Re: Humble Pie
This year has not been great for me either. After becoming confident in my ability to beat $10+1 sngs at Party, I decided that the new year would be a nice time to make my jump to the next level. Well, the $30+3s have not been going so well and after taking about a $250 loss (and me not being very rich in the first place), I have decided to move back down again.
I recently posted about this in the $10+1 vs 30+3 opinions thread, and still find myself thinking about it. I know I am good enough to beat that game. Or, I guess I don't know, but I really thought that I was.
I wonder a lot also about the posts claiming a $20/hr win rate. I have no doubt that some players on here can do it, but at other times I am sceptical. To be honest, when it started to become clear a few months ago that I was winning at all, I did a little dance for joy everyday. When it became clear that I could make as much as $5/hr I did an even bigger dance for joy. I'll never work for minimum wage again! That sounds silly to some who never have worked for minimum wage, or who could go get a $20/hr job in a minute, but I'm not so sure that I can (I majored in Philosophy and still have a semester and a half to finish my degree).
Since Nov 17, poker has been my only source of income and I was seriously underfunded to begin this venture. My goal was simply to make $4/hr. Again, I know that sounds silly but I was playing poker and things could only get better, right?
Well, this past three weeks has been painful. I am not as good as I thought I was (yes I am, yes I am, yes I am...), and I have now cut into half my bankroll as a result of my little $30+3 decision.
What's more, I am discovering that playing poker for minimum wage is not much fun. twice now, I have not left the house for over four days and I find that my bathing frequency has gone down. This has not been glamourous and feels a lot like work. Furthermore, baking donuts and flipping burgers never runs the risk of losing money.
I should start a business where all my employees make hourly wage +/- 15hrs wages standard deviation at the end of the day. "Uh Oh Bob, pretty unlucky today. Looks like you owe me again. Good job though"
Oh well. I am getting off track from your original post and just venting about this new "life" of mine.
As for a strategy, I am trying to write a short summary of my general $10+1 playing strategy. To be honest, it is almost robotic at this point and requires no creativity at all. I just follow a plan. That will not work at the higher levels but I know it works there. Be patient then and I will post it one day soon. I'd be interested to hear what the good players have to say about it.
I will say this also. Sometimes, at the low limits, I think reading too much and listening too much to what the good players say here can actually HURT your game. It is not that it is wrong, but I think that playing hands their way sometimes requires more skill than we all have.
Take hands like A9s-A2s or small suited connectors. Good players can make these hands +EV because they are good players. I want to be a good player, but more than this, I want to be a winning player. As a result, these hands almost never play for me. In a NL ring game, I play about 20 hands and nothing else. The other hands can have the potential for +EV, but I just don't play them well enough. I like hands that make my decisions for me (at least at this stage of my development).
I read an article once about how a player will often experience worse results as he/she begins to learn more as they cannot properly apply the info. You may be in the unique position of starting where others only get after a couple years. I don't really know.
Anyways, I liked your post.
Regards,
Brad S
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