I suck

[zboy]

With the $1 sit-n-gos, try this: Buy in, and immediately sit out. Go make sandwich. Eat sandwich. Flip on news channel. Take a nap. Come back to computer. Check to see whether you finished 2nd or 3rd.

P.S. The truth isn't far from this, actually. What you could do is wait until you are third to start playing. Once you are third, play for second or first. Also, if you are in fourth place, and you are getting low, and the other players are actually somewhat smart and are minibetting, letting you blind down, then play back a little, to let them know you are there. You probably can still hit third a high percentage of the time.

[proudpapa]

Yeah, but what's the skill/enjoyment in that? And if I'm finishing 3rd/4th, I'm just about making my money back -- true, better than what I'm doing now, but I want to start building.

[zboy]

The skill in it is that sometimes folding IS outplaying your opponents. My point is that people at this level are so bad, and your goal is to tailor your play to the table and opponents that make up the table, that you do better to let the poor players get themselves knocked out to put yourself into a position to money the SNG.

The blinds are so low early on that you are better off to fold, fold, fold. Often, by the time the table is 4-handed, the blinds are still very low. There is no reason to put yourself into a position for all your chips early on. (In a MTT, this is different.)

Also, I don't know what you enjoy, but I enjoy making poker decisions that give me the greatest chance to make money.

Obviously, if I'm playing a higher stakes SNG against better players, I don't employ the arorementioned strategy.

[proudpapa]

Yeah, I see that. But by the time there are 4-5 people left, often the blinds are so high that you have one of two decisions: fold or all-in. Doing this, I'm not learning how to play after the flop -- and won't learn how to improve my game. I'd play MTTs but with a kid I only have about an hour a night to play, so I have to stick to cash games or SNGs.

You're right, though, often in the beginning it should be fold, fold, fold.

[kazana]

From my experience, SNGs aren't exactly about postflop play. It's all-in preflop or, in most other cases, on the flop.

Seriously, give the $1 cash games a go, you should be able to earn a couple of buyins with a lot less risk of ruin while learning. The players are still horrible, only you get the chance to take multiple stacks from them instead of just one prize at the end of a push fest.

Oh, and make sure that you exercise good bankroll management. You'll never regret that lesson.

[MJL]

I remember putting my first $50 on Pokerstars. I had read books and beat the free games. Now I am ready to make money. I lost the $50 in a week.
What I did was:
Got pissed off because they shouldn't beat me, Got over it.
Got bummed because I wasn't as good as I thought, Got over it.
Read many more books.
Lurked on the forum.
Bought in another site using bonuses as discussed on forum to give me extra chance to break even or win.
Purchased Poker Tracker and studied my play and found my real stats were much looser than I thought. It helped me find many other leaks.
PT allowed me to post hands and learn.
Found out when the best time to play was.
Learned how to identify various types of players and learned strategies based on various styles.
Found some sites had a better mix of players that my style worked well with.
Got pretty good and then bought more books.
Learned to play multiple games and this increased my basic game.
Slowly built my bankroll so a bad run wouldn't ruin it.
Took breaks so poker didn't get old.
Never made another deposit, just withdrawals.

Anything you want to be successful at will take effort. Do what others are not willing to do so you can have what others don't.

[kmak]

You have found out why the poker sites have free play available. It actually hurts your learning of the game. The only thing free play is good for, IMO, is learning the mechanics and timing of the game. If you think you are learning how to win by playing free, you are dead wrong (as both you and I have found out). Even .01/.02 is vastly different.

[proudpapa]

This is invaluable, thank you.

[zan nen]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I see that. But by the time there are 4-5 people left, often the blinds are so high that you have one of two decisions: fold or all-in. Doing this, I'm not learning how to play after the flop -- and won't learn how to improve my game. I'd play MTTs but with a kid I only have about an hour a night to play, so I have to stick to cash games or SNGs.

You're right, though, often in the beginning it should be fold, fold, fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

This is horrible advice and there is no way you will survive to place in the money. You want to be very conservative in early rounds and build a nice stack making the right plays.

[Matt Williams]

Bottom line, you are being impatient. Learn to crave waiting for premium hands. They will be your biggest winners. IMO, you can't play a successful LAG style in micro-limits. Think about it. Who is going to fold a 10 cent bet because he doens't have the "odds"? If you want more action, play 2 tables at a time. But you need to be tight. I mean ultra-tight. You should be playing about 15-20% of your hands. With all the bad beats you are getting, how many of them involved the other playing having the better hand to start with? To me, that's not a bad beat. That's you getting lucky on the flop and unlucky after the flop.