newbie goals

[jdl22]

I'm a newbie to Hold'em and I am planning on beginning to play online seriously this year when I get back to school. I was wondering if you guys could help me in setting a reasonable goal for the year. Here is a little backround:

I'm a graduate student studying Economics. My main interest is in Game Theory so I'm somewhat predisposed to the type of thinking necesary in playing poker. I got interested in Poker and especially Hold'em as many others did after watching the WSOP on ESPN. While poker is fairly complicated compared to other common examples of GT like the Prisoners' dilemma and the battle of the sexes, it is very interesting for me. I bought Ken Warren's book and started playing play money tables at pokerroom.com. Doing this I was crushing the tables. Not knowing that meant nothing, I played real money and it vaporized. My ability to read the board was ridiculously poor - I didn't even see the obvious straight or flush draws. There were hands where I got beat by a flush with top pair and wasn't even aware that there were three suited cards on the board. I went away on winter break (where I am now) and so I have been able to play a lot less. I also sought more knowledge so I bought Phil Hellmuth's book (after reading these forums it appears the first two books I bought were maybe two of the worst possible). While I find his strategies a little crazy they can be effective at the right table given the right cards (as virtually every strategy could be I suppose). Using his superaggressive strategy and getting good cards I finished up about $145 in about an hour and a half playing 1-2. However after losing all of this and an extra 20 or so I decided I needed to get more info and I got the Theory of Poker which is a brilliant book, though not specifically for Hold'em and probably too advanced for me in terms of putting the theory to use (but I did find the theory part of the book fascinating). I have since picked up two books and am currently reading them: Winning Low Limit Hold'em and Hold'em Poker (Sklansky). After reading this forum for the last week or so I have opened an account at partypoker which seems to have a lot of players that are even worse than I was when I first started. I started with $100 and am currently up a marginal ammount.

As I said I am looking to set goals for the coming year. I am willing to study the game when I'm not playing it (and there are no pressing midterms etc.) and will probably invest in pokertracker or something similar. I have seen such lofty goals here as turning $100 into $10,000 which I think maybe is a little high, but I may play around 15-20 hours per week when it's not exam time. In addition in the summer I could play even more. Also, should I set weekly or monthly goals or just one big goal?

Thanks for the input.

[jbslow]

My advice is to find a site to start with 0.5/1. You should have 300 BB (big bets) or $300 to play. Don't move up to 1/2 until you have $600. Then don't move up to 2/4 until you have $1200.

A reasonable goal would be to move up a couple of levels - or maybe three (through the whole year).

Get Winning Low Limit Holdem by Lee Jones and read it next (twice or three times). Follow its advice or even be a little tighter (throw away some of the lower hands). Then get Holdem and Advanced Holdem by Mason, in that order. I wouldn't look at your other books again, except maybe some of the other non-holdem chapters of Phil's book.

JB

[spamuell]

[ QUOTE ]
I wouldn't look at your other books again

[/ QUOTE ]

This is rubbish - read everything you can get your hands on and understand why authors differ over certain points and make your own mind up about who is right. If you really want to learn and understand as much as you can about the game, either because that's the best way to win money, or because it's your hobby and you enjoy reading about it, you must read everything about it you can find. If you're ever going to be a winning player, you'll know when something you read is just wrong, and if you don't understand a concept in a book, you've found the place to discuss it.

[jbslow]

I really didn't mean, don't EVER look at the books again (and I certainly wasn't talking about TOP). I just meant, study the books I said first a few times each before you get back to the other books. There are always a few nuggets but the core understanding is in the Jones and 2+2 books.

[Bob T.]

Even if something is grotesquely wrong, and it appears in a book, you want to be familiar with it. If your opponent makes that play, you can guess that he might have got it from that source, and you have some guesses about how he will play other hands.

[Bob T.]

First, get profitable at the lowest level that you can stand playing. For most people, as you have found out, there is a lot of tuition that needs to be paid on the way to becoming a winning player. You may as well pay it, at the lowest level. Once you are winning (I think it would take a minimum of 200 Big bets to demonstrate that you are winning), you can take that money, and try moving up, but if you lose at the higher level, you know that you can move back down and grind it out again at the lower level. You might still be paying tuition, but at least it is with other peoples money /images/graemlins/grin.gif.

The second goal, would be to establish a working bankroll for the limits that you play at. People have different tolerances for risk, the minimum, if you don't want to replenish your bankroll is probably 200 Big Bets, but at that level, you might have to be prepared to move back down if you run poorly for a while. I like to keep my bankroll above 500 so that a shortterm setback doesn't affect the limits that I play.

Finally, making 10,000 in a year from nothing, isn't completely out of the question. Here is what might be possible, if you are a moderately good player. You said that you might play 15-20 hours per week. Let's say that some of the time, you played two tables, so you played 1500 hours per year.

The first couple of months, you played .50/1.00 and averaged 2 big bets per hour. So it took you 200 hours to get to $400.

Then you play 1/2 but your win rate goes down to 1.5 Big bets per hour. You play 300 hours, until you win $600 at that level, and now you have a bankroll of $1000. All this time, you are spending some time studying, and posting.

You move up to 2/4, and now your win rate is only 1 BB per hour, and you play until you have won $800 more. Your bankroll is up to $1800.

You've studied enough, that when you move to 3/6, your win rate doesn't drop appreciably, and you are still at 1 BB per hour. It takes you 200 hours to win $1200 more, and your bankroll reaches $3000.

You've used up 900 of those 1500 hours, but for the last 600 hours you are playing 5-10, and you win 1 BB per hour, you make $6000 and are up to $9000 for the year. It is Christmas break, and you put in an extra 100 hours the last week of the year while you are home, and you end up making $10,000 for the year.

In order to do that, you have to keep making yourself a better and better player, but the win rates I estimated aren't unreasonable, and I believe that there are a lot of players around here that make much more than those numbers.

[bunky9590]

Thats the way I'm doing it jb. Currently at $760.00 now and still at $1-$2. /images/graemlins/grin.gif