"The Plan"

[uberdonk]

to begin this is a pretty long post, but I think it will be useful for myself and many others who has gone through the same thing


How many players consistently lose? Break even?
Fail to produce any significant results?
Fail to create a significant bankroll?

I've considered this many times over, studied the game rigorously and analyzed my past experience, and I want to share this here and hear some real feedback.

Notes:
been playing poker on and off for 2.5 years
Within the first week of knowing the game I was addicted and proceed to DUMP money for 1.5 years online.

After reading books and studying the game with diligence,
I've built a max bankroll of $9000, during which I profit at 2/4 and 5/10 playing under-rolled. I consistently crush home games, remain profitable playing in B&M casinos etc.

Went to tilt monkey mode and proceed to lose my entire BR all to badbeats and shottaking within 3 days.

After which I failed miserably multiple times to rebuild.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Now I'm considering to start all over with, say $400.
I see myself proceeding to one of the following scenarios:

a) Play .25/.50NL with 8 buyins (8*$50=$400). Play super-duper TAG?
2) Play .25/.50NL. But play MY game which is super-duper LAG? (My game was profitable at 2/4 and 5/10)
3) Play .50/1NL with 4 buyins?
4) Others (please elaborate)

AND, upon choosing one of those choices, what kind of game should I play?

A) pick up as many small pots as possible
B) play fewer pots, but play for big ones and play for stacks
C) my least favorite is nutpeddling... only play the nuts and play like a nit?


To give an idea what my game is like:
super LAGish, I can open up pots with suited connects/gappers, when someone c-bet I make moves to resteal etc. I don't stack off with one pair, I can fold aces or 2 pair postflop... blah blah so on. Basically I don't consider myself a nit.

[TomTom]

Cliff notes?

[uberdonk]

cliff notes:
OP is intermediate player who went busto after monkey tilt and failed to rebuild BR multiple times

cliff question:
plan of action w/ $400 deposit would be???????????

[syncmaster]

First off, if your any good at all, with a little time you should crush $25NL. $500 is all you need to play right and the games are eazy. I just did this myself (started ~$650) and found myself winning buy-ins like crazy. I'm playing full ring games, but heres a few tips.

Don't try anything but abc poker in the micros.

You will have a lot of multiway pots so you will have to open up a little bit preflop.

Jump on every mistake, don't bluff a fish/calling station, and bet ur strong hands all day vs the lose players.

[uberdonk]

sync: whats your range in those games? do you really stick with ~20-25% preflop? play rockish?

[syncmaster]

I lost all my PT stats from before this year so I can't look back to see just how I played. 20-25% sounds about right depending on the game. You will still find some bad games at this level, but there are so many you can find a lot of very profitable ones.

My range is always changing in these games. In multiway pots I might be playing 56s or 22. Only in position and when its cheep (1-3bbs). To open up with peflop I tighten up a bit. You don't want to get stuck out of position in a headsup pot unless your holding something good. Just pick your spots and like I said Raise, raise, raise your AA KK. Don't give it away by over betting. You will be amazed by how many times you get reraised preflop by week hands or stack a floped top pair.

Postflop you are playing simi-rockish. Strong draws, sets, and even TPTK can get you payed off bigtime. Just pick your spots and take careful note of who your playing against. At the same time you want to isolate the bad players and play more hands against them. I assume you have Poker Tracker and a HUD. If not you should look into those. GL

[uberdonk]

ninja bump

[BluffTHIS!]

uber,

Aside from any problems in your nl game, of which there are doubtless many, your primary problem is one of bankroll management. So work on that first. That means not playing higher than the $25max tables, and the $10max tables would be better. And if you do play the the $25 tables with less than 20-30 buyins, then you need to reduce your variance as much as possible which means set farming and nothing fancy.

If you refuse to do something reasonable like this, and to drop down in the future when on a bad run *before* a significant portion of your roll is depleted, then you just most likely will add another iteration to the busto cycle.