Welcome to microlevels blog n. 78294.

First things first. The most important disclaimer: english isn't my first language, so please try to ignore the grammar/spelling atrocities.

Now to the blog itself.

Some little info about myself
29 years old, Italian, serving in the Army.
No kids and no long-term engagement, because friends with benefits >>> girlfriends and I'm not much into new age garbage like procreation or making something serious out of my life. Perish the thought.
This means I can grind poker when and how long I damn well please.

Poker background
Definitely a recreational player.
I started playing some home games with a bunch of friends 3-4 years ago. Occasional stuff, maybe one game per month.
Then a couple years ago I deposited 50 euros on Full Tilt, but didn't accomplish much. I just played a bit of everything with absolutely no bankroll management, managed to make it to 100, then down to 60 and I lost interest. Full Tilt obviously doesn't exist anymore in Italy.

This year I decided to try again on GDPoker (ongame.it) and deposited 30 euros.
I'm not a rich person, but I could easily deposit some 500 euros.
Not a life-changing sum, but throwing it away doesn't make any sense whatsoever, so I decided to start from the microlevels.
January and February I barely played at all, and in March I decided to actually start putting some effort into this game.
I was prepared to lose the first 30 euros to experiment a bit, with no regard to bankroll management.
Goal: getting a brief overview on the first levels and different kind of games (FR, 6-max, MTT sngs and standard sngs).

So I played some short sessions up to 50NL and even some 150 hands on 100NL.
Bankroll up to 150 and I deciced I actually want to make something out of this game, wich leads to the first step.


The first step

6-max cashgame.
Playing 30k hands at 5NL. No more, no less. If I'm winning at that point, move to 10NL.
If I'm not winning, play 10k more.

Bankroll management is not an issue.
It's probably a mix of my military background and my passion for mmorpgs.
Hard 'work' (calling it work seems silly - I love playing this game) doesn't scare me.
Beating increasingly difficult levels to climb the ladder doesn't scare me.
I find the mere thought of trying to beat level 4 when I fail to beat level 1 utterly absurd.

So fear not, dear reader. You are not following the amazing adventures of another Slevin.


Long term goals

Well, there is none.
I don't have the arrogance to claim "I wanna drop my job and live on poker". Why would I do it? I love my job. It's the fucking cavalry.
Or "I wanna beat 600NL in a year".
For my first goal, see above.
Medium-term, let's say I'd be happy to be playing 50NL by the end of this year.
Totally out of my reach? Too over-conservative? Frankly, I have no idea.



Current situation

Bankroll around 190 euros.
Played the first 16k hands of step 1.
I'm a slight loser at this point (-0.65 BB/100). More on this later.
But Shizu, you said you were at 150 euros when you started playing 'seriously'. How can you be at 190 if you are losing at 5NL?
Well, I'm running well on a very small sample of sngs (5 euros) and 27-max MTT (4 euros), with a ROI around 60%.


Why am I still losing after 16k hands ot the fishiest level?
First, I am a noob.
Second, I already experienced my first big downswing.
Irrelevant when compared to some horror stories I've read about losing streaks of 50/100k hands, but 3k hands of running kings into aces when my entire poker career consists of 9k hands are...totally not cool.



At least 3 or 4 of those hands are me not giving credit when some passivefish suddenly increased aggression, but most are coolers or total suckouts.
Btw, I'm not playing with 60bb anymore. I sit with the full buy-in.

This little tangent about my first bad streak leads to the next part.


Am I prepared for the inevitable losing streaks?

Yes, I am prepared. There is absolutely no doubt about it.
I'm not saying this because a noob losing streak of 3k hands didn't affect my game or my will to play it.

I'm saying this because I experienced a -REAL- bad swing of variance in real life.
Summer 2008, I fucked my right elbow pretty badly in a horse accident.
NCO selection I already won? 89 winners out of 17k candidates? Forget it.
Three surgeries and 20 months of re-hab.
Office duty because I can't do anything operative anymore. I still love my job, btw.
And a bunch of issues for the rest of my life.

Maybe a bit too dramatic, but yeah. Losing some poker sessions is nothing.


Get to the point already

How am I running lately?
Running ok, I guess.



As you can see, I have set myself the goal to play 1k hands/day.
When not possible, at least 5k/week, multi-tabling no more than 4 tables.



The purpose of this blog

Improving my game obviously. I've always been a strong supporter of after-action report in videogames as a fantastic way to improve.
Same concept applies on poker,

This is just an intro, but I'll start posting hands and asking for advice.

I still don't know how often I will update this blog.
Probably not daily, but I intend to keep it pretty active.