Havn't taken shots for a very long time....but it was generally just seeing a good game that was higher than my present and taking a seat.

i usually play 6 tables, and dont play better if i play less tables.

so if i wanna shot take 50nl i try to find 6 good tables of 50nl. if i dont find 6 i fill my screen up with 20nl tables until its full. i always look out for other 50nl tables, and switch them whenever i find one.

Honestly if your moving up 6 may be too many I tend to play 3/4, have your years and its always worked well

a problem i have is that if i play less tables i tend to get bored and space out. so i kind of need the 6 tables to stay focused

going to start a little relaxed 20nl stream over here

i watched a bit of you streaming GL! so, how do u find games at microgaming compared to other networks? pros/cons

pros:
soft games if you tableselect a bit
good rakeback
good software
good support

cons:
no zoom games running
hud is slightly bugged on anon tables

So i decided to do a bit of a challenge, at least it is for me:

As i had to move down to 20nl again because of the failed shot at 50nl, i wanted to get more disconnected from my bankroll for a bit, because i am more than comfortably rolled for 20nl (over 50BIs), also i feel like i am comfortably beating this limit aswell.

For that reason i am planning on not taking a look a single time at my graph or my bankroll until the november rakerace gets payed out. That way i only focus on playing the best i can, and i dont get distracted by any results.
I dont know if it's possible to pull this one through for the next 2 weeks, because i only had around 600€ on my BetVictor account, so if i hit a big downswing i might at one point not be able to play/rebuy at 6 tables a time.
Obviously i hope this doesnt happen, but who knows.

Anyway, this also means that there wont be bankroll updates for this thread until mid december, i hope that you can forgive me for that

I've got the feeling that i have been running extremely good in the last days since i decided to not look at results.
Definetely feels like i am on an upswing, but i still didn't look. Kind of proud of that.

I played 2666 hands in 2 sessions today.
All in all I feel like my volume increased over the last days. I attribute part of that to me not looking at results.
Sometimes I would lose motivation if the results didn't do well.

Now that can't happen, because I don't know my results.
It is itching my fingers to check, but especially because i am very sure that I am up a substantial amount over the couple last days I am holding myself back.
If I survive this until the 10th I will be very proud, and hopefully share a skyrocketing graph with you guys.
If I am lucky I might then be able to instantly take another big shot at 50nl, who knows?

Today I have allowed myself to look at my results since the 2nd december. To be honest I expected a bit more. But i also screwed up a hand today at the end of a long, maybe slightly too long, session, where i unnecessarily lost 20€ more than I should've probably.


Anyway, it have been 9 days and over 15k hands, so i am very pleased with my volume.


A huge reason why i am that much below EV is that i lost a 95%er for 200bb.
Looking forward to the rakerace payout in the next days, will keep on grinding, and hopefully i can take another shot at 50nl within this month.

Trying to focus more on individual decisions and less autopiloting by streaming and talking about my decisions today over here: https://www.twitch.tv/kinglylion

I noticed that i was autopiloting a lot in the last weeks, basically ignoring all my hud reads i could have.

Trying to implement that more now, at least the basics like vpip/pfr/af

seems like i gotta scratch the next 50nl off of my list for this month



looking forward to my next upswing, grinding feels pretty unrewarding atm.
i definetely gotta work on my game, there are too many mistakes i could avoid if i was more focused.
still feel like i am a winning player though so im not too sad yet, but my situation could definetely be better.

Started to mainly look at my AIEV+RB graph for 2 reasons.
First that should the one i measure my game, expected earnings etc with after a decent sample.
Second that graph is way better for my confidence than the other ones lol
Anyway, here is this months graph so far. Very happy, especially with the volume!


If i keep on pushing my volume like this i can be very happy with myself. Should probably focus on studying a bit more though. Just had a coaching session this week, and will try to implement what i learned step by step. Gotta get that new knowledge into my unconcious competence!

really digging this journey boss, good job with the strong volume. gl with your next 50nl shot!

i'm taking one tomorrow too so hopefully it goes well!

thanks for the nice words and good luck with your shot aswell!

Merry christmas guys!!

The best christmas present i got this year was a nice upswing at 20nl in the last few days:


This also got my bankroll ready for my third shot at 50NL!
Feeling like i am playing close to the best poker of my life right now, so i am ready to finally start crushing the new limit

For the record, this is my whole 20nl sample. Lets hope it never gets more hands added


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PS: A thing i started doing recently that imo really helped me to get in the zone and play my best is to just lay down for 5 minutes before the session, put some meditation music on, and think about what things to focus on etc, just to gather my concentration. That way i avoid playing without thinking, and i feel like this little change improved my game a lot, resulting in me playing my A-game way more often.

BANKROLL: 1579.46€

My Poker Year 2016

At the start of this year i was playing on pokerstars. I was taking poker seriously for exactly a year, started at 2NLz, and at that point i was probably a small winner at 25NLz.
At the end of 2015 i wrote an excessive and detailed blog on reddit about my first real poker year, and i definetely recommend you checking it out!
https://www.reddit.com/r/poker/comments/3z1avx/2015_my_poker_year/
In that blog i set myself the goal to beat 100NL by the end of 2016. Lets see how far i've gotten...
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So right at the start of the year (or sometime in the first part of it) i started losing my motivation. To be honest i cant remember the exact circumstances, but it had something to do with a downswing i had at 25NLz (had to drop to 16NLz), me being a lazy fuck and not working hard enough to get better. I got more interested in computergames, and grinded less and less.

My bankroll had dropped a lot within that timeframe. As stated in the blog above i ended 2015 with a BR of 1400$. At some point it got to around 700$ or so. But slowly i started to regain my motivation for the beautiful game that is poker. I was a bit short on cash, and the greedy my didn't want to start paying a lot of money for coaching again, so i got a subscription to run it once, and watched a few videos of them. I took the game, and especially the study part of it more serious again, and i began doing better. At that point i was probably around a 4bb/100 pre rakeback winner at 16NLz on stars.

And then something kind of big happened to the direction my poker game was going. A friend of mine (shoutout to @Bintang) suggested i should try out playing in the microgaming network, because the playerpool was softer, the software was decent, and the rakeback was good.
I always thought about leaving stars for another site. But up to that point there never seemed to be a good option for me. In my part of germany some sites just dont operate because of legal stuff, and i was very picky when it came to software, because i got used to the smoothness of stars'.
But i checked the microgaming sites out, and found out that a) Betvictor has a license for my part of Germany, and b) their software is acceptable even for my standards!

I withdrew all my money from stars, and started playing 20NL on Betvictor. That was also the point when i started this blog (10th October 2016), to force myself to share what i am doing, hoping to get some more motivation out of this while still entertaining some people.

While i was struggling at 25NLz on stars i was doing extremely well 20NL on BV (this is my whole 20NL sample:)


As soon as my motivation started to rise again i also contacted my coach @w34z3l and we did some lessons. I definetely got a lot out of the lessons i took in the last months, and feel like i improved a ton in many aspects of the game.

Sadly my shots at 50NL didnt go well so far. I took 2 shots of 10BIs each already as soon as my bankroll was at 1500€ (i moved down earlier than -10BIs both times though), and i am currently in progress of taking my 3rd shot. Doing better than before, i definetely expect myself to be a small winner at the limit pre rakeback.
Here is my whole 50NL graph:


Because i enjoy playing on this site so much and it was already natural for me to advertise them, because i really meant it, i took an affiliate deal with PokerVIP.
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Anyway, so here i am, at the start of 2017. Lets take a look at the goals i had for this moment, and if i archieved them:

1) From my "2015 - My poker year" reddit post:
"My plan for 2016 is to beat 100NL"
... Who knows, if i wouldve powered through the whole year maybe this wouldve been possible. But definetely not archievable for me because i took such a long break.

2) From this blog, since i left stars:
"Grind up the bankroll, and start being a winning reg at 50nl."
I think i am close. The reg part of this didnt happen yet, there is still volume missing to back this up. But i think i can beat 50NL right now. So i think i got as close as it gets before archieving this goal!
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All in all i am happy about how my last poker year went. Especially taking into account that i was absent from really trying for a few months, i definetely improved a lot over the course of the last months. Of course there is still room for improvement, but if i can keep up the pace of getting coached and grinding volume i should be able to get to a decent place in the poker world.

I decided to go with more general and archievable goals for the next year:
- Get good at 50NL. Like pretty good. Winning over 4bb/100 pre rakeback would be great. Over 5bb/100 would be fantastic.
- Dont forget about how important discipline is! Dont stop improving. Get coached, work on your game. Also keep improving your mental game, and dont lose your will to grind and put in the hours. 20k-30k hands per months should be a reasonable volume goal.
- If the goals above are done, maybe take some shots at 100NL. (optional)
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Thats it guys. A big thank you to everyone who took the time to read through the mess that are my thoughts. I hope you took some enjoyment out of this, maybe some inspiration aswell. I am looking forward to a succesful year 2017, and i wish you all the best of luck at the tables!

Great work man and it is awesome you shouting out the guy who helped you improve/change your direction. Always gotta remember these people and always remember to pick their brains in the future...

50nl on MG was always tough for me also. You can see some graphs for it Here (50nl euro site). I have even said this to @ProJondi ...100nl was always way softer for me on mg than 50nl was. I have played 150k+ hands for both of these stakes fwiw and it's just always been the case for me. What about you PJ?

Anyways I wish you nothing but the best and can't wait to follow your journey. GL