Hi,
I'm a noob poster to the forum although I've been browsing here for about a month. I also very new to poker. I've been playing about 2.5 to 3 months now ever since I downloaded an WPT episode and then watched all of the first season within a week. I started out at PP playing for play money. As most of you probably realise play money is a terrible game because you'll have all 10 players making huge bets and raises with no fear. But it was good for me to play and learn the game and I quickly became the dominant player at these play money tables. I got up to over $8,000,000 in play money when I decided I wanted to give real money a shot. I was smart enough to realize that it would be a completely different game but I also had a feeling like for the small amount that I had played that I had some kind of a knack for it.
The next month of playing at the $25 NL 6 ring tables were fun but non profitable. In fact I lost several hundred dollars. I was ready to quit playing entirely a few times but I always came back the next week and bought in for another $50.00. I had actually gotten to the point where I could play for 10 hours on $25.00 but I couldn't seem to increase the bankroll and eventually after a couple of bad beats I'd be busted again.
I was really going to quit after about of month of losing when I found this site. I read all of the Essays and starting hands and I realised a few things. First of all I realised I should be playing much tighter with the starting hands and second that I should be playing the 10 player ring games and not the 6 player ones where the maniacs hang out. My biggest mistakes were that I was seeing too many flops but I was being very conservative when my flops didn't hit. So I was spending 0.50 almost every hand and throwing it away the majority of the time when I didn't hit anything on the flop. And when I did hit top pair on the flop many times the maniacs at the 6 player tables would bet into me heavily and I would sometimes fold out the best hand.
This site has saved my poker career so to speak. Since I started with my new "gameplan" a little over 3 weeks ago I have been very profitable. I also switched to the 10 player $25.00 NL tables. I went from about $12.00 in my PP account to having cashed out $925.00 in the past 3 weeks at both Empire and Party along with a $150.00 bankroll that I plan on building up in the next few days. It sounds more impressive than it is because I have played literally a ton of poker in the past 3 weeks. I almost had to prove to myself that the first few cashouts were no fluke so I played I'm guesstimating about 29,000 hands in the past 3 weeks (I'm playing 3 and now up to 4 tables at once).
Bottom line is that before I adopted my new strategy, I still was doing some good things right it just took a few changes to get things on track.
I still am brand new to this game but I believe I am playing very good poker these days and I think I've played enough hands now to say with confidence that I will be profitable long term.
Some things I need to work on...... When I get a good flop: ie top pair or 2 pair or trips I sometimes have a hard time letting it go when someone is is showing signs they have a better hand. It should be evident that I am beat. If I can weed out more of these hands where I waste alot of chips when I call re-reraises I should really be able to increase the profit/hr. Unfortunately we've all seen the dumbasses on PP raising big with nothing or on a draw and I've caught them in the act enough times that now even when I think I'm beaten I'm always thinking its another fish and that I should call.
Ah poker....what a game.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. I'd love to learn anything you guys can teach me.
Cheers
Joe Canada