Joe's Journey Through The Stakes
Posted by Joe A.
Posted by
Joe A.
posted in
Poker Journals
Joe's Journey Through The Stakes
Since this is my first post I guess I should give you some background. I'm a 33 year old family man with one son and a pregnant wife. I've been playing poker for years but struggling to do more than break even. My typical poker cycle goes something like this. I start the month with a small bankroll $100-$200 and play the cheapest games possible and jump up levels as I get 30 buy ins to the next limit, what I inevitably end up doing is taking a shot at a higher limit way under rolled and tilt off my money until I'm back where I started. I almost never make a new deposit, but I can't remember the last time I cashed out. I currently play on Bovada and have approximately $86 dollars in my account. Now its time to start the learning process, good luck everyone.
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Good Luck! Do you have an Essential or Elite membership?
If Essential watch everything from Felipe asap.
Thx for the advice, hopefully I can start making some improvements and upgrade to the elite.
gl:)
Hi Joe, good luck grinding up.
I would recommend against getting the Elite membership until you're rolled for and playing 100NL regularly at least. Use the forums and take your time watching the essential vids, particularly Felipe and James Hudson.
The money you spend on the Elite membership would be better used boosting your bankroll, or getting someone to do some basic coaching with you.
you've got the right idea by focusing on learning and joining a community to help with the process. best of luck and welcome to the forums.
Things have been going fairly well, I'm up about 10 buyins. I have no idea how many hands I've played because I don't have anyway of keeping track at the moment. Does anyone have any suggestions for a stat tracking program for a player that plays exclusively on bovada?
I realized that I joined RIO with the goal of becoming a winning player, but I feel that I need some short term goals to keep motivated, so my goal for the rest of this month and next month will be to move up to 10nl with 35 buyins, I'm currently at $185 so I feel that this goal is very obtainable.
Wish me luck, I will be updating this weekly with my results.
My br is now at 315, unfortunately most of the poker I played last week was extremely unfocused. I had a very stressful week and only played cards to distract my mind. Thankfully everything turned out good for me and I managed to add some money to the br.
I hit my 350 dollar BR so I'm going to start playing 10nl with the plan of moving down if I lose 5 buyins. Last month I set a goal of moving to 10nl by the end of October and that happened early on in the month, so my new goal is to make 20 buyins at 10nl by the end of the month. Another goal of mine is to start posting hands, this is something I have never done before and I've been playing poker since the party poker days.
I know I'm not much of a writer, but documenting my progress has helped me stay motivated and kept me honest at the tables. In the past with a $350 BR, I would've been shortstacking the 200nl games, so as long as I keep watching vids and reading posts I hope I can stay on track and keep learning.
Gl all
The bankroll is at $780 and climbing, which I'm excited about because I haven't had the time to put in as much volume as I would like. I'm going to finish off the month playing 10nl reg and zone tables and set a new goal at the beginning of next month.
Can anyone give me their feedback on holdem indicator, is it worth buying or should I just keep playing without any software?
I have Holdem Indicator and I find it very useful. The basic HUD stats are beneficial when playing long sessions. I'd recommend it, as it will help you in tagging fish as well as identifying regs at the tables.
I've jumped to 25nl with a $1,000 bankroll and was running pretty at the beginning of November, then went on a 14 buyin downswing. By the end of the month I managed to win a total $30. This leaves me at $1,030 at the beginning of December. This month I need to focus more on my game and less on just putting in mindless volume when I get a free. My goal for the month is 30 buyins, wish me luck.
GL man! I have the same problem. I think about putting in tons of volume by playing more tables than I can handle and eventually lose like 20 buy ins in a row..gg..-_-
Sorry to hear about the negative variance downswing. Are you playing 25NL Zone or just regular 6-max? I used to play a mixture of zone & reg 6-max but I found Zone put me into a mindless zombie mode and was hurting my game. So now I play only regular 6-max; maybe that will help you too to help with staying focused.
What else helped me learn to focus that might help you is that I commented on my play while playing as if I was making a training video. Its kind of an odd thing to do, but it helps me focus on making good decisions and maintain my A game at the table.
Quick question; do you find the 25NL games to be tougher than 10NL on Bovada? I'm building my bankroll on Bovada as well currently at 10NL and crush 5NL and 10NL quite easily at ~13bb/100 over 110k sample. I'd be at 25NL already but keep withdrawing $. :-)
I honestly don't feel there is much of a difference in the limits. Id move up if you have the roll and don't need to make cash outs. Personally I have a full time job so I don't need to cash out at the moment.
That was my assumption, I'm assuming 50NL isn't much different as well (which is good for us). I have a good paying full-time job as well and play as a hobby. I cash out when I want to buy something my wife thinks I don't need (like new snowboard bindings), so I can say its from my poker winnings, haha. But I'm getting serious finally to build my roll like you and get to 50NL (hopefully) by April since I play such a small volume overall.
I had a terrible month and had to drop back down in stakes and unfortunately I know its because I'm playing terrible. The only good think that comes out of playing bad is a motivation to learn more and work on my game. For the immediate future I'm going to be playing 10nl until I'm back at a 40 buyins for 25nl. Have a safe and fun new year everyone, I will be home watching my pregnant wife sleep and parting hard with my 2 year old. Gl everyone
Hey Joe, seems like my life exept i play plo and my pregnant wife seems to never sleep while i grind or do some forum stuff :)
Keep your head up.
When i feel i play terrible i start to eleminate all concentrationkillers, so clean up my desk, fresh air, tell everybody to not disturb, get some rest before playing and so on. Really helps.
Good luck mate. When I read your story, it is exactly like myself. I do the exact same thing as you. I feel joining this site was the correct move for both of us . Best of luck this year
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