Re: Newbie looking for help
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I’m very very tired of working my job. One day I was dropping my girlfriend off at a new clients, she’s a babysitter, this new client had a fabulous house, nice car and other major signs of money. Turns out he’s an online poker player! That was enough for me to hear. I have been working at a terrible job for three years. Before that I have over a decade of atrocious jobs ruled by overwhelming stupidity, harebrained politics and little to no hopes of making any money. I’m now ready to dedicate all the energy I have to something else and Poker is it! I’m not looking to become a millionaire, I just want more than what I have now. (Which is not much.)
However After reading bits of a few books I’ve developed a technique that is not working! I started with 1 cent Hold’em games and my starting capital is over %50 gone! How can I figure out what I’m doing wrong? I seem to get a decent amount. (Sometimes even doubling what I start out with.) But I always seem to lose it all within a combination of 3 hands! Like I just ended with a game where I started with a buck. Ended up two dollars, 2 minutes later I have none! What is a newbie is doing wrong when he’s whining about this happening?
I have Nick Grudzien’s book but I‘m looking for some techniques to help me with the low tables (1 and 2 cent games) while I try to understand this book. Any suggestions? Where is a good place to start and research. I have a decent grasp of the game, but still loose track of the terms. Is there a good place to look those up? Please if anybody can help me out that would be awesome!
Sincerely,
Johnny T.
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You sound serious, and I think you're on the right track. I have a few suggestions. I'm doing very much the same thing as you, except for now, I'm trying to make poker a decent part-time or second job, not my full-time job. That may change at some point, since my full-time job pays less than yours does.
1. AT FIRST, IT'S NOT ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU CAN WIN, IT'S ABOUT BUILDING A BANKROLL. If at some point you can make $15 an hour playing poker, that's great. But you can't do that at microlimits. That means, you have to build a bankroll so you can move up.
Grinding out $5 a week at micros isn't any fun. But while you're veeeery slooowly buidling a bankroll, you're gaining experience. By the time you can CONSISTENTLY grind out, say, $10 a week, you've gained a lot of experience, you've built a bankroll, and you're ready to move up to higher limits and do it all again.
I'm pretty conservative. I won't move up until I have 30 buy-ins.
2. SET SMALLER, MORE ATTAINABLE GOALS. Here are some of types of small goals (in no particular order) that I have set for myself: Be able to profit $10 at least one day a week. Get my average place (for the month) in STTs under 4.5.
As to your $12 dollars an hour, I have an intermediate goal of equaling the minimum wage playing poker. At that point, it's becoming a real job, and you can keep working to make it more lucrative.
3. TREAT POKER JUST LIKE A JOB. Work 60 hours a week. If you work 40 hours a week at your regular job, then poker should get 20 hours.
Set regular work hours. Don't kid yourself by taking half-hour breaks if you can't do that during your "real" job. Take two 15-minute breaks and a half-hour lunch.
Watch the interruptions. How many times would you answer your cell phone at your primary (sounds better than "real") job?
Watch the distractions. Would a TV being on, or music, help or hurt you at your primary job?
4. Be realisitic about time periods. Check numbers one and two above, and note how often I use the word "week" or "month" instead of "day". Your losing $2 in three hands isn't trivial, but a long-term perspective is important.
A few hours ago I was at my first live MTT final table. I busted out in 8th place when I shoved with KK and lost to AA.
Short-term, that hurts. Long term, that's a winner. I was the short stack, and had the patience to wait several orbits for a good hand or situation. Long-term, that discipline will be very profitable. As far as my profitabilty, a knockout at one tournament means nothing.
Think like a Klingon: "Today is a good day to die!"
Note that one of my goals was to make $10 a day AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK. When you are talking about consistency, a day or a week proves nothing. I was talking about consistency over a period of weeks. Then it starts to mean something.
If you win $50 two days in a row, that proves nothing. If you average $15 a week over two months, it's still a statistically small sample (as far as number of hands played), but it should give you some idea of how good you really are.
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