A Long Story and a Thank You (Long of course)

[OrangeHeat]

So my story starts four years ago. I had been playing poker for three or four years prior when I decided to play above my bankroll.

I started playing in a pool hall where I worked, had read the books, played religously, and had put myself through college on private games and occasional trips to CT and LV. To make a long story short I got brave/stupid and jumped into a 30/60 game at the Bellagio with a 100 BB bankroll. As you can guess I ran through the 100BB rather easily. With the last few BB's going to four of a kind over my aces full /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Although I knew it was my own stupidity that had put me down to the felt - I decided to swear off poker and concentrate on using my newly acquired engineering degree. I had loved the game from the start, but had suddenly developed a distinct hate for the feeling in my stomach when the last few chips were swiped away.

Ok - Fast forward four years to this Winter. I had acquired a good job, a great wife, house, two kids, dog, etc.. I had completely forgotten the crazy all night games, the challenge of the game, and my old love for it. I had also started to forget my amazing crash at the end.

So my wife and I spring for cable and lo and behold they have poker on the travel channel! As we were watching I tell my wife about the good ole' days and glanced at the full shelf of reading material that had been collecting dust since we moved in.

Being the great wife she is - she says I should play again if I enjoy it. I thought for awhile and remebered the crash at the end and made a promise to myself that if I was going to play poker I was going to do it right - after all you can't take risks when your supporting a family!

So the first thing I did was to dust off the 2+2 collection, supersystem, etc...and study them - not read STUDY. I also decided to keep detailed records this time (an inconvenience in the past).

The amazing thing is that while re-educating myself I had an epiphany - I was a bad player who had long run of good cards at best. I had read the books - but never studied them enough to learn the concepts.

After my re-education and some hours on TTH I decided I would give poker one more shot. I decided to start with $200 from the budget and if I won great and if I lost that was it - forever - period.

So I started at .5/1 in mid May with my $200. I did really well building my BR up to $600 in a fairly short time (I decided 300BB before moving was my credo). Then on to 2/4, 3/6 and now 5/10 in a similar fashion. I have not stopped studying or thinking about poker consciously each day while on this "comeback".

Now I have built my measly $200 up to a comfortable 5.8k and am enjoying playing three 5/10's at night in my spare time.

This is a great result however I think the more important result of this whole story is that I improved my play through study and without false pretenses of knowing it all. Heck I have a lot to learn yet.

Do not be alarmed - no delusions of grandeur here - Poker is strictly an enjoyable challenge that happens to have some monetary benefits.

So to sum my long ramblings - thanks to the WPT for reminding me of my love for poker, thanks to 2+2 for the books, and thanks to the posters here for all of the great posts.

If there was a moral to this story it would be:

Never overestimate your abilties and never stop learning.

Again thanks to all - I am back /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Adam

[banditbdl]

Congratulations and Welcome Back

[SwordFish]

Congratulations on your success. It's interesting to read the path people follow to become a winning player. I think many posters here (including myself) have a similar story. The key point in most is that once a player started reading books, studying and analyzing his own play he progressed into a winner.

SF

[easypete]

OrangeHeat -

Congrats on the success and the comeback.

I've been playing hold'em for a few months now. At first I had a couple of bad sessions, then realized that maybe someone has written a book on the subject. Since then, I've read HFAP, Theory of Poker, Super System, Warren's book, Carson's book, Caro's book of tells, and skimmed through Jones' book. I feel I have a decent understanding of how to play. I play decent short-handed (my weekly game with friends, winning about 80% of time), but have trouble with online games (6-handed and 10-handed). TTH is helping me with this, but my hourly rate is fairly low (about $3 on 1/2 with mixed linup).

I have TTH as well. Sid chews me out a lot about playing connected cards (Brunson's suggestion). They seem to make me more money than most others and I loose less money than others (easy to fold).

I think you make a great point in studying instead of reading. I like the tables in Carson's book. It fits well, I think, with Sklansky's method, but looks like a bunch of memorization that doesn't help with mixing it up in a live game.

I am an engineer as well, so I'm looking for concept rather than memorization. What do you study? What do you suggest for a good method to base success on?

Thanks,
Erik

[OrangeHeat]

Erik,

In general the first thing I studied was starting requirements. I memorized the Sklansky ratings but then I studied the suggestions in HPFAP on the adjustments that re needed for passive/aggressive and loose/tight. The tables are good but you can really get in some trouble if you can't actively take into account your surroundings (i.e. a maniac, someone who is quick to isolate you etc...). Of course sometimes you will fail to make the proper adjustments for the game - but it really reinforces the concepts in HPFAP - this is where tabel time helps.

Mixing it up takes some table time. My general rule is to try and play ABC against those who do not know better and when I am with some trickies I try and play the same situation slightly deifferently throughout the session. For example If I have been getting High unsuited in late position, raising preflop,and then betting the flop even if I miss - I will throw in some hands where I check the flop. I think this best rule here is to have a basic startegy that is flexible. Observant opponents will tag you pretty quickly unless you vary your play.

Since I am a process engineer I tend to like numbers and statistics so I tend to base my success on hard data. I found it very helpful to keep a running record of BB/hour and stdev of BB hour. To differentiate between good/bad play and to keep myself from becoming either over confident or under? confident I chart a number of things so I have visual cues:

1. A bar chart with bb/hour for each session. On this I added a four week running average trendline. I also add a line for my average and ones for 1,2,3 std deviations. When you look at it you can see how your doing short term and also when I start to get sessions good or bad above 1 SD I try and take a close look at them to determine what the root cause was - good or bad (opponents, emotions, tired, lucky etc..).

2. A line chart with my running bb/hour average and stdv. This is a great way to tell where your at. For instance when I first started I had a crazt run of good cards and my bb/hour was up around 3.5. But as the sessions accumulate it normalizes. The nice thing is that you can track with a good sized moving average trendline where you results have been headed. I always like to see my avergae BB/hour stable or trending upwards while I ave my stdv trend downward.

3. This one isn't really statistically significant since it doesnt normalize results for hours played - but I do like to track my bankroll on a graph by session. The nice thing here is you see the swings that are possible and when your on a mediocre losing streak you don't have to panic because you can see other times when you have been there. If you playing consistent length sessions you can tag a trendline on this one too.

I am not sure if all of this is optimal but it has worked for me. If your an engineer your probably benfeit from graphing things - as I learned at my work data doesn't lie.

I hope this helps.

Adam