#1 overall winner at $10/$20 NL on Pokerstars in 2010 - My story

Hey everyone, my name is Ryan. I played on Pokerstars under the screenname"YourDoom"



This is my story about how I grew from playing $10 sngs to being the #1 overall winner at $10/$20 NL on Pokerstars in 2010.



I recently stumbled upon a thread in the low stakes thread (somehow) about this $0.10/$0.25 NL regular talking about how he crushes his level at over 5ptBB/100, and how he refuses to move up to $0.25/$0.50. Apparently he's only beating $0.25/$0.50 at 1ptBB/100. This is because any table he sits at is nothing but "sharks." He concludes that $0.10/$0.25 is the most profitable and best game to play...



I remember this post vividly because it really got me to thinking about my own skill level as an online poker player, and gave me a serious revelation on online poker in general...



My online poker career started back in 2005. I was working full time as an electrical engineer and was grinding (and crushing) $10 nine-handed sngs on Party poker in my free time. Doing this part time, my goal was to make $500 a month which would cover my portion of the rent of the townhouse that I shared with two of my buddies. I occasionally tried a $20 or a $30 sng, but found these tourneys to be way too tough and unprofitable. Once I took a shot at a $100 sng. I was extremely nervous. I distinctly remember the key hand. I was dealt AQ, and called a raise preflop. The flop was AA5. He bet and I called 3 times. He showed AK and I lost 60% of my stack. Everyone at the table started making fun of me. I typed "how can I fold that?" Someone typed back, "you click fold." I remember thinking, "wow, these games are way too tough for me." $10 sngs are clearly the most profitable games.



In the summer of 2007 I had since made the transition to cash games. I was working full time as a high school math teacher and playing online poker in my free time. Since I had summers off, I 3-tabled $1/$2 NL for a few hours every day and made 86 cents a hand. This was a winrate of 21.5ptBB/100 (43bb/100) ...even though I had no idea what that meant at the time, (granted, the games were much softer back then.) I occasionally tried to play some $2/$4NL, but this level proved to be much harder. I couldn't win. I concluded that $1/$2 NL was by far the most profitable game to play on FT. I remember posting my winrate in a popular poker forum and EVERYONE was saying that I would never sustain that winrate; that it was impossible. Winning like that seemed normal enough to me, but maybe everyone was right. Maybe I was just a really lucky guy.



In 2008, I was playing $2/$4 on FT full time. Over the next six month stretch, I was winning at 10.5ptBB/100. I remember posting these results in some thread and having everyone fire back that was no way that I would ever sustain that winrate; that it was impossible. Again I felt like winning like that was what was normal, but maybe everyone was right. Maybe I was just a really lucky guy.



In June 2008, I was doing well enough that I decided to quit my full time teaching job to play online poker full time. This was when I found $3/$6 NL on PS. ($3/$6 rarely ran on FT.) And these games were amazing. From June 2008 - April 2010, $3/$6 NLHE was my main game and I beat that level at exactly 5.76ptBB/100 (the absolute highest winrate at that level on Pokerstars for any significant volume.) Again, when I discussed my winrate, I was told that anything over 3-4ptBB/100 was impossible to sustain for any lengthy stretch of time. Maybe I was just a really lucky guy.



During this stretch, I occasionally played $5/$10 NL, but could not beat the level as I just ran terrible all the time. (I can tell you the real reasons you "run terrible all the time" at one level higher than your main game.) Anyways, it was pretty clear to me...$3/$6 NL was the most profitable level to play. Anyone playing $5/$10 NL was an idiot. There was no value there.



In April 2010 I moved from $3/$6 to $10/$20 as my main game. I've been beating $10/$20 at right around 5ptBB/100 since April 2010 and had the #1 highest amount of winnings at that level of any Pokerstars player for 2010 (and #2 in the world among all tracked sites.) I received several posts on my PTR page about how hot I run and how NO-ONE beats $10/$20 NL at 5ptBB/100. Winning like that seemed normal enough to me, but maybe everyone was right. Maybe I'm just a really lucky guy.



So the point of my story?...Every level is beatable. It's all relative to your talent level. Never listen to the masses about what "can't" be done. If you can't beat a particular level, it's not because "you run bad at that level" or "there are too many sharks" there...you're just not good enough...yet. Also, in the long term, there is no such thing as "luck." Everyone's winrate over 4 years and one million hands is... well... your true winrate.

That a great encouraging story poker. Um....you have me curious as to how much you made since 1995-present. I don't mean to be noisy, but I have to know the profit. LOL

Wow great story, welcome to the Forum. Hope you post further insights Ryan.
What brings you to Cardschat?

Yea, I echo the sentiment form Makwa. Nice to have you. An inspirational post, and I am happy you came to join us here.

I deeply appreciate your comment about if you are not beating your level, its cause of how you play. I hope you will be active in the hand analysis section. You sound like a good adviser to have.

Do yourself a favor and DO NOT visit the rigged megathread we have here. It will fry your brain. And you will not be able to convince the weirdos there anyway. (But they at least get channeled in one corral....)

Interesting story! nice to have you here, what brings you to cards chat in particular?

Are you the real "yourdoom" who makes all those comments on other high stakes players PTR pages?

Could you elaborate on key breakthroughs while moving up and what kind of adjustments you had to make?

Great story Ryan - welcome to CC.

We don't have too many who beat 10/20 NL and happily share here but hell - who does ?

Cool story. It would be ever more interesting if you went into how you mentally made the switch between levels. There are gaps. I'm not saying you aren't who you say you are... but why join a forum? why now?

Cool story, tell us more!

And sweat me please

Haha. I don't think I'm going to post that info here. But I have several detailed graphs and stats posted on my website.


If you Google "Your Doom Poker" it comes right up.

very interesting; extremely impressive. So are you not playing at all right now?

Either my eyes are getting really bad or you're using the smallest font possible.

awesome story

pm me about joining our skype group

Nice story, I must say I have read good things about you and your stats check out. Most impressed with the Coaching career and per say the hourly rates. lol

Congrats on the poker success, one thing that got to me about your story though. Who in their right mind would want to go from being an Electrical Engineer to a Math teacher?

it helps to be good at maths. on occasions though i have found that trying to calculate implied odds can throw math application to call/ fold equity out the window if you catch my meaning

It'd be really cool if you participated here and shared some of your insights and comment on hand histories and stuff. But I assume you'll be like Dusty Schmidt and just promote your book/vid/site/coaching.

^^^^^^^LOL, you do know you just said this out loud right? lol

Nothing wrong with that

It's very true....

Who is your brother?

epic post YD, welcome to CC.

Dusty answered every question in a well thread for almost a year - so it went beyond that imo.

I'm happy to answer questions Fire away!

you could always start with the questions in this thread you didn't answer

Some examples from this thread that appear to have been "overlooked" - so far.

I actually revealed this for the first time ever just last week in an interview w pokerphenoms.
http://www.pokerphenoms.com/poker-tv...isode-5-24.htm

Not at the moment, but I plan to soon do a relocation to my house in costa rica (spend half my time there)

This is really hard to answer specifically. I think my transition from 1/2 to 2/4 NL on FT back in 2009 was the most difficult hurdle.
When you're ready to move up to a new limit. My advice is to make sure you are fully bankrolled and committed to the move. Then do it. And stick to it. There's bound to be some growing pains at first while you get used to the new amts and new game.

cool thanks for answering.

if you don't mind, I have some specific questions:

1. Transition from $1/$2 to $2/$4: Did you find the higher aggression hard to deal with? Regs were less predictable? Fewer fish? Regs who adjusted quickly?

2. Related to 1, how did you overcome your problems at that level? Did you identify leaks? Were you folding too often in big pots? Not bluffing enough? Bluffing too much? Being unbalanced in certain spots?

3. Do you use HEM to break down players' ranges and then construct ranges to counter them?

Look again at the OP.

I'll tell you a little story.

Whenever I copy/paste a story that has been formatted already, the text comes in with no paragraph breaks in the "reply to thread" window. So I go through the text and put in breaks only to find that when I post it, the formatting already took care of breaks. So now I've got a piece with 3 or 4 breaks instead of one on each paragraph.

Big ol gaps between each paragraph.

I have no idea why a person would deliberatly put multiple paragraph breaks in on their own volition.

JusSayin


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I dunno why the post appears the way it does, maybe he just puts big spaces in between paragraphs. He is a real guy and a real poker player.

He is certainly trying to get his name out, as he coaches, does videos, articles and I think has an ebook(s) out as well etc. and poker is his business. But he has a right to post any way he wants. He could be posting the same introduction on multiple forums - as I suspect he is - and doing the copy and paste, but so far no crime commuted and no breaking of any forum rules that I can see. (I would like to see a bit more input in exchange for the free advertising, like the other pros that get to let people here know they are offering stuff have done, lets wait and see...)

Actually a very cool story. Did you start in the micro's when you started cash or just straight into 200NL? How "beatable" do you think the low-mid stakes i.e 50-600NL, are nowadays?