Link to Previous Tales From 2+2: Poker player steals $1m+ chips and tries to sell it on 2+2 poker forums
More Tales From 2+2: A Very Controversial $70k prop bet
Tales from 2+2: Homelessness, Grinding and the Biggest Shot of a Grinder’s Life: The Jared Huggins Story

The Blossoming of TV Poker

The Year is 2006. Online poker is thriving. Partypoker has the highest traffic of any poker site but Pokerstars are gaining new players quickly with aggressive marketing strategies. Lots of poker sites are investing heavily into marketing and one key place to channel their advertising budget is TV. New innovations, improved graphics and increasing funding meant that poker TV is at an all-time peak of popularity.
40% of the the 2006 WSOP Main Event’s attendance is from online sites and poker sites are offering large amounts of cash for players on TV to wear an advertising patch. According to Dan Goldman’s blog, Pokerstars spent over $730,000 on WSOP players’ gift bags. The WSOP is seeing more TV time and this year the $50k HORSE event is added to the TV schedule alongside the WSOP main event. This year’s $50k WSOP HORSE final table saw some huge names including Chip Reese, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and Doyle Brunson.

The Path of a New Player

In Finland, Mikael Paisting is watching the 2006 WSOP on TV. He enjoys watching poker broadcasts and is fascinated by the game. It’s a very common story for players to catch an interest by watching poker TV and sign up with to one of the many poker sites available. He chooses to deposit on Partypoker. Mikael is a committed learner and player. He reads several poker books from well-known authors such as Dan Harrington and David Sklansky. He also watches many training videos. Like many players starting in online poker he begins at the microstakes cash tables.
Microstakes are a rite of passage for many online poker players. The limits range from 2nl to 10nl, so the standard buy in is $2-10. Some will play microstakes for weeks, months or even years improving their game and increasing their bankroll so they can move up to small stakes, 25nl and above. Some players see the microstakes as a job and play as many tables as they can to eke out a living wage. Some players have never played microstakes and skip it entirely for higher stakes. Mikael starts to play and doesn’t do well, this is normal for many beginners, even those who study. However, over the next few weeks Mikael continues to lose. Months go by and Mikael still hasn’t turned a profit. He discovers problems with tilt and often takes his frustration out in the chat box. An example of his rage:

Paisting:THAT IS NOT NORMAL OMG!! JUST UNBELIEVABLE

Mikael doesn’t play 10nl very often and spends the majority of him time playing 2nl and 5nl. He continues to multitable cash games on Partypoker but he just can’t win. He starts to lose big, thousands of dollars, mostly at 2nl which is known as the softest cash game on the internet.

Getting Noticed

Mikael continues to play long sessions over the next five years, he claims to play 5-7 days a week for 4-8 hours a day. By 2011 he had played 2 and a half million hands while playing 6 to 9 cash tables at one time. Mikael is still mostly playing 2nl and is down a colossal amount: $7000. Mikael has been suffering from major tilt problems and has a very wild and noticeable style of playing microstakes. He starts to get noticed on 2+2, a very popular poker forum. A player posts a link to his PTR graph, a site which tracks online cash games. They are shocked at his losses over so many hands:

yegor: wow such a massive fail
he played 2.5m hands at 2nl and 5nl and he's losing
Donkey111: I remember him from my 2NL days.
often goes on some massive tilt sessions and spews like 20 BI in 500 hands by shoving any 2 cards preflop.

He even gets hate from his PTR account where he is ridiculed on his profile comments, he also replies:

VELAir26: Spend your time with family, friends or other hobbies instead
Paisting: im fine with this you stupid idiot

Mikael continues to play his reckless and tilting style over the years. By 2014, he has been playing for 8 years and is down five figures at microstakes; he starts to look for excuses for how much he has lost. He posts a thread on 2+2 detailing how he feels that he wins at the start of the month and then inevitably starts to lose. He asks how he can take legal action against Partypoker. His fellow posters tease him:

5thStreethog: Did the thought ever cross your mind that it might be possible that the reason you cant beat NL2 in over a million hands might be because you arent very good at poker?

An Attempt at Redemption

2019 comes and Mikael Paisting has been playing microstakes for 13 years, and steadily losing a lot of money. He got a new computer in late 2018 and has been grinding away on it. Mikael is getting mentioned more on 2+2 and he is well known on the tables of Partypoker as he drops stack after stack. Many players on Partypoker furiously try to get on his tables to call his tilt shoves; when Mikael is present other player’s stacks can get as high as $100 at 2nl as he shoves buy in after buy in to button steals. Some were said to be using seating scripts to instantly be placed on a table with Paisting. At this point he is feeling very low. But despite years of losing money and insane tilting he is determined to improve. Mikael is aware of his losses and has a fierce desire to make back the money he has lost since he’s started tracking on his new PC.
He decides get help and he looks to 2+2, the very same forum that had mocked him over the last decade. He logs in as Paisting, his last name. He starts a new thread, types out a post and chooses a title: 'Biggest loser in online poker history wants to grind $16k'. He posts this thread in the sub-forum Poker Goals & Challenges, a place where players post their goals and try to update their thread with their progress. He posts graphs of his losses from his database on his PC. He starts the thread by posting some shocking graphs of $8700 lost at 2nl, $6000 lost at 5nl and $800 lost at 10nl. At 2nl he had an incredible rate of -170BB each 100 hands. The final graph of his microstakes losses posted show $15,000 lost over 365,000 hands. An average loss of $75 a day.
The 2+2 poker community are stunned by the graphs:

HorseofHell: I'm actually shocked it's possible to lose this much at 2nl
Mahsjdj: This can't be real can it?

Mikael posts about the hard work he’s put into poker and mentions that has watched videos, read many instructional books and is honest with his astounding losses:

Paisting: I've lost literally all my money including all my life savings to online poker. I want to try one last time to win those money back and little bit of extra. That's why $16k. What I need is support and guiding.

The community react to his plan to grind all the money back at microstakes:

Fodersneso: This is really disturbing.
Why on earth would you try to grind this all back? Losing at this rate is traumatizing. You're going to grind out 3000 BIs @nl5 now or what's the plan? Really curious how you think you can turn this pile of insanity around...

The community show disbelief and doubt that his story is real but several posters claim that what he says is true. He has been active in Finnish forums for more than 10 years and players starts to share hand histories and stories about his playstyle. He posts about his regret of picking the game up:

Paisting: Never had a winning week in 13 years.
If it were possible to go back ten years I would say to myself "Do not never play single one hand!"

He then goes on to tell 2+2 posters a disturbing source of his funds for his staggering 2nl losses:

Paisting: I've taken huge amount of fast loans.

He sheds a little light into his personal life:

Paisting: My age and relationships has nothing to do with this. But not working, no kids or wife and middle aged. What I have is time to play.
I get a little unemployment benefit that goes straight to the rent. My eating costs are very little because I'm only eating one meal per day. There are times when I must take more fast loans if need of clothes, unexpected bills, sickness etc. That's why getting back those $16k is so important to me.
No disability, never played anything else than poker or lottery when pots are bigger, maybe 5 times in year. Playing poker does not give me any excitement or I'm not cheering won pots.

Posters try to give him strategy advice, they try to persuade him time and time again that shoving 100+ blinds to a minsteal isn’t a good idea. Some others question his sanity and tell him to quit:

FazendeiroBH: Not trolling, I´m actually serious here. You lost an absurd amount of money playing the easiest stake in the world (nl2). You keep losing doing the same faulty strategy. No book ever said you should jam 100 bb preflop rfi. It´s quite obvious there is something wrong with you and your brain, and the more you delay seeking professional care for your mental problems, the worst it´s gonna be for you.

Paitsing updates his thread with highlight hands from his cash sessions. He seems to cherry pick hands to post and will only post hands where he loses all ins as a 70-95% favourite. He delusion leads him to blame the site, his luck and the other micro grinders. He often writes about specific players and gives his opinion on how badly they play. He often quotes their HUD stats and wide calling ranges while ignoring that they are probably adjusting heavily to his own playstyle. Some time passes and he discloses that he has lost almost $500 at 2nl since starting the thread three weeks ago.
He updates his followers with the first monthly graph of the thread from his 2nl play in April 2019. He plays for 90 hours in April and his average daily loss is $50, 25 buy ins each day. 2+2 players start to analyse the graph. They notice that there are several breakeven spots where he may be playing reasonable poker but also huge 150 buy in downswings, some drops in the graph are so steep that he is losing about a buy in every 5 hands for periods of hundreds of hands. He says:

Paitsing: Only trying to get my money back from guys who are playing nl2 forever and never moving up. When I started poker long time ago I tought it's exciting to read watch videos if it gives me more money. After 2 years figured out it's just sitting on computer like in work and if I'm someday +-0 never ever playing this stupid game. This is like war.

The thread goes on like this for almost a year. The thread repeats itself over and over. He will post a few selective bad beats, ignore good advice and berate his microstakes tablemates. A fellow microstakes grinder makes his first appearance in the thread: 6betpot. 6Betpot would play at Paisting's tables and often win many buy ins, 6Betpot would go on to post highly contrasting hand histories to the bad beats that Paisting posts, he would also reveal Paisting’s preflop 3 bet is around 30%. Some players would criticize 6Betpot for predatory behavior but 6Betpot would maintain that he would try to persuade Paisting to stop playing in a spewy manner. Someone asks to see the hands and 6Betpot posts some, here is one:

888 Poker - $0.02 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
BTN: 250.5 BB
SB (Paisting): 425.5 BB
BB: 101.5 BB
UTG: 100 BB
MP: 106.5 BB
CO: 84.5 BB
Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) BTN has AdQs
fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2 BB, Paisting raises to 425.5 BB and is all-in, fold, BTN calls 248.5 BB and is all-in
Flop: (502 BB, 2 players) Kh4s4c
Turn: (502 BB, 2 players) 3h
River: (502 BB, 2 players) Jc
BTN shows AdQs (One Pair, Fours)

Paisting shows 5s Js (Two Pair, Jacks and Fours)

Paisting wins 471 BB<
Later in the thread Paisting would reveal his line of thinking during hands like these; a poster asked why he though 3 betting hands like J5 was a good idea. Paisting replies:

Paisting: If you don't want them to run over you, you must do something. Blind play is very important and you can't let them run over you. When 80+ habit stealer gets shoves straight to his face he must learn at some point that I'm not giving blinds.

Many tried to reason with him and show him clearly why this was wrong, he not only refuted their strategy but would argue against them, often citing his opponent’s HUD stats.
Later on in the thread Mikael posts horrifying news. He explains that he didn’t transfer hands from his old computer to his new computer. The graphs he posted at the start of the thread only showed the tip of the iceberg. He reveals that $16k loss from the graphs was from just 7 months of play!:

Paisting: That 16k is in 209 days and in about 1 year as you can see from the first post. Big part of my losings has left to hard drive of my old crashed computer. That's past and I don't wanna think about it anymore. Main goal is this database I have here in my computer. But yes what I have been repeating many times, moving to 888 poker has sky rocketed my losses although I can play only 6 tables compared to party's 9 tables.

Posters speculate that his lifetime microstakes losses probably amount to six figures:

SpinMeRightRound: I mean if he's lost $20k in the last year, and he's been doing this for more than 10 years, he may have lost $200k or more.

In late 2019, Paisting claims that there was a ring of players were colluding against him. He goes on to say that the new site he plays on, 888, were asking for hand histories from certain players. He showed emails of his communications and posted that 8 players had had their account frozen. He also shows screenshots that his account is temporarily frozen during the investigation. Posters speculated:

CrunchyBlack: Pretty sure they think you're chip dumping lmao
.isolated: They think you're chip dumping to him. Funniest. Thing. Ever. The irony here is nearly palpable.

2020: The Struggle Continues

At the end of the year Paisting posts his 2019 graphs. He says that he hasn’t had a winning week yet and he’s still committed to making back 2019’s losses. His graphs show down 12k from 320k hands of 2nl in 2019.
In January 2020 he continues to post regularly and makes comments about him hunting down players worse than him:

Paisting: When you hunt really bad player (yes enzet there are plenty of worst player than me on 888 look those hand histories really carefully) hours and hours and wait good hand just to site let them to suck out it is affecting your game really badly.

He posts about his continuing struggle to win back the $16k:

Paisting: I have years dedicated for this project and anything back from that amount is winning to me. At this point it’s impossible to make any profit because of horrible suckouts.

He also posts about the high interest loans he’s taken out:

Paisting: I have huge amounts of loans that are basically all taken for poker. I don't eat much and all my other costs are very low.
And because of those loans I must get back so much money that is possible and these suck outs must stop.

February 2020 arrives and he posts his January chart, the worst posted yet. He takes a gigantic loss of $1,550 at an eye-watering rate of 210bb/100 hands. Often when he posts monthly graphs he would highlight that he ran a few buy ins below EV when he would be down hundreds of buy ins for the month.
The months pass and the cycle continues. Paisting posts the usual bad beats, posters berate him and try to give him advice and Paisting resists their efforts. Here is one of many similar hands posted in February:

888Poker, Hold'em No Limit - $0.01/$0.02 - 6 players
UTG: $1.46 (73 bb) Paisting (MP): $7.45 (373 bb) CO: $15.44 (772 bb) BU: $2.00 (100 bb) SB: $3.47 (174 bb) BB: $2.00 (100 bb)
Pre-Flop: ($0.03) 1 fold, Paisting(MP) raises to $7.45 (all-in), CO calls $7.45, 3 players fold
Flop: ($14.93) 6c7c4d (2 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: ($14.93) Ts (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: ($14.93) 8h (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: $14.93 (Rake: $0.93)
Showdown: Paisting (MP) shows 7dTc (two pair, Tens and Sevens) (CO) shows JsJc (a pair of Jacks) Paisting (MP) wins $14

March comes and the regular monthly graph is posted. The uploaded graph shows is he down $1900 or 950 buy ins for last month. Mikael refutes that he is a gambling addict:

Paisting: 888 has given many 10 dollar bonuses to me play slots. I have never played them and in fact my account has 20 dollars freeplay bonus to play their slots. I will not use those money now or in future. So that's gambling addict to you.

April and May roll by and the monthly graphs are posted. He played fewer hands than normal, 43,000. But is down $1,250, all at 2nl.
In June he posts the usual monthly graph with -$1900 and it’s the lowest win rate he’s posted before, a colossal -335b/100hands, the graph has some alarmingly steep downswings with one section where he loses $500 in 1000 hands. That’s a loss of one buy in every 4 hands. Getting these monthly updates shows how quickly he loses money at 2nl and collaborates with earlier estimations that he is likely down more than $100k at microstakes over the past 14 years. Approximations indicate that Mikael has paid over $20k in rake to poker sites over the years.

The End, for Now

Mikael is still playing microstakes to this day. His poker story isn’t over yet but so far it is a sad one. My previous two Tales from 2+2 stories had mostly happy endings but not this one. This story is like a car falling down a cliff and it hasn’t hit the bottom yet.
Let this story be a lesson that poker isn’t for everyone. Players with addiction or mental issues should reconsider if the game is best for their lives. Serious poker players should consider bankroll management and how tilt affects their winrate if they do choose to play.
Seek help if you think you or others need it.
Original thread (Still active)

Hi everyone, I just starting playing poker a few days ago and I am really enjoying the experience, but I have been having some difficulty.
I've been powering through the beginner's guide on poker, and these are the questions I've been left with so far.
~ I know this might end up being kind of long, but I'm going to give some prefacing to this first - if you are not familiar with gaming just skip ahead to the next paragraph! I'm a very high level Starcraft 2 player, who has recently decided to check out poker. This is a result of many SC players being very successful at, and also enjoying poker very much; I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I feel I am very good at improving and analyzing, and am the kind of person who will be happy to grind out hours upon hours of tedious work to achieve any minor improvement. I started out on the free play tables, where I went from 1000 chips to 160,000 in less than a weekend (I felt this was an accomplishment at the time, and made me think I was better than I am) With that said, I'll jump into the newbie problems I'm having. ~
The big problems I'm having are these: 1.What are the super fundamental mechanics of poker (primarily preflop, but also general principles)? I've read 'make them call with worse hand' and 'make them fold a better hand', but that doesn't seem to make sense for me, and gives me the following issues:
1a. I'm dealt AKs on my 1c,2c table, so I'm told I should bet something like 6c (+2 for each limper) from mid-late position (with no raisers before me). Why am I doing this?
1b. Why is it better to raise and isolate with a good hand, rather than limping in and calling with a good hand against a larger number of players?
1c. It seems to me that getting to the flop for 2c and hoping for trips, nuts, or a really nice high card to bet on against a larger number of players is more effective than getting to the flop against 1 player for 20c, only to find your AK matches nothing on the board, and now you have to fold to your opponents bet (As the micro strategies would tell me, anyway!). This seems most definitely to not be the case, but I can't wrap my head around why. If this was made super clear to me I'd really appreciate it!

1. A few questions on buy ins.
   2a. I've read that I should get 200-300 big blinds (or max for the table) for no limit holdem, but I'm a little uncertain on this. From a math standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. With 200-300 big blinds, you can afford to get into your pots comfortably, and pay your blinds, and it also lets you really nail those that chase you on a good hand. Is this thinking correct? Is there more to it?
   2b. I typically play with $1 on zoom or $1 per table on 2-3 9-max tables and generally end up losing most of it in small increments. Is this bad (the buy in sizing)? I am almost certain I would do proportionally better with $6, but I only have the minimum $11 dollars on my account, and really don't want to risk money until I learn to beat the lowest level of tables. Is the $1 buy in really hurting me? Or should I correct my fundamentals before moving to 200/300 BB bankroll?
   2c. When I play play money tables, I usually have a lot of success. I play conservative like I do on 1c2c, but have a much, much larger bankroll (usually 200-500bb). I don't know if it's the only reason, but I always feel way more comfortable and I do really well. Is this a result of play money players being god awful, or is it the benefit of a bigger buy in? How is it weighted to each?
   
2. Analysis and improvement. How do I do it?
   3a. I know there is a hand history in pokerstars, but I don't know how to use it well. A generally good piece of advice I've read is 'If you had known the other persons cards and played the same way, that is good'. The problem is that I often find huge difficulty solving this. In Starcraft, the replays lets you see everything from both players perspective -analyzing and assessing is entirely logical. In poker, I'll be in a tough spot and decide to fold. I'll never ever know if that was a good decision or not. Sometimes I win a hand from the other guy folding. I'll never ever know if that was good either, because I don't know their hand. How can I solve this? What kind of methods can I use to analyze my own hands?
   3b. If I were a really, really good poker player (like Negreanu and Durrrr level, etc.) at what rate should my average profits be on a 1c,2 table? I'm not asking because I want to make money, but rather to gauge progress. Currently I am consistently losing on these small tables and would like to know how I can tell if I'm improving. If the answer is "Durrr would easily be able to get $5 profit from 1 table per hour with only very minimal downswing" that's where I want to aim for. If the answer is "well, Durrr would probably be losing all his money on 2/5 tables, and doubling his money on 3/5, getting a total of $5/h" then I'd be a little disappointed, but be not be expecting rapid improvement over simple fixes.
   3c. Lastly, any tips or resources you'd like to share I'd be really happy to look at. I am often told to play tight on low stakes tables (which I do), but I usually lose most of my money to bets on the flop after raising with a good hand and getting nothing. This leads me to believe that's where my biggest problem is linked to, and would love any advice!
   

Thanks VERY much for reading. Thanks even more if you can give me some answers.
I want to emphasize how much I appreciate this and I'm really looking forward to being part of the poker community if I can ever beat the 1c2c!
~EDIT - Corrected my misuse of bankroll in place of buy in. Thanks for the correction!

 Thanks to everyone for your great responses. I'm finding bits of knowledge through all your comments and am very happy. If I don't manage to get an individual response to you, keep in mind I'm still very appreciative!