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Another year on the game - the ups and downs of a poker virgin
harding10
Member Posts: 849
27th February 2010 I played my first ever game of poker. I'd watched a bit whilst flicking through channels at night and fancied a go. Had a check on-line and read something that recommended Sky as a sensible site for beginners
I'm a most unlikely gambler, best described as careful where money's concerned, so I started out with a whole £5 deposit.
Things didn't begin well. I mixed up my log-in and table alias during registration, then sat down and played 3 nlhe 30p sit & go's in quick succession and went out of all 3 early. I went away,thought about how I'd played and managed to come back the next night and win one.
Switched then to 30p DYM's and freerolls, and over 2 months I played well enough to lose very slowly but by the end of April I'd reached a point where if I lost the next game I only had 10p left in my account. I cashed in that one, and then over another 2 months micro DYM's I'd almost got back to my £5. Made my first final table in a freeroll shortly afterwards, followed quickly by cashing in a Tuesday night Open having had a courtesy free entry.
Made some steady mtt progress from there up until the middle of October, where in a short space of time I had my first mtt win in a £20 guaranteed and final tabled a Monday night Tikay and a £2.20 deepstack. and I thought at that point I'd made it, I was now a good player, people would fold to any raise I made and winning would become easy. At least I can look back now and laugh. After 3 weeks of playing with this belief I hadn't won another penny, I'd blown 40% of the winnings in my account, and my confidence had gone completely. By early December I was back to playing 30p DYM's and freerolls and still losing money.
Eventually things turned around and since Christmas I've been more consistent in mtt's, and also started making a small profit on the DYM's I play on nights I don't have time to fit in a mtt. The DYM improvement has been greatly helped by Irishrovers Sharkscope blog. Up until that point the stt's had been roughly break even but now i'm cashing more regularly at higher buy-ins.
It's been a challenge learning the basics of the game, but in an enjoyable way, and over 429 games I've managed to gradually push my original £5 to just over £120, £70 of which has come since Christmas. It's been a steady curve due to some basic bank roll management, but I'm quite proud of my year as a beginner, and hopefully the coming year will bring some more improvements.
Robin
Comments
I think you,ll have another good year as your BR management seems spot on -GL
Great end of first year bonus last night winning one of those monitors.
)
I'm liking it here, I think I'll stay.
I reckon one of the mods has read this, laughed, and pushed the doom button. Haven't cashed in any mtt in March and winning even 2 dym's in a row has been rare.
I'm considering withdrawing back down to £50 and playing for £2 tourneys tops for a while and hopefully rebuilding from there. My playing time will be cut pretty short once the clocks alter. 3 kids + farm + garden will keep me busy til dark on a lot of nights. (not that I'm much of a gardener but there's plenty of grass to cut)
After starting off winning the monitor I had 5 months of struggle, 3 months losing and 2 barely break even. I did then win a cheapstack in August but that owed more to luck than skill with several bad beats inflicted along the way. With a bit of a boost to the account I then had my first try at cash, but was break even at nl4 rather than profitable.
Having finished my first year well, at the time I believed that what happened through this period was down to bad luck. I've come to realise as I've worked at my game through this winter that I wasn't as good a player as I thought I was, and that a more likely explanation was that I had been lucky to get to £120 in the first place.
And I have put more work into my game through this winter than I had before. More volume through finding it easier to multitable cash than I had stt's, going from picking up less than 100 poker points a month to over 500. More time spent reading clinic posts and other tips throughout the forum.
I've found some of the leaks in my game, worked out some solutions, and have a much better understanding of some of the basics. It's not all been plain sailing, but I've been the right side of break even each month for the last 7 months and am up £250 in that time. Since Christmas I've moved fairly comfortably through nl4 and been making a reasonable start at nl8 and nl10.
I've finished my second year without needing to deposit at all, I'm up by just over £300 plus a computer monitor over my 2 years playing, and I'm a better player today than I was a year ago.
I've made 2 withdrawals over the year, one before Christmas when I felt I'd got ahead of myself again and needed to drop back to work a few things out, and another this week. It's helped my wife's view of the game no end to see a little bit of money come from it.
This weeks withdrawal has been about lifestyle. I've put a lot of time into my game through the darker winter evenings but my push to improve my cash game has become a bit too much for me as a recreational player. I've withdrawn to back under a £100 BR and am going to go back to enjoy being an occaisional mtt player for a while and enjoy some outdoor hobbies.
Come the autumn, when the nights draw in again, maybe I'll have another push and see if I can get to nl20.
you seem to have the right balance
good luck
I've never managed to set the world alight, but still never bust the original deposit. I'm a little over a grand up, the exact figure used to matter but I lost track.
I like to think I've learnt a bit about the game along the way, but know I have limitations I can't seem to get beyond.
Currently play mostly cash at nl10 where I can sit in to suit myself, rarely seem to play mtt's at the moment.
I've had long spells where I've played very little or not at all, and times where I've nearly cashed out and quit completely.
I know I can't take the game too seriously or other aspects of my life suffer for it, but it's nice to sit in and play for a bit of fun at times. I know I struggle to cope with the size of the swings as the buy-ins get bigger.
But most of the time I can simply enjoy a game of poker
That's a terrific tale @harding10 , thoroughly enjoyed that.
Very well done, too, such honesty, and you clearly enjoy the challenge and look at your results realistically.
Best story on here I can recall in a while.
That , for most of us, Is what it is all about.
Well done, carry on enjoying it.
Nick