OT: How's your (poker) game? [Archive] - Front Office Football Central

Subby

11-09-2005, 04:13 PM

I was looking through the archives for the list of FOFCers' poker handles (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/showthread.php?t=18587&highlight=tredwel+poker) and I came across this thread (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/showthread.php?t=10189) from about two and a half years ago, June 2003. It was pretty fascinating reading some of the posts - especially from a guy like Radii who now 8-tables on-line - or Quik who I know regularly plays tough mid-high stakes games now. Or other respected posters raising the specter of on-line collusion and cheating.

I know at that time - I knew very little about poker (okay, nothing). I hadn't signed up anywhere yet (okay, I registered at Absolute, felt dirty and never logged on), but I just remember reading tredwel's dynasty posts (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/showthread.php?t=9785&highlight=tredwel+poker) trying to decipher what all the crazy language meant - big blinds, small blinds, cutoff, button, set, etc.. I remember depositing $100 at party poker later that year and one-tabling .50/1 and busting out and rebuying four or five times.

Along the way it seems like there has been a ton of folks on here that played or are still playing and seemed to be doing well. So my question is this:

What's your poker story? Where are you now in comparison to two years ago? Have you progressed? Where do you play? What games/limits? How often? Where do you see your game 2 years from now? What is your goal?

sabotai

11-09-2005, 04:27 PM

I am better, obviously, than 2 years ago. But right now I play far too sporadically. Poker is something you have to do a lot and keeping doing it. I just haven't been able to put in the kind of time I need to in order to really raise my game.

But, since I now have some more free time on my hands (see "do over" thread), I might just go ahead and sink a lot of time into it over the next few months and see where I'm at after that.

MJ4H

11-09-2005, 04:58 PM

I consider myself a pretty solid poker player. I play anything from micro-limits up to about 2/4, occassionally 3/6, any game (stud, stud hi/lo, omaha, omaha hi/lo, hold em, whatever). I have studied most games a good deal and consider myself proficient at most. Omaha hi/lo is my favorite game. I have played NLHE all the way up to $100 buy-in, but no higher, mostly because I don't have any aspirations to do so. What I generally do is work my bankroll up to about $1000, then withdraw most of it and do it again. When I say most of it, I mean all but like $10-$50 of it. I refuse to ever deposit a dime into online poker, so I run exactly zero risk of ever being a losing player (the first time I bust, I'm done for good). I have run my bankroll up to $1k from next to nothing 3 separate times now, so my lifetime income is just over $3,000 from poker. I don't play all that often, but when I do, I usually 3-4 table. I have played as many as 6 tables, but don't like to. It depends on how hyper I feel.

TredWel

11-09-2005, 05:02 PM

From October 2004 to August of this year, my wife and I were able to survive a period of being between jobs on my poker winnings. By the end of it, I was 8 tabling low-limit games and considered myself a professional bonus whore. It's a cool story to tell, and let me hold out for the great job I just got, but I think there were downsides to it. I think my growth as a player was somewhat stunted by tying my playing to my livelihood. I wasn't able to accumulate any sort of bankroll, and I got pretty burned out being forced to play for 20-30 hours a day. Since getting a job, I've played considerably less. One of these days, once the burnout wears off, I plan to start playing a little more with the goal of just building my bankroll, moving up the limits as my roll allows.

Oh, and thanks for dredging up my old dynasty. It's interesting to see such a stark reminder of how my play has changed over the years.

People looking for investment advice should note that my initial $50 investment has paid off over several hundred fold in the span of two years. :)

Airhog

11-09-2005, 05:12 PM

I think my growth as a player was somewhat stunted by tying my playing to my livelihood. I wasn't able to accumulate any sort of bankroll, and I got pretty burned out being forced to play for 20-30 hours a day. :)

I think you should share your secret with how you can play 30 hours a day. The world would get much more done if we all knew this secret...

Airhog

11-09-2005, 05:12 PM

I still want to learn how to play poker for money, but I am leery of blowing 50 bucks. I just don't see myself having the drive to put the hours into it to make it worthwhile

GoldenEagle

11-09-2005, 05:18 PM

I wasn't able to accumulate any sort of bankroll, and I got pretty burned out being forced to play for 20-30 hours a day. I think we would all get burned out playing that much. http://dynamic.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

I remember the first site I put money in was Pacific Poker. I was the biggest fish on the internet. I bought some books and improved. Now, I have built a solid bankroll, play eight hours a day, and use th money to pay the bills. I still have one big void in my game that I am working on improving. That is tournaments. I find them very fun but I am not a good player at them. I can consistently win at cash games but I do not do that well in tournaments. Also, two years ago, I had never played poker.

TredWel

11-09-2005, 05:30 PM

I think you should share your secret with how you can play 30 hours a day. The world would get much more done if we all knew this secret...
It involves either a Delorean, a Time-Turner, or a spaceship and the sun. I ain't sayin' which. http://dynamic.gamespy.com/%7Efof/forums/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Subby

11-09-2005, 06:24 PM

kmbgolf

11-09-2005, 06:32 PM

Sorry for the hijack.........but my hardrive crashed and I have quite a few bucks in pokerstars.I dont remember my password ,my email isnt working to recieve my password info,does anyone know a number I can reach pokerstars at........I would try 2+2 my password for there is also something I dont remember.........thks :confused:

TredWel

11-09-2005, 07:31 PM

Tredwel - I had no idea you were supporting your family solely through poker - that's amazing. How did you deal with that psychologically? It seems like it would be unduly stressful.
It wasn't terrible, but I'm not going to be rushing back anytime soon. I didn't find it as stressful as you might think. I was always properly bankrolled, and had a nest egg in the bank that we could live off of if times got tough - which they never did. I never had to think of the chips in front of me as this month's rent money.

Actually, looking back over my short career as a professional, I figured that I made more money through poker than I would have made at my job had I not been laid off.

I think the worst part of it was just the grind of it all, and the feeling that I was making work out of what should be fun. That and the not having a fixed amount of take-home pay. Like I said, it wasn't bad, and it's nice to know that I can be self-sufficient without a job if the need arises, but I'm not going to rush back to that lifestyle.

GoldenEagle

11-09-2005, 07:35 PM

Right now, I just play the limits that I need to do to quickly clear a bonus. I just got done whoring one of the Poker Network skin bonuses and played $2/4 there (and got my ass handed to me). I am probably going to be doing a $600 sign-up bonus on another Poker Network skin that I will need to play $3/6 on. But with the Empire reload tomorrow, I will only play $.5/1. Playing eight hours a day (which I do most of the days) allows me to clear bonus after bonus fairly quickly. I know they are going to run dry eventually and I will make the switch to Party if I can get rakeback.

kcchief19

11-09-2005, 08:14 PM

My poker story is far less interesting than others around here. At the time of the original thread, I had never played online for money; I had a Poker Stars account, but I only played free rolls and play money tourneys. It wasn't until this past January that I made my first deposit and played for real. I play a bit like MJ4H, although not as disciplined or as successful. I'm risk-adverse and I don't want to get put into a position where I'm in for a loss.

I play poker for fun. I want it to be a hobby and I'm fine as a break-even or better player; I don't feel comfortable losing money at poker. Because I'm so risk-adverse, I only play tournaments. I can play for an hour risking $10 and money often enough to make it worthwhile. I rarely play cash games, and when I do it's micro limits and just for pratice for playing in a tourney. I began playing $5 SnG and gradually moved up to higher stakes as I improved my game.

When I was starting, I never put in more than $50 and I eventually put in $350 before I reached a point where I began winning more money than I put in. I estimate I probably play about a dozen SnG a week, sometimes more and sometimes less. About a month ago, I reached a point where I had won back my original stake plus $350. Since then, my game has been a mess. Some bad beats, some tilting at times, but overall just mediocre play. Of course, that was also at the same time that I "promoted" myself to playing $30 SnG as my standard tourney. I've dropped down to playing more $10 and $20 tournies until my game is more solid.

The odd thing is that while my game in general has been weak the last month, during this time I've also monied in large-field tournaments for the first time. I'm choking up my poor run recently to mostly the odds leveling themselves out, but I'm also using this time to refine and tune-up my game a bit, trying to play more tight-aggressive.

I imagine at some point in the next few years I will quit playing online, whether it's because I've reached a point where my original investment is gone or I reach a point where I can no longer improve my game. I don't really have a specific goal in mind, but I can see a point where if I have enough money in my account for a nice flat screen plasma TV, my career will be over. :)

Vegas Vic

11-09-2005, 08:20 PM

How you guys multitable 8 hours a day is beyond me. That isn't like some regular job, where you might actually work for 2 hours in an 8 hour day. It's more like being an air traffic controller, where you're constantly being mentally taxed.

I play a max of 4 hours per day, and right now I'm playing 4 tables of 5/10 (6-max). With rakeback, I make about $85 per hour.

I do play for a living; however, I also have a monthly pension from an early retirement at my old job.

Anthony

11-09-2005, 08:31 PM

i don't understand how people can consistently make so much money off poker. when you get down to the heart of poker (i don't play), it's a matter of knowing which cards to hold and which to exchange. but how is that skill? it's all completely random (although you can card-count). i just find it weird how someone can make a living out of the randomness of cards, especially online where you can't even read a person's face to see if they're bluffing.

Vegas Vic

11-09-2005, 08:40 PM

i just find it weird how someone can make a living out of the randomness of cards

In a good player's lifetime, he will be dealt about the same hands and same situations as a bad player. The good player will make more money on his better hands than the bad player will, and the good player will lose less money on his worst hands than the bad player will. Over time, this makes the good player a winner, and it makes the bad player a loser.

MJ4H

11-09-2005, 08:43 PM

Well, you seem to have a couple of serious misconceptions about what is happening. First of all no one here is playing DRAW poker, though I have and it is still possible to win consistently at it. Also, card counting is not a poker skill, but a blackjack skill (though noting dead cards is important in stud games).

Where people make money in poker is in exploiting the poor play of their opponents. All you need is to know how to exploit those mistakes and there is a gold mine out there waiting for you. As an example, if you are playing 7 card stud and you are holding a king and an ace as your down cards, and your up card is an ace, and you are against one opponent that has a jack showing with a 7 and a 2 hidden, this player is not in good shape to win this hand against you. So let's say you raise. He would be making a mistake by calling you. Raising here gives your opponent a chance to make a mistake. He might even re-raise you. This would be an even larger mistake. If your opponent has, say, only a 30% chance to win the hand, he is losing money every time he puts more money into the pot.

You can think of it like this: we agree to flip a coin and every time it comes up heads, you give me $1 and every time it comes up tails, I give you $1. If we run this game 10 times, we will likely come close to even in money. If we run it 1,000 times, we will still likely be very close to even. Now, if we used some event where it was not exactly 50-50 to determine the winner, like 1-4 on a 6 sided die means i get $1 and 5-6 means you get $1, we may still be close to even after 10 tries, but we are extremely unlikely to be near even after 1000 tries. This is how poker players make money. There are plenty of opponents out there willing to take the 5-6 side of that bet.

GoldenEagle

11-09-2005, 08:52 PM

I really did not answer thee rest of the questions. In two years, I see myself with a full time job and playing causally for a little extra money in the pocket here and there. I do not ever expect to be a full-timer on the poker circuit. I am simply not good enough. I am also guessing that as you get older, the volatility of poker will not provide you with enough financial security. I will look back on the fun times and remember all that poker I played in college (and probably long for those days).

I would like to play in one World Series of Poker event. I just think it would be a fun experience. My short term goals are to learn to play something other than Hold Em. I would like to be able to mix some games up to keep it less repetitive.

GoldenEagle

11-09-2005, 08:57 PM

By the way, if anyone reads this and knows how to deposit into BetonBet Poker, let me know. I can not for the life of me figure out how to do it.

Anthony

11-09-2005, 08:59 PM

Vegas Vic

11-09-2005, 09:01 PM

very good explanation, Matt. so there isn't so much skill to winning consistently enough to make it a paying gig, there is only the absence of skill from your opponent that allows you to win consistently enough to make it a paying gig.

It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's not far from the truth.

If you're the 10th best player in the world, and you're sitting at the same table as #1 through #9, then you're in trouble.

Barkeep49

11-09-2005, 11:07 PM

Well I think I am an above average player all around, although I pale in comparison to the skills many others have here. My biggest problem is sustainability. My play for the first SNG or first hour of a table is pretty good. But I can't keep it up. I am, however, getting better at this.

I am happy tonight with my playing, however. I went to a casino visit and where I played weak-tight and was having a devil of a time breaking out of it. Before the visit I was all over the $50NL table and in very limited playing before tongiht had lost, through poor playing, nearly two weeks of profits there. Tonight, however, I regained my aggression and am up.

Barkeep49

11-09-2005, 11:13 PM

st.cronin

11-09-2005, 11:38 PM

I don't even know the rules.

GreenMonster

11-09-2005, 11:41 PM

I just finished winning 2.2k in the 4:40 $5 Rebuy on Party Poker.. I haven't done well in a tourney for a while so today has been great so far..

lytic

11-09-2005, 11:46 PM

Ditto.

Well I think I am an above average player all around, although I pale in comparison to the skills many others have here. My biggest problem is sustainability. My play for the first SNG or first hour of a table is pretty good. But I can't keep it up. I am, however, getting better at this.

Arctus

11-10-2005, 12:39 AM

I've never played a hand on-line. I fear what will happen if I go down that path.

I first started playing poker for real in the mid '90's. I was living near Atlantic City at the time. Strictly 7 card stud at $1-5 tables, I'd play about once a week. Over the long haul, I made a miniscule amount of money, basically a push. I moved to Virginia a few years later and stopped playing.

I started playing hold 'em when I could about two years ago (about once a month for about 8 hours or so). I read up on it some (mainly Ken Warren), and played a pretty rigid tight aggressive on $2-4 tables. Over the long haul, I once again won a small amount of money.

I had a bit of a breakthrough on my Vegas trip last April. I was comfortable enough to step up to a $4-8 game, as well as step a bit (not entirely) out of my tight aggressive shell. I logged about 30 to 40 hours over the course of five days and made about $800 on strictly $4-8 limit games. I contribute my success on this trip to:

Luck - I'm sure I was seeing cards and flops somewhat better than could be expected.

Confidence - I was comfortable to step out of tight aggressive a bit, and capitalize on other player's bad plays.

Improved situational awareness - I took a big step in my ability to put a player on a hand, and did a much better job of decision making in general.

Shortly after my Vegas trip, I accepted a work assignment in the Chicago area. I typically play an eight to ten hour session about three or four times a month at Resorts, just over the Indiana state line. I play $5-10 Hold 'em, which is the lowest stakes they offer. Its usually a very loose game, play typically involves five to seven players seeing the flop. My win rate is around $15/hr.

I feel that my game has improved significantly over the last two years. How good I am is relative. When I'm on the Riverboat, I'm pretty sure that I am one of the better $5-10 players in the room. Compared to all of the players in the room, I would consider myself average.

I'm think I'm pretty close to stepping up to $10-20 games. (Certainly, when I go back to Vegas next spring I'll step up to $8-16). I don't really have any hard and fast goals, one of the bad habits I had to break to improve my play was being too focused on my chip count, particularly when I was up. I would set a win goal, and if I was near or over it, I would play much weaker. That being said, I'm sticking with $5-10 for a at least a bit longer. If I continue to do well I'll take the step to $10-20 and slide back into a tight aggressive posture until I get my feet wet at that level of competition.

Arctus

11-10-2005, 12:58 AM

DOLA -- My biggest weakness is ring limit. I've actually made some money in Limit tourneys but simply can't come close to matching the success of so many around here at ring games and it is frustrating as I don't think anything short of having a teacher will improve my game there.

Dola,

Limit and no-limit are very different games. I happen to be better in limit, its how I first learned to play, and I have very little tourney experience (at whopping total of six; never in the money with my best finish 20th out of 130ish.). I would highly recommend Ken Warren's book. Its a bit dry (what good poker book isn't?) and will start you off playing a very tight game. He advocates learning some things and then applying them in play.

If your used to no-limit, you'll most likely be bored to death learning his system. If you have the discipline to adhere to it you should be playing pretty much for free as you absorb his later lessons.

dixieflatline

11-10-2005, 07:37 AM

I started playing online for play money at absolute in march. The second freeroll I entered I ended 7th which was good enough for $5. Playing $0.02/0.04 6max tables I worked my way up to $50 in the end of june and withdrew from there. Put everything into bet365, then royal vegas, then sportingbet, and so on. I bonus whored my way up to where I am right now playing 3 or 4 tables of $2/4 and earning a bit more at the tables than I am earning in my real life job(per hour tables plus bonuses). Last month in particular I ran really well(think subby running well in a four hour session) which helps a lot. I have just started playing some $3/6 tables that look juicy and I'm off to a good start. I am hoping to pretty much be playing $3/6 for the rest of the year and then move to $5/10 6max sometime next year when I am ready for that. I am actually funded to play in the $5/10 game right now but I have a lot of work to do with my game before making that jump.

QuikSand

11-10-2005, 08:04 AM

I am not at all surprised that I can/could look back on things I have thought/said/posted about poker here and elsewhere two years ago, and be shocked that I actually did so. The whole purpose of investing some real time into my game (a good deal of reading, and a lot of time just thinking about the game) was to get myself past the level that I walked in (a guy with some decent common sense and a fairly good head for numbers) and to a level where I was really applying those skills to poker.

I make no claim at all that I'm at the top of a mountain or am a great player, but I have a lot more confidence in my game, and I now play regularly and successfully for stakes that were hugely intimidating to me when I first started playing.

My first "real" game was a regular no-limit hold 'em tournament, drew around 30 players each week, and the buy-in escalated from $50 to, eventually, $100+. I had good success early there, probably with a fair amount of luck on my side, but also a by-product of being a pretty (very?) tight player in a pool full of fairly poor players. I won that even three times in its first ten or twelve runnings, and since they handed out a "rules sheet" that included the names of the previous winners, that seemed to boost my reputation (perhaps more than was warrented).

In the after-tournament cash games, I found myself learning on the fly, playing a variety of fixed limit, spread limit, and no limit hold em games for stakes up to and beyond what I was really comfortable with. But just employing my own common/card sense, I kept myself from getting creamed... and usually walked away a winner.

I don't play live all that much any more -- the regular weekly game still is running, but it has largely cycled through (and spit out) most of the poor players that made it so profitable back in the goodl old days. The only people who have stuck with the game for years are generally decent players -- so the game has devolved into a prety tough slugfest. Last week, I played for my first time in months (to a welcoming chorus of hisses) and managed to make the final three, who cut a deal for the money spots. I may be back tonight, but I'm not playing weekly any longer.

Online, I spent a pretty fair amount of time playing the low to medium stakes limit games -- a lot of $2/$4 and $3/$6 on Party, and did okay grinding out a bankroll. After a while, I got to the $5/$10 6max games, and found them to require a real change of pace -- but making that particular adjustment was *very* good for my game overall (as I was an inherently weak tight player). Looking back, I believe I was guilty of moving up in levels prematurely, but managed (both financially and psychologically) to overcome the inevitable downswings... and now I have most of that pretty well in control. My poker bankroll is pretty healthy, we have quite a lot of pretty nice things around the house to show for it, and I am getting pretty good results playing some stakes that I didn't think would ever come that easily to me.

I know my game still needs work, but I haven't been reading poker boks lately at all (for the first time in the last two or three years, where they have been maybe a third to a half of my reading rotation). I spend a little time talking about hands and reading about hands, I still watch the big events on TV, and Mrs. Q and I still spend time together in our "poker den" basement playing online... but it's fit nicely into a good niche in my life. I really don't count on poker income to pay the bills, but it's nice to be able to contemplate a fairly big purchase from time to time and just pull it out of the poker account and not have to give it much thought.

Subby

11-10-2005, 08:29 AM

I messed around on Party last year and probably tore through $300-$500 in deposits, referral bonuses, deposit bonuses, etc.. I remember times when I would be down to my last $6 and would have to place in a sit and go so I wouldn't have to deposit again. Last summer I was still playing sit and gos for the most part - I was still completely oblivious to rakeback, poker tracker, and Neteller.

Late last Fall, following a roadmap put together by Malificent (http://www.92offsuit.com/?page_id=153), I created a Neteller account, deposited $100 at Pacific, opened accounts at all six Crypto sites and the 5 Party skins and started bonus whoring. I played mostly $1/$2 full ring but eventually gravitated to short-handed games, which fit my personality a little better. I bought poker tracker. I also started whoring casino bonuses - this was back when the casinos that ran viper software still let you autoplay blackjack for bonuses. As I learned poker, poker and casino bonuses kept me afloat.

One day I stumbled on to an unbelievable casino bonus - $500 bonus at any fortune lounge casino if you deposited via Neteller. Well, there were 8 casinos in that group and they all had autoplay blackjack. I ended up making $7,000 from the whole venture, tripling my bankroll. Then I funded other folks I know and had them do the casinos risk-free and split the profits with them.

What does that have to do with poker? Not much. It did, however, give me the bankroll I needed to move up to the 5/10 6-max game. I had grown really frustrated with lower limits - I didn't have the patience to deal with all of the loose passive players - players that were fairly impervious to my aggressive style. In retrospect, it was obviously my fault for being unable to adjust, but at the time, jumping up limits seemed like a good idea.

I had set up a rakeback account at Coral Eurobet (a party skin) earlier in the year, and started playing there exclusively. My foray into 5/10 6-max went really, really well. I made almost 4bb/100 hands over my first 25,000 hands (almost 10K) over my first 6 weeks at that limit. Undoubtedly I was running hot, but something just clicked there for whatever reason.

Trouble was brewing in the background, however. Right at the beginning of my move up I had tilted away $2,000 in one night playing 5/10 and trying to make it back at 10/20. While I had tilted away significantly less doing some blackjack bonuses, it was becoming a disturbing trend.

By the end of the Summer I had moved up to 10/20 full time and had stopped bonus and casino whoring altogether. Rakeback payments were anywahere form $750 to $1250 per month, so that was enough "guaranteed" income that I could concentrate on just poker. I felt like I had come a long way - I was playing at the same tables as QuikSand, which was a huge deal for me. Quik was the one guy I wanted to emulate - he played high limit cash games, big buy-in tourneys, had lots of success. So now I was doing that.

The tiltmonster was still in the background, however. I had run my 'roll up to about 18k and was regularly taking money out for family expenses. Then one night I dropped 2K at 10/20, went to two 20/40 tables to try and win it back, and lost another 2K. Suddenly, my phat 11k eurobet balance was down to 7k. I panicked and withdrew.

The very next day, Party announced a split from it's skins. All the fish stayed on the party network. All the multi-tabling TAGs were on the Party skins with their rakeback deals. There was mass hysteria, since Party was officially against rakeback.

Content to wait it out, I deposited to Ultimate Bet (5k) and PokerStars ($1,600). I busted at Stars almost immediately. I seriously considered quitting, but deposited again (I had around 5k in Neteller) and dropped down to 5/10.

Since then I have played a mix of games, from 10/20 to 30/60. I am back on the right track, playing less tables and relying more on my reads. The Party situation has been ironed out and I'll probably move 10k there in the next week or so and get back to the 10/20 6-max game exclusively. If I play 10,000 hands a month and manage 1.5bb/100 I can make 3k a month, not counting rakeback (which would be around another $750). Those are minimum goals.

My game still needs a lot of work. I have no math skills and I don't think I am making the correct decision every time. I play a lot on emotion and am very results oriented. I need to stop that.

Looking back, I can't believe how this year has gone. My initial goal was to make $1,000 per month on bonuses and profits. I think I am closing in on 40K for the year (yes, I plan on paying taxes). It's an unbelievable part-time job and helps my family do a lot of things we may not be able to do otherwise. My wife stays home with the kids and every month I take out $1,000 for her to use to pay for pre-school and other stuff the kids need. No way we could do that without poker.

My goal for next year is to play in the World Series of Poker. Radii and I are for sure going, and there are several other folks who will probably come and crash for one of the weeks. I am going to try and qualify for the ME and will for sure buy into one of the 1500 or 1000 NL events. I am horrible at tourneys, so my mission is to read the two Harrington books that are lying next to my computer gathering dust. And learn how to properly calculate odds. :)

Anyway...that ended up being way more detailed than I had intended. Sorry :\.

albionmoonlight

11-10-2005, 08:35 AM

Started online. Got a deposit bonus and cashed my initial stake out. Played for a while, going up and down. Got on a pretty steady losing streak. Ended up losing all of my "house money." Have not played online since.

Still play a monthly game with some lawyers friends, but that's more about beer and bullshitting than about serious play.

So, I guess that I am out of the game for all intents and purposes.

cartman

11-10-2005, 09:10 AM

I seem to be the exact opposite for most folks on here. I've been playing online for a lot longer than most, I started back in '99 with the Intercasino software. At that time, it was only ring games, the biggest game available was $5/$10. I usually played $.50/$1 games. I never really did well, pretty much breaking even. I was playing pretty much only when I was on the road travelling, to kill some time in the hotel. A couple of years ago, when I made the move to PokerStars, I started to take the game a lot more seriously. I read books, and worked on my game. However, I never was able to build a bankroll on ring games.

Enter the tournament phase of my playing career. This is where I really started to shine. I started playing Sit and Gos, ostensibly in the beginning to stretch my playing dollar. Where in a ring game I could lose $100 in an hour, by playing SnGs you are out a set amount. I started with the $5 tournies and moved up from there. I'm currently in a lull in the Sit and Gos. For some reason, I've been getting my ass handed to me in the $15 SnGs, only placing in the $$$ about 20% of the time. However, in the $25 and $55 SnGs, I've been cleaning up, placing in the $$$ 65% of the time. If I make the move up to $100 SnG, I place in the $$$ about 40%, not enough yet to make it worthwhile.

In the mean time, I have been doing quite well in the multi-table tournies. This is where I've made the bulk of my profits this year. During the week I'll play in several of the $10 10 minute blind tournies on PS. I haven't had a final table appearance in several months, but I have pretty consistently been making it into at least the 3rd money level. And I try to get in cheap at least once a month on the weekly $200+15 tourney. Last appearance in that one I turned a $9 satellite seat into over $450. I still think what might have been in the WCOOP event where I busted out 7 spots out of the money on a free FPP entry.

My goal also is to be in a WSOP event next year. I'm also trying for a seat in the EPT final event in Monte Carlo in March. We'll see how those pursuits go.

vtbub

11-10-2005, 09:30 AM

I deposited $50 at pokerstars in March and have $35 active and $10 at Netteller.

If I concentrate, I play ok.

I haven't played much since starting the blog, which is a good thing because in order to be really good at poker, I'd have to play 40 hours a week or so just in watching and learning.

Limit is my game of choice, and I play at the .25/.50 tables.

Radii

11-10-2005, 09:51 AM

Subby showed me that thread yesterday, I commented in it how on a good night I could play 4 $10+$1 SNGs and maybe get hot and cash in 3 of them and make $100 in a night or something. WOW. Last time I played SNGs I played 8 of the $30+$3 tournaments simultaneously for a period of 2-4 hours, I'd play as many as 30 tournaments in a night some nights.

What's your poker story?

I've never been in a casino, never played live with strangers(only in a few home games here and there). My roommate got me started a few years ago. He couldn't handle the swings and never really got into it, but I loved it from the start. I deposited $500 in partypoker and never lost it.

At some point about 2 years ago I ran my online bankroll up to $2500. For about 2 years now I have been leaving $2500 in my account and cashing out all my profits after every month. This has helped me pay off a lot of debt, but it has limited my ability to try to rise up through the ranks, I am still a low limit player, but I am now a high volume low limit player. I have 2 monitors and can easily 8-table on the partypoker network. 8-tabling $2/$4 earns me about $35-$40/hr plus whatever incentives i can swing there.

The highlight of my poker career was a pokerstars tournament I played over the summer. I entered a popular $10+$1 rebuy tournament, spent $51 and outlased all but one of about 1200 players. The tournament lasted about 7 hours, a true marathon for me. I got lucky along the way of course, and ended up playing 1-on-1 against Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 World Series champion. He crushed me, but my 2nd place finish was worth about $7,000.

In my poker career I suspect I've made about $25,000, but I didn't keep records for awhile so I don't have good, hard numbers on that.

Where do you see your game 2 years from now? What is your goal?

I have reached an interesting point in my poker career right now. In the last two months, I just reached a point where I make more playing poker than I do at my job from an hourly perspective(and unlike the college kids playing that can say that, I actually have a good paying job). Of course I'm not thikning of quitting or anything, but it's a weird feeling.

Currently for the first time in my poker career I am building my bankroll above $2500. For now that is to fund the trip to vegas that Subby mentioned in his post. I expect to move up from 8-tabling 2/4 to 8-tabling 3/6 at some point after I increase my roll a bit. I don't really have realistic goals to quit my job and play poker full time, for me, poker pays debt, but it doesn't pay the bills.

i do have two goals though:

1) Qualify for the world series of poker main event

2) Improve my bankroll and my game to the point that i can pull in $75/hour playing poker over an extended, not statistically insignifigant period of time. Subby has been able to hit this rate for decent periods of time, and if I can get my bankroll up a ways to where I can take serious shots at 5/10 6-max and go from there, I think I can do the same sometime in 2007. In 2006 I expect to become a 3/6 8-tabler I should be able to get over $50/hr and signifigantly build my poker bankroll.

rkmsuf

11-10-2005, 10:10 AM

How's my poker game? It sucks.

That is all.

dixieflatline

11-10-2005, 10:11 AM

I have reached an interesting point in my poker career right now. In the last two months, I just reached a point where I make more playing poker than I do at my job from an hourly perspective(and unlike the college kids playing that can say that, I actually have a good paying job). Of course I'm not thikning of quitting or anything, but it's a weird feeling.

This is a strange feeling isn't it. I only realized this myself the last time I checked to see how much money I currently had online. Some may think that is strange but because I "only" play about 10 hours a week I can pick and choose which sites are offering the best bonuses and play there. This often leads to my bankroll spread out over many different sites especially when the bonuses are good as they are right now.

Compared to you though I am in less of a position to turn pro. Because I only 4 table $2/4 almost half of my income comes from my actual play. The sweet bonuses out there plus a little rakeback takes care of the rest. But if I were to increase my time spent playing poker from 10 to 40 hours a week it would be much harder to find good bonuses to chase and my hourly income would drop significantly. Maybe one day I can move up to 6 then 8 tables but it's all I can do right now to keep 4 going at once.

BTW subby, if I was in your shoes I would have a harder time not turning pro. That's some sweet dough you are bringing in.

albionmoonlight

11-10-2005, 10:17 AM

Subby

11-10-2005, 10:22 AM

BTW subby, if I was in your shoes I would have a harder time not turning pro. That's some sweet dough you are bringing in. If I was single I would do it in a heart beat. Of course, I am about as far from that as you can get with a mortgage and four little kids. :)

I have a really, really good job though, with great benefits - so there is no way I would ever quit. Comforting to know that I would have something to fall back on if I lost my job, though.

I really do envy young players. If I were in my early twenties, I would buy a motorcycle, see the country, and play on my laptop whenever I could. Or maybe play for three months, travel for three months, etc...

Radii

11-10-2005, 02:56 PM

QuikSand

11-10-2005, 03:05 PM

On the flip side of things, I have wondered sometimes where the majority of the losing money originates. Does anyone know?

Is there a smaller number of players who play a ton and just pour thousands of dollars into these online games, losing it hand over fist?

Or is it a huge number of players losing small amounts of money?

Does anyone know?

I know that there is a very widespread malady among regular gamblers that when talking about their gambling they overrepresent their winnings, underrepresent their losses, and they lie about their results. Ask anyone who frequents casinos to play slot machines (or most anything else, but slots are the ripest case), and they will tell you all about this jackpot or that bit hit... but somehow the many visits where they just chewed through their bankroll (and then some) never comes up. Thye are all "breaking even" or "a little ahead" at worst. Smae at the race track, in my experience.

With online gambling, I just don't see how people can continute to lie to themselves about the profitability of their efforts. If you have to keep reloading your account with new money, isn't it obvious that you aren't winning? I guess a long run stream of deposits and withdrawals can eventually turn into a blur if you don't keep careful accounting (and most gamblers don't) but I still wonder about how they can keep at it while losing.

There is one thing you can count on, though... get together a group of lousy card players, and start talking about "playing online." Half the room will light up with wacky stories about how it's rigged and how people cheat the games, and the like. I think this has become the all-purpose explanation for why losing card players lose when they play online... it's not their fault, the game was rigged. (Of course the same game apparently isn't rigged enough to affect the results of players with a sound poker game... but that's not their concern)

I think online poker is full of both short-timers who lose money and just give up, as well as long-timers who have ups and downs but lose in the long run, but who through some combination of self-deception and probably addiction-like behavior, keep playing.

Toddzilla

11-10-2005, 03:11 PM

I think online poker is full of both short-timers who lose money and just give up, as well as long-timers who have ups and downs but lose in the long run, but who through some combination of self-deception and probably addiction-like behavior, keep playing.

Can't someone play online poker for *gasp* fun? Perhaps these old timers who are negative in the long run simply like to play online poker?

How much money have *you* won playing FOF and TCY? Considering software costs, that's a definite loss in the long run, but I don't think you've fallen victim to self-deception or addiction-like behavior. Well, maybe a little bit of the latter :cool:

QuikSand

11-10-2005, 03:13 PM

Something I can still not understand is the obvious long-run losers who play at the fairly high stakes games. I have opponents in my PT database who have logged thousands and thousands of hands, and have done so playing so poorly (generally way too loosely) that they can't possible be long term winners with that style of play. If you play in a $15-30 game, and you lose just 1BB per 100 hands (and there are people who lose more than that, of course)... play a thousand hands and you're out $300. I have troubl what compels someone with such a style to keep at it -- these rae pretty clearly not people who have just dipped in to see how the game is... if they are in my database for 5,000 hands (and out a few thousand dollars as a result of it) they are really trying to stick with the game at this level, and I just can't understand that.

Maybe a lot of them are the various one-shot winners of big card events? Guys who stumbled on to a nice prize in one event, came home with $80,000 to blow, and figured they'd try to take down the "big" games online? Beats me... but there are certainly people there who have the money to lose, it seems.

albionmoonlight

11-10-2005, 03:15 PM

Can't someone play online poker for *gasp* fun? Perhaps these old timers who are negative in the long run simply like to play online poker?

How much money have *you* won playing FOF and TCY? Considering software costs, that's a definite loss in the long run, but I don't think you've fallen victim to self-deception or addiction-like behavior. Well, maybe a little bit of the latter :cool:
I don't think that Quik is saying that there is anything wrong with spending money on poker as a hobby. If you have more fun playing with and losing $50 on the slots then you would buying and playing TCY, then you should probably play the slots.

He is just noting that many losing players do not see themselves as spending money on a hobby. They have managed to delude themselves into thinking that they are "breaking even" when they are actually pretty consistent losers. Nothing wrong with losing. But at least acknowledge that that is what you are doing.

Sorry if that does not really represent Quik's view.

QuikSand

11-10-2005, 03:17 PM

Can't someone play online poker for *gasp* fun? Perhaps these old timers who are negative in the long run simply like to play online poker?

How much would someone be willing to pay, in real money, to play for fun? Unless the stakes of the game are really what drive you, why would you play hour after hour of high stakes poker, and lose money hand over fist doing it?

I realize not everyone is totally ruthless about improving his game and maximizing his earnings -- but if you're playing in a fairly high stakes game regularly as a proven loser, I have a hard time seeing how that's being motivated by fun. Wouldn't it be just as much fun to play in a low stakes game and lose less money? (I think that gets into the addiction-like behavior)

sabotai

11-10-2005, 03:21 PM

I actually have noticed, at the low stakes tables anyway, people state that over time they have lost money playing poker, but they keep playing because they find it fun. But, this is at the very low stakes tables. The .50/$1 on PP for instance. Not the 5/10 or 10/20 games some of the poeple here play.

Subby

11-10-2005, 03:24 PM

At the lowest stakes I think the rake makes it nearly impossible to make money in the long run.

QuikSand

11-10-2005, 03:26 PM

I don't have much doubt there are plenty of people who lose regularly, at fairly low stakes, and consider it to be a fun hobby that costs them money. So that makes the question more easily answered at stakes that seem fairly easy to absorb for the ordinary income level out there. Play some $.50/$1.00 games for a month, lose a hundred bucks or so, reload when you need to... I get it.

I just have trouble seeing the same mentality prevail very widely in a higher stakes game.

cartman

11-10-2005, 03:30 PM

There is one thing you can count on, though... get together a group of lousy card players, and start talking about "playing online." Half the room will light up with wacky stories about how it's rigged and how people cheat the games, and the like. I think this has become the all-purpose explanation for why losing card players lose when they play online... it's not their fault, the game was rigged. (Of course the same game apparently isn't rigged enough to affect the results of players with a sound poker game... but that's not their concern)

Along these lines, I absolutely love when I'm playing and a couple of people start complaining about "RiverStars" after a bad beat. More often than not, I know that within a few hands there is a very good chance I am going to get a big chunk of their chips. :)

digamma

11-10-2005, 03:31 PM

At the lowest stakes I think the rake makes it nearly impossible to make money in the long run.
Because of greater variance?

Subby

11-10-2005, 03:40 PM

Because of greater variance?I wish I had the links, but there is a bunch of information out there that shows lower stakes players pay a disproportionate share of the rake. This is primarily because the rake gets capped at some point, but lower stakes pots never hit that point.

I know there are months where I am paying 3-4k in rake. If I don't make more than that, I am essentially a losing player. Rake is something that most players don't even think about since they barely even notice the money leaving the pot - it's completely painless. But it makes a huge difference.

Pumpy Tudors

11-10-2005, 03:44 PM

Here's my story, as well as I can remember it:

December 2002, I started playing for play money at TruePoker. I remember my first day playing and saying to my wife, "These people are raising before we've even seen any cards (meaning the flop) yet. How can they raise when they don't even know what they're going to have?" Of course, now that I've been playing for almost 3 years, that seems like a silly question, but I didn't know any better at the time. I ended up playing with play money for a few months, only for an hour or two a week.

I finally got into real money and starting playing at UltimateBet. I played there because the minimum deposit was only $25. I was a pretty decent sit-and-go player. I played a little micro-limit poker, but I built up my money with the SnG's. Soon after, I deposited $50 into Party Poker because I'd heard about how fishy it was. I lost that $50 pretty quickly (2 or 3 days). I was very upset with myself. I even made a post here about how I lost that money, and I was going to visit Las Vegas a few weeks later. I had dreamed of playing any poker in Vegas, and my confidence was way down due to having lost $50 at Party Poker so quickly. I almost backed out of the Vegas trip just because I lost $50.

I ended up going to Las Vegas and playing 2/4 limit at the Monte Carlo, which is where my wife and I were staying. I didn't play very much. I started with $100 and ended up with about $40 profit by the time I was done. I did bust out one night, but my wife gave me $10 which I had to decide whether to spend on lunch or a slot machine on my last day. I ended up eating a $3 meal at McDonald's and put the other $7 into a slot machine. The slot machine was a gold mine, and my $7 turned into about $400 after 10 minutes. I took some of it back to the poker table, made back what I'd lost, and then brought in a very small profit.

Since then, I had improved my poker game and was a fairly consistent winner at .10/.25 and .25/.50 for about a year on PokerStars. I stepped up to .50/1, but the rake was killing me, so I went back down. The only time I've consistently played 1/2 was a few months ago back at Party Poker. I did it to clear a bonus. After that, I withdrew that money and deposited at Full Tilt Poker for their bonus. I cleared a chunk of that before it expired by playing mainly Omaha Hi.

Unfortunately, during my time on Full Tilt, my wife and I moved from New Orleans to our current home in Pennsylvania. We left because she got a job up here, but I didn't have a job to move to. The poker money (which wasn't too much at that point -- only about $800) was no longer "fun" money. It was going to pay my bills. We arrived here on August 1. She wasn't going to receive her first paycheck until September 30. We had some money saved up, but I quickly realized that I was playing for my bills. I had a tremendous run at .05/.10 pot-limit Omaha for six weeks. I was only winning about $150 a week, but it made sure that my bills were taken care of, and that's a pretty decent amount of money for the stakes and hours that I was playing.

About two months ago, I hit a wall. I wasn't winning anymore. I lost four buy-ins at pot-limit Omaha in a matter of minutes one night. I thought I was playing a solid game, and maybe I was, but it wasn't working that night. I went on tilt. I lost another buy-in or two. I withdrew all of my poker money immediately after. I covered about a month's worth of bills with that money, but then there was nothing left. I had a temporary job by then (the same one I'm at now), but it didn't pay enough to allow me to build up a bankroll again. I ended up not playing for about 3 weeks. A couple of weeks ago, I'd finally saved up enough to deposit $55 into PokerStars. I brought it up to $75 playing .02/.04 limit in 2 days. Unfortunately, I had to withdraw $35 of it for some unexpected bill. I don't even remember what the money was for. Since then, I'm down about $5 or so, mostly playing Omaha, although I've played some NLHE sit-and-go tournaments also.

At this point, my entire poker bankroll is about $40. I don't have the same joy that I used to have. I played stakes that were way below my bankroll before, so I always felt comfortable. I'd have $800 and play .25/.50 limit. I was playing with 1600 BB. I probably could've moved up and made more money, but I was having fun making just a little bit of money. I don't have that same comfort level with only $40, so I'm not playing as well. It's a mental thing. I could play .02/.04 and have 1000 BB, but it just doesn't feel the same. I think I just don't enjoy playing as much as I used to. I've pondered depositing more money, but what would be the point? My game's not strong enough anymore to allow me to play higher stakes limit holdem (I'm out of practice), and my bankroll isn't big enough to allow me to play pot-limit Omaha comfortably, even at micro tables.

Maybe if I somehow end up with a few hundred dollars that I can invest into poker, I'll get serious about my game again. For now, it's only a short-term diversion. It doesn't help that I'm at a temporary job that could realistically end any day now (even though I've been here 8 weeks, it really could stop anytime). I can't put any of my money into poker and risk losing it at the moment. It's better off in a bank, just in case my job disappears.

That's my story right now. I hope to get into the game like I used to be, but I think the first step toward that will be getting a permanent job, which, while an interesting story, is another topic altogether

QuikSand

11-10-2005, 03:47 PM

Because of greater variance?

It's fairly common for online places to rake 10% of the pot, in even increments, up to a maximum of $4, at any level. Here is an example:

Consider a standard pot in a $1/$2 limit hold 'em game... maybe you have 6 players see the flop, 4 pay on the river, and three go all the way past that. Pot will total $22.00 in that instance, and the rake will be $2.00 -- just below 10% of the total.

Same action, same rake setup, in a $15/$30 limit game. The same action yields a total of 11 big bets, or $330. Rake gets capped at $4... so the rake amounts to less than 1.5% of the total pot.

It's a lot easier to overcome the rake in higher stakes games... even if the rake increases somewhat, it's rarely in full proportion to the stakes.

digamma

11-10-2005, 04:03 PM

It's fairly common for online places to rake 10% of the pot, in even increments, up to a maximum of $4, at any level. Here is an example:

Consider a standard pot in a $1/$2 limit hold 'em game... maybe you have 6 players see the flop, 4 pay on the river, and three go all the way past that. Pot will total $22.00 in that instance, and the rake will be $2.00 -- just below 10% of the total.

Same action, same rake setup, in a $15/$30 limit game. The same action yields a total of 11 big bets, or $330. Rake gets capped at $4... so the rake amounts to less than 1.5% of the total pot.

It's a lot easier to overcome the rake in higher stakes games... even if the rake increases somewhat, it's rarely in full proportion to the stakes.
That makes sense. I failed to take into account the effect of the cap in higher stakes games.

The majority of my on-line play these days is in tournaments, so I know how much I'm paying to the site up front and less affected by individual pot rakes.

flere-imsaho

11-10-2005, 04:09 PM

My poker game is terrible. :(

I started on-line about two years ago. Over the course of two years I've deposited a few times at Party. It usually goes like this:

1. Do OK.
2. Read 2+2 for hints.
3. Start losing money.
4. Bust out.
5. Take a few months off.

I've played almost exclusively at Party's .5/1. I understand expected value and pot odds, but it seems like it just doesn't work out for me, long-term.

So yeah, nothing like you guys.

MJ4H

11-10-2005, 04:52 PM

Well in the LOWEST stakes games there is frequently not a rake at all. If you are referring to the 1/2 - 2/4 games, the rake there sucks, I agree, but I still have a +2.16 BB/100 at 1/2 over 4,000 hands (pretty small sample, but it gets the point across). At stakes like 5c/10c on stars I have ridiculous BB/100 numbers, like +9 BB/100. I attribute this to "Small Stakes Hold'em" by Ed Miller (Sklansky, etc). Best book I've read yet on hold'em. By far.

EDIT to fix statistic misinterpretation in poker tracker.

Subby

11-10-2005, 04:56 PM

MJ4H

11-10-2005, 04:59 PM

$212.50

Subby

11-10-2005, 05:21 PM

$212.50 Is that over the 4,000 1/2 hands? If so, you are losing to the rake, despite your solid winrate.

MJ4H

11-10-2005, 05:52 PM

Is that over the 4,000 1/2 hands? If so, you are losing to the rake, despite your solid winrate.
The win-rate I quoted is including the effect of the rake.

Subby

11-10-2005, 05:57 PM

Cool. I think most folks don't do that when calculating their win rate. Keep up the good work.

MJ4H

11-10-2005, 06:02 PM

This is why poker tracker is a good tool.

Subby

11-10-2005, 07:35 PM

yeah, but your pt bb/100 rate doesnt take rake into account does it? if it does, then I have been miscalculating for a while...

or are you making the calculation yourself?

Barkeep49

11-10-2005, 08:03 PM

BB/100 takes rake into account in Poker Tracker. I just did an experiment to confirm it.

Barkeep49

11-10-2005, 08:05 PM

And DOLA -- May I add that I just lost a brutal $10 (the extent of my buy-in for the experiment) when holding AQ to AK with trip aces to prove it.

MJ4H

11-10-2005, 08:16 PM

yeah, but your pt bb/100 rate doesnt take rake into account does it? if it does, then I have been miscalculating for a while...

or are you making the calculation yourself?
yes, it does.

dixieflatline

11-10-2005, 09:26 PM

At the lowest stakes I think the rake makes it nearly impossible to make money in the long run.

The rake is just terrible at $0.5/1 and $1/2 but the bonuses more than make up for this. Let's say you are working off a 10x raked hands bonus. You are sitting at a $1/2 table and there is a raked hand. You just made $0.10 from your bonus. If there are 10 people at the table the hand would have had to gotten to a full dollar($20) for your portion of the rake to have reached $0.10. There are plenty of bonuses out there that are much better than 10x raked hands as well. So as long as you are playing off a bonus then the low limit tables are still very profitable though your BB/100 might not look great.

Honolulu Blue

11-11-2005, 05:05 AM

The Cliff's Notes version of my story:

Played a little bit in college. Not very good then, but the stakes were peanuts. Read some poker sections in general gambling books. Watched Varkonyi & Moneymaker make their runs. Played two sessions live in Tunica. Worst possible result - won the first hand. Slowly gave all the chips back in try #1 and ended up $3 ahead (4/8 limit HE, if you're wondering). Could get nothing started in try #2 and ended up stuck about $60 before calling it quits. That was enough for me, except for watching on TV.

This new phase started in March with my first deposit at Party. Since then, I've played quite a bit there, at Stars, and at Bodog. I've also dabbled at Paradise, Absolute, The Gaming Club, and Poker Rewards. In between playing games, I've watched some of the shows, read some books, even observed some higher level tables. Currently I'm taking some time off from poker, with an expected ETA of 1-2 weeks. Here's what I think I've learned:

* I have no natural love for the game. I like money, and I like puzzles, and that keeps me going for awhile. But not too long.
* There are a lot of people out there who have little or no clue how to play. There's money to be made from those people.
* My favorite form by far is the NL sit-and-go tournaments. It's also where I've shown my best results. I also enjoy the $20+2 shootouts that Party hosts, which play a lot like SNGs.
* Don't much care for limit HE, though I think I've fought it to a draw. Don't think I'll play it much anymore.
* NLHE cash games - even for low stakes - offers too much adrenaline for me to play regularly. I got better at steadying myself, and even made it to the point where I could 2-table the $25s (aka .10/.25 blinds) at Party.
* I'm probably not going to play many more multi-table NLHE tournaments. Only paying out 10% of the field hurts, and top-loading the payouts hurts me worse. I made my one big score (you can search for it; I'm too lazy to find it), am up for the year, and that will be that.
* The books have helped - even the bad ones - but there's an assimilation process for each one, where I take what I can use and shelve what I can't.

So, what's the next step for me? More SNGs, perhaps for higher stakes. A bit more NLHE, not for higher stakes. Probably little or no live play, and no way will you see my ugly self in next year's main event. No big loss, I'm sure.

Malificent

11-11-2005, 10:06 AM

My story:

I started playing October of 2003 and was not good. Read some books, learned some stuff, and in January of this year was playing $2/$4 and some $3/$6. Was fairly successful at the time, but was also very weak tight. Then I hit a horrific downswing in April/May and just quit playing for a while.

Cut to July 2004. Simms gets me back in by getting me to sign up at Pacific with $50. I take the $50 and run with it, doing a lot of bonus whoring and such and get my bankroll up to a fairly decent amount. I then hit another cold spell around March of this year and started doing casino whoring and have built my bankroll up to about $7-8K.

I've fluctuated all over the place as to the game I play. Right now I'm playing NL cash games, ranging from NL25 to NL100. I think I generally like the no limit game better than limit because I can isolate my mistakes better. In limit, I don't its particularly clear when you make mistakes, and so it can be hard to learn from. NL has helped me hone my aggression levels. I also enjoy NL tourney play, but don't do enough of it.

Right now, my current plan is to bonus whore and play lowish limits until I've cleared off the final bits of credit card debt (had 19K at the beginning of the year, down to $5K now). After that, I think I'll be more ready mentally to step up some levels. Right now, beyond NL100, I keep thinking about how the money could be going to clear my debt out, and I can't play that way and expect to have any success.

I'm hoping, if the IRS doesn't clear me out, to go to Vegas for the WSOP next year along with Subby and Radii. I'll probably set aside some money to try and qualify for the main event, but even if I don't qualify, there's a lot of fun to be had just going and soaking up the environment.

Subby

11-11-2005, 05:48 PM

yes, it does.Awesome! Learn something new every day :)

QuikSand

11-11-2005, 08:47 PM

cthomer5000

11-11-2005, 09:02 PM

Haven't played much the last month and a half after withdrawing everything to make a couple huge payments on debt. I wanted to pay it off to give me immediate piece of mind before i went through (another) bad month.

I think some time off (well, i've been playing some) will do me some good as I was getting a little burned out. I'm an ok player, i've done well over the last 18 months or so at the 3/6 and 5/10 level (although i had one TERRIBLE month at 5/10). The money i made over that time has certainly made a significant impact for me, so I'm very happy I learned to play.

I think my game definitely needs some work, so I'm planning on re-launching in January and kind of backing up a step to re-focus on some fundamentals, etc.

digamma

11-13-2005, 12:35 PM

Quik update -- while I haven't been playing a lot in person lately, I managed to visit my olf weekly game last week, and made the final threesome (where we cut a deal for the money). This week, both Mrs Q and I played there... and both made it to the final table, though each of us was short-stacked getting there. I got busted out in sixth even after doubling up once, but Mrs. Q quite heriocally managed to hang in there, get off the felt a few times, and make it to second place. All the while, I was hurting people in the cash side game. Nice two week run, between the two of us, we had a tidy four-figure hit.Similar update here...a friend runs a quarterly tournament. It usually ends up being about 4 tables. His fall tournament was last night. I cashed in the summer go round (where we had a pseudo-poker celeb playing with us (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showthread.php?t=41651&highlight=WSOP+Champ)). The summer tourney was my wife's first time playing in his tournament. She lasted through one table break then, before busting out. Other than a monthly small stakes co-ed game with another group of friends, she doesn't play all that much poker.

Before last night's tournament, though, she had asked if we could play several on-line tournaments together as a learning tool. She actually has a pretty good feel for the game in terms of knowing what cards to play and when her hand is good. However, she's always been way too passive--checking and calling and letting people draw on her cheaply. Obviously, not the best winning strategy. So, my rule for her during our week of $5 SNG's was that she couldn't call bets. If she wanted to play a hand, she either needed to open the betting or raise (again, not necessarily an optimal strategy, but it was intended to be a tool to help her break her check-call habit and instill some aggressiveness into her game). She actually had decent success employing this strategy over the week, winning two tournaments and cashing in a third (out of five total).

We forward to last night, where we end up getting placed next to one another to start the tournament. She was employing her new strategies to perfection and at the end of the first hour she had doubled her chip stack without having to show down once. We broke tables and I was moved away from her. Not long thereafter, I busted out (losing with A-K to K-T) and was relegated to the side game, tilting all the way (I did end up making back most of my $80 buy-in there, though).

I kept an eye on her, as they soon broke to two tables, then to the final table. Before the final table started, a good buddy pulled me aside and said, "I don't know what you taught her, but she's improved immensely." One by one, folks dropped away and she maintained her slightly above average chip stack. With three players left (and safely in the money (five are paid)), she got involved in a huge hand...flash back to just before we left our house when she had said, "One thing I'm not sure I understand is when to check raise." So we had a mini-tutorial on slow playing and extracting chips when you have a strong hand. Turns out that paid off, as she managed to check raise on the river with a set of Aces, got a caller (who had the last Ace), and suddenly she was heads up with a chip lead. The heads up battle was actually pretty lengthy, with them trading the chip lead (ironically with each of them sucking out a river jack to stay alive) a few times. She battled back though and won two back to back big hands. When her opponent didn't catch a flush after pushing, she was the last one standing. A cool $960 pay day for her and a new found bravado that might take me a while to cool down.;)