How long did it take you?

Well I been playing poker for a couple months now. I started with 50$ on pokerstars. Busted through that pretty fast then started to actually read and learn about poker. Few weeks later I put another 50$. I have won a bit but For the past couple of months I have been hovering around 100-150$. Up down up down but I havnt gone under 100$. Also on PP I put 100$ and am up to 200$ within about 2 months of playing. What kinda player am I? I know im not a "losing" player but I dont feel im a winning player either. Im just break even. So my question is how long did it take you to move from break even poker to winning poker? Should I just relax and give myself time to gain experience? Is a couple months playing just not enough? I really want to be a winning player.. I'm almost there I can feel it!!.

Assuming you're playing microstakes limit and have made a total profit of $150 in ~45 days I wouldn't be disapointed in your play.

Well I know i'm kinda out of my BR but I have been playing 25NL exclusively. I would have expected a winning player to make quite a bit more than I @ 25NL.

You'll regret playing at that level when you have a bad swing. You should really play at what your BR permits. Multi table it, you'll be gold.

Edit: The information on this site isn't useful unless you apply it.

rule one of poker (besides bankroll management!!!)
breaking even IS A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION!!!!!
so be proud, you will make money eventually and $3 per day as you are making at the moment is ok.
Many people need 6 months to get profitable/break even!

Six months to get good!?

Guess I'm a slow learner.

Jeez, I've been playing well over two years and I'm just maybe perhaps possibly starting to become a slightly winning player at $2 NL.

That's after many, many starting bankrolls, loads of tilt, undisciplined play, drunken play, too many limits and game types at once, and bad swings.

I've got over 10,000 PT hands now (played more than that by at least double) of which only about 2,000 are what I consider disciplined play at a consistent money limit.

I think that it is possible to look as if you're a good player in a short time, especially if you hit a nice winning streak. I've seen my latest 150 'roll go up in one week to over 225 only to have it plummet back to 120 in a matter of 3 days.

Beware of playing above your 'roll, is all I can say. You're probably a better player than I, but even so, once you hit a run of 300 hands of bad cards and bad beats you'll soon be broke.

Jigs

it took me
from dec 2004 to about september 2005 to make good money.

Take heart, You're not *that* far away...

You need to take your money, pass GO a few times and collect your bonuses which will give you more play and more bankroll and make you feel like your achieving more with your time.

As for myself, I was lucky. I started making money right away (started at 0.25/0.50 Fixed Limit) with my first and only substantial downswing about 1 1/2 months in.

Jiggus, if you can honestly say that only 20% of your hands have been played when you're on your A game, then what does the future hold? Are you going to cut out the ill discipline and the booze, or is that where the fun comes from for you? How did you do in the (admittedly too small) sample of 2,000 "good" hands?

I lost about 425 dollars before I turned into a winner, so congratulations on only losing 50.

I kept depositing the minimum. Finally I deposited 150 (also playing 25NL at party), twice got down to my last buy-in, and then somehow miraculously pushed it to 350 bucks. I believe this was in the span of a day or two, I must have been taking some ridiculous risks. I can't even remember now.

Anyway, that was mostly within the first month. By the end of month two, I had cashed out my initial investment of 450, and had a comfortable little BR of 600 bucks or so. Still not playing that well, but better than average I guess. I had read SSH and was hand camping, playing VERY tight behind raises.

Anyway, that's my stupid little story. Since then I've made probably 6K or so playing 25NL and 50NL, and lost 1K or so playing 100NL, and blown a bunch of the rest on my digital camera (see pictures at sejje.net).

But I'm back to building a BR, and it's going well. I'm going to bust onto the 100NL scene and take them by storm in about 2 or 3 months.


Regardless of what happened with me, you're doing fine if you're breaking even. You need to move down a limit though, move your money to somewhere like Absolute Poker. They do a TON of bonuses, and have .5/.10 NL tables. I think a lot of other sites do...I know paradise has .1/.2 NL tables. Breaking even is a goal most players can't accomplish...play another 10K hands and I bet you'll be sitting pretty.

It took me, about a month to become a winning player.

I lost $300 in my first 8 months, from August 2004 to April 2005. Previous to that I had ZERO poker experience and did not even know that a flush beats a straight. So I expected to lose money at first. I read books, and found FTR in Jan 2005, and started figuring things out.

If you can play break-even poker, you should be seeking out bonuses to help get your BR up to where it should be for NL$25. Until you have ~$500, you should not continue playing this game unless you're comfortable busting out.

Paradise Poker has a bonus that's clearable at the penny tables. Look into that, maybe. The players there aren't very good, either.

EasyT

It took me, about a month to become a winning player.

Once a fish always a fish my man!
I look forward to meeting you're loose ass online some time :P

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

I look forward to meeting you're loose ass :P

FYP

a lost a bit playing out of my roll and drunk when i first started online, but I only started playing online because I was up a lot of money playing live. I was a winning player live from my first game, so my experience is probably unique.

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

It took me, about a month to become a winning player.

Once a fish always a fish my man!
I look forward to meeting you're loose ass online some time :P

Originally Posted by biondino

Jiggus, if you can honestly say that only 20% of your hands have been played when you're on your A game, then what does the future hold? Are you going to cut out the ill discipline and the booze, or is that where the fun comes from for you? How did you do in the (admittedly too small) sample of 2,000 "good" hands?

Oh yeah, I've given up that demon firewater for good now. Seriously. That's another story for another group, though.

How did I do it? Well, I'm still learning, but the big guy -- Aok -- and a few others on this site, like Laeelin, have really helped me get my game on a winning track. To be honest, it's really quite simple, but probably my game at the moment is ONLY suited for online micro limits. The discipline is easy when sober. No probs at all, and with only a few starting hands the decisions are simpler. I am still an "also ra"n tourney player, and that's next on my to do list.

I dunno, though, just cracked the 5000 hand barrier at the $2 NL tables and am at 6.2 BB/100. Is that OK? I was as high as 32BB/100, but I think that that was an abberation.

Originally Posted by EasyT

Previous to that I had ZERO poker experience and did not even know that a flush beats a straight.

I remember, 'round April '04 I think, I had to look up whether four of a kind beats a full house.

I did this by googling "full house beats four +of kind" ... 0 results
then "four +of kind beats full house" ... 3 or 4 results, one of them a pretty cool painting that I can't find right now.

Unless you are playing > 6 hours a day, I feel that you need a few months' results to really assess your performance properly. Every four days someone trots in here with their story of depositing 50 and crushing the game and now they've got 600 they are teh pwn etc.

About 2/3 of these vanish after a couple belligerent posts, and I think I know why.

Le Fou is correct, and that's why it's better to think in terms of number of hands played rather than time. After 10,000 hands at one limit, you probably have an IDEA where you're game is at.

Indeed, there are a lot of knuckleheads out there who think that they are poker lords after 100 hands.

my
edud
what a big tail you have
and such big eyes :P