January Bankroll Challenge - Starting Bankroll $1,150

[Ballerholic]

Happy New Year Muchachos! I expect 2020 to be a very profitable year. Bankroll = Liferoll so I'm just trying to build it as high as I can and will also take out for expenses. Starting out at 25z and will probably move up mid month to 50z. In a very nice situation where I'm working while living at home so I really only have food as an expense currently. I should be able to add a good amount to my bankroll. I also like to bet on sports and trade stocks so any insight or topic I feel like writing about I'll add in here. Currently I'm trying to figure to test out multiple strategies with regards to sports betting and trading.



Goal for January - $4,000 Bankroll



Good luck to all this year

[pokerdevil]

Which site or sites are you playing

[MrSink]

Hello back

the first thing about your challenges is that you are not updating them at all . I believe in case of some setbacks you are completely unprepared what to do and giving up easilly . try to list some most common obstacles and how to handle those. be more precise what are you going to play , how many tables , what soft , when in case of buy ins to step down to lower limits , when to start laying higher . Another thing is how are you going to improve your skills. with no improvement it is going to be hard to shoot higher stakes. It is not all about bankroll. Another thing there are no adjustments to all your previous challenges , why they fail , what will be different this time . Goal seems competely unrealistic for me . Aiming that high could only build your frustration and kill your motivaton early . Do not want to be harsch by any means , fingers crossed for your success, but I would strongly consider all those factors

[sweep]

Might be the most disappointing threads of the year....Genuinely interested in your journey but your lack of commitment to your threads just screams lack of discipline in your game. Once every other month its a new thread with little substance and massive cliff hangers. Still wish you the best tho

[sweep]

Happy New Year Muchachos! I expect 2020 to be a very profitable year. Bankroll = Liferoll so I'm just trying to build it as high as I can and will also take out for expenses. Starting out at 25z and will probably move up mid month to 50z. In a very nice situation where I'm working while living at home so I really only have food as an expense currently. I should be able to add a good amount to my bankroll. I also like to bet on sports and trade stocks so any insight or topic I feel like writing about I'll add in here. Currently I'm trying to figure to test out multiple strategies with regards to sports betting and trading.



Goal for January - $4,000 Bankroll



Good luck to all this year

When you say 25z does that mean $0.10/$0.25 zoom tables? How many tables are you playing at once?

[MrSink]

Might be the most disappointing threads of the year....Genuinely interested in your journey but your lack of commitment to your threads just screams lack of discipline in your game. Once every other month its a new thread with little substance and massive cliff hangers. Still wish you the best tho

[Ballerholic]

Which site or sites are you playing

At the moment just Bovada Poker. Will probably start on Global Poker soon and then once I'm back over in Europe I'll play Pokerstars.

Hello back

the first thing about your challenges is that you are not updating them at all . I believe in case of some setbacks you are completely unprepared what to do and giving up easilly . try to list some most common obstacles and how to handle those. be more precise what are you going to play , how many tables , what soft , when in case of buy ins to step down to lower limits , when to start laying higher . Another thing is how are you going to improve your skills. with no improvement it is going to be hard to shoot higher stakes. It is not all about bankroll. Another thing there are no adjustments to all your previous challenges , why they fail , what will be different this time . Goal seems competely unrealistic for me . Aiming that high could only build your frustration and kill your motivaton early . Do not want to be harsch by any means , fingers crossed for your success, but I would strongly consider all those factors

Nice to see you again sink, how did your year end in terms of poker?

Also perfectly good point. Basically I had some family matters come up towards the end of the year which is the main reason I stopped updating. I've had many threads where I stop updating so I don't want to make that an excuse, but I have taken a long hard look at my life and where I want it to go. I really think this time I'll be much more consistent updating.

Might be the most disappointing threads of the year....Genuinely interested in your journey but your lack of commitment to your threads just screams lack of discipline in your game. Once every other month its a new thread with little substance and massive cliff hangers. Still wish you the best tho

When you say 25z does that mean $0.10/$0.25 zoom tables? How many tables are you playing at once?

Thanks Sweep, how did poker go for you this past year? Also definitely resurrect your thread. Yea it means zoom or zone. I'm in USA right now so will be zone until I move back to Europe.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Week 1 Update


So it's been a very short week. I only started playing on the 1st of January, but bankroll is up to $1,400 now. Up about $100 from poker this week with the rest coming from work. One of the things I'm really going to try out this year to help my mental game is only looking at my poker results once a week which is when I'll try and make an update. I get winner's tilt when I'm up a buyin or two and then I lose a big pot. It's very dumb, but unfortunately I have a monkey brain.

I didn't really speak about this but I feel like this is the year I have the best shot to really make it at poker. I do not have many obligations, I have the ability to build up a bankroll at a pretty quick pace, and I am getting very elite level of coaching at the moment. Right now I'm playing 25NL, but plan to be moving up to 50NL next week. Who knows if things go well I could be at 100NL by the end of the month. The goal for the year is to establish myself as a 200NL online reg and be shot taking 500NL. Once I accomplish these I only have high stakes to conquer.

[Crusherrr]

If you expect to reach 500NL on ROW sites you're going to need hundreds of hours of PIO/Solver work, extensive coaching, and have a full understanding of theory based strat because the regs are very very good on Stars.

200NL on USA sites you may be able to get to but tbh you are very bad with these goal threads. It's time for you to focus on career and building wealth and not wasting valuable time. There are other side-hustles you could do to make $25+ in your free time.

The days of double digit winrates are over but you could still probably win 20-30% ROI in MTT's nowadays even being a bad-reg because they are so soft. That's where the money is nowadays. When I play cash games (in the USA) I focus on only sites that regs don't even know about. I don't play cash on BOL, Iggy/Bovada, WPN or any of those nowadays. There are at least 10 other sites to play on not counting some of the apps if you really want soft games.

Good luck to you. I suspect this will be another thread that dies off just like on 2+2. Every update I see from you starts off with something like "So it's been a very short week" etc etc. It's rare that you talk about studying certain spots or start off by saying how hard you worked the week prior. It's almost always you saying how you took it easy or whatever. Doesn't sound like you really want this or you'd assert yourself more and put in greater effort.

[MrSink]

not familiar with cash game player pool but strongly agree with crusherrr points .

moving up stakes is not only about accumulating bigger bankroll , every single step up the stakes will make games tougher , with one pretty hard step in front of you. you need to have good plan of development : how you going to learn , what tools are you going to use , having a better player partner is very good place to start. unfortunately it is not 2010 anymore when simple session review or simplest equilab calculation did the work . tools are way more advanced , players using them can make progress much quicker.


Regarding stars.eu player pool . I am playing spins which is most likely the most fish infected pool at the moment. And you can clearly see that stars winrates are worse than on other platforms. So I would advise to find better running games somewhere else ( there are plenty of other rooms offering games on your stakes in europe ) and play stars only when other games are running poorly. naturally stars are most convenient and enjoyable soft to play but it comes with some costs as well .

Not being result oriented very important thing to establish good self - confidence at the tables . Checking every week could be hard when you d checked after every single game or even during session. Start small , expand it to afer evey single day , then maybe two and buld your awareness .

Firing higher stakes I would strongly advise to limit your nmber of tables drasticaly. Even playing only 1 game for a bit is very good idea to get accustomed to new surroundng , new bet sizes , new opponnents etc .

Nice to see you again sink, how did your year end in terms of poker?

December is always very good month . With many free days , comes many recreational players .

And most important hing , regular updates . This will motivate you to work longer and harder . Fingers crossed for you bud . In case of any doubts ask here I am sure that all guys here are happy to share some advices

[Bigbill365]

Let's play on global bro loser leaves the forum

[Itsamazing777]

Let's play on global bro loser leaves the forum

wtf lol

[sweep]

Thanks Sweep, how did poker go for you this past year? Also definitely resurrect your thread.

Thanks for asking...sorry to report that 2019 was the most disappointing year for me poker wise in some time. Not because of monetary results but because of poor choices i made along the way.

I took a trip out to Winstar Casino in OKlahoma early March with the plan of grinding tournys for 10 days ( i played 1 event & partied the rest)...went out to vegas twice, including during the heart of the WSOP with the intent on playing a few <$1000 events (played ZERO events but crushed NBA Summer League). Dumped deposit after deposit into online here in Jersey and never took it seriously...pretty much drank & did odds & ends around the house while playing online instead of focusing 100%. Largest online tourny was prob $200 buy-in but still, all the $5/$10/$20 tournys w/ rb&ao I prob dumped thousands. Very disappointing year but no one to blame but myself.

Wish you the best in 2020 cuz

[sweep]

If you expect to reach 500NL on ROW sites you're going to need hundreds of hours of PIO/Solver work, extensive coaching, and have a full understanding of theory based strat because the regs are very very good on Stars.

200NL on USA sites you may be able to get to but tbh you are very bad with these goal threads. It's time for you to focus on career and building wealth and not wasting valuable time. There are other side-hustles you could do to make $25+ in your free time.

The days of double digit winrates are over but you could still probably win 20-30% ROI in MTT's nowadays even being a bad-reg because they are so soft. That's where the money is nowadays. When I play cash games (in the USA) I focus on only sites that regs don't even know about. I don't play cash on BOL, Iggy/Bovada, WPN or any of those nowadays. There are at least 10 other sites to play on not counting some of the apps if you really want soft games.

Good luck to you. I suspect this will be another thread that dies off just like on 2+2. Every update I see from you starts off with something like "So it's been a very short week" etc etc. It's rare that you talk about studying certain spots or start off by saying how hard you worked the week prior. It's almost always you saying how you took it easy or whatever. Doesn't sound like you really want this or you'd assert yourself more and put in greater effort.

Online is so tough, even here in NJ... The rec player has no shot at being profitable in cash games long term.

[Ballerholic]

If you expect to reach 500NL on ROW sites you're going to need hundreds of hours of PIO/Solver work, extensive coaching, and have a full understanding of theory based strat because the regs are very very good on Stars.

200NL on USA sites you may be able to get to but tbh you are very bad with these goal threads. It's time for you to focus on career and building wealth and not wasting valuable time. There are other side-hustles you could do to make $25+ in your free time.

The days of double digit winrates are over but you could still probably win 20-30% ROI in MTT's nowadays even being a bad-reg because they are so soft. That's where the money is nowadays. When I play cash games (in the USA) I focus on only sites that regs don't even know about. I don't play cash on BOL, Iggy/Bovada, WPN or any of those nowadays. There are at least 10 other sites to play on not counting some of the apps if you really want soft games.

Good luck to you. I suspect this will be another thread that dies off just like on 2+2. Every update I see from you starts off with something like "So it's been a very short week" etc etc. It's rare that you talk about studying certain spots or start off by saying how hard you worked the week prior. It's almost always you saying how you took it easy or whatever. Doesn't sound like you really want this or you'd assert yourself more and put in greater effort.

You are 100% right here Crusherr. I have not worked hard enough to achieve what I want with poker. Luckily I've got some very good cash game coaches who are taking a chance on me and so everyday I'm studying and working on my game. I'm working a job at the moment, but in my free time I'm focusing on studying or playing. Cash is definitely harder than ever before, but what I will say is that nowadays we have the info we need to crush with solvers and it's more of who works harder now where in the past it was about who is more intelligent. I don't think I'm the smartest guy so I need to work my ass off here because it's the only chance I have. I will say though that even if online games become too tough to beat there will always be live cash games and those are just laughably easy. My goal is to get 1% better each day and if I can do that I can get really far by the end of the year.

not familiar with cash game player pool but strongly agree with crusherrr points .

moving up stakes is not only about accumulating bigger bankroll , every single step up the stakes will make games tougher , with one pretty hard step in front of you. you need to have good plan of development : how you going to learn , what tools are you going to use , having a better player partner is very good place to start. unfortunately it is not 2010 anymore when simple session review or simplest equilab calculation did the work . tools are way more advanced , players using them can make progress much quicker.


Regarding stars.eu player pool . I am playing spins which is most likely the most fish infected pool at the moment. And you can clearly see that stars winrates are worse than on other platforms. So I would advise to find better running games somewhere else ( there are plenty of other rooms offering games on your stakes in europe ) and play stars only when other games are running poorly. naturally stars are most convenient and enjoyable soft to play but it comes with some costs as well .

Not being result oriented very important thing to establish good self - confidence at the tables . Checking every week could be hard when you d checked after every single game or even during session. Start small , expand it to afer evey single day , then maybe two and buld your awareness .

Firing higher stakes I would strongly advise to limit your nmber of tables drasticaly. Even playing only 1 game for a bit is very good idea to get accustomed to new surroundng , new bet sizes , new opponnents etc .



December is always very good month . With many free days , comes many recreational players .

And most important hing , regular updates . This will motivate you to work longer and harder . Fingers crossed for you bud . In case of any doubts ask here I am sure that all guys here are happy to share some advices

Yea I want to update everyday, but I just feel like that's part of the reason I stopped. I think once per week is the perfect frequency because I don't want to check results everyday and then it gives me more to write about. Yea the holidays are really good for poker players. I wonder how these next few months will be. From what I heard summers are terrible since I guess nobody wants to sit inside on a nice day. I know you guys are awesome here and I appreciate you all helping to guide me.

Let's play on global bro loser leaves the forum

Haha what's your sn there? I'm Ballerholic there and I'll happily play you.

Thanks for asking...sorry to report that 2019 was the most disappointing year for me poker wise in some time. Not because of monetary results but because of poor choices i made along the way.

I took a trip out to Winstar Casino in OKlahoma early March with the plan of grinding tournys for 10 days ( i played 1 event & partied the rest)...went out to vegas twice, including during the heart of the WSOP with the intent on playing a few <$1000 events (played ZERO events but crushed NBA Summer League). Dumped deposit after deposit into online here in Jersey and never took it seriously...pretty much drank & did odds & ends around the house while playing online instead of focusing 100%. Largest online tourny was prob $200 buy-in but still, all the $5/$10/$20 tournys w/ rb&ao I prob dumped thousands. Very disappointing year but no one to blame but myself.

Wish you the best in 2020 cuz

Well that actually sounds like a pretty fun year regardless of results. I'm only starting to realise how insane the variance is in poker especially in MTTs. Apparently pros can go a whole year down money even though they are crushing the games regularly.

Thanks, best of luck this year too
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bankroll: $1,750

Poker Profit: $200

Month is going well so far. I haven't played as much volume (16 hours this week) as I have wanted so I am extremely disappointed with myself there. Ideally I'd like to be playing at least 25 hours a week. Before I play I have a warmup routine where I meditate, study, then I go play but only usually short sessions so that my focus is on point the whole time. But since the games are extremely soft I'm thinking that I just need to put in as much volume as I can. Last month I had an insane downswing at 25NL, but I wasn't playing well since I had a lot going on in my personal life and couldn't really concentrate. I also ran sooo bad getting sucked out on all the time. For this reason I'm trying to be a little more conservative shot taking 50NL. I think it's a little too nitty to not play 50NL with my current bankroll, but how many buyins should I use for my shot? I'm thinking of taking a 5 Buyin shot. Anybody here have any good advice for shot taking? I'm working as well so it's not like I can't replenish my bankroll easily.

Goals for upcoming week:

- 25 hours of play
- Workout 1x per day
-2,500 calories max per day

[MrSink]

thanks for update. hope you will hit your targets for next week

[Ballerholic]

thanks for update. hope you will hit your targets for next week

Thanks sink. I think you need to start a blog here. Following somebody playing spins would be such a fun rollercoaster ride!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bankroll: $2,300

Poker Profit: $165


Week went ok, but was hoping for a little better. I didn't get much sleep at all so I'm going to plan on waking up at 3:30am every morning and getting to bed by 8pm. I plan to do this because I am so much more productive in the mornings and more focused when studying poker. I hope to get 2-3 hours in as well as a morning workout before work.

Goals for the week

[] 14 hours of poker study
[] 20 hours of play
[] 5x workouts

GL all!

[thetrinity]

I agree with crusher MTT is where it is. SNG and cash have too many specialists

[Ballerholic]

I agree with crusher MTT is where it is. SNG and cash have too many specialists

Yea MTTs are for sure extremely profitable. A lot of my coaches are trying to play more MTTs while still maintaining most of their volume at cash. The issues I have with MTTs are that they can last up to 10 hours and a lot of it is just flipping for your entire stack. Also I find MTT players are way more nitty and less fun to play with. Also excessive tanking just to get into the money or hand to hand play. I mainly play poker to improve my lifestyle and freedom. I feel like being an MTT pro is something that doesn't really provide that. Not saying I won't play MTTs, I just wouldn't ever want to do them full time for a living.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bankroll: $2,400

Poker Profit: $110


Had a down week at the tables, but only 2 buyins. Also ended up spending a lot of money this week and I'm not really sure how. So bankroll didn't grow as much as I'd like, but anything is a positive direction is good. At the moment I'm becoming extremely confident at 25z that I'm one of the best players in the pool if not the best. Although that is not much considering it's bovada. I don't think I would be the best 25z player on Pokerstars at all. I see a lot of bad play going on even from "regulars". So I think I'll be profitable in the 50z pool which I plan to shot take this upcoming week. Since I have a pretty good bankroll at the moment I plan on just moving to 50z and riding the variance. Now if I feel incompetent there I'll just move down after losing 20 buyins and grind 25z for a bit longer.

One thing I have found extremely helpful is to meditate/exercise and watching a live play video before starting a session. The meditation/exercise is just to improve focus on the moment. You don't want to be playing a poker hand with your hole stack on the line and your mind is thinking about a sports game or the news. Then watching a live play video of somebody playing poker helps us get our mind in a poker setting and warm us up. This is better than sitting down at the tables and trying to get warmed up with $ on the line and cold muscles. Finally, it is extremely important to play with very little distractions. So now watching tv in the background or doing other tasks while grinding. This hurts our focus and decision making ability. During the week whenever I played without doing a proper warmup and played distracted I ended up losing a lot of money. Where when I played warmed up and focused I made money overall. Variance is variance, but in a tough game like poker where edges are very thin, we need to be competing at the highest level possible.

Anyway, going to spend the week finishing up the 25z grind and spending a lot of time studying in preparation for 50z. Hopefully I'll have some good news about the shot next week!

[MrSink]

I didn't get much sleep at all so I'm going to plan on waking up at 3:30am every morning and getting to bed by 8pm.

I am reading cool book that can help. Why we sleep by Mathew Walker


yes , fully agree. eliminate all distractions , tv , stream services , messengers , turn off phone sounds etc . all those things hurting your winrate

big thumbs up for warming up . I also find it very useful to make quick cool down after packed day of grinding to shut down card mode faster .

keep your days well schedule and good luck with your 50 shot . drop down some tables at the beginning and if not comfortable you can move down even faster than your set threshold

[Ballerholic]

Thanks Sink I'm definitely going to check that book out! Unfortunately I'm still trying to find the right balance of when to go to bed and when to wake up. I think best time to grind poker is at night when people are off work so I don't want to be going to bed early and missing those key hours.

A cool down is actually a good idea. How do you cool down? Watch a tv show?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monthly Update

Bankroll: $2,664

Poker Profit: $278


The month went alright in terms of poker results. I would have liked to have made more, but I can't complain being up for the month in a high variant game. So made just over 10BIs this month and now I am full time 50NL. Unfortunately I played 50NL yesterday for the first time and ended up dropping just over 5 BIs in under 2 hours. Pretty sick coolers though and the games are very soft so I'm comfortable playing there. Also I noticed that I didn't really get worked up or thrown off my game from losing so much so quickly while shot taking. I was still mad, but I usually would be way more angry and dwell on it for longer. So I think my mental game is definitely improving and I'll keep working on it.

I'm going to create a new thread for the upcoming month so head on over there!

[romofan33]

good luck!

[MrSink]

cannot find new thread

[housepicks]

Thanks for asking...sorry to report that 2019 was the most disappointing year for me poker wise in some time. Not because of monetary results but because of poor choices i made along the way.

I took a trip out to Winstar Casino in OKlahoma early March with the plan of grinding tournys for 10 days ( i played 1 event & partied the rest)...went out to vegas twice, including during the heart of the WSOP with the intent on playing a few <$1000 events (played ZERO events but crushed NBA Summer League). Dumped deposit after deposit into online here in Jersey and never took it seriously...pretty much drank & did odds & ends around the house while playing online instead of focusing 100%. Largest online tourny was prob $200 buy-in but still, all the $5/$10/$20 tournys w/ rb&ao I prob dumped thousands. Very disappointing year but no one to blame but myself.

Wish you the best in 2020 cuz

That’s because you’re a drunk piece of shit.