Introduction and some Queries

Heya,

I've been hanging about on some poker forums for a few months, Read some on the internet and read a few books (more coming in, mostly no-limit). I have played on GamingClub with the $15 you got for free. So I decided to play at 0.10/0.20 fixed. Well I eventually got up to $27 but boy did I get creamed by the "I call you with nothing because you are bluffing" people. And I lost it all, now I must admit I probably steamed and lost $5 because of bad play.

I have now worked my way up to $3-4 again and am watching those .05/.10 NL ringgames from the corner of my eye. Maximum Buy-in is $5 at those. I'm thinking about playing myself up to $5 and sitting down at one of those (but first I wanted to read and get as much knowledge in as I could), And so I found this forum. It seems great :)

Any Advice? Feel free to stuff me with links and advice, I'll read it all.

You'll probably want to wait until you have $20 built up before you sit down at a $5 buy-in ring game. $50 would be even better, but $20 should be ok if you can't wait that long.

Even if you're playing "perfect poker", you have a good chance of losing 1 or 2 (or 3 or 4 or 10) buy-ins purely from bad luck or bad cards.

You are probably right, but I figured that i'd play when I have the $5 and if I lose it i'll just try and build it up again. That sounds ok doesn't it? 8-)

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Originally Posted by wuarhg

You are probably right, but I figured that i'd play when I have the $5 and if I lose it i'll just try and build it up again. That sounds ok doesn't it? 8-)

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Don't fight to re-build it when you can just keep building. You've got a start don't set yourself back by putting it all on the table at once. Poker is a game of patience disipline and time. All-in isn't a term meant for your bankroll.

Take it from someone who's tried playing without a bankroll. Losing $5 is no big deal but going bust sucks, even if your bankroll is only $5. Stick to the games you can beat until you have enough to start a new one. Enough is typicaly described as 300BB for fixed limit, or (i think) around 10 Buyins for NL. So your .10/.20 would have a $50-$60 bank roll. Its designed to get you past your bad beats and bad days.

Also switching games is more complicated than you'd think. Just because you can beat the fixed limit doesn't mean you'll beat NL the same. There will be variance in the begining of the switch and one buyin probably isn't going to get you past that, unless your planning on luck. Planning on getting lucky isn't something anyone serious about this should do.


Some things to consider.

What Mike says is absolutely right. You have to build up or deposit enough for a bankroll. Having a bankroll makes all the difference.

It sounds more to me like you had a few bad beats and then started playing WAY too many hands in order to "get back" to where you were...and next thing you knew you were down to the felt. Believe me when I say I've been there. It was a hard lesson to learn that yes, having a bankroll is a tremendous asset when the inevitable downturns take their toll.

Now, I can offer some advice on playing on a short bankroll since I've been doing that for the past month. I only have ~700 to play in my live 3/6 game. That's not enough for such a game so I have to make some adjustments.

From a self-psychology perspective:
- after a bad beat I remind myself that sometimes suck-outs happen and that I had the hand read correctly (if that's the case) and I made it as expensive as possible for them to suck-out
- after a mis-read I remind myself that I'm an imperfect human, prone to mistakes, and sometimes those will cost me some chips
- after a significant dip (~20BB) I remind myself that variance is a part of poker and I ask myself if I'm playing as well as I can play and if I feel I'm not I get up and leave...if I feel I am, I re-buy.

I also started wearing a watch, and set a time at the start of play at which time I ask myself how well I'm playing. If it gets that time and the cards aren't coming or I'm not playing well, I go ahead and get up and leave. If they ARE coming and/or I AM playing well, I stay.

In the end though you have to be VERY disciplined and not let yourself get on tilt. Find for yourself what triggers your tilt and come up with a way to counter it. For me it's the feeling I described above, of needing to "get up" after losing part of my buy-in. When I feel that feeling coming on now, I get up and leave. I actually did that this past saturday...was down $110 and felt I wasn't playing well, so I cashed out and left. Best decision I made, I think.

Over the weekend I signed up at Pacific. On Tuesday I discovered they credited my account with $10. In the 2 days since, I've played 3 $2+.20 2 table tournaments (finished in the cash in all 3) and about 6 hours of $.25/$.50 using the self-psychology techniques I mentioned above. By doing that and playing solid poker (mostly 7-stud hi/lo and Omaha hi/lo ring games) I've gotten that original $10 up to about $50.

Not saying you'll do this well, but try applying the techniques I mentioned and see if that doesn't work out for you.

Excellent advice everyone!

I just finished another freeroll cashing $1.1. My bankroll is now $8.8. I was thinking about the Fixed limit tables. I'm getting Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big With Expert Play by Ed Miller, David Sklansky, Mason Malmuth in a week or so. I hear that book has some great tips on playing lowlimit tables.

The one thing I hate about lowlimit fixed is that it is so hard to protect your hand. For example if you flop top pair with ace kicker, and you bet/raise and you got 5 callers with all kinds of draws to a set, straight, flush, two pair. My thought here is, Is there no way I can start playing NL right now? I guess I come off as eager, but I just want to learn something like NL/PL where you really can protect your hands, and where you really can make money if you know what you're doing.

I am hoping to learn just this. That is why I am here, and happy to have found this forum. Any pointers? :wink:

Read all of hand histories and starting hands articles from the FTR home page. There is some great stuff in there.

I actually find limit much harder than no limit for exactly the same reason you do. I play a live game every week, its only a $5 buy-in. I'm playing with the kind of people that think they know what they're doing. I find as long as I play the numbers, the more likely I am to win, which is why I'm starting to learn the pot odds and stuff like that.

But I still bluff everyonce and awhile which is why I like NL more. With limit, you truely do have to play the numbers, but people will still call you with a draw and stuff. It's really frustrating. I guess limit is good for learning the technical part of the game first.

If you can find a group of idiots like the ones I play with, it will be much easier to learn NL. Online, there are more people that know what they're doing.

Thanks, I'm pretty much going through the FTR website for the second time now. There's alot of useful info on the main site and this forum. I'm also getting some books this week. So hopefully this will turn out alright, but i'm expecting to lose my bankroll a few times since I am not having a really good run of cards. Still evaluating my play alot too.

Cheers