First year results...

[ricdaman]

As of today, I have just completed my first year playing poker with real money. I am curious how others have compared to my first year. I don't feel I did that well, but then again, maybe anything other than a loss is good for an amatuer such as myself.

After one year, I am up $2,080. About $500 of this came from tourney play, the other $1500 from ring games.

I have played everything from .01/.02 NL to 2/4 NL and everything from .10/.25 limit to 5/10 limit. I have played tourneys from freeroll to $100+$9. Of course, when playing the high limits, I stupidly didn't have the bankroll for them, but didn't run into too bad of luck, so was able to win overall. i.e. I played 2 sessions of 5/10 limit. I won $800 in the first session, and lost $600 in the second session.

I don't have an accurate knowledge of my BB/100, but I would have to guess that I've probably played about 35,000 hands over the past year, with an average BB of $1.

I feel I should have done better, but then again this is about 6BB/100. The reason I feel I should have done better is because I am comparing myself to my brother who won just under $9000 in his first year with about twice as many hands played.

Keep in mind I started my Poker play with $50 that my brother loaned to me. I lost it. I then read a poker book, and after finishing it, bought in with $75. I turned that $75 into $2130, and after paying my brother back netted $2080.

<font color="red"> How do you compare to this for your first year? Please respond with some commentary as well as answering the poll. </font>

[ricdaman]

I incorrectly posted my BB/100 at 6... I just realized that some of that $2000 was tourney money, which isn't calculated in the 35,000 ring hands I've played. My actual BB/100 is 4, which seems to be about average. I am interested in hearing some thoughts on people's first year playing poker, good or bad.

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
My actual BB/100 is 4, which seems to be about average

[/ QUOTE ]

4BB/100 over a signicant sample size is excellent play and not average by any means (you don't have quite enough hands to be accurate in your win rate, but it's not totally insignificant, Bison feel free to step in and correct me). you should really move up if you can beat your current game for 4 BB/100 over 35K hands.

[ACW]

I don't know what it is in BB/100, although I do know that I currently (16 months in) make 4BB/hr at 1/2 Limit, and around 40BB/hour at low stakes NL/PL, provided I exercise good table selection.

I started by depositing GBP50 ($80 at the time), promptly lost 80% of it, then learnt how to play and built it back.
With no rebuys, but a GBP10 bonus that came in when I was back at around GBP30, I closed the first year up around GBP650 (around $1100). After four more months, I'm up a further GBP1000 ($1800). I've not yet ventured beyond 1/2 Limit and 0.50/1.00 NL/PL much.

I've certainly been very pleasantly surprised at my success - long may it continue! It seems we've had pretty similar results all told, so I suspect our experiences are typical of the few players who actually put some effort into learning to play well.

[Cosimo]

I think 10BB/100h is so completely unrealistic for anyone playing more than 10,000 hands, and above 1c/2c. So the spread on this poll is bogus.

I'd post this poll with different groups, but I think that's vampirism, and vampires are evil, and then Jesus wouldn't love me anymore.

And I've got a Poker Diary, not a Poker Spreadsheet, so I don't have an easy way of calculating my win other than the old-fashioned way: manually entering it into a spreadsheet.

[dogmeat]

Congratulations on showing a profit!

It is very difficult to obtain a realistic BB/100 win if you have played so many limits and also NL and Limit games. If you are hitting above 10BB/100 in NL or above 4BB/100 at limit, you may be able to move up to a higher limit if you are comfortable with your bankroll.

FWIW, my overall poker tracker number is 5.5BB/100, but this includes everything from .50/$1 to $5/$10 and NL from .50 to $2 sb. The NL really throws the BB/100 number off.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[levi]

Sorry, but I can't give a first year result as yet, since I've only been playing online for 2 weeks ( 20 years otherwise ). However, I started out with a 500 deposit @ Paradise, and in 13 days it's standing at 10,000. This is without tournament play, starting at 5-10. As they say, "Past results are not indicative of future expectations". I also might have gotten just a tiny bit lucky. (once or, maybe, twice)

[AncientPC]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry, but I can't give a first year result as yet, since I've only been playing online for 2 weeks ( 20 years otherwise ). However, I started out with a 500 deposit @ Paradise, and in 13 days it's standing at 10,000. This is without tournament play, starting at 5-10. As they say, "Past results are not indicative of future expectations". I also might have gotten just a tiny bit lucky. (once or, maybe, twice)

[/ QUOTE ]

No, you got very lucky playing your 50BB bankroll at 5/10. However, congratulations on not busting out.

[adamstewart]

TO THE PLAYERS WHO SELECTED ANYTHING OVER 4-5 BB/100:

You obviously didn't play enough hands in your first year.
(with the possible exceptions of "no-limit" players).

[Steve Chase]

Well, I didn't play a full year yet.
I started in July. I made a deposit of $1000 at Pokerstars and lost all of them in July and Aug.
I made another $1000 deposit in Sep, now I have $600 left.

I seldom play in ring games. Most my money are spend in tournaments. I played $215 buy in tournament at Pokerstars four times (never win anything).

I have read two poker books and played tournament almost everyday. I cashed out a little a few times. But my net total is negative so far.

I play poker for fun. Not for making money.
I heard good player can often win in ring games?
What is your pecentage of winning? Win 8 out of every 10 days?

Will good players often win in tournaments?
If so, what kind of percentage is normal?
Win 3 out of every 10 tournaments?

Sorry, I am not familiar with BB/100 stuff.

Thanks