Is it safe to say I am a loosing player?

[celiboy]

Started playing seriously June 1 at .5/1 and my stats are as follows:

Losses - $65
Sessions - 10 of which 2 winning, 7 loosing and 1 even
Hands - approx 3500 (no pokertracker, tracked manually)
BB/100 - -1.89 (I think my math is right)

Luckily with bonus whoring I am actually up around $60.

Is it too early to tell if I'm a loosing player? I can generally point to one or two hands per night where I am costing myself $3 or $4 each by making marginal plays. So far I am finding that 95% of my decisions are fairly easy and it's the other 5% that make someone a good player. I am very tight as I am seeing 24% of the flops as per my site's internal stat tracker so I am definetly not too loose.

I am 2 tabling but don't feel this is costing me anything as I am usually bored and I can clear bonuses twice as fast. My goal was to play break even poker and make around $200 per month whoring. So far the whoring is on track but the break even poker has yet to happen.

I guess my question is whether or not I should consider myself a looser at this time. I will not drop to .25/.5 simply because it is impossible to clear a bonus at that level. I am still making money due to bonuses.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that I play on Absolute and generally the players appear to be much better than your average Party fish. Flops seen generally are about 35%. I am confident that my win rate would be higher at virtually any other site on the net as AP has a reputation as being a rock fest due to the bonuswhores.

[the_rookie]

Yup sample size is too small. I've played about 15,000 hands and have dropped about 130 Big bets. You'll either adjust to the variance or quit.

If only I had a nickel for everytime I said "I quit poker."

PS, move to Party. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Pov]

Well it's definitely not a certainty that you are a losing player, but it is fairly likely. Guess what? The vast majority of players are losing players. Most winning players probably started out as losing players. You've started out as a losing player at least in short term results, but fortunately for you there are bonuses that basically pay you while you learn. Take advantage of this and with hard work and careful analysis you can become an outright winner to go along with your bonuses.

Take those 5% of hands that were difficult and post them one at a time here or in the Micro forum and get some assistance. Even better, try providing advice for others - attempting to come up with good advice for others forces you to really think about the correctness of a play without being emotionally attached to the results.

Also, don't be totally sure your 95% of easy hands are really correct. They probably are for the most part, but I'm sure we all have little leaks that add up over time that we don't even realize are bad plays. Tiny decisions where we call too much or raise too infrequently.

You're probably somewhat correct about Absolute vs. Party - keep hammering those bonuses and when you get the bankroll, head over to Party and take down their deposit bonus. Whatever you do, and really if you take nothing else away from this forum ever, listen to this. Do NOT move up in limits out of frustration. There is no bankroll killer worse than this and I've seen it over and over again. People lose 50 BB's and decide to try and make it all back in one big rush by jumping up to 3/6 or 5/10. Just don't do it.

[langley11]

Well, as the others said, you haven't played long enough to really do any proper judgement so...

[El Cuchara]

I would recommend Ed Miller's getting started in hold 'em, if you haven't read it already. Use the starting hand charts at the end of the limit section while you play. The hands are ranked similar (if not the same) to sklansky's, but i found Miller's easier to read.also, i'm not familiar with absolut poker, bt if it figures your big blind in you flops seen percentage than 35% is probably a little to high. if it doesn't figure big blind than 35% is pretty high. Poker tracker puts TA at 22% or lower (i think). I would try to get PT asap. just using the demo helped my game alot, even though it's got a 1000 hand cap it helped me realize how loose i was playing.

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
Luckily with bonus whoring I am actually up around $60.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds like you're a winner then.

Stu

[4T25Q85]

1. 24% vpip IS too loose, i believe 18-20% is a good range for a starter.

2. You've been playing for 2 weeks, the amount of knowledge I had in my first two weeks compared to my now 4 months is enormous, i wouldve killed for a -1.89BB then.

3. Move to party or stars

4. Do your homework...coming to this site is an excellent place to begin.

5. STOP SPELLING "LOSE" WITH TWO "O"s!!!
sorry, just a pet peeve and it seems like everybody on here does it.

6. Take my advise with a grain of salt cuz im a n00b too. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[McNeese72]

[ QUOTE ]
5. STOP SPELLING "LOSE" WITH TWO "O"s!!!
sorry, just a pet peeve and it seems like everybody on here does it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Damn! There is someone else with one of the same pet peeves as mine. I try to ignore it but I'll admit it bugs me.

[Spaded]

[ QUOTE ]
Damn! There is someone else with one of the same pet peeves as mine. I try to ignore it but I'll admit it bugs me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I saw so many people spell it "loose" that i thought "loose" was the correct spelling in England or something. You know what i mean? "Honour", "neighbour", "labour", "humour", why not "loose"?

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
5. STOP SPELLING "LOSE" WITH TWO "O"s!!!
sorry, just a pet peeve and it seems like everybody on here does it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Damn! There is someone else with one of the same pet peeves as mine. I try to ignore it but I'll admit it bugs me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't give a crap about people misspelling stuff (I know I do all the time) but yeah, this one bothers me too.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

3500 hands is but a grain of sand in the sahara.

[chipstacks]

I was down $350 at .5/1 at one point when I started playing pokers seriously.

Don't get discouraged, I would suggest playing micro-limits at PokerStars to solidify your game and your confidence. There are much better players at .5/1 then .05/.10 so it's probably not the best place to start out.

You can learn a ton of stuff from books, but you need first hand experience to find out what concepts you are actually using from the books and what you are unknowingly neglecting.

You shouldn't learn from short-term results, but long-term results will tell you if you are making the right decisions. I was a former micro-limit player who successfully made the transition to .5/1, don't rush it.

[LetYouDown]

You're both loosers.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
You're both loosers.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's because they play so lose at the poker table.

[McNeese72]

[ QUOTE ]
You're both loosers.

[/ QUOTE ]

But I'm trying to play tighter! Honestly! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
Started playing seriously June 1 at .5/1 and my stats are as follows:

Losses - $65
Sessions - 10 of which 2 winning, 7 loosing and 1 even
Hands - approx 3500 (no pokertracker, tracked manually)
BB/100 - -1.89 (I think my math is right)

[/ QUOTE ]
After 3500 hands your standard deviation should be about 90 BB = $90. About 1 time in 6, you should be $90 below normal. About 1 time in 40, you should be $180 below normal. You should not rule out the possibility that you are not a loser.

On the other hand, the $0.50-$1 game is really soft, and a good player should win a lot in it. While you might be a break-even player, your results are strong evidence that you are not a good player yet.

That's good, though. It would be a shame if you could figure out the game in a couple of weeks.

[ QUOTE ]
So far I am finding that 95% of my decisions are fairly easy and it's the other 5% that make someone a good player.

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, I bet you are getting many of those "easy" decisions wrong. As you learn more, you should rethink many situations you now call easy.

[celiboy]

[ QUOTE ]
1. 24% vpip IS too loose, i believe 18-20% is a good range for a starter.

2. You've been playing for 2 weeks, the amount of knowledge I had in my first two weeks compared to my now 4 months is enormous, i wouldve killed for a -1.89BB then.

3. Move to party or stars

4. Do your homework...coming to this site is an excellent place to begin.

5. STOP SPELLING "LOSE" WITH TWO "O"s!!!
sorry, just a pet peeve and it seems like everybody on here does it.

6. Take my advise with a grain of salt cuz im a n00b too. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps I wasn't clear, but I am seeing 24% of the flops from all positions, so this would probably be a 18 or 19% VPIP. Absolute is 9 handed so perhaps this is still a bit too high

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
After 3500 hands your standard deviation should be about 90 BB = $90. About 1 time in 6, you should be $90 below normal. About 1 time in 40, you should be $180 below normal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you help me understand how you got these numbers? I'm somewhat familiar with the normal distribution, such as one would learn about it in a basic college stats class, so you don't need to go back and define SD/sigma or mean/EV/mu or anything. I'm just curious how the 3500 hand number plays in.

TIA.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
After 3500 hands your standard deviation should be about 90 BB = $90. About 1 time in 6, you should be $90 below normal. About 1 time in 40, you should be $180 below normal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you help me understand how you got these numbers? ... I'm just curious how the 3500 hand number plays in.


[/ QUOTE ]
With a standard deviation of about 15 BB/100, the standard deviation after n*100 hands is about squareroot(n)*15 BB. Sqrt(35)~6, and 6*15 = 90.

[Grinder]

You have to realize that a $10 loosing streak is nothing when you leave the table +$30. Best advise I can give is that focus on your game and quit trying to berate everyone else. it is very juvenile