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benjiblue poker journey
Hello everyone,
My name is Ben and I thought as for some motivation I would start a blog/diary on primarily my poker journey and possibly some real life stuff should I feel it might be of interest to any potential readers out there. I intend on posting some hand histories, but have found this might be quite difficult given as I can't seem to find a text format for them so the only other alternative is to try screen shot them after I have played them. I am just unsure of how tedious this may become though, especially multi tabling.
How it began;
I started playing poker back in mid 2010 after my son was born. I actually only found poker by chance in that sense, because my son suffered from extremely bad colic as a baby so he was up nearly all hours, so me and my then girlfriend decided to split the "shifts" of looking after him. I ended up with the terrible night/early morning shifts (11pm-4am) but that is when I saw poker being on TV really early mornings so what started as watching out of curiosity eventually became a really really big interest and passion for me.
I started by playing on some "big" sites, proceeded to make accounts for numerous sites to try get bonuses, good freerolls etc. I am unsure of if I can post the names of those on here, if not I am sure most can guess what they are so we will leave it at that! I of course also made an account with sky poker, but basically at that the time I found the software especially difficult to deal with. It became such a frustration to me that I decided to use sky as more of a site I would only occasionally visit, mainly when the UKOPS would come around.
After numerous deposits, playing with one buy-in, the inevitable busted rolls it became apparent I was terrible at poker. Something of course at the time I was blind to see and even acknowledge. I just blamed it on just being unlucky at gambling.
There was then one day, I remember very vividly, so much so I even remember the guys screename from all those years ago! I can't remember the exact hand but basically, it was a $25nl table and I got my chips in terribly bad and just got there and this person at the table started berating me, talking all about his EV, ranges, how terrible I am at poker and just a torrent of abuse from him basically. He even went as far as to say "You need to get better, you don't even have a basic strategy you fish" Looking at my hand I was confused as to what the hell he was talking about as I felt I played the hand fine. Anyway, with that in the back of my mind I just continued to play and did eventually bust my roll once again, to the guy who berated me in the first place. I was so intrigued with what he said though so I started searching the web for "Poker strategy" and found a ton of forums and started to read a lot of strategy which then led to watching poker videos and so on.
Making poker profitable and fun at the same time;
One major turning point for me was bankroll management. As I stated, I would just deposit x-amount and just play with the full amount.
After all my new found wealth of knowledge I thought to myself, wow this game really is a skill game. Maybe this guy who berated me actually is talking sense! So I started really working on my game, reading all the strategy out there and videos etc and grinding hard. I told myself I would deposit $10 and with my new found knowledge of BR management would play with 100 buy-ins in 10cent SnG's MTT actually lol. Painful to think now but after months of painful grinding I started to see my roll growing and I was moving up stakes, $1 buy-ins next.., all the way upto my highest limit I have been, playing upto $55 MTT's.
In over 5 years to date, I have won $70k in MTT's/sng's, over multiple sites so it is safe to say poker has been a profitable and of course really enjoyable experience. I think I even finished 2nd in a UKOPS event last year and final tabled another if I am not mistaken. Whilst MTT/SnG will always be my best game and the one where I have put in a lot of work in improving I have always been an avid, yet not so much good cash game player and this is where I want to progress and improve my game.
What I learnt along my way is, don't ever, under any circumstances berate a bad player. Had this player not said anything, I might of quit playing by now and if I hadn't I certainly would likely be down a lot of money by now.
What's next?
I will always play tournaments, I find them so enjoyable especially when running good and running deep. I will continue grinding them on other sites and play the occasional one on sky but as I say my main focus now Is to play some cash and put in some good volume. I am hopeful at least with some good work ethic I can play climb the stakes. I would love to become a regular player at the 50nl/100nl limits. I could of jumped straight into 50nl/100nl but wanted to start from scratch and earn my way to moving up not just jump into 50nl games for example, as I likely will be a dog in those games anyway so I just started out at 4nl/8nl/10nl a week ago with a £50 BR on here. My bankroll management wasn't/isn't great but I feel I have an edge in the games at these limits and wasn't to fussed about sticking on another £50 for example from my poker bankroll should variance of hit me badly.
Fast forward a week and my roll sits at £269, obviously running good but logging a lot of hands to. I have now moved up to 20nl which is very aggressive but usually only have 1-2 tables maximum at this limit but because games don't run all the time I have to mix in some 4nl/8nl/10nl or whatever else runs.
benjiblue BR management;
As stated, I am using extremely aggressive bankroll management at the minute but because the games are so soft at these limits, winrates being quite big swings aren't going to be all that huge. If I manage to move up I will be increasing my buy-ins needed for each limit but at the minute they are a bit all over the place but will be something along the lines of;
4nl - 10 buy-ins (£40)
8nl - 10 buy-ins min (£80)
10nl - 15 buy-ins min (£150)
20nl - 20 buy-ins min (£400)
50nl - 25 buy-is min (£1250)
100nl - 30 buy-ins min (£3000)
**I was going to add in the 30nl/40nl limits but there doesn't seem to be very many tables of these running.
Goals for end of November;
Be a regualr player at the 20nl tables.
10,000+ points
Wrap Up;
This has been a very long winded blog/diary so I am going to wrap it up now. I will try update as much as possible, maybe 1 time per week or if I move up a limit, I will post - whichever comes first. If anyone has any questions then please just fire away. I would love to engage in conversation with some of the regs from the limits I play or even higher, possibly talk some poker strategy if interested and so on.
Starting BR - £50
Current BR - £269
Current Limit(s) - 8nl/10nl.
Thank you for reading,
Ben.
Comments
Good luck with this, Ben, I'll follow it with interest.
Hope your son recovered fully.
What sort of job do you have?
"You need to get better, you don't even have a basic strategy you fish"
Honest to God, if I were King for a Day, I'd ban those sorts of idiots for life. We might well be "fish", but they are complete dumbschmucks.
Nice read mate, gl at the tables. It's great that you didn't get discouraged, and realise that the guy done you a favour, and also are smart enough not to tap the tank lol. I just berate the regs instead
Great read glad son is ok and you are making poker profitable a dream i think for all of us.
I also started playing around 2010 but the difference is i cant make it profitable in fact im one of those fish you referred to.
I have good bankroll management i think, in march i deposited £5.00 won £90 by winning a £2.30 bounty but since then my roll hasnt exceeded £170 and now currently stands at £95 so i dont win money but over the long term dont lose either.
My question is can you remember one golden piece of strategy that was the key to turn your game around?