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My First Year of Limit Poker (long)

September 1st will mark my first year of serious limit poker, so here's one of those summation posts that people tend to make at such milestones. I'll try not to drag on too long.

My poker history before last September runs roughly like this:

- Lots of dealer's choice penny poker as a kid at family gatherings, in addtion to other games like 500, Euchre, Spades, Rummy, Sheepshead, Cribbage, etc.
- Some dime/quarter poker in high school, eventually ranging into dollar poker at times
- Fascination with poker spawned at the hands of the usual two sources for people my age: Rounders and the 2003 WSOP
- Find 2+2 end of 2003 / beginning of 2004, lurk for months until finally signing up to mostly lurk anyways
- Several months in 2004 of occasionally buying in to Party with $100 and donking in some SNGs, not knowing sh[/i]it about sh[/i]it and losing it eventually. This was maybe 3 or 4 times.

On the fourth time I finally had some success at the $30 3-table NL SNGs they had and fancied myself a poker player. Then I lost it back to about $100. I'd heard that limit was something easier to "learn" than NL, so I told myself I was going to rededicate myself to limit and see how I did.

Once I moved to limit and found myself winning, I realized that it might be something I'd want to do, at least as a large, time-consuming hobby. I wasn't sure how my family and friends would react. I spent all of September and October grinding at .5/1 and 1/2 I believe, trying to build up a large enough sample size to show that yes, I was a winning player. By the end of September or so, I'd told a few friends who were very supportive. I told my ex, a girl who I'd dated for 3 years on and off and had just broken up with but was trying to remain friends with, and she didn't support it much at all.

By Thanksgiving, I prepared to tell my family. I actually put together a big binder of info, including photocopied pages from SSH, TOP, HEFAP, ITPM, among others, along with tons of graphs and PT stats. I think my Dad nearly had a heart attack when I said "I have something to talk to you about..." but I think all my over-the-top prep helped him worry less. He's somewhat proud of it now, as is my grandfather and uncle, while most of the females in my family still worry a fair bit.

After that, I worked my way to 2/4 and 3/6 by December. I had a bankroll of $1800 and had withdrawn money on top of that, including a big chunk to fix my car. At Christmas, I did something pretty stupid -- I cashed out down to $300 to pay some bills, buy presents, and to give me a little cushion money-wise. So I started over, and worked my way back up again -- but took pretty much all of January and even a bit of February off.

By May/June I think I was back to 3/6 full, 4-tabling. I've never had a great win-rate, but it was enough to cash spending money out. I frequently distracted myself though with other projects, things like the OIC, etc. I didn't get as many hands in as I should have, and I certainly didn't work on my game much at all. I was largely auto-piloting.

In June I had planned to go on the big Vegas trip, but my grandfather had carotid artery surgery. I played a lot in the first half of the month, and then took about 6 weeks off between my grandfather and other personal stuff.

Late July, I return to find jason_t and s0ma forming a team to dredge lakes in search of my corpse, and also to see all the 3/6 full games dried up in favor of 6m. I'd tried 5/10 6m in the spring and found myself pretty lost, but this was the excuse I needed to finally go shorthanded. I played a bit at 2/4 to warm up, then switched to 3/6 6m this month. Then to 5/10 6m, where I did real well for 15k hands and real bad for 5k hands. Back to 3/6 6m, and now I'm splitting time between them for awhile, until this month's rakeback comes in. When that happens I should have about 700 BBs for 5/10 6m. The plan is to rededicate myself to learning the game, devouring HUSH archives like they were candy, reviewing hands, exercising better table selection, etc etc etc.

I have a full year of college left in front of me, after which I'm probably moving with a buddy of mine from high school to NYC, Cali or possibly Vegas (where we go is determined by whether he wants to do grad school, and if so where). I'm hoping that with some hard work I can be soundly beating the 10/20 6m by then, but with poker, who knows. I have a lot of holes to fill. I'd like to be able to play poker for a couple years to support myself after college while I try to make it as a writer, but I'm not going to count on it.

Some quick words on three "challenges" I have taken part in, and two coming up in the future:

Open Challenge (hands challenge): This was something I had trouble doing, not because I have trouble getting the hands in but because I frankly just stopped paying attention sometimes. I think it is a fantastic challenge for beginners especially. It takes the focus off of your results and puts it on the hand count. On the other hand, focusing on grinding out the hands can sometimes make you pay less attention to your play or burn you out. It's worth doing, just be careful you're not overextending yourself when you sign up.

Open Internet Challenge (pyramiding challenge): I don't know who first did this but I know sthief was the first guy I saw posting about it. It's where you start with 25 BBs and once you earn 25 BBs for the next level up, you move up. Harv did very well with this, if I remember correctly. I tried it twice: the first time I was mostly stuck in the 2/4 - 3/6 regions. The second time, I luckboxed my way to 15/30, then dropped back to 5/10, then back to 15/30. I actually had the win locked up at 15/30 and was ready to move to 30/60, but I'm a huge nit and decided to wait until the BB came around before sitting out. I ended up getting AA or AK or KK, lost a hand, and before long was back at 5/10, then 3/6. I quit at that point because that was just way too insane for me at the time.

ADHOC (All Day Hold'em Obsessive Challenge): Praise be to bisonbison for this challenge. 24 hours of poker is really nuts. It is fun in it's on masochistic way. If you're already a grinder, I don't suggest doing this as most people end up taking a week break afterwards. If you like stupid challenges, it's fun.

The two challenges in the future are getting to Vegas for a 2p2 group (ticket bought for Nov. 4, be there) and a Schneids/gonores like challenge yet to be determined. If 5/10 6m goes well, a $30k in 60 days challenge is a possibility over winter break. I'm a pretty mediocre player, but the one thing I have going for me is the ability to be mediocre at multiple tables for long periods of time without wanting to shoot myself in the head. I'd imagine I'd be relying on a large number of hands played to complete such a challenge, unless I'm able to really improve before then. Either way, I think it'd be fun (again, in a masochistic kind of way), and I'd be counting rakeback, which would help.

I'm really surprised both at how much and how little has changed in a year. Over the last year, I've bought 30+ pokers books and read them all (some multiple times), played at a B&M three or four times, gone from fish to a (mediocre) winner, bought 2 2001FPs to support my multitabling, made more than 1700 posts on here (most of which suck), and have gotten to know some cool people. On the other hand, when it comes to discussing poker, I still regularly feel like the dumb kid in the class. Some things never change.

To wrap up, I want to thank pretty much all the regular contributors to Micro, SS, HUSH, and that great bastion of entertainment, OOT. I feel pretty fortunate to have been around while some of the older posters were still contributing on a daily (or at least regular) basis -- guys like bisonbison, Joe Tall, CDC, sfer, sthief, Evan, GoT, scrub, bakku, Schneids, gonores, etc etc the list goes on. Just seeing how serious and solid the discussions such players had when I was beginning helped me realize how serious one has to be about poker to do well, even if I didn't always understand what was being said.

Obviously I owe Ed Miller a beer. He should feel free to collect in November.

I'm also very grateful to some of the recent SS mainstays that I've gotten to know and respect, that have kept the forum worth reading. Entity, jason_t, s0ma, CMI, shant, klepton, rmarotti, PJN, etc etc. I apologize for leaving anyone out, but there's way more to list than I can off the top of my head. Chances are if you've posted here regularly over the last 6+ months, I've read a post by you and gotten something out of it.

Checking PT right now, over the last 12 months I've played more than 250k hands of poker at levels ranging from .5/1 to 15/30, full and shorthanded. That is something I'm kind of proud of -- I mentioned to jason_t back in May that I might make 250k hands played in my first year, and I really am proud that I made it. Given that there were breaks of 2, 4, and 6 weeks in there, ending the year averaging that many hands a month is pretty amazing and assures me that if there's one aspect of playing poker I can handle, it's the grind. And this month will be by far my most profitable yet, another nice note to end the year on.

Hopefully by spending the rest of 2005 working on improving my shorthanded and postflop play, I can claw my way up to the level of some of the posters I listed earlier. Also, over the last 6 months I've posted very little strategy wise because most of the time I'd either be reiterating something already said, or it's a hand that's too difficult for me to weigh in on. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute more worthwhile advice in my second year.