Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Stoner
Hi GG -
I've played mostly live limit poker in my area casinos since 2005. For the past three years or so, I've always wanted to sit in the spread limit games (when the bet limits were increased to mimic no-limit), but always was too chicken to do so.
I read books (most of what everyone has read), I tried applying the concepts to the online game (because I could experiment without being financially crushed), tried to lurk here, but I kept going away from NL poker and back to limit (and there were many times that I left poker altogether).
Anyway, after a year break from playing poker of any kind, I finally sat in a $1/$2 spread limit game last night. I realized one important thing:
I was one of the fish.
It might have been my time away, first time sitting in an unfamiliar game, not having enough experience with the NL/SL game (online or live), or a combination of all three, but feeling that I was the chump (and listening to the table talk by the "pros" down at the other end evaluate my play) was very...unnerving...it was something I never did as a limit player when I knew there was a weaker player around me (or across from me). I've wrestled with posting that experience in another thread but I've talked myself out of it each time. For the context of this thread, and your starting of it, I don't mind sharing what I have about what happened.
I guess this should have gone into a PM or something, but I just wanted to write, thanks for posting your experience(s). They have helped me with perspective regarding strategy so that I can return and play better.
I think we all feel like chumps when we sit in a different game / stake. I started out at 2/4 limit in casino poker and thought, wow, here I am playing in the casino with all these pros at the 2/4 limit game, everyone is obviously better than me, lol. I still remember eventually jumping into the huge 4/8 limit (with kill!) game and how out-of-sorts I felt when the kill made it an 8/16 game, omg. But then I simply played it more and more and more and eventually became very comfortable with it and then over time realized I was one of the best players in my pool at that particular game.
Ditto for playing 1/2 NL for the first time. I remember flopping TPnoK an hour into my session, and going bet flop / bet turn, omg my opponent has just went all-in, I guess I gotta call, oh, he's got a set, wow, I'm going to lose my stack in one hand, oh, ok, I sucked out with a flush on the river, ouch, I'm a fish. Ditto for when my 1/2 NL game was changed into a 1/3 NL game, and I kinda felt mad about that cuz no one asked me about wanting to change the stakes and I certainly didn't want to be playing for higher ones. But eventually, with experience, you start becoming more and more comfortable at the table and more comfortable with your play and you take all the knowledge you've read/seen/heard and weed out the good ideas from the bad ones based on the table you're playing at, and before you now it: you're an ok 1/3 NL player. Not a world beater, just, you're comfortable than you can hold your own at most of the 1/3 NL tables you sit down at. But obviously it'll take time, it's simply a matter of putting in the hours.
As spike says above, those other players critiquing your play at the table are idiots for making the fish feel uncomfortable. Ignore them, and don't emulate them.
One of the other keys to eventually finding it very comfortable to sit in a game: make sure the money doesn't mean that much to you. If you're playing with this month's rent on the table and this month's food in your pocket, you're obviously never going to feel comfortable (i.e. never do that). If you can laugh off your losses as easily paid for monthly entertainment, this will help you play better and not worry about session-to-session results as much.
GgoodluckatthetablesG