hi john , i enjoyed reading your blog very much and have tried to implement your thinking into my play recently, but im finding the play to be very tight, always getting down to the final 4 and being the shortest stack have you any advice on this? Posted by celtic1111
Hi celtic, glad you enjoyed the blog. Good question that, and here are my thoughts on it.
First off all I'd be interested to know what levels you are playing. If they are relatively low (anything under £11 really) then you should be getting a noticable amount of early double ups, because you will be playing tighter than the weaker players you're against. If you aren't, then I would probably say that you've just set off a bit card dead, if I'm honest. (I'm assuming you're not doing things like folding overpairs etc etc). The only other thing I can think of here is your opposition. If you're playing £11s (or maybe £5.50s to an extent), there may be one or two regs knocking about, which is making it harder for you to double up early. If this is the case try table selecting a little bit (playing nights and weekends should be enough to achieve this, if you aren't already).
The second main point is that, if you do begin a game really card dead, perhaps you aren't using this to your advantage enough. If you haven't played a hand levels 1 or 2 I recomend going for some late position steals from level 3 onwards. Your early image will help you here.
The third main point, I think, is this. Getting to the bubble, even a bit shortstacked, is an achievement. If we could do this every game we would be very happy indeed. Perhaps you need to slightly adjust the way you look at your stack. Don't look at the thing at the bottom that says 4th/4, mine always says that! Look at your stack in terms of big blinds and the fold equity you have vs each of your opponents, you will most often find that you have more weapons/power whatever, than you think. When the blinds really start to rise, one or two steals (aided by your now rock-like image) will soon see you move into a position in the middle of the pack, if not 1st.
The above 3 points can, I guess, sort of be seen as safety nets, each below the other. Try keeping them in mind throughout a game. So: Can I double up through a loose goose early? Not in this one, ok no problem, it's steal time, oh, someone keeps beating me into the pot or I have absolute junk, no problem I still have plenty of fold equity, it's time to resort to my big guns, my stack and my shoving spots. This should give you confidence that you have every chance of cashing in each DYM you play.
Hope that helps a bit, sorry if it went a bit rambly towards the end. I wish you the very best of luck at the tables, long may you enjoy the DYMs!!
Wow, this is really impressive JC... I guess I could go back to the start and check but when was it you started this? It's so impressive to be £800+ from about £30 starting BR in a pretty short space of time. Posted by Lambert180
Thanks Lambert, great to hear from you again, hope all is well. Looks like my first update was 17th Sep, so about 4 months ago now. It's probably taking a little longer than I expected, tbh, but I definately think it's worth it and still a very viable way of building a bankroll. At the end of the day, there is a bit of a snowball effect when building up like this in the sense that as you move up, you get paid more C4Ps and so on and so on.
In Response to Re: ABC of DYM's, by JOHNCONNOR : Another couple of days running well and you'll have reached your target! What are your plans once you do reach it? will you still update the thread regularly with your sessions? Another little session winning 5 of 7 : ) have played 17 games today which is the most DYMs i've played for a very long time. Keep it up almost there JC!! Running total 23 out of 30. Posted by Poker_Fail
Hi PF, thanks mate, good to see you going well again too.
Not too sure what I will do when I finish this, your post has got me thinking a bit more about it. I always thought I would stop the updates completely. But now I'm thinking I might not.
My goals for this year can be split into categories I think: goals that do go hand in and with grinding DYMs and goals that don't:
On the one hand I want to be in Priority Club 3+, I want to increase my bankroll to north of 3k, and I want to have a decent shot at TSP. Going for all those 3 means grinding DYMs, happy days for me in a sense.
On the other hand, perhaps my main goal this one, I want to really progress as a player. I see my game as been at 0% (literally) of where I want it to be. I am not even in the same league as the players I look up to on here and I want to address that as much a s possible. Also I want to play the big tourneys on here, all the UKOPS, all the SPTs, give Vegas a real go etc etc. All these will be very time consuming (in the sense that all the time I'm doing these I won't really be grinding DYMs as much).
I will just have to find my own balance between all these won't I? Working on my game and Priority 3+ are the main goals I think. Knowing myself as I do, I will probably just go after the whole lot, and moderately achieve a bit of each. I know this will mean that working on my game will take the back seat and this is something I will be really keen to avoid.
Anyway, however I go about it, I will probably post occassional updates on this thread, maybe weekly or something. That will allow anyone who still wants to post on here the opportunity to, while giving a rough idea of what I've been up to for anyone who is in any way interested.
To be honest, though, I think there will still be a bit of work to be done on this challenge, I can't see it being too plain-sailing from here :-)
In Response to Re: ABC of DYM's, by JOHNCONNOR : Thanks Lambert, great to hear from you again, hope all is well. Looks like my first update was 17th Sep, so about 4 months ago now. It's probably taking a little longer than I expected, tbh, but I definately think it's worth it and still a very viable way of building a bankroll. At the end of the day, there is a bit of a snowball effect when building up like this in the sense that as you move up, you get paid more C4Ps and so on and so on. Posted by JohnConnor
Yeah I know you're profit aint enough to make a living off but obviously say an 8% ROI at £1.15s is not nearly as good as 8% at £33s, so I think obviously you started out making much less of a daily profit than you are now or than you could do with your normal BR. But yeah it is a very impressive way of building a bankroll.
You mind if I ask what levels of DYMs you normally played before starting all this? And what kind of monthly profit did you expect to get on average?
Yeah I'm doing well, decided to give HU SnGs a try, only played about 100 with an ROI of about 4% (I think) but that's took me VERY little time to play that many.
The only other thing I can think of here is your opposition. If you're playing £11s (or maybe £5.50s to an extent), there may be one or two regs knocking abou
I honestly prefer having 1 or 2 regs in each of my games (Preferably just hitch onto their sessions to keep playing with them) than playing against 5 randoms.
Played 10 so far today, won 8, try and play a few more later.
EDIT: played a small evening session, made some stupid mistakes cos i was tilting after a shocking ME exit when I was 3rd (5 outdraws in about 10 hands) 3 wins 3 losses
13 more games today, gonna self exclude for 24 hours cos I really should be doing some revisionfor a test on Friday, anyway won 9 lost 4, records coming down a bit but still going well:
43 wins of 59 games aka 72.9% (Unsustainable much)
Great results jc long may it continue.You will definitely reach your targets and having read this thread from the start it is quite inspirational what you have managed to achieve.Kudos to you and any other poker(and real life)challenges/targets you set for yourself.I raise a nice glass of Italian montipuchano red wine to toast your achievement. Posted by Any2Suited
Hey A2S, sorry it's taken a while to reply, I tried yesterday afternoon but my internet went down and it looks like my post didn't survive. Thank you for the very kind words. Unfortunately I'm not such a connoisseur of the fine wines but give me a pint of lager anytime, Cheers!
**FINAL UPDATE: £17.12 TO £1,000+ BANKROLL CHALLENGE COMPLETED SUCCESSFULLY**
Ok, so this kind of crept up on me from nowhere last night. I knew it was a decent session but I didn't realise I could complete the challenge until I had only one game left open for the session, a £33er. Session stats were:
Played 12 £11s W 8 L 4 Played 3 £22s W 2 L 1 Played 3 £33s W 3
----------------------------------------------------- Bankroll - £958.02 ----------------------------------------------------- Poker points - 4545 Valued at £72.72 ----------------------------------------------------- BANKROLL CHALLENGE END TOTAL - £1,030.74 ----------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------
Ending the challenge like this (using pending C4P) may seem slightly anti-climactic, but I am happy with doing that for two reasons. Firstly, the challenge has been successfully completed, I could easily just not play again until the end of the month to guarantee that. Secondly, I'm away on a pre-arranged holiday with my girlfriend tomorrow and won't be back until next Saturday, so it's fallen rather nicely for me.
It's taken just over 4 months by the look of it which I'm pretty pleased with to be honest. I hope it has shown that it ispossible to build a decent BR from very little playing exclusively DYMs, a point I made in the blog which Tikay emphasized upon. There were a couple of swings around the middle, particularly in the £22s, but nothing which should put anyone off, I don't think. Even using pretty aggressive BRM (20 buy-ins) I never felt in any real danger.
I have enjoyed this challenge thoroughly and was a little lost last night when I reached the target. In truth, I was slightly down, in a weird way, because I'll miss doing these updates etc. Onwards and upwards, though, I now have a little bit of a BR to play with and try other things.
What did I learn from the challenge? Well I would say that the games in general are slightly tougher than they used to be when I started playing but I hope this challenge gives some confidence that they are still very beatable. I definately think that the 'big jump' in standard comes in the £22s, in general. I think the blog would still be a valuable tool for anyone wanting to beat levels up to the £11s and that it also provides a decent basis for higher levels. I don't think I have enough success in the higher stakes to pen a blog for those higher levels but if I did, based on most recent experience, it would revolve around 3 sections: table selection, playing the specific opponent and aggression. I don't think anyone who gave some thought to these three topics and 'bolted on' solid DYM play would ever go far wrong.
**Finally, and most importantly of all, I would like to thank everyone who has gotten involved in this thread and who has followed my progress throughout this challenge. Your support has been a much bigger aid than you can imagine, and I probably wouldn't have had the self-discipline to do it with out it.
Thank you all and I wish you all the very best in your poker careers/other life goals.
Not commented before JC, but sure I speak for many, fantastically disciplined and well deserved result, many thanks for the information youve divulged and the little nuggets of advice that many people will have taken heed of.
Enjoy your holiday, great to see a well deserved and hard earned effort come to fruition.
Not commented before JC, but sure I speak for many, fantastically disciplined and well deserved result, many thanks for the information youve divulged and the little nuggets of advice that many people will have taken heed of. Enjoy your holiday, great to see a well deserved and hard earned effort come to fruition. Very well done Dave Posted by carlisle17
So many threads start on the forum where people set goals etc and it's inevitably a matter of weeks before people give up or get bored but you've stuck to this and shown fantastic ability and discipline.
hope both you and you girlfriend have a lovely holiday. enjoy spending some of that well earned money! as already mentioned a big thank you for your dym post, which got me into dym,s in the first place. and not forgetting all the help & advice you have always given to me on my own dym endevours!
I think you should take your blog down John before everyone becomes good at them! Your usually at my tables. From the middle of may im planning to make a living solely off grinding dym's and playing the main event each night. A great blog with some very good points. I notice i see you on the £11 AND £16.50s but not usually at the higher dyms. Do you feel there is less of an edge at these levels because of all the regs.
I think you should take your blog down John before everyone becomes good at them! Your usually at my tables. From the middle of may im planning to make a living solely off grinding dym's and playing the main event each night. A great blog with some very good points. I notice i see you on the £11 AND £16.50s but not usually at the higher dyms. Do you feel there is less of an edge at these levels because of all the regs. Posted by bearlyther
Hey bearlyther (nice name!),
Yeah seen quite a lot of you around (nightmare for me lol). I hope everything goes great for you in May, your graph so far is super impressive, hope it stays that way for you. To answer your question, I was only playing £11s and £16s as I hit a bit of run bad at the beginning of last month and decided to drop down a bit. There are some good regs at the higher levels obviously, but there are still plenty of recreational players as well. The £11s are probably the most reg infested games during the day at the moment it seems.
Take care mate, should be seeing plenty of you going forward,
Comments
First off all I'd be interested to know what levels you are playing. If they are relatively low (anything under £11 really) then you should be getting a noticable amount of early double ups, because you will be playing tighter than the weaker players you're against. If you aren't, then I would probably say that you've just set off a bit card dead, if I'm honest. (I'm assuming you're not doing things like folding overpairs etc etc). The only other thing I can think of here is your opposition. If you're playing £11s (or maybe £5.50s to an extent), there may be one or two regs knocking about, which is making it harder for you to double up early. If this is the case try table selecting a little bit (playing nights and weekends should be enough to achieve this, if you aren't already).
The second main point is that, if you do begin a game really card dead, perhaps you aren't using this to your advantage enough. If you haven't played a hand levels 1 or 2 I recomend going for some late position steals from level 3 onwards. Your early image will help you here.
The third main point, I think, is this. Getting to the bubble, even a bit shortstacked, is an achievement. If we could do this every game we would be very happy indeed. Perhaps you need to slightly adjust the way you look at your stack. Don't look at the thing at the bottom that says 4th/4, mine always says that! Look at your stack in terms of big blinds and the fold equity you have vs each of your opponents, you will most often find that you have more weapons/power whatever, than you think. When the blinds really start to rise, one or two steals (aided by your now rock-like image) will soon see you move into a position in the middle of the pack, if not 1st.
The above 3 points can, I guess, sort of be seen as safety nets, each below the other. Try keeping them in mind throughout a game. So: Can I double up through a loose goose early? Not in this one, ok no problem, it's steal time, oh, someone keeps beating me into the pot or I have absolute junk, no problem I still have plenty of fold equity, it's time to resort to my big guns, my stack and my shoving spots. This should give you confidence that you have every chance of cashing in each DYM you play.
Hope that helps a bit, sorry if it went a bit rambly towards the end. I wish you the very best of luck at the tables, long may you enjoy the DYMs!!
Not too sure what I will do when I finish this, your post has got me thinking a bit more about it. I always thought I would stop the updates completely. But now I'm thinking I might not.
My goals for this year can be split into categories I think: goals that do go hand in and with grinding DYMs and goals that don't:
On the one hand I want to be in Priority Club 3+, I want to increase my bankroll to north of 3k, and I want to have a decent shot at TSP. Going for all those 3 means grinding DYMs, happy days for me in a sense.
On the other hand, perhaps my main goal this one, I want to really progress as a player. I see my game as been at 0% (literally) of where I want it to be. I am not even in the same league as the players I look up to on here and I want to address that as much a s possible. Also I want to play the big tourneys on here, all the UKOPS, all the SPTs, give Vegas a real go etc etc. All these will be very time consuming (in the sense that all the time I'm doing these I won't really be grinding DYMs as much).
I will just have to find my own balance between all these won't I? Working on my game and Priority 3+ are the main goals I think. Knowing myself as I do, I will probably just go after the whole lot, and moderately achieve a bit of each. I know this will mean that working on my game will take the back seat and this is something I will be really keen to avoid.
Anyway, however I go about it, I will probably post occassional updates on this thread, maybe weekly or something. That will allow anyone who still wants to post on here the opportunity to, while giving a rough idea of what I've been up to for anyone who is in any way interested.
To be honest, though, I think there will still be a bit of work to be done on this challenge, I can't see it being too plain-sailing from here :-)
Take care mate
JC
You mind if I ask what levels of DYMs you normally played before starting all this? And what kind of monthly profit did you expect to get on average?
Yeah I'm doing well, decided to give HU SnGs a try, only played about 100 with an ROI of about 4% (I think) but that's took me VERY little time to play that many.
Played 10 so far today, won 8, try and play a few more later.
EDIT: played a small evening session, made some stupid mistakes cos i was tilting after a shocking ME exit when I was 3rd (5 outdraws in about 10 hands) 3 wins 3 losses
Running total: 34 out of 46
43 wins of 59 games aka 72.9% (Unsustainable much)
Played 3 £11s W 1 L 2
Played 1 £16.50 W 1
Played 2 £22s W 1 L 1
Bankroll - £803.02
Played 12 £11s W 7 L 5
Played 1 £16.50 W 1
Played 2 £22s W 1 L 1
Played 1 £33 W 1
Bankroll - £846.52
Poker points - 4,210
Small losing hour from yesterday:
Played 3 £11s W 1 L 2
Played 1 £16.50 L 1
Played 1 £22 W 1
Bankroll - £835.02
Ok, so this kind of crept up on me from nowhere last night. I knew it was a decent session but I didn't realise I could complete the challenge until I had only one game left open for the session, a £33er. Session stats were:
Played 12 £11s W 8 L 4
Played 3 £22s W 2 L 1
Played 3 £33s W 3
-----------------------------------------------------
Bankroll - £958.02
-----------------------------------------------------
Poker points - 4545 Valued at £72.72
-----------------------------------------------------
BANKROLL CHALLENGE END TOTAL - £1,030.74
-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
Ending the challenge like this (using pending C4P) may seem slightly anti-climactic, but I am happy with doing that for two reasons. Firstly, the challenge has been successfully completed, I could easily just not play again until the end of the month to guarantee that. Secondly, I'm away on a pre-arranged holiday with my girlfriend tomorrow and won't be back until next Saturday, so it's fallen rather nicely for me.
It's taken just over 4 months by the look of it which I'm pretty pleased with to be honest. I hope it has shown that it ispossible to build a decent BR from very little playing exclusively DYMs, a point I made in the blog which Tikay emphasized upon. There were a couple of swings around the middle, particularly in the £22s, but nothing which should put anyone off, I don't think. Even using pretty aggressive BRM (20 buy-ins) I never felt in any real danger.
I have enjoyed this challenge thoroughly and was a little lost last night when I reached the target. In truth, I was slightly down, in a weird way, because I'll miss doing these updates etc. Onwards and upwards, though, I now have a little bit of a BR to play with and try other things.
What did I learn from the challenge? Well I would say that the games in general are slightly tougher than they used to be when I started playing but I hope this challenge gives some confidence that they are still very beatable. I definately think that the 'big jump' in standard comes in the £22s, in general. I think the blog would still be a valuable tool for anyone wanting to beat levels up to the £11s and that it also provides a decent basis for higher levels. I don't think I have enough success in the higher stakes to pen a blog for those higher levels but if I did, based on most recent experience, it would revolve around 3 sections: table selection, playing the specific opponent and aggression. I don't think anyone who gave some thought to these three topics and 'bolted on' solid DYM play would ever go far wrong.
**Finally, and most importantly of all, I would like to thank everyone who has gotten involved in this thread and who has followed my progress throughout this challenge. Your support has been a much bigger aid than you can imagine, and I probably wouldn't have had the self-discipline to do it with out it.
Thank you all and I wish you all the very best in your poker careers/other life goals.
Cheers
JC
Enjoy your holiday, great to see a well deserved and hard earned effort come to fruition.
Very well done
Dave
So many threads start on the forum where people set goals etc and it's inevitably a matter of weeks before people give up or get bored but you've stuck to this and shown fantastic ability and discipline.
Now just crack them cash tables
hope both you and you girlfriend have a lovely holiday.
enjoy spending some of that well earned money!
as already mentioned a big thank you for your dym post,
which got me into dym,s in the first place.
and not forgetting all the help & advice you have always
given to me on my own dym endevours!
best wishes jc on all your future poker projects.
devon
Another thread reaches it's target )
My target of £900 took 6 months starting at NL4 and playing STT/DYM/MTT/CASH
jack of all trades..................
all good baby )
run golden
Pat
Yeah seen quite a lot of you around (nightmare for me lol). I hope everything goes great for you in May, your graph so far is super impressive, hope it stays that way for you. To answer your question, I was only playing £11s and £16s as I hit a bit of run bad at the beginning of last month and decided to drop down a bit. There are some good regs at the higher levels obviously, but there are still plenty of recreational players as well. The £11s are probably the most reg infested games during the day at the moment it seems.
Take care mate, should be seeing plenty of you going forward,
JC