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 My First Post... Long
Greetings, one and all.
I've been a lurker here for quite some time and decided it's well past time to get involved.
So, as an introduction and to begin with, here's my story...
Back in May I was bored silly with my nights... single, early 40's, no kids, no social life... your basic high tech hermit with too much time on his hands, bored with the old games, and a computer system too old and slow to even attempt the new RPG's and strategy games.
At that time my poker experience consisted of small home games with friends and work cohorts, nothing intense, nothing serious, and I always held my own. Of course, I'd never studied the game at all, and after shooting my TV a few years ago I wasn't in on the cable TV poker explosion, so I had no idea who the big "stars" were that people would talk about in these home games and found the idol worship, hand naming, lingo, etc... all pretty amusing. Even without much knowledge, without even knowing the basics, I was still regularly beating these guys that seemed to suddenly be living and breathing the NLHE poker scene. Suffice it to say, any activity that I truly enjoy that winds up putting money in my pockets is something I'm going to take more than a passing interest in.
Sometime in mid-may I read an article in the local paper talking about online casino's. Are they legit? Are they for suckers? Are they out to rob you blind? I expected an article blasting the scene, but instead came away believing that they were indeed, for the most part, as legitimate as B&M establishments... in some ways, even more so. After that read I instantly downloaded the software for Party Poker and started playing the free tables out of curiousity.
I played the free tables for about a month. Of course, the free tables are no place to test your skills, since next to no one plays any kind of strategy. But during that time PP was beta testing, running big MTT's in the free table section. I found that in these 2000 people tournaments a lot of people did treat it more seriously. I started playing in one of the dailies most every day after work, and almost always finished "in the money". A couple of times I made the final table, and I think it was then that I started thinking maybe I could really do this with true green on the table.
So, I made the standard newbie mistakes... The first thing I did was loaded $50 into my account and hit the .50/$1 LHE tables. It was gone in 2 days. Strengthening my resolve and brushing it off as bad luck, I loaded up another $50. Once again, it was gone in two days. Stupidly undaunted, and without a clue as to why I was losing, I reloaded another $50 and resolved to play only top 20 starting hands... Yep, by this time I had done my homework, had a list and was checking it twice. Oooops... $50 gone, this time in a day.
So, now I'm down $150 and I'm pretty red in the face. So many of my losses came to 'bad beats' and lucky @#$%ers drawing out on the river... That kind of luck just couldn't POSSIBLY continue!!! "I'm WAAAAAY better than these fish!!!", was my standard thought. Being the logical thinker that I am, I KNEW that with a little more backing I could easily make it all back. Another reload, this time $100...
Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. This applies to every facet of life, and poker is no different. Of course, you know what happened next. I started off playing my "A" game, lost a few pots early to draws and beats, got frustrated, then lost that $100 in the course of a night, trying to force it into doubling and tripling by throwing it at the pot. So, at that point I'm down $250, and with this ego I know it's not because of me. This @#$%ing site is rigged... everyone says so. Just look at all the bad beats... I was playing smart, solid hands and STILL got beat like a fricking drum!!!
Such were my thoughts. Armed with the consipiracy theory suspicion that the site was rigged I started googling for evidence. And I found some... plenty of it, in fact. Mostly from charlatans selling books for the low, low price of $29.95 explaining how to beat these rigged games... Some even explaining what patterns to look for to know when to lay down AA pre-flop. Ummmmm, yeah.... Next link, please. Hmmmm.... FTR. What's this? This isn't conspiracy theory.... What's this doing in my results?
I'll say right now that finding FTR in a place I wasn't even looking for it is the best thing that ever happened to my poker game. Reading Tyson's early experiences was like reading my own, and it gave me an entirely new perspective on the game. I can honestly say that spending two hours reading the preliminary material on this site gave me the resources I needed to turn things around.
I did three things next. One, I bought poker tracker. Two, I reloaded $100 into my account. Three, I started playing NLHE on the low limit tables rather than LHE, as per Tyson's suggestion(still playing over my bankroll, but at that time I hadn't yet studied that far). Now, my total poker investment was about $400. The $250 I had already lost, the $50 for PT, and the $100 I reloaded. Using the basic strategy outlined on this site, and playing with the starting hands and odds charts up in the background, I was up to $400 in a week. I took out $300. A couple of days later and I had doubled to $200 again. I took out $100.
This was the end of June. After a very sobering rollercoaster and instructive two weeks I had lost $250 and then made that back, plus the price of my PT software. Even better, I had made back the additional $100 I had used to bankroll my comeback. At this time I made a resolution... I now had a bankroll of $100 that was pure profit. I was now a winning poker player. My resolution was to make it on that $100, or give up the internet game altogether. The next few days were up and down, and then one day was just down, down, down. At one point I was sitting at a table with $6 left in my account. My online poker life was about to come to an end. But I maintained patience, maintained discipline... and there it was... my double up hand. And then another. And then another. I left the $25 NLHE table that night with $143.00. I can't really explain what happened next. Maybe I hit upward variance early, maybe I played extremely well for my experience level... All I used as tools and education were the things I learned on this site(including a newfound knowledge of BR management... Thanks, 'rilla). At the end of July my BR was $1200.00.
So, is all peaches and cream now? No. August sucked. I learned early that every card in the deck is sometimes stacked against you and that stack can last for an insanely long time. Those dry spells can be brutal on the emotions. I also decided to start reading and studying from the professionals... A lot of Sklansky and Miller and Malmuth. As the saying goes, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. I have many stories now of misapplied lessons and wrong conclusions, experimenting with odds, bluffing, switching gears, as well as still consistently making the same stupid mistakes that bleed chips from ones stack and dollars from the BR. Today my bankroll is just about dead even at $1000, fluctuating in any given week between $900-$1200.
So, in essence, in the last two months I went from being a winning player to being a break even player. I think that has a lot to do with why I'm here now. I understand how I achieved my early success, but I also understand how much there is to learn. After lurking here for several months I know this is a community with a lot of knowledge and the willingness to help. I can definitely say in the last few months I've developed a passion for this game, and I'm ready to take it to the next level. Hopefully, getting involved here will give me the tools I need to take it there. With a little luck, I just might be able to offer something in return.
Hope to be talking to you soon.
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Originally Posted by Irisheyes
