Cash challenge and diary- £100 into £1000- USING BRM!!

tapeworm

In Response to Re: Cash challenge and diary- £100 into £1000- USING BRM!!:

In Response to Re: Cash challenge and diary- £100 into £1000- USING BRM!! : haha i noticed you moved seat n im pretty sure when you vacated the table dueces took it. gotta love when they open shove n your sitting with aces
Posted by TINTIN

It was hateful with you two on my left..... raise....reraise....fold orrrrr Raise fold fold. Sack that for a game of soldiers... you in the bottom right, im making you my beatch....these two can fight amoungst themselves lol!!!

I also think the highlight of my night was sitting in the waiting list on Dueces table watching some very strange all ins, dying to sit down.....sitiing down and stacking the two shovers within 10 hands.....leaving me Dueces and another poor chap who dueces stacked about 5 mins later - lol. Dueces had been waiting ages for his cards i could just tell!! Sorry!!

MP33

In Response to Re: Cash challenge and diary- £100 into £1000- USING BRM!!:

my 2 peneth worth on the "NL4 is getting tighter" Scenario, is there are a hell of a lot more regs playing. Shed loads more than a month ago. There are new players that are full stacking 4 or more tables that i have not ever seen before. I have had to tag loads of players with "TAG ABC" this week. I can only assume Skys advertising is paying of - they are all over the place at the mo inc some magazines as well as sites. Im finding it hard to find tables some times with less than 3 TAG ABCers. I would normally avoid you, dudeskin and Tintin as a matter of course. But today i had to sit with you and even had to shift seat position earlier on so Tintin and .....i think you dudeskin were on my left - I have never had to do that before, and even then there was another sat to my right!!! Loads of times Typhoon or Tintin or you have sat at my table too.....doesnt normally happen so much.....I am enjoying getting a few sneaky bluffs in though lol! Still loads of ATMs though!!
Posted by tapeworm

I,ve noticed this over last few weeks. Everyones watching the same tips and strategys and playing the same plus when you get beginners going on there a lot of them will just wait for prem hands -
Table selection is more important than ever

Dudeskin8

In Response to Re: Cash challenge and diary- £100 into £1000- USING BRM!!:

my 2 peneth worth on the "NL4 is getting tighter" Scenario, is there are a hell of a lot more regs playing. Shed loads more than a month ago. There are new players that are full stacking 4 or more tables that i have not ever seen before. I have had to tag loads of players with "TAG ABC" this week. I can only assume Skys advertising is paying of - they are all over the place at the mo inc some magazines as well as sites. Im finding it hard to find tables some times with less than 3 TAG ABCers. I would normally avoid you, dudeskin and Tintin as a matter of course. But today i had to sit with you and even had to shift seat position earlier on so Tintin and .....i think you dudeskin were on my left - I have never had to do that before, and even then there was another sat to my right!!! Loads of times Typhoon or Tintin or you have sat at my table too.....doesnt normally happen so much.....I am enjoying getting a few sneaky bluffs in though lol! Still loads of ATMs though!!
Posted by tapeworm

TBH I'm not overly concerned when a REG sits at my table as I'm only playing good hands and if they get involved I'll generally just play the same way, if they want to put some stupid reraise bluff pre good luck to them but at this level many hands don't end preflop so you gotta continue that 'bluff' against a station who ain't foled bottom pair.

I think the only bad thing about having a REG or more at the table is it prevents a Station from sitting down which is pretty annoying. In terms of 'playing poker' against them absolutely ZERO need, the amount of dead money at this level is massive and it's just a case of waiting for the fish to jump into the boat.

walesboy

i wish i could find the dead money.
had aces broke by A4off after 5bb pre raise and got 4 callers 3/4 pot bet get 2, allin on turn and he'd got trip 4s.
then a KK gets done by AQ after going allin on Q high flop.
same guy
hope to get him another day!!

DeucesLive

Starting Bankroll- £89.97
Ending Bankroll- £88.52
MTT Profit- 0
STT Profit- +2.6
Cash Profit- -4.05
Total MTT Profit- -28.16
Total STT Profit- +14.2
Total Cash Profit- +3.01
Total Profit- -11.48
Session Hands Played- 803Total Hands Played- 13050

Pots of 20p or more- Won 37, lost 36
Pots of 40p or more- Won 21, lost 17
Pots of 80p or more- Won 11, lost 8
Pots of £2 or more- Won 2, lost 2
Pots entered- 110/803 (13.7%)


Starting to incorporate the dyms on a regular basis now I think, getting very small but steady profits to keep me going at the 3.30 and 5.50 level.

Starting to really dislike NL4. It's becoming a nightmare, and I'm not exactly sure what to do to counter it. For now though, I think I'm going to stick to dyms during the day, because I think the fish to players that have half a clue ratio is getting quite bad, and it's getting tougher to find a nice loose table that pays you off with garbage. I found one yesterday, and did get some hands against him- in fact, 3 of my 4 pots which I won/lost more than £2 in were against this guy. The other one was debatable, but I think I play it the same way.

This first hand gave me a cast iron read on him, I'd seen him twice so far call off with no pair no draw, so to be honest- it was a poor shove. But, with my outs I don't regret it- and it gave us a little 'metagame' to draw on.

I was finding any excuse to get involved in pots with him, and eventually got these two little beauties to rip his stack apart- he folded both times on river but still got a lot out of him by then.

The most interesting hand was a 3 way one, which was one for area 51- top pair+NFD vs bottom 2 pair vs broadway. I held hand #1, hand #2 came away with the goods. Don't think there's any getting away from this without folding preflop? The table was playing pretty aggro- A9s would be really scraping the barrel of my calling range, but 4 way with a great draw to a nut hand, felt like a nice spot to be in. HU I probably fold.

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
vegasman	Small blind		£0.02	£0.02	£6.51
DeucesLive	Big blind		£0.04	£0.06	£3.84
	Your hole cards	Q J
Dibble0114	Call		£0.04	£0.10	£3.61
kirsti1977	Fold
snugs1963	Raise		£0.24	£0.34	£2.99
vegasman	Fold
DeucesLive	Call		£0.20	£0.54	£3.64
Dibble0114	Call		£0.20	£0.74	£3.41
Flop
		5 9 2
DeucesLive	Check
Dibble0114	Check
snugs1963	Bet		£0.74	£1.48	£2.25
DeucesLive	All-in		£3.64	£5.12	£0.00
Dibble0114	Fold
snugs1963	All-in		£2.25	£7.37	£0.00
DeucesLive	Unmatched bet		£0.65	£6.72	£0.65
DeucesLive	Show	Q J
snugs1963	Show	3 5
Turn
		5
River
		Q
snugs1963	Win	Three 5s	£6.21		£6.21

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
dennis03	Small blind		£0.02	£0.02	£3.94
snugs1963	Big blind		£0.04	£0.06	£6.27
	Your hole cards	J K
cado209	Raise		£0.08	£0.14	£2.87
thebigwave	Fold
DeucesLive	Raise		£0.20	£0.34	£4.96
cougar26	Fold
dennis03	Fold
snugs1963	Call		£0.16	£0.50	£6.11
cado209	Call		£0.12	£0.62	£2.75
Flop
		6 9 K
snugs1963	Bet		£0.31	£0.93	£5.80
cado209	Fold
DeucesLive	Raise		£0.72	£1.65	£4.24
snugs1963	Call		£0.41	£2.06	£5.39
Turn
		5
snugs1963	Check
DeucesLive	Bet		£1.40	£3.46	£2.84
snugs1963	Call		£1.40	£4.86	£3.99
River
		2
snugs1963	Check
DeucesLive	All-in		£2.84	£7.70	£0.00
snugs1963	Fold
DeucesLive	Muck
DeucesLive	Win		£4.49		£4.49
DeucesLive	Return		£2.84	£0.37	£7.33

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
DeucesLive	Small blind		£0.02	£0.02	£5.56
snugs1963	Big blind		£0.04	£0.06	£6.08
	Your hole cards	A A
thebigwave	Fold
DeucesLive	Raise		£0.10	£0.16	£5.46
snugs1963	Call		£0.08	£0.24	£6.00
Flop
		10 4 J
DeucesLive	Bet		£0.20	£0.44	£5.26
snugs1963	Raise		£0.68	£1.12	£5.32
DeucesLive	Call		£0.48	£1.60	£4.78
Turn
		7
DeucesLive	Check
snugs1963	Bet		£1.60	£3.20	£3.72
DeucesLive	Raise		£3.20	£6.40	£1.58
snugs1963	Call		£1.60	£8.00	£2.12
River
		9
DeucesLive	All-in		£1.58	£9.58	£0.00
snugs1963	Fold
DeucesLive	Muck
DeucesLive	Win		£7.40		£7.40
DeucesLive	Return		£1.58	£0.60	£8.98

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
DeucesLive	Small blind		£0.02	£0.02	£5.16
thatsplent	Big blind		£0.04	£0.06	£2.91
	Your hole cards	A 9
Nooks	Raise		£0.20	£0.26	£2.74
Bins454	Fold
bully181	Call		£0.20	£0.46	£0.80
2yorks	Call		£0.20	£0.66	£2.70
DeucesLive	Call		£0.18	£0.84	£4.98
thatsplent	Fold
Flop
		K Q A
DeucesLive	Check
Nooks	Bet		£0.84	£1.68	£1.90
bully181	Fold
2yorks	Call		£0.84	£2.52	£1.86
DeucesLive	Raise		£4.20	£6.72	£0.78
Nooks	All-in		£1.90	£8.62	£0.00
2yorks	All-in		£1.86	£10.48	£0.00
DeucesLive	Unmatched bet		£1.46	£9.02	£2.24
DeucesLive	Show	A 9
Nooks	Show	K Q
2yorks	Show	10 J
Turn
		Q
River
		7
Nooks	Win	Full House, Queens and Kings	£8.34		£8.34

YOUNG_GUN

Was you not doing better before this challenge Deuces?

I have been reading it but always assumed you did well and at the moment it doesn't look like your going anywhere, please dont take any offence but have you been doing worse or better since posting this thread?

Best of luck mate

Dudeskin8

Hand 1: you call a 6x raise preflop OOP with QJs maybe I'm an uber tight sod but that is an insta snap fold for me, yes you got a good flop but what do you do with a J high flop yes you're probably ahead still but a little loose for me.

Hand 2: Fine

Hand 3: Not too sure about the very small raise pre, has to be 4x minimum for me.

Hand 4: Again a very strong 5x raise it might be 4 way (shouldn't make a difference imo) but the biggest stack is £2.74 so not exactly great implied odds. Plus there's lots of reverse implied when you get TP and are put to a difficult decision.

DeucesLive

none taken mate- I'm a classic case of a player incapable of managing BR or tilt. I know the technical side pretty well, but the discipline side- which is far more important- is something that needs a lot of work. 

Yea, I'm disappointed with a lack of progress so far, but it's meant to be gradual and I'm not losing heart yet. In terms of my results, my MTT results have knocked my profits down a lot, which is to be expected- it's all or nothing with tournaments generally, and nothing a lot more than all. My cash would also be showing a good profit if I hadn't taken part in that forum cash game- tossing away 2 buyins on a preflop flip, and generally playing for a laugh. In an ideal world, I'd have doubled my roll and moved up a level by now, but in many ways- this is making me appreciate the hard work that goes into grinding for a roll, rather than just spinning it up in days.

Before this, I was basically a break even player- I always played cash around 20NL and was well capable of building it up, but a lack of discipline led to me spewing it all back. NL4 is, if nothing else, building a much thicker skin for me when it comes to outdraws- they happen ridiculously often at NL4 because people play so wide (not the case so much lately though).

I think I'm about to turn a corner and start making a decent profit soon- wishful thinking, maybe- but I think all the stat analysis and volume of hands played lately has tightened my game up from the roots, and really gone a long way towards reining in my over-aggression, which was probably my biggest technical weakness. Now I can still tap into that aggression when necessary, but I have that tight gear to fall back on too.

walesboy

unfortunately I keep finding the fish and losing.
AAv A4 and KKv AQ - see my thread on Brags forum if you want. My pre raises might have been low but hadn't been getting callers higher. so risk reward thing!

But took a freeroll break and back on now and up!!

I agree though it has been getting tighter although there are lose ones out there. notes ftw!

DeucesLive

Well, all the first 3 hands are villain dependent- top pair with JQ there is a monster against him, trust me. He was spewing money all over the tables (I think tapeworm or tintin or someone managed to get in on the act too, later.)

He must have burnt 8-10 buyins just while I was sat at the table, no idea how much longer he was there. Once he was involved in a hand he just played like a loon, and he was a big fan of 3betting small raises/limps, hence the play with aces.

I think I played the last hand kinda poorly though preflop, that was a weak call. But I do like getting involved in multiway pots with good nutmaking hands.

YOUNG_GUN

No you definately will be able to do it mate you have the game its just about dicsipline.

I am very much in your boat alot of the time although mainly when i withdraw some it goes downhill for a bit, can always usually manage to build from £20-£500 but generally need a few tourney binks to do it, my cash game really is stop n start and i havent really tried a proper crack at it. At the mo i've only got £20 on account as withdrew a bit £400 ish and bust the £150 i had in there which was frustrating, I will be depositing properly probably in next few months to have another crack and ill come and join you at nl4, although your probably be long gone.

Keep it Solid mate and run better you can do it

DeucesLive

I'm the same as you, I can spin up tourneys ok but that's not the same as being able to solidly grind it out- and it's something I really want to learn. 

I'm finding the tradeoff though is that my tournament game is really, really suffering as a result- I used to be a good LAG player, but I've now tightened up too much and not embracing tournament flips as I used to, playing too nitty. Trying to play a few low stakes tournaments in the mix to keep my game on a level there.

Try the cash grind mate, it's not easy, gets really frustrating- but when I finally crack it, the reward for the work put in will be SO worth it

YOUNG_GUN

Yeah i completely agree dohhhh keeps gettin me to play cash as its not soo much of a swing, when i was playing nl10 ill have good days and bad days breaking even but only 1 hour and half sessions then found i'd dip, nl20 i think i done considerably better but i do think i need to do as you are start on nl4 and proper smash it! at 1 point i found DYM's were good to pay for my £5.50 tourneys and keep the bankroll up but again i havent really been playing them much of late and tourneys im just not running well.

I'll see you there shortly and no doubt join you on the grind yay

DeucesLive

Starting Bankroll- £88.52
Ending Bankroll- £136.29
MTT Profit- -21.37
STT Profit- +60.4
Cash Profit- +8.21
Total MTT Profit- -49.53
Total STT Profit- +74.6
Total Cash Profit- +8.55
Total Profit- +36.29

Session Hands Played- 292

Total Hands Played- 13342

Pots of 20p or more- Won 28, lost 15
Pots of 40p or more- Won 18, lost 8
Pots of 80p or more- Won 8, lost 3
Pots of £2 or more- Won 0, lost 1
Pots entered- 70/292 (24%)

Well, today was a good day! Only worked in the morning today, was home by around 1pm so plenty of time to grind. So, I ground dyms for a bit, mixed with general rubbish. I also should probably not be playing MTTs, because they're not agreeing with me :P played 3 mini sats for the BH, then two main sats- managed to scrape through one, but bust fairly early in the actual event after spewing most of my stack with JJ against AA- felt SO stupid, because he telegraphed it preflop, I peeled virtually to setmine and got carried away with thinking he may have AK when board came 8 high. So stupid. Also played the mini ME, and had a good run, got a single bounty and finished in the top 100, but just ran out of cards, jammed with K7, called by K9- GG me.

But that aside, I played in 28 dyms today. Failed to cash in the 2 3.30s I played, but cashed in 21 of 26 5.50s, which is a good result to say the least. Ran good, sucked out once or twice but was also sucked out on plenty, and played 4-6 at a time. I also noticed something interesting- during the ME I tried playing a couple dyms to keep occupied, and failed to cash in both. I did get kinda unlucky in both, but I also don't think I played anywhere near the level I was when I was 4-6 tabling just them, and I think playing different disciplines really does affect your game- the dym mentality has to be really overriding, IMO.

Anyway, ended way up in profit, despite my attempt to burn money- I'm almost always out on thursdays now though, and the 33 BH was one of my favourite tourneys before I booked up my thursdays, so I really wanted to play in it tonight. I probably shouldn't have carried on after failing to sat in for super cheap, but hey- no regrets. I had a good day for profit anyway. I may reload some of my MTT failures anyway, so it doesn't affect my roll too much.

Played a small amount of cash, experimented with a far more aggressive approach, which paid off- since the tables seemed to be playing a lot tighter, and knew what they were doing, I intentionally made some crazy moves and bluffs (which got through) then showed the table, in a relatively transparent attempt at building image. Whether it worked or not I don't know, but when I made big reraises I started getting a little more action, which was good since I had decent hands way more often than not. Tried playing a lot more 'real' poker, but kept a close eye out for the donks turning up to spoil the party. 

Apart from one horror hand against Rancid late on (virtually my last hand, actually- AQ vs AA on Q high board) I didn't get involved in a single pot over £2, which tells you everything about how tight the game was. I managed to dodge many bullets with hands I'd normally stack off with, and generally played a nice solid game.

REALLY looking forward to trying out the tables again on friday night. I want my fish back!

TINTIN

glad to see you had that bumper session, i know its been due, it just could bee he springborad to a really good run

DeucesLive

yea cheers mate, I really did feel like I was playing well enough to make a profit and was just running bad, but it's what you hear from every break even/losing player- I'm just unlucky, I run so bad.

Reality is, mostly, that there's a leak in your game that's causing you to lose money- we've all been there, myself included. I've suffered from thinking I was better than I was most of my poker career. But these last few weeks, a couple of small blips excepted, I really feel I've been playing winning poker and couldn't get my head round why I kept stuck at the same point- no matter how much you tell yourself the big session's coming, until it does you still feel that maybe you're missing something.

No matter, I'm close to my £200 target in terms of STT+cash results, which are the two disciplines I really want to get sorted. I'm thinking that DYMs are the route to go during the day, and leave cash action for the night- especially weekend nights when I can play. 

Glenelg

In Response to Re: Cash challenge and diary- £100 into £1000- USING BRM!!:

No matter, I'm close to my £200 target in terms of STT+cash results, which are the two disciplines I really want to get sorted. I'm thinking that DYMs are the route to go during the day, and leave cash action for the night- especially weekend nights when I can play. 
Posted by DeucesLive

REALLY enjoying your posts.

GL for w/e.

YOUNG_GUN

Erm did you stand on DYM i reg'd for after our last cashes? why lol

DeucesLive

just now? Yea probably I'm off to bed lol was planning on playing some till quite late but tables were taking too long to fill

do an update on stats tomorrow, been focusing on playing today and managed to turn round a hideous losing session on friday ^^ getting close to the £200 mark now

DeucesLive

Starting Bankroll- £136.29
Ending Bankroll- £185.63
MTT Profit- 0
STT Profit- +47
Cash Profit- +2.34
Total MTT Profit- -49.53
Total STT Profit- +121.6
Total Cash Profit- +10.89
Total Profit- +85.63

Session Hands Played- 1100

Total Hands Played- 14442

Pots of 20p or more- Won 32, lost 21
Pots of 40p or more- Won 17, lost 12
Pots of 80p or more- Won 14, lost 7
Pots of £2 or more- Won 2, lost 6
Pots entered- 82/1100 (7%)

Crazy, crazy couple of days. Been playing a little cash to keep myself in the zone, but mostly been playing STTs. On friday, I had one of the worst runs of my life- couldn't get a single hand to hold, actually played great DYM poker and ended up 5/12 on wins/losses- I was actually at 2/12, but managed to get 3 wins on the bounce at the end to make things look a little more palatable. Also took a small hit at the cash tables, which ended with me on £88 going into saturday, and I was getting REALLY frustrated- I really thought I'd started to pull together some momentum. No matter, I figured- tomorrow's another day, time to chill out and remember I still have a roll and poker's a game of ups and downs.

Went out for my normal early morning weekend cycle and sat in for a solid grind. Took breaks every couple hours, including a long break to watch the footie (am a United fan :() and ended the day up on cash, and with a record of 36/13 on the dym front- around 73% wins, which is fantastic- my target is around 65%.

I'm quickly realising a truth I wish I'd found weeks ago- the best way of grinding a roll up from roots is DYMs. If you multitable low stakes dyms (I'm doing 6 at a time) you can build a roll SO much faster and more reliably than at NL4, IMO. This is meant to be about improving me as a cash player, so I'm still trying to fit in cash, but right now I have a new short term goal- 3k C4P (am around 2400 atm). That's still quite a lot of DYMs, but once I hit £200 in my roll I'm gonna make the step to £11 DYMs, which will double my poker points rate. Also gonna try satelliting into primo, while I'm running good may as well take a shot! One mincash will wipe out all my tournament deficits, which will look nice at least

My cash stats were kinda freaky- by all accounts, I played good poker- apart from where the big pots were concerned. My hands played wwere freakishly low, my record in the low pots great and high pots appalling. One or two of the hands played on friday were very poor, especially the last pot before I switched off where I spewed away a buyin shoving 88 on a K high board into a serial bluffer, who turned the K. That was the exact moment I realised I had to stop, because the bad run had finally affected my game and I was starting to play very wild indeed. My first major hand yesterday was top pair against a set, and against this villain in particular that was a wild cooler- I made it all back from him and then some, though. 

So, today I'm aiming to get to around 2700 poker points, if not more, satellite into primo and win that, and end my challenge with quadruple my target.

... hey, it's always good to aim high- right?

labrat64

Great thread this, just read through the whole thing. Was wondering why i'd never seen you at the tables though. then i remembered this bit you wrote this

I'll answer this two ways. Firstly, by the NL4 standard- if anyone playing there is good enough to read the forums, read my posts and adjust their game according to how I play, then they're someone I don't want to get involved with in the first place. Regs who are good at the game know how NL4 works anyway, and it's pretty easy to spot the guys who know what they're doing, and it's significantly +EV to stay well away from them. If I get involved with a fellow reg at NL4, the only likely way I'm stacking them is by a cooler, and I'm as likely to be on the wrong side of that as they are, so why get involved?

But seriously, hope you are successful at your challenge, keep up the great thread. One thing that i've picked up from this is that you have confirmed to me the facts abot certain players at this level, and should help me further in my quest to take their pennies from them. Thanks

DeucesLive

Starting Bankroll- £185.63
Ending Bankroll- £109.37
MTT Profit- -27.58
STT Profit- -57
Cash Profit- +8.32
Total MTT Profit- -77.11
Total STT Profit- +64.6
Total Cash Profit- +19.21
Total Profit- +9.37Session Hands Played- 101Total Hands Played- 14543

Pots of 20p or more- Won 7, lost 5
Pots of 40p or more- Won 7, lost 1
Pots of 80p or more- Won 5, lost 1
Pots of £2 or more- Won 3, lost 1
Pots entered- 18/101 (18%)

ANOTHER freakin' implosion. In all honesty, it could have been worse- at the lowest point in the evening, I was actually down to £70 and seriously wondering whether it was going to turn round. Playing 1 table of cash and 5 DYMs though, managed to gradually rebuild my way back up to safety.

Although I took a hit, I know what went wrong- early on, everything looked great- I played a handful of DYMs and dragged my roll over £200 for the first time, which felt great. I then took the plunge and started playing £11 DYMs, and proceeded to run like a horror, ending 4/9 for a £63 loss.

What I will say is, even if I'd run well I'd probably have had only a slight profit or loss, because the standard at £11 is unbelievably higher than £5.50. There's loads of regs, and every single game I played was 5 or 6 handed at the 150/300 level!! That's ridiculous considering at £5.50 quite a few have already finished by then, and most are on the bubble by 100/200. I generally consider myself to have a 3/4 chance of cashing in those DYMs, because I've only crashed out pre-bubble once or twice, to horrendous coolers- once I'm on the bubble, I'm aggressive enough and calculating enough to get my fair share of cashes. 

So, lesson learnt- I'm not trying the £11 level again- I may be able to hold my own, but it's incredible how quickly profits are wiped out in DYMs by just holding your own. It takes a really great record to build a profit, and only a slight dip to lose it all (case in point- the day before I went 36/13 on £5.50 DYMs, a great record- I made £90. If I had the same record in reverse I'd have lost £140.)

So that didn't go well. My overall record in the £5.50s was 16/12, which was enough for a £6 profit, but again- I didn't run well in those at all. But I don't NEED to run well to succeed in those, which is a big difference- my days where I run good, I'll make a killing- when I run bad, I'll make a tiny profit or loss. 

Played some satellites yesterday- did not go well. I really wanted to enter into the Primo last night, I love the tournament and came so close to making it- ran JJ into AK in the semi with around 60 left, 34 paid- no dice. Probably could have crawled over the line if I made it. Tried another direct afterwards, but no joy there either.

Played the 5.50 mini primo after a break to recover, and had a great run deep (around 50/60 left)- only to run AK into AJ on A high board, and get rivered by a jack. GG me, tilt ensues. Would have had a FT stack if I won that flip, but that's tournaments for ya!

My cash game was great, there were plenty of fish for the stacking there, and I played a really good, solid game. Wish I'd multi tabled more, but there's no question that DYMs are a much better investment for me right now- I think once I'm able to play NL10, I'll cut back on the DYMs and focus more on cash- the ROI will probably swing in favour of cash at that point. Sitting around 2650 poker points, so need to get a serious grind on today to make sure I hit 3k- that £50 will make a nice difference right now!

DeucesLive

Starting Bankroll- £109.37
Ending Bankroll- £112.54
MTT Profit- -5.85
STT Profit- +21.35
Cash Profit- -12.33
Total MTT Profit- -82.96
Total STT Profit- +85.95
Total Cash Profit- +6.88
Total Profit- +12.54Session Hands Played- 161Total Hands Played- 14543

Pots of 20p or more- Won 6, lost 8
Pots of 40p or more- Won 3, lost 8
Pots of 80p or more- Won 2, lost 7
Pots of £2 or more- Won 0, lost 1
Pots entered- 22/161 (14%)

Had a REALLY busy couple of days grinding to try and hit 3k C4P- made it with the assistance of a few RRs, just about. £50 extra in the BR is certainly pleasant right now.

At the moment, I'm just trying to keep afloat until I hit a real purple patch- monday was absolutely awful again, yet I only finished 10/13 on DYMs- another indicator of just how good your record needs to be to be profitable. I had a bit of a 'mare on the cash tables too, getting outdrawn a lot. It's variance. It might seem like I moan a lot about bad luck, but ultimately- it's not through thinking the software's rigged, or everyone's out to get me, but a simple hard fact of poker- sometimes things just keep going against you, and you have to keep plugging away. Of course, I've had outdraws myself- runner runner for quads is pretty lucky! But the general tide is proving tough to swim against right now.

That won't last forever, obviously- I had a slightly better day yesterday (27/16 on DYMs) although I really do need to run better- played 6 RRs to get my final C4P push, and won 1.

That boost from C4P is at a welcome time though- now to rebuild and push onwards. Again. My STT numbers are moving in the right direction, which is good.

DeucesLive

Starting Bankroll- £112.54
Ending Bankroll- £164.34
MTT Profit- -5.2
STT Profit- +14.5
Cash Profit- -7.5C4P Bonus- +50
Total MTT Profit- -88.16
Total STT Profit- +100.45
Total Cash Profit- -0.62
Total Profit- +64.34Session Hands Played- 107Total Hands Played- 14650

Pots of 20p or more- Won 3, lost 10
Pots of 40p or more- Won 2, lost 2
Pots of 80p or more- Won 2, lost 0
Pots of £2 or more- Won 0, lost 1
Pots entered- 18/107 (17%)

End of a month, and time for an analysis of how it went. I always like to look back as objectively as possible to try and make sure I know what's going right and wrong. I wouldn't say I'm disillusioned with poker right now, but I am quite tired of it- had a REALLY long few days at work, going to be away for 2 weeks this month and struggling to find enthusiasm to play. I think a large part of that is due to cramming as many points in over the last few days of may to reach 3k points, that was more effort than I really wanted to put in, because I was pretty busy too.

Positives

• Increased roll from start- I'm not at a loss. That's at least something, I'm moving in the right direction.
• Increased knowledge- A LOT of hands for me at NL4 has really strengthened my knowledge of basic ABC poker, toughened me to bad beats and generally given me a lot more discipline
• Bad run- I had quite a tough run of cards this month, and for the most part remained disciplined and worked through it. With a better run, I would have had more profit.
• STT results- Definitely could be key to making a profit at low stakes. Finding grinding DYMs to be rewarding on BR and poker points, providing I can beat the boredom.

Negatives  

• Tilt- Still an issue for me. Unfortunately, it only takes a couple of dodgy hands to wreck all your hard work- it's like the statue analogy. It can take months, even years for a craftsman to make a masterpiece, and seconds for a fool to smash it down. You can grind for hours making a tiny profit, but one moment of madness wipes it out. I need to cut out pointless hands where I throw away hours of profit by playing on longer than I should.
• MTT results- Not good. Blowing a lot of roll on playing the odd satellite, and not getting results to show for it- not a HUGE deal really, since if I can bink one mincash in primo that'll wipe all my MTT losses out in one hit. But I'm disappointed not to have at least got one decent result, could easily be variance but I may have lost some of the aggression necessary to succeed in tournaments through playing so much cash+STT instead.
• Not much progress- Take out the C4P and I'm barely above what I started. I was really hoping to be around the £200 mark from profits alone, with the C4P just being a bonus. Although I haven't run great, I can't blame it all on that- I think I could have definitely done better in a lot of spots.

Anyone considering taking poker more seriously- I would REALLY think hard about how much you want it. I absolutely love poker, it's a fascinating game where I'm learning more every time I play, every time I talk about it, and it really is great- but grinding out multi tables of cash and STTs is really, really draining. I'm starting to lose a lot of that excitement I got from MTTs, where in cash and STTs I'm just not getting emotionally interested anymore- if I get sucked out on, it's no big deal- when I get aces pre, I'm not particularly bothered. The game has become a lot more of a grind and less enjoyable than when it was a bit of fun playing the odd game here and there. I would seriously question whether you want to go this route before trying it, it's not easy, and it's not for everyone.

I happen to think it's just because it's the first time I've tried playing this regularly, and on the back of such a long week working and trying to grind points, and it'll get a lot easier for me. I hope so. 

I probably won't be playing much now for the next two weeks- I may get a little in tomorrow and perhaps monday, but other than that I'll be off getting extremely grubby at festivals- bliss! 

TWRAMYEP

Havn't read the full thread, will in future if I can find time (can't find time to play a single session of poker atm)

Has writing about your challange helped your game in anyway? Focused you? picked up on leaks? etc?

Dudeskin8

It's pretty obvious you have the game to beat NL4 and to be honest I think that statement in itself is a little stupid as you don't actually need any GAME to beat it, for me it's just being an uber nit, having unbelievable patience and making sure you get the most value out of the most valuble hands.

The one thing I find frustrating most of all is when you wait for that one hand against the dead money player and still aren't able to win, had a hand recently guy raises 5x KJ I 3bet to 70-80p w/AA he snap calls flop J83 he shoves I snap, J on turn. It's that patience and nittiness not being rewarded which is hard but I will also say that as long as you are losing due to bad beats you have to be very happy with how you're playing.

I recall one hand you posted a while back the AK shove on turn with no hand just a draw for like ~150bb's, this is where you need to improve as imo that is a tilt shove, maybe higher up it's standard but down here it seemed very risky/maniac play.

Anyway good luck if you decide to keep going at it.

DeucesLive

I know exactly what you mean, and it's what I struggle with most at NL4. I can take the patience thing and roll with it, but when you play so few hands per hour, and when you finally get the ideal spot get outdrawn, it can really bother you. That's led to the odd hand where I've made bets/calls/shoves with hands I shouldn't do, and although they're rare- they hit your roll REALLY hard when it can take hours sometimes to make a quarter of a buyin.

I've got no intention of giving up, but I think DYMs at a low level offer a better ROI than NL4, as well as a much higher rate of poker points. From my little foray into £11 DYMs and what I've heard from people who've played, and still do play, at that level I don't think there's much value there- it's absolutely crammed with good, solid regs- so I'll be focusing on NL10 at that point. I have a couple of weeks to refresh my enthusiasm for poker anyway, the relentless grind really has killed a lot of my love of the game which is a shame. No matter what went right or wrong this month, I'm up by 60% on my original roll, so there's no need for me to be beating myself up too badly.

tapeworm

When you coming back dueces? I was enjoying this and it was inspiring, especially as you seem to have similar time constraints to me in regards to grinding.

Come on I wanna see you do this thing!!!

Dudeskin8

New month, you gonna try again mate ?