A top regular from Honduras told how he got started with $8, lost almost his entire bankroll twice, and became one of the most successful NL1k players.
Luis "luismi1912" Gutierrez is one of the strongest regulars at NL1k. Earlier this year, he posted his chart from that limit with a win rate of 9bb/100 over a distance of about a million hands.
"A little longer term, there are already close to 1M hands at 9bb/100 playing NL1k on average."
Recently, Louis tweeted that he plans to play without a tracking tools for a while:
"AUGUST was another good month. Almost 40k hands is fine considering I'm also playing Live.
I'll be completing 100k hands without using a HUD soon, it's a little experiment to test if I can focus more on ranges, dynamics and adaptations. Very good results so far, I may not use HUD again."
In a blog on the website of his training project Cash Academy, Luis told the story of his rise from zero to NL5k.
Hello Cashers! I hope you are all doing well. Today I am here to tell you about my experience. I wanted to share with you how I started with $8 and little by little I worked my way up to NL1000.
My beginnings in the game of poker
As far back as I can remember, I've always liked card games. I think I was 14 or 15 when I played with friends as a hobby, and I always stood out among them. Then, even at 17, I participated in games where there was real money, and in some way that left its mark on me. When I discovered poker, it was like an explosion in my head. I was very surprised to see the WSOP and how huge amounts of money were at stake.
From there, it was like a kind of obsession to learn how to play poker and I started looking for information everywhere. Then I found out about PokerStars and their $8 bonus that they gave to those who registered for the first time. I immediately registered, created my account and received the $8, which was an exorbitant amount of money at that time because I had no idea how to deposit a cent and out of nowhere I already had $8.
But instead of playing with that bonus money, what I did was start playing with virtual money to better understand the rules of the game and how to play once I moved on to real money.
From virtual money to real money
Once I understood the basics of the game, I started playing with the $8 bonus in 50 cent tournaments and I remember getting very lucky, and in a very short time I had multiplied the bonus and had $100 in my account.
Once I understood how the game works, I continued studying and learning with free content. I found poker schools that taught how to play, the basics of the game, advanced strategies, among other things. That's how I prepared myself step by step and learned many of the fundamentals that I know and apply today, starting at the lowest levels of the cash game , where I also learned how to build a good bankroll.
With the $8 I started betting real money with and the information I got from poker schools, it was relatively easy to beat the micro limits.
Beginning of my professional career
From that moment on, I learned to post hands on the forums, which was very helpful at the beginning, because people would comment and make suggestions about what I posted , and that way I would nurture and improve my strategies. Every day I would post between 5 and 10 different hands on the forums, which were commented on by people who were at my level. This led me to meet people with whom we created poker study groups.
So I had this kind of double boost, one when I was posting hands and learning from all the comments that were being made, and another when we created the study groups. There was already a more solid base for commenting on the hands that other players were posting , where through Skype sessions we made study plans, to mark hands, meeting 3 or 4 times a week.
The task of commenting on hands among ourselves was something that personally helped me a lot to improve my level and that of the group in general, while we moved up the stakes . That's how I moved up to NL50 , which was a bit more difficult for me, so I was forced to look for other types of more specialized information from players who have been advancing and becoming better and better.
Seeking expert help
At this point I realized that I needed a private coach who could give me more up-to-date, first-hand and personalized information, because it seemed to me that I could advance faster than with the free information on the Web . I looked for a way to save some money and see how I could afford private advice from someone with a lot of experience.
One day I decided to temporarily leave the cash game and played some $5 micro limit events at PokerStars (MICROMILLIONS), which paradoxically I ended up winning. I feel like I didn't have the knowledge, but it turned out well. In the end, I had won about $11,000, a lucky moment that I took advantage of to pay for a coach , who certainly wasn't the best but did help me overcome the No Limit $50 barrier .
My first super disaster
I remember thinking at first that reaching No Limit 100 would be like reaching the pinnacle of poker, for me, it was every player's dream. The outside help of a private coach made it possible for me to fulfill my dream of reaching NL 100, but when I reached what I thought was the pinnacle, I didn't stay there for long and immediately advanced to NL200. And it was here that I had my first super setback and I have to call it what it was because I felt like a pro.
And the thing is that while I was in microlimits I always had ups and downs and I saw it as something normal, but believing that I already knew everything, but when I was in NL200 I ended up losing practically 95% of my bankroll. It turns out that back then there was a software used to search for players online, to see their statistics, and PokerStars banned it and those of us who used it ended up being banned for about three or six months, I think I remember, so my account was suspended for that time.
It was a really disastrous time for me because I had never changed rooms and I was forced to do so and I thought that entering other rooms was going to be something simple, however, it was another disaster. The first month in other rooms they “killed me”, I tried to play live, something I had never done before and they also “killed me”, the third month while I still had the suspended account, I tried to do other things and I also left with the tables in my head, three months in which I lost practically all my bankroll.
Recovering from the disaster
There came a time after this tremendous tilt, that I even had to pawn my car to get back into the game after overcoming the ban on my account. In retrospect, I must say that at that time I had a rather mediocre way of thinking due to the way I faced the adverse situation I had to live through.
With the money I earned from pawning the car, I returned to No Limit 100, I played a few tables looking for a calm and stress-free game, trying to raise some of my bankroll. At this point, I understood that I had to work hard on my mental side, and that's when I hired another private coach, Lithany, and with the 20 boxes I had earned, I won a little at No Limit 100.
With Lithany I spent about a year working on the whole mental area and that helped me a lot, I stayed playing between No Limit 100 and No Limit 200, so I gathered enough bankroll to play completely calmly and hire a private coach again to help me beat NL200 faster.
The Coach Who Completely Changed My Game
After overcoming “The Debacle” I was able to gather my bankroll and hire the coach who would change my entire approach to the game, Jordi. I thought I had a very solid game and I felt superior to the others in my stake, but when I took the Coach with Jordi my game changed drastically in practically all the Spots, having taken this Coach was the best thing that could have happened to me. I worked with Jordi for about two years and I was able to overcome NL400, 500, 600 and NL1k.
My brief stint at NL5k winning at 18bb/100
After working with Jordi I spent a couple of years on my own in NL1k working, trying new things. I was doing very well in NL1k and I was very calm, I wasn’t thinking about playing higher stakes at that time, but suddenly GGpoker came out, it was becoming very famous and I decided to try it.
I started playing NL1k in GG and the results were wonderful, it was full of fish, I wanted to try higher stakes, but there was no NL2k, the jump was from NL1k to NL5k and it was a stake that I had never imagined and I also didn’t have enough bankroll, but I was doing so well in NL1k that I dared to get in and it was a boom for my bankroll. NL5k in GGpoker was a fish tank full of fish and I was an expert at exploiting Recreationals, the first month in GGpoker 5k was the best month of my life, surpassing 6-figure profits for the first time in just 30 days. So, although the next 8 months were not so extraordinary, I played little volume, but at an amazing winrate, GGPoker between NL5k and NL10k, I got to play 100k hands at 18-19bb/100, it was crazy, at this point I felt like the King of the world hahaha
My last big setback
After what was the best season of my life at the tables, the dark months arrived. Several events happened that made me lose 80% of my bankroll, something that I would never have dreamed of in my worst nightmares. Between GGpoker banning me with a lot of money, cryptocurrencies falling out of control and another handful of bad decisions and investments, I was once again going through a very stormy situation.
It all happened so fast that I didn't have time to react until I had already lost a lot, but with previous experiences and everything that Lithany taught me, I was able to put a stop in time, take a couple of off poker tables, and rethink everything again.
Conclusions
I am currently playing at NL1k-2k tables with ease, but I am looking forward to returning to NL5k – NL10k tables soon.
It was quite complex, but it was possible for me to overcome the initial 8 dollars, dream of NL100 and now be able to say that NL5k is possible. I just had to work hard on my mental side and learn from the best.
I always like to remember that the mental part is one of the most important in Poker, there even comes a point where it becomes more important than the technical part, depending on the Meta game.
As much as I wanted to advance, I put all my effort into the game, but I still needed outside help to be able to continue advancing in my career as a player.
Possibly one of the worst mistakes you can make is to believe that you already know everything, just like I did.
I hope that this experience that I have told you will be useful in your career as players. Know that we are always here at Cash Academy to lend a hand.
