Beating the microstakes, tilt and learning to crush again

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Beating the microstakes, tilt and learning to crush again

So I'm creating this blog to get my goals down and keep me motivated, leave me a comment if I can help you with anything
I was crushing poker between 2002-2008 before suffering with depression which had a massive effect on my life and crippled my ability to grind.. I'm currently living with my parents in my late 20's, working a job I hate and have only now started to pick up the pieces of my life. It has been a long road to get my mental state back to what it was but now I feel really positive and love life once more.

Anyway I'll put the violin away and show you my current graph (2015 - 10NL):

March 2015 Graph: Not a great month, made a good few mistakes and wasn't that happy with my mental control, after a good holiday I feel raring to go for April though

Goals
- Control Tilt, I feel entitled to win, can't deal with losing, I can't stand making mistakes and have very low confidence in my game.
- Stop being so results orientated
- Grind enough hands to move up to 20NL and then eventually get to mid stakes
- Keep learning and improving every day and become a part of this community.

27 Comments

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n4sty 9 years, 11 months ago

April Goals
- Focus on pre flop ranges including cold calling, 3-betting and 4-betting
- Work on my flop c-betting range and call flop-cbet
- Manage my tilt more effectively using techniques from "The mental game of poker by Jared Tendler"
- Keep my mind and body healthy
- Grind at least 50k hands 6 tabling 10NL 6-max

FatCat 9 years, 11 months ago

Hi! Gl for everything!
May i ask you what are those ev adj spikes in your graph? There are like 3 of them and they cover more than 60 stacks

n4sty 9 years, 11 months ago

Hi and thanks, it's not actually EV but (net result + rake and bonus), those spikes are just where I have cleared a bonus :)

I started on pokerstars and then moved to ipoker where the rake is insane!

n4sty 9 years, 10 months ago

So I managed to lose my database when I upgraded Psql, but had a great month and have started at 20NL.

I went through a horrible start to the month but I was very happy with my emotional control and managed to ride it out without making many mistakes which I'm really happy about. I've come up with a strategy at the micros I'm happy about as before I was losing EV by being to aggro with my semi bluffs versus opponents who couldn't fold and conversely calling/raising too light against value heavy ranges.

n4sty 9 years, 10 months ago

Had a big mental game setback, things have been going really well and I fell apart today. I sometimes have a really fragmented thought process and ended up making some really stupid plays. I thought I'd post my shame in order to discourage plays like this in the future, please point and laugh :)

In the first hand I lead, I'm in two minds about this play but I think I like it to balance out the times I have J9/99/66 but maybe I would be bluffing this too much.
The flop I lead which I don't know if I like....
I think during the session I have some fold equity with my 3bet as some villains raise donk bets with air... I think this is not a good thought process, we want to be more specific with reads and we have odds to call the raise even oop

In hand 2 this is a classic spot I will overplay my hand
After 43 hands villain has an RFI of 43% and a CC of 56% and a fold 3bet of 0/5 so probably not a great player but too soon to tell I think

My thought process was basically... he's bad he could have KJ/JT
At first glance it looks like villain shouldn't have sets but who knows how a player like this plays QQ/44 and he can have KQ.

Zyzz 9 years, 10 months ago

Really don't like the T8 play here leading is fine but i don't like lead raise calling it off here, as for AK i think you can fold turn here your range is very strong here and would be a pretty stupid bluff for villain here i would need some strong reads to call here especially at micro stakes.

n4sty 9 years, 10 months ago

I actually hate my lead even more now, we have such a range disadvantage we don't want to be betting a lot here

n4sty 9 years, 9 months ago

So After a horrible week played this hand badly Vs a tagfish I think.
Was losing 4 buyins in a session and wanted to gamble, probably should be calling the flop min raise and my turn shove isn't folding much out so should just check back

prinsjay 9 years, 9 months ago

Yeahh, what is the problem here? he probably shows up with a full house, right? and you are drawing dead. But i could be wrong! But what i wanted to say...when you are not able to get away from your hand, then it´s not a good hand to open from MP.
But i like your blog here, keep posting...and keep playing body.

jfish 9 years, 9 months ago

what site do you play on? good luck interested in following this thread, i am a aspiring micros player myself would be cool to chat poker with you on skype if interested.

n4sty 9 years, 9 months ago

Playing on iPoker, I've been planning to have a study group for ages, but never have time to get my Skype on :)

Zyzz 9 years, 9 months ago

opening 9Ts in MP is good, raising flop is ok but id prefer just to call wen he re raises we are always in bad shape here, turn is a really bad card. your hand looks like exactly what it is when you shove, would you shove FH or quads here ?

prinsjay 9 years, 9 months ago

@Zyzz: shuffing the turn with 10 high, i still dont think it´s a good idea to open 9 10 suited from MP. But when you do i think it´s ok to cbet and call the XR, but when villan call the flop 3 bet, i think his hand is pretty well defined to 2 pair or better. I just talk out off experience. I would also have a hard time to get away 6 Moth ago, but then i started to break Down hands like this, so instead of getting in to too many of these spots, i just think it is better to cut them out. At least as long as we play these kinds of stakes, and have quite some focus on volume. But okay, that´s just my opion.

Zyzz 9 years, 9 months ago

Prinsjay,

I think you misunderstood what i said, i did not say shove the turn here what i said was his hand looks exactly like it is to villain which is a combo draw, if were talking how i would play this hand here i would check/fold the turn in this spot.

As for 9Ts in MP, for me now i open this UTG (6-max) . I used to play pretty tight and fold these type of hands but at 50nl good players are only 3betting like 4-5% and the rest are lower, If there are good aggressive players behind then i will fold this but if not then its always an open for me.

prinsjay 9 years, 9 months ago

yes Zyzz. I totally aggree in your opening ranges there. And that was just my point. But i also like a check behind in this hand. Because if the Draw goes in, it wery disguised.

Zyzz 9 years, 9 months ago

i didn't even realise were in pos i sed i would check fold but obv in pos i would just check behind, i wouldn't reraise flop either.

n4sty 9 years, 9 months ago

So just had one of the worst days ever, down 8 buy ins in one day and feeling dejected. Spewed at least a buy in and wondering if I should take the evening off.

Zyzz 9 years, 9 months ago

lost 12 bi monday spent tues,wed, and thursday grinding it back then lost 13 bi today ran pretty awful to say the least but just try to get on with it

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