Bad poker mental makeup?

[JohnMo]

Basics:
-Limit only grinder
-I'm patiently grinding $2 into $200 moving from .05/.10 to .25/.50 over 21k hands and 1 year. (I'm in no rush)
-I always leave the table after UTG to maximize free hands and sometimes, when I'm ready to leave, and I'm in MP, I'm praying not to get a marginally playble hand (like 66) as I don't want to lose my gains. I obv play the hand if +ev.
-I'm constantly obsessing over my current banroll vs. high watermark (ie., I'm at 207 but my high was 220 last week.
-Stats are 23/8.4/1.7 and 3.5 BB/100

My question is, will I ever stop being BR nit and get over this and just play the hand in front of me? Can this attitude win at higher stakes? I want to move up as BR allows.

[mce86]

If you're a limit player, Id say you limp too much.
If you're up to 207, looks like youve done a good job. Also, Id guess by your 1.7, you may call too much after the flop. Start raising more.
Keep being a BR nit, but you have to start playing playable hands, such as your medium pokets, etc.
If you're beating the level your at, your doing okay. But 21000 hands per year..is not all that much. Play more!

[El_Hombre_Grande]

Preflop raise more.

Nothing you've said would make it impossible for you to succeed at much higher stakes. But just know that you sound like you have nittish tendencies, which someday may cause problems if you can't adjust. but at the levels you are at, "tight is right," and hands like 66 are being played for set value.

[AaronBrown]

Poker is supposed to be fun, and it doesn't sound like you're having any. Someone might enjoy the kind of poker you play, I know a guy who set up 10,000 dominoes in a pattern, then knocked them down. Another guy built his World of Warcraft character up to a high level with hundreds of hours of drone play. Plenty of people play solitaire for no money at all. If those things make them happy, making a penny a hand could be your hobby. But it just doesn't sound as if that's it. If you had turned $200,000 into $20 million, I'd say you were getting paid for your trouble, but $198 per year is tough to live on.

I think you should first decide if you want to play poker. If you do, you're going to have to start over. Your 21,000 hands will have taught you something about the odds (probably only the odds in hold'em), but that's the easiest part of the game. I'm sorry to say that you've mostly wasted your time trying if you've been trying to learn poker by micro-limit grinding. It's like trying to learn how to read by practicing identifying one letter over and over.

[JohnMo]

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If you're a limit player, Id say you limp too much.
But 21000 hands per year..is not all that much. Play more!

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You're right, I kept this in mind and did well last night thanks. As for playing time, I have a young family, and I play poker last. Everyone's in bed and work is done.

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Preflop raise more.

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Thanks for the tip, I will.

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Poker is supposed to be fun, and it doesn't sound like you're having any.

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This is a hobby for me and I love it. I didn't mean to sound like a downer, just trying to see if "Once a bankroll hand wringer, always a BR hand wringer" or if I will loosen up

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$198 per year is tough to live on...I'm sorry to say that you've mostly wasted your time trying if you've been trying to learn poker by micro-limit grinding.


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Poker is a hobby that I hope to get better at with practice. Not my job. "Wasting my time grinding", are you kidding? What percentage of online players made money over the last 12 months? Even my measly $200 (actually 212 now woohoo!) puts me ahead of 80% of the No-Limit degenerates currently online. Most of my buddies reload every few months. Why? My BR will allow me to move up soon. I'd rather learn at .25/50 than at 3/6.

[DeliciousBass]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is a hobby that I hope to get better at with practice. Not my job. "Wasting my time grinding", are you kidding? What percentage of online players made money over the last 12 months? Even my measly $200 (actually 212 now woohoo!) puts me ahead of 80% of the No-Limit degenerates currently online. Most of my buddies reload every few months. Why? My BR will allow me to move up soon. I'd rather learn at .25/50 than at 3/6.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't mean to nitpick (that being said here comes both the nitting and picking). The poker players that make up these forums are not representative of online poker players as a whole.

To refocus though, you asked the question as to whether or not you had a bad poker mental makeup (The cliff note answer is: Potentially). You received some sound advice and looks like you were pretty open to it. While it might come across as insulting, Aaron's making a pretty intelligent point here...I don't think he's trying to rag on you.

The micros is the place to start learning the game IMHO. You start to become more comfortable with starting hands, odds, etc and you don't have to risk the farm to do it. But the fact of the matter is, there simply aren't a lot of skilled players grinding it out and the nickel/dime tables. The competion is too weak to start understanding the more subtle points of the game.

There is always more learning to do it and part of that comes from moving up (and facing a higher quality of opponent) and that comes from being comfortable at the level you move up to. You've been able to multiple your BR by 100X so I guess the question is, "Why are you obsessing over the fact that had $220 but now it's only $207?" If it really is something that troubles you, cash out...leave ten bucks in there and enjoy rebuilding.

There's nothing wrong with that. It's perfectly okay to do. I spent a pre-UIEGA year learning, grinding, moving, and cashing out...I try and play for the same reasons you state. I left the game for a while following our government's stroke of genius and have recently returned and built a forgotten $4 and $33 tourney credit BoDog account back to $95/$88 in a month of STT/MTT play.

It's fun, I enjoy it and I'll save my 3/6 play for the occassional trip to AC. But in limiting myself I do so with the understanding that I limit my poker education.