[Ballerholic]

What's up guys, I've decided to track my betting progress again this time in the poker forum. I've officially started playing poker seriously for the first time in my life so I think it's only proper to track how I do there as well. Now I've played poker a little here and there, but now I have joined a coaching for profit site and I expect to move up the stakes and make a decent income from poker.


Background: I'm a 23 year old college student at the moment and I've been gambling for about 4 years now. My first two years I was a complete degen and I lost a lot. The past year I have made a good amount of money sports betting and I am finally at the point where I don't need to bet every game/night. In poker I am playing at Coral Poker, and at 10NL and I receive around 30% rakeback. I also have a 100% bonus matching my €200 bankroll there. I play at 5dimes and Bet365 for sports betting. Most plays will be thru 5dimes as they have the best lines.


Goal: My goal is to make $50,000 by this time next year and then have $100,000 by the end of 2017. I will be tracking both sports betting and poker in this thread.


Strategy:


Sports: I will be taking an aggressive strategy. For sports betting I will only have at most 10 units at a time. So with a $100 bankroll, I will be betting around $10 units until I get my bankroll up to $200. At that point I will start betting $20. This will continue every time I double my roll. If this doesn't work out, then I'll re-adjust.


Poker: I basically have to give half of my profits each month to my coaching program unless I hit 160+ hours. So I'm going to have to play a lot of poker. Poker will be the main source of income and I will use it to help out my sports betting roll.


Sports Bankroll: $100


Poker Bankroll: €200


Anyway, Best of Luck to us!

[Spacefrog]

You're giving 50% of your profits to your coach?
Why don't you give me just 20% and i'll give half of that to charity...

[Spacefrog]

Your goal is to multiply your bankroll 160 times in a year, giving up of 50% of profits every month?
Your coach must be REALLY good.

[Spacefrog]

then I'll re-adjust.

I think this is the most important piece of your post...

[Spacefrog]

Having said what i said, i just wish you good luck. I really hope I'll be eating my own words by the end of 2017...

[Spacefrog]

Baller, i'm sorry i poisoned your post. But, anyhow, Donk and Waves would make it for sure...

[Crusherrr]

$300 is way too small to even think about making $50k. You would need to be a solid winner at 100NL already and move up to 200NL soon to have a shot. Why would you take on a coach at such small stakes if you are giving away profit. I'm guessing it's not some deal you can back out of when you move up in stakes because it's hardly worth the hourly for a good coach to do it for profits when your playing the micros.

[Ballerholic]

I completely forgot the British Open started so much earlier than the other major tournament times so I forgot to post these in time.

Top 20 Adam Scott +100

Top 20 Sergio Garcia +105

Top 20 Hideki Matsuyama +225

Top 20 Marc Leishman +300

Sergio Garcia -128 vs Branden Grace (Tourn)

Marc Leishmann +115 vs Paul Casey (Tourn)

all plus moneylines are risking 10, while negative moneylines are to win 10

[Ballerholic]

Also guys, I completely understand the goal is going to be very tough to achieve. I'm setting my goal high so that I can motivate myself and improve my work rate. My goal is to make $100,000, but if I don't and I only make $10k or $20k so be it. Honestly though if I realistically take a look at my situation I think a realistic goal is to make $50k by the end of next year. I get 30% rakeback ontop of deposit bonuses and promotional races. I assume I'll be at 50Nl in a few months. I'm at 10NL now. I should get 250 euro back from my deposit bonus which would boost my bankroll to 450 euro. Then I get around 400 euro rakeback so my bankroll should then be at 850 euro. This is all before my winnings, which I would consider to be around 5bb-10bb at 10NL (although I am in a brutal downswing at the moment). This means that next month I'll be playing 20Nl and getting around 600 euro in rakeback before profits. At this point my bankroll will be ready for 50NL. At 50Nl rakeback is about 2000 euro monthly and then at 100NL rakeback is around 3000 euro monthly. Obviously I could 100% be a losing player at these stakes (at the moment I definitely am), but if I'm not then it's even way more profitable. As well I'll be adding to my bankroll throughout the year if needed thru some part time work. Nothing huge, but maybe a few hundred here or there if needed (I'll do my best not to).

Honestly, is this more unrealistic than a kid thinking he can play in the NBA when he grows up?

[Ballerholic]

as for the coaching for profits, I only pay if I don't get 160+ hours in a month. Obviously I would have to pay at the end of the contract though, and the coach was a huge crusher at 400NL games but only coaches now. He has a lot of students who crush the low to midstakes though. He's not technically my coach yet until I move up to at least 50NL. I also plan to play some live cash games once my bankroll gets there as well which should be very profitable.

[Auto Donk]

here's a better plan: sue this "coach" for deceptive trade practices and seek treble damages.....

[pabonaparte]

Would RJ Bell happen to be involved in this project?

[Ballerholic]

Update

Poker: €177
Sports: $100

Poker

The downswing has continued as I've hit the top of everybody's range. Yesterday was really bad as I continued my downswing by losing 5 buyins until I was able to fire off and win 12 buyings to end the night. At the moment I am basically at break even after rakeback is calculated in. I expect this weekend to be profitable as I tweaked a few things about my game and the fish should all come out and play.

Sports

So far 4 of the 6 bets are looking good. As long as 3 of the bets win, it should be a profitable tourney.


Justin Thomas (2nd rnd) -133 vs David Lingmerth

[Ballerholic]

Poker: BR: €185 (with rakeback it's more like €205)

Sports YTD: 1-2 BR: $88.20

Washington Nationals -122 vs Pittsburgh Pirates

[Jedi Mind Picks]

Whats the name/sn of your Coach?

[Ballerholic]

Henrik Stenson -113 (4th rnd) vs Phil Mickelson

[Ballerholic]

Whats the name/sn of your Coach?

Gordon Gekko, I don't know his sn though. If you look up bestpokercoaching(.com) he's the head coach/founder of the site. He's not my coach yet as I'm only at the microstakes.

[Ballerholic]

Yankees +108 vs Red Sox

Mariners -103 vs Astros

[Ballerholic]

Poker: €185.27

Sports: €107.70

Technically at the moment if I factor in rakeback I'm up about $15. But I won't be receiving it all until around the 5th of every month so I'll add it in then. I did not realize how important rakeback is in building a bankroll.

[daneblazer]

as for the coaching for profits, I only pay if I don't get 160+ hours in a month. Obviously I would have to pay at the end of the contract though, and the coach was a huge crusher at 400NL games but only coaches now. He has a lot of students who crush the low to midstakes though. He's not technically my coach yet until I move up to at least 50NL. I also plan to play some live cash games once my bankroll gets there as well which should be very profitable.

So he use to dominate 400nl but only coaches now. Why do you suspect that is?

[Crusherrr]

So he use to dominate 400nl but only coaches now. Why do you suspect that is?

Pyramid scheme. Coaching for profits, not even while your backed. Seems great.....

[Ballerholic]

I get what you guys are saying, and before I joined I thought it was definitely a scam as well. So basically I paid a deposit of €350 to join. On top of that I am required to pay 50% of my profits every month. Now I can keep 100% as long as I show I'm putting in the effort to get better and learn (ex. play about 40+ hours each week, post hands, attend coaching sessions). If I lose I don't pay for that month, and if I keep all my profits I will have to pay 50% eventually. I'm currently contracted until I reach 5k profit so I give them 2.5k of that, and after that I can try for the 30k contract. This would be more for the advanced groups who are playing 25NL-400NL only if they want.

The huge attraction is the community involved, there are thousands of students all at different levels. You can post hands, ask questions, there are skype groups for each stake. I was a breakeven/losing player at 4NL and once I joined this I was crushing for 15BB/100. I've only gotten thru about 30% of the videos as well and I have only attended 1 training session. I just stuck with the NO BS 6max guide, and I still don't have that done completely. Now I've moved up to 10NL for my first time it's going pretty well if I exclude the miserable variance I'm experiencing (my ev line is about breakeven), but I'm down 6BI which is obviously not alot but still. I'm only even at the stake because of rakeback/bonuses, but with the ev line I'd be up 5BI with this.

Now there are a few coaches, but the main one (for the most advanced) could probably still show a profit at 400NL. If he couldn't then he could definitely show one at 200NL. He plays very exploitative. I've talked to a 400NL poker pro about this and he agrees that Gordon is very good and he's bought a lot of his stuff.

Bottom line: I'm not trying to play 400NL right now, I'm only at 10NL lol. If I get to the small stakes and I can't turn a profit I'll end the contract and get a new coach. There have been many students who have crushed after joining BPC, as well there are more who haven't. The only difference I see is that those who put in the effort and treated poker like a job where able to successfully crush monthly in place of a very good job.

[Ballerholic]

Poker: €200 (after rakeback)

Sports : €107.70



As you can see I'm running pretty bad over a very small sample size. Rakeback and Deposit bonus is keeping me afloat at the moment. My main issue is getting 3bet/4bet and defending my blinds as a lot of players at my site keep doing this. I'll play a good few hours later on this afternoon and then watch some videos on how to deal with all of this later tonight. I'll also have to table select a little better.

[Crusherrr]

Oh so they made you pay $350 upfront too which makes it 110% more of a pyramid scheme. 2p2 offers a better forum/community then Coaching for Profits does I can guarantee it and while I'm sure the material is fine those thousands of people that are members of this scheme are just as blind as you are.

[Ballerholic]

lol man you need to chill. Listen I'm going to make 100k by the end of next year with this program. Although I might have to take off 35k to pay them. I appreciate you trying to let me know it's a scam, but I'm in the program now and believe me it is not a scam. You can bash it all you want, but you're just as blind as the other people calling it a scam without having any knowledge of it. I had a 17bb/100 winrate at 5NL when I was just a breakeven/losing player prior to joining. I'd be up 5BI's right now at 10NL if I was running EV, which would equate to a 10BB/100 winrate. I've only done 1/3 of the material and I don't ever post or attend training sessions which are on 4 days a week. When I signed up for this site I knew that I might be throwing away €350, but I was desperate as I didn't know much about poker. Since joining I can truly weight in on the experience. I'm only in the beginner program, but I would recommend this to anyone trying to beat up to 10NL. Now I can't speak for the intermediate group 10NL-50NL, but if it doesn't go well there after putting in at least 30 hours a week and attending all coaching sessions/studying the material then I will 100% go on 2+2 and let everyone know it's a scam. 2+2 has the best community in poker, but for a coaching site BPC is pretty damn good.

Anyway man, what stakes/site are you playing at the moment?

[daneblazer]

Back at my peak, I was beating 50 & 100nl. I had a good resource in a family member who was a pro but I also had access to the things you mentioned...skype groups, videos, live streams...all for free outside of time. I'm not going to tell you whether or not to do but it's going to be incredibly difficult to win giving half your winnings away. I assume they won't pad your roll for half your losses if you have a losing month? I dunno...I just think you can do work yourself, network, keep the winnings and in the long run be better off. Eventually you're going to have to play fairly high stakes to reach 100k in that time frame

[Ballerholic]

why'd you stop playing those limits? Good income can be made there. I completely get what your saying, but to be fair as long as they see I'm putting in effort to get better (ex. 40+ hours a week) they don't mind letting me keep my profits. The sooner I move up to the higher stakes, the sooner I start making big money to pay them. I only have to give them half of my first 3k profits. At that time I can decide if I want to stay with them and do a 30k contract 50/50 split (which most do) or I can go find somebody to coach me. We'll see, all I know is that I need all the help I can get and I'd rather risk some profits at this stage in order to move up and quicker than if I did everything on my own without a structured program.

At the moment I just completed the 1st of 6 modules in the beginner program and now I need to upload 10k hands to their database (which they analyze and give me feedback) and then I have to complete a quiz on which actions to take on certain parts of a hand (I need to get 47 out of 49 to pass). Then there is also software they created to help improve equity calculations and reading in real time. So it definitely seems worth the money so far, and from what I've seen/read on the forums there, most people are lazy and don't put in enough time and constantly make excuses. It's understandable because poker isn't 100% of our lives, but you can't expect to move up to higher stakes if you don't do the required work and only log 20k hands a month.

[Ballerholic]

Poker: €140 (After RB/DB)

Sports: €107.70

Basically I tilted pretty hard yesterday. I've been running very bad this month and yesterday I just kind of lost it. The plan for today is to table select pretty well and only play 2 tables at a time. I'm 6BI's down at the moment and this could get ugly quick if I don't turn it around. I'm really €135 down without RB/DB, 6BI below EV. My past few sessions have just been very bad/tilty. I've never experience variance this bad that it just caused me to tilt so hard. Nonetheless, it's only been 11 days since I've started this thread and I've only logged about 7k hands. Even if I only breakeven at this stake I can still make a good profit alone with RB/DB. I'm definitely a fish at the moment in these game, so I need to change things around and find some worse players.

[Ballerholic]

So i just went thru my PT4 to look at some of the hands in which I lost the most amount of money and over the past 2 days I'm about €-75, but when I look at what the correct plays would have been I would only be down €-15. So about €60 was thrown away tilting. Now these are only for 1.6k of the 7k sample, so I'll do a big review later on today.

[DGG23]

only to refresh your memory,friend

http://www.sportsbookreview.com/foru...l#post25112189
good luck!

[Ballerholic]

wow I'm so sorry, I don't know how forgot about that. How much do I owe you with interest? I'll send you some points now, and I also have a 900 point free bet from SBR.

[JAKEPEAVY21]

gl

[Ballerholic]

Jake-Thanks I appreciate it.

Poker: €95 (NO RB)

Sports: $107.70

Anyway guys 10NL hasn't gone very well for me, I took at shot at 10NL with about 20BI's. Due to variance I was down to 15BI's after a few K hands, although with RB and DB I would be even. The only problem is I'm not cashing out RB until the end of the month in order to get a higher % RB. Because of variance and then my tilt poker I only have about 10BI's right now. So for now I'm going to drop down to 5NL, and once I hit €200 in my poker balance I'm going straight back to 10NL. I switched to Coral Poker for 10NL due to the RB, but I think the great RB deal brings in a lot of Eastern European Grinders (EEG). Where as before I was playing on a site that only offered 15% RB, but it was extremely soft. So as I'm still a complete beginner at 10NL, based on how things go I might have to play on the softer site while I spend some more time studying.

[daneblazer]

"Why'd you stop playing those limits?"


I just got tired of playing poker. I've been playing regularly for over 10 years. Started working a new job along with another side project making more money than I was with job & playing poker. With that plus kids I just didn't have the time. Don't really miss the "other" things that come along with poker like feeling like you have play to log volume, sitting in front of the computer or poker table for hours, mood changes due to bad beats or losing streaks or flat lining. I could probably still work in some volume now...but the nail in the coffin is that online poker in the US is borderline dead. It's just shit. I still play once in a blue moon but it was time to move on with other things.


You're seeing how difficult it is to win...which is why people question giving half your winnings to a coach. You don't really need a coach to go from a level 0 to beating 25NL if you're dedicated. If someone isn't then poker probably isn't their thing anyways. Once you get up to 50 100nl you can seek out a coach but you may not even need it still. I don't doubt you are getting good advice but it's not worth the $ vs what you could improve on yourself. Just my opinion. I'm not saying this in a negative way or assume you're doing this, but people often perceive a wrong play as "variance". Variance is getting it in with Aces preflop and pocket 7's winning. Playing a hand incorrectly isn't variance. I don't know how many tables you're playing either or if you're mixing in 6-max, full ring. If you're multi tabling you may want to bring it down a few tables and focus on less. I get that we start somewhere, but it's tough to run up a $200 roll...so don't tilt yourself. It's a learning process. My advice would be table select, table select, table select. I assume you're using some sort of software and even if you aren't if you feel you're at a tough table or you are to the right of someone who keeps putting you in tough spots that you aren't familiar with (like he's 3betting you often)...don't try to slug it out. Swallow that pride and leave. Look for low hanging fruit. You aren't getting any medals beating a table or tags and good lags.

[SharpAngles]

why'd you stop playing those limits? Good income can be made there. I completely get what your saying, but to be fair as long as they see I'm putting in effort to get better (ex. 40+ hours a week) they don't mind letting me keep my profits. The sooner I move up to the higher stakes, the sooner I start making big money to pay them. I only have to give them half of my first 3k profits. At that time I can decide if I want to stay with them and do a 30k contract 50/50 split (which most do) or I can go find somebody to coach me. We'll see, all I know is that I need all the help I can get and I'd rather risk some profits at this stage in order to move up and quicker than if I did everything on my own without a structured program.

At the moment I just completed the 1st of 6 modules in the beginner program and now I need to upload 10k hands to their database (which they analyze and give me feedback) and then I have to complete a quiz on which actions to take on certain parts of a hand (I need to get 47 out of 49 to pass). Then there is also software they created to help improve equity calculations and reading in real time. So it definitely seems worth the money so far, and from what I've seen/read on the forums there, most people are lazy and don't put in enough time and constantly make excuses. It's understandable because poker isn't 100% of our lives, but you can't expect to move up to higher stakes if you don't do the required work and only log 20k hands a month.

WTF no to all of this! Except the very last sentence I guess because volume is the key IF you can play. Hard enough to beat the rake and now we're splitting profits with a coach lol no. If you are built for this you don't need more than a few theory books and a place to grind.

Jake-Thanks I appreciate it.

Poker: €95 (NO RB)

Sports: $107.70

Anyway guys 10NL hasn't gone very well for me, I took at shot at 10NL with about 20BI's. Due to variance I was down to 15BI's after a few K hands, although with RB and DB I would be even.

Fine line between variance and misplaying hands be honest with yourself

I honestly wish you luck but this is probably the worst time in the last 20 years to take up online poker as a serious source of income so be ready for a lot of competition.