Saw this new area and thought it might be a good spot for me. I just started getting interested in poker over the past few weeks. I played a ton when I was a kid with my friends but a recent interest in online casinos led to a new desire to learn poker.

When I first started playing last week I had a pretty good run and though, hell this poker thing cant be to hard, I'm going to be making bank in no time. However, the longer I played and the more research I did the more I realized Im pretty much a lucky idiot who has no idea what I'm doing and I better slow down before I lose some money.

I lucked out and finally found 2+2 after being linked to it from a few smaller poker forums and have since signed up for Deuces Cracked. I knew there was going to be a learning curve but wow... there is just an insane amount of strategy involved in this game and so many different layers.

Anyways, I do run a blog covering my newbie escapades on my way up from a crappy player to hopefully a decent one and Ill be mirroring my progress here if there's interest.

I'm a fulltime student that is lucky enough to not have to work while going to school...and since Im taking classes from an online college (Western Governors University) I probably have about 40 - 60 hours a week to devote to learning and improving my game.

Wish me luck.

Good to see that you found 2+2! Practice good bankroll management, post hand histories in the forum for your stakes, and reply to hands as well. Put in the time and the effort and you'll be a good player. Best of luck!

Word of advice.

Its not the amount of time you dedicate to improve your game but the focus and effectiveness of the time you do spend improving.

1. Find out what you need to know.
2. Build a plan for building your knowledge base.
3. Be diligent and patient with the process
4. Do not be too hard on yourself.
5. Set realisable targets not unreachable goals
6. Review, review your reviews
7. Have fun.

Yeah this is currently my issue, I have all this time to devote but its hard to know where I should focus. Currently Im just trying to get the basics of pre and post flop play for table games then extend that to MTT's and SnG's.

If you dont know good play vs bad play its really hard to identify where to improve.

Thankfully I'm a realist, I dont have any elaborate plans of making 400,000 this year or anything like that. I just want to improve and get to where I feel comfortable playing the game with out having to flip through my notes hehe.

DC.com is helping a lot with that, but I've also heard videos and articles dont teach you nearly as much as simply playing the game, so I'm trying to balance study with actual play.

I did notice a massive improvement after watching some of their videos actually managed to make a few bucks last night and got into the top 10 on Bodogs new player 100k tourney satellite. So it feels good to know that I am at least making progress.

If you are to be a MTT. SNG player - go to the tournament forums and read the stickied threads.

And Download and study ICM.

Wow...just googled that and reading the site has me rather pissed I''ve been playing with out it, thanks for the tip!

Now remember to dance like this when you suckout too............very important.

I only wish I had known/heard of this as a two week old player. Learning better after a couple of years of bad habits is just incredibly difficult. All the best, you are having a better start than many!

Good luck look forward to reading you progress!

Currently I'm trying to decide how I'd best like to grind up my bankroll (once I feel comfortable actually using it that is).

Seems the schools of thought are mainly either Cash game grinding or SNG / MTT / Tourney grinding.

I like the psychological aspect of the SNG gameplay, where at least you dont feel like your risking "real" cash every hand, but at the same time there is a draw to earning cash on every hand instead of simply fighting to place to get a shot at the prize pool.

Since the games apparently have different strategies I'm leaning more towards the SNG / MTT type gameplay for now. I'm studying some DC videos about SNG gameplay and strategy while reading the forums here.

Till I feel a bit more comfortable playing with real money I'll most likely be sticking to the freeroll MTT's on Pokerstars, Fulltilt, and Bodog. I figure once I start regularly placing in the top 10 on those I may be ready to start grinding SNG's.

I did manage to get into the top 10 of the Bodog New player 100k tournament. Its a tourney where the top player gets a free buyin to the Sunday 100k and 2-10th gets a little tourney cash. I placed 10th out of about 140 people, but a damn big accomplishment to me.

I seem to do very well in the beginning stages, playing tight and focusing on not limping into the flop, but as the game gets to the midway point I usually get rocked by folks with 3 to 4x my stack.

So this week I'll be focusing on improving my early game to give me a bit more of a chip buffer for late game, and greatly focusing on my mid game to hopefully stop being fish food for those with the larger stacks.

It's good that you're giving this much attention to the bankroll before you even start playing, the most important part of your game will be how you handle your bankroll so grats on giving it the right attention from the start.

mtts give you the chance of winning big for a small amount so they might be worth considering, but you do need to allow like 100bi rule as a minimum really if you're playing mtts I think, if you don't have that much, it might be a good idea to start on the micro cash tables and play solid tag poker - my advice fwiw would be if you are doing that to play 6max, as you will learn more and I just generally found 6max more interesting whenever I've played it. GL

Yeah thats why Im being so hesitant to play. My current bankroll has to last me through my learning phase and into my hopefully profit phase... so I have to be very sparing with it.

I just requested my payout from bodog and will be investing it full into pokerstars once it arrives, that will give me lots of new options on both the cash games and the SNG / MTT front.

When I first deposited I had planned on playing Blackjack and Baccarat and well...bodog was pretty good for that, I just didnt realize how small a portion of their casino was dedicated to poker...and once I got hooked on poker well blackjack just felt like a waste of time.

So swapping to a better poker site with more tables and more low stakes options just seemed like a better bet.

I did however leave 20 bucks in bodog...figure what the hell it might be fun to try and turn that into something over the next few weeks.

Appreciate the advice, I'll take a look at the 6max tables and see how I do.

My personal suckout dance. To each his own.

Just "won" my first double or nothing SNG, wasnt much but hey 2 bucks is 2 bucks and for me its a sign that I'm sucking...less.

As Major Payne says, "You are still a (Colorful expletive) sandwich, your just not a soggy one"

Bask in my awesomeness!

You know its bad when you are a horrible player and you start noticing players who make you look good.

Just won a $2 SNG where two players had over 80% vpip's these two were slamming into each other like crazy and betting on anything with numbers and a color on it, was kind of amusing.

Not sure if Im getting lucky, or if the 15 hours of videos and few hundred threads I have read this week are finally starting to sink in, but this is definitely a hell of a lot of fun either way.

i was prepared to write this

[X] full time idiot

how ever after reading your initial post im going to write
"gl op youve got a good attitude and i hop you do well"

Appreciate that =)

When I first got into poker, I was quite a lot in your spot- not wanting to use bankroll, wanting to freeroll as practice, not positive about sng or cash game.

Heres a bit of advice, if what happens to you is anything like what happened to me then it'll be a bit of help for ya:

-If you already have a preference in sng/mtt's, stay there. I knew I liked sng's/mtt's better, but because of soooo many people on 2+2 prefering cash game, I wanted to try it, and even though I did make some money there, I feel like I just wasted time because now I'm a SNG/MTT player strictly.

-Don't waste time on freerolls. It sounds like your doing much smaller ones than I was, which is probably better, but if I were you, I'd play the .25c no rake SNG's on Stars. They are good practice and you can work on the basis there and see what works. If you play with a TAG style there it is very easy to sit back and cash for the most part.


I'm not very far ahead of you in my poker .."career" I guess, but I hope that this will help ya out a bit.
You look to have a good start and I wish you luck

Nice one on cashing the dbl or nothing, 80% vpip mmmmm sounds nice heh, gl hope you continue to climb

Been a few days since my last update, I have been focusing on $1 Double or Nothing SNG's. Friday and Saturday I wasnt doing so hot, lost several and won just enough to keep me playing.

On Sunday things turned around a bit and I pretty much broke even all day except for the rake. Finally yesterday I won 6 out of the 7 games I played.

With each game taking between 30 minutes to an hour and a half its simply going to slowly at the $1 level to keep me from pulling my hair out, so I either need to move up, or play more games.

Since my bankroll is still small (still waiting on that damn bodog check) thinking I'm just going to try adding a table or two today and see how that goes. If I can keep my winning % then Ill double or triple my profits.

Then...once I get my 100 from bodog, I will be rather tempted to move up to the $5 games... but now that Im doing the math on it thats only 20 buy ins, may have to wait a bit before I go there.

just curious what is your bankroll right now, you really need to get yourself some breathing room. id suggest trying to get enough to be properly rolled to grind the 5 dollar DON's. the games are pretty soft(ive been grinding them out myself still am lol) if not a possibility you really need to multitable the 1 dollars. once you get that 100 from bodog id really suggest slowly adding tables. at that low of a level your pretty much just playin straight up poker and dont need to make too many reads or moves on people. im currently playing between 10-20 tables on the 5 dollars but havent had much time the past weeks with finals and papers due. anyone ill be following and probably starting my own thread, keep updating! and good luck!

thanks for posting this i enjoyed reading i remember when i used to be like this oh wait i still am good to know people are like me

Currently I have 10 in bodog, 11 in pokerstars.

I have a 100.00 check coming from bodog that Ill be tossing straight into pokerstars and I may get another influx next week of up to 300 but thats still up in the air.

So in essence, 10 bucks now, 110 this week.

Main issue I'm running into with the $1 games is idiots getting lucky. Had a guy playing 70% of hands yesterday beat me when he went all in with a 73 off suit pre flop. I called him with AKs and he picked up 2 more 7's 1 on flop and 1 on the turn, I got an ace on the river and was rather pissed but those are the breaks.

The "rake" on the dollar games ranges from .15 - .20 so a win gets me .80 and a loss loses me a dollar, I have to win 2 games pretty much to make up for one loss.

Thinking about trying just some normal micro cash games games and build up some cash while I wait on the check, cause the $1 sng's just feel like Im getting bled and the opponents are just morons.

whats the check for you cashing out? if so bad idea

I originally deposited into bodog for blackjack and baccarat (thought I mentioned that) and once I rediscovered poker I realized that bodog simply didnt have the same level of play as its competition.

Why is cashing out from Bodog and moving to another provider a bad idea?