Hi all!

Microstakes cash games have always been what I'm drawn to, and it keeps being that way today.
I learnt how to play online in forums, starting with the SSS strategy. It's always been an on-and-off kind of thing, in reality, because I never really played for very long periods. Mostly because of lack of proper time. To give you an idea, I think I played sth like 700k hands in total, in so many years. So not too much. I always played at NL2 and NL5. Mostly NL2 which is the limit I used to feel most confident at and that I saw I could always beat. I've always had a positive win rate but my struggle is that it's always been quite low.

Just like playing, studying has also been done in a non-continuous way. But every time I pick up poker, I feel something has been rooted in me and, despite how diluted this all has been, I feel I have improved.

At a point I was rolled for 25NL but still playing 2NL: I was sure I could not beat anything higher than that. I cashed out many times and this year I only had 40€ on Pokerstars.it. I play in the Italian networks: we Italians are stuck playing against Italians.

So this year I picked up poker again: I saw this BR challenge thing that people are doing and decided it might give me the motivation to not drop it all one more time after the usual 60-70k hands, and pursue a goal with consistency.

So here it is:
Starting BR: 40€
Starting stakes: 2NL
BR Goal: 500
Stake Goal: 10NL
Achievement: I want to be able to beat NL10 out of a sample of at least 80.000 hands with a win rate higher than 3bb/100.

What do you think?

When it comes to the win rate, I really struggle trying to understand. I see people posting crazy win rates of stuff like 18bb/100 at 2NL. I believe it's real but I can't just figure out how to get there. It seems impossible to me. My win rate is better this year because I have been implementing new improvements from stuff that I have learnt recently. 3betting was a leak of mine, and I can see it's got better.

Plus, in Italy, rake seems to be higher: 5.5% on Pokerstars, about 6.5% on ipoker and 888 with 100bb caps. Ok I'm not blaming it on the rake :D but still.