First $1000 profit- thoughts of a STT newbie (long).

[flybe1]

After playing STTs (almost all 5+0.5 and 10+1) for 11 months as a hobby, I have finally made $1000 profit. I thought it might be useful to even newer players than me to explain some of the ups and downs.

I started playing limit STTs, because I had done a little limit ring game play, but soon graduated to the much more exciting NL.

I used Ray Rounder's Sit n Go Shark and quickly made a small profit, but this did not increase much until instead I started playing the strategy recommended in Lee Jones's Winning Low Limit Hold'em.

This helped a lot (reached over $500 profit) until all the US players left the rooms I was playing. My profit first stagnated then fell as I tried to adjust to the much tougher conditions. Incidentally, I quantified this change by noting that in the all-ins I lost before and after the ban, my hand had hardly changed (Slansky 3.7 to 3.8), but my opponents hands had improved from Slansky 4.4 to 3.7!

Started experimenting a little with ICM but could not stomach going in with trash so often on the bubble, especially in the SB!

Things started to improve again when I started paying much more attention to how my opponents were playing. At last, I realised that this is almost as important as the cards. Also started playing even tighter early in the tournament and opening up a bit more later. My results in the last 200 have been 48.5 ITM and 25.5% ROI, much better than my overall ROI of only 13.6%.

Now thinking about multi-tabling so starting to study ICM again. Also looking forward to Collin Moshman's book despite the reservations of some 2+2 posters.

Finally, my top tips for even less experienced players:

1) Do not pay for software or books. You can get most by signing up for various poker rooms. Then all you have to do is play at least break even Poker......

2) Avoid rooms without good tournament clearance rates unless you are getting good books or software free. Why pass up an improvement of 5 or even 10% in your ROI?

3) The gap concept is much, much bigger that you think, especially on the Bubble.

4) You must read Harrington on Holdem. HOH 2 in particular is great. I use his effective M to decide when and what hands to go all-in with. This is much more realistic than your number of big blinds.

Hope this is of some help. I look forward to some constructive criticism of my thoughts!

[shakyamuni]

ok, I'm sorry, but if people actually read this - you're going to take a beating

here are a few things that scream at me....

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My results in the last 200 have been 48.5 ITM and 25.5% ROI, much better than my overall ROI of only 13.6%

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This point has been beat on the head sooo many times in this forum already - 200 games is a very small sample size (F I ran at 36% for 120 games and then 0% for my last 654654647 games - but my average ROI is still 16% - and that's not even right - I'll know more in 10 years, get back to me....

ROI's are flucuating obv. and you can't depend/expect on a higher ROI when you run good for 200 games, you didn't just magically figure out how to beat the games - you may have figured out something that gave you a +.5% edge but not 10%

Maintaining ROI's of 25% is super hard these days even at the lowest of stakes - and all but impossible for someone new to the game, which brings me to my next point:
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Started experimenting a little with ICM but could not stomach going in with trash so often on the bubble, especially in the SB!

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no explanation necessary
advice for OP: play more tables, stop hating money


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I used Ray Rounder's Sit n Go Shark and quickly made a small profit, but this did not increase much until instead I started playing the strategy recommended in Lee Jones's Winning Low Limit Hold'em.

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I didn't know people used this, thought it was a scam, lol

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1) Do not pay for software or books. You can get most by signing up for various poker rooms. Then all you have to do is play at least break even Poker......

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no reason not to buy SNGPT if you can affoard/use it - the tutorial alone will pay for it - can't attest to other programs - but YES buy them - they will make you more money than you spent on them - nough said

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4) You must NOT read Harrington on Holdem. HOH 2 in particular is great.

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FYP
Everyone has read HOH - I read all 3 and I think it was time well wasted.... I can honestly say it did nothing for my SNG game except for about 4 pages where he does an ICM calc - that was fun

They might be good beginner donkament books but I know absolutly nothing about donkaments so ask someone else - but they don't pertain to STT's


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I use his effective M to decide when and what hands to go all-in with. This is much more realistic than your number of big blinds.

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no its not

M is stupid (see Judy Dench) - and a letter should never tell you when and what hands to go all in with - this is just basic sttf knowledge, calling ranges and your #of bb's help you make these decisions (get sngpt so you can practice these things). plus bb's are cooler.

All things aside, congrats on your 1k! -