qs Qh ]
yomatta raises [$0.40 USD]
pokerdally folds
s1rsc00pal0t raises [$1.20 USD]
JC Rdz folds
jsmith14358 folds
yomatta raises [$2.60 USD]
s1rsc00pal0t raises [$9.50 USD]
yomatta calls [$7.00 USD]
s1rsc00pal0t wins $0.70 USD
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qd, Ad, Jh ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5h ]
** Dealing River ** [ Kh ]
yomatta shows [Qs, Qh ]
s1rsc00pal0t shows [Ah, 6h ]
s1rsc00pal0t wins $19.15 USD from main pot


Following that I lost a few other all ins. Sitting at a BR now of $60 with only a 152 hands played. It's going to be a long road ahead :P.

I've also realized that hitting my target of 3,000 hands played this week could be rough. I tried 4 tabling some $5NLHE games and definitely notice a drop in my all around play. Tonight I finished up the night with some $5NLHE 4 tabling and was down a bit from that as well, probably going to stick to 2 tabling and just put in the time.

Next weekend I'm going to carve out some time for some hardcore review of my HEM results.

That's all for now, Good luck at the tables!

Greetings,

I'd like to start off by saying that I'm not a very good poker player, and I'm aware of that fact. I've always enjoyed watching the WSOP on TV, but never really got into playing. 3 weeks ago I went to Vegas and ended up posted in Luxor's poker room for a hefty amount of the weekend. It was my first "real" experience playing poker, and I just about broke even at $1/$2 limits (dropped about $100 before doubling up on a shove from the drunk guy across the table who didn't believe I had flopped a set of Jacks).

Coming home from that weekend made me realize I really did enjoy playing as much as I enjoyed watching. The next weekend I'm sitting at my girlfriend's place flipping through the tv stations when I discovered that ESPN had an all night WSOP marathon on... needless to say I didn't get much sleep that night. The next day I signed up on Pokerstars and sat down at the play money tables. In case anyone was curious about that experience: waste of time. So I deposited a whopping $20 and started playing micro's. It's been an interesting ride since then.

Here we are, almost 2 weeks later, and I've found myself fully immersed. I still haven't deposited any more money, and I'm still sitting on roughtly $19.50. I was up on some SNG's (winning a 9handed SNG put me up a bit) then I started on the cash games. I dipped as low as $13 a few days ago and was up as high as $23 after that, so I'm on a bit of a down swing again right now but it will all work out in the end. My next step is going to be to deposit some actual money ($100-200 or so) as I'd really like to learn the game and stop sitting around the $5NL tables.

I've set out some goals for my first "real" week of play:

• Play 3,000 hands at $10NLHE (will need to deposit some money first!)
• Spend 1-2 hours reviewing results in HEM (though at the moment I'm not entirely sure what to look for, so many acronyms!)
• Watch 3 (useful) videos and study them / take notes (taking recommendations)
• Use player notes / color schemes on PS or FTP