The Well: cts

[cts]

I thought yvesaint and EMC's threads were really interesting and it was cool to learn more about some other poker players. In yvesaint's thread I mentioned I'd be up for a thread like that to talk about moving up the limits/etc and there were some positive responses, so here it is! Fire away, if there's not much interest no big deal and mods can feel free to lock the thread or something.

[ QUOTE ]
A stranger is being shown around a village that he has just become part of. He is shown a well and his guide says "On any day except Monday, you can shout any question down that well and you'll be told the answer" .

The man seems pretty impressed, and so he shouts down: Why not on Monday? and the voice from in the well shouts back: Because on Monday, it’s your day in the well .

Well this is my “Sunday” in The Well which will consist of Sunday and Monday of this week.

You may ask me any question about whatever you like. Whether it is about Life/SSNL/Poker/Sport or any other subject, I will answer to the best of my abilities.

[/ QUOTE ]

[tannenj]

how old are you?

when did you start playing?

are you in college?

what's your poker history (stakes, number of hands at each level, win rates, etc.)?

[blah99]

What was the toughest transition for you and why? 25NL->50NL, 50NL->100NL, 100NL->200NL etc.

Whats your biggest winning day?

Whats your biggest losing day?

Would you ever consider poker as a fulltime career?

[viper930]

I've seen a lot of guys go through real long breakeven/down stretches at all limits, you even have a huge one posted on your page from at one point in June or July. Is it common though to be expecting stretches like this even at SSNL? Should the shittiness of the players at these stakes make a long breakeven or down stretch (20k+ hands) something to worry about?

How many tables do you play at a time?

[EMc]

How often do you get coolered?

What adjustments, if any, do you make on your CB's mid game?

Do you think that the idea that you should CB almost any HU pot you raised PF is a good idea?

[coopersmydog]

At what limit do you feel that straightforwardish ABC tight aggressive poker isn't enough to beat the game?

What was your win rates as you moved through limits?

[Dan Bitel]

what are your preflop stats?

what do you think is the hardest thing to master in poker?

what do you think is the most important advice forjust starting out?

what is the most important advice for some1 moving from SSNL to MSNL?

who's the toughest player you've played against?

[cts]

[ QUOTE ]
how old are you?

[/ QUOTE ]
19

[ QUOTE ]
are you in college?


[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, I'm a rising junior at the College of William and Mary.

[ QUOTE ]
when did you start playing?
what's your poker history (stakes, number of hands at each level, win rates, etc.)?

[/ QUOTE ]
I deposited $50 twice last fall and would play $1/$2 LHE, run it up to $800 or so, then lose it all at $30/$60 or so. Sweet bankroll management, I know. I didn't know wtf I was doing at this point.

Then I found 2+2, read some of their books, and made a New Year's resolution to make my last deposit, follow good bankroll management, play well, and if I lost it that was it. So I deposited $200 on Jan. 1 and played .50/$1 full-ring LHE with 200BBs. I moved up every time I got 300BBs for the next limit and made it to $1/$2 pretty quickly. Then when my bankroll was at like $1100 I decided to enter a Party $40k guaranteed tournament for $22. I luckboxed my way into 3rd place for $3,750 or so and this was huge. I immediately skipped 2/4 and 3/6 LHE and jumped into the 5/10 game since I was rolled for it. The games were soft and I kept moving up until I got to 30/60 or so with a $25k roll.

Then I decided poker was so easy that I'd hop into a bunch of no-limit games and fired up eight tables of 2/4NL. Needless to say, this did not go well and I dropped like $4,500 in two hours (yikes! ran bad in addition to not knowing what the hell I was doing). The players seemed bad and I was pissed at myself for losing a good portion of my roll, so in mid-April I set aside $6k to learn NL with.

I started at 1/2NL with these 30 buy-ins and moved up to the next limit every time I got 30 buy-ins for it. My first week or two at 1/2NL I made quite a few mistakes and would lose a buy-in or two each session due to just idiot stuff (i.e. in LHE TT+/AK is the nuts preflop, not quite so in NL). I didn't read any books or anything, just learned through experience, but read a lot of 2+2 threads and tried to post a fair amount. The biggest thing that helped my play as I was learning was going into PokerTracker's Game Notes tab, hitting "Get All", and sorting by Net. I'd then review all the hands where I won or lost a lot of money to make sure I wouldn't make the same mistakes again. I played a lot of hands and moved up pretty quickly, I remember moving up to 5/10NL right at the end of May.

Now I focus heavily on game selection and play anything from 3/6-25/50NL, but mostly I play 10/20NL. I start each session by looking through the 10/20 tables, sitting in the good ones, then the 5/10 tables, etc until I find enough tables to keep me busy.

[cts]

[ QUOTE ]
What was the toughest transition for you and why? 25NL->50NL, 50NL->100NL, 100NL->200NL etc

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, I started at 1/2NL so the differences in the limits were pretty apparent. Going from 3/6NL to 5/10NL was probably the toughest, especially due to the poor game selection at 5/10NL.

[ QUOTE ]
Whats your biggest winning day?

[/ QUOTE ]
Not quite sure, around +$30k.

[ QUOTE ]
Whats your biggest losing day?

[/ QUOTE ]
Not quite sure, around -$30k.

[ QUOTE ]
Would you ever consider poker as a fulltime career?

[/ QUOTE ]
Not quite sure [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img], I've still got two more years to go in college so we'll see what the poker scene is like when I graduate. I'm studying mathematics/economics and have good grades so I could probably get a decent job coming out of college, but nothing that would compare financially to playing poker full-time.

[cts]

[ QUOTE ]
I've seen a lot of guys go through real long breakeven/down stretches at all limits, you even have a huge one posted on your page from at one point in June or July. Is it common though to be expecting stretches like this even at SSNL? Should the shittiness of the players at these stakes make a long breakeven or down stretch (20k+ hands) something to worry about?

[/ QUOTE ]
Hm I'm really not sure how different the games are at SSNL, but I would imagine 20k hand breakeven stretches are possible. The key to avoiding variance/breakeven stretches/etc is TABLE SELECTION! Can't stress this any more, the most important part to moving up is table selecting well. If you are sitting at tables with regulars where you have a small edge, say 2PTBB/100, you are going to experience sick variance. If you sit at a table with fish, where your winrate may be 15PTBB/100, the chances of going through 20k hands breakeven is FAR less.

[ QUOTE ]
How many tables do you play at a time?

[/ QUOTE ]
I try to keep up 8-12, but if I'm talking on AIM/etc, sometimes I play less.