Also for ShootingRange with tilt if you enjoy podcasts look up jared tendlers one 'the mental game' might help with you're tilt he was has two books the mental game 1 and 2 that are meant to be really good (ive never read them)

Also with bad players if their are multi limps for cheap go along, if you catch something they will often call u the donk. 🙂 its hilarious

As an update: things have not been going well recently. I have been trying to get back into it after a short break, and have cashed once or twice in about 15 tournaments. Some bad luck - I had KK cracked twice in the same tournament, for example - but some bad play too.

In some ways I think that the low stakes don't help the discipline: 50c does not encourage disciplined play.

In other ways it should help: the play is sometimes so surprising (and downright awful) that it should be training 'discipline muscles'. Yes, you are seeing bad play, but fight it... don't join in... you see bad play rewarded sometimes... don't let it make you stray from how you should be playing... ultimately disciplined play should be rewarded.

Any thoughts on this very welcome.

As for me, I have not played very much online since my last message above - holiday reasons - but did get up to $22 up. Nothing dramatic and no change in the analysis/thoughts of that from last time. Have listened to a few TPE podcasts whilst doing holiday things, very enjoyable.

Just fired up a couple to get cracking again, and already lost a flip in L1 to get knocked out of one tournament. Not worried though, it often takes me a tournament or three to warm up.

Will report back on (hopeful) progress in due course.

This cash has come fairly easily, and I regularly make the final tables and am in the money. I don't play more than 2 tables at a time, and I think this really helps. Some thoughts for ShootingGallery: until you are winning more regularly, consider cutting down on the number of tables you play. This is perhaps particularly so if you have a problem with tilt: now I don't have an issue with tilt (possibly a function of the ultra low stakes) but in the past if I suffered from a bad beat or making a stupid call (or other bad play by me) it would annoy me and more importantly instantly affect how I played on the other tables (with disastrous consequences!). Also, relax a little! It sounds like you are investing too much emotionally into your tournaments - this may be affecting your play - and will, as you state, make you tilt more. Every tournament is likely to provide reasons for tilt, and the more players in the tournament the higher the chance - in the 45 mans there is often one or two defining moments - bad beats, suck outs... (sometimes no major moments), whereas in the 90 mans I find there are several. Given your tilt tendencies perhaps consider playing more 45 mans than 90 mans.

Caveat: I think I have played less than 100 of these tournaments, so everything I say could be wrong and just reflect my small sample.

Comments from anyone and everyone very welcome regarding this, and playing in the shallow end!

As I said off the top, I've only been playing poker for just over 2 years now, and I fell in love with the game pretty quickly.  With the exception of a small stint in March/April of last year, I've played just about every day since then.  I've played cash, tournements, super small stakes, and even some bigger ($215) buy in tournements.  I play online mostly, but I've played live in Casinos and even run what has been refered to as THE BEST home game in my area (Biased opinion of course, but I'll take it.)

I watch a lot of poker as well.  WSOP, Poker After Dark, Pokerstars Big Game, WPT, and on and on and on. I read poker books, and poker magazines and poker blogs and websites and whatever else I can get my hands on.

My wife plays a little and enjoys the game, and suffers me my poker endulgences.  Even my kids are interested in the game, just because they're around it so much.  My youngest daughter (6) even wanted a "Poker birthday cake, just like daddy's!" for her birthday.  We thought that might be just slightly too degen, so we made her Froggy cupcakes instead.  She loves frogs, so she was pretty happy with that.

I suppose my story isn't that much different from thousands of other people out there.  To me, it feels like I probably want to be succefull at this game more than anyone else ever could, but in the end I'm sure that there are plenty of other people who feel the same way.

I also suppose that my desire to be successful at this game is one the reasons I seem to tilt so easily.  And tilting easily is NOT a good thing when it comes to this game.

I suppose at this point, you've probably figured out the past couple of days have not been succesful as far as my challenge goes.  Financially, that would be true.  I'm down to almost half my starting stack.

Looks like it's going to be time to drop down stakes.  The good news is I think a lot of my problem has to do with playing too many tables.  I went on runs durring this latest downswing when I was playing upwards of 10 tables, when normaly I only play 4.

I actually think that even 4 tables may be too many for me right now.  I need to focus, I need to concentrate and I need to make some Final tables.

Thanks to everyone who has comented so far.  Your feedback is appreciated, and I'm glad to see others coming along with me.  Good varience to anyone else out there who might be coming along, but doesn't feel the desire to post about it as well (though we'd love to have you with us!)

OK, well, here I go, dropping down stakes and trying to build up my bank roll again.  I'll see you 50 centers again in once I build my roll back up to $75.

l8r,

A. J.

Some random thoughts/experiences to share, comments (etc) very welcome:

I have been doing what Shooting Gallery has been doing, and playing 50c tournaments on Stars. After about 30 I am pretty much break-even (up about .75c!) Nothing to report about yet, but big bluffs do not work, small bluffs do and it is hard (sometimes impossible) to put some of the other players on a hand. As mentioned above, I normally play the (slightly) higher tournaments and have a better feel for what is going on there (though this is probably just as much experience as the randomness of the 50c tournaments. It is very, very tempting to return to those higher stakes... but I want to exercise the discipline to stay at this level until I 'deserve' to go up. Discipline is a problem with my game generally... so hopefully this 'bankroll' discipline will translate into discipline at the tables too.

I'll probably abandon this soon though because I don't multitable (no more than 4 at once), and don't wish to play all the time either... I hope I keep it up though. Already starting to talk myself out of discipline...

On the other hand though, I don't play poker online for the cash. More for the intellectual interest, and the challenge of trying to get better... (Live poker is a little different, here I do play to try to win for the cash. Advice on my local tourney was sought here: .....ge-sought/ Though what Andre has done is impressive, and hopefully what Shooting Gallery will do too will be, and demonstrates that cash can be made at the small stakes. Perhaps I can build solid foundations even at the 50c level, perhaps it is even a great place to do so **because** of how crazy it is...

I don't know, some waffle! Any comments, and thoughts generally or for the micro-micros (!) very welcome...

I came from a very similar starting point as you do. Deposited $50 and never wanted to deposit again.

You can find some good info about the toruneys I played to bring my $50 to $2500 in one month:

.....ks-to-tpe/

The 45 mans are/were a rough one to get used to.  At first I was almost 100% Push/Fold, and quite frankly, my push/fold game, well.... Sucks.  Because of this, I wasn't seeing much in the way of final tables.  I actually abandoned the 45 mans for a little while and decided I was only going to play the 360 mans.  Over all, I feel these are a little better value for me.  They seem to offer a little more "Play" and in the end, if you win one, you make up A LOT more ground ($33 first place, as opposed to $6.30 in the 45 mans.)  Of course, more runners means, more varience, but overall, I seem to do better in these than in the 45 mans.

But the 360 mans come with an additional problem.  They don't fill up very quickly.  Especially if, like I do, you play mostly at night.  So after running away from the 45's for a day or so, I started filtering them back into my play to fill my screen while I waited for 360's to fill up.  And you know what?  I found a way to find "play" in those too.

I'm finding my way to more FTs, which is good.  Sometimes I'm busting out in 8th or 9th (out of the money in the 45s) but I'm finding my way into the money as well.  I haven't won a tournament yet since the start of my challenge, but I have a couple of 3rds, and 1 second, as well as some smaller cashes.  It's help my BR rebound a little from it's low of $64. 

I've been doing some more studying.  Going over the 45 Man Strat guide on 2+2, reading Andre's blog, going over some video's and posts right here on our very own TPE.  I also followed Andre's lead and picked up a digital copy of Kill Everyone.  Just started reading it tonight, and was suprised how much it got me thinking about almost right away.  It starts out talking about the LAG style of some of the top pros.  Up until now, I've pretty much tried to play a straight TAG style (and of course added my own spazzy tendencies to such,) but this is the first time I've ever really ready anything that had to do with the structure of how a good LAG style works.  I tried to put a little into practice in some of my later sessions tonight/this morning, and of course I over did it at first.  But I think I'm starting to get to a point where I'm incorperating bits and peices into my game.

Sticking to BR management and to these 50 cent tournements only has been a challenge.  I allowed myself one indulgence on Sunday, playing the Nightly $55 30K.  This is a tournament that I've played from time to time as a replacement to playing the $70 nightly tournement at Ceasar Windsor.  It's well outside of my BR, but I make a seperate deposite for these when I play them.  I find that they have better value than the nightly's at the casino, and frankly, the rewards are better (even if the Ceasars nightly gets 50 players on a Sunday...which is rare... First is only worth just over $1K, and most of the time, the regs in there start looking to chop as early as 5 people....then you get to be the outcast if you don't want to chop, yadda yadda...) Anyway, no cash in that one, so right back to the 45's and 360's.

The reason I bring it up at all, is 1)Because it felt like cheating on the challenge, and I kind of wanted to confess the cheat, and 2) Becasue it was and interesting experience going from the super micro's, to what I kind of refer to as mid stakes (I know, it's not really mid stakes, but to an ultra micro grinder it is! :P)  The biggest stand out to me is how similar some of the play was in some instances.  I had noticed it before when I played these tournements, but it was so pronounced this time that it was kind of shocking.

As a poker player, starting out in the micros, you kind of look at those higher buy-in tournements as "The Big Leagues." You assume that since you're pounding away trying to figure out all the minutia of the game, that everyone at those stakes has already done the same, and are then obviously much better poker players than you.  And in some cases, for the really good players, I'm sure this is true.  But it doesn't take long to figure out that for a lot of people in those tournements, the ability to buy in to a tournement does not equate to skill level.

And of course this is true.  It's as true at the $55 dollar level as it is at the $1K level, as it is at the $10K WSOP Main event.  And while this may not be a lesson to many people here, at the very least, for guys like me, it's a sign that maybe all this micro grinding may be worth it one day.

And that just makes me more eager to grind out, and start winning at the micros!!

Here's my Graph So far:

Thanks for reading, feedback, comments, thoughts questions, jokes and concerns are always welcome!

l8r,

A. J.

I understand what Killingbird means when he says stay focused and be strict on the bankroll. It is very tempting to fire up some higher buy-in tournaments..., and getting bored seems to be a potential hazard at such low levels (stake and standard)... I am not even sure if they would help me develop a solid game because it is a little crazy... The fact that they are turbos make this worse too. On the other hand, perhaps these tournaments offer many opportunites to be more disciplined and more solid.

Would be interested to hear your thoughts and experiences.

I started playing a mix of $1 and $0.50 tourneys ranging in players from 45 to 360.  This is probably a mistake.  After reading the first week or so of Andre's blogs, I decided to drop the $1's out of my play for now.  I still mixed player ranges however.

I ended up playing 40 tournaments, and finished down about $20.

I did however get A LOT of studying in.  I was kind of all over the place with my study however.  Everything from Watching Andrew Brokos' Hand reading series (very interesting/helpfull) to some of HITTHEPANDA's 45 man video.  Add to that reading Andres blogs and starting to read the MTTSNG "Welcome" thread's suggested reading on 2+2.

I'm really trying to concentrate my efforts right now on figuring out push/fold dynamics and how to adjust my play in the different levels of the tournent.  Some of it is refresher for me, but clearly I need it.

I've decided I'm going to follow Andre's lead again, and stick strickly to the $0.50 45 mans until I get back to my starting $100.  Then I'll move up to 90 mans.  If my BR gets down to $50 though, I'll drop down to the $0.25 45 mans.

That's all for today. 

Thoughts and comments allways appreciated.

Thanks,

A. J.

The goal of this challenge is learning more than earning for sure.  I'm mostly kidding about the 100K side of it. Honestly, there isn't really an end point to this, other than becoming the best poker player I can be.