Hi,
since my last reply i have improved my game. I play now on 10c/25c and 25c/50c stakes cash games NLH. I mainly play on pokerstars.

one thing is what you say it is and another different is what actually is. who do you think the people who have read this article are? where do they come from? arent they mostly from the poker forum crowd?

and lol at telling a reader interested in the topic in question that the article is not addressed to him.

very good article

I have found a deep love for the game of poker. I started about 2 years ago with only $20 in my account, playing $2 HU sit n go's. I started out playing occasionally just for fun, whenever I was bored or something. I started out about break even, but found that my main drive for continuing to play was my naturally competitive nature.

I have always been an avid athlete, and I find striking similarities on the poker table and out on the basketball court. That same desire to win, more for the fact of beating ur opponent than making money (which is obviously more of the mindset of an occasional player than a pro) caused me to go nuts whenever I lost (I have a few holes in my wall to prove it). This intensity and competition that I was able to discover on the computer screen through poker when it was too dark to go outside and play basketball caused me to keep playing and working on my game.

After a slight upswing in the sng's, I went through a terrible downswing of almost $100 playing $2 and $5 HU. It was a combination of horrible money management and tilt. At this point, it was my competitive nature once again that propelled my poker career to the next level. The simple fact that I wasn't particularly good at the game caused me to start studying the game, reading magazines, watching pro's, and thinking of the game from a new perspective. In my particular case, poker has never been a matter of money, but always a challenge that I have felt obligated to conquer. So, thanks to the help of one of my good friends (who happens to be a pro himself) as well as my new studies, I began to excel at my level. I began to see literally a straight line form on my sharkscope graph, and began slightly moving up limits for sng's as well as trying new games.

My next biggest obstacle came from my futile transition to cash games. I wrongly figured that since I was a major winner at small stakes HU sng's, I would be able to handle the .25/.5 HU NL games. Boy was I wrong! Right before my eyes I witnessed my account shrink from about $700 to a mere $200. During this time, I had a horrible mindset. I kept telling myself that since I started with only $20, everything was a gain. So, heeding to the advice of my friend, I moved back down to lower limits and sng's. After about a year of grinding my bankroll back up and truly studying the game, I moved back to cash games, and my shot has worked. I am now a regular .25/.5 PL HU player and I have witnessed my bankroll burgeon up to $1,300 without ever depositing money from when I started with only $20. It has been a long and trying road thus far, but what I've learned from the game is indispensable. I know that I could've made much more money in the same amount of hours from a regular job, but I wouldn't trade my poker experience so far for anything in the world.

Overall, the game of poker has taught me many things. It has fueled my natural competitive drive, taught me about positive money management, taught me how to control my emotions and prevent tilt (on and off the table), taught me how to read opponents, and ultimately stimulated my mind in ways I've never known before. I find it crazy when people declare that poker is not a sport, because coming from a man who has played both traditional sports and the game of poker, I find the exact same emotions, mindset, and perspective in both. Just because you don't physically move when you play poker is not enough to classify it as a non-sport. No matter what happens down the road, poker will always stay a constant in my life. And as a result, I can undoubtedly state that poker is GOOD FOR YOU!!!

Good advice in this thread.

This. is a stupid post tbfh, IF everyone reaches the same level, there will be a few people who start playing unconventional and different, who do not make the standard plays but make the non standard plays

like in chessu have 64 squares, once u can expect the other person to make the right / fastest to victory move , a great chess player will start realising that and make a strategy against the usual play. so it wont wokr on him...

so it is in poker.

Nice story, well written. Keep it up in poker jd!!

wow you said it all kid the secret to stay happy in playing poker is winning! let the games begin!

poker is good for me?

MMM bacon.

sick post guys this is really interested

Oh, wow, bumped.

Imo Sklansky has got selective cause/effect reversed around.

With his regards to feedback, a lot of poor players I know justify a bad NLHE plays (common amatuer one is overbetting drawish flops with overpairs, etc) based on a bad beat they've experienced before. Poker is a game with a lot of variance, and people can easily make wrong conclusions from a small sample size.

Poker experience doesn't inherintly teach you to draw the right conclusions; an understanding of statistics, probability, and game theory does. It's people who know how to do careful analysis and are studious about what they approach who are going to have this edge. This applies in most fields.

A lot of the good attributes Sklanksy mentions aren't actually received by playing poker, they're received by studying and working hard. Poker doesn't lead to developing those habits; developing those habits lead to winning in poker.

David's argument is analagous to: "Playing American Football makes you a 6' 6" jock", or "Working for Nasa gives you a 160+ IQ".

What Poker does do is provide people who probably already have decent analysis and research skills another medium in which to make a money off those who don't.

I am all for legalizing (and regulating) online poker, but Sklansky's arguments aren't spot on for me.

What a great insight?

I love poker

Very interesting thread fellas. Some very cool insights indeed.

Amazing read, thanks !

Sometimes I just flat enjoy the table that I am currently on and the game that I am playing. I am in the zone as in ZEN and the Art of Poker. Usually the ebb and flow is well balanced - however, overall, I have not learned to embrace all the finer nuances of the game to fully appreciate it.

A friend of mine is in his 80's and plays 3/6 everyday and it keeps his mind sharp and it gives him something to do that he likes. He wins a littlelong term and has a good hobby.

Great article, thanks guys.

I totally relate to this article. Poker is an amazing sport!

Well written article, thinking to make poker as one of the main things of my life.

Someone said it earlier. I think the author has it reversed. Poker doesn't make people good at life, it rewards people who have those qualities which make them good at life.

interesting article. definitely have used some of those as defenses in the past against the anti-poker crowd.

Great article!
Printed, in an envelope, mailed to parentals later today.

sorry - where is this article to be found...

Hasn't improved my study habits.

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