100K hand stats post

[Marquis]

After 2 years of grinding, I finally logged my 100,000th poker hand into Poker Tracker. Somehow in two years I’ve managed to average 1,000 hands of poker a week, almost all of them playing .5/1 limit. No, I didn’t play 100,000 hands of micro-limit poker because I lost a bet. I find .5/1 easy, and I like easy. I do not like to lose; I do not like to work hard, and I like to have a beer, watch TV and surf while I play. I don’t like to pay attention to everyone at my tables; I don’t like to take notes, and I don’t like to feel pressure. I don’t play because I love poker and I don’t play to get better. I play for the easy money. I do enjoy it, or I wouldn’t play, but if it felt like work at all I wouldn’t do it. Granted, grinding out 300 raked hands in one sitting tends toward feeling like work sometimes, but I’m willing to live with that. I bonus whore like crazy. Roughly half my poker earnings have come from bonus whoring.

There is a very good chance I will never play 5/10. For me, playing for those types of stakes has very little appeal. I would not handle losing 200BBs at 5/10 very well at all. Poker is not allowed to make me feel like crap, even if it only lasts until I win it back. I’m a worry-free guy, and I like it that way. When I lose 100BBs at .5/1, it doesn’t bother me at all.

So since I’m not going to play 5/10, I don’t bother much with the stuff in between. I occasionally play 1/2 and have only sat to play 2/4 or 3/6 a couple of times. It’s obviously a very different game when you move out of .5/1, and if I’m playing less tables or to a lesser winrate at a higher level, I’m not making any extra money and I’m subjecting myself to a greater dollar variance. And like I said, I’m not going to play a higher level just to get better at poker and prepare for an even higher level. I’ll stick to crushing micro.

Here’s how I’ve progressed from making my playing my first online hands at .5/1 on Party to still playing hands at .5/1 on Party:

- About 2 1/2 years ago, bought into Party for $50 and dropped it all in two nights.
- About a month later, did it again.
- Did the same thing again on UB but this time I saved $9 before busting out.
- Got some NL tips from a friend and started playing $2 NL on UB. Was 3 tabling in no time and ran the $9 to $175 in a couple months.
- Got introduced to bonus whoring. Did a $25 bonus on Party .5/1 by playing only AA, KK and AK. I lost about $7 playing, for an amazing $18 profit.
- Read Phil Helmuth’s book and started playing his “top ten” starting hands. Did another bonus and won money playing poker and earned the bonus. Raise, bet, bet, bet was a very good line to take a lot of the time and is still my favorite.
- Found 2+2. I found a starting hand post by Nottom, and it was the single biggest factor in making me a good poker player. The way he presented the chart was very well done even though he probably spent about 2 minutes coming up with it. There was a very logical progression for me in hand strength from early to late position and it implied a lot of things about postflop play that I picked up on very quickly. I also started reading 2+2 a LOT. I learned how to protect my hand, play pot odds, and how to play big draws on the flop. I have a very solid foundation for playing limit hold ‘em.
- 2 years ago I bought Poker Tracker and after importing my hands I see that I am crushing Party .5/1. I begin adding tables and soon I’m 3-tabling and adding a 4th sometimes.
- I think I got SSHE right after I got Poker Tracker. It’s a great book, but I’ve learned much more from reading the micro-limit forum than I did from reading the book.
- I start noticing lots of guys posting on the boards about how great 6-max is. I won’t play it though because Party only has it at 1/2 and above and I hear variance there is a bitch.
- Party opens .5/1 6-max games. I jump in the day the games open (I’ve never played .5/1 full on Party since). I have a pretty good idea of how to play preflop and I think the rest of it will take care of itself. I get reamed for my first 1,200 hands and I feel lost. I PM droolie about my troubles. I chose him because I had been following along with stories of his struggles shorthanded. He writes me a long response that he didn’t have to, pointing me to a bunch of posts that I had already read and giving me various piece of his own advice. The one thing that I absolutely remember that he wrote was basically telling me to be willing fold to turn checkraises a lot. That statement really put things in perspective for me.
- The next time I played after reading droolie’s PM I had an amazing session. I’ve more or less been there ever since. Until Monday night, when I completely cashed out of Party, 3-tabling Party .5/1 6-max was my online poker home.

So this being a stats post, here they are. If you think I don’t steal enough, or that I’m too loose from the SB, or I fold too much on the river, or I fold to turn checkraises too often, feel free to criticize. I probably won’t listen though, because I’m pretty comfortable with my style and I probably think I’m better than you are. If there are other stats that anyone is interested in seeing, or questions they’d like to ask, I’d be happy to post them or answer. I know this is sappy, but seriously, thank you to all the 2+2ers who have helped me, especially nottom and droolie. I’m sure there are hundreds of others that I’ve learned something from but there’s too many of you to list.





Full ring position stats:


Shorthanded position stats: