I'm at the top of my game. Here's whats going on, and I still have ??

[h_ven]

Right now I feel like I'm at the top of my poker game. Of course I would feel that way since I just won a $35,000 R&A at ParadisePoker and just started playing limit, and played it successfully.

If you don't want to read the little story, please read the question at the bottom.

Just to tell you whats been going on.

I needed to play 2500 raked hands at empirepoker so they would give me a deposit bonus and match my $500 deposit. I never really played that much limit before. So, I started at the 1/2 (6 max) so I could get more hands in. Right away I started winning and saw how horrible of players they were. I was up roughly $200 in appox. 500 hands or so.

I tryed out the 3/6 and lost down to $250.

I was pissed, so I sat down at the $200 NL. Sat tight around for several times, got 22 in EP almost folded but decided to call. 5 players, flop was 9 T 2
I check, check, LP bets $8, everyone calles I raise to $40.

Get one caller turn in a Q, i go all in, get called, turn in another Q

(trust me, I did fear and 8 J)

2 T 9 Q Q

I show dueces full
he shows 9 T and I win about a $370 pot.

bankroll =$500!!! back to even.

I play stricly 1/2 (6 max)
get my bankroll up to $900, get the $500 bonus
$1400, most i've hand in and online accound.
cash out $1,000
play 5/10 for 2 or 3 days and get my ass kicked and lose all $400.
I no I should have kept playing the 1/2 (6 max) but I thought it was kinda boring. I think Im gonna go back to it since there is so many fish at Partypoker.


So, I have a decent bankroll now.

I go to the local bar and play some 1/2 blinds $20 max bet.
I'm up about $200 and when I get KK in LP i re-raise my buddy at the table. He calls and the flop is 8 high. I bet $20 all the way down and he calls. The river was a 10 which gave him trip 10's
I loose a good portion of my stack. But that didnt' make me too mad cause I still made about $50.

Then we went out and hand a good time... thats probly for another forum or something

That was the friday night after I cashed out my $1,000. Then Sat comes along and I dont' fell like doing anything, still a little hungover and 8:00 and only have one beer that night.

Sunday morning rolls around and I play a $3 sat. for the $35,000 R&A that night. I miss it by one seat and win something like $0.05!! lol

So i'm bored sunday night at about 7, so I buy in directly for $30 in the tourney. I sit tight and win several pots before the 1st break. At about the 2nd break im in the top 10.

I get down to about 50th place about halfway through the 3rd setting. I get QQ, with about 40K chips and get all in preflop vs. AK

flop was A K X
[censored] i say, turn in blank
and river was a QUEEN!!!!

i double up and am sitting back in the top 10 I think.

Well anyways i take a chip lead at the final table with about 8 people left and win back to back pots of $400K and then an $800K from the chip leader.

Heads up I have about $1.5MIL vs. $500K

I get QJo and he goes all in, I fold.
severl hands later I get QJo and he goes all in, I call.
flop was JJX
no tens come, i win $9,015

I had never been so nervous playing poker before, playing heads up for about $4,500.

If you want to hear the rest of the details I would love to tell you some more of the hands, like the other times when i had AK and QQ, they saved my ass throughout the tourney.

So now that I have a nice bankroll and can comfortably play NL and Limit I want to even take my game to the next level.


I want to be able to read people better while playing online poker. What do you look for?
One of the main things I look for is what peoople raise with.

I love it when I see people raise with QJ QT and other [censored] like that.

Just today at the 3/6 on paradise some fish that took all my money raised with Q T in EP and won a nice sized pot.

he raised again in EP and i have AQo on the button
flop was Q 9 9
he checks i bet, call
Q 9 9 X(suits don't matter)
he checks, i bet, re-raise..... it get capped.
Q 9 9 X X
he bets i call with A Q
he shows 9 T and wins a nice one

later on, same guy raises, in EP, i have K 9 clubs on the button, i re-raise he calls
flop is A high, he checks i bet, call
turn was nothing either
anyway, i fold and he shows A To

Then I play at the $200 NL and make a bad play because of one of my weaknesses
I can get rattled easy sometimes and prett much go on Tilt.

I just lose about $30 one hand and then type on the message screen, "Im on tilt" then i raise $10 with A9spades the very next hand
bet after the no-help-flop and get re-raised. fold.

Then i get JJ in LP and raise $10
button raises me to $35 so i re-raise to $50, he calles
flop is K high, he goes all in i call with my last few bucs and he shows AA.

No way I would put all my chips in with JJ any other time. I just get pissed and lose control and put my money on marginal hands I woulnd't do any other time when i'm in a good state of mind.


Ok, here are some questions I have on how to take my game up to the next level. Ok, here are some questions I have on how to take my game up to the next level.

What else do I need to look for when trying to read players at an online poker table.
...How many pots they are in
...What they raise with
...If they can fold on the river
...And how do I put these all together so it can help me win more money?

What limits should i be playing?? I here that there is fish all the was up to the 5/10 at partypoker, is that too high for me? Or just do what I think is comfortable.

What exactly does +EV stand for?

on my pokertracker, how come I'm in the green with AA AK AKs AQ AJs AJ AT and ATs and not AQs? I haven't realy lost a huge pot with that hand, is that just because a lack of hands or what?

Is that what positive EV is?

Thanks for reading my questions and if you read my little two week poker story, sorry if it was boring, and if you want to no more about my $35,000 tourney I would like to tell you about it.

Also, any more information that would be helpfull, I would love to hear, thanks for your time and thanks for all the posts on my tax question.

[Ponks]

Congrats on the tourney.

EV = Expected Value
+EV = Goodtimes

[ewile]

my advice to you is SLOW DOWN NOW! YOu are on the road to disaster. YOu did well to win all that money. Now hise it from yourself untill you learn the game a little better and untill you can learn to controll your emotions a little better.

Do NOT try to play 5/10 on PArty Poker. You'll get your ass handed to you.

Use your poker tracker to monitor your performance at 2/4 or 3/6 to make sure that you really can beat those games over a long time like 100 hours.

Keep playing those low buy in tourneys and sattelites to bigger ones and see how you do over time.

I'm going to stop and see what others say, but my immedate reactionto your post, was "wow, he needs to chill out or he's going to blow $9,000"

[Mikey2k4]

I would cash some of your winnings out. Spend it on something nice for yourself. If you want to, you could always get a nice monitor for your computer or something. Invest in Poker Tracker, too.

Play on some 3/6 or something until you're consistently beating it. Slow down a bit and make sure that you can keep this sustainable. Otherwise, you might just flash in and right out again.

[Cosimo]

You are not at the top of your game. You just got very lucky. If you think that you played extremely well, and that the reason that you won is because of skill, then you need to slow down. No-one is that good that quickly. It took months of study and play for the greats in this forum to get where they are. There are MIT grads, PhDs, and non-college-educated geniuses in this forum who have paid their dues. There are other hard-working, studious folk that have put in the hours.

You are not likely to be a better player than them. If you think you are, you are due for a hard fall. Put in the hours; prove that you are a long-term winner.

Think of your emotional well-being first. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[h_ven]

Hey Cosimo,

Thanks for your response. I think it may have seemed like that was the 1st time I had cashed out, or that I had just started playing poker. Well... I did just startplaying last fall, so almost a year. So, ya I am still a beginner.
Your right, I know I'm not a better player then all of the tops guys on 2+2.
Thanks, I think I do need to be more emotionally stable. thanks for your response buddy.

And thanks for the other responses, your right, I do need to slow down!!

[Cosimo]

Wow, I reread my post, and it seems kind of harsh. I guess I didn't mean it to be, but then again.... It's important to not get too cocky. If it takes a kick in the balls to come down, then maybe it's worth it. Not knowing more about you, I didn't know how best to phrase what I wanted to say. /images/graemlins/blush.gif

I play between 600 and 1100 hands in a session, 7 days a week minus occasional days off. My daily swings over the last 27 days have ranged from -57BB to +72BB. I consider that normal. A really strong run over a couple thousand hands is nothing. It takes 10,000 hands for a winning player to have a good chance of being ahead. It takes 100,000 hands for a player to have a good idea of what his win rate is.

I'm glad this forum is here; I've learned so much.

[krazyace5]

I would cash out alot of my winnings and use some of it to buy some poker books.

[Frogger]

Hmm.. That was a little harsh Krazyace. He has to be a decent player in order to get that far in any tournament and do well in the 1/2 6 max at party poker. From his post, the assumption that I made is that he needs to control bankroll a little better. Re-read or read if you haven't some of the posts on bankroll building and preservation. It helped me a lot too.

If you don't already have TPFAP or HPFAP or Supersystem, buy them now. They are must haves definitely. If you play a lot of live poker, you must buy Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells. I also understand that a Low Limit book from 2+2 is coming out soon. I'm going to grab that the second it comes of the presses.

[krazyace5]

Sorry if that sounded like I was being a jerk. I meant I would take out a nice chunk of the winnings and bank them or buy something nice. And since it sounded like he was a newer player I thought he should get some good books. Was not trying to knock his game at all. Sounds like he is doing great, just dont want him to jump up in limits to high and to fast and lose that huge roll.

Besides I am just a low limit player so I can't afford to knock anyones game, lol.