2012 Stake By Stake Review
NL5
So 2012 was the year that I actually bit the bullet and moved away from the god awful Ipoker network and started to play on Pokerstars and once again take Poker semi seriously after what really was a lacklustre 2011 where I fell out of love with Poker due to tilt problems and the Full Tilt mess which still left a bitter taste.
The joys of running my own business ment that in quiet times like at the beginning of the year I got to play Poker while I worked and I started playing at NL5 and played HUDless for the majority of the time and basically just donked around and started enjoying poker again.
Tables were pretty soft and results were good and tilt was kept to a minimum for most of my spell at NL5.
NL10
I quickly built up my roll and made the step up to NL10. Again for the most I was playing HUdless until I figured out that my works computer had just about enough memory to display about 5 stats on screen without crashing and that I actually could use my HEM license on another computer.
To be honest I really didnt notice that much, if any, difference between how the games played and the players for the most made the same mistakes by calling down too light and not been able to fold when obviously beat. If anyone playing these levels can get a good grip on value betting then they could crush them with out too much trouble.
It was at NL10 where a few of my tilt problems started to creep in. Now my tilt has never had anything to do with the amounts of money, its simply about losing most of the time and then splits off in to different types of losing. So about 3 months in and my rage tilt was back and was just the same at NL10 as it were at NL100 a couple of years previously.
The 20K break even stretch can basically be put down to me been on tilt for that whole time it were that bad. Obviously that would plague me throughout the year.
NL25
I found NL25 pretty tough to break in to and it took me a couple of failed attempts and about 15K hands before I got my head around how the games played. A combination of running bad when I did move up and tilting when I ran bad made this even more difficult for me.
After my 2nd failed attempt I honestly wondered if the games had passed me by and I could no longer beat the level that I used to do best at.
Once it did stick though things got better and better and results were better than I could imagine. This was the first level where I started to use some table selection and I use a pretty basic set up that helps me find pretty good tables.
This is also the first level where I would start tables religiously to try and get some HU practice in. What I found was that most regs who start tables suck pretty bad when it comes to playing HU and basically play it the same as when they play FR. This is also the first level where I got a taste of how much fake table starting goes on and some people would be sat at 5 or so tables and then not offer any action when you sit with them.
Stars really should do something about that. If you dont want to offer action then dont sit at a new FR table. During this time I also received coaching for playing Short handed and HU and this saw my game improve quite a bit and at times I were literally running over the regs who would offer action when starting tables. By the end of my time at NL25 literally non of the table starting regs would offer any action to me which also became a source of tilt as on numerous occasions I would get grimmed which itself would lead me to lose focus and tilt easily.
Results wise my target was to beat the 8bb/100 WR that I achieved in my last decent stretch at NL25 and I was aiming for about 10bb/100 which I ended up hitting. Realistically though it should have been about 15bb/100 if it wernt for the tilt problems that were making my poker life hell.
NL50
I once again got comfy at NL25 and basically didnt dare to shot take NL50 even though when I played the games it went quite well. Eventually we got the news that we were getting our FT money back and combined with the money I had on Stars I used it to help fund a car that I wanted to buy.
This meant one of two things, I either start at the bottom again and work my way up or try and get a stake. I decided on the stake because even though giving up part of my profit it meant I should make more than if I started at NL5 again.
The other plus part was that playing with someone elses money may actually help my tilt problems because I may be more caring with some one elses money. I was also wanting to be staked for NL50 which would help me make the step up. So thats what I did and in a couple of days managed to find myself someone willing to stake me.
At about the same time I was browsing through the coaching adverts like I like to do and came across a thread by Elliot Roe about Hypnotherapy. After a few discussions with him I started having sessions to try and resolve my tilt issues. Obviously I was a bit skeptical but now nearly 2 months down the line without any major tilt problems Im thankful that he has been able to help me so much.
Playing tilt free has made the step up to NL50 go pretty smoothly and now Im getting used to how it plays I can go about fixing up some of the areas that I am leaking and hopefully go about improving my WR quite a bit. Im not sure there is any drastic increase in skill level from what I have seen so far and Im wanting to kick on from here.
Overall Results For 2012 & 2013 Goals
2013 Goals
1. Keep playing tilt free poker.
2. Try and move up through the levels and win at each one I play.
3. Work on improving my game.
4. Have a +$2K month.
5. Have a +$5K month.
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