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3rd Challenge's the Charm - Road to 200NL
loosecamel
Member Posts: 152
in Poker Chat
Hello one and all,
First of all, I apologise for spamming the forum with yet another one of my threads. But, hopefully, this one will be the last. For those who don't know me I am an average spew monkey who dabbles in tournies and cash games and the long and short is I want to get better.
The last couple months have been pretty good to me (insert fishonaheater.jpg) and have been shot taking recently, dipping my toes into 100nl cash. As a poker fanboy who has railed mid-stakes for a long time it is A LOT of fun playing up there with some very good players. The only issue is at times I feel a little out my depth in some spots, and losing a couple buy-ins up there feels pretty sour when it's the equivalent of 20 buy-ins at 20nl. I feel like I can hold my own fairly well at 50nl and have been playing a mix of 20/30/50nl with some decent results, albeit a fairly small time-frame sample.
Which brings me to my one true goal. To one day reach 200NL. This is obviously a tall order for someone who only 6 months ago was mass-tabling 4nl. I feel this is a relatively achievable with good BRM, solid studying habits and limiting my 5b all-ins with A3s BvB...
I wanted to start a new thread as I found previously it really motivated me to stick to positive routines/studying habits and overall I think it's quite fun sharing my experiences/punts and I thought why not let anyone else enjoy the ride if they are so inclined. I'm a big fan of aggressive BRM so that won't really change but what I wanted to include was a target number of buy-ins to win at each stake level before moving up. The one problem is there are rarely enough tables at any one stake to do it strictly stake by stake so I've decided to amalgamate two stakes at a time to create a proxy-stake, eg 20/30nl = 25nl etc. Outlined below are my goals before moving up each stake:
10/20NL (15NL) - Move up = 20 Buy-ins = £300 - Move down = quit poker lol
20/30NL (25NL) - Move up = 20 Buy-ins = £500 - Move down = 10 Buy-ins = £250
30/50NL (40NL) - Move up = 20 Buy-ins = £800 - Move down = 10 Buy-ins = £400
50/100NL (75NL) - Move up = 20 Buy-ins = £1500 - Move down = 10 Buy-ins = £750
100/200NL (150NL) = Achievement unlocked
I'll be starting at 20/30NL and in effect need to win £500 pre rakeback before I move up to 30/50NL, and only move down once i lose £400 or more at that stake level or go up once I win another £800 etc etc. For the most part I want to stick to 6 tables, but will more than likely 8 table often too, especially If I have a couple tournies on the side. I can play up to 10/12 and can get away with it at 20nl but my decision making is definitely affected and that's not something I want to bring along with me as I move up to 50nl+. I'm not going to set any time related goals, but it would be nice to be playing 50/100NL again by Christmas.
For the past few weeks I've done 100% and 0% studying and that's something I want to shift to more of a 50/50 or 60/40 balance. Last few months I've made a lot of progress in preflop play and positional awareness, but still need work on postflop so I've finally managed to download Equilab (absolute ball-ache to get for a Mac user) to help with some equity calculations when it comes to river decisions etc. For the time being I want to spend some time on common situations that I found at 50/100nl like sb vs btn 3bp turn/river situations.
Every day I want to:
- Run 10 Equilab calcs
- Go through and review top 5 winning and top 5 losing pots after every session
I'll still be playing the occasional tourny, namely the main's and mega stack and sometimes the sheriff and major when i'm feeling extra frisky, but I will be keeping that completely seperate to this challenge so won't be mentioning results from those here.
Like previous challenge threads you can expect graphs and fun hands to be posted whenever I update this.
Good luck at the tables
LooseCamel
p.s if anyone catches me playing stakes outside the limits of this challenge, i will freeroll you into the main the next day
First of all, I apologise for spamming the forum with yet another one of my threads. But, hopefully, this one will be the last. For those who don't know me I am an average spew monkey who dabbles in tournies and cash games and the long and short is I want to get better.
The last couple months have been pretty good to me (insert fishonaheater.jpg) and have been shot taking recently, dipping my toes into 100nl cash. As a poker fanboy who has railed mid-stakes for a long time it is A LOT of fun playing up there with some very good players. The only issue is at times I feel a little out my depth in some spots, and losing a couple buy-ins up there feels pretty sour when it's the equivalent of 20 buy-ins at 20nl. I feel like I can hold my own fairly well at 50nl and have been playing a mix of 20/30/50nl with some decent results, albeit a fairly small time-frame sample.
Which brings me to my one true goal. To one day reach 200NL. This is obviously a tall order for someone who only 6 months ago was mass-tabling 4nl. I feel this is a relatively achievable with good BRM, solid studying habits and limiting my 5b all-ins with A3s BvB...
I wanted to start a new thread as I found previously it really motivated me to stick to positive routines/studying habits and overall I think it's quite fun sharing my experiences/punts and I thought why not let anyone else enjoy the ride if they are so inclined. I'm a big fan of aggressive BRM so that won't really change but what I wanted to include was a target number of buy-ins to win at each stake level before moving up. The one problem is there are rarely enough tables at any one stake to do it strictly stake by stake so I've decided to amalgamate two stakes at a time to create a proxy-stake, eg 20/30nl = 25nl etc. Outlined below are my goals before moving up each stake:
10/20NL (15NL) - Move up = 20 Buy-ins = £300 - Move down = quit poker lol
20/30NL (25NL) - Move up = 20 Buy-ins = £500 - Move down = 10 Buy-ins = £250
30/50NL (40NL) - Move up = 20 Buy-ins = £800 - Move down = 10 Buy-ins = £400
50/100NL (75NL) - Move up = 20 Buy-ins = £1500 - Move down = 10 Buy-ins = £750
100/200NL (150NL) = Achievement unlocked
I'll be starting at 20/30NL and in effect need to win £500 pre rakeback before I move up to 30/50NL, and only move down once i lose £400 or more at that stake level or go up once I win another £800 etc etc. For the most part I want to stick to 6 tables, but will more than likely 8 table often too, especially If I have a couple tournies on the side. I can play up to 10/12 and can get away with it at 20nl but my decision making is definitely affected and that's not something I want to bring along with me as I move up to 50nl+. I'm not going to set any time related goals, but it would be nice to be playing 50/100NL again by Christmas.
For the past few weeks I've done 100% and 0% studying and that's something I want to shift to more of a 50/50 or 60/40 balance. Last few months I've made a lot of progress in preflop play and positional awareness, but still need work on postflop so I've finally managed to download Equilab (absolute ball-ache to get for a Mac user) to help with some equity calculations when it comes to river decisions etc. For the time being I want to spend some time on common situations that I found at 50/100nl like sb vs btn 3bp turn/river situations.
Every day I want to:
- Run 10 Equilab calcs
- Go through and review top 5 winning and top 5 losing pots after every session
I'll still be playing the occasional tourny, namely the main's and mega stack and sometimes the sheriff and major when i'm feeling extra frisky, but I will be keeping that completely seperate to this challenge so won't be mentioning results from those here.
Like previous challenge threads you can expect graphs and fun hands to be posted whenever I update this.
Good luck at the tables
LooseCamel
p.s if anyone catches me playing stakes outside the limits of this challenge, i will freeroll you into the main the next day
Comments
I am a lot nittier than you so expect to see me on the 10/20 tables next year at the earliest by which time time you will be long gone!!
Will follow with interest
GL with this Mr Camel.
Much as it pains me to praise an opponent, your game seems to have improved a lot over recent months (you're due a rarely administered colour tag upgrade!) so given your current trajectory I'm confident of a successful outcome
Am interested to see how the study goes and how it works out
I'm actually thinking about doing another challenge myself. The way you have summed up the reasons for doing so, it seems that we are very similar, as I feel the exact same as you.
See you at the tables.
Thank you Tikay! Ty Drud, I look forward to the next time I take your bounty Thank you Dues, very bold of you to do so
Week can be summarised by one word: meh. Far more losing sessions than winning, but overall only £77/3 buy-ins down. Feels kind of like a win considering I've been on the receiving end of literally 6 KK vs AA - only consolation is I binked a K on one of them
Most of these sessions were 1/2 hours long with the exception of session 10 where I had a 7 hour grind while listening to the soft whispers of Dues and Reg and all the while running great with great tables and experiencing a delightful 11 buy-in upswing, bringing me out of the miserable prospect of moving down in stakes after 2 days. On the whole, the week has been a bit frustrating and certainly not playing my best with the addition of a lot of boards not working in my favour. Had a fairly positive mindset at the start but that unfortunately dwindled by the end.
Thanks to @The--Don, I've picked up 'The Mental Game of Poker' and working my way through it. A lot of interesting insights that I think will certainly add to my mental game, as I have mentioned in previous threads I am a mega-mental-fish but progress is certainly being made. One thing that I've taken from it is to rate each session by: A) Whether you played your A, B or C game; (B) On a scale of 1-10 how well was your emotion control; (C) On a scale of 1-10 how well could you focus throughout the session? For the future I'll see how I can incorporate these into the graphs to see how they interact with results or whether they do at all.
- Run 10 Equilab calcs [2/6]
- Go through and review top 5 winning and top 5 losing pots after every session [6/6]
Have gone through all major hands every session but haven't done quite as many calcs as I had wanted. It's a lot of fun playing around with equilab, the results are obviously very dependent on assigning an accurate range to villains so if anything it's improving my range assignment in many spots.
That's all for now. I'll post some horribly played hands in the post below for your enjoyment and my embarrassment.
GL at the tables
LC
Definition of levelled. Hate turn sizing, should bet big and fold to raise...
Should raise flop instead, but it's w/e. Still like it, shame people don't have a fold button.
Most interesting spot of them all by far. I'll have a bash at giving an analysis of this one.
Can go either way on the flop, but vs UTG 3b calling range I prefer c-bet as UTG calling range is gonna have less 67s,78s,89s than say a CO calling range would. V will still have a lot of overpairs, but we have all the premiums so we can put a lot of pressure on 1010-QQ by three barrelling on blank turn and rivers.
Interesting lead by V on turn, still think we should call getting 6/1 to bink an Q/A and pray for a x/x river situation. V will definitely have some 8's here, some two pairs, occasional sets and I suppose some overpairs.
River is interesting. We have so little 10's in our range, some 1010 but basically never 910s or 10Js or at least at a very small frequency. I know villain knows this, so he can put a ton of pressure as he will have all the 910s,10Js and 1010. But I also think given his line he has a ton of other stuff that can apply a lot of pressure on my limited nutted hands. I plugged this into equilab to see how many bluffs he would need for us to be able to call assuming he has all combos of 910s, 10Js and 1010.
Turns out, he would need a s**t load. And to call £15 to win effectively £21, we need 70% equity (if I've done that right?) and there simply isn't even enough hands he can have to get anywhere near that. Even by adding 22-JJ, all 56s+, QJs+ etc only brings us to around 38%. So yeah. Bad call. Baaaad call.
Make sure to tune in for next weeks edition of LooseCamel giving money away.
p.s if anyone in any hands wants names hidden just pm me and i'll post hands the long way next time
Less volume this week as I was away last weekend, but decent results. Mainly played short sessions apart from yesterday where I stuck out a 2 and 3 hour session. Currently up just shy of 4 buy-ins. Better week than last, but still under pace to what I had expected from this challenge. It's a shame you can't download hh's on sky as I would love to see an all-in EV line to make myself feel better. But no one likes a debbie downer so I shall keep my spirits high. For now.
Finished the Mental Game of Poker and it's earned a permanent place on the desk for quick and easy access. I would recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it.
- Run 10 Equilab calcs [1/4]
- Go through and review top 5 winning and top 5 losing pots after every session [4/4]
Reviewing hand histories is going well, but using equilab much less still which i need to fix. My free trial for Parallels ran out so I need to find a free windows emulator - all suggestions very much welcome.
Been working on IP flop cbetting this week and have identified a number of spots where I hadn't got quite the right sizing - so hopefully going forward I'll be able to identify these spots in game.
As per, HH's incoming.
GL at the tables
LC
Probable spew, but think it folds out all 1010-QQ. Obv can go bigger on flop but wanted to overbet turn soooo
Definite spew. *slaps wrist*. x/f turn smh
This is the worst played one of them all, hate this so much. Such a fishy leak, b/f river Camellll uhhhhggg
Purposefully didn't iso pre, one particular villain was going crazy with any two postflop. But my god, I have to shove turn. Agazillion disaster rivers...
Hero-Mariah Carey.mp4
Fav bluff of the week. Not ideal hand to do it with, at least we have 1 club
Final one I promise. Awkward SPR by river, betting to get calls from pretty much KQ exactly. Super exploitable if villain bluffs river but I'm praying it wasn't. Only one combo of A6s left is a little scary as he could have multiple combos of K10 and I unblock those. Villain shouldn't be shoving QJ but I think he easily could be. Equilab says if he has A6dd, JJ, 66, QJ he needs 4 combos of K10 as bluffs for me to call. If no QJ then only need 2 combos. Unsure, but when in doubt trust everyone underbluffs. I think it's wp still, so I gave myself a tap on the back for newly developed discipline.
Tune in for next week. Gonna be studying more tournies for the upcoming UKOPS so may spend less time on cash, but who knows.
GLGL
LC
Hand 1 your flop bet sizing is pretty funky to jam the turn, very nice.
Hand 2 agree on x folding turn.
Hand 3 Doubt you can bet fold the river - but for sure you should be betting the river.
Hand 4 JJ really tough hand to see a flop multi-way, 3 bet it!
Last hand with AQ seems well played.
Gl with the tournaments - all you have to do is be the last player standing