This is a "more luck than skill" story, I'
m sure. JUST started studying Hold'em (Lee Jones, mostly, with Ed Miller to follow) and haven't progressed beyond
play money (while trying to figure out how and where to deposit as a U.S. player). Went on a cruise on Carnival. I checked out their website to see if they dealt any Hold'em and all they mentioned was Caribbean
Stud (blech). Once onboard I discovered they had one table of PokerPro dealing Hold'em (automated
dealer so basically a cross between online and b&
m). Then I looked at the stakes: $3/$6, too rich for my blood as a rookie. "Let's see, 50BB, $300, too much." Then my wife said "You should try it, we can afford it, and here's $100."
Well, I guess I can afford to lose that much--once--and I'd regret not trying, so I watched the game for a while. Ten seats, 7 or 8 people seeing most flops, and not that much raising. Hell, that's like a
play money table with real money. So I bought in for $200 (nobody had much more than that on the table) and told myself "Those are chips, just play."
After a couple of rounds of folding trash I
felt "I belong at this table, they aren't really better players." Anyway, the first
session I was up $50, the second
session I was up $149, and I cashed out my original
stake. The third
session my concentration wasn't as good (nothing to do with the earlier cocktails...really)
and I ended up with a 3-
session net of +$108.
Now one key to that was that I stayed disciplined (probably
weak-tight)against players who were there to gamble rather than to play good poker, but the *real* key was that I never had a really good hand that turned out to be the second-best hand. So beginner's luck had a lot to do with it, but I now have $108 as an initial online BR and I'll probably start out at $0.05/$0.10
fixed limit. Wish me luck and skill!