Ubersantas

25NL is something else
So I finished my first month of 25NL and I have to say that it is tougher than 10NL, but not by a lot at all. I was expecting that this was a different kind of level of play, but the most I see is that people 3-bet a little more from all positions compared to 10NL. I think I still have an edge here and am putting in the work to increase it. So how did it go?

I have to say that it went from amazing to awfull to great. I ended up in a huge upswing and won 26 buy-ins in no-time. For me, I have a rule or myself that I move up in stakes whenever I reach + 30 buy-ins at a certain level. I don't need the money I make from poker, since I work on the side. This means that I can keep my poker bankroll purely for poker and I don't plan on withdrawing anything soon. After I won those 26 buy-ins I got into a huge downswing. I lost 22 buy-ins almost as fast as I won them. This got me questioning my approach and if I'm even winning at this stake, or just got lucky once. But bad runs are a part of the game and I told myself that I just need to grind it out, keep studying and drilling nodes, I will eventually win again. And that is exactly what happend. Right now I'm back up 15 buy-ins at 25NL, so halfway through.

New schedule
Since I work almost full-time (32 hours per week) I have to make a good schedule in the week to fit in as much time as possible to focus on poker. This is quite diffucult to do, since I also have things to do in-and-around the house. After some good scheduling I planned a week where I put around 30 hours into poker. So almost as much as I'm working. This involves me waking up a few hours early to fire up some tables. Sometimes not many tables are running this early. Then I decide, based on the tables and players that are playing, if I want to study some extra, or just keep playing. I tested this schedule now for 2 weeks and really like it. I don't want to prioritize poker over health and relationships and with this schedule I still have time available to workout and spend time with my girlfriend.

Till next time!

Thank you!

Great blog! Looks like the discipline from your bodybuilding days are transitioning into studying and playing poker. Good luck on your journey.

Poker
When I started this blog I was only playing 5NL. I had a dream and decided that if I wanted to achieve what I have always dreamt of, I should put in the work. Things did not always go my way and life also got in the way of my dreams. But I always focussed on poker in one way or another. Right now I can see that this disciplined approach towards poker is paying off. With proud I can say that I'm currently a 25NL player. I've played a few sessions on 25NL and already managed to win a few buy-ins. For what I can tell is that 25NL is not much different from 10NL. If I keep improving I will increase my edge against my opponents and continue to grind towards my goals.

Miracle Morning
Recently I read the book called the 'Miracle Morning'. It is about starting your day with a priority on yourself and your goals. I don't like everything about the book, but there are a few key take-aways in the book I really like. The book goes over a morning ritual which consists of meditations, affirmations and visualisations. Now I don't really like affirmation, but the book got me thinking about a ritual for myself (The book also says to make is your own, so that's what I did).

My morning ritual consists of a few things, but always include either a poker study session or poker playing session. This resulted in me making up around 5 - 6 AM, instead of 7 - 8 AM. I usually take the first 30 minutes to wake up, drink some water, move around a little and study some flashcards. After that I either do a study session or a playing session for 1 - 1,5 hours. This means that I already got a few hunderd hands in before I used to wake up. The idea of waking up early to invest of poker also made it attractive for me to get up. So I'm thankful for this book and it helped me towards my goals.

What's next
Right now I'm playing 25NL and I will keep grinding and studying until I have the bankroll to play 50NL. In my last post I was debating about staying on a site without hand histories or playing on GGPoker with hand histories. When I'm in the lobby in GGPoker I do see a few 'juicy' tables, but there is mostly 3 - 5 people waiting to be seated next. Since I don't play long sessios (mostly sessions of max 2 hours, seperated over the day) I decided that it is not worth my time to wait around that long to be seated and playing. So I decided to stick with my usual site and reevaluate in the future. Hope you all have a great day and see you in my next post!

Update
One year ago I started this blog. So I figured it is a good time to write another update. The past year has been a rollercoaster in my personal life. This resulted in not playing and studying poker in the past few months. Here I think it is important to make priorities and focus on some things really well, instead of just focusing a little on a lot of tasks.

Poker
As mentioned above I didn't play much poker in the last few months. I'm still grinding 10NL and I'm almost ready to take a shot at 25NL. In the last month I started playing more again and also putting in the study sessions and making flashcards. I really love this game and my initial goals that I set for this blog still stand. Unfortunately I can't post any graphs of my results, since the site that I play on does not register hand histories. Since the rake on 10NL is really low and the pool is quite soft, I prefer that over the hand histories.

Working Out
Last few months I started working out a lot more, mostly lifting weights. This really helped me to clear my head from all the things happening in my life. I noticed that working out has a lot of similarities with poker, which I really like. Moving up in the weights is like moving up in stakes, first we have to perform the same repititions over and over, and also study the range of motion to get better. Hereby muscle growth is a focus on the long term, so all we can control is going to the gym and going through the motions of the excercise. On days that I worked out, I had the feeling that nothing could stop me, since I already had a win in my books.

What's next?
For next period I'm going to put some volume in and hopefully land a successful shot at 25NL. For me this feels already like a mature stake and I look forward to it. I will continue studying and maybe switch sites once I'm at 25NL so I can build a hand database and identify any leaks. This will be a trade-off between rake and the amount of fish in both pools, which I have to look deeper into. So, see you in the next one!

February 2024
This month started really rough. I ended up in a 10 buy-in downswing in only 2.5k hands. Since I was still up playing 10NL I only thought it was just a downswing. I just kept studying and putting in volume. After this month I ended up with a loss of 2.5 buy-ins.

February was a month in which I did not achieve my volume goal. I set up monthly goals on variables that I can control. So when I miss a goal it feels like I am letting myself down. On the other hand life happens and I don't want to get stuck on these thoughts.

For March I'm going to look over my goals and re-adjust when necessary. I don't want to try to "win-back" the missed volume of the previous month. I will just focus on the next month, with the next volume and study goal.

Quality over quantity.

Hope everyone has a nice day and see you next month!

January 2024
The first month of the year is already over. Time is going so fast.

My work in this period is the most busy. This gave me less time to focus on poker in general. However, I did have a great month poker-wise. Starting the month I was just playing 10NL, but had to drop down a few times in the past. This time however, I landed the shot and managed to win around 20 buy-ins at 10NL.

It feels great to see that my work so far has payed off. The failed shots before also gave me great incentive to keep improving my game, and that is what I did.

The upcoming months will still be busy with work and life in general. But I'm also dedicated to keep playing and improving on my poker goal. I notice that life can get the best of us, and if I don't set clear goals, it will just be pushed back into the shadows as life goes on. Now that I have set clear goals and a clear plan for myself, I know the direction where I want to go. The only thing left to do is to put in the work and the hours.

Thanks everybody, and I wish you all good luck!

I received mine per email. But I'd recommend to look at the preflop charts from GTOWizard. They have several preflop ranges for different rake structures and you can access them for free.

Nice results last month, great way to close of the year!

Recap 2023
This is the year I decided that I wanted to put in the work to become a professional poker player. If I look back at July, I can see that I made great progress in the last few months. I really gained a good foundation for the game and made some money in the process.

At the beginning I was just button clicking at rush and cash. Now I'm playing regular tables and notice that there is way more thought after every decision I make. I have a game plan ready for when I don't know what to do, so I have guidance in every spot and that I'm not completely clueless.

This year I also talked to some more experienced players which helped me along my journey. This is one of the things that I'm very grateful for. Just by talking to like minded people who are way ahead of me, I gained a better understanding and felt less lonely in the process.

Resultwise I started playing on a site with way less rake then GGPoker. Here I managed to move up from 5NL to 10NL quite quickly. The downside is that this is an anonymouse site and doesn't create hand histories. This means that my studies don't revolve around reviewing my game. I mix this up by still playing some hands on GGPoker, but not as much as I used to.

I know that I have a very long road ahead of me, but I also know that I will do whatever it takes to succeed. Of course there were days that I felt too tired or busy to play, but I'm ok with that. As long as I keep the end goal at the horizon. For 2024 I plan to put in some more volume then I did in 2023. I'm also pretty sure that I eventually want to join a CFP.

For now I want to wish everybody a happy new year and good luck at the poker tables in 2024.

Hi Mato,

Thanks again for the coaching session. I gained a better understanding of the game and strategy I can bring to the tables. Your coaching style is very nice and you explained good reasoning for different playing styles that was easy to follow.

Good luck with your journey, I will keep an eye on your blog!

Amazing post! I can sense the dedication and discipline in your writing style. Good luck!

Amazing! I've sent you a message.

Monthly update
Last month I had a good time learning and playing poker. I think this is most essential for me. Waking up early and getting some poker hours in before my workday gives me a the feeling of a succesful day, no matter what happens afterwards.

In terms of my study plan I really got better at playing preflop. I was still struggling with SB 3BP and BB defence. But in terms of preflop I gained a good understanding. Furthermore I drilled some spots in GTOWizard for BB defence vs BTN. I made some notes on several textures and created flashcards to repeat my study.

Right now I'm working to create a flop-strategy for most common spots (SRP IP PFR, SRP OOP PFR, 3BP OOP PFR). I'm not really sure how to tackle this one. I do have a GTOWizard subscription and right now I look at the EV of an action for the entire range, however I noticed that the EV's can be relative close. For example I was studying SB vs BB SRP and noticed that we want to do a lot of checking on several board textures. But for example on AK6r we have a overbet/check strategy, which makes a lot of sense, but the EV is relative close.

My question to anyone here is, since I want to start with a simplified approach, does anyone have some tips on how I can tackle this study process better? I'm just not sure if i'm looking at the right things.

Thanks for your comment akissv7
Last month I didn't play any poker at all, I was on vacation in Asia. Now that I'm back, I'm excited to go after it again.

Study plan
Just as suggested I was thinking alot about a study plan for the coming period. I want to make a theoretical groundline for the most common spots that occur. Therefore my focus the coming period will be on the following topics:

Master preflop
Every decision begins before the flop. I want to have a great understanding and knowledge about the preflop decisions I can make. Learning this will give me a great understanding of ranges from different positions and neglects the unknown factor. I will study this by drilling and practising these spots in GTO Wizard.

BTN vs BB
Very common spot in poker, since we open a lot of hands from the button and the big blind has to defend a lot versus this open. I'm going to learn a simplified approach to different flops from the button versus the big blind. For this spot I watched some interesting video's here on RIO to approach and study this. I think Freenachos posted an interesting one. Will definately check this out again and form my strategy around this.

BB Defend
I'm going to focus on defending the big blind. I noticed that I have a lot of trouble from this postion on how to accurately defend versus stabs on different flops. I'm going to look at what the solvers does on different flops versus small raises. After that I will form my strategy around that.

The above is mostly based on the theoretical aspect of the game. In the future I will of course study aspects on how the population actually plays in different situations. I have a though time trying to figure this out. But with some research and by playing I think I will get to know a lot of information. But first things first. I'm excited to get back and study and play some more poker.

Hope everyone is well and see you later.

Very well deserved!

First Month
It has been a month already since I started this journey. I had a lot of fun studying and playing the game. First I wanted to share my results. I played around 15k hands while working full-time. From my graph you can see that I managed to win 5bb/100 EV. I noticed that I had a major leak the first 12k hands and that after that my graph goes up more. This was due to calling a lot versus players in the pool. I now know that players underbluff in NL5 and am exploiting that as much as possible. This results in a decrease in the red line, but an increase in the green line and yellow line.

If I look at my winrate per position I see that I'm losing alot in the big blind. This is in
line with my understanding. I'm not comfortable playing from that position yet.

The Next Step
So I finished the course 'From The Ground Up' and I'm a little bit lost on what my next study step should be. I'm thinking about getting a subscription to a GTO Training Site to study different board textures from different positions and drill those spots, but I'm not sure. I would appreciate it if anybody has some idea's on this.

For now I wish you all the best.

Nice blog, seems like you're enjoying your time off the tables.

We signed up for chaos. We signed up for unpredictability. We signed up for variance. We signed up for stress. Most of all, we signed up to see how far we could get in this game and where it could take us. So let's not create our own barriers from the fear created within our own minds. Let's just try out best and see where it takes us, while seeking discomfort in the process.

Very well written, very inspiring. Our mind can be the one thing keeping us from achieving greatness. Will be following your journey for sure! :)

Good question. There are several factors to consider if calling is a good option. First of all is to determine what kind of opponent you are facing. Is it a regular, who's 4-betting range is a bit wider? Or is it a recreational player, who's 4-bet range is usually strong and consist of only premium hands.

In low stakes I noticed that 4-bets are usually strong, so you could decide to fold exploitatively. When stacks are deep I inted to call more, since the implied odds are also higher. If we hit a set vs an overpair in a 4-bet pot, we are likely the get paid off.

Hope this helps!

Very cool that you're meeting poker friends irl. Enjoy your trip!

Last week
My week started off with a small vacation to the Belgium Ardennes. It was really nice and we went for a few hikes and had some good Belgium beer. This resulted in not being able to play or study the first couple of days. Once I got back, I had a few days off work and managed to play some hands and study some more. The results and graph show that I had my first losing week. Not bad at all, I'm excited to study more and improve my game everyday.

Goals
This week I'm working full time again. My main goal for the week is to create a structure so I have planned out what I will study at a certain time or when I will play. For now, these goals will be my best estimate of what I want to achieve. Since I'm working full time I have the idea that I'm not putting in alot of volume. However I don't want this to be my main focus, but I think it is important to see and implement the learning materials. For now the goals for this week will be:
- Create an overview of when/what to play and study
- Study the remaining part of the course 'From The Ground Up'
- Play 2.000 hands regular tables
- Update the journal

Thanks for reading and see you next time!

Good luck!

Focus on the process.
I played MTT's for a long time and know how you feel. What helped for me is to focus on things that I can control, like playing the best I can and study parts of the game where I feel like I can improve. This is also way you should focus on long-term results, instead of short term. In the long run, if you are a winning player, you will outlast the bad beats and also be on the other side of the coin and have some good runs.

There is also a mindset course on Run It Once, you can check that out. I personally haven't bought it (yet) so can't give you any feedback on that.

Nice video on how to use Anki to studyt these spots. Would you say that GTOwizard is a good way to study these spots, or do you prefer the tools used in this video, if so why you prefer those?

Nice journal, you are progressing really well. I'm just starting out at 5NL and hope to reach the level you're at. Good luck, I will be following your journey!

Great video! I really liked the part going into how you study the game. Will definately make some flashcards myself.

First week
My first update on in the journal. I learnt a lot on why we do certain actions on different board textures and against different players. This helped me a lot at the tables to identify weaker players and adequately play against them. In the first part of the week I played rush tables on GGPoker, however I noticed quickly that I was mainly on autopilot. This resulted in bad play on my part. After reading some journals I decided to play regular tables instead and focus more on my decisions. The resuls and graph show that I made the right decision.

Next week
Due to playing regular tables instead of rush, I did not manage to reach my volume goal. Next week I have some time off from work and will go away for a few days, so will not be able to play in the mornings and evenings. Therefore I set the following goals:
- Study the remaining part of the course 'From The Ground Up'
- Play 3.000 hands regular tables
- Update the journal

Good that you prioritize your health in this period of time. I look forward to follow your journey in the upcoming period. Good luck!