Lack of updates really for no reason in particular. Been playing a lot still but haven't been posting as many hands as before.
Still going strong at 200nl. The play is definitely much harder than 100nl but I am learning well and starting to see deeper into the game. I have also found a great resource for higher level poker theory and have been really taking a lot of time to understand what is going on at harder levels. So far the changes have been fairly good as my play has improved a lot over the last week or so and I'm also getting better at analyzing my own hands for mistakes and holes.
Today was a bit sloppy. Bluffed a calling station at one point which was a bummer, but other than that did alright. Finished a bit under EV but it ended up being a hectic day in general. I played with a ton of psycho high VPIP players today and I could not for the life of me get my stats above 14/10 for the day. I think this might be ok as I have to play less hands vs. total psychos, however I do like seeing higher overall stats. So far for this month my averages have been at 16/12 which is a bit lower than what they were at 100nl but not a ton. I'm getting much better dealing with 3b's and am able to open a few more hands again but still need to dig a little deeper and open a few more spots I've been backing off from.
Didn't post much last week since I was basically just busy playing. I also didn't have too many discussion hands from 100nl during the last 2 weeks of the month as I feel like I'm starting to understand different spots and concepts better and am able to figure out my own mistakes more now.
I ended up finishing last month with my EV around 8BB/100 and overall 9BB/100.. so I actually ran better than average for once. I really felt like I crushed the limit and played very well for the month in general, other than a few shaky hands during the first week. I ended up only getting 80 actual hours of play time in but I still finished top 15 on the PTR monthly leader board for 100nl so that felt like a decent accomplishment. While my hours were pretty weak for the last month in general, most of those were put in during the last 2 weeks and I plan on playing much more every week from now on.
I also spent a decent amount of time on hand review over the last 2 weeks and feel like I'm starting to retain concepts better and am not making the same mistakes as much. Furthermore, I've been reviewing a lot of hands on PTR by regs at higher limits than me and I've been picking up on a few things that they do and I don't.
This also lead me to reevaluate my play a bit and figure out things I needed to fix. I decided that I opened way too many buttons and really cut that # down. This was getting me 3b a lot and since I had crap most of the time I had to keep folding.. which gave me a pretty high fold to 3b stat. I thinking having a high fold to 3b stat on your forehead just opens you up to getting played back at way more and it's not something I really want to deal with. I also don't 4b nearly enough at all, so I started 4b/folding a lot more now in spots where I'm likely being 3b light. I'm also getting less nitty about getting it in pre with hands like AK and QQ.
I had to work in the guard again last weekend so I didn't get to play during the weekend rush, but I did manage to get 10 hours in on Friday night. I was planning on moving to 200nl at the start of this month, but decided to just jump up Friday night as I was feeling confident in myself. I ended up making a few buyins but played REALLY sloppy and had to change my game a bit. I started raising a bit less vs. regs who are 3b happy and am starting to really try to get into the head of who I am playing.
It's interesting moving back up to 200nl again because after just a few sessions I have a lot more hands to post and discuss where I had almost none during the last week of 100nl. From what I've posted concerning 200nl, I can see that I am still fairly week concerning 3b pots and have trouble folding in spots that I'm very unlikely to be good. The increased competition is refreshing though and I think after a few weeks of consistent play my game should really improve and I should be beating this limit fairly well.
My goal for this month is to make at least 10k and to try to beat 200nl at a 5BB/100 win rate.. which might be tough to pull off if I keep spewing in stupid spots. For the longer term I really want to be beating the crap out of 200nl by the end of this month with my sights set on pushing the limits higher in Sept or Oct at latest. I really want to be beating 600nl again by the end of the year and I think if I just push myself to improve I should be able to do it.
