Busted, Dejected & Wondering WTH Went Wrong...

[mmbossman]

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Beginners always seem to be interested in the money than the game?

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Probably because a lot of people here, from what I've seen, will openly turn up their noses at someone trying to get started the right way (ie smaller stakes). I'm in grad school and have very little extra cash to throw around, so I'm not ashamed to admit I play the $1 SNGs and .01/.02 limit. But I've seen other people get flamed for not being able to post "balla" outcomes (although maybe this is more present in other sections of the forum other than beginners).

[Cry Me A River]

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Probably because a lot of people here, from what I've seen, will openly turn up their noses at someone trying to get started the right way (ie smaller stakes). I'm in grad school and have very little extra cash to throw around, so I'm not ashamed to admit I play the $1 SNGs and .01/.02 limit. But I've seen other people get flamed for not being able to post "balla" outcomes (although maybe this is more present in other sections of the forum other than beginners).


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This is really only true in the "social" forums like BBV.

If you post in the correct strategy forums you'll never get flamed for the stakes you play.

[blueguitone]

I am new to this site and poker probrably just like you, I also play on pokerstars. From what I have learned from pokerstars at my level; $5 SnG's are the max, $1+20 is better. It would be insane to play $20. Ring games micro .05/.10.

I have lost some money but not much and now have a small bankroll. Patience is the best rule and small stakes.

[WCGRider]

if your bankroll is that small, play 1/2 cent. Its so important to learn how to play this game, and i think im about to make a new thread about how i saw improvement myself.

[OziBattler]

please read this thread by the WCGRider....maybe it will inspire you to dig yourself out of the hole and go robusto

[blueguitone]

That is a great thread... It says a lot from a noob standpoint, there is so much to learn and people do make it sound easy. But most of the information is confusing, but I am willing to learn and this site rules.

[Eucrid]

Agreed, this site and this subforum especially are great. I was playing home games for years without a clue and its only now I'm learning how to play properly and its still so easy to fall back into bad habits. I think the important thing about improving is to take your time and don't run before you can walk. Start at the low end of things and work your way up.

Oh and forget about the money and play for competitions sake and self improvements sake first.

[Nairb]

About a year ago I was in your same situation. Wondering why I could not get it, after all I had watched WPT for years and it looked so easy I had to try. I deposited $100 on Stars and started playing $5 STT and with a couple exceptions had donked off my small roll in a month or so.

I told myself I would not do that again so I bought Harrington on Holdem volumes 1 and 2 and read each one several times. These books opened my eyes to huge leaks in my game. They also taught me that not only my hand was important, but also position, relative stack size, # of players remaining etc... factored greatly into starting requirements and whether to enter a hand someone else has opened.

Then I re-deposited $50 and started playing the $1 18person 2 table sit n gos on Stars. With some success I started posting hands that confused me on 2P2 and plugged even more holes in my game.

I have never re-deposited and am well over $1000 in my BR from that $50 deposit and have established a 80% ROI in the 3.25 45 man 9 table sit n gos on Stars over the last 135 hours played and do not intend on looking back. The tournament success has spilled over into my cash games and have a positive ROI there too, only about 18bb/100 but it is getting better.

Bottom line is learn, ask questions, post hands. Never feel like a question is stupid. Of course some a$$es will flame you over a redundant question but do not let that deter you from pulling valuable information from this forum that will make you money and a better player in the long run

Best of luck and hope to see you at the tables soon.

Brian

[Ironic]

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People online even at low price games are pretty clued in. They know at least the basics. At $20 SNGs there are a lot of players who know exactly what they are doing.

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At $5 sngs at PS I would estimate about half of all players are complete fish. The next quarter kind of have an idea of how to play but don't have discipline to stick to it. The last quarter are the kind of people who read these forums a lot, who know the basics and are potentially dangerous. At every $5 tourney there is usually one person who seems to know exactly what he/she is doing, who sharkscope says is profitable.

[Poker Clif]

When you said that you had only been playing online for only 7 weeks, I decided to paste one of my earlier posts. I played for fake money on 3 different sites, so like you, when I started playing for real money, I expected to be a winner right away.

Almost no one wins right away. It doesn't mean that you're stupid, or a bad player. I am a member of MENSA, and crushed all the play money games before I started at microlimits on PokerStars.

So, with that long preamble, here is my previous post:

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One of the things that any decent poker player needs is patience, and I think that's something you struggle with.

In affect I have moved up in levels three times (play money at increasingly tougher sites), and I'm only now playing PokerStars for eal money at the lowest limits.

I started my learning watching the pros on TV. Then I played for play money on AOL World Series of Poker. The more I played, the better I got at it, until I regularly started placing in the big tournaments, with a best place of 9/2993.

Next I "moved up" to play money on Party Poker, and when I was doing very well, then I switched to PokerStars. Again, it was play money, but I was getting used to the site, and to another step up in competition.

Finally, I started playing for real money on Pokerstars. During this long process, I was reading and studying poker books, and later, I discovered twoplustwo.

I started playing the $1 tournaments, and found out I wasn't as good as I thought I was. I started with a bankroll of just $50, and lost it all twice.

During this time, I realized that I didn't want to specialize in big tournaments. I just couldn't bear to sit up all night, play two tournaments, and not win anything.

So, I switched to sit-n-goes, and got decent at those, I'm about breaking even now. But what I discovered is that I'm better at cash, even thought it's not as much fun, or as intellectually challenging, as a tournament.

So, what was happening during all this time I wasn't winning? I was learning. I was finding out at what I was and was not good. But it's more than that.

I tried out what I learned in all the books. I went from a rock to someone who can play more than one strategy, who knows how and when to limp with small pairs and suitied connectors, and understands some of the mechanics of bluffing (even though bluffing doesn't always work at micro limits).

I worked on little pieces of my game, one at a time. I worked on getting better at calculating pot odds on paper, then doing it while playing, and then on memorizing outs and odds in common situations.

Than I worked on mutitabling. I tried doing two SNGs at once, then up to four cash tables, then I tried doing a SNG at the same time as one or two cash tables.

After deciding that most of my money would come from multitabling cash, I continued to work on the individual skills, and I started putting the pieces together.

For example, I cut back to two cash tables so I could multitable and take notes at the same time.

You date your start of playing poker at two months ago. The process I have described has taken me about six months. I'm smart enough, but I know that I'm a step-by-step learner who had to figure out the pieces before the puzzle comes together.

I could go on and on listing the little pieces of the poker puzzle that I've worked on, one at a time: raising to thin the pot, playing medium suited connectors, checkraising, randomizing bluffs, etc, etc.

So, now it's June 20, 2007. I have played 18 days in June, and profited in 16 of them. I will keep learning more skills, and before long, I'll be a winning player in nicro SNGs as well as cash. And as I get better at combining multitabling and notetaking, I'll have a lot of good player notes down the road.

Before too long, I will add more cash tables, then move up from .01/02 to .02/05, and keep playing and learning poker, one step at a time

Let me be clear. This long process, and losing my bankroll twice, has been frustraing for me. I never dreamed it would take me so long to be a winning player. Every week I knew I was learning more, and getting better, but it wasn't showing on my spreadsheet.

Now it is. My patience has paid off, but I know that the way I've done it is not for everyone.

But please, don't think you're a loser because you're not making money in two months. You would be surpised at how many of the pros you watch on TV lost their first bankroll, and maybe their second third and fourth bankrolls, before they finally became a winnning player.

There aren't any shortcuts. Great musicians know this, and many of them still practice scales, for hours, every day. Learn the fundamentals, then put the pieces together.