Final post

Officially i end this blog and consider the challenge a failure.

In my opinion it is impossible to play poker as a recreational player and be a winner in the long run. Maybe (and i’m not sure) you can beat the small stakes if you start playing now and play a big volume of hands with good tight ranges and huge patience.

There are players who have beaten the small stakes and went up in stakes by having a short time good run and after they built a bankroll they remained high.

Right now i am beaten by the rake and i don’t even find playing like that entertainment. I am happy that i have other things to do with my time that bring me a lot more happiness than just sucking out bad beats. I would have to play much more like a robot in order just to have a small 1-2 bb/100 win rate and i just won’t do that.

In my opinion, if the online poker doesn’t receive a bump by allowing more players, especially US, it would shrink so much that would become unprofitable even for regulars to just play between them.

If it is one good thing that i learned from this is that in life as in poker there is always variance and you have to do what you can to get value from your good opportunities and minimize your losses. Right now i would do just that, minimize my loss by not playing poker anymore and get value from my free time in other ways.

Hope that my experience would give an answer on how and if you can start with a small bankroll and climb up the ladder in poker stakes.

Week 15

No cash just MTT and SNG.

I needed a break from cash and because the opportunity of micro millions appeared on Stars i decided to give it a try on this series of tournaments.

This resulted in a total loss of 61.30$, which is natural. I only wanted to have some fun at the MTT so i didn’t expected any profit (just hopped for a lucky result).

Bankroll=222.20-61.30=160.9

Starting with next week i’ll return on cash at 5 NL and if i can i will make an add on.

Week 14

This week was a little bit different.

At cash i continued the bad run and lost another 65.39$ but this time at normal tables mostly (i decided to quit zoom).

Also because of the 9th anniversary of Sunday Million, i played some satellites to this tournament. I managed to get in and play the tournament by a 50 FPP satellite for silver star+ players. Unfortunately i had a very bad run at the tournament and got busted out only after 1.5 h of play. In total i played one 27$, two 11$ satellites and two 50 FPP for VIP silver star.

Also i played a 1.5 sit and go, which i lost, one 3.5 sit and go with a profit of 12.2 $ and my favorite tournament of 2.2$ zoom (16th place out of 2000 players) only with a profit of 14 $.

Bankroll=311.89-65.39-27-11-11-1.5+12.2+14=222.20 (22 buy in at 10 nl / 44 buy in at 5 nl).

As a conclusion, i realized that i am a clear looser at 10 nl cash. I am turning back to 5 nl (i’ll use the option from poker stars to limit my buy in at 5 nl for cash). I will play some tournament also this week on a maximum total buy in of 25 $.

Hopefully this actions will stop my loosing strike and who knows maybe i can return to 10 nl someday.

Week 13

Also this week i am on the negative side, but smaller than the last one.

I’m beginning to understand that my post flop game is far from good and although by now I’ve improved a lot my pre flop tactics i will have to work a lot on my post flop tactics in order to become profitable.

The results are -24.76$.

I also made an add on of 100$ in order to be able to keep playing 10 NL and lost some 6 $ at a few sng.

Bankroll=242.65-24.76+100-6=311.89 (31 buy in)Hours played=10 with 3k hands. Apparently this is the number of hours i am able to play and it makes no sense in dreaming about 6-7k hands and 20h of play unless i am building a more strict schedule. So i decided to play such that i can keep silver star for now and established a target of 20 vpp per day which is comfortable.

As a conclusion for these last 13 weeks with ups and downs, i have a total loss of 94$ on 40k hands with -4.4 bb/100 and a rake of 220$. Apparently i am being beaten by the rake which is not good but not really bad neither. Also tacking into account that hopefully my level has increased in this time (i really feel it) and that i started playing without any strategy, i hope that after another 40k hands i can turn the page and come back with a positive result since my skills can only go up.

Week 12

Disaster. A week like no other in loses.

I simply lost with every good hand and wasn’t able to recover with nothing. The irony is that i had a lot of good spots but i wasn’t able to get value from none.

Without any comments, the results at cash are -83.58$ and -11$ at Sunday storm which i played in order to relax from all the bad spots at cash.

Bankroll=337.23-83.58-11=242.65 $ (24 buy ins at 10 NL).

I also played some 5 NL in order to recover and i could win just a little bit there. I don’t know what i will do next week if to stay at 10 NL another 3-4 buy in or just go down the limits to 5 NL.

Week 11

Last week i was very lazy and i played only 10 h and 2900 hands.

The winnings were small: 7.83$ and 10$ as VPP points achievement.

I also lost 5.5$ at some tournaments.

Bankroll=324.94+7.83+10-5.5=337.27 (33.7 buy in at 10 NL)

The good news is that i managed to get silver status and i am able to use my FPP points to my advantage (at 2250 i will have 25 $) so i will get some rake-back.

The objectives for the next week remain unchanged and i will have to play 20 hours and close to 6-7 K hands and of course to be on profit.

Week 10

Good news for this week, I finally got out of downswing.

I continued to play 10 NL on Stars and it seems it is going good for now. The result for this week is +39,21 $.

I also made an add-on of 70 $ in order to be closer to a good bankroll at this limit.

I had a profit of 6 $ by playing some spin and go (bonus for add on) and some small loss at a 2.2 zoom tournament -5.27 $.

Now the bankroll is : 215 + 70 + 6 + 39,21 -5.27 = 324.94 $ (32,5 buy in at 10 NL)

The conclusion is that by playing more carefully and not risking much in order to mark a bigger profit, like i was doing at 5 NL, i am able to keep a good win rate. This theory would have to resist the test of time. I will see if this is the case or i am just running good for now.

Hours played: 16 (i am getting close to 20 h per week)

Hands played: 4142 a lot less hands per hour than previous (i concentrated more on quality)

BB/hour: 10.5 (this is huge and i am sure that i just had a good run for now)

The goal for the next week is to play 6-7 K hands, 20 h and of course not to lose.

Weeks 8 and 9

In week 8 i lost some money close to 10$ and on week 9 i took a break , i changed the site back to PokerStars, i made an add on of 50$ and won some money on 10 NL. Unfortunately i lost some of my hand history due to a reboot of my computer.

I also made a 28 place from 2200 players on a 3 K guarantee tournament but with a profit of only 13$.

As a conclusion, my bankroll is back to 215$ and i consider January a closing month with loses.

My decision is to play 10 NL as it seems it is more profitable for now. I will also made an add on in order to play with a 35 buy in bankroll.

My opinion is that on 5 NL what i won i payed on rake and it never seemed enough for me to win 1-2 $ in a session, that’s why i pushed harder and lost almost every time. On 10 NL a 50% of a buy in seems ok for me for the time spent on a session. I simply don’t have the patience to build a bankroll from 5 NL. The problem is mental because i feel like i’m loosing time for nothing and i push harder to win more, which brings me to bankruptcy. As long as i can i will maintain a bankroll at 10 NL with funds from my pocket and hopefully i will start to climb the ladder.

What encourages me is that i really feel that my play is getting better and i have to work more on my attitude. My preflop play is pretty good now but i would have to work more on strategies regarding squeeze and cold 4 bet. My postflop play is getting better but for now i play based on the feelings with minor guidelines regarding when to cbet or not. I definitely have to build a strategy for the play on the flop based on flop textures. Also i have to improve more turn and river play. For now the strategy on turn was mostly check raise for value or check fold with no cards and on the river bet for value or check behind.

This is what i saved from my hand history for those two weeks:

Week 7

If last week was bad this was disastrous.

I lost 71.93$ at cash and i lost in every session i played. I’m sure it’s a combination of bad run, bad play and tilt which i struggle to manage.

I had an upswing in confidence when i took a break of cash and played 2 rush tournaments of 150 players. One i lost (10.5$) and at the other i took 1’st place with a net winning of 40.51$, which saved more than half of the loss from cash.

Below are the results from cash:

So the bankroll is : 167.57-71.93-10.5+40.51=125.65 (25 buy ins) down with 8 buy ins from last week. In theory when i reach 100$ i would have to drop the limit to 2NL, but tacking in account that i started with 100 + an add on of 50, if i drop that low, i will make another add on of 100$.

The paradox is that although i lost big time, i feel that my play has improved a lot. I designed a complete preflop strategy using game theory in order to reach equilibrium play. Everything is included like starting ranges depending on position, 3bet ranges, flat ranges IP and OOP, 4 and 5 bet ranges and of course blind defense strategy. I feel that my preflop play is about 70% of what it should be. After i master the ranges i will reach for sure 95%.

My plan for the next week is to develop a theory regarding flop play IP and OOP heads up and practice my preflop strategy. I will bring down my open size to 2.5 BB from 3BB and my 3bet size to 2.2x from 3x and hopefully i will stop losing.

Week 6

This is the worst week since I’ve started. I played like shit and lost with every hand i could loose. I tilted and lost consistently.

I have to do a review on this sessions and see what i did wrong. Thinking back, my huge mistake was to try to increase the limit just to see how i manage on 10 NL, which sucked big time.

I won 2 tickets of 5$ each on rush gold prizes, so my bankroll becomes:

Bankroll=198.96-41.39+10=167.57 (33 buy ins), i lost in 1 week 18% of my bankroll which is pretty bad.

Hours=9 which is half of my plan, hopping to come back this week with a larger number.

I’ve decided to implement a stop loss of 3 buy ins (15$) per day, we will see how this affects my results.

Also i decided to stop the session if i have +7$ in it hopping to cash some profit.

I will make my sessions of 55 minutes with 15 minutes break, no exception (i played more until now almost 70 minutes on average).

I hope i come back on profit next week and i am indifferent on how low it will be.