It all began when I had the Unfortunate Experience of reading a book by Ken Warren.

I'm not being wistful, the book is called Ken Warren Teaches Poker but it really should be called How To Be a Donkey. Lucky for me, I was (then) results-oriented, figured I was playing to win (not to have fun) and when I lost my first fifty bucks I stopped playing. For years. And never really thought about it again. This was 2006, give or take.

Started playing $2 9 and 18-man tournaments in Sept of 2009. I don't remember why. Found the experience extremely tilt-inducing.

Q. How can I be spending 3-5 hours every day, reading forums, reading books and playing and actually losing to people who are playing for sh**s and giggles?

A. First, you're not as good as you think you are. Second, stop watching WSOP and modeling your play after them. Third, variance.

Getting comfortable with variance, IMO, is just as important as learning bankroll management and which flops to cbet. It took me six months to get my head around it. Learning to play poker happens in a way that is spectacularly unintuitive; normally we learn by burning fingers and if you stop putting your fingers in flames, guess what? Right, you stop getting burned. But poker doesn't work that way, sometimes bad play is rewarded and good play is punished. Dozens and hundreds and maybe even thousands of times.

So you're stuck with this "I don't know if I suck or if I'm just unlucky" and the only way to get that answer is to play enough hands.

So that's what I did. Am doing. Well, will do. Poker is a long game...

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I used to be into mycology (settle down, this was legal). We had this public forum (running vB, much like this one) where n00bs would post their grows, their problems, their errors, their homebrew/diy projects, and some of the regs would comment, maybe offer suggestions, etc. These logs povided the environment for my first project and, in turn, my grow which laid the groundwork for future generations of growers.

It's quite a feeling to not just succeed but feel like you're helping others in the same way people helped you.

I'm hoping this thread and forum will provide the same type of support to future players. Right now what I have to offer is quite meager, poorly formed and probably riddled with errors. But I know more than I did nine months ago. And so my goal with this thread, more that providing specific strategy advice, will be to comment on obstacles faced, tools discovered and goals attained.

glgl!

What did you grow? I mean, I'm guessing I know, but upon searching mycology there are lots of things to grow there.

Best of luck to you, couple this blog with posting hands in the micro-stakes forums (full ring or 6max, whichever you play) and with enough dedication and hard work you'll be at 100nl in no time.

nm

I should probably give a slight bit of background...

Started in September(ish) of 2009 with two deposits: $50 and $30. This is because I was too stupid to realize that a deposit bonus was free money. At the time I was blithely unaware of 2p2, oblivious to bankroll management and ridiculously unprepared for the depth poker offers

I was just testing the waters. Which leads me to my first axiom:

IF YOU HAVE NOT YET DEPOSITED AND SUSPECT YOU MIGHT BE SERIOUS ABOUT POKER, DEPOSIT THE FULL $600. IT'S FREE MONEY. GO AHEAD, TAKE IT.

I also didn't know jack about rakeback. It sounded like something small and unimportant and was just pennies here and there. Well, it is, but it adds up.

So...

IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SIGNED UP WITH A POKER SITE, INVESTIGATE RAKEBACK OPTIONS BEFORE DOING IT.

In short, in case you aren't already aware, rakeback makes up a VERY large part of your bankroll. My bankroll would be roughly half of what it is without rakeback. It's significant.

Put another way, you can be a marginally winning player and have a slowly decreasing bankroll without rakeback. It too is free money.

So don't sign up for an account without it and if you do, don't play at the site until they offer. Some people get it within days, some people wait longer. YMMV.

I got lucky, requested rakeback from FullTiltPros and got it about two months after requesting.

So now, nine months later, I've logged ~100k cash hands and ~730 tourneys (which I no longer play) and have turned that initial $80 deposit into $400.

Onward...

Wouldn't mind hearing the answer to this either


Also, onwards and upwards !

Having a great poker night.

That is to say I dropped 3.5 buy-ins. Once when I got it all-in vs. kings preflop and he turned a straight, once when I turned trips, top kicker and the villain had flopped the nut straight.

But I didn't lose it, not even a little. In the latter case I kept chomping on my dinner, don't think I even missed a bite while I typed "nice hand" (and meant it). Tilt hasn't wrecked my game so much as put me in a foul mood away from the table. It's something I've been strugging with since I started playing so getting a handle on it, boy, definitely worth $35.

Also noticed I'm running -5.3 BI below EV. Since I'm doing 3.5ptBB/100 over the last 22k hands, this means my true winrate is probably almost double that.



Also got a subscription to DeucesCracked, downloaded every !@#$ing video for small and micro stakes. I think I might start splitting my 3-5 hours evenly between study and playing.

Lastly, I've been working on basing my betting decisions on whether it'll get better hands to fold and/or worse hands to call. Now I actually force myself to articulate, out loud, why I'm betting. Working a lot better than trying to assign a pre-defined value to my hand (oh, I've got a set, time to ship it).

Thinking about starting a small poker study group. PM me if interested and you're somewhere in the 5NL-25NL vicinity.

If I believed in curses I might think the creation of this thread cursed me.

I don't believe in curses.

Regardless, my bankroll is in faceplant freefall, @ $330ish after losing, while deep-stacked, a full house to a bigger full house, losing the flopped nut straight to a rivered full house (again, deep, to the same guy five hands later) and, mere minutes ago, a rivered straight that I just played like a giant can of butt. *sigh

Still, aside from the last lapse in judgement, I think my 10NL game is solid and rarely feel like I'm getting outplayed.

Been watching a lot of DC vids (Coaching Tree in particular) and would definitely suggest it. My notes are dense, there's a lot of value to be had from the musings of Balugawhale.

As for insights, there are two things I've noticed as of late...

Players, at least at 10NL, seem to fall into one or two camps most of the time; either their bets are representative of their hand strength or it's the inverse. This can be split between preflop and postflop as well. In other words, some people might limp with their monsters while raising the more speculative hands but postflop, might play far more straightforward, betting their flopped sets, etc.

Observing these players and taking notes can come in real handy.

Another related tell is people tend to not diverge from patterns when bluffing or value betting. One guy I've been tailing bets pot when he's bluffing and bets 75% of the pot when he wants a call. Playing against this guy is a real treat and I get him on my right as much as I can.

Lastly, as a sort of corollary to these observations, I've noticed that some players have a tendency to interpret your bet sizing as if they, themselves, were making the bet. So, for example, if you see a player who bets half pot when he wants a call and bets pot (or overbets) when he doesn't want a call, he'll often interpret an overbet as a bluff.

This can be very lucrative.

Still taking on members for the study group, got four so far, looking for a few more. PM me if interested.

OK, back to the tables. GLGL!