How long does it take to figure out if I suck?

[Sterno]

I do quite well in the weekly home game, and I've read a few poker books and various websites, but I'm still easily a poker newbie. Last night I decided to give it a go on Paradise Poker with a $200 buy-in. After 1000 hands on the $1/$2 table, I'm down about $20, which is -1BB/100 hands. I didn't have any terribly large swings... I was probably always +/-40 of $200. This doesn't seem particularly awful for a beginner, but it's not very encouraging either.

I had started out one one of the 10-man tables that only had 5 people on it, and I was quite successful in pushing people around and stealing blinds due to the number of weak-tight players there. I was concentrating my play to make sure I was accounting for pot-odds and not seeing the flop if I had a crap hand.

Later on, the table filled up to 10 and I wasn't doing very well. I had been up about $230, and when I got down to $190 I decided to head to one of the 5-man tables, since I had been more successful with smaller numbers. Most of the night consisted of me flopping high pair or two pair and getting flushed out at the river, despite aggressively betting my good hands.

I understand I might have had a run of poor luck. I also might have just been playing some good hands poorly so that I didn't get full value from them. What I'm wondering now, since I'm technically up $30 due to the 25% bonus Paradise gives to your first buy-in, is whether I should jump ship now or if I should keep at it.

[lu_hawk]

Start at the lowest limits, the games are easier and you won't lose as much while you're still learning. And if you lost 10BB over 1000 hands that doesn't mean anything.

[sfer]

There's no way to tell over just a handful of hands. Post some hands, explain your thought processes, and we'll add our $0.02. Honestly, we all sucked starting out so if you want to play well you just have to be committed to it.

Welcome aboard.

[RED_RAIN]

[ QUOTE ]
There's no way to tell over just a handful of hands. Post some hands, explain your thought processes, and we'll add our $0.02. Honestly, we all sucked starting out so if you want to play well you just have to be committed to it.

Welcome aboard.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I've lost one day since the first time I started playing limit 24 days ago and that day was because I only got to play like 100 hands. Just playing around. (What a cock I'm sure you're thinking)

Well if I were you I'd start at $0.5/$1 if you are new to limit. I'm sure your home game is NL. I started the same way with a NL home game where I did great but limit is way different.

The $1/$2 party game plays weird in my opinion. I'd stick with $0.5/$1 and get the bank to do $2/$4 once you think you got your game down. At $0.5/$1 you know you got your game down when you are at around 3.5 BB/100 over at least 10,000 hands at the low end. I'm over 5 BB/100 over 13,000 hands and just play this while I play 1 of $2/$4 to keep the bankroll moving up.

I don't think you will know that you suck until you lose 300 BBs at your level or over 10,000 hands.

Welcome to the boards. These boards will help your play a lot and keep you from asking your other friends all the time questions that are commonly asked here.

[Freudian]

I don't see any reason to fear Party 1/2. Plenty of good tables there. Pokerstars 1/2 otoh can be horribly tight.

[MicroBob]

what everybody else said (mostly)...


i've lost far more BB's over 1000 hand stretches several times.

i've been doing quite well over my last 30k hands and i' still not convinced because i know i've had a couple of streaks in there where i got some amazing cards.
my skill certainly has something to do with my win-rate....but it's hard to lose too much when you have as many hot-streaks as i have had lately of hitting virtually every set, etc etc.


your win-rate after 1k hands hardly means a thing.
virtually even play after 1k hands could mean you are great player with a medicore run of cards (hardly likely for a newbie)...or it could just as easily mean that you are a lousy player but have caught some good cards.


post some hands and you will learn much more as to what holes you need to plug...and whether you are generally playing a solid, winning game.

[Sterno]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I went back down to $.5/$1 and made about $40 yesterday over the course of 2 hours. This is well within the swing I was seeing before, but it certainly didn't hurt my confidence to be positive again. I'm not sure how much of it had to do with the lower limit and how much had to do with the fact that I was playing at a 10-man table instead of a 5-man. I think I'd better stay away from the 5-man until I've gotten a lot better. Too easy for one good player to push me around in there.

So far my biggest weakness is that I believe too many people are bluffing, when really they just called a 3-bet pre-flop on crap like 26o and ended up catching a straight on the turn or river. I need to drill it through my head that a lot of these people just play crap cards, but don't often bluff. I even had to put a few player notes on people that said, "STOP THINKING HE'S BLUFFING". /images/graemlins/wink.gif

I'm sure I'll be posting some hands on here in the future. Thanks again!