A year of 1000 posts (1000th post, duh?)

[dchz]

Well it’s really like about 7 months…

I started poker in march of this year, and here is my special 1000th post thingy that I hope is both a good read and beneficial to all of you.

Brief history:
As I said, I did start playing poker in March of this year, one night I was bored and started watching ESPN and started watching poker on TV. While I was chatting, I started talking to a friend on AIM, and shared that how crazy I think poker players are. Who would put money on some stupid card game….??? There is no way this is a game of skill… my friend disagreed, and told me he’s started to play poker, and some how talked me into buying my first book called SSHE by slansky, miller and some other guy who sounded like a pre-historic animal…

Next thing I know, I’ve deposited my first 50 dollars on Party poker, and “yeeeehaw” here we go!!!! I started playing .5/1 limit holdem as my first game (50 BB Bankroll FTW!!) I went busto in about a week, I was stubborn enough to deposit another 50 dollars, went busto again, tried again, busto again, tried again.. the trend went on for about 3 months, at times I would be up to 300 dollars, but the next thing I knew I was down to 50 again.. it was a true rollercoaster ride for the first 3 months….

In the main time, I found myself not paying attention to school, (Econ Pre-me at Baylor University), sleeping less and less ( I usually get about 10 hrs before I started playing poker) and losing and losing more money… at the beginning of the summer, I was down about 500 dollars overall, no big deal to any of you ballas, nor a big deal to me now, but it was a huge amount when I started playing. I decided to take advantage of the party reload bonus again and deposited 500 dollars more to get the 100 dollar bonus and my real poker journey begins.

I started out playing .5/1 and was doing well, so I started to play ½ with a 600 dollar bankroll ( built up from my 100 dollar bonus and winnings I withdrew the original 500), long story short I went busto again, about 200 dollar downswing… that is when I made the move to crypto, 100 dollar deposit bonus here I come!! After a 200 pound up swing at 50 Pound NL, I gained the confidence to play well… next thing I knew it I had the BR to play correctly, reached my 500 post mark on 2p2, and am a constant winner… w00t!!

I made the switch to NL in mid august when I realized that I could do so much more to induce my opponents to make a bigger mistakes, and left the micro-limit forums to join the SSNL forums( before the made the micro NL forums) and started playing NL, I rat well at NL50 on poker room and UB as far as I know, until I hit a stretch for about two weeks were I lost 20 buy-ins at NL100 ( in sept), now I’ve recovered from the downswing (and of course bad playing, I’m sure) and am a regular SSNL, and SSL poster on 2p2, and here are some of observations/conclusions that I wanted to share with you guys:

-Swings in poker is as common as TPTK: as you can see my whole account of my poker history is oriented around how big my BR and bank roll, and how much money I’ve earned, it has never stated how well I’ve played, or how I’m going all in with TPTK or never folding Ace high, nor has it mention me calling down a huge flop, just plain results… the fact is, you will not always constantly win nor will you constantly lose, but swings and small gains are common, but hopefully you will come out on top

-You should never focus on just the results: Yes, I know I’ve done so this post, partly because I’m trying to illustrate a point, and partly because I’m trying to get rid of this habit as well. While I’ve changed my view that poker has no skill involved, it is not 100% skill either, downswings happen, variance is a part of the game, instead on focusing on how well or how bad you are playing. The rationale behind this is simple, you should focus on the means and not the end, if you don’t believe that how you play will reflect how well you do in the long run, then you should probably re think your psychology and stop reading this forum… and sit at my table

-Bankroll management is very important: this point is stressed over and over in various places, it’s because it’s true. You can never play correctly if you don’t have the proper bankroll, no matter what you tell yourself.

-You should always be realistic to yourself: this world today is superficial, people hardly ever tell each other the truth ( 2p2 is brutally honest, thank God  ) but when you play poker you should always be true to yourself, I’ve found myself telling myself lately about how bad a certain move was, and how I shouldn’t of played that hand that way, and I’m right most of the time, the sooner you can do this, the sooner you can improve.

-Post with a reason: what I mean by this is that when you make a post (except on OOT) to advocate a move, you should follow up with a reason, sometimes a “raise for value” would be much better than just “raise”, it takes 2 seconds more to type, but it will make your thinking that much more concrete, the habitual thinking will make you a better thinking player and keep your game up to date

-balance poker with life: I’ve found myself playing more and more poker lately and can’t remember the last time I went to hang out with a friend at a party, or just to see a movie and hang out, I was in love with the game so much that I seldom did any of my homework, as the semester comes to an end, I am looking at one of my worst grade wise, and I don’t recall making any new good friends, and I really didn’t win that much more if I would of played a little less and socialized a lot more ( who cares about the grades anyways? :-p ) it also helps your game a lot if you are constantly stressed by poker, trust me, it does

-Last but not least: Psychology is key. As Daniel Negreanu says, confidence is the most important ingredient for success at the poker table. I do believe this is correct, next to know how to play correctly, confidence gives you a huge edge over your opponents, psychology is very important, if you lack the important factors it can be detrimental to your game also,

I hope this wasn’t too boring to read, and excuse the bad quality of writing and lack of content/analysis (I’ve had 2 papers this week, a 10 page one on comparing and contrasting the communist manifesto and the wealth of nations, and 10 page one on how globalization is good) and 2 tests, so I’m kinda burned out but I do want to get this “Special” post out of the way, as I am sure, you guys will be seeing a lot of me around on this forum, whether you like it or not….

Special shout out to my friends Tehpokaking, BigBadBabaar, PaulThompson, Orange, Aussiebattler, Dbitel, Buzz, and Buckmulligan!!!