From 2NL to xNL (ring 6max)

Hi there,

I've never been sort of a blog type guy, however... I must say I got inspired by some of the success stories I found reading the threads on this forum and decided to give it a go
I hope this will keep me focused and at the same time be a way to discipline myself. Also, being public, I hope to be able to get some feedback on what I may do right or wrong along the way.

To keep this first post short and focused, I'll simply state the objectives I'm proposing to. On a later post I'll talk a little more about myself and my poker experience.

Main Goal: see how many levels I can climb from 2NL up on 6max ring games
Sub-objectives: to keep things down to earth, I'm not going to focus on a specific goal such as 50NL or 200NL. Each new sub-objective will be set along the way, as I hopefuly manage to overcome each previous level.
Poker site: Pokerstars for no reason other than it's where I have an account

Initial bankroll: $33.52
Total days so far: 17
Current bankroll: $77.64

Bankroll management rules: 25 buy-ins to climb to the next level. Will go down a level if I go 5 buy-ins negative from the requirement.

This being said, I'm ready to state the...

Sub-objective 1:

- Grind my way from 2NL to 5NL
- According to the bankroll management rules, I need $125 so I'm $47.36 short of my goal

Below is a graph of where I stand so far.
This has been done while multi-tabling 2 to 4 tables (mostly 4). As I also expect to improve my skills as I go, I will probably subtract some tables at times, but will avoid playing on more than 4 as I do not aim to play like a bot.

Ugh... can't post image tags while not having at least 10 posts so, if you're interested, you'll have to copy&paste the following link to a browser. Sorry:
img7.imageshack.us/img7/2954/winrate1.jpg

Best regards and will update soon.

edit: minor formating and bolds

Ok, just a brief update:

Current Bankroll: $90.67
Needed to fulfill 1st goal and move up: $34.33

This also means I'm making new highs and finaly recovered from the $17 downswing last Sunday.
That, by the way, was due to some moronic very LAG play and me refusing to leave the tables where I was "loosing" in the first place.
I make no excuses for variance, bad beats or whatelse, just plain bad poker.
Fortunately, I managed to put myself together and have been playing decently since.

I also leave you with what has been my very brief poker experience.
I've been playing for something like 3 months and have mostly been experimenting with the various types of games (FR, 6max, SnGs, DoNs, ...). I knew I had to specialize sooner or later so, here I am at ring 6max games. Don't get me wrong, in these 3 months I've done a lot of reading, saw some training videos, reviewed my sessions and done some thinking about the game. But still, what I've been learning in theory I still lack in experience.
Also, I am used to accomplish what i propose myself to, so I guess I'm not used to being a loser at anything at all.
This is probably a good thing as my mindset is positive and even though I haven't set a ceiling for my goals, I'm pretty certain I'll be able to at least move up some levels and keep learning from each obstacle that I face in the way.

Just to finish this post, I just want to remark that right now I don't table select at all. This meaning I could probably be more profitable and reach my goals faster but, sooner or later I'd have to face better players so I play a random table even if it's all regs. I also kind of enjoy playing regs for fun and profit even though sometimes they bite back

See you soon.

Cheers,

as I've just crossed the 10K hands barrier, although statisticaly not being a big sample, it seems as a good opportunity to evaluate some data about my play.
As I am a big proponent of the basics as a foundation of any great player, I am going to take a brief look at my Positional Statistics.
I must remark that I've also been adjusting my play throughout this 10K sample but I'd expect that shift in gears to even out thus not being overly significant (even on a small sample as this one). I'll also try to read the data without much prejudice and try to be as unbiased as I can.
I'd also be glad if someone more experienced than me can put me in my place if I come to any inadequate conclusions. Errare humanum est, so beat me if you have to.

Ok, the fact that I still don't have 10 posts on the forum is crap because I can't post images so, I'm only leaving the link to the stats. When I reach the 10th post I'll edit this posts to make it more readable.
I'll also only post some of the results from my analysis. I'm mostly puting my game in the open showing some of these results so I'd also like to believe (even if only to fool myself) that I'm keeping a little edge to myself. Also, most of you will probably just find this boring as hell so.. thats probably an even nicer reason to avoid flooding this post with more data.

Positional Statistics
img689.imageshack.us/img689/2264/postats.jpg (for now you need to copy&paste it to a browser to see the picture)

Good Stuff:

- VPIP is greatest on the button with 29.81%. This is a good thing as I am being positionaly aware relative to my hand range in other positions.
I am also profiting from that as can be seen from the "Amount Won" on the Button representing 32.3% of all the profit I've taken from all positions.

- VPIP is relatively low on the BB where I'm only marginaly a loser so I'm not staying too attached to the blinds and folding to pre-flop raises.
At the moment I don't think defending the blinds at this level (2NL) is advisable.

- I also ran a simulation to see if I was running positive in all pre-flop cold call to raises (from any position) and in fact I am.
From 2108 hands played on the BB, 207 were cold-called amounting to $11.25 in profit. This mostly means I'm not calling raised with all kind of crap.

Bad Stuff:

- What the hell am I doing with a VPIP of 47.64 on the SB? . Somehow I'm still running positive but I seriously need to tighten up here.
I was also surprised to observe that simulating the results I'd have got if I only played PPs, AK/AQ (any suit), the profit would rise from $8.61 to $25.10 BUT I'd have to discount 0.01 from approximately 1900 hands I'd have folded on the SB (which would amount to $19). Subtracting this would give ~+$6.10 which isn't very far from what I have at the moment. Either way, the sample is, as I have already mentioned, very small so I'll better keep an eye on this.

- My UTG stats are crap. Again, I'm being profitable by a very small margin and am playing 23.3% of the hands. Doing a similar thought experiment playing with the filters gives me the results I expected to see. Playing PPs and AK/AQ (any suit) would improve the profitability by 373% and tightening to 77+, AK/AQ by 396%. Clearly my game will have to change while playing OOP.

- I'm mostly making bad calls calling raises on the BB, amounting to -$11.10. Tightening up the range didn't seem to help, even calling only with only KK+. So, calling raises on the BB seems to be a big pooh pooh.

Ok, I'll stop here as this is post is already long enough and probably just plain boring to anyone but myself...

have fun at the tables

Ok, what is the number one lesson you see all the time at any book/video/tutorial, for playing 6max NL ring games?

NO LIMPING!

I've read it a thousand times. You get to extract more value on your made hands, you clear the field of players, disguise your hand better, blah blah...
So, why do I have a VPIP 4x larger than my Pre-flop raise? Beats me.

I don't have much time at the moment to post the hard data, but if you take my word on it, this are the numbers I have for my 10K sample:
- I'd have nearly 50% more profit if I'd played only my raised Pre-flop cards (33% of that profit) and had not limped any hands but Pocket Pairs (the other 17%). Of course this would mean either I'd had to tighten my game A LOT (I'd nearly chop my hand range in half), or I'd have to raise a lot more hands (with an unpredictable outcome).

Now, from my numbers, it's still profitable to limp TT- Pocket Pairs while set mining. This would perhaps make my hand range somewhat predictable but, at 2NL most people just don't observe your play anyway. It's probably something I'll have to change in the future but for now I'm still open minded on this one...

Either way, with the exception above for low pairs, NO MORE LIMPING for the next 10K hands. Period.

Seems like a good honest thread you have going here. Keep posting and good luck!

Originally Posted by courtiebee

Seems like a good honest thread you have going here. Keep posting and good luck!

Thanks for that. Honest is good and nobody ever learns anything unless confronted with the cold, sometimes brutal truth

Now, for a little cooler, last week I had been running good with 7 positive sessions in a row.
Last night, I made a few changes in my game to reflect the thoughts of my previous posts and the game suffered a little.
I'm not really worried at the moment because this usualy happens when I deviate from my confort zone. Not limping pre-flop requires a shift in perspective and some changes in my post-flop game too.
Looking back, I would have actually had a good session if not for making 2 awful calls to all-in reraises while deep stacked and 1 where I reraised all-in with a set on a paired board. This has thrown my bankrool from the $93 high back to $85.28. This are situations where I rarely call unless I have the absolute nuts but I tilted a little while adjusting to my new game and guess i turned into an aggro monkey post-flop.

Ok, in a nutshell:

Current Bankroll: $85.28

Evolution graph: img691.imageshack.us/img691/7659/winrate3.jpg

Small session last night. Was up about 1 BI and had already checked the "sit out next blind" on the last standing table, when I was dealt Kings UTG:

Button (Villain): $1.19
SB: $0.95
BB: $2.56
UTG (Hero): $4.65
MP: $2.16

SB, BB posts blinds
Dealt to Hero [Kd Kh]

Hero raises to $0.08, MP folds
Villain raises to $0.16, SB and BB folds

I don't like to see flops with Kings, Villains range is JJ, QQ, AA, AK (unlikely) and AQ and is short stacked so I go all-in while I'm ahead of his range (~67%), happy to just take the pot before an Ace comes along or forcing him to make a mistake calling.

Hero raises to $4.65 and is all-in
Villain calls $1.03 and is all-in

*** SHOW DOWN ***

Hero shows [Kd Kh]
Villain shows [Js Jh]

*** BOARD *** [Qh 8s Qc Jd 2s]

Villain collects $2.31 from pot with full house, Jacks full of Queens

I don't think it was a bad play to stick it all-in PF on a 4-bet but it just sucks as a last hand for the night...

yeah easy shove pf, nh.

I haven't been posting because I've been more busy lately.
Also, the few time I had to play this weekend, I ended up losing 1/3 of my bankroll
In a nutshell, losing stacks with a full house to a 4-kind, another stack with nut flush to a straight flush, 3-kind kings to full house and so on.
I also believe I'm being too agressive post-flop without the absolute nuts so that may be part of the reason for the downswing. More than that, I really need to know when to stop when things just don't go right.
Let's see if the future is brighter than last weekend.