It's about coming up and staying on top

[tom]

Like others this will be my thread to kind of track my poker progress or lack of, and also post random stuff.

A boring intro: I'm 22 now, about to graduate w/ a Mechanical Engineering degree in December. I deposited $150 probably 3.5 years ago and started playing $5 sngs. I was the definition of a breakeven player, getting some wins but never making any money. Had the same amount for a while, took a mini break for school and stuff, came back to playing and ended up losing about $50, leaving me w/ ~$120. That inspired me to take a real break and focus on school (sort of) and girlies.
After around 1.5 year break of little to no poker I decided to get back into poker and start cash games. I started with $10NL full ring and felt good, got my $120 up to $220. Then I got inspired to learn 6max...Instant profits made me feel a little too confident...was up to $250 and literally just pissed away all of it playing 6max 10NL, multi-tabling... Some were bad beats, etc, but I was mostly just stupid. I kept telling myself it was variance since I had been a winner before and had a lot of random winning sessions (over a real small sample size), but crap my BR just kept dwindling. I basically just gambled the last $40 away cause I was still playing $10 and was playing so paranoid I just had no chance of making sound decisions...

Once I hit $0 in my pokerstars account I said crap, time to restart, do this the right way. I reloaded $100 to start with (I think thats all they would let me direct deposit from my checking account) and told myself I was going to put in another $50($150 total) to comfortably play 5NL, but I was doing well finally. Making some folds, not trying to outplay idiots in stupid spots, and mostly consistently making money. June I got up ~20, then down 40 (to ~75) over 4800 hands, then July was a real good month for me. Some things clicked and helped me win...



so that month made me happy, and now I'm getting ready to move up to $10NL, and wanted to chronicle how that goes. I'm hovering around $210 right now over 21k hands and want to move up to 10NL when my BR reaches $250. I've also been playing some random $1 sngs and a few $2 heads up SNGS mostly for shits and giggles.

Hopefully this thread will kind of discuss what I'm learning etc. I'm currently reading and getting into the real meaty part of Professional No-Limit Hold Em by Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta, and Ed Miller. I just got through a section on Stack to Pot ratios that was interesting, still not sure exactly how to add it directly to my game, but I'm planning on concentrating on it the next few times I sit down and also in hands posted in the forums.

Before poker, there is frisbee golf to be played, and crap to be put in boxes...moving to a different apartment in the next few days. And I might need a catchy sign out phrase, I haven't decided...

[CBAT]

Nice work on the first month.

[tom]

so the last 5 days or so I've not had a lot of time for poker, played ~2500 hands and lost a few buy ins on some mediocre stuff that looking back if I would have used my head and mostly trusted my read a little more and not so keen on catching people's bluffs(5NLers don't bluff with AI bets flop turn or river...need to put that on a post-it........)

Anyways, I finally settled down and got my roll sitting at $226, gonna 4 table 10NL for a bit today and see how it goes.

Here's a few hands from 5NL I was in the middle of and became unsure:

Hand1:
Vil running ~49/10 over 170 hands, I mostly hated the river but all streets are nice to hear about

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (8 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

saw flop|saw showdown

SB ($4.33)
BB ($7.87)
Hero ($5.93)
UTG+1 ($10.20)
MP1 ($5.83)
MP2 ($9.29)
CO ($17.30)
Button ($5.90)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with J, J.
Hero raises to $0.2, 2 folds, MP2 calls $0.20, 4 folds.

Flop: ($0.47) 5, 9, T (2 players)
Hero bets $0.4, MP2 calls $0.40.

Turn: ($1.27) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.9, MP2 calls $0.90.

River: ($3.07) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.5, MP2 raises to $3.3, Hero calls $1.80.

Final Pot: $9.67

Results in white below:
Hero has Jd Jc (two pair, jacks and nines).
MP2 has Ts As (two pair, tens and nines).
Outcome: Hero wins $9.67.



Hand 2:
Villain was unknown, not been there for very long. This was just awkward for me, I threw it out in IRC and they seemed to like it, but I'm just posting it again cause it was weird.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (8 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

saw flop|saw showdown

MP1 ($1.81)
MP2 ($7.45)
CO ($3.60)
Button ($10.75)
SB ($9.55)
Hero ($5.68)
UTG ($4.77)
UTG+1 ($10)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, K. UTG+1 posts a blind of $0.05.
1 fold, UTG+1 (poster) checks, MP1 calls $0.05, 1 fold, CO raises to $0.1, 2 folds, Hero raises to $0.5, UTG+1 folds, MP1 folds, CO calls $0.40.

Flop: ($1.12) 3, 3, 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks.

Turn: ($1.12) J (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks.

River: ($1.12) 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks.

Final Pot: $1.12

Results in white below:
Hero has As Kc (three of a kind, threes).
CO doesn't show.
Outcome: Hero wins $1.12.